“No, I mean literally I’ll die. Of starvation.”
“Don’t worry about it. Give me lots of wishes now. Quick, lots.” He snapped his fingers rapidly.
“I would like never to die, nor my family … Not to think too much. To be free of any obsessions. Always to see things in perspective. To live a full life and die a painless death (but only if my wish of never dying isn’t possible). To go to the moon—”
“Why?” he asked.
“So that I could be in a rocket.”
“Why?”
“To experience weightlessness.”
He smiled sadly, dreamily. “Don’t you think that’s a little far-fetched?”
“You didn’t say it couldn’t be far-fetched.”
“What else?”
“To be able to forget what I want, and that you, too, are able to forget what I want and forget about making me want things and forget about making me think of what I don’t know I want.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed and blew a bubble. “Your wishes are getting monotonous. Give me different ones.”
“To jump on a real trampoline. I’ve only jumped on the tiny ones in sporting goods stores.”
He looked at me, and I was afraid I had again gone too far in ridiculing his wishing session. I said, “I’m sorry, you don’t like that wish, right? I take it back.”
“Are you kidding? On a trampoline you could jog without the jiggle. There might still be some jiggle, but gentler jiggle. And none of the pounding. In addition to the bicycle, I’ll get you a trampoline. Now tell me more good wishes like that one.”
“I would like you to give me a beautiful antique sword.”
“What else?”
“Wait, aren’t you going to tell me it’s a brilliant idea because it’ll make me less homesick and help me concentrate more on your regimen?”
“No. Tell me more wishes.”
“I can’t think of any more.”
“Yes you can. Think!”
“That when I’m famous the press won’t hound me too much, and will let me have some privacy.”
“What else?”
“That’s it. I just can’t think of any more. I’m not good at this sort of thing.”
“This sort of thing? What sort of thing?”
“You know, things like wishing sessions.”
“Okay, we can stop for now, but we’ll have another session soon, so you should keep thinking of more wishes, and write them down.”
He handed me his pad of paper, on which he had not written down any of my wishes. He then dismantled his Bic pen, pulling out the flexible inner ink tube by its little writing tip. He handed me the tube with tip.
“Why only this?” I asked, the puny writing tool erect between my fingers like an uncooked spaghetti strand.
“If you can’t guess why I’m only giving you the pen’s vein, you’ll know when we watch the movie. I’m sure you’ll manage writing with it.”
We stretched out on my bed, his gun pointed in my direction, and started watching La Femme Nikita.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “It feels good to exercise, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t deign to answer.
The scene with the pen came early on. The heroine stabbed it in the hand of a policeman.
“Brava,” I muttered.
A few minutes later he said “Huh,” as if he had noticed something.
“What?” I said.
“It just occurred to me that if a Bic pen were alive, it would not feel pain. Bic pens are like insects. They’re invertebrates. Their skeletons are on the outside and they are soft inside. They would be classified as insects. Or perhaps mollusks. If Bic pens were alive, they, like all invertebrates, would not feel pain.”
I stared at him. “What useful knowledge. I’m sure it’ll come in handy in my life when I’m around a lot of live Bic pens. I’ll rest easier knowing they don’t feel pain. Especially considering all the harm I intend to inflict on them.”
After the movie, which I could tell I normally would have liked more than I did in the present circumstances, he took out of his bag some stapled pages, placed them on my bed, and said, “This is a scene I wrote that I want you to memorize tonight. We’ll act it out tomorrow.”
I didn’t answer. He left me for the night. I turned on the TV and waited for the news.
On the monitors, I saw Damon stretch in his bedroom for fifteen minutes. He was incredibly flexible.
The news came on. The story of my chase was not talked about until halfway through the broadcast. They revealed that the count was now up to thirteen: thirteen women had stepped forward claiming they were the pursued woman. In addition, there were reports, from all walks of life, that it was becoming fashionable to insinuate that one was the pursued woman. Even some men were doing it. An expert came on to talk about this phenomenon. His expert insight was that the chase had sparked the public’s imagination.
I turned off the TV, bitter.
I read the scene that Damon had left for me, and was appalled. It was about a couple, sitting in a restaurant, who see a movie star walk by, who happens to be me, Anna Graham (although it wasn’t my part). The woman in the couple (my part) becomes jealous of her boyfriend’s admiration for Anna Graham.
And I had to memorize this absurd, embarrassing scene. For a moment I considered not doing it, but the thought of having to pluck shards out of my body quickly put an end to that fantasy. The dialogue was indescribably ridiculous, memorably ridiculous, which was lucky, for it was easy to memorize, and the scene was not very long. In a short time, I knew the damn thing by heart and went to bed. I set the alarm clock for 6:30 A.M. Damon had told me he’d come in at eight.
I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but my muscles were so sore that I could barely move. And it wasn’t as if I had never worked out before, or never been in serious pain as a consequence. I had, but not like this. Nevertheless, I had to go to the bathroom, so made my way there, bearing the unbearable.
I held on to the counter to lower myself onto the toilet seat, because my leg muscles were in too much pain to support my weight.
On my way back to bed, when I glanced around the corner to see if everything was still the same, I saw a large vase of colorful roses just inside my cell. I limped over to them. On the monitor, Damon was sleeping. He must have quietly brought them in during the night. Near the vase on the floor was a small white card. With great difficulty and suffering I bent down and picked it up. On it was handwritten:
Dear Anna Graham,
I hope that these are not too unbearable.
I’m sorry to be giving them to you,
But with them will come more beauty.
Follow your name to understand me.
(5-letter word)
Yours,
Damon
At first I didn’t understand. Roses were not “unbearable.” At least not to most people.
Then I realized it was a puzzle. As if I didn’t have enough stress already.
It was a word game, an anagram, of the word roses, which I was supposed to figure out, and which I did. The answer was sores. I reread his note and it made a lot more sense now. It felt good to know he felt guilty about my aching body. Maybe tomorrow he would be more gentle with his exercises and with his shards. I went back to bed feeling less vulnerable, thinking my complaining had worked.
I ate the banana and yogurt he had left.
Chapter Nine
Again, I didn’t sleep that night. At 6:30 A.M. the alarm rang, and I started my escape plan.
First, I donned armor: I put on my jeans, wrapped a towel around each of my legs, and put on two pairs of sweatpants over them. I wore every top I had: two T-shirts, a turtleneck, and a sweater, after wrapping a hand towel around one arm and the bath mat around the other. I stuffed my pillow under my sweater to protect my torso. Finally, I wrapped a sheet around my head and face, leaving just my eyes uncovered, and a hole to breathe through.