asks.
"It's not about what's physically in the room, or what you see in the room necessarily. It's more about what the room sees in you."
"What's that mean?" Wendy asks.
"It's where your deepest wish comes true," Annie says.
"Yes," Max says. "But it's not a wish you make, the room makes it for you."
"What do you mean the room makes it for you?" Holly asks.
"I mean, you don't enter the room and make a verbal wish. The room looks within you and finds your deepest desire. So, in some ways, what the room sees as your wish ends up showing you your true self."
"That's interesting," Michael says. "So, if you enter this room intending to wish that a sick loved one be healed, but the room sees that your true desire is to win the lottery…"
"Then you win the lottery and your sick loved one stays sick," Max says. "In fact, in the movie, our Stalker tells the story of another Stalker, his mentor—
"And Stalkers aren't supposed to enter the room themselves. Their goal is to only help others get to the room." Annie says.
"Right, but this other Stalker, our Stalker's mentor, did enter the room, and, when he got home from the zone, he started to become very wealthy. And to know that his deepest desire was to be rich was so utterly depressing that he took his own life."
"Okay, let's talk about something else," Annie says, looking over at Holly. This was all she needed now was for people to start talking about suicide. That would really pick up the party.
Michael looks at Holly. Tim has reached out and squeezed her hand. Something deeper and more complicated than anger shoots through Michael at the sight of Tim's hand on hers. Holly sees Michael's reaction to Tim clutching her, and slowly moves her hand away from him. She looks back to Max, trying to pretend that she didn't see the hurt on Michael's face. But she won't forget it. It hurts her more than she expected to know that he's hurt.
And Michael can't pretend that his jealous reaction didn't scare him. He can't say that he's never known jealousy, but never like that. It's another emotion, of many emotions, that Holly has opened up in him, but not one he particularly enjoyed discovering.
"It is an interesting thought experiment, though," Max says. "What if a room like that really existed? What would it give you?"
"I'd like to believe that most people are good enough, and strong enough in character, that their deepest wishes wouldn't be so base or selfish," Eric says.
"I'd like to think that too, brother. But I don't."
"I don't see any reason to presume that people are so predictably superficial. That seems too simplistic, too cynical."
"Maybe so. But life teaches us hard lessons," Max says.
"I agree," Tim says. "I think people would hope to show their best selves with their wish. But our true selves aren't always our best selves, even if we hope they are. There's always going to be a divide between our idealistic self and our realistic self, our public self and our private self."
"Yeah, and I don't remember who said it exactly. It may've been Kerouac, but someone wrote that writers should strive to give voice to their unspeakable visions," Max says. "Maybe this idea applies to everyone, and we all have these unspeakable visions that we bury within ourselves."
"But you're operating on the presumption that these unspeakable visions are something that we feel shame about," Eric says.
"That's why their unspeakable."
"Why conclude that? Maybe we just can't articulate them yet? Unspeakable doesn't necessarily mean shameful."
"And isn't it also about context," Annie says. "It's not that the things we feel, or can't articulate, are selfish or dangerous or shameful, but that maybe they might simply be thoughts we keep to ourselves because they would do no good to share, might only be hurtful to those we share them with."
"Still, saying something could be hurtful presumes negativity," Eric says.
"But not objectively negative," Annie says. "Only in the context of a particular subject."
"So you're talking about keeping secrets?" Eric asks Annie.
"I suppose."
"But aren't secrets just an acceptable way of being dishonest about how you present yourself to the world?" Eric asks.
"How is that?" Annie asks. "Dishonesty through omission? Just because you keep your thoughts or feelings private, doesn't make them any less real. Someone, at least, even if only yourself, knows the truth, and no one is being lied to necessarily."
"Unless the lie is manifest," Eric says.
"Unless we enter the room," Max says.
"I just don't like what it says about who we are, or how it presumes ugliness in our private truths. I don't believe that's the case for most people," Eric says.
"But if we weren't ugly in some way, what would we have to aspire to?" Max says.
"That's a deeply cynical thought, Max," Eric says. "When did you become so cynical?"
"About ten years ago, I'd say."
"What happened ten years ago?" Wendy asks.
"Does anyone want seconds?" Annie says, stopping the flow of conversation.
"I'm fine," Tim says. "But everything was delicious."
"Yeah, everything was great," Wendy says.
Michael, Holly, and Annie's plates all look about the same as they did when they were first served.
"Is everything alright, Michael?" Annie asks.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I guess my appetite isn't quite what I thought it was, but I'm still working," he says, and dutifully eats a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
"Michael," Amy says, "Isn't there something like the room from Stalker in Judaism? I mean, not that it can see into your deepest desires or anything, but that it was a mystical place where God existed or something. Do I have that right?"
Michael furrows his brow for a minute, finishes chewing his potatoes. "I think you're talking about the Holy of Holies in the Temple. It was a small room at the back of the tabernacle, a ten cubit by ten cubit space separated from the rest of the tabernacle by a veil, where the presence of God—supposedly the literal presence of God—dwelled in the temple. Is that what you mean?"
"I think so."
"Yeah, I'd say it's different from the room in the movie for many reasons. First of all, no one other than the high priest was permitted to enter the room, and even he could only enter the room on Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement."
"What'd he do on Yom Kippur?" Wendy asks.
"Well, the room was supposed to contain—at least in the first temple of Jerusalem—the Ark of the Covenant. When they rebuilt the second temple, they still had a raised spot where the ark of the covenant used to sit, and on top of that was what was called the Divine Seat, and the High Priest would pour sacrificial blood over the divine seat."
"And the blood, the sacrifice, was to atone for the sins of the Israelites?"
"Right, or also, more generally, just a gift to God. You know, a please-have-mercy-on-us-and-we-are-your-dutiful-supplicants kind of thing."
"Don't those rituals seem so bizarre now?" Holly says.
"Right, except for the rituals that still go on and seem less bizarre only by our proximity to them," Michael says.
"Meaning?" Holly asks.
"Meaning that we can enter almost any present-day church, mosque, or synagogue in the country and still see rituals. And to see how commonplace rituals still are might make those particular rituals seem less strange than rituals that are relics to the past," Michael says. "In other words, animal sacrifice is made more strange by its distance in time, and by the fact that we wouldn't find it happening at any neighborhood church. Though, admittedly, partaking in the symbolic body and blood of Christ would be a downright absurd idea to a person completely unfamiliar to Catholicism. And, if that practice were abolished tomorrow by the Church, in a generation or two, it would seem just as absurd to those future Catholics as it might to outsiders now. And look at baptism. Tame as it may be as ritual, it's a very peculiar idea to believe that you can wash away your sins so simply. It's a very
rudimentary solution, a tradition based almost exclusively on metaphor, and yet millions of people truly believe it."
"But it gives them comfort. There's nothing wrong with that," Eric says.
"Right, and when religion is gone, what will bring people comfort?" Annie asks.
"But I'm not criticizing anyone," Michael says. "I'm just saying—"
"Are you both religious now?" Max asks.
"No, not particularly," Annie says. "But I can understand why someone would be."
"Sure, it's a compelling idea that one can pray away, or wash away their sins," Max says. "It's a convenient way for people to feel they're off the hook for their unspeakable thoughts or actions."
"Do you really believe that it makes people feel that they're off the hook?" Annie asks.
"For some people, I do. People have a way of rationalizing all the terrible, hurtful things they do or say."
As far as Annie's concerned, there's no question that just about everything Max is saying is directed at her and Eric. She only hopes that it's not as transparent to everyone else.
She looks at Eric and he seems to know it too. He looks annoyed but confused by Max's thinly veiled hostility. And he has every reason to be confused. There's so much that he doesn't know. So much that he never understood about Annie and Max. He's been confused by Max's anger since she and Eric were first engaged. And Annie certainly could've done a better job of taking the layers off their history for Eric, but things were tenuous enough in the beginning. She always thought there would come a day when things would be more certain, more comfortable, and she could tell him all about their relationship, and how