Anxious People(65)
“Stop being so sensitive. Answer the question: Could you kill a bear then, even if you didn’t want to eat it? I’m not saying you’ve got a fork, but if you had a knife?”
Nadia groaned. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
Nadia looked at the time. Zara noticed. She counted all the windows twice. Nadia noticed. They looked past each other for a while until Nadia said: “Let me ask you this, then: Do you think you mock the green movement this way because it’s the opposite of the finance industry you work in?”
Zara bit back faster than she herself was expecting, because sometimes you don’t know how strongly you feel about something until you’re tested: “The green movement doesn’t need any help to look ridiculous! And I’m not defending the finance industry, I’m defending the economic system.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One is the symptom. The other is the problem.”
Nadia nodded as if she understood what that meant.
“Surely we created the economic system? It’s a construct?”
Zara’s reply was surprisingly free from condescension, and almost sounded sympathetic.
“That’s the problem. We made it too strong. We forgot how greedy we are. Do you own an apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got a mortgage on it?”
“Hasn’t everyone?”
“No. And a mortgage used to be something you were expected to repay. But now that every other middle-income family has a mortgage for an amount they couldn’t possibly save up in their lifetimes, then the bank isn’t lending money anymore. It’s offering financing. And then homes are no longer homes. They’re investments.”
“I’m not sure I completely understand what that means.”
“It means that the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and the real class divide is between those who can borrow money and those who can’t. Because no matter how much money anyone earns, they still lie awake at the end of the month worrying about money. Everyone looks at what their neighbors have and wonders, ‘How can they afford that?’ because everyone is living beyond their means. So not even really rich people ever feel really rich, because in the end the only thing you can buy is a more expensive version of something you’ve already got. With borrowed money.”
Nadia looked like a cat who’d just seen someone skating for the first time.
“I heard a man who worked in a casino say that no one gets ruined by losing, they get ruined by trying to win back the money they lost. Is that what you mean? Is that why the stock market and housing market crash?”
Zara shrugged.
“Sure. If that makes it feel better.”
Then the psychologist suddenly, and without quite knowing why, asked a question that knocked the air out of her patient’s lungs: “So do you feel more guilty about the customers you haven’t lent money to, or the ones you’ve lent too much to?”
Zara looked untroubled, but she was holding on to the arms of the chair so tightly that when she eventually let go her palms were bloodless. She hid it by rubbing them, and evaded eye contact by counting windows. Then she let out a quick snort.
“You know something? If people who worry about animal welfare were really bothered about animal welfare, they wouldn’t tell me to eat happy pigs.”
Nadia rolled her eyes. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with my question.”
Zara shrugged.
“All this talk about organic farming, adverts for free-range chickens and happy pigs… isn’t it more unethical of me to eat a happy pig? Surely it’s better if I eat a pig that’s lived a terrible life than one of those carpe diem pigs with a family and friends? The farmers say happy pigs taste better, so I can only assume that they wait until the pig has just fallen in love, maybe just after it’s had kids, when it’s at its absolute happiest, and then it gets shot in the head and vacuum packed. How ethical is that?”
The psychologist sighed.
“I’ll take that to mean that you don’t want to talk about your customers and how much they’ve borrowed.”
Zara dug her fingernails hard into her palms.
“Have you ever thought about how vegans always talk about saving the planet, as if the planet needed you? The planet will survive for billions of years even without human help. The only people we’re killing are ourselves.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, as usual. Nadia looked at the time, then regretted doing so at once because Zara noticed and got to her feet, as usual. Zara never liked to be asked to leave, and that tends to make you more alert to the way people check the time, and the second time they look you get to your feet. Nadia felt embarrassed and stammered, “We’ve got some time left… if you’d like… I haven’t another appointment after this.”
“Well, I’ve got things to do,” Zara replied.
Nadia composed herself and asked straight out, “Can you tell me one personal thing about yourself?”
“Sorry?”
Nadia stood up and moved her head in an attempt to catch Zara’s eye.
“In all the time we’ve spent talking to each other, I get the sense that you’ve never told me anything truly personal about yourself. Anything at all. What’s your favorite color? Do you like art? Have you ever been in love?”