Comfort Room - Or The Seven Dreams of Frank Diggory

Comfort Room

‘I really like this place. It’s great, you know. I can get all the food I like. The temperature is just right. I like my job. I have a great life. But something is just missing, you know. It’s just a little bit empty. Like a dream when one day I will wake up.’

Frank was lying on Doctor Bedi’s couch, in her Spanish colonial surgery in downtown Panama City.

His life was great now. He was assigned to the Panamanian police, serving mostly on cases involving expats. He took great delight in chasing them across the colonial boulevards and lanes of the city in his small police car or on an electric bicycle.

He also had an undercover role as a tour guide, taking tourists – mostly overweight American in exaggerated Panama hats, and Asian tourists, who seemed to photograph just about everything they saw, as soon as they had disembarked from their cruise ship  – around the main attractions of this splendid city. It helped him to see if any of them would maybe commit an indiscretion.

But mostly they just wanted to see and photograph one thing.

‘And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the Panama Canal.’ he would tell them.

‘The Panama Canal.’

‘The Panama Canal.’

‘The Panama Canal.’

‘It’s warm and long and wet and full of stuff we want. Guess what it is?’

Frank had also found a little Filipino-run cafe not far from his apartment. They mostly sold local food, but made a little off-menu arrangement with them to have whatever they were having for breakfast – charging it, of course, to his Operation Barium account, since he was still in witness protection.

He was there every morning, at the same time, for breakfast.

Every day, he woke up to his alarm tone, which was Fairground Attraction's ‘Perfect’.

He provided the little cafe with a playlist of British music to play when he was there on his own – for an extra charge. But they didn’t use it when other people were around. They wanted to keep the customers they already had.

But his life was still not perfect.

Something was still missing.

He still did not feel like himself. And certainly not like Adam Virgule-Deux.

‘Emotionally, I am not in the same place as you.’ Doctor Bedi told him. ‘This place is beautiful. The food is delicious. My life is great. And I have met this guy – Juan, my personal trainer – who does things for me no man has ever done.’

Frank waved his hands at her. ‘Too much information.’ he protested.

‘Fitness-wise.’ Doctor Bedi clarified quickly, before adding, ‘But don’t tell my husband. Or his lawyer. Especially not his lawyer.’

‘But what about my problem, Doctor Bedi?’ Frank asked her.

‘Juan will not help you with that. He’s not that type of man. Not that there would be anything wrong...’

‘But you could, Doctor Bedi.’ Frank insisted.

‘Okay, I’ll try. But I am paid whatever happens to you.’ Doctor Bedi told him, in her typical disinterested and thoroughly unaffected Indian tones. ‘The way I see it, you have played a number of roles throughout your life. And now you have reached the point in your life where you no longer know who you really are. Maybe what you need to do is ask yourself when you felt most comfortable, most at home, most like you.’

‘Wow! That’s really insightful, Doctor Bedi!’ Frank exclaimed.

‘You sound surprised. You should know me by now.’ Doctor Bedi retorted.