“Yes.”
“We spoke on the phone? About my coming here to prepare for our interview?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well…” She looked around in mild confusion. “Where would you like to…?”
“Oh. Yes. You can come into my office.” He stepped back inside.
Gurney opened a swinging panel in the low barrier and held it for Kim. It was dusty, like the two unoccupied desks behind it. He followed her into the back office-a windowless room with a large mahogany table, four straight-backed chairs, and bookcases on three of the four walls. The bookcases were filled with fat volumes on accounting rules and tax laws. The pervasive dust had settled on the books as well. The air smelled stale.
The only illumination came from a desk lamp at the far end of the table. There was a fluorescent fixture on the ceiling, but it was turned off. As Kim surveyed the room for places to set up her cameras, she asked if it could be turned on.
Mellani shrugged and flipped the switch. After a series of hesitant flashes, the light stabilized, producing a low buzz. The fluorescent glow emphasized the paleness of his skin and the shadows below his eyes. There was something distinctly cadaverous about him.
As she had done in Stone’s kitchen, she went through the process of arranging the cameras. When she was finished, she and Gurney sat on one side of the mahogany table, Mellani on the other. At that point she gave, almost word for word, the same speech she’d given Stone about the production goals of informality, simplicity, naturalness-keeping the interview as close as possible to the kind of conversation two friends might have in their home, loose and candid.
Mellani didn’t reply.
She told him that he should feel free to say anything he wished.
He said nothing, just sat and stared at her.
She looked around the claustrophobic space, whose inhospitable drabness the ceiling light had only managed to enhance. “So,” she said awkwardly, seeming to realize that she would have to be the motivator of whatever conversation they were going to have, “this is your main office?”
Mellani seemed to consider this. “Only office.”
“And your partners? They… they’re here?”
“No. No partners.”
“I thought… the names… Bickers… and…?”
“That was the name of the firm. Formed as a partnership. I was the senior partner. Then we… we parted ways. The name of the firm was a legal thing… legally independent of who actually worked here. I never had the energy to change it.” He spoke slowly, as though struggling with the unwieldiness of his own words. “Like some divorced women keep their married names. I don’t know why I don’t change it. I should, right?” He didn’t sound as if he wanted an answer.
Kim’s smile became more strained. She shifted in her seat. “Quick question before we go any further. Shall I call you Paul, or would you prefer that I call you Mr. Mellani?”
After several seconds of dead silence, he answered almost inaudibly, “Paul’s okay.”
“Okay, Paul, we’ll get started. As we discussed on the phone, we’re just going to have a simple conversation about your life after the death of your father. Is that all right with you?”
Another pause, and then he said, “Sure.”
“Great. So. How long have you been an accountant?”
“Forever.”
“I mean, specifically, in years?”
“Years? Since college. I’m… forty-five now. Twenty-two when I graduated. So forty-five minus twenty-two equals twenty-three years as an accountant.” He closed his eyes.
“Paul?”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
He opened one eye, then the other. “I agreed to do this, so I’ll do it, but I’d like to get it over with. I’ve been through all this in therapy. I can give you the answers. I just… don’t like listening to the questions.” He sighed. “I read your letter… We talked on the phone… I know what you want. You want before and after, right? Okay. I’ll give you before and after. I’ll give you the gist of the then and the now.” He uttered another small sigh.
Gurney had the momentary impression that they were miners trapped in an underground cave-in, their oxygen supply fading-a scrap of memory from a movie he saw as a child.
Kim frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Mellani repeated, the words heavier the second time around, “I’ve been through all this in therapy.”
“Okay… and… therefore… you…?”
“Therefore I can give you the answers without your having to ask the questions. Better for everyone. Right?”
“Sounds great, Paul. Please, go right ahead.”
He pointed at one of her cameras. “Is that running?”
“Yes.”
Mellani shut his eyes again. By the time he began his narrative, whatever Kim was feeling about the situation was breaking out in tics at the corners of her mouth.
“It’s not like I was a happy person before the… event. I was never a happy person. But there was a time when I had hope. I think I had hope. Something like hope. A sense that the future could be brighter. But after the… event… that feeling was gone forever. The color in the picture got switched off, everything was gray. You understand that? No color. I once had the energy to build a professional practice, to
“It?” prompted Kim.
“The event.” He opened his eyes. “It was like being pushed over the edge of something. Not a cliff, just…” He raised his hand, miming the movement of a car reaching the apex of a hill, then tilting slightly downward. “Things started going south. Falling apart. Bit by bit. The engine wasn’t running anymore.”
“What was your family situation?” asked Kim.
“Situation? Apart from the fact that my father was dead and my mother was in an irreversible coma?”
“I’m sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was, were you married, did you have any other family?”
“I had a wife. Until she got tired of everything going downhill.”
“Any children?”
“No. That was a good thing. Or maybe not. All my father’s money went to his grandchildren-my sister’s children.” Mellani produced a smile, but there was bitterness in it. “You know why? This is funny. My sister was a very screwed-up person, very anxious. Both her kids are bipolar, ADHD, OCD, you name it. So my father… he decides that
“Are you in contact with your sister?”
“My sister is dead.”
“I’m sorry, Paul.”
“Years ago. Five? Six? Cancer. Maybe dead isn’t so bad.”
“What makes you say that?”
Again the bitter smile, drifting into sadness. “See? Questions. Questions.” He stared down at the tabletop as though he were trying to discern the outlines of something in murky water. “The thing is, money meant a lot to my father. It was the most important thing. You understand?”
His sadness was reflected in Kim’s eyes. “Yes.”
“My therapist told me that my father’s obsession with money was the reason I became an accountant. After all, what do accountants count? They count money.”
“And when he left everything to your sister’s family…?”
Mellani raised his hand again. This time he mimed the slow descent of a car into a deep valley. “Therapy gives
