“I’m not asking that. If something happens we’ll investigate and that’ll be it. You really don’t want me in your life, Mister Cyrus. But if I have to be in your life, you want me in and out as quick as possible.” He studied Ariel’s picture and made a noise akin to his sigh of satisfaction. He dropped the book into the briefcase, snapped it shut.
“Aren’t you going to warn me not to tell anyone about this?” I asked as he stood.
“Oh, right. I forgot.” He gave me a cheerful wink. “Don’t you breathe a word now, y’hear?”
WHEN SHE RETURNED to our hotel that night, Ariel was exhilarated by the reception she had received from her fans, and she insisted we do something special on our last night. She washed up, put on a fresh outfit, and we went spiraling off into the city; dinner at a four-star Vietnamese restaurant, Brazilian music at SOBs, cocktails at the Vanguard while listening to the Dave Douglas Quintet, then more drinks at a trendy Dumbo bar which had no name and catered to people uniformly possessed of a disaffected personal style that caused them to seem citizens of a different universe from the one we inhabited. Several times I thought to tell her about Siskin, but I didn’t want to wreck the evening. She was exuberant as never before. Radiating confidence and joy. Back at the hotel, a little drunk but not sleepy, we made love into the small hours and during a lull, as we lay side by side, she kissed my neck and said, “I can’t believe it…I feel so clear!”
I pulled her atop me and entered her. She moved with me for a few seconds, then rested her head on my shoulder and said, “It’s like I’ve escaped and come home!”
“Should I be distressed about you editorializing while we fuck?” I asked. “It suggests a certain distance.”
She ground her hips against me. “You shouldn’t be distressed about anything. You’re most of what I’m feeling.”
Later, as we drifted toward sleep, instead of turning away and tucking up her knees as was her habit, she flung an arm across my chest, pressing herself into me. And on the return flight to California she held my hand and talked about traveling to Europe, to Asia. She mentioned children, a topic we had never discussed. Back at the cabin we took to staying in bed until noon and regularly went into Arcata for dinners and movies. Like a normal couple on a rustic honeymoon. Things were so good they scared me. It was like living inside a crystal sphere, charmed by the delicate musical vibrations that chimed around you, knowing all the while they signaled a terrible fragility. Yet accompanying this was a sense of enchantment, of a precious, magical time that demanded everything of me, and I surrendered to it, foregoing all thoughts of security, yielding up my fears, basking in the light we made together. Those gaps created by our awareness of one another’s differences melted away—we were joined seamlessly, two puzzle pieces that had been interlocked for so long, their substances had merged. I could a write a book about those days that no one except me would want to read, because there would be no conflict, no arc of character or plot, no dramatic pace or thematic consummation. It was peace. It was love. It was a child’s dream in its playfulness and beauty, crisp mornings and cool deep nights fencing golden afternoons. Nothing disrupted it. Phone calls, business, tedious chores, a broken appliance—these things were elements of the dream, opportunities for interaction and not annoyances. I had traveled a long road from obsession to love, and now it seemed I had traveled an even longer road in an instant, a road that led from love to shared exaltation, a state of vital calm that had in it no tinge of boredom or commonality. I was alive in Ariel and she in me.
There came an evening when I drove to the general store some ten minutes away along a winding blacktop to buy some fuses, and when it was time to pay I discovered I had misplaced my wallet. I called Ariel on my cell and asked her if I had left it at home. She did a search and returned to the phone, saying she had found it. Her voice was strained and I asked if anything was wrong.
“Are you coming straight back?” she asked.
“Yeah…what’s the matter?”
“Just get back here,” she said, using a peremptory tone that I had not heard from her for months.
Dusk had fallen by the time I returned. Ariel was waiting outside the door, her arms folded, her face gleaming in the half-light. I parked the car and as I walked toward her she did not change her pose, staring off into the trees, her expression stony. Before I could speak she thrust something at me. A business card, the one Siskin had given me in New York—it had been loose in my wallet.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t…”
“You bastard!” She sailed the card at me. “I can’t trust any of you!”
“What the hell’s going on?” I picked the card up, unsure how to spin things, not knowing how much she knew.
“Don’t play games! I’m…oh, God! You make me sick!”
“Christ, Ariel! I’m sorry! It was just this guy in New York. He was the guy with—”
“Just this guy? Fuck you! Do you think I’m a fool?”
She stalked away and I followed. “The guy who was with Paul Capuano when he showed me the video. I hadn’t seen him since then. I meant to tell you, but that was our last night in New York. You remember how that was.”
“Give me your phone.”
Baffled, I fumbled in my jacket pocket. “Who’re you gonna call?”
“Just give it to me!”
She held the phone so I could see her punch the buttons and dialed the number written on the card, omitting the area code. “Two,” she said. “That’s A. Five. That’s K. Four. That’s H. Four again. That’s I. Do you see it? Eight. That’s T. Two. Another A. Four. I.”
I had spelled the word out before she finished.
Akhitai.
“Maybe it’s just…” I let the sentence trail off.
“What? A coincidence?” She snatched the card from me and pointed at the tiny symbol printed in the corner. “What did you think this was?”
“The ‘at’ sign,” I told her. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all. I…Jesus! I couldn’t…You were so happy, I didn’t want to alarm you.”
“Well, I’m alarmed, okay? I’m extremely alarmed.” She crumpled the card and tossed it. “I don’t believe you. No one could be that stupid.” She put her hands to her head and said, “God! It’s always the same…” She fell back a step and glared at me bitterly. “You asshole!”
“Ariel…” I reached out to her and she swung the cell phone, striking me hard on my temple. I stumbled sideways a step or two.
“Keep away from me!” She shouted this with such force, it bent her nearly double, then threw the phone at me, hitting me in the chest. “Go away! Get out of here! Go!”
I tried to explain myself again, but she wouldn’t hear me. She ran into the cabin, slammed the door. I heard the bolt slide shut. Dazed, I went to the door and called to her, but she refused to answer. I began to explain what had happened with Siskin. Loud music issued from behind the door, drowning me out. I pounded on the door, shouting her name. One of the windows was flung open; the barrel of our tranquilizer rifle protruded. She screamed at me, telling me to leave. I was so thoroughly stunned, unable to process what was going on, the rifle seemed like a joke. A bad one, but funny nonetheless. Why would she shoot? She knew she had nothing to fear from me. I moved toward the window, telling her to turn down the music so we could talk. The dart struck my right chest below my collarbone. I reeled backward, already feeling the effects. The dose each dart contained was designed to drop someone much bigger and stronger than myself, and as I staggered away from the cabin, trying for the car, I wondered if Ariel had killed me. My eyelids drooped. I felt nauseated and weak. I sank to my knees. There was a roaring in my ears that drowned out the music. A hot pressure on my skin. My field of vision shrank to a tunnel rimmed by fluttering black edges, a dwindling telescopic view, and I had a sense of slippage, as if I were sliding away inside myself, unable to grab hold of my thoughts, but trying to grab onto something. I remembered a phrase in an old blues song: “feeling funny in my mind…” For no reason I could fathom, it sparked a confidence that I would be all right and I lapsed into unconsciousness with a feeling of relief.