Among the Dead by Michael Tolkin Page B

done. Or was it just the fear that he would learn something dreadful, and the foundations of his control would erode in the space of a few seconds, however long it took to hear Dockery’s revelation?
    â€˜What happened?’ said Lowell. It was a challenge to Dockery: he should stop playing the part of the saddened messenger; he should tell the story and not act as if there was anything eternal in Lowell’s disdain for him.
    â€˜We think that the plane went down because one of our employees, I should say one of our former employees, sneaked a gun on to the plane and killed the pilot.’
    He told this story quickly, and directly.
    â€˜Thank you,’ said Lowell.
    â€˜For what?’ asked Dockery.
    â€˜For telling us the truth.’
    Frank wanted to say, Yes, that was kind of you. Something between the two men went unspoken; it had to do with integrity, and Frank didn’t understand it. Instead he asked, ‘Why?’ although he didn’t really care. So they died for nothing. If a Palestinian had blown the plane out of the sky, Frank could always warm himself on the fires of history, he could tell the world that his life had beentouched by the terrible events of this awful century, that he was now a part of history. Their deaths, however tragic, would have been given some meaning. He would have had an enemy too, a movement, an ideology. He saw himself, letting the fantasy roll ahead to its conclusion, as someone who could even RELUCTANTLY ACCEPT a role as the public spokesman for the victims of terrorism, as the great champion of innocence. Of the innocent victim. But a FORMER EMPLOYEE ? Where was the glamour in the fatal radiation from the decaying misery of a DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE ? Was there anything to gain from the death of his wife and his daughter if a nutcase had killed them? What if their murderer had been released from a mental hospital, or had been denied entry to one because the state had no money to take care of him? All the boring editorials! How they would add the name of the nutcase to the list of the victims of his unhealed rage! Surely he was as much a victim, blah blah blah. And until we solve the problems of the blah blah blah ... And all the predictable anger at the government, at the social workers who will defend themselves for not having seen the danger lurking in this unhappy man! I will be forgotten in all of this, thought Frank. I will be abandoned. Emptiness surrounded him.
    â€˜We don’t know why, not yet,’ said Dockery.
    â€˜Did you know him?’ asked Lowell. Of course it was a man.
    â€˜Just to say hello.’
    â€˜What did he do?’ asked Frank. ‘What was his job?’
    â€˜He was in the freight office.’
    â€˜Why was he fired?’ asked Lowell. Frank was glad his brother was asking all the obvious questions. He didn’t want to seem too curious – what would they think if they saw how this interesting development submerged his grief? Lowell could ask any questions, because Lowell had charm; he could make a person happy to answer a rude question. People liked to talk to him. And these questions weren’t rude, they were just obvious. Anyone would want to know. Frank thought he should have been able to ask them. I have a RIGHT TO KNOW ! Now he wanted another drink.
    Dockery was uncomfortable with the question. ‘All of this was very recent.’
    â€˜Why did he take down the plane?’ asked Lowell. Implied in the way he stressed the word ‘plane’ was the thought that something was out of scale, that the man’s murderous anger and need for revenge, if justified, should have satisfied itself with the death ofwhomever he was angry at. Because it was routine news for people to get fired and go back to their offices and kill the person who fired them. There was no revelation in that kind of news. But a whole plane? And a neighbourhood?
    â€˜Now look, I’m not supposed to be telling you