Zero History

“Not in the same way.”
“Do you understand why they would be willing to pay the very considerable fees
required to keep you here?”
“No. Do you?”
“Not at all. Do you understand the nature of doctor-patient confidentiality, in my
profession?”
“You aren’t supposed to tell anyone what I tell you?”
“Exactly. Do you imagine I would?”
“I don’t know.”
“I would not. When I agreed to come here, to work with you, I made that absolutely
clear. I am here for you, Mr. Milgrim. I am not here for them.”
“That’s good.”
“But because I am here for you, Mr. Milgrim, I am also concerned for you. It is as
though you are being born. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“You were incomplete when they brought you here. You are somewhat less incomplete
now, but your recovery is necessarily a complexly organic process. If you are very
fortunate, it will continue for the rest of your life. ‘Recovery’ is perhaps a deceptive word
for this. You are recovering some aspects of yourself, certainly, but the more important
things are things you’ve never previously possessed. Primary aspects of development.
You have been stunted, in certain ways. Now you have been given an opportunity to
grow.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Good, yes. Comfortable? Not always.”
>>>
At Heathrow there was a tall black man, head immaculately shaven, holding a clipboard
against his chest. On it, in medium-nib red Sharpie, someone had written “mILgRIm.”
“Milgrim,” Milgrim said.
“Urine test,” the man said. “This way.”
Refusing to submit to random testing would have been a deal-breaker. They’d been
very clear about that, from the start. He would have minded it less if they’d managed to
collect the samples at less awkward times, but he supposed that was the point.
The man removed Milgrim’s red name from his clipboard as he led him into an
obviously preselected public restroom, crumpling it and thrusting it into his black
overcoat.
“This way,” walking briskly down a row of those seriously private British toilet-caves.
Not cubicles, or stalls, but actual narrow little closets, with real doors. This was usually
the first cultural difference Milgrim noticed here. Englishmen must experience American