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Family is Everything and Everything is Fine
Today was lunch with Bashir, so they met at their usual table at the usual time. They dispensed efficiently with the book, with some small squabbles over one of the minor characters. Neither of them, Garak thought, had the heart for this discussion today. Perhaps they should have postponed. They did that a lot, these days.
At a table at the other side of the Replimat, Kirayoshi O’Brien – a little over three months old – was holding court, surrounded by a noisy group of admirers. Two mothers, a small sister, an adopted older sister, and an ancient aunt who contained multitudes – the boy, thought Garak, watching him get passed around, was not short of family. Human, Bajoran, Trill – even Cardassian.
“Takes a village, doesn’t it?” said Bashir, nodding at them. Dax was pulling faces at the boy now.
“Excuse me?”
“An old Earth expression. ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’”
“Oh,” said Garak. “I wouldn’t know.”
“No,” replied Bashir. “Me neither.”
Speculating about Bashir’s childhood, in the light of recent revelations, had taken up more time in the past month than Garak would ever admit. He’d always worked on the assumption that this model Federation citizen would have enjoyed everything his model civilization had to offer. But the truth… Well, that was always a tricky proposition, wasn’t it?
Not so perfect after all, doctor… Or perhaps a little too perfect?
Bashir’s eyes came to rest upon him. Did he perceive a little more calculation in them, these days, or was that simply his fancy?
“What have you got on this afternoon?” said Bashir.
“Oh, the usual,” Garak replied.
“Is the shop busy right now?”
“No, but it will be. It’s the Rekindling Festival in a fortnight. In about three days, everyone will remember they were planning to get something new.”
Bashir gave a half-smile. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“Good news?”
“I mean, it can’t have been easy keeping the place going from a holding cell.”
“I’m nothing if not resourceful.”
“Well, yes, but the rent alone—”
“I had a little put by.”
“I see.”
They turned away from each other to look back at Yoshi, now sitting on Kira’s lap. Garak watched as she lowered her head to press her face into his hair, and breathed – slowly, deeply. Tekeny Ghemor was a week dead, today. She had buried him on Bajor.
“It’s interesting,” said Garak, after a while. “The child seems almost to have woken up in the last week or so.”
“It’s a well-documented phenomenon,” said Bashir, twisting his fork around between his fingers. “The first three months after birth are almost a fourth trimester. As if they’re still in the womb. Sleep and eat. Sleep and eat. After about twelve weeks they start to engage more fully with the world. Stay awake longer. Respond more clearly to external stimulus – particularly social interaction.”
Molly reached over to tickle her brother’s stomach. He gurgled and some drool ran down his face. She laughed. Everyone laughed. Keiko wiped his face. Kira laid her hand upon his hair. The child was definitely responsive, thought Garak, and certainly not short of company. Enabran Tain was two months dead, today. The Jem’Hadar had vaporised his corpse.
“Of course, you can’t quite always be sure with Yoshi, given the circumstances,” said Bashir, “but everything seems more or less on track.”
“Are you writing a paper, doctor?”
“Probably. Eventually. Lots to do already.”
Garak contemplated him. The enthusiasm, so dampened; the sparkle, so diminished. My dear boy, he thought, I wish I could make everything better.
“How are you, Garak?” said Bashir, in a quiet voice.
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked how you were.”
“Oh.” Garak thought about answering, but there was no need. Bashir could always be relied upon to fill the gaps. Truly, an interrogator’s dream.
“The death of a parent… I mean, I don’t know, personally, what it’s like… I’ve thought about what it would be like—”
“Really?”
“I don’t mean that I’ve fantasised about it…”
“No?”
“No!”
Garak, who didn’t believe that for a second, thought: I have.
“But I know that it can be complicated. Even leaving aside…” Bashir faltered.
“Leaving aside?” prompted Garak.
“Well, everything… Leaving aside everything.” Bashir gave up. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. I just wanted to know whether you were all right.”
What would Bashir do, Garak wondered, if he answered this question truthfully? If he said – here, now, in the Replimat, in public, over lunch – that since Tain’s death, he had woken each morning with the distinct feeling that he was standing on the edge of a precipice, and that one false step could send him plunging into its depths? That one moment the weight of grief and loss was so heavy he was unsure he could draw another breath? That the next moment the sense of freedom and release was so giddy that his head seemed to be spinning? Would Bashir know what to do with this information? Garak certainly didn’t.
“Oh, well…” Garak’s fingers twitched upwards, a gesture of both acknowledgement and refusal. “I’m fine, doctor. Thank you for asking.”
“You’re fine?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I suppose that’s fine.”
“Yes,” said Garak. “I suppose it is.” He reached for his cup. “How is your mother doing?”
Bashir, turning back to his own lunch, said, “She’s fine too.”
Across the Replimat, Ziyal – half-unwillingly – allowed the baby to be placed upon her knee. She held him awkwardly in front of her, like an unexploded bomb. He wobbled slightly, so she held him closer, and laughed.
Throughout Garak’s custody, Ziyal had been his most steadfast visitor. Every afternoon, at the same time, she had come to sit with him and talk to him and draw him. Breakfast with Odo; afternoons with Ziyal. Sometimes he thought his diary had never been so full. After his release, when the shop was open again, she still came by, at the same time. She would sit in the chair sketching while he worked. Mid-afternoon, he would stop, and make them tea, and look at what she’d done. Today was no different.
“Can I see?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Ziyal always seemed faintly surprised that people wanted to see her sketches. After a year of friendship, one would have thought she would be used to him asking by now.
“I’d like to see.”
She handed him the sketchpad. All afternoon, he had been working through his accounts. Hardly the most thrilling scene, and yet she had captured him completely – his focus, his patience, his obstinacy. To her credit, he had never once caught a hint of romanticization. She was too clear-sighted for that. Still, through her eyes, the mundane became almost extraordinary.
“You must have hundreds of pictures of me sitting down by now,” he remarked, handing it back.
“Yes,” she said, “but there’s been slightly more variety in recent weeks.”
He laughed, which made her happy.
“Besides, I like watching you work.”
He smiled.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something…”
“Yes?”
“What happened when you were in the Gamma Quadrant?”
Ah, so she had picked something up. She really was a very clever girl… “Oh, you know, the usual…” he said, flippantly. “Excitement, adventure. A certain amount of violence.” Also, my father died, and I broke down.
“You’ve been different since you came back. Sadder.”
“I was in a prison camp for the best part of a week.”
“And?”
“Isn’t that enough, Ziyal?”
“A week’s nothing,” she said. “Try years.”
“I’d rather not,” he said gently. “Nothing happened, Ziyal. Perhaps I’m a little too old for such escapades. Perhaps I was reminded of my own mortality.”
“Nobody needs reminding of that,” she said, quietly, but fiercely. He was touched by her loyalty. “There’s too much death. You know, I was holding little Yoshi earlier—”
“I saw.”
“I know you saw. I was holding him, and I thought how glad I was that Nerys persuaded me to come back here. How ridiculous of me to think I could have stayed there on the Groumall. How ridiculous to think I ever wanted to!” She looked straight at him. “I want to live. Live a full life. Do you understand?”
He did understand. He understood completely what she meant; what she was offering and what she wanted from him. He had played many parts over the years. Could I settle for what she offers? Let this woman make herself my wife? Would there be children? What would that be like?
To have family, at last, unequivocally his… But no. It would be wrong – for all of them, and not least for her. She deserved a great deal better. He touched her face with the tip of his finger. “You’re an exceptional young woman, Ziyal.”
She sighed. He turned the conversation to inconsequentialities. She rallied and played her part and, when they finished the tea, she helped him clear away. As they filled the recycler, she put her head down upon his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and when she left, he let her kiss him quickly on the cheek.
Early in the evening, when the other shops were shut but before Quark’s was quite in full swing, Bashir dropped by the shop. Everyone else did, but not Bashir. Always an appointment, carefully arranged, time limits set. Garak, watching him warily as he approached, pressed the button on the bench that set the sign on the door to: Closed.
“Doctor? Can I help?”
“I don’t know,” said Bashir. “I honestly don’t know.” He came to stand before the counter, his hands twisting around together. Most people touched. Touched the fabrics, played with the mannequins, fiddled with the buttons. Not Bashir. Always, that slight distance.
“Are you hoping to get your order early for the Rekindling Festival? There are some shirts you’d like, somewhere—”
“You and Ziyal,” the doctor said, bluntly. “You’re always together these days.”
But what was this about? “She’s a sweet young woman. Good company. Funny and extremely sharp.”
“Yes, she’s all those things. Have you slept with her?”
Garak gaped at him. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Garak often felt irritated, yes; impatient, frequently – but he rarely allowed himself the luxury of a descent into anger. This evening, however, he thought he might indulge. “After all this time,” he whispered, “after years… What right do you have to come here and ask me that?”
“Have you, Garak?”
Garak’s hands clenched into fists. “How dare you!”
They stared at each other across the counter. After a moment, Bashir looked down. “Well,” he said, “at least you’re talking to me now.”
“What?”
“Fine, fine, you always say you’re fine. But you’re not fine, are you? Everything’s very far from fine.”
No, thought Garak, the rage subsiding back into the usual dull ache. I’m sad and alone and terribly afraid. I’ve made awful, dreadful mistakes. My enemies are in power, and all I see ahead is death and destruction…
Bashir reached out across the counter. Laid his hand upon Garak’s arm. “I want to help…”
“Help?” Garak pulled away. Sharply, he said, “You realise there’s going to be a war?”
“Yes, I’d say we’re running at around at a ninety-five point six two per cent chance of that.”
“So low? Anyway, I intend to play my part.”
“Well, yes…” Bashir was looking at him in confusion. “Why do you think you need to tell me this?”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? There’s going to be a war and I won’t hold back.”
Enlightenment finally dawned. So much for the vaunted enhancements… “I see,” said Bashir. “One attempted genocide isn’t enough for you?”
Two, Garak thought – but of course Bashir didn’t know about the first one. Odo had kept his secrets. Well, third time lucky, perhaps… “Cardassia,” Garak said, holding his hands out, helplessly, “is everything.”
“It’s not, though, is it? It’s not enough. All that obedience. All that sacrifice. Where exactly has it got you, Garak?” Bashir rapped his knuckles violently against the counter. “Here?”
Garak gave a bitter laugh. “Do you not like my shop, doctor?”
“About as much as you do. He’s dead, you know. You’re free.”
“But Cardassia is not.”
Bashir bowed his head. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I’ve never known what you wanted me to do—”
“You were free to come here any time you chose—”
“As if you would have let me anywhere near you—”
“Well, I suppose we’ll never know—”
“I’m here now, for god’s sake! Here, right now!”
“On the eve of war. How convenient! You won’t like what I’ll do, you know. In a war.”
“I’m not a fool, Garak. I know what war involves—”
“Julian,” he said softly. “I don’t want you to hate me.”
Bashir did not reply. His head was still down. Garak thought about reaching to touch him; thought again.
If you had come to me sooner, even as late as a year ago, I would have given you everything… Even Cardassia… His mind ran freely down the old familiar tracks – how it might be, to surrender the vanishingly small chance of going home, to live instead blissfully in this man’s arms… To renounce the Order, and its demands, and embrace this life, here, the plain and simple tailor… Delusions. As if any of that could ever have come true. Cardassia was everything. She required everything. Everything he had left to give.
“Do you know,” Bashir said, “I predict that Cardassia has a less than fourteen point three nine per cent chance of coming through the next two years intact?”
“Really, so high?” said Garak, glibly – but then Bashir didn’t know how deep the Founders’ hatred ran. “You know, doctor, I always feel so much better for talking to you.”
“I suppose if I asked, you’d say you felt fine.”
“Yes,” said Garak. “I suppose I would.”
“You’re allowed something for yourself, you know,” Bashir said, desperately. “Something that’s yours.”
Garak let his head fall wearily down. He closed his eyes. Again, that sensation of being on the edge of a precipice, that one step, in any direction, would send him plunging into some terrifying and uncharted realm… He thought of all the pain that lay behind him, and the pain that was surely yet to come. Better not to move.
“Oh Julian,” he breathed. “Why so obtuse? Always so obtuse… Don’t you understand? I won’t be widowed. Not that too.”
Garak stood there, still, and lost. After a moment, he felt a hand upon his head. Someone was stroking his hair. And then, impossibly, a kiss where the hand had been. A quiet voice, very close. “I see. I… understand. Well, you know where to find me.”
He heard footsteps, departing. Heard the door to the shop open and close.
After the war, after dead senators and resistance movements, after Ziyal was dead and Mila was dead and Cardassia herself was all-but dead, Garak came home at last, to ashes.
But something remained.
“Well,” said Bashir. “Where do we begin?”
5th-6th February 2021