The meditation isn’t working for me. My thoughts digress. Riva invades my mind, how she stubbornly sits on the floor of her apartment and refuses to speak, to explain herself, to eat, to drink. I see her slender figure losing substance. I see her becoming porous, her skeleton shines through beneath her clothes and skin.
I try to concentrate on my calming place. Riva appears like a pixelated shadow next to me on the beach. So close that I can feel the tenseness in her body. Her tension spreads to me like a virus.
I try to physically shake it off, shifting back and forth on my chair to find my balance. Then I restart the app, start the exercise from the beginning, but my thoughts drift off again, unwanted images force their way in. I can’t manage to let go of them.
I go over tonight’s to-do list. In ninety-five minutes I have a date with a man who was recommended to me by a partnering agency. It doesn’t scare me to meet a potential partner, but I’m annoyed about the date right now. I’m not in the right mood. My head hurts, I feel wound up. It’ll be obvious that my meditation was unsuccessful.
I consider writing him to cancel. But the agency counts cancellations as negative points in your profile if you don’t link to a doctor’s note. I haven’t exchanged many messages with the man yet; I can’t think of his screen name, but the profile that the partnering agency created from his personal data seemed likeable to me, solid. Like me, he put in the effort to complete the automatically generated profile and fill in any gaps. In the Particulars section, he mentioned a dislike of anything supernatural, which appealed to me. I couldn’t enter into a relationship with an esoteric or superstitious person.
The things we talked about in our short, moderated chats were mainly of an administrative nature: the timing of the first meeting according to our work hours, our sexual preferences, and general ideas about sexual intercourse. The exchange of our STD tests and sterilization certificates. Our preferences regarding gifts.
A long-term partnership has been recommended to us as the goal of the relationship, but without a shared living space. Individual independence is at the top of our respective lists of values.
I start the meditation app again. I take a deep breath and let the contours of my apartment blur before my eyes. I return to my calming place once more, imagine the sea, the sand, the sound of the seagulls.
I feel a person beside me again. Hopefully it’s Andorra this time. Her childhood form often appears in my visualizations. She intensifies my feeling of security. When I turn to her, it’s Riva looking back at me, looking through me as if I weren’t there. When we were kids, Andorra sometimes looked at me that way.
I asked her what she was thinking about one time.
—Nothing, she said. About you, how I talk to you.
I suspected that she was lying, that her mouth had just been babbling and her brain had been focused on something completely different. Maybe a boy.
—Don’t lie to me, I said.
Andorra was popular among the boys at the institute. And it wasn’t just because she was beautiful with her perfectly symmetrical face and thick black hair that she twisted into countless little braids every morning. Wherever she went, that’s where all the attention was focused, even when it came to the adults. The educators often accused her of staging the small dramatic scenes that always took place around her. Her exuberant energy seemed to transmit like electricity. I also felt infected by her thirst for action. Without Andorra, I probably would have had a very boring childhood without even noticing it.
But the older we got, the more I realized how different we were. How differently we were treated. While the others at the institute hardly exchanged a word with me, Andorra’s mere presence provoked extreme reactions. Some kids would scramble for a chance to talk or play with her, they’d scratch her name into the walls of the toilet stalls. Others hid from her. The fact that some children were afraid of her, Andorra learned from me.
—Someone in the bathroom told me that you were planning a murder and that last year you beat up Bentley in the utility closet, I said.
We lay next to each other in her bed that night and whispered.
—That’s not true, Andorra said.
—I know.
Andorra and I often slept in the same bed. We would chat quietly until Andorra’s eyes started closing. I watched as she drifted off into the world of sleep. At first, she would twitch as if she were falling. Then her breath got calmer. When she dreamt, her lips moved, and later, if I stayed awake long enough, her eyeballs did their own dance under her eyelids. When she lay there like that, I often stroked her hair and imagined myself as a biomother watching over her.
I finally decide to quit the meditation exercise and put my plate in the dishwasher. Now I have more time to prepare for the date than expected. To shower, put on make-up, hair spray, perfume. I already prepared an outfit for myself in the morning, which I slip on quickly after showering. Although I’m basically satisfied with my body, I feel uncomfortable being naked or just in my underwear.
I’ve chosen a gray-blue suit with a white blouse instead of a dress as a signal that I don’t want sexual contact today. It should be a short evening for us to get to know each other a little better, so that we can think about the possibility of a relationship before we arrange to meet again.
The man is also wearing a business outfit, a tailored suit with a white shirt and tie. We smile at each other with a sense of relief. He introduces himself as Royce Hung. We shake hands and then exchange two air kisses on the cheek. He smells good, like a certain designer cologne, but I can’t think of the brand. The partnering agency selected the restaurant according to our preferences and we both like it very much. It’s a rotating viewtower™ restaurant. Royce makes a comment about the city being beautiful and we clink glasses; he ordered champagne.
To maintain the spontaneous nature of a first date, I usually don’t read all of the information in my potential partner’s profile. I try to imagine what Royce Hung’s profession could be, probably a middle management position at a mid-sized company. Our credit score levels are similar, as I specified in the placement request.
—What do you do for a living? I ask to get the conversation going.
—Head of public relations for Demi & White.
—The cosmetics company?
—That’s the one.
—Do you get a lot of samples? He smiles and nods.
—Next time I’ll bring you some. Send me your list.
He refills my glass. I drank too fast and can feel my cheeks turning red.
—And you?
—Business psychologist.
—Ah, he says. I’d rather not have any samples from your job. But that must be an exciting industry.
I laugh to make him feel like he said the right thing.
—Not always, I say. It depends on the client. Can you imagine what it’s like to talk to an accountant about how he does his work?
Royce laughs now, too. He has a nice laugh, almost like a bird cooing. It seems to erupt from deep within his body.
I use the line about the accountant as an icebreaker often, even though—or maybe even because—it isn’t true. So far, I’ve only done one live-video analysis of an accountant and it was during my training. I actually enjoyed it very much. I could have watched him enter numbers into spreadsheets for years. As a child, I liked to organize things. I would sort things like bags of different colored plastic beads into little compartments according to color. The repeated thought process and the visible creation of order had a calming effect on me.
—Where did you study? Royce asks.
—Bowen Institute of Business.
—Not bad. No doubt you were one of those overachievers who got an apprenticeship in the city right at the first casting.
—I didn’t grow up in the peripheries.
—What?
He looks at
me in disbelief. I can see his mind processing the unusual information. I should have lied. It just kind of slipped out. The shame of having made a mistake. I take a big sip of champagne and try to smile.
—Wow, he says. I thought those were rumors. Do your parents work for the government?
—Lobbyists for S&P.
—Did you live with your parents?
—No!
I burst into laughter, which I immediately regret. Alcohol affects my self-control mechanisms. Royce Hung’s expression has changed, I can feel the distance growing between us.
—I was in a city home, I say, but my mother visited me sometimes.
My biomother, entering the visitor’s area at the institute, always half an hour late because her meeting went over and always talking on her tablet in a hushed indoor voice. Me, standing there, stuffed in a dress picked out especially for the occasion, two bows in my hair, like a gift.
She looks pretty, my mother would always say to the caregiver before coming over to me. She would take a long look at me first and then spread her arms out wide. I had been waiting for this from the moment I was brought into the visitor’s area. I would have to hold myself back from leaping into her arms. Instead, I took controlled steps towards her and then slowly leaned into the physical contact that was being offered. To feel her slender arms wrap around me. At this point, the caregiver had already left the room. If there were no other visitors, we would be alone. I imagined that we lived together in that room, my mother and I. That she had just come home from work and now the day was really starting. With games and discussions and our own trainings in all my favorite disciplines.
—A city home. That must have cost an unbelievable amount of credits, Royce says into my silence.
I shrug and smile. I wish I could redirect the conversation to another topic, but I sense that his curiosity won’t so easily be appeased. It’s my own fault.
—But isn’t it impossible to get authorization to live in the city without an employment contract? he asks.
—We were all registered with ghost addresses in the peripheries and went to the required castings every six months.
—Surveillance must be aware of things like that.
I laugh again. I’m afraid he might think I’m laughing at him, so I touch his fingertips on the table.
—Of course surveillance knows. That’s why it costs so much, I say in my most confiding tone, my work voice.
His expression encourages me to keep talking.
—As soon as the parents can’t afford it anymore, they’re busted. I’ve seen a few kids get taken away from one day to the next. And then, because of the criminal proceedings, they and their parents don’t make it back. I don’t think my biomother was aware of the risk at the beginning. She often regretted it and was very afraid that she would have to go back to the peripheries. She never forgave me for that.
—That means you have contact with your bioparents?
—With my mother. But rarely.
I can’t quite remember the last time I heard my biomother’s voice. In my memory, it blends together with the voice of her assistant. She’s in a meeting. But I’ll let her know.
—I can’t imagine what it’s like, Royce says. To know your bioparents.
—It’s actually nothing special. You just have better career opportunities if you grew up in the city. But you seem to have managed anyway.
He laughs, we laugh together, we’ve found a rhythm. Our fingertips touch in the middle of the table. I almost regret having put on the suit and not the dress. But I don’t like changing my plans.
The rules of a successful date dictate that it’s now Royce’s turn. I ask him questions about the beginning of his career, his first casting experience. To talk about his LCM™, the life-changing-moment™ when he was finally allowed to stay on stage until the very end, when he got accepted into a city academy. About the size of his apartment and the prestige of the districts where he’s lived. And finally, about his work, his responsibilities, the VIPs he works with.
I try to concentrate on him, on his short, efficient sentences, never a syllable too many. But I notice myself drifting inward, my thoughts wandering back to the visitor’s area at the institute, to the silence before the door opens and my mother appears. Before she opens her arms and I can lean into them.
Royce kisses me before I get into the cab. It’s a short, pleasant kiss. His skin is freshly shaven and soft, his lips are thin but warm. In the car, I can’t help but smile in the dark and nestle into the upholstery as if it were a person.
Archive No.: PMa2
File Type: Urgent-Message™
Sender: @PsySolutions_ID5215d
Recipient: @dancerofthesky
Riva!
You’re desperate. When one of your colleagues has an accident, you catch yourself thinking: I would be happy to trade places. But think of the little girl you once were. Imagine her, lonely and lost in the peripheries. Think of the dust and the heat. The sweat on her forehead. The dirt sticking to that sweat. Remember how you wanted nothing more than to finally be clean. The child you once were—what would she say to you now if she could see you like this, on the floor in your luxury apartment, idle. What would she do? She would shake you and beg you: Seize the opportunity! Don’t throw away our dream! Please don’t send me back into the dirt and meaninglessness!
Riva, you still haven’t attended any of your designated coaching sessions. This entitles your contract partners to initiate criminal proceedings against you. Don’t you think a better solution would be to reach out for the hand being offered and accept help?
-
6
Oh, how the city unfolds. Its crisscrossing bridges, one over the other, maze-like, while simultaneously regulating and directing traffic. The cars, rolling onward at a constant speed, maintaining a regular distance from each other, going their separate ways at the intersections, and finding their way back into the steady flow of traffic a moment later. Neatly strung together like beads. At the major intersection that is visible from my office, there are eight feeder roads. The highest one almost reaches the middle levels of the neighboring skyscrapers. The bridges wind in all directions, oval, figure eight, and then straight ahead again.
I follow each path with my eyes, an exercise in attentiveness. At the end, I return to the main road, which almost runs straight through the entire city as a line of sight, a bottleneck.
The office is buzzing. I don’t normally notice the hum of the server towers anymore, as my perceptive faculties have stored it as peripheral background noise. But today my nerves are exposed. I slept poorly. I kept thinking about the date with Royce Hung, going over it in my head, word for word. Looking back, I am increasingly aware of my mistakes, the choice of unapproachable attire, my mention of the city home, the amount of time I let pass before giving Royce a chance to talk about himself. His evaluation of the date will be poor. He might give me two stars, three at most.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the moment he kissed me. The warmth of the taxi on the way home.
I can still feel the night sweat clinging to my skin, despite a shower, freshly washed clothes, and a ventilation system. Since starting this job, I usually reach the recommended sleep time of six hours, but the activity tracker only recorded it as two hundred and fifty-two minutes last night.
I try to concentrate my thoughts on one point, keeping my eyes on one silvery car. I lose sight of it when it drives under a bridge.
The notification beep has been going off on Riva’s tablet for thirty seconds. How does she tolerate that sound? Riva is standing at the window and looking out, as if the sound weren’t coming from her room but from mine.
After exactly thirty-four seconds, Aston storms into the room. He grabs the tablet and throws it against the wall. One of his photo frames falls to the ground. Riva jumps and turns to him.
&nb
sp; —That was the sixth summons, Riva.
—Is it broken?
Aston picks the device up off the floor, taps on it, shakes his head.
—If you don’t go, if you don’t at least answer, they’ll kick us out of the apartment.
I try to see things from Aston’s perspective. I choose the camera closest to him and zoom in until I can see over his shoulder. Riva has turned around again and is looking out the window. From this point of view, her body looks like a two-dimensional cardboard figure against the light, a promotional cutout of Riva, like the ones you can buy in online fan shops.
Although I’ve only been observing her for a little over a week, the image on the monitor has already shaped my entire perception of Riva. I can’t reconcile the news videos and papavids™ in my data archive, the pictures of Riva outside, in the air, in bars and restaurants, with the woman at the window. No connection seems to exist between them, even if they resemble each other on the surface. None of the saved video interviews show any indications of discontent. Just two days before breaking her contract, Riva was still appearing on video chat with fans. She makes jokes and laughs, answers questions according to her personal brand.
Only in one single interview two weeks before her resignation was there a sort of scandal. Riva answered a VJ’s first question with a smile in a practiced, overly sweet tone:
—Am I happy about winning? Can’t you think of anything more original? Do you only ask questions that you could answer yourself? I think winning is shit, to be honest. Fuck winning.
Dom dragged her out of the press zone by the arm. Just a few minutes later, the video had already been shared and edited millions of times, fuck-winning songs, fuck-winning T-shirts, fuck-winning ringtones. It was rumored that it might have been planned as a viral marketing campaign by the academy.
—A psychologist, Aston says, sent you three messages.
He has picked up Riva’s tablet and is scrolling through her unread messages.
—You could go there at least once to see what it’s like. You have to talk to someone.
The High-Rise Diver Page 5
