While I was visiting Nathaniel one day, he asked, while ironing his laundry, how I’d been, if things were still going well with Damon: “He hasn’t tried to kill you recently, has he?”
“Sometimes he does, or at least he’s tempted to, but as we’re both aware of the problem, it’s under control. It makes a big difference when you have good communication; you know, when the channels are open.”
“Yeah, that’s true. You know, there’s something I want to tell you,” he said, moving the iron carefully over the sleeve of his blue shirt.
“What?”
He sighed and, without looking at me, said, “I care a lot about you.”
“I care about you too.”
“I want you to know that I care a lot about you, and I love you, and I think you’re an extraordinary person. You are so wonderful, and I never want you to think that you did anything wrong or that anything is your fault, but most of all, as I said, I never want you to think that I don’t care about you tremendously, no matter what I do, no matter what happens.”
At that point Nathaniel started to cry over his blue shirt. He placed the iron aside. I went over to him and put my arm around him and tried to comfort him.
“Please don’t,” he said. “You’re making me feel worse.”
I stopped.
“I didn’t think this would happen,” he said, “that I would cry. I am moved by my own speech. Something, you see, is making me sad.”
“What’s making you sad? What?” I felt dishonest for asking, because I was sure I knew: he was just heartbroken that I was in love with Damon and not with him. I finally suggested this idea.
“No, it’s not that exactly,” he said. “I can’t tell you quite yet. I want to compose myself.”
He tried to stop crying by closing his eyes and repeating to himself, “Think of Santa Claus, think of Santa Claus.”
The phone rang.
He picked up the receiver and, still crying, said into it: “Etiquette hot line.”
He listened for a moment and said, “No, you can’t dunk. Dunking is not good table manners. You’re welcome.”
He hung up. He breathed deeply and looked more composed.
“Can you tell me now?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t being too pushy, especially now that he had recovered and might feel more embarrassed by his display of grief.
But to my surprise he answered, “Yes, I can tell you now.”
I did not spend a comfortable night tied up on Nathaniel’s couch. Nathaniel demonstrated the procedure of how he was going to kill me, on himself, putting a plastic bag over his head the way a stewardess demonstrates how to don an oxygen mask. He was of the opinion that familiarizing me with details such as the fact that I would die within half an hour or an hour of the bag being closed around my neck, and that my head might feel stuffy during that time, would make me less anxious during the death experience; in short, according to him, my knowing what to expect would make dying less stressful for me.
He said he regretted I would not have the opportunity to live the rest of my exciting and promising life, but that he had planned this for so long, even before my life looked promising.
When I asked him for some explanation as to why he wanted to kill me, he said it was because he didn’t like his jobs. When I asked him since when had he not liked his jobs, he said since always. When I remarked that he had never told me this, and that I had gotten the impression he had liked them, he said: “How is that possible? You know me. Do I strike you as stupid or boring?”
“No.”
“Then how could you think I would enjoy being an etiquette expert, or a Weight Watchers’ counselor, or a stripper? How could you think that someone like me, with my mind, my character, would derive any satisfaction from those things?”
“Then why do you do them?”
“Because I’m not able to perform my true profession.”
“What is your true profession?”
“Plastic surgery. Please don’t look too surprised, or you’ll hurt my feelings.”
I was silent.
“You’re thinking about something,” remarked Nathaniel.
“Damon’s brother was a plastic surgeon.”
“I know him.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I’m Ben,” he said.
“It’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because you and I met by chance, in the park, when I was being attacked and you saved me. It would be too much of a coincidence if you turned out to be the enemy of the man I saved two weeks before you saved me.”
“Yes, it would be too much of a coincidence. That doesn’t mean I’m not Ben. It just means it’s not a coincidence. I wanted to meet you, so I arranged your attack.”
“Why?”
“Revenge. Against Damon. I have let this simmer, held back, until the perfect moment; the moment in your relationship with him when the feelings have had enough time to grow very strong, but not enough time to settle into boredom or mere contentment. It seems, however, that I may have waited too long. You tell me he tries to kill you? I mean, it sounds like he’s losing his mind. Or you are. I hope it’s you. But if it’s him, how is a man supposed to get revenge on an insane mind?”
I said, “So all this time, when you pretended to be my friend, and even to love me, you actually didn’t care at all.”
He kneeled next to the couch, on which I was lying with my hands tied behind my back, and hugged me. “Goodness, Anna, that’s not true! That’s why I prefaced all this by telling you how much I cared about you. Don’t you remember my preface? It was lengthy. I did love you and still do. More than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.”
“And yet you want to kill me?” A tear rolled into my ear.
He wiped my eyes and nose with a tissue, and said, “Despite the strength of my love for you, my desire for revenge is stronger. My life has been destroyed by Damon, and yet his life has not been destroyed by me. I can’t let that rest.”
“But you have destroyed his life.”
“Not as much as he destroyed mine. Or at least not as directly, or as intentionally. I know he’s the one who wrote that anonymous letter. Not his brother.”
“How do you know?”
“From an article I read in Soap Opera magazine on Philip’s life. I’m sure Damon and Philip feared I might come across it. Damon has not only ruined my career, but also my chance at finding love. My plan was to find a beautiful woman and improve her face; alter it in certain ways that would enable me to love her. But then, thanks to Damon, I was no longer allowed to perform plastic surgery. I did try to fulfill my dream anyway, when I met Chriskate, by having another surgeon operate on her, following my specifications. But as you know, the results didn’t stir strong enough feelings in me. I had sent her to a doctor whose work I had followed and approved of. He and I didn’t know each other, but we had a similar style and technique. As I later discovered, he only lacked the vision, the imagination. The work he did on her was good. It was commercial. It was trashy, commercial surgery. It had mass appeal, as was proven by her stellar rise to fame. But it was a little too easy, a little too accessible and light for my taste. I needed more depth and layers within her beauty.”
When he had finished his story, Nathaniel asked me if there were any letters I wanted to write to anyone before I died. I tried the usual tactics to make him change his mind: threats, intimidation, begging, pleading, psychological tricks, lying, acting, wise arguments, reproaches, etc.