And then I got an offer to star in a medium-budget romantic comedy. I turned it down for two reasons: I wanted to finish relishing in peace the release of my first movies, but mostly, I was having nightmares about Damon and I wanted to take it easy for a while. I needed to recuperate from my last encounter with him.
The seeds of the idea for my plan wafted through my mind, but I still didn’t pay much attention to them.
Until it happened again. A week or two had passed, and I was just starting to recuperate, to feel stronger, when the car slowed down next to me and he asked me once more if I was happy. But then another car honked behind him, and another, and he drove away without getting an answer. There still was masking tape over his license plate. I had a relapse. I could feel it right then and there, before his car had even disappeared from view. It was dark and heavy and sickening, this relapse, and I turned around and walked home staring at the pavement, my eyes unfocused, and my beard still in my bag, not to be used that day to watch my imitation Jane Austen movie for the fifteenth time.
When I got home I had an excited message on my machine from my agent, informing me of an offer from a major director, to star in a huge-budget movie and get paid a huge amount of money that no actor with as little experience as I had ever been paid. As I sat on my bathroom floor listening to the message again, all things came together at once in my mind; all things that mattered — and two things did — became clear: I would accept the offer, and I would go ahead with my plan. The latter had developed in my brain on my way home, so I already knew more or less what had to be done.
I hired workmen to make some changes in my apartment.
I began taking many leisurely walks in the streets.
Finally, it happened again. The car came, slowed next to me.
“Are you happy?” said Damon.
I didn’t look for a policeman. And I didn’t answer. I just looked sad. Fortunately, I was not wearing my beard, or it might have gotten in the way of looking sad. And then, with the skills Damon had taught me, I made my eyes moist.
“Are you happy?” he asked again, with more concern.
I continued looking at him sadly and started walking away.
“Wait!” he said.
I stopped.
“Please come back.”
Trying to look reluctant, I slowly went back to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I shrugged, shook my head, looked choked, and softly said, “Nothing.”
“Tell me. Is it that you want me to be arrested?”
I looked at him and didn’t answer.
“If that’s what’s making you unhappy, I’ll turn myself in to that traffic cop right there, right now.”
I couldn’t suppress a small smile. His offer was tempting. But my plan was better.
I sighed and closed my eyes and gave him a long, devastated look before walking away.
“Anna! Wait!” he said, and partially came out of his car. “Come back Anna!”
But I didn’t go back. I walked away, my head hanging.
I left my window open at night. And I lingered on the balcony before going to bed. My apartment was on the second floor, and there was a fire escape.
It didn’t take long.
The following night he came.
I was lying in bed as he entered through the window. I was still afraid of him. It may sound silly, but what I was afraid of, was of being kidnapped again.
As he wiped off his translucent white pants, which had gotten dirty from the windowsill, he said, “I know that this is probably a trap and that you’ll either kill me or have me arrested.” He struck me as funny just then, and I had trouble not laughing. He added, “But I want to know why you seemed so unhappy.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said, leaning on one elbow in bed. “It’s no use.”
“You must tell me. Please.”
I acted hesitant, and then put on my bathrobe. “Okay, we can talk.” I shuffled into the next room, motioning for him to follow. He did. I turned on a small light.
He did not pay particular attention to the eight- by eight-foot, cloth-covered cube in the middle of the room.
“Sit down if you want,” I said, pointing to a couch against the wall. “I’ll get something to drink.”
But before I left the room, he said, “So this is the moment when you signal the police that I’m here?”
“Hardly,” I said, but I said it with a smile because I was an inch from the doorway, which I went through the next instant and slammed the door, which locked automatically, and that was that.
That was that. But that was not all.
I opened a fake closet in the wall that divided our two rooms, propped myself up on my captain’s stool, and looked at him through the one-way mirror.
He was at the door, trying to open it. Then he went to the window, which faced the building across the street and which was soundproof, bulletproof, one-way, and locked. He tried to open it.
The whole room he was in was soundproof. Therefore, on my navigation board, or my panel of commands, I switched on the two-way microphone and spoke into it: “Take the cover off that big square thing there.”
He pulled off the cover, looking a lot like those men in commercials who pull sheets off new cars.
Underneath the cloth was a brand new cage with all the necessary accommodations: bed, bath, and toilet.
It took a bit of work to convince him to go into the cage, requiring me to say things like: “You are in a cage already. The room you’re in is a cage. I just want you to go into a smaller cage. No big deal. And life is a cage anyway. Right? So what’s the difference.”
That didn’t do it. So I added, “I won’t release you until you go in the cage. And we can’t have our little conversation until you go in the cage. Due to our past, I can’t feel safe while talking to you unless you’re contained.”
It was the threat of no conversation that did it.
“But it’s just for the length of this conversation?” he stupidly asked, as he stepped in.
“Yes,” I answered, and slammed the door behind him with a simple press of a button on the control panel.
I hadn’t lied. A conversation can last a lifetime.
I switched off the two-way microphone and laughed like a villain, a wicked witch, a mad scientist, frightening myself a little in the process.
I was so happy it was indescribable.
I unlocked the door and went back in the room within which Damon was caged. I sat on a lounge chair, facing him.