caused them?’
Harland was embarrassed. He didn’t like to use the word torture – it shocked people and tended to evoke a sympathy that he had no use for.
‘It’s a long story. I was held prisoner for a while back in the nineties.’
‘I see,’ said Loz gently. He told him to sit on the couch then lifted Harland’s legs up so he was able to lie on his back.
‘I don’t think I can take much manipulation,’ Harland said, at the same time noting that the pain had subsided a little.
‘Nor do I,’ said Loz. His hands moved to Harland’s feet. He bent first one leg then the other, holding the kneecap in the palm of his hand.
‘What are the men doing in the hallway?’ Harland asked.
‘That’s a long story.’ Loz’s attention was elsewhere.
Harland’s eyes came to rest on an Arabic inscription hung in a simple frame. ‘What’s it say?’ he asked.
‘Oh, that. It’s a warning against pride and arrogance. It was written by a man named al-Jazir two hundred years after the Prophet died. It says, “A man who is noble does not pretend to be noble, any more than a man who is eloquent feigns eloquence. When a man exaggerates his qualities it is because of something lacking in himself; the bully gives himself airs because he is conscious of his weakness.” ’
‘Very true,’ commented Harland.
Loz had moved behind him and, after holding his head and working his neck very gently, slipped his hands down to the middle of his back, his fingers moving with the whole of Harland’s weight pressing down on them. Although the pain still lurked beneath the surface, the heat had been taken out of it and for the first time in four weeks Harland felt free to think.
‘The air crash,’ said Loz suddenly. ‘This has caused your pain. The trauma you experienced has come to the surface.’
‘After all that time?’
‘Yes. You’ve kept that shock at the centre. You are a very strong and controlled individual Mr Harland – impressively so. But it was going to happen some day. The body has to get rid of it.’ He paused. ‘And the other things in you. These too will have to come out.’
Harland ignored this. ‘You can treat it then?’
‘Oh yes, I am treating it. You will recover and you’ll be able to sleep tonight without the use of alcohol.’ He peered at him with an expression of deep understanding that unsettled Harland. ‘We’ll need to work on this over the next few months. It’s a very serious matter. You will feel not quite yourself for twenty-four hours, as though you have a mild case of ’flu. Rest up and get as much sleep as you can.’
He continued working for another twenty minutes on the hips and pubic bone. Harland’s eyes drifted to the slightly tinted glass of the window and the glistening silver helmet of the Chrysler building. ‘The Empire State is an unusual place to have your practice,’ he said.
‘Yes, but I am disinclined to go to the Upper East Side where many of my patients are. It’s an arid part of the city, don’t you think? No heart. Too much money. Besides, I love this building. You know they began it just before the Crash, continued building it through the Depression and finished it forty-five days ahead of schedule. It’s a lucky building with a strong personality, and not a little mystery.’
‘A riddle of steel and concrete.’
‘Ah, you’ve been talking to Benjamin Jaidi. He told me he had found that passage when I visited him the other day.’
He left Harland’s side and went to a small glass and steel table to write something down. He returned and placed a note in Harland’s hand. ‘This is the time of our next appointment.’
Harland read it to himself. ‘Sevastapol – 8.30 p.m. tomorrow. Table in the name of Keane.’ He looked up at Loz, who had put his finger to his lips and was pointing to the ceiling with his other hand.
‘Right, we will see each other in a week’s time. But now I must go to the hospital. Rest here for ten minutes then turn off the lights and pull the door to. It will lock automatically.’ He smiled and left Harland in the cool solitude of the room, watching the light slip across the buildings outside. He looked round the room again, noticing five battered postcards of the Empire State lined up along a shelf, copies of the Koran and the Bible and a fragment of stone, which looked like an ancient spearhead.
He left after about half an hour and went to the apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where he ordered in a Chinese meal and settled down with a book about Isaac Newton.
The Sevastapol was much more than a restaurant of the moment. The same writers, film and money people and city politicians had been haunting the same tables for decades. It was above fashion. Harland had been twice with Eva, who was fascinated by the place and its noisy owner, a Ukrainian named Limoshencko, a pet brigand of the downtown crowd.
Harland passed through the tables outside, consciously putting Eva from his mind, and asked for Mr Keane. He was pointed in the direction of a table that was obscured by the bar and by a tall young woman who was gesticulating in a manner designed for public consumption. Loz was seated with his hands folded on the table, looking up at her with an unwavering if rather formal politeness. He rose to greet Harland but did not introduce the woman, who then left rather resentfully.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he said. ‘You’re looking a different man.’
‘Thanks to you. I’m a bit fragile, but a lot better. Look, call me Robert or Bobby, please.’
‘You know, I prefer Harland. It’s a good name.’ They sat down. ‘It’s a good dependable name.’ He moved closer. ‘I’m afraid we had to come here because the FBI couldn’t get a table in a thousand years.’
‘The men in the hallway were FBI?’
‘Yes, they’ve been with me since the first postcard arrived. Did you look at them when I left?’
‘The postcards of the Empire State? Of course not.’
‘That’s interesting, an investigator with principles.’
‘I’m not an investigator, Dr Loz. I do research work for the UN. Most of my time is spent on clean water issues. It’s pretty unexciting.’
‘Jaidi told me you were due to go to the Middle East to talk to Hamas. That isn’t just research, surely?’
Harland ignored the remark. ‘He was rather oblique about you, Doctor. He said you were about to have some problems. I will certainly help if I can.’
Loz flashed a discreet, slightly awkward smile at him. ‘You see them out there? The black van down the street by the mailbox? I know that vehicle as if it was my own. It’s the FBI. They follow me everywhere. They’re making my life very difficult indeed and I think it’s quite possible that I will be arrested. I’ve seen a lawyer – a patient of mine – and he told me to be utterly open in all my dealings, but I couldn’t be more open. I live a very simple and uncomplicated life. Apparently there’s nothing I can do to fight this kind of harassment. America is no longer the land of the free, Mr Harland. People like me with Muslim backgrounds can disappear into jail and never be heard of again.’
‘I think they’d have to have strong grounds for arresting someone like you. You’re very well connected.’
‘Oh believe me, that’s not true. How many innocent people have they detained without charge or trial? Here in the United States of America people are disappearing as though it’s a police state in Latin America. I love this country beyond any in the world. I believe in it. That’s why I became a US citizen. I sometimes think I was born to be an American and to work in the Empire State building.’ For a moment his eyes flared with hurt and indignation. The waiter who had been hovering to take their orders beat a retreat.
‘When did this start?’ asked Harland.
‘When the first postcard arrived, at the end of last year. I guess some mailman with a keen eye thought it was odd for a postcard of the Empire State to be sent to the Empire State with a foreign postmark. They read my name and saw the signature Karim Khan and came up with a plot. Who knows what they think these days.’
‘Who is Karim Khan?’
‘A friend.’
‘What was written on it?’
‘In essence each one told me of my friend Karim’s progress from Pakistan to the West. The first one was from Pakistan, then there was one from Mashhad, a town in Iran, another from Tehran, one from Diyarbakir in
