Damon said, “Can you tell me, now, why you’re not happy?”
What an admirably focused, one-track mind he had. Like me.
“Did I escape?” I asked.
“I don’t understand that question. And before you explain it to me, tell me everything I want to know. Why aren’t you happy?”
He was right, I would let him ask the questions, for now. I didn’t want to clutter this beautiful, precious, sacred moment with my own needs. Let the experience be stark and bare, composed mostly of his reactions and yearnings. I would sit back, observe, and relish.
“Oh, I’m very happy,” I answered.
“I don’t mean right now. I mean in general.”
“I’m actually very happy in general. The only slight blemish on my happiness was the knowledge of your existence.”
“That means I succeeded. It worked.”
“If I could go back in time,” I said, “I would not choose to go through what I went through with you.”
“Even if the result is success in your career and great happiness?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re happy now.”
“Idiot! You could have made me happy without kidnapping me. You could have helped me, encouraged me, offered to make me do all your acting exercises. I would have gone along with it.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” he said, turning the bathtub faucet on and then off, to check if it worked, I supposed. “I’m surprised you can’t see that. I was able to push you way beyond the levels you would have attained if we were friends.” He flushed the toilet, which worked too. “It worked because it was against your will.”
“It doesn’t matter. You had no right.”
As I got up to leave the room, he asked to be let out.
“No,” I said, “we haven’t finished conversing. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
I left, and my irritation was gone soon after. I tried to sleep, but couldn’t, because I was so happy. A few times I got up and looked at him through the one-way mirror. He was taking a bath. I was pleased in the same sort of way a cat owner whose cat is using the new scratching post the first day it was bought is pleased.
Early in the morning, I opened the door quietly. Damon was sleeping. In a soft singsongy voice I said, “Hello Damon.”
He rose, and stared at me through the bars of his cell. His hair was sticking up.
I sat on the lounge chair and beamed.
“You do look happy,” he said.
“Yes, I’m so happy. You have succeeded, like you said.”
We chatted. He asked about my life since my return to it. I told him everything; about the parts I got, the people I worked with, how easy it had been to find an agent, how shocked I was when I was offered practically every role I auditioned for. We laughed over this, and he looked moved, with tears in his eyes.
“I’m so happy Anna. I’m happy that it’s worked out so well. And thank you for being so generous in sharing it with me.”
“I hope you’ll be as generous in answering my own questions.”
“Absolutely. Shoot.”
“No. I’m still digesting the present. I’ll save them up for later.”
At about noon, he started getting antsy, I could tell. I assumed he was anxious to get out. But it was something else.
At 12:30 P.M. he said, “I need a TV.”
I found this interesting. “Is that so?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say why.”
“But you must say why. Or no TV.”
“It’s very important. I need a TV,” he said, clutching onto two bars.
“So that you can build an escape device out of it?”
“No. There is something on TV that I must watch. It’s extremely important.”
“What is it?”
“It doesn’t matter what it is.”
“Yes it does. Some programs are not suitable for criminals.”
He looked at me earnestly.
“At what time is your program?” I asked.
“One-thirty.”
The words rang a bell. One-thirty was the time when he used to disappear every day for half an hour and come back having cried. Could TV-watching be what had been going on in the unfilmed room?
I fetched the TV Guide from my night table and came back flipping through its pages. Among all the shows playing at 1:30, I was stumped as to which one Damon could be interested in. Laughing, I read the selections out loud to him, glancing up at him reproachfully after each title: “Harry and the Hendersons, Stories of the Highway Patrol, Papa Beaver Stories, The Bold and the Beautiful, Gourmet Cooking, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, The Look, etc.”
Perhaps it was one of the children’s shows, which, come to think of it, would fit well with the eccentric, childlike side of his personality.
“Which one is it?” I asked.
“Will you get me a TV?”
“We can’t let you miss one of these shows.”
“Will you get me one,” he whispered sadly, which piqued my curiosity even more.
“Why not.” I went into the other room and unplugged my TV. I carried it into his room and placed it on a little table, facing his cage.
“Could I have some privacy now?” he said.
“I want to watch TV too. It’s my only TV.”
“Please, could I have some privacy?”
“Did you give me sugar when I wanted it?”
He didn’t answer.
“Therefore,” I said, “I think I’ll be watching TV at one-thirty.”
At 1:25 P.M. I told him, “Okay, it’s almost one-thirty. What channel do you want?”
After a long sullen pause, he murmured, “Two.”
I switched on channel two and looked in the TV Guide.
I screeched. “The Bold and the Beautiful?”
He sat, stone-faced, staring at the set.
We watched the soap opera, and he cried. I could tell he was trying to restrain himself, but tears rolled down his cheeks anyway. I handed him a box of tissues, which he did not touch.
Why he was crying was beyond me. The show was not sad. Even though I hadn’t seen previous episodes, I was pretty sure I wasn’t missing some deep level of sadness. The actors were appropriately beautiful (their boldness was less apparent), and they had names like Ridge, Brooke, Thorn, Sally Spectra. There was also a beautiful legless character in a wheelchair, called Stem.
“Why did you cry?” I asked afterward.
He didn’t answer.
“I didn’t cry,” I said. “And I’m sure I’m not less sensitive than you.”
He was silent.
“If I wanted to treat you the way you treated me, I would now torture you until you told me why you cried. But dammit, I don’t have an ice gun. I guess I could get ice cubes out of the freezer and throw them at you until you cave in.”
He still didn’t tell me why he cried.
I went for a walk that afternoon. I was eager to experience the sensation of being out walking, while having someone locked in a cage in my apartment.
And I wasn’t disappointed. It was a great, rewarding feeling.
I stopped by a gourmet store and bought caviar and smoked salmon and unpasteurized Camembert and two baguettes. Then I bought champagne and went home.
I looked at Damon through the one-way mirror. He was sitting in bed with his chin in his palm. I felt bad. I went in there cheerfully and said, “I bought a good dinner to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“Your captivity.”
While we were eating, he said, “I hope you don’t eat things like this all the time, or it won’t be long before …” and he raised his eyebrows meaningfully, not bothering to finish his sentence.
“Why did you leave your finger behind, after I chopped it off? Why didn’t you take it with you and try to get it sewn back on?”