A Vision of Fire

And as a matter of immediate fact she had a breakfast appointment with Ben. She speed-walked the eleven blocks to the rendezvous. Since this was taking up her gym time, that would have to pass as her exercise for the day.

She was first to arrive at the French bistro in Murray Hill, a ten-minute walk from the United Nations. The warmth of the restaurant steamed the corners of the street-side windows and made Caitlin feel like she was walking into a protective bubble. She hung her coat on the booth-side rack, sat with a thump on the well-worn seat, and ordered coffee for two.

Then she could not resist checking her e-mail again. She found that an addendum to the adolescent schizophrenia newsletter had been e-mailed to the list — an item odd enough, and tragic enough, not to wait for the next scheduled newsletter. A college student in Iran, Atash Gulshan, had set himself on fire in a library and was now hospitalized. The act did not appear to be politically or religiously motivated, although two days before, his older brother had been hanged by the government for an unspecified crime. Little other information was available, but one sentence jumped out at her: “Witnesses reported that Gulshan exhibited logorrhea shortly before attempting suicide.”

“Logorrhea” — saying nonsense words. Maanik’s father mentioned that Maanik had spoken gibberish at one point. Caitlin made a mental note of it.

Then Ben arrived, with a huge smile, and Caitlin’s tense concentration happily dissolved.

“Thanks for that smile,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, lifting her small coffeepot. “Coffee in your lap?”

“Please.” She laughed at their old joke. Though they had become firm friends nine years ago when Ben taught Caitlin how to sign, their first meeting had occurred years before, when they were both English majors at NYU. Ben had accidentally spilled a cup of coffee on her in a crowded diner and, after purchasing a replacement, spilled that on her too.

“How was your night?” he asked as he poured himself a cup.

“I live with a ten-year-old,” she said. “When I’m with him, I’m fine. We live in a wonderful little biosphere.”

Ben turned suddenly somber. “How do you do it, Caitlin?”

“What?”

“Maanik,” he whispered to protect her anonymity. “She isn’t my kid and yet I’ve been so worried about her I couldn’t sleep. How do you have a child without being terrified all the time?”

“Well, that’s the big secret to parenting, Ben.” Caitlin whispered. “You are terrified all the time. You get used to it. It becomes part of the background. Except for the times when it stabs you through the heart.”

He gazed at her a moment, then looked down at his menu.

“That was probably the worst sales pitch ever for having kids,” he said.

Caitlin laughed. “You were never really tempted anyway.”

“I’m tempted all the time,” Ben said to his menu.

“Oh?”

Ben allowed the silence to stretch until the server appeared. Caitlin let it rest. Ben would talk if and when he was ready. Thinking of Barbara’s culinary suggestions, she ordered roasted vegetables and an omelet. Ben stuck with coffee.

He sat back. “I’m tempted by the same desire for stability that I guess everyone wants. Home, family. But I’m chin-deep in the world’s worst crises, every day, so there’s not much point in letting my mind go there.”

“Your current boss does it.”

“The ambassador has a staff, he has a bunch of years on me, he has experience, and he’s still stressed.”

“Maybe if you looked at it as adding to the world at large, rather than taking away from yours…”

“Adding what? Besides worry,” Ben said.

“I didn’t say it was free,” Caitlin told him. “You can’t understand until you actually experience the parts that are transcendent.”

“Is it worth what our friend is going through with his child?”

“You tell me. You’ve seen them when she was her normal, happy self.”

Ben was silent. Eventually he nodded.

“All parents have challenges,” Caitlin said quietly.

The server arrived with Caitlin’s meal. Ben leaned in after the woman walked away. “What kind of a challenge is he looking at? Is she schizophrenic or something similar?”

“I can’t make that diagnosis yet, and I shouldn’t tell you anyway.”

“But you will, right?”

“I will say she’s missing some key symptoms,” Caitlin confided. “There are usually warning signs for a psychotic break. But in this case, by all accounts she hasn’t shown a progressive disconnect from her life. This girl was very suddenly ripped from her reality.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m not sure what to make of that yet.”

“There is such a thing as sudden onset, though.”

“I won’t say there’s no such thing, but not this sudden, not usually. And there’s something else.” Caitlin took a bite of omelet as she collected her thoughts. “This is harder to describe. Typically, schizophrenics attempt to apply order to the disorganized information they’re receiving. That’s when you get diagrams, notebooks full of things that don’t make sense. In this case, there seems to be something very organized about what she’s experiencing.”