Frankburg said he’d rather hear what Johansson himself had to say about these issues. Johansson replied he didn’t really know, just that he’d been thinking about them a lot.

Frankburg wondered whether to give Johansson the Laing line about playing the game of reality with no real cards in one’s hands but realized he wouldn’t know how to answer if Johansson asked him what he meant.

Session four.

“A passenger once asked me about the safety of his novelty religious artifacts. In the hold he had three hundred waterproof Bibles, two hundred fifty edible rosaries, a dozen whistling popes, and a crate of crowns of thorns that glowed in the dark.

“I told him not to worry. I said if the plane were to crash in the sea, in the middle of the night, the glow-in-the-dark crowns of thorns would mark the way. They would float to the surface of the sea and look like runway lights. Beautiful in a way. And the Bibles would be washed up on the Caribbean coast. They would be hired out by deck chair sellers. And as for the edible rosaries, perhaps the fish could eat them.

“I was disciplined for mentioning a plane crash to a passenger.”

“Do you often think about the plane crashing?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

At that point Johansson had decided that was enough. He was out of energy. He looked tired. He’d flown to Barcelona and back. Frankburg said it was a very beautiful city. Johansson said he’d only seen the airport.

“There’s still a few minutes left if you want them.”

“No, I’m dog tired.” He picked up his coat.

“And next week?” Frankburg had asked.

“Could we do Tuesday nine o’clock? I’m coming back from America.”

732

Johansson was still in America. Smoking cigarettes in Manhattan. He was using a brass lighter that was engraved with the words Love, G.J. He flicked the lighter open and sparked the flint, which lit the flame. He flicked the lighter shut, sparked the flint again, which lit the flame again.

He was booked to fly SA841 to Birmingham but he canceled when he knew Emma Heron was to be aboard.

He complained of a stomach upset and rescheduled.

731

Frankburg locked his filing cabinet and switched out the lights.

His notes didn’t add up to much yet but Frankburg wasn’t worried about slow progress; he’d had some clients for many years who refused to do the self-help activities he set them but liked coming back and talking. Some had hung on for over a decade.

Frankburg sensed that Johansson wasn’t one of these types however. Despite the Scandinavian introspection.

He left the building wondering what had happened to him.

730

Johansson was watching an old episode of Tales of the Unexpected where the owner of a remote paradise island offered a visitor a gamble. If the visitor could light the lighter ten consecutive times he would win the island. If he misfired, and only flint sparks flew, he would lose a finger. The owner’s wife had taken the bet a number of times and was consequently stumpy. Her wedding ring was barely on.