The Syndrome

Zurich June 16, 1996 It wasn't the Grande Jatte. Not exactly. It wasn't even the afternoon. Not quite. But it felt that way--just like the picture--as if nothing could ever go wrong. The placid park. The bright and dozy day. The neon-blue lake, shimmering in the breeze. Lew McBride was on a long run through the narrow park that follows the shoreline of the Zurichsee from busy Bellevueplatz out to the sub-urbs. He'd already gone about three miles, and was on his way back, jog-ging through the dappled shade, thinking idly of Seurat. The pointillist's great canvas was peopled with respectable-looking men in top hats, docile children, and women in bustles carrying parasols. But the age it captured was two world wars ago, before Seinfeld, the Internet, and "ethnic cleansing." People were different now, and so were Sunday af-ternoons (even, or especially, when they were the same). To begin with, it seemed as if half the girls he saw were on cell-phones, Rollerblades, or both. They had pierced navels and mischievous eyes, and cruised, giggling, past kids with soccer balls, dozing "guest-workers," and lovers making out in the lush grass. The air was fresh from the Alps, sunny, cool and sweet, its soft edge tainted now and then with whiffs of marijuana. He liked Zurich. Being there gave him a chance to practice his German. It was the first language he'd studied, chosen in high school be-cause he'd had a crush on an exchange student. Later, he'd acquired Spanish, picked up a little French, and even some Creole, but German was first--thanks to Ingrid. He smiled at the thought of her--Ingrid of the amazing body--cruising past a marina where sailboats rocked at their moorings, halyards clanking. He could barely hear them. He had the volume turned up on his Walkman, listening to Margo Timmons sing an old Lou Reed song about someone called ". . . Jane . . . Sweet Jane . . ." Music, books, and running were McBride's secret nicotine and, without them, he became restless and unhappy. They were the reason he did not own (could not afford) a sailboat--which he wanted very much. His apartment in San Francisco was a testament to these obses-sions. Near the windows, the stereo and the oversized sofa, stacks of books and CDs stood like dolmens: blues, mornas, DeLillo, and opera. Konpa, rock, and gospel. Chatwin on Patagonia, Ogburn on Shake-speare. And a dozen books on chess, which McBride would rather read about than play (except, perhaps, in Haiti, where he and Petit Pierre sometimes sat for hours in the Oloffson, hunched over a battered chess-board, sipping rum). Thinking about it made him miss it--the place, the chess, his friends . . . As he ran, he glanced at his wristwatch and, seeing the time, picked up the pace. He had about an hour and twenty minutes until his ap-pointment at the Institute, and he didn't like to be late. (In fact, being late drove him crazy.) Headquartered in Kuessnacht, about twenty minutes from McBride's hotel, the Institute of Global Studies was a small, but venerable, think tank funded by old money flowing from tributaries on both sides of the Atlantic. Like so many foundations established in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Institute was dedicated to the idea--the vague and elusive idea--of world peace. Toward that end, it hosted con-ferences and awarded fellowships each year to a handful of brilliant youths whose research interests coincided with the Foundation's own. These included topics as diverse as "the rise of paramilitary formations in Central Africa," "Islam and the Internet," "Deforestation in Nepal," and McBride's own study--which concerned the therapeutic compo-nents of animist religions. With the Cold War a thing of the pastCase, John is the author of 'The Syndrome' with ISBN 9780345433084 and ISBN 0345433084.