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Topic 17: Let's talk about ghosts
When we started our journey together, Nadia and I had at the same time too many and too few topics to talk about. By unspoken mutual consent, we avoided what I had done to her at first, and she understandably did not want to trust me with anything about her past yet. We ended up trading impressions of countries we had visited, and on the things we encountered while travelling through China. I do not know why, but I told her an ancient Chinese tale that involved a fox spirit.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" she asked me. If we had been father and daughter for all of her life, I would have assumed she was teasing me. But as I said, we were new to each other, and nothing, especially not humour, could be taken for granted, and thus I replied to her question in a literal manner.
"No," I said. "I do not think the dead return to us in this way."
There were, of course, other ways. Jack had resurrected me from what I had believed to be my death at the time only a few weeks earlier, Irina had made us all believe in her death decades ago, and I shall never forget the sensation that filled me when I saw that envelope with Sydney's handwriting on it, briefly before she returned in the flesh, after two years during which she had been presumed dead and gone. But in none of these cases, anything supernatural had been involved.
"Sydney," Nadia said, and the name of her newfound sister sounded untried and uncertain in her voice, "Sydney told me that you once pretended that your wife was haunting you."
I did not look at Nadia when I replied that I had been under surveillance at the time, and anything I said to Sydney, or Jack for that matter, about Emily had been meant for the ears of the Alliance. It had been a dangerous game I was playing, perhaps the most dangerous of my life, and they had to believe everything I wanted them to believe.
"But why pretend this?" Nadia asked.
"Gaslight was one of Emily's favourite movies," I said, and Nadia looked at me with those eyes she shares with Sydney and Irina, and fell silent for a while. I had told her the truth, but not all of it. Presenting myself as haunted by the wife I had to make everyone believe I killed had been one way to ensure the Alliance believed in my, shall we say, innocence regarding her survival later on, and of course in my lack of knowledge about her eventual fate. It had nothing to do with my actual beliefs. And yet when Emily did die, not a year later, I found myself looking for signs of the kind I had once placed myself. There were none. Of course there weren't; it would have been ridiculous. And yet I tried to find them, in between planning and carrying out what was ultimately a competely unsatisfying act of retaliation, and then I left everything behind for a while and went to Tibet, using that very road I was on with Nadia at the time she asked that question, and still somehow, against all reason, I expected to sense something. This particular kind of insanity did not stop until I learned of Nadia's existence.
Naturally, I could not mention any of this to her.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" I asked her instead, hoping to steer the conversation away into safer territory, but as it turned out, I had been blind again. For Nadia stared at me, and with an anger I hadn't seen in her since she told me that if she had known I was her father, she'd have tried to get adopted by someone else, said: "Of course I do. You made me into a ghost, you gave my hand and my brain to one, how couldn't I believe in ghosts?"
And there it was. The topic we had not been talking about since leaving Los Angeles together. The mind of Rambaldi himself, I had told her, and yes, I believed - I still believe - she had access to it while the formula I had used on her was on her veins. Now I had thought this to be primarily a matter of chemistry and DNA, and secondarily one of visions - the visions Rambaldi had, all those centuries ago, and the ones the Passenger could access - but that was beside the point.
"I had not thought of it this way," I said, and did not mean Rambaldi or his ghost. Nadia's face softened. She sighed.
"I know," she said. I waited for her to continue, to challenge me about my beliefs, about what I had done to her, or to tell me why she had come with me regardless. A part of me, I must admit, was also wondering whether she would tell me what it had been like to see what she had seen with Rambaldi's eyes. But she said nothing more on the subject, and instead asked me where we would stay that night. Twenty four hours later, I had found the man I had been looking for, and he treated her like one of the Rambaldi objects he collected.
"My daughter is not an artifact," I told him, and yet he was a mirror to me, a mirror I did not care for.
I never talked with anyone about ghosts again.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" she asked me. If we had been father and daughter for all of her life, I would have assumed she was teasing me. But as I said, we were new to each other, and nothing, especially not humour, could be taken for granted, and thus I replied to her question in a literal manner.
"No," I said. "I do not think the dead return to us in this way."
There were, of course, other ways. Jack had resurrected me from what I had believed to be my death at the time only a few weeks earlier, Irina had made us all believe in her death decades ago, and I shall never forget the sensation that filled me when I saw that envelope with Sydney's handwriting on it, briefly before she returned in the flesh, after two years during which she had been presumed dead and gone. But in none of these cases, anything supernatural had been involved.
"Sydney," Nadia said, and the name of her newfound sister sounded untried and uncertain in her voice, "Sydney told me that you once pretended that your wife was haunting you."
I did not look at Nadia when I replied that I had been under surveillance at the time, and anything I said to Sydney, or Jack for that matter, about Emily had been meant for the ears of the Alliance. It had been a dangerous game I was playing, perhaps the most dangerous of my life, and they had to believe everything I wanted them to believe.
"But why pretend this?" Nadia asked.
"Gaslight was one of Emily's favourite movies," I said, and Nadia looked at me with those eyes she shares with Sydney and Irina, and fell silent for a while. I had told her the truth, but not all of it. Presenting myself as haunted by the wife I had to make everyone believe I killed had been one way to ensure the Alliance believed in my, shall we say, innocence regarding her survival later on, and of course in my lack of knowledge about her eventual fate. It had nothing to do with my actual beliefs. And yet when Emily did die, not a year later, I found myself looking for signs of the kind I had once placed myself. There were none. Of course there weren't; it would have been ridiculous. And yet I tried to find them, in between planning and carrying out what was ultimately a competely unsatisfying act of retaliation, and then I left everything behind for a while and went to Tibet, using that very road I was on with Nadia at the time she asked that question, and still somehow, against all reason, I expected to sense something. This particular kind of insanity did not stop until I learned of Nadia's existence.
Naturally, I could not mention any of this to her.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" I asked her instead, hoping to steer the conversation away into safer territory, but as it turned out, I had been blind again. For Nadia stared at me, and with an anger I hadn't seen in her since she told me that if she had known I was her father, she'd have tried to get adopted by someone else, said: "Of course I do. You made me into a ghost, you gave my hand and my brain to one, how couldn't I believe in ghosts?"
And there it was. The topic we had not been talking about since leaving Los Angeles together. The mind of Rambaldi himself, I had told her, and yes, I believed - I still believe - she had access to it while the formula I had used on her was on her veins. Now I had thought this to be primarily a matter of chemistry and DNA, and secondarily one of visions - the visions Rambaldi had, all those centuries ago, and the ones the Passenger could access - but that was beside the point.
"I had not thought of it this way," I said, and did not mean Rambaldi or his ghost. Nadia's face softened. She sighed.
"I know," she said. I waited for her to continue, to challenge me about my beliefs, about what I had done to her, or to tell me why she had come with me regardless. A part of me, I must admit, was also wondering whether she would tell me what it had been like to see what she had seen with Rambaldi's eyes. But she said nothing more on the subject, and instead asked me where we would stay that night. Twenty four hours later, I had found the man I had been looking for, and he treated her like one of the Rambaldi objects he collected.
"My daughter is not an artifact," I told him, and yet he was a mirror to me, a mirror I did not care for.
I never talked with anyone about ghosts again.