Meg Arden, my best friend and Maid of Honour – who also happened to be Naithe’s surprisingly young aunt – prodded at me. I looked over, questioningly; mouthing the word ‘what?’ with a mildly agitated little shrug.
“They’re playing that song you guys picked for just before the big entry. So it’s almost time. Got your game-face on?” she smiled, elbowing me playfully in my corset-clad ribs. I hissed up an inward breath, desperately sucking for air as my lungs – blocked from properly filling thanks to the corset – threatened to give in and just...collapse under the weight of themselves, like dying stars.
“Ha,” I managed. I felt her hand squeeze my shoulder as she craned around me, trying to get a slightly better look at my face.
“Kayla? Are you good?” I tried to smile and nod. I managed half of a grimace and a bobble-headed little head-bob. “Shit. You’re actually in trouble, aren’t you?”
“Just the...corset.” I muttered. She moved in front of me, tilting my head up; taking my face in her hands and turning it side to side; and staring into my eyes with a clinical scowl. She was inspecting me, I realised.
“Tell me what’s up.” She suggested: “You’ve got...” She listened to the song, doing the math: “About a minute and a half. Make it count.”
“I’m nervous, Meg,” Our eyes met. “It’s just me, here.” She frowned.
“‘s not a very ‘Kayla’ thing to say, Kayla.”
“I know.” I admitted.
“Look,” she sighed. “Weddings get to everyone. Don’t overthink it. My family loves you.”
I cringed. Through that lens, my feelings almost seemed like a betrayal. Naithe’s family had become the thing I was agonising over not having...and yet...for fairly obvious reasons, their affection for me wasn’t all that helpful. Not at that particular moment, anyhow.
I tried to focus on the first thing, instead...and how right Meg was: that I didn’t sound like myself; that it wasn’t like me to agonise over things like this. Again, it didn’t help. The fact of the matter – unpleasant as such realities are for those of us who prefer to treat the emotions that we have as if they’re choices that we’ve made; imagining that, if we wanted to, we could just think them away – is that, sometimes...too often, frankly...the only way out is through.
And, apparently, this was going to be one of those times. Because thinking about it – and so clearly realising that I wasn’t acting like myself – didn’t calm me. Not in the least. If anything, it had the opposite effect.
I felt suddenly, inexplicably overcome by a sensation of falling: stumbling...tumbling down the instep of the uncanny valley. Something about the feelings I was having just grabbed me – hard and rough – and wouldn’t let me go. The person that I was – who I was seen to be – was more than my identity; it was my protection. It was, at least in part, designed to put a wall between prying eyes, and the scars and contusions left behind by the less savoury of the incidents that punctuated my personal past. As irrational a fear as I, even then, realised it was...I somehow believed beyond logic that, without that facade, I’d be open and exposed. That – through the eyes of the wedding guests – I was going to seem like I was all cover and no book.
All makeup and no face.
I shivered. I didn’t like that.
For some reason, that specific combination of elements – the idea of a mask hiding an absence – it drew me back to...then. To that particular time and place; that single moment that had lasted for an entire year. It was hard – literally: difficult – to think about. It was as if irregular little slivers of my mind had been cut away...leaving my ability to access the memories...garbled. Divorced from context; disordered and rough-edged: the associations...fractured. All meaning: lost. The only thing I really, solidly remembered from that time was allegorical at best: I remembered that I’d turned inward...to find myself trapped on a scuttled and sinking ship, in the cold and dark of my ego’s friscalating twilight.
And, of course, I remembered why.
“Hey.” Meg cut in on my downward spiral, gripping me by the upper arms on either side and leaning forward: looking into my eyes. “Get it together. Tell me who you are.”
“I’m not that far gone, Meg.” I rolled my eyes, trying to shrug her off. She squeezed, consolidating her grip.
“Who...are...you?” She reiterated.
“I’m...Kayla?” I answered awkwardly. Hearing myself say the words, I realised that they felt good. And then I realised what she was doing. “I’m Kayla.” I said with a little more confidence.
“Damn straight you are.” Meg tossed me an approving, authoritarian little nod. I smirked. Knowing that she understood me as well as she did helped. Probably as much – if not more – than the strange little exercise she’d devised. It meant that I could be close to someone without being completely in control. And if I could manage that, then...
“I am. I’m Kayla Donohue, and I’m better than this moody, adolescent shit.”
“There she is,” Meg smiled. “Now go be you. Up there. Naithe needs you.” I chuckled. Even without looking, I could picture him: nervously waiting and avoiding eye contact with the celebrant on one side and the swooning, photograph-snapping crowd of friends and relatives on the other.
“Yeah. He really does.” I confirmed. “Okay. I’m good. I got this.” She nodded silently, taking her place by my side. The string quartet finished that second-to-final song...and there was a pause as they adjusted their sheet music. Then they began to play again.
“Ready?” Meg asked.
“Yep. Count us in?” She nodded. I could see her right hand in my peripheral vision; tapping out a tight, precise, second-by-second metronome against her thigh. At the twenty-second mark, she nodded to me and – adjusting so I could link my arm through hers – we began to walk.
II – Seven Hills
~ Dio ~
23/11/2023
“Hey. Eve. Is that our target?” Dio squinted at the grainy images fed to the inadequate screen by the CCTV monitors that had been set up the night before.
“One of ‘em, anyhow...” Yvonne – Eve for short – confirmed, looking up from a copy of the Colorado Tribune with a bemused shake of her head. She was doing far better than he was with the accent. Aside from the occasional lapse into ‘Yiddesque’, as she termed it, she had the surly twang of a Brooklyn local down to a methodically honed tee. Dio, on the other hand, sounded exactly like what he was: a confused, out-of-his-depth kid from Haifa, Israel; a little hard around the edges from a few years military service...but, by and large, the same person he’d always been.
On the screen, Dio could make out a collage of squat blurs. They were, he assumed, either people in seats or – less likely – mottled, carefully arranged, pear-shaped boulders, set up – neatly as could be – in a partial arc around a grey hillock. The hill was topped with a narrow, mostly white blur that appeared to be in the process of melding with an equally narrow, mostly black blur. These two blurs were surrounded by a gauzy, wibbly blur, that was either some sort of demountable, fabric-covered pavilion, or – again, probably a little less likely – a small, to-scale replica of a nineteenth century frigate, partially dug into – or partially covered by – the hill.
Not for the first time, Dio wished that the distribution of The Organisation’s cash wasn’t so unreasonably weighted away from hi-def. surveillance equipment. The Esquiline Division – or, at least, he and Yvonne’s tiny corner of it – was chronically underfunded and criminally under-resourced. Even Yvonne’s Colorado Tribune had – and not for the first time – pages missing. Sourcing complete newspapers shouldn’t have been any great expense. Though, he considered, over any other single thing – looking around at the mildew-scented, mould-encrusted walls of the grubby, claustrophobic bunker-like facility that he shared with Yvonne – vaguely first-world accommodations would have been nice.
Theirs wasn’t exactly a typical arrangement, though. The Organisation, Dio knew, had a number of associates who needed to be
kept safe from the ghosts of their former lives. More, he imagined, than there were room and board for in the various, appropriately out-of-sight facilities that The Organisation had access to. He and Yvonne were lucky. Lucky beyond words.
Dio was acutely, constantly, and humbly aware of this fact, even without Wright to remind him of how much it cost to keep him fed and sheltered. When he had initially been recruited, he’d been awaiting trial in Tel Aviv: a trial that, more than likely, would never have arrived. They were calling him a traitor. A collaborator. A terrorist. And yes...he’d known what would happen if he was caught, but...he’d never been able to shrug off his faithful belief in a core of essential goodness common to Humankind. Or, for that matter, his Faith – yes, with a capital ‘F’ – in God’s love for not just His ‘chosen people’, but for all people. Both Dio’s faith in man and Faith in God had led him to believe that he would be protected. But – as he asked himself from time to time – how had he genuinely believed that this would be possible? He had leaked classified information to Hamas. He was, as a result, complicit in an attack that took the lives of a dozen Israeli soldiers. There was no absolution there; no forgiveness to be earned or penance to be performed. But still...he had believed that he would be protected.
In that first interrogation – the bad one – his former friends had clarified things. They had broken it down for him. And they broke it down as they broke him down: with fists, and boots, and a Tazer with the voltage dialled back so that he didn’t pass out. With spit, and rage, and vitriol, they’d shown him the truth. He remembered their knuckles toward the end of it, like a child remembers images from the front lines. Images filtered into the home by wire, signal, satellite, and broadsheet: those first, unforgettable encounters with the darkest of the darkness at the heart of the Human species...seeping in through the soul’s ingress; hitting you where you live.
Their fists were, like so, seared into his memory. Former friends and fellow soldiers...they beat him until the skin split and the bone bruised – theirs as much as his – and until the blood came. It had been almost black, slimy and with accents of startling crimson in the blinding lightness of that white-walled torture chamber...oozing forth from the lacerations that they couldn’t feel; drunk, as they were, with their righteous, berserker rage.
The word ‘chiaroscuro’ had rippled through the curdling, concussed jumble of thoughts that had been jostling for Dio’s attention at the time. It had rung through his mind, clear as a bell, cutting through the hysterical, babbling insistences of his castrated fight-or-flight reflex. He’d sat there, delirious, shaking like a leaf and quietly crying...and allowed the word to become his sole focus; to calm him. ‘Chiaroscuro’: the extreme contrast of light and dark. An American girl – a University student on exchange – had taught him that word. She’d been beautiful. Pale skin – alabaster – and soft, curly, brown hair that she liked to hide under a vast and ever-growing collection of adorable little berets. She was athletic and slim, but not tough; not dominating. Quite the opposite. He’d liked that.
“It’s a film thing.” She’d said. “Creates meaning, y’know?”
“Yeah.” He’d mumbled, lips on her neck; fingers tracing the elastic waistband of those sporty, girlish culottes she liked to wear. “Meaning.”
“You don’t give a shit, do you?” She’d giggled. Dio had been surprised. He was used to Israeli girls. He couldn’t quite remember if he’d ever heard an Israeli girl ‘giggle’.
“No, no. I think it’s fascinating.”
“You think something’s fascinating,” she’d sighed, eyes falling shut. “But it isn’t creating meaning.”
“Sure it is,” He’d chuckled. “I’m looking very forward to seeing how many times we can ‘create meaning’ before – ”
“ – Ugh. You’re such a boy.” she’d muttered, falling back onto the bed. “You don’t care, but you should. Israel is chiaroscuro. Or...chiaroscuro is Israel.”
“Clearly you’re a little mixed up, there...” Dio’s hand had slid lower; the sensation of the heel of his palm pressed against the bottom of her taught, gym-worked abdomen making him shiver with lust. “There are very few Blacks in Israel.” Her eyes had shot open to display an exaggerated roll, before rolling up and back into her head in time with the pressure of his fingertips.
“You’re such an idiot,” She’d groaned. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.”
“That was funny.” He’d protested.
“No it wasn’t. I’m baring my soul, Dio, and – ”
“ – I’m not sure that your soul is what you’re baring – ”
“ – Oh shut up.” she’d laughed, hand grabbing his wrist; not to stop what he was doing so much as to participate in it. “You should come to America. You’d like it there.” She’d paused for a few seconds...panting in tight, shallow little bursts. “Being Jewish in America...it’s not a war. There are people who try to make it one, on both sides...but here? Everything’s so...”
“Black and white.” He’d finished for her. She’d stared up at him, giving him a rapid nod.
“Chiaroscuro.” She’d hissed, their eyes fixed into one another’s. There’d been a kind of feral desperation in hers, and, there, he could see his own eyes reflected: a comprehending sadness mixed in with the passion.
“Blacker and whiter for the intensity of the other side.” She’d nodded again, this time half in agreement and half as a plea.
“Yes...” Her eyes had flickered shut under his insistent ministrations. In that moment, Dio had been utterly lost to the things she was saying and the way she was moving; enraptured by her body, her mind, and her spirit.
But that was the way of things. Connection happened, whether you expected it – whether you wanted it – or not.
Years on, there he was – in that white-walled cell in Tel Aviv – for the first time in a long time, remembering her words. Something about the memory forged a perfect symmetry in his mind. And that was when he knew.
His people...his former friends: his Faith was not their Faith. And as for his faith in Human goodness? Faith in a switch, he realised, that could be flipped from ‘on’ to ‘off’, seemingly at will. Or, at least, when Human empathy became too inconvenient. It was a switch that – off – led to carnage. A switch that – off – allowed paranoia, fear, and hate to outpace logic and reason...and a switch that – off – had the capacity to bring paranoia, fear, and hate back a thousandfold. A switch that – when used by Israelis – was named ‘irony’. A switch that, for Dio, didn’t exist.
And this was the ‘why’ of it. He was one of the rare, defective few who were incapable of putting the ‘Us’ ahead of the ‘Them’. This was ‘why’ he had betrayed his people: because he couldn’t flip a switch that made black and white – chiaroscuro – from shades of grey.
As dangerous as Hamas were; as violently opposed to the existence of the State of Israel...Dio fervently believed that killing only made more killing. And while the death of one who brought death to others was, perhaps, just a part of the cycle of it all...the same couldn’t be said of the deaths of the innocent. Dio had once heard his great grandfather – senile and repentant; trapped in the hell of his personal past – speaking in hushed tones of the tragedy of Deir Yassin. Some things could not be borne. For Dio, the situation in which he’d found himself was, yes, one of those things.
Even so...the blood on his hands haunted his dreams. But he still dreamt...still slept...still felt, in his chest, the beat of a good man’s heart. The simple truth that flowed through him with every beat of that heart – a truth as unavoidably part of him as the cells in his blood – was that his people were in danger of becoming what they hated and feared the most. And he couldn’t be a part of that.
Had they driven him to it? No. But they left him no other choice when they put him between themselves and the lives of children. Dio’s grandfather would have beat him bloody for saying it, but it was true. Dio had passed on the small amount that he kne
w to Hamas – a one-time, unidirectional communication – and with that information, Hamas had prevented the collateral killings of over a hundred innocent civilians.
The macabre symmetry of what had followed, however, was something that he should have seen coming. Ironically...a true traitor almost certainly would have. The man marked for death by the IDF – the man who had been spared as a by-product of Dio’s empathy – was the one to plan and finance the lethal retaliation that had, in turn, exposed Dio’s duplicity.
When they came for him, after he’d been beaten and tortured, Dio was ready to die. He’d assumed that was what was happening. When those two hulking, dead-eyed Mossad agents had arrived at the door to his cell, he hadn’t really seen any other possibilities. The only questions left unanswered seemed to relate to exactly how long the final torture would take, and how creative they intended to be about it. Not that increments of agony mattered all that much beyond a certain point. Dio’s great grandfather had been an Irgun fighter. His grandfather had been with Mossad. His father had been a delivery driver who – through his father and grandfather – had seen and heard more than any man should. Dio’s father was an honest man. Too honest, perhaps. And no less with his son than with any other person. Dio, better than anyone, knew that when traitors died behind closed doors, they died screaming.
“What do you know about Colorado?” One of the Mossad agents – the one on his right – had murmured to him as they led him through the corridors beyond his cell.
“I-in America?”
“Yes.”
“They say there’s snow...” He responded wistfully. He’d never seen snow before. Seeing it hadn’t been a dream, or an ambition...or even a casual afterthought, really. But if asked, the answer would have been yes. ‘Yes’, Dio would have said: ‘I would very much like to see snow one day’.
Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) Page 3
