“Your legs are very beautiful, Elsa,” I tell her quite sincerely. “They were the first thing I seriously took notice of in this new life.”
“Ah, come on,” she says, embarrassed a bit, but I can see she is secretly pleased. “Well, as a matter of fact, you aren’t so bad yourself; you have nice shoulders and a strong forehead, and cheekbones… None of my men were like you – that is, none of the ones I can remember. I didn’t have many men, to tell the truth – mostly because of that T-shirt.
“The thing is,” Elsa continues, threading her needle, “I wanted to go to heaven very much. I like to take care of everything in advance – and here suddenly I saw a direct path! For some reason, I believed that slogan more than all the pastors and bibles put together. I always did what my sister used to tell me, and maybe this is the whole point – although she herself had no hope of redemption. She slept around, smoked grass and even broke the law – can you imagine it? She used to drive a car with a fake driver’s license, buy booze and hang out in bars while still underage…”
Elsa grins, shakes her head and says, “As for me, I became a really good girl. I was always taught if you want to get something you need to work hard; gifts need to be earned. And this case was so crystal clear – naturally, I began to try my best! I tried almost my whole life – with some exceptions, of course. But exceptions only prove the rule… Could you turn up the light please? It’s beginning to get dark, I think.”
I run my fingers along the panel in the center of the dining table – it’s the same as the one in my bedroom. The room is filled with soft light pouring from the ceiling. I change the shade slightly, return to the sofa and sit down next to Elsa again. As usual, she shies away from me, although it hadn’t even occurred to me to touch her. Today, she does not smell of juniper. Her scent is an expensive perfume – something very adult and slightly bitter.
“Being a good girl is quite difficult,” Elsa admits, without looking up. “But it’s doable – and I made a success of it I guess. At least, I pretty quickly became a social outcast. I stayed away from guys, and I didn’t smoke – neither grass nor even ordinary cigarettes; my idea of goodness was quite conservative. I tried never to lie and often went to church – I still remember a few of the prayers. Though, of course, I dreamed – like every girl – of becoming a cheerleader, wearing short skirts and looking stunning, so that boys, and even older men, might chase after me. But the dreams were easy to cope with.”
She thinks about something, smiles at her thoughts and turns to me, “Just imagine, despite all this, I still lost my virginity very early. I just wanted to give it a try – and I liked it, but after that, I didn’t sleep with a man for years. I set my sights very high and did not let anyone inside, either literally or figuratively. It didn’t make sense spending time getting to know someone, worrying and suffering, when I was quite capable of doing everything myself… I only had my first real boyfriend when I was twenty-three. And he didn’t last long, only a few months – and he managed to annoy me no end. When we split up, I got drunk on whiskey for the first time – even good girls have to have a break every now and then!”
I laugh and so does Elsa. “And thus,” she continues, “it went on. Eventually, I found myself with no real friends; they were all bored of me. As for my admirers, one by one, they turned out to be complete bastards – I began to think I would never get married. Although I realized I needed a family to be happy, maybe even children – or, if that was too much, then at least a steady partner by my side. I knew what sort of man I wanted; I even made a list of the mandatory traits he would require. Yet I succumbed to weakness and started to date a man who didn’t have them all. He was only missing a couple, but that proved to be enough: soon he had run off with a waitress from a nightclub. However, it was all for the best – after that, I burned my list and became a lot more sociable. I began to change my lovers regularly – some were even quite good.”
“And what about your sister?” I ask, looking at her fingers. They are agile, graceful, and have a life of their own. “By the way, do you ever want sex here?” I add out of the blue.
“Sex isn’t on my mind,” Elsa responds nonchalantly. “There are lots of other things to reflect on here. And I fell out with my sister – forever. I snitched on a friend of hers who was carrying cocaine to the police. I assumed this was what any good girl would do. Nancy never forgave me – also, it was just at that time I went off to England to continue my studies. And the very first thing I saw at Heathrow airport was a T-shirt with the slogan: Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to London! This threw me – and I suddenly began to have doubts about the whole notion. After that, I was no longer able to believe my sister.”
She leans back into the couch and looks at the wall clock. It reads half past four – I’m surprised how quickly the time passes here.
“Soon it will be time to see Nestor,” my roommate says, “and then a dream of his or my choosing…”
We don’t talk about anything else after that. Elsa carries on with her fine stitching, head down and smiling at something, and I just sit there, furtively glancing at her profile. I sit and wonder for the umpteenth time – who she really is, what role she is meant to play. And how much can I really trust her?
Chapter 5
Nestor greets me with a curt nod. He is cheerful and businesslike; he emanates enthusiasm and confidence. He is wearing a cream-colored shirt and a thin tie and looks like a TV show host.
“So,” he says, “where were we this morning…” But I interrupt him with a decisive gesture. My counselor falls silent in surprise.
“Just a minute,” I ask, “first I would like to clarify something, otherwise my brain will simply refuse to function. Like, for example, why am I in Quarantine? Sick people are usually sent to quarantine – does that mean we’ve contracted something? And also, there’s my roommate – neither death nor her new life seem to interest her. She just sits on her own, embroidering away… She simply doesn’t care! I don’t understand who she is – a woman, a phantom, or an illusion like the plates dissolving into the kitchen wall? A dream from my reasoning mind or the product of my drug-induced ravings? I need to know; I can’t keep stumbling about in the dark like this!”
Nestor looks displeased, “I wasn’t expecting this of you. We are trying to discuss serious matters, and here you are stamping your feet and insisting that we distract ourselves with these silly trifles!” He shakes his head and sighs, “All right, I’ll explain. Are you sick? In a certain sense, yes. You suffer from an acutely unstable way of perceiving yourself, the world and your place in it – can that be considered healthy? The question isn’t whether it is contagious or not – society just doesn’t want to live with people who are utterly bewildered, whose criteria and guidelines are blurred. People who lack understanding – and therefore acceptance – who add to confusion and disorder… We need to ensure your perception returns to normal, and you have to work to make that happen. You must recall, correlate and apprehend – what the role of everything is. The role and the place – of you, me, Quarantine and of our lives.”
“Interesting,” I mutter. “An acutely unstable sense of perception… And is my ‘cure’ guaranteed?”
“Guaranteed? Pretty much so,” Nestor grins. “In one form or another, so to speak. Sometimes radical ‘treatment’ is required that involves subjecting the memory to certain corrections. All sorts of things happen – for example, there are maniacs and murderers who enjoy the process… But this doesn’t apply to you; there are no red flags to that effect in your file. Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you are such an important person…”