Anxious People(25)
And that was when the psychologist realized what a very unwell person Zara was.
“That’s a… an astonishingly insensitive thing to joke about,” she managed to say.
Zara raised her eyebrows.
“So it would have been better if I had cancer?”
“No! What? Absolutely not, but—”
“Surely it’s better to joke about it than to actually have cancer? Or would you rather I had cancer?”
The psychologist’s neck flushed red with indignation.
“But… no! Of course I don’t wish you had cancer!”
Zara clasped her hands together in her lap and said in a grave tone, “But that’s how I’m feeling.”
* * *
The psychologist had trouble sleeping that night. Zara sometimes has that effect on people. The next time Zara visited her office the psychologist had removed the photograph of her mother from her desk, and during that session Zara actually considered telling the truth about the cause of her sleeping problems. She had a letter in her bag that explained everything, and if she had only shown it then, everything that happened after that might have been different. But instead she just sat for a long time staring at the picture on the wall. It was of a woman looking out across an endless sea, toward the horizon. The psychologist moistened her lips and asked gently: “What are you thinking when you look at that picture?”
“I’m thinking that if I had to choose just one picture to have on a wall, it wouldn’t be that one.”
The psychologist smiled tightly.
“I usually ask my patients what they think about the woman in the picture. Who is she? Is she happy? What do you think?”
Zara’s shoulders bounced nonchalantly.
“I don’t know what happiness is for her.”
The psychologist said nothing for a while before admitting: “I’ve never heard that answer before.”
Zara snorted.
“That’s because you ask the question as if there’s only one type of happiness. But happiness is like money.”
The psychologist smiled with the superiority that only someone who thinks of themselves as being a very deep person can.
“That sounds superficial.”
Zara groaned like a teenager trying to explain anything to anyone who isn’t a teenager.
“I didn’t say that money was happiness. I said happiness is like money. A made-up value that represents something we can’t weigh or measure.”
The psychologist’s voice wavered, just for a moment.
“Well… yes, maybe. But we can measure and evaluate the cost of depression. And we know that it’s very common for people suffering from depression to be afraid of feeling happy. Because even depression can be a sort of secure bubble, it can make you start to think, If I’m not unhappy, if I’m not angry—who am I then?”
Zara wrinkled her nose.
“Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because people like you always look at people who are wealthier than you are and say: ‘Yes, they may be richer, but are they happy?’ As if that was the meaning of life for anyone but a complete idiot, just going around being happy all the time.”
The psychologist noted something down, then asked, still looking down at her notepad: “What is the meaning, then? In your opinion?”
Zara’s reply was the response of a person who’s spent many years thinking about this. Someone who has decided it was more important for her to do an important job than live a happy life.
“Having a purpose. A goal. A direction. And do you want to know the truth? The truth is that far more people would rather be rich than happy.”
The psychologist smiled again.
“Says the bank director to the psychologist.”
Zara snorted again.
“Remind me again how much you get paid per hour? Can I come here for free if it makes me happy?”
The psychologist let out a laugh, an involuntary laugh, on the brink of unprofessional. It surprised her so much that she blushed. She made a feeble attempt to pull herself together, and said: “No. But perhaps I’d let you come here for free if it made me happy.”
Then Zara suddenly let out a laugh, not consciously, but as if the sound just slipped out of her. It had been a while since that last happened.
* * *
They sat in silence for a long while after that, somewhat awkwardly, until Zara finally nodded toward the woman on the wall.
“What do you think she’s doing?”
The psychologist looked at the picture and blinked slowly.
“The same as everyone else. Searching.”
“What for?”
The psychologist’s shoulders moved up one inch, then down two.
“For something to cling on to. Something to fight for. Something to look forward to.”
Zara took her eyes from the picture and looked past the psychologist, out of the window.
“What if she’s thinking of committing suicide, then?”
The psychologist didn’t look away from the picture, just smiled and gave away none of the feelings that were raging inside her. It takes years of training and two parents you love and never want to worry to master that facial expression.