The Mediator

  “That night I wrote a story. It was about Steven wanting to leave the company and Carlie begging him not to, and the next day I sent it to the New Yorker for publication. I couldn’t stop what I had started, but I was unaware of what it entailed. My story was meant to be make-believe, till one week later something happened”

  Chapter 13

  Before continuing the story I get up to get a drink in the kitchen. I’m standing in front of the fridge pondering options when John steps behind me, seamlessly, and takes my wrist.

  “What happened?”, he asks

  My lips part as I am caught by surprise, before I recompose myself.

  “Do you want a drink?”, I say

  “I want your story”, John replies, with a new intensity that frightens and thrills me

  I free my wrist and disobey, pouring two drinks. I hand John one and take his wrist.

  “Let me tell you”, I say, guiding him back to the living room

  When we reach the couch I let go off John’s wrist. He raises both hands and presses on my shoulders. The pressure is soft, and yet enough to sit me.

  “Tell me now”, he decides, and I start, the glass beside me, untouched

  “After the conference I went to New York for the week-end. I stepped in a subway train along the subway line where I had first met Steven. It was late, the train was almost empty and I saw him immediately. He saw me too, and got up from his seat without hesitation, heading in my direction. He said he had been waiting for me, told me he knew I’d go back to NY and ride that subway when he caught sight of me in the restaurant. I didn’t think he had noticed me, and told him so. The thought of him riding the subway hoping to find me there seemed absurd, and yet which reasons did I have to spend the week-end in New York? I realized I was there, riding that subway train, hoping to find him. He pointed at the guy with whom he had been sitting, said he wanted me to meet him. Karl Lennon. As introductions were made I caught a glance of a man, dressed in black, hunched over a newspaper. I wondered if I was in a predefined plot over which I had no control or if I was sailing along the revelation of my own dreams. It didn’t matter though, at that moment the reality in which I was drenched intrigued me immensely. Your guess was right, Steven told me, as I was still trying to take in what was happening. What guess, I wanted to know, and Steven told me he was going to leave the company. He said he needed to put his affairs in order before climbing a glacier with his spiritual guru, and Karl nodded without smiling. Carlie had betrayed him, he said, but he forgave her because society had made her the way she was, it wasn’t her fault. I wanted to know what he meant, and he said Carlie had been speaking about esthanol to Rob Neilson – their competitor. He was sure about it, because Carlie had told him. If she had admitted her mistake was she not honest?, I argued, and Steven said that was not the point. The point was that Rob Neilson knew about ethanol. Now even if he managed to convince Rick Hanson, the owner of his company, to stop the production of the ethanol Rob Neilson would keep exploiting his invention. I asked Steven how climbing a glacier was related to what was happening. And at this moment Karl Lennon spoke, for the first time, and said that Steven had to be one with nature to join the movement. I still didn’t understand, but before I could speak Steven looked at me and thanked me for inspiring him. Then he got up, and while he was a distance from me, close to the door, he told me this: “I will broadcast documents about all the things that have happened. I will not spare any detail. Then I will climb that glacier, and I will fly. It will be my last flight, but at least I will taste freedom”. I couldn’t speak. Then the door opened, and Steven walked away without ever turning my way again. When the door closed the man in black had disappeared too, and I was completely alone in the empty train”

  Chapter 14

  Once I stop talking the room fills with a sizzling silence.

  “Everyone thought Steven Mayer’s death was an accident”, John says after a while

  “Now I’ve told you how he really died”, I say

  “You have not yet told me everything”, John objects

  “What else do you want to know?”, I ask

  “I want to know about Leslie Carson. What did she do after Steven committed suicide?”, he says

  I look at John, tilting my head with a smile.

  “But…”, I say with an ironically reprimanding pout, pointing at my book

  John shakes his head no.

  “The answer is in there”, I insist

  “I was ordering a coffee to kill some time before my flight home when I met her again”, John starts, reciting from my book

  I look at him, surprised he knows my lines by heart.

  I want him to continue, but he stops, looking at me with an expression I cannot decipher.

  “Can you go on, please?”, I find myself almost begging

  “Why do you want me to tell your story?”, John wants to know

  I don’t have an answer so I look at John, silent.

  John bugs his eyes and smiles, handing me the book.

  “Will you read to me, Iris?”, he says

  I nod, and here is how the story goes.

  Chapter 15

  I was ordering a coffee to kill some time before my flight home when I met her again. Carlie was sitting at a table, her hands cupped around a tea cup that had gone cold. It took her a moment to notice my presence, and when she did she attempted a gaunt smile. Grief puffed her eyelids, her eyes were almost expressionless.

  When I motioned towards her she didn’t give any sign of accepting or refusing my presence, and asked if I could have a seat at her table Carlie stared at me blankly for a while. Then she nodded yes.

  We sat in front of each other without speaking and the arms of the clock spun in silent circles in the buzz of the crowd, until Carlie spoke in a hollow voice.

  “You said I could have the money and the thrill, but you never told me about what else would be in the bundle. Steven died, you know?”, she said

  I nodded yes

  “It’s my fault”, she continued

  I sat motionless

  “I told Steven about my deal with Rob Neilson, and that’s why he died. I want to die too now”

  I shook my head no. Not again, not another one.

  “It’s not only your fault, Carlie”, I said

  “Whose fault is it then, tell me”, Carlie retorted, anger refueling her strength

  “Rob Neilson’s and Rick Hansen’s”, I reply, my voice calm

  As my statement plunges in, thoughts dart through Carlie’s mind. I sense their darkness.

  “Yes, Rick Hanson. Steven tried to convince him to drop the production of the bloody product, but he wouldn’t listen. All Rick Hansen cares about is money, and sure enough now that I’ve sold his trade secret his business is dead”, Carlie says, her tone gaining assurance

  I nod, hoping she’ll stop here but knowing she won’t.

  “I hate Rob Neilson”, she says, and I cannot help but gasp

  “What is it, are you worried for him?”, she laughs

  For an instant I am. Then I step out of the scene, recomposing myself.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”, I smile

  Carlie looks at me strangely.

  “I will make sure that Rick Hansen knows what I’ve done. I have nothing to lose at this point, but Rick Hanson does. Unless Rob Neilson goes out of business Rick Hanson won’t be safe, and he will hate to be unsafe”, Carlie says, the words marked by the slowness in her voice

  “What do you expect Rick Hanson to do?”, I ask

  “Why don’t you tell me, lady. You’re the storyteller”, Carlie replies with a smirk

  Chapter 16

  “Tell me, lady”, John echoes

  “That night, in the solitary coldness of an urban night, I wrote about how Rick Hanson would destroy the man I had met in a hotel room, in a long gone night of the surreal. And for the first time since the beginning of the story, I cried”, I tell him

  “Why
did you cry?”, John wants to know

  “I always remain loyal to my men, in my own strange way”, I reply

  “You considered Neil Robson your man?”, John wants to know, intrigued

  “He had been my man for the night that changed his life. That should be worth something, Mr. Journalist”, I say, retreating, wondering if I overrated John’s cleverness

  “That’s certainly worth something. Fulfilment of your ego and a bet with yourself could have been the value of that night”, John says, his eyes gripping me

  “It was that too”, I admit, uncoiling, “but not only that”

  “Was the fate of Neil Robson the only reason for crying?”, John prods me

  “No, I cried for myself”, I realize

  I pause, formulating my thoughts, and John waits.

  “I cried because I was the author of a story I wanted to efface”, I said at last

  “Then why cry rather than change its finale?”, John wants to know

  “I couldn’t. The story was in me, but I couldn’t modify it. I could simply see it”, I say

  John’s bugs his eyes slightly.

  “You are saying you were nothing but an external observer”, John summarizes

  “No, I was more than an external observer. I was the mediator”, I explain

  “The mediator?”, John repeats, frowning

  “I sensed unacknowledged impulses and captured hidden desires. I detected them in others because they were in me, or had been in me, even if only in my dreams. I looked at them with candid eyes, no matter their nature, and exposed them without shame. I was innocent and honest”, I say

  “Innocent and honest”, John smiles

  “I was. All I wrote and imagined was there. It was absolute and irrational. It could not be effaced, so I admitted it, and in doing so I showed others all they had repressed”, I insist

  John sighs, rubbing the back of his head.

  “So tell me, Iris, how did you unleash Rick Hanson’s impulses the night you began to destroy Neil Robson?”, he asks me

  Chapter 17

  I had to go back to the place where it all started. It was spring now, but when I reached New York the sky carried the promise of rain. Remembering my first and only encounter with Rob Neilson, I took the mood of the sky as an omen. I could have taken a cab all the way to my hotel, the same hotel where I had met Rob Neilson, but I asked the driver to stop when I was still fairly far from it.

  “Are you sure, miss?”, he asked me

  I said I was, and that I needed to walk.

  When I reached 5th Ave. it started to pour and by the time I reached the hotel I was drenched. I stood at the entrance for a moment, wondering if I’d catch a glimpse of a limousine and if Rob Neilson, seeing me soaked to the bones, would smile and ask me for a second drink.

  Few moments later a limousine stopped in front of the hotel.

  Veins throbbing, I observed a guy holding an umbrella open the passenger’s door. A man stepped out, his attire perfect, his power overstated. I smiled sarcastically, remembering how I had smiled that same sarcastic smile way when I first saw Rob Neilson.

  The man noticed, and he could not let go.

  “Seems like the weather isn’t at its best, is it?”, he said, stopping in front of me

  I let him wait for my reply

  “There are worse things in life than getting wet”, I finally said, as I had to Rob

  The man’s dark eyes gripped mine, his defiant thin smile mirroring mine.

  I felt no tenderness for this man, but when he invited me for a drink I did the sole thing I could do at that moment.

  “I wouldn’t mind a drink”, I said

  Chapter 18

  “You slept with Rick Hanson”, John states

  “All I said so far is that I accepted to go for a drink”, I reply

  “You said much more than that”, John argues

  I cock my head slightly, and a smile half questioning half surprised appears on my lips

  “You’ve been drawing a parallel”, John says and pauses

  I wait for him to continue.

  “You talked Rick Hanson into having dinner in his room, had sex and watched a show, just like you did with Rob Neilson. All this I know”, he tells me

  I round my eyes, John shakes his head and laughs.

  “Don’t give me that look, Iris. All this I know, now tell me about that show you and Rick watched”, John commands

  “There was a man on a roof, aiming at a target walking in the street”, I start

  “Was Rick Hanson paying attention?”, John asks

  “No, not really. His mind had been elsewhere for most of the evening”, I recall

  “But you, the mediator, made sure he noticed”, John prods me

  I ponder for a moment, wondering if that is really what I had done.

  “I asked him if he ever wanted someone dead”, I say after a moment

  “This doesn’t seem the question one hears every day”, John comments ironically

  “It isn’t. Rick looked at me when I asked, saying, ‘what?’ in a half-minded way. And yet I had captured his attention. I repeated the question, and he wanted to know why I was asking. I shrugged, said the scenes on the screen had made me wonder”

  “And what did Rick Hanson tell you?”, John wants to know

  “You’re odd, that’s what he said. Then there was a muffled explosion, a lifeless man in suit on the pavement some 20 storeys below. Rick stared at the screen, frowned deeply for a while, looked at me again. Yeah, he said, there’s someone I want dead”.

  Chapter 19

  “How did you feel after the revelation?”, John wants to know

  “I was tormented. I read the papers every day, without finding what I feared and expected. Then one summer day, as I was paying for the usual morning paper, I saw the man in a black trench coat on the opposite side of the street, holding a newspaper under his arm. We looked at each other through the flow of the crowd and the cars, for the briefest instant, and I knew something would happen”, I said

  “Did you ever wonder who the man was?”, John asks

  I observe him for a moment before answering, trying to ascertain the real meaning of his question.

  “That day I didn’t want the man to leave. I needed to know”, I reply

  “Did you speak to him?”, John asks

  “By the time I managed to cross the street he was gone”, I say

  “Did you ever speak to him?”, John insists

  Instead of answering the question I chose to continue along my own line of thought.

  “After seeing the man I knew something was about to happen. At the end of the day I went to my flat and sought peace, but it was unattainable. At 2.30 a.m. I stepped out of my place”, I remember

  “What were you looking for?”, John prods me

  “I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew I’d find something”, I say

  John observes me for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he leans towards me and grips my wrists, both of them.

  “At this specific moment the pace of your story is unbearably slow”, he says

  I bear John’s grip for a stretched instant, then break loose and smile.

  “Darling. Do you want to know what I found?”, I ask, my voice soft

  “Yes”, John tells me

  “Nick Lavigne”, I say

  John bugs his eyes.

  “Right, this is not in the official records. And mind you, Mr. Journalist, you’re not the one who’s going to change this”, I state

  “Who is Nick Lavigne?”, John wants to know

  “The night I found him he was a man in love crying against a light pole. He was gripping the pole and howling, literally howling, in a way I never heard before”, I start

  “Who is Nick Lavigne?”, John repeats

  “The killer”, I say

  Chapter 20

  John’s light blue eyes turn intensely dark.

  “Nick Lavigne is Rob Neilson
’s killer?”, he asks

  “The night I met him, Nick Lavigne was Rob Neilson’s killer. After we parted he became more than that”, I say

  “Come on, mystery woman, explain”, John commands, and I slowly begin undoing the veils.

  “Rick Hanson hired Nick Lavigne to do the job for him. Nick Lavigne was a good professional, he did the job. But then something went wrong. As I said, when I met Rick Hanson he was a man in love crying against a light pole”, I start

  “In love with whom?”, John urges

  “With Rob Neilson, of course”, I reveal at last

  The surprise hushes John’s words, and I savour the pause.

  “Nick Lavigne was a good professional. He observed Rob Neilson, studied his habits, learned everything about him. I suppose knowing all about someone is what it takes to truly hurt a person. To kill that person”, I continue after a moment

  John remains silent.

  “And I suppose that’s also what it takes to truly love somebody”, I conclude

  Silence.

  “How did you learn that Nick Lavigne fell in love with Rob Neilson?”, John asks, recovering at last

  “I took Nick Lavigne in my arms and held his shattered body, wiping the tears from his eyes”, I smile

  Chapter 21

  John observes me, pondering my meaning.

  “You’re talking by figures of speech”, he says after a pause

  “No, I am truthfully describing the facts. When I saw Nick Lavigne gripping onto the light poles as if that was his last hope in life, screaming out his tears in the deserted street, I took his hands off the pole and said, ‘hey, its alright’, and then I hugged him”, I remember

  “You really did that?”, John wants to know

  “Yes I did”

  “And you weren’t scared that the man was a psycho?”, John asks, astonished

  “I was sure he was a psycho as much as I was sure that he wouldn’t hurt me”, I reply calmly

  “How did Nick Lavigne react?”, John wants to know

  “He pushed me back so violently that I almost fell to the ground. He yelled, LEAVE!, told me I knew nothing about him, and that he was worth nothing. Then he started sobbing so hard he could barely stand, and came towards me, teetering. He collapsed on me, holding onto my body as he had done with the pole. Help me, please help me, he begged, his voice hoarse and broken by the tears. Time stretched as I let him pour his pain on me, my body shaking against the convulsions of his”, I remember

  John drinks in my words. He has gotten closer, as if his thirst for my words could be quenched by physical proximity.

  I take a sip from my glass, and continue my account a split second before John asks.