Fiction Friday: Not for Profit, Part One

[Rationale (-ization?) can be found here.]

Not for Profit

They asked me to change the names.

Actually, they asked me not to write it at all, but I pointed out that it might as well be fiction — no one would believe it. And it needs to be told. So we compromised.

This is fiction.

I’ve changed the names.

*******

When I met Hector Perez, he was the bright spot in the middle of a very long day. I was on my first foreign site visit as the very junior program officer at a very big charitable foundation. I had a laptop case stuffed with the proposal and supporting financials of a Mexican hospital. Okay, Mexico wasn’t exactly the ends of the earth, but it still counted as foreign. I was running late — more than a week late, as I’d had to postpone the trip to help my sister while she had her third baby. Somehow Aunt Natalie, with no children and no prospect of any, was always the first choice to watch the kids. Now that the trip was finally on, I was also running late because of traffic, and on the way to the airport I managed to spill a cappuccino on the sleeve of my brand new, professional-but-still-practical-in-the-heat white linen jacket. During the flight, I convinced myself that I was completely unprepared and that it would be painfully obvious to the hospital staff, and that it must have been painfully obvious to my boss, so they must be setting me up to fail, and what was I doing in this job, anyway?

Then I took a deep breath and told myself everything was fine. That works more often than you might think.

Hector met me at the airport. He was wearing khakis and a loose shirt, and a wooden rosary around his neck peeked out at the collar. He approached with a smile and a firm handshake, and asked “Miss Evans?” with a purely American accent.

“California,” he added, either through telepathy or habit, as he took my bag. “Born and raised in Long Beach, pre-med at UCLA. I got permission to do a year of my internship here.”

“Permission from where?”

“Johns Hopkins,” he admitted, with a smile that held equal parts pride and embarrassment. I learned very quickly that that was Hector’s normal smile: it said two things at once, and they were usually contradictory.

“I don’t remember reading about you in the proposal.”

He shrugged. “I’ll be gone soon enough. They’ll still be here.”

He led me out of the airport to an ancient Volkswagen Beetle. As he opened the passenger door for me, he said that the hospital was about an hour’s drive, “not counting flat tires, washed out roads, or other acts of God.” Since the car was practically riding on rims as it was, I wanted to ask what he called a flat tire, but decided against it.

As he drove and kept a lookout for acts of God, I asked him how a Johns Hopkins intern had been drawn here. He told me about the hospital, about Dr. Reyes (whose name had been in the proposal) and about some of the patients he had seen. He was a persuasive advocate, and I wondered aloud whether he had chauffeured any other program officers.

He shook his head. “I’ve been here ten months, and you’re the first one I’ve seen. Honestly, I don’t think most of us expected you to really show up, either. We’re small, kind of under the radar out here. Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but does your being here mean we’ve got a shot at a grant?”

“I really can’t…”

“I get it. Anyway, you should see the place before you make up your mind.” And, with perfect timing, he chose that moment to tell me that the cooler in the back seat was stocked with bottled water. Before I could reach back, he had snaked his arm around the back of his seat, snared a bottle, opened it one-handed, and presented it to me. As I held it to my wrists and temples and then took a sip (gulping didn’t seem professional), Hector grinned: “How are we doing on first impressions?”

*******

Hector saw me checked into the hotel and insisted on carrying my bag up to my room. I was surprised by the size of the hotel: from what I had seen of the town driving in, it didn’t seem large enough to support that much tourism. Hector explained that the town had seen action during the Mexican War of Independence in the early 1800s, so it attracted historians, photographers, sightseers, and various combinations of the three. There was even a small museum on the other side of the square.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention here that I gave myself a pat on the back when I turned down an entry-level position at PricewaterhouseCoopers to take an internship at the foundation. I had the inner glow of altruism which comes from joining the not-for-profit sector, and which had lasted until I read my first grant application from Rwanda. I knew then that I understood neither courage nor self-sacrifice, and I had reminded myself of that every day since. So when Hector mentioned the museum, it seemed like a good opportunity to learn about people who had understood both.

Be careful what you wish for.

Fiction Friday: A Thursday Introduction

Well, we’ve learned a few things in these last couple of years of mostly-not blogging. The most obvious one is that I don’t have a lot to say. Not a lot that I consider worth the trouble of saying, that is.

 

Except that’s not entirely true. I do have things to say, but I have trouble translating them into “blog”. I think in story.

So I’m going to try an experiment. Over the next few Fridays, I’m going to serialize a story I wrote awhile back. (Yes, the scheduling is totally based on alliteration.)

This is, honestly, something that I never expected anyone to read. The brief introductory section, and the central moment of inaction, popped into my head one day, and I fashioned the story around them so that they would leave me alone. But I’ve had no idea what to do with it: it just clearly wanted to exist. I’m not in the least sure it’s any good, but it says some things I wanted to say.

See you tomorrow!

The After-the-Reichenbach Fall: His Last Vow and the Problem of Sin

[Spoiler alert: We’re going to talk about the ending of His Last Vow. (Well, not the ending ending. All I will say about that is that I don’t think it’s a trick: go re-watch John’s abduction in The Empty Hearse.) Properly speaking, we’re going to talk about the climax of His Last Vow. You know, the part where Sherlock makes sure he has plenty of witnesses before shooting an unarmed man in the head. (I’ve never been very good at spoiler alerts.)]

[Note to family and friends: Should I ever need morphine, and should you not have it, I fully intend to bellow, “Then what is the point of you?!?” in the best public-school accent I can muster. You have been warned. Now on with the post.]

“The point I'm trying to make is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend. And certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing. John, I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship.”

- Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Three

Are there people who identify with John Watson? For me, it’s always been Sherlock. Not that I think I’m a genius, but that I would happily divide the world into “people” (defined as those I care about) and -- to borrow from the smarter Holmes brother -- “goldfish”.

So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m Sherlock with less excuse.

Great.

It’s been widely said that we’ve seen a more human Sherlock in Series Three, and I think that’s true, but not because he learns to love. The fact is, Sherlock has always been willing to love: remember what happened to the CIA agent who roughed up Mrs. Hudson? He is just extremely careful about whom he chooses to love. And how. And isn’t that the temptation for all of us? “To love” is an active verb. It’s something that we decide to do, and something that can be done on our terms.

To BE loved? Now that’s scary.

Being loved requires humility. It requires a willingness to surrender control and accept a gift freely given -- and often undeserved. The Sherlock of A Study in Pink does not deserve John Watson’s friendship, but it is given, and Sherlock doesn’t understand why. Even by the end of Series Two, he still thinks love should be earned, should somehow be based on merit. In The Reichenbach Fall, he asks faithful lab assistant Molly Hooper, “Molly, if I weren’t everything you think I am -- everything I think I am -- would you still want to help me?” She replies simply, “What do you need?” Molly doesn’t love Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. She loves Sherlock.

And two and a half years later, it is Molly who snaps when she sees the results of his Dr.-Watson-ordered drug test in the opening of His Last Vow:

The language here, a language of gift and obligation, is breathtaking. A gift places us under an obligation to the giver: an obligation of gratitude, but also an obligation not to abuse the gift. By abusing himself, Sherlock has abused his friends’ love -- not least, as John points out, by refusing to acknowledge that love and ask for their help.

But the episode’s most stunning scene is yet to come. Christmas with the Holmes family. Mycroft and Sherlock pretending to put up with their parents’ confounded...normality (and Mycroft not really even bothering to pretend: “Am I glad, too? I haven’t checked.”). The brothers sneak outside for a forbidden smoke break, and Mycroft warns Sherlock not to pursue Charles Augustus Magnussen, calling him a necessary evil, “not a dragon for you to slay.” Mycroft says he has been authorized to offer Sherlock a job, but that he hopes Sherlock will decline it. Sherlock promptly declines, then asks what the job is. MI-6 wants him to go back undercover in Europe (capitalizing on his work destroying Moriarty’s network during the [interminable!] two-year gap between Series Two and Three), but Mycroft has estimated that he will last only six months before being discovered and killed.

Then this happens:

And here’s a question: As the scene concludes, Sherlock asks, “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?” and Mycroft suggests, “Merry Christmas.” Recall that Magnussen’s ultimate plan is to ensnare Mycroft, and recall Sherlock’s last two words before shooting him. Sherlock is primarily thinking of John and Mary in that scene, but is he also answering his brother? It is certainly not the answer his brother wanted: “Oh, Sherlock, what have you done?” *

We have grown accustomed to seeing Sherlock use people. His relationship with Janine is perhaps the most egregious example, ending in her unexpected and brilliant parting shot: “We could have been friends.” For just a moment, Sherlock looks at someone he had placed firmly in the “goldfish” category...and discovers that she is a person. (I. Love. Steven. Moffat.)

Anyway. What we don’t notice so easily is that Sherlock also uses himself. The heroin, after all, was for a case. And in A Study in Pink, he risks suicide for a point of pride. Irene Adler sums him up when she takes away his clergyman’s collar in A Scandal in Belgravia:

Irene: Disguise is always a self-portrait.

Sherlock: You think I’m a vicar with a broken face?
Irene: I think you’re damaged, delusional, and believe in a higher power -- in your case, it’s yourself.

Sherlock believes that he is completely his own master: to preserve, or to destroy. When he kills Magnussen, he is once again using himself. It’s not that he thinks it’s right. He thinks it’s a necessary evil, and he takes that evil upon himself. But in doing so, he also takes that evil into himself, betraying the people who love him by making himself something that he was not before. “My brother is a murderer,” says Mycroft, and for once there is no quip to disguise the simple truth.

But Sherlock has betrayed more than his friends, and at least one person in the series does hint at a higher power. Go back and look at the Molly scene again. His friends are not the only, or the first, thing she thinks of: “How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with?” There is more being given here than John’s, or Molly’s, or Mycroft’s love.

A gift places us under an obligation to the Giver.

*Dear Mr. Gatiss: After the empty house/Mary as client sequence, I didn’t think my heart could be broken again. You re-made it and re-broke it, right here.

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Go here now. Purchase. Read.

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Thank you.

Oh. Right. I Have a Blog.

It kind of slipped my mind. See, I’ve spent the last few months traveling with Francis Crawford of Lymond.

There’s so much I want to say:

I want to discourse at length on three words - “I don’t mind.” - as spoken in The Disorderly Knights, on why the scene of which they are the lynchpin became my instant favorite as I read it, and on why that judgment only deepened after I finished the entire series.

I want to discuss, from both a reader’s and a writer’s perspective, the importance of supporting characters. Not just “characters who play an important but secondary role in the plot,” but truly supporting characters: the characters who make it their mission in life to support the main characters. In other words, a prose ode to the men of Saint Mary’s, with pride of place given to Adam Blacklock and Archie Abernethy. (Daniel Hislop fans may also present their case.)

I want to start what I think (only half facetiously) could be a very illuminating debate: “Granting that they both richly deserve it, whom do you want to punch more: Jerrott or Marthe?”

I want to announce that I love the ending of Pawn in Frankincense, and then let you all call me a horrible person.

I want to explore the whole concept of the supernatural as Ms. Dunnett presents it, from religion to the occult, and how it relates to her views on marriage.

I want to talk about Sybilla. Oh, how I want to talk about Sybilla.

That’s just for starters. But I can’t do any of it. You see, I had the great good fortune to come to these books blind (and that word, right there, is intentionally loaded). Someone I trust gave me The Game of Kings and essentially said, “Read this. You won’t be sorry.” So I read it. I admit I found it rough going at first (and there’s another thing I want to discuss: Should the central narrative thrust of Kings have been made apparent earlier, to give us some sort of foothold in navigating this new world? Or is the delayed revelation ultimately necessary to the structure of the whole six-volume work?). But trust kept me going, and then in the courtyard at Threave I surrendered utterly and signed up for the whole voyage.

I tried to stay away from comments and reviews while I read, for it became apparent very early that this is a story built to astonish, in every sense. I intend to go back now, and relish it differently, but the first encounter should, by rights, be on Ms. Dunnett’s terms.

And that’s why I don’t want to post anything. Because I can preface with all of the spoiler warnings I want, but it would still be out there, and I don’t want even to risk ruining for some unknown reader-of-the-future the end of part four of Checkmate. But how do you talk about Lymond without talking about that?

Sometimes you can’t say “Read this because…” You can only say “Read this, and the ‘because’ will become apparent.” The Lymond Chronicles are an experience for solitude, and a favorite chair. They require, as their hero does, an extraordinary trust.

So really, all this post can be is a long “Thank you” to the person who, five months ago, put the first volume into my hands. Who reminded me that the best way to discover a story is to receive it, in trust, from a kindred spirit.

And I’d better stop now, or I won’t be able to resist bringing up Austin Grey...

The Theology of Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii

Since this episode has recently increased in trivia-game value (“Name the Doctor Who episode that guest-starred both a future companion and a future Doctor.”), it seemed like the right time to give it another look. So much good stuff here that it’s hard to know where to begin. It is funny, as all of the best Doctor Whos are (the water pistol!), and heartbreaking, as all of the best Doctor Whos are.

Theologically speaking, it is an elegant illustration of that most difficult of concepts, the coexistence of predestination and free will. Headed for ancient Rome, the Doctor and Donna instead wind up in Pompeii on the day before “volcano day.” Donna wants to warn everyone, but the Doctor just wants to get out: there are certain points in time, he explains, that are fixed, unchangeable. Unfortunately, the destruction of Pompeii is one of those times. Donna, not much impressed by Fate, tries anyway to start an evacuation, but she encounters two roadblocks: the language does not yet have a word for “volcano” (it is this eruption that will give it one), and the city’s soothsayers predict a long and prosperous life for the city and its inhabitants. Donna would scoff at that last one, but for the fact that Pompeii’s soothsayers really do seem to have second sight. One of them even identifies the Doctor as “man from Gallifrey.”

The Doctor’s plan (for the Doctor, “run” is a plan) also hits a roadblock when an enterprising street merchant sells the TARDIS as “modern art” to a local businessman, Caecilius. In attempting to recover it, the Doctor learns (short version) that ancient aliens, the Pyrovile, have tunneled under Mt. Vesuvius and intend to use its power to take over the earth and transform humans into Pyrovile. The Doctor can stop them, thus saving the world, by shutting off their machine...but all of the power of Vesuvius that had been diverted will then need another outlet. In other words, Pompeii is a fixed point in time AND it is the Doctor’s choice that causes it.

As a bonus, this is also a nice example of the principle of double-effect. The Doctor does not blow up Pompeii to save the world. He turns off the Pyrovile engine to save the world, and the destruction of Pompeii is an attendant but decidedly un-willed consequence.

And yet, for all of that, the moment that haunts me is yet to come. The Doctor, furious and despairing (“Don’t you think I’ve done enough?” he snarls at Donna), and haunted by the burning of Gallifrey, heads straight for the TARDIS. But Donna, with tears in her eyes and ash in her hair, begs him to “save someone.” She has accepted what had to be done and what must be, but she rejects the Doctor’s fatalist surrender. And so Caecilius and his family are saved (and David Tennant grips Peter Capaldi’s hand and pulls him into the TARDIS).

It’s so easy (for me, at least) to be the Doctor here. To become so overwhelmed by the big picture that we think, because we can’t control that, we can’t control anything. Sometimes we all need a shorthand typist from Chiswick to remind us that we can still save someone.

Reason #17 Why I Want to be Stephen King When I Grow Up

This is the first reason. Go read it. It’s not long. I’ll wait.

(Back now? Isn’t that elegant and infuriating and utterly magnificent? And infuriating?)

Anyway. I’ll probably mention most of the next fifteen reasons at some point.

Which brings us to this, the subject of today’s post.

There’s a lot to chew on here, but I think this is the “pull quote” (for anyone who didn’t click over, he’s talking about the first sentence of a book and the fact that it should invite the reader in, and then how you accomplish that):

“So an intriguing context is important, and so is style. But for me, a good opening sentence really begins with voice. You hear people talk about "voice" a lot, when I think they really just mean "style." Voice is more than that. People come to books looking for something. But they don't come for the story, or even for the characters. They certainly don't come for the genre. I think readers come for the voice.”

I suspect there’s some hyperbole at work here, but he’s fundamentally right. I do want story, and characters, and (to a lesser extent) genre, but above all, I want to trust the author. Cor ad cor loquitur. If I’m going to trust you with my heart, I want to know something about yours.

So for fun (read: narcissistic masochism), I went back and looked at some of my own work in that light. I’m ruling out the screenplays, since I think that there a slightly different principle is at work. That left me with two mostly-outlined-but-mostly-unwritten novels, one drafted short story, and one short story that popped into my head six days ago - characters, plot, and setting all complete - and that has been consuming me ever since.

Now, I could analyze these to death (and have...and will...), but see, I know all of the stories. So for purposes of the “voice” test, I’m going to throw them out here and ask what you think. Here they are, in alphabetical order by title. Speaking of genre, they are all spy stories - a predilection about which I have theories, which will have to wait for another post.

I’m going to cheat a little with the novels: since each has a prologue, I’m going to give you that first sentence and then the beginning of the first chapter. With that said, have at it:

Acceptable Loss

By all rights, Yelena Zelenko should not have been in the Friedrichstrasse station that day.

Not for Profit

They asked me to change the names.

Within His Wounds: A Novel of Recusant England

Prologue opening:

Blood is curse and blessing; for a Howard, it is doubly so.

First chapter opening:

He gave his name as Mr. Edmunds, diamond merchant, neither of which was entirely a lie, though in private he would have exchanged the diamond for a pearl of great price.

The Younger Son

Prologue opening:

30th July, 1809

My Dear,

I have spent the greater part of the night praying that you have already heard the news, so that it will not be me to tell you.

First chapter opening:

My Lord Barham was late.

So. There they are. I was going to ask, Which of them make you want to read further? But perhaps I’d better take the safer route and ask, Do any of them make you want to read further? And of course the follow-up: Why or why not?

Meanwhile, I’m off to finish that short story. Whether or not it needs a new opening sentence.