I screamed when the knife went in between her shoulder blades. The pain ricocheted from her to all of us, amplified by the moodies; it spread in waves, ripples of pain breaking up the rows of marchers, stopping us dead in our tracks.
And then we saw the medics running to her, but it was too late, they couldn’t stop the bleeding, and we all felt the life draining out of her.
And Daphne collapsed on me and cried. She couldn’t stop. I held her, unable to take her sadness away because I was flooded, and everyone around us was crying and shouting, and one of the cops looked at me. He was pale, and I felt his fear. It was his first rally, and suddenly I understood that they had sent only rookie cops, inexperienced, and that there was no one to protect us. That we were on our own. Always on our own.
Tears were running down the corner of my burning, aching eyes. I turned around and buried my head under the pillow, keeping out all noise. It wasn’t my fault. None of us were at fault. It didn’t help. The pain was almost unbearable. I fell asleep crying.
6
A drilling noise crept into my dream, a soundtrack to the hallucinations about running away from blood-dripping knives and a cigarette falling to the ground and a face laughing at me with a toothless mouth.
I managed to open my eyes. The alarm clock on my phone was on its third grating cycle. I hit snooze. It was eight am, and I couldn’t find a reason to get out of bed. I tapped into Daphne. She was still sleeping. I could have borrowed a little more from her, but I felt that her sleep was already dissolving. She’d wake up if I dipped into her.
The alarm started screeching again. I cursed it and hit snooze. How did it get to be eight-thirty?
It shrilled again. Five minutes to nine. I rubbed my eyes and sat up straight, yawning. I felt the exhaustion in my joints, as if every ligament between my bones was made of rubber. I stretched. Another shrill. I picked up the phone to turn off the alarm clock once and for all. But it wasn’t the alarm clock this time. It was an unlisted number calling.
I stared at the screen. It was probably another sales rep peddling useless life insurance. Daphne told me that the damuses who worked for insurance agencies didn’t actually give them real information, only jumbled up the futures they saw so that competing agencies wouldn’t be able to poach clients. I knew they weren’t going to stop calling until I picked up and threatened them with a lawsuit.
“Yes?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Just so you know, this was my idea, not Lee’s.” It was Blaze. My heart skipped a beat, and settled. “He was against it, but I know you’re good at what you do. You were amazing at it in high school, and I’m sure that–”
I let out a loud yawn; Blaze stopped mid-sentence.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I pulled a double shift yesterday and I’m beat.”
“Should I call back later?”
I wanted to say yes, but I knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep. “It’s fine. What can I do you for?”
“We need a moodifier for a pretty simple gig. You said you’re a freelancer. If you have the time, we could really use your help.” He sounded, well, normal. As if we were just two acquaintances who’d been working together for years, as opposed to exes who hadn’t spoken to each other in a decade.
I rubbed my eyes. “How long will it take?”
“Four hours, maybe five.”
Rule of thumb said that clients could never really estimate how long a moodification job would take. If Blaze estimated it at five hours, it would take at least ten, if not fifteen.
“Let me check my schedule.” I lowered my phone and stared at the blank wall. My bank account would be grateful for the cash flow. My work portfolio would be grateful for another project. The downside would be working with Blaze, but I was a big boy and could handle it. I picked up the phone again and said, “I have an opening, but I’d need to see the job first to give you a more accurate time estimate.”
“Great,” Blaze replied. I could hear the smile in his voice. Just like old times, I returned it. We agreed to meet in an hour. His office was a thirty-minute ride from my house, requiring two buses, and I was still trying to push through the haze of sleep. I managed to drag myself to the bathroom, brush my teeth and shave. Daphne once told me that on the day I died I’d have a short beard. I’d been shaving every morning since.
I went into Daphne’s room, just to make sure she didn’t have to get up for work yet. There was a full bottle of sleeping pills on her bed-stand. I wasn’t worried. She knew exactly when she was going to die, and it wasn’t destined to be by sleeping pills. I trusted her not to try anything while we were sharing a house. She knew how much her death would devastate me. She saw it, and promised she would spare me the sight.
Thin rays filtered into the room through the half-open shutters. Her laptop was switched off, the heart sticker twinkling in the faint light. The day we moved in together, I had bought her a pack of three-hundred stickers, and she laughed and promised to use every last one of them. In return, she bought me the cheesiest poster she could find, and dared me to put it up.
Daphne was partially covered, her legs poking out of the blanket and her head buried under her pillow. There was a note next to the alarm clock: “First meeting at eleven, last at eight with the Canadians. Don’t wake me before ten.” I moved the pillow and stroked her hair.
“I’m going out,” I said quietly. “Don’t be afraid when you wake up. Everything’s OK. See you in the evening.”
Daphne didn’t budge. She was breathing slowly, the fog of her sleep dispersing with each breath, but still thick enough to hide her from me. When she woke she’d see what kind of present we were in, whether equilibrium had been restored, and she’d see that I was here, telling her everything was OK. She once explained to me how she could remember events that had taken place even when she hadn’t been there. She could rewind her present and see the divergences and currents that had led up to them.
I covered her legs, walked out of the house, and braced myself for the heat and humidity of mid-July. By the time I made it to the office building, my shirt was sticking to my back. I hoped my deodorant hadn’t completely worn off.
After walking through the inferno of summer, the lobby felt nice and cool. The guard glanced up at me. I responded with the customary half salute. He didn’t ask me for an ID, didn’t order me to stop, and didn’t even rifle through my bag. He just went back to the documents in his hand and ignored me. There wasn’t even a separate door painted white.
Lining both sides of the fourth floor corridor were cheap flowerpots containing musty soil and cigarette butts. A sign saying “ArtDot – Designing the Present” hung askew on one of the doors. It was colorful and slick as befit a graphic design company, and I assumed the crooked angle was deliberate.
The door opened into another long corridor, leading to more drab office rooms. Small signs with department names were fixed to the wall next to each door. The scent of sorcery emanated from the end of the corridor. I followed the trail to a cubicle with the sign “Accounting” hanging next to it, and peeked inside.
Blaze was sitting behind a green desk, typing into a light-blue laptop sporting the ArtDot logo. He was wearing a dress shirt similar to the one I had seen him in yesterday. His black hair spilled in curls over his forehead. He reached for the penholder, missed it, looked up and saw me. The smile that spread across his face struck me. I smiled back. Detaching myself from the wall I was leaning against, I stepped inside. Blaze held open his arms, but it was better not to hug him. He had once been the person closest to me. Too much time had passed.
I reached out for a handshake, and felt the swift, deep insult. He didn’t let it reflect in his expression. He just shook my hand and smiled, said he was glad I had come and led me to Lee’s office. Lee was sitting in the opposite cubicle, behind a “Quality Control” sign. His desk was an exact replica of Blaze’s, but in his penholder there were also two peacock feathers. He was typing and staring at the computer screen with
such concentration, I wondered whether he was on any meds. I didn’t know a single person who was able to focus on texts like that. On the wall behind him hung a crayon drawing of stick figures floating in a star-studded sky, inscribed in childish handwriting to Uncel Li.
Blaze cleared his throat. “Got a minute?”
Lee looked up from the screen and sent me a small warm ball.
“I didn’t know you had nephews,” I said, pointing at the drawing.
“A gift from the neighbors’ daughter.” There was a softness to his smile. He bent under the desk and resurfaced with a stack of books. Five proof copies.
“These are children’s books. They require very little emotion,” he said, furrowing his brow. “The last moodifier made a complete mess of it.”
I leaned in and opened the first book to a random page. A wave of nausea hit me. I pushed it out and moved onto the next page, which flooded me with anxiety. I closed the book with a thud. “They’re all like that?”
Blaze nodded. “Can you do it?” he asked, exuding tension. I wondered what exactly he had told Lee about me before he called to offer me the job. “We have the author’s notes, should you need them.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. “I can give the first one a go, and if it’s too complicated you’ll have enough time to find another moodifier.” Moodification was tricky enough without having to deal with the emotions already incorporated into the page by another moodifier. I had to read the text closely, had to parse the author’s intention and add my own interpretation. Then I had to weave the emotions into the print itself, amplifying the reader’s experience while remaining loyal to the original story, rather than emotionally bombarding the reader to the point of rendering the story irrelevant.
“Let’s go for it,” Lee said and turned to Blaze. “Please draft a standard contract, and this time no bonuses we can’t pay.” His walls were too high for me to read him. Blaze’s reaction was filled with shame. I wondered who Blaze had promised all those bonuses to.
Lee set me up at a small desk and asked to watch me work on the first book. I got the feeling that he wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. Maybe he didn’t trust Blaze’s recommendation. As he sat down beside me, all I could sense from him was a small trail of curiosity. I blocked him so I could concentrate.
The first page was full of dread. I dismantled it slowly, making sure to start from the edge and work my way up the page. The previous moodifier had inserted the emotion into the paper with a long spiral, and I had to unravel it throughout. At least I didn’t have to look for a capacitor. Emotions trapped in paper dissipated by themselves when you unraveled them.
When I was done, the page was devoid of emotion, nothing but a drawing of a girl holding a toy tractor and a boy peering at her from the corner.
I looked up. Lee was as focused on me as he had been on his computer screen earlier.
I didn’t know exactly how much he knew about moodification. “I have to unravel the old emotions before I can weave in new ones.”
“Is it OK if I continue to watch?”
“Sure.” Something about the look in his eyes made me smile. Too many weeks had passed without an interesting project. Weeks of working on nothing but flyers and posters for movies no one went to. It was fun working on children’s books for a change.
I returned to the page, feeling Lee’s eyes on me.
It took me the whole day to finish neutralizing four pages. The moodifier before me had been aggressive, weaving one layer of emotions after another into the page. You would have thought he was working on an adult novel that required such emotionally rife layers. Blaze popped in every now and then to ask if everything was OK and offer me something to drink. I was too busy to pay him any attention, too occupied even to be polite.
Lee spent most of the day hovering over me, observing my work. I felt his fluttering touch accompanying me as I unraveled the design. I paused only once to explain the process to him, after which he smiled and left the room.
He came back with a woman in a dress so tight she could have been sewn into it. Something about her told me she would have preferred to be in a T-shirt and sweatpants.
Lee introduced her as the manager of ArtDot, Odelia. I didn’t sense sorcery from her.
“Lee says you know your way around this stuff.” Her tone was direct. “And that you’re better than the last empath who worked here.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “Technically, I’m the last empath who worked here.”
Neither of them used the common slang. Lee was American, maybe he wasn’t familiar with the local dialect. I wondered whether Odelia, like Matthew, refrained from using the term moody because it was considered derogatory.
Odelia shot him a look. “Yes, and when you get tired of this place you’ll go back to the Confederacy and work for us from there. Don’t think I don’t know.” She then turned to me. “You’re Israeli, right? I assume this means you won’t be flying off in two months because you can’t handle the humidity?”
I nodded.
“Good,” she said, handing me a stack of papers. “This is your contract. Review it, consult with whomever you like, and hand it in signed by the end of the week.”
She turned to Lee. “The Cohen assignment should be on my desk by the end of the day, and this time we’re in the same time zone.”
As she walked away, Lee said, “Don’t worry, she’s not as tough as she sounds. The last few times we were here…” He fell silent mid-sentence.
“But this is the first time Blaze has been back since he left,” I blurted. It took me a moment to realize what he was saying.
Lee didn’t answer.
Oh. “So this isn’t the first time,” I said quietly. “He just didn’t want to meet me.” The embarrassment Blaze radiated when I saw him and his attempt to find me a job suddenly made sense. After all, he could have easily tracked me down during his previous visits. My parents hadn’t moved. I knew him well enough to understand what had happened here. On his first visit home, he couldn’t work up the nerve to call me, and it only became more difficult with every visit. The combination of guilt and shame drove him to invite me to ArtDot the moment he ran into me on the street, hoping I’d stop being mad at him.
“It’s just the nostalgia that stings. For both of you. It’s not real,” Lee replied with a similarly quiet voice. “He’s not the same person he was when he left, and you’re not the person he misses.”
Lee sent me a small wave of old anger, followed by a stronger wave of comfort. Of course. He had been hurt by Blaze too. He patted me on the shoulder and said, “What’s important is that you’re here, and that you’ll be brilliant, and Blaze will be jealous, but it’ll be too late because he switched teams.” He leaned into me. “And if you ever convince him to switch back, just remember you owe me.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I won’t forget,” I replied with a deadpan expression.
Lee went back to his desk, and I shoved the contract into my bag. I wasn’t going to consult with a lawyer. Daphne would suffice. She’d be able to tell me whether signing the contract was a good idea, or whether it would pose difficulties in the future. I was hoping it wouldn’t. Odelia seemed nice, and I much preferred working on books to the final projects of film students whose ideas were bigger than their budget. Maybe this job would finally allow me to cut down on my shifts at the Sinkhole. And Lee was nice. The fact that working at ArtDot meant working with Blaze didn’t even bother me that much. The world was slowly making sense again.
I called Daphne on my way to the bus.
“The contract’s fine,” she said straight off the bat. “And you’re not coming home. Oleander is here.”
“I’ll schedule the next antibiotics shot,” I said, trying to mimic my mom’s voice.
Daphne giggled.
“I’d love to take a shower before my evening shift.”
“Matthew has a shower,” she replied. I heard whispers in the background. “Better if you go
there.”
It was a not-so-subtle hint. We said goodbye, and instead of taking the bus home I walked to the hospital complex. Matthew lived in the staff residence of the Rabbeinu Gershom Hospital, a cramped tenement resembling a pile of blocks constructed by an unimaginative child who had quickly abandoned it for a more colorful game.
He opened the door wearing a pair of flip-flops, shorts and an old blue T-shirt with a Doctors Without Borders logo. His studio apartment was furnished with a single bed, a fold-out couch, and a sink. The counter was barely large enough for the kettle, two mugs, and piles of disposable containers from the hospital staff kitchen. The shower curtain was drawn, revealing an unexpectedly clean surface.
“Had someone over tonight?” I asked, collapsing onto the couch and dropping my bag onto the floor.
“That’s so none of your business,” he replied, switched on the kettle and fished out a mug from the depths of the sink. Dishes clattered, crashing against each other.
“Everybody has someone,” I said, and took the ArtDot book out of my bag.
Matthew turned and gave me a little smile. “Daphne driving you nuts?”
“Oleander. She’s insisting it’s just a fling, but he won’t get out of her–” I sighed and leaned back. “Her room.”
“Room. Sure.” Matthew placed two mugs on the counter.
“I don’t mind that she has someone, I just wish she’d find a steady partner already.”
The kettle whistled. “Long term isn’t for everyone.”
“I thought girls were supposed to want a life-long relationship. I’m the one who should be playing the field.”
Matthew laughed, sat down beside me on the couch and handed me a mug. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m not,” I replied just a little too quickly.
Matthew arched his brow and didn’t say a word.
The Heart of the Circle Page 5
