Art by Winston Chmielinski
3. Aimless Wandering in the Fields of Nowhere
When Amitai was a far younger lad he had wanted to become a wizard, but that was only because he had wanted to turn himself into a large, peaceful animal like a buffalo or an elephant. In the case of becoming a buffalo or an elephant he would no longer have to worry about things such as school (‘You’re doing exceptionally well, little Amitai; I’m proud of you. Keep it up.’), friends (‘I’m sorry, I don’t really remember your name.’ – ‘Oh, we were friends in grade two?’) or family (‘Amitai, your father and I know that you’re going to become a very special boy one day.’).
The buffalo and the elephant never had to worry about learning mediums such as homework, for everything they learned, they learned naturally. Young Amitai had wanted to know what it felt like to be freed from the scrutinising eyes of teachers, peers and parents. Did the buffalo ever have to suffer like that? Were elephants ever pressured to never forget?
He looked up at the sky, that grey wet blanket, hoping to find the shapes of animals hiding in the clouds, but the sky was a single cloud, and no living animal could possibly have the girth to cover it. However, now that he was older he no longer wished to be an animal; he accepted his humanity, as degrading as it was. The most degrading aspect of being a human being was not being recognised as an animal; but then again people did not deserve to be recognised as animals. And so on and so forth. What was a human being that had lost their humanity? A modern god, free of all earthly ties. No, not a god, Amitai suddenly disagreed with himself. Not a god. Not anything at all.
‘Um, just so you know, I don’t have any kind of special magical umbrella with me,’ Vera said to Amitai in her smallest, most worried voice. ‘So if it rains I think we’re going to get pretty soaked. I don’t like water all that much.’
Amitai gave her a questioning glance. ‘Why’s that? Well, never mind; just try not to think about it. We have a long way to go.’
Vera looked up at the darkening grey sky. ‘But – but the rain. I think it’s raining. I felt a drop.’
Amitai slipped out of his suit’s black jacket and tossed it over Vera’s head. The visual effect was altogether silly, and if Amitai had been anyone else he would be holding back huge guffaws, but Vera did not flinch and instead continued to sit with the high quality tarp covering her. As far as Amitai knew, she was enjoying every second of it. Then:
‘You’re supposed to throw the jacket onto the puddle, not over the lady.’
‘But I can’t throw my jacket over the entire sky.’
‘Then you’re just not trying hard enough.’
Then he smiled. Vera lay down, nestling on the grass with the jacket still covering her. The rain continued to introduce itself nervously with stray droplets. All was well; Amitai had temporarily reached a state of nirvana, or in any case as close to a moment of pure contentedness as he had experienced in the longest while. He knew that when the rain finally came it would wash away his tracks; it was muddy perfection. His life would finally become his own, even if he decided to live it for Vera and the play – that would still be his own personal choice to make, like the choice he had made when he decided to run off with the briefcase.
Would he ever be caught? Realistically it was most likely a simple matter of time. However, there was some strange part of him that provided the necessary confidence for him to believe that he could finally get away with something. Jack and Zeeman were patient men, so they would be capable of sitting in the car for hours on end, silently and awkwardly, as they waited for Amitai to show up with the ten thousand dollars. Really, all that they cared about was the delivery, not the improvisational briefcase or the money itself, just completing the mission and going home knowing that another job had been done well. That was pretty much how it was with any job. But Amitai was going against the rules by placing unexpected importance in the inanimate objects that were the basis of their livelihoods; he was going against the grain – against his very nature. What was he doing? He was saving his own life.
Vera came out of the jacket like a small animal leaving its burrow, squinting as she adjusted to the light; she then bundled the jacket into a makeshift pillow and used it to rest the side of her head. There could be no denying the prettiness of her intelligent face that welcomed so many smiles. Only Amitai and possibly five other people would think to refer to somebody’s face as being ‘intelligent’, but he felt that no other word was qualified enough to suit her; that was simply what he saw when he looked at her. That intelligent, gentle face faced him unflinchingly, combing over every detail of his features with its searching orbs of light and delight. If only every inspection of his person was performed in such a manner; he would be taking physical examinations every other Friday. But it made sense that she would look him over like that after the countless times he had covered her details with his own watchful eyes. In fact, he was honoured.
‘Vera, if people measured scrutiny in tablespoons, you would have them all buried by now.’
Vera playfully produced the tip of her tongue. ‘You know, that reminds me of when I’d sneak spoonfuls of sugar into my mouth when I was a little girl,’ she then replied, her eyes still connecting the invisible dots on his face. ‘If I tried that now I’d probably be grossed out, but back then it was like tasting heaven. I couldn’t believe how good it was. Blasted sugar fixes – now I can barely stand anything too sweet. Do you know how that is? It’s like without stretches of grand mediocrity we wouldn’t appreciate the exciting stuff as much as we do. No one would want to choose between eternal boredom or eternal excitement, if they really thought about it: that’s what makes the Earth such a beautiful place to live in, as a mixture of heaven and hell.’
‘How about the play?’ Amitai asked. ‘Do you think we could implement that kind of philosophy into the play?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, have you noticed how redundant it is? The way ideas are repeated over and over again: the main character’s angst, his crime and how he relates to the other character. I know I should be taking criticism with a grain of salt, but part of the reason why I jumped ship on the play – after you had left – was due to what my father had said to me after I let him read it. It’s hard to remember every single word, but I still keep the bulk of it in my heart; we were sitting quietly for dinner when he suddenly set down his utensils and began a speech that sounded like he had been practicing it in his head all afternoon: He asked if I had forgotten that I was writing a play; talked about the vast quantity of description; said he had to put it down. He said that it read like I’m mentally ill. Every sentence comes across as its own island, he said. Went on about how it would be physically and linguistically impossible to perform. God, I felt like garbage.’
When he looked to Vera he saw that her eyes were focused completely on the grass.
‘What do you think, Vera?’
Her gaze suddenly slid towards him, the effect entirely unsettling. ‘So what if your dad didn’t like the play? He doesn’t speak for everybody.’
‘I think I’m just afraid that we’re stagnating,’ he said as he circled a blade of grass with his finger. ‘Plus I think that we’re both aware of and comfortable with it, which makes it even worse.’
Vera sat up again. ‘Then let’s get moving,’ she said, standing up and lifting the dirtied jacket. She wiped away the clumps of dirt and broken blades of grass before offering the jacket back to Amitai. He stared at the limp object in her hand, incredulous.
‘No, you keep it,’ he said.
Vera shrugged and pulled the jacket over that of her school uniform; it was altogether far too large for her, with the sleeves coming down past the tips of her fingers, but since it made her look like a Chinese ghost she had no complaints. Amitai thought her to be completely silly but had no complaints either; he stood up alongside her and looked around his surroundings, that remarkable field of forever, wondering which direction they should head. How about north? Sure, okay, but – which way is north?
He felt lost. Well, he was lost. But he was happy to be so.
‘So where do we go?’ Vera asked, shielding her eyes from nothing as she looked over the field surrounding them. ‘Did you have any kind of escape route in mind?’
Stretching with the briefcase held awkwardly behind his head, Amitai managed a slow little shake: ‘No, I’ve been winging it this whole time. I thought you knew that?’
‘Hmm, in that case I suggest we go . . .’ Vera, standing with her hands on her hips, turned left by a few centimetres; she pointed her index finger unsurely in the direction she faced. ‘That way. Yeah, that way looks pretty good.’
‘It looks exactly the same as every other direction,’ stated Amitai, but he knew that there was no point in arguing. Really, he was thankful for any kind of decisive action, even if it was random at best.
An oncoming wind carried a thin sheet of wet with it, slightly dampening the fronts of Amitai and Vera. Vera suddenly looked worried.
‘Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,’ she said, nibbling her lower lip. ‘Was that rain? Because, um . . .’
‘Water isn’t going to hurt you, Vera. You’re not a wicked witch.’
‘Yeah, I know that. But I just don’t like getting wet outside, because getting wet outside means you get extra cold, and getting extra cold makes it easier to catch a cold. It’s horrible, having colds: always sniffing all the time, unable to taste food properly, having a warmer forehead, coughing. That list goes on and on, really. I mean, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. We’re all humans here; we’ve all had colds at one time or another. So you know how nasty it is. Especially for someone like me, who enjoys frolicking and such. How can I have fun outdoors when I’m stuck indoors in bed? Amitai, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I can’t stand chicken soup. Can’t stand it. You know those little noodle bits? Awful, awful. I can’t believe people eat that when they’re well, never mind sick as a dog. Ugh.’
Amitai honestly did not know whether she was joking or not. They pressed on regardless, bracing themselves for each wet wind that passed. Soon the sky greyed completely as raindrops gradually fell from it, their numbers growing until they came in a consistent stream – now it was truly, undeniably raining. Vera made whimpering noises as they raced – slosh, slosh, slosh – through the field of tall grass, towards haven’t-got-a-clue.
Haven’t-got-a-clue was approximately one mile west of I-think-we’ve-been-here-before.
‘I think we’ve been here before,’ said Vera.
‘Haven’t got a clue.’
The rain came in rushes to love them completely. If they were not lost before (they were) then they were definitely lost now, as the rain cast a rich veil across the land that prevented them from determining north by any natural means. But did it really matter?
‘Amitai, Amitai, look here: I think I found a fence,’ came the excited voice of Vera. He could see her girlish smile through the falling sky. Like the Cheshire cat. ‘Hey, see how good I am, Amitai? Aren’t you proud of me? Look, look – fence!’ With the large smile lighting up her face she shook the makeshift fence – it seemed to have been put together with random sticks and twigs – and then stepped back as it unceremoniously fell apart. ‘Well, it was a fence.’
‘Now it’s in shambles.’
‘But a shambles that I made.’
‘Yeah. We can use this as a monument, though it’s a bit small and doesn’t actually seem to be connected to anything. Let’s keep going forward.’
‘Roger that,’ Vera wholeheartedly agreed. Then, after they had delved into the rainy, muddy field by a few more paces: ‘Who do you think made that fence? I can’t imagine anybody coming out here all that often. Plus it was a rickety thing that fell apart at the slightest touch –’
‘You shook it.’
‘– so it must’ve been put together recently, because I doubt it’d last all that long. So who do you think it could’ve been?’
Amitai thought about it for several moments. She was right. ‘I’m sure it was either Marcello or his wife,’ he finally answered. ‘Or if they have any children then it was probably them, since it seems to me like a pretty playful thing to make. I’m not sure if there’s anyone else living out around here, to tell the truth.’ He then looked over at his companion and saw the thoughtful expression taking up residence on her face. ‘Why, do you have any ideas?’
‘I think it’s possible . . . that it might’ve been a warning,’ Vera ventured. ‘You came here with –’
‘Jack and Zeeman.’
‘– Jack and Zeeman, so maybe they know you’re out here with the money. Perhaps they figure that they can scare you into going back and pretending that everything is normal. You know, just acting as though the theft had never actually happened. That seems like something they’d do, don’t you think?’
‘It does. But how would you know? Have you met them?’
Vera shrugged, then shook her head: No, she had not met them. And Amitai believed her, if only because she was the only thing that he believed in. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as the blur of her form hugged itself for warmth in the cold rain. The thought came and went that she might only be a figment of his imagination. But he could never imagine a creature that looked so lovely as the sopping wet girl beside him.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Vera asked.
‘How everything is in shambles right now,’ Amitai replied, ‘And how happy I am because of it.’
‘Oh, really?’ came Vera’s rejoinder. ‘I was just thinking about how amazing a dry, warm towel would feel right now. I’d probably feel a hundred pounds lighter after peeling off all of this wet clothing.’
‘You’re trying to tease me.’
Vera laughed. ‘I honestly wasn’t! You just have a dirty mind, Amitai. Dirty, dirty.’
Amitai only shook his head; the pair continued on towards uncertainty in temporary silence – outside of, of course, the unceasing applause of rain. The mental image of an undressing Vera flashed through Amitai’s mind for a split second. He was not sure what he felt about it.
He was not sure what he felt about a lot of things, though he made numerous contradictory claims. To focus on the aspect of Vera’s sexuality – or rather Amitai’s view of it – in order to vie for visceral interest, we shall see what he sees. So, to tiptoe into decadence: When her short hair was wet it seemed to become thicker, pasting itself to her forehead like stray raven feathers, and Amitai wondered what it would feel like to run his fingers through it; the double jackets fascinated him as they made her appear so much smaller and helpless, something that helped secretly arouse him when he looked at her splashing form – possibly stemming from his father’s dominance over his life, and thus a desire for himself to dominate over something lesser; the larger jacket hid her subtle hips, but he knew that they were there; her legs smooth and angelic, white as white, not too skinny and not too thick; overall very fit, an almost athletic body, the body of an intelligent and lovely young lady. All of her heavy with rain. So, not exactly a focus on her sexuality but instead the necessary skeleton for a working imagination; see also: connect-the-dots pornography.
See also: Vera, startling perfection caught in the rain. The case of the rickety fence only helped heighten her excitement for the adventure (and for being alive, Amitai assumed). She was energy; she was lightning. Quite literally, it seemed: She looked at Amitai, smiled, then disappeared. Gone; turned into naught but darkness and rain. He had blinked and missed her – she had simply vanished from the earth in the blink of his tired eyes. Amitai stood stock still: he called out her name in a worried whisper under his breath but nobody answered. He turned and turned in imperfect circles but was unable to locate her beautifully drenched form anywhere.
After a quick succession of dizzying rotations Amitai suddenly found himself facing a blonde man: The mysterious figure wore the same style of suit as himself along with a full masquerade mask that covered his entire face with only slanted slits for his menacing blue eyes. He looked like a video game character; Amitai wondered if he was dreaming but was too frozen to bring himself to pinch his hand. This whole scenario, from the very beginning to this moment, was the type of thing he tended to dream about, now that he thought about it. Hm! Was it a dream? Was it a dream was it a dream was it a dream?
‘Amitai,’ said the masked man in a strangely familiar voice. ‘Where do you think you’re going, Amitai?’
Amitai was too shocked to answer; he simply stood there, collecting water. The masked man pulled something out of his pocket: a small cigarette case from which he slid a single stick. He then pulled a golden lighter out of his breast pocket and brought the cigarette to the part of his mask where his mouth should be; it finally lit after two failed attempts. With his eyes closed he made a deep sucking noise, but the cigarette continued to act as an idly lit cigarette. As though realising both the futility of it and the comical image that it was producing, the masked man dropped the cigarette, where it became forever lost in a sharp maze of dark green. The lighter was returned to his pocket without a word.
‘Well, Amitai?’ the man asked again. ‘Going somewhere?’
Amitai shook his head. He knew where that voice was coming from; he knew who owned that voice. It was Jack: Jack in the long car ride; Jack with all of his middle-aged advice; Jack with the blinding cigarette. But why was he wearing that absurd mask? Sure, there might have been numerous ways for him to figure out where Amitai was, but why did he need to wear that mask? Why? Some actors used masks as an aide to express emotions; Jack’s mask was very plain and expressed nothing. Yes, that was it. He wore it to express nothing; he was the expression of nothing – that was why he was in the play. To express nothing!
If Jack wore the mask to express nothing, then Amitai – completely lacking a mask – expressed everything. But that might have just been a delusion: Amitai was having a lot of trouble trusting all that he thought about; it was quite possible that he was losing his mind during the quest to find it. Yes, he was on a quest to find his mind, was he not? It must have slipped out when all of the demons had been escaping; perhaps they took it as collateral.
This Jack with the mask, he must have been one of the demons. What was the easiest way to get rid of demons? This: Amitai shut his eyes tightly until he saw red splotches on the backs of his eyelids; when he opened his eyes again, Jack was gone. That was it: gone. So simple! He looked for Vera and found her lying on the ground behind him, a peaceful expression on her face. She was sleeping.
Had that entire encounter with Jack been merely one of Vera’s dreams? Amitai was very afraid of the possibility; in his moment of naked insecurity he took it as an explanation of his untrustworthy memories. But then Vera woke up and he still existed. He was almost thankful.
‘Did I fall asleep?’ she asked groggily. ‘I guess I did.’
But she had disappeared like lightning – had she not?
‘Welcome back,’ Amitai said. ‘Did you have any dreams?’
She paused for a moment to think, then her face lit up as she remembered. ‘Yes, I did have a dream. I had a nightmare: I dreamt I was killed by some guy, though I only heard his voice before my head went pop, pop-popped into splotches of red, purple and orange. God, what a strange dream; I’ve had it before, I know it. Odd.’
‘Did you see a mask?’ asked Amitai. ‘What happened, exactly? How were you killed?’
Vera shook the sleep from her head; it fell to the ground and scuttled away. ‘I was alone in the school, cleaning the blackboard brushes out the window. I remember that the sun was setting and everything had a deep orange tint to it. I heard some footsteps but figured they were just from another student or a teacher or something. Then I heard a voice say something to me, something very strange, so I tried to turn to see them but then my head exploded into all those different colours. After my life ended I woke up. Strange.’
‘Do you remember what the man said?’
Vera sat up with a vacant look on her face as she tried to recall that alternate dream world. She hugged her knees as she pressed her face into them. ‘I don’t remember,’ she said.
‘Okay; that’s okay,’ Amitai said. ‘Are you okay with continuing on? I don’t think we should stay here any longer.’
She nodded assent, relinquished her knees and stood up. The way the rain covered her face made it look as though she was crying. But she smiled and said: ‘What a bizarre dream this all is!’ and then wiped the remaining sleep from her eyes with her oversized sleeve.
Dream? To Amitai’s mild horror it seemed as though his demons were attempting to make a return to the hallowed grounds of his mind: The masked Jack and Vera’s inconsistent nature were proof enough of this, as well as a small headache that was sneaking up on him. One does not feel pain in dreams. Together the pair basked in beautiful rain; or at least Vera ignored it as best as she could. If this was a dream then it was a very wet one.
‘Hey, Amitai,’ Vera suddenly called. ‘What do you think about suicide?’
‘Never tried it.’
‘Really? Oh, you’re so smart. Anyway, I don’t even know why I bothered to ask!’
Yes, that was strange. Perhaps she asked because during his days as an intellectual loner, Amitai had obtained a habit of mapping out various ways of killing himself. But then again those incredibly dark thoughts were only to be found in the deepest, most secret recesses of his supposedly immaculate mind. They were always very typical but very detailed, disturbing and depressing. Amitai never told anyone about those thoughts and never actually expected to tell anyone about them; he simply let them lounge around in his head. Was he a monster? Around him the so-called objective world lived, breathed and died while he had contemplated destroying himself, and thus also inadvertently contemplating destroying everything and everyone he knew, hated and loved. He was not sure if those thoughts had come from himself or the demons, and was very suspicious of himself because of it.
‘I know about the demons, Amitai,’ Vera told him in her most gentle, almost motherly tone.
The hair on the back of his neck stood to attention and his eyes widened in shock. How did she know? He did not even fully believe that they actually existed; they were more of a game that he played with himself than anything else. How could she possibly know?
‘Because there’s one standing right behind you.’
He turned around and saw nothing. He laughed. What she said must have just been a strange coincidence, a trick. But then he turned back: A yellowed skeleton was standing tall and staring him in the face with its twin sockets of nothingness, a million maggots waving hello. Then he blinked and it disappeared completely; all that he saw was the grass, the rain, the purplish-black sky and Vera as she wiped mud from her legs with the suit jacket’s sleeves.
‘I really need a bed,’ she said, then stuck out her tongue when she saw the terrified expression on his face. ‘I was just kidding about the demon. I didn’t think you’d actually take me seriously.’
Amitai laughed nervously, which cast a worried expression on Vera’s face; she had never heard him laugh nervously before and found it quite odd. But then Amitai quickly controlled himself and assumed an entirely cocky air. Vera’s eyebrows pointed away from her third eye as she relaxed, visibly glad to be back around the Amitai she knew and loved. ‘I think I’m getting hungry,’ she said in an attempt to permanently change the mood. ‘I could really go for a taco right about now; I haven’t had one of those in a while. I bet I must be really annoying you with all of these little complaints: “I really need a bed and I really need a taco.” I’d be annoying me. I’ll stop.’
‘No, don’t worry about it.’
Vera took a deep breath and then said ‘Okay.’ Both were shaken – one by a bad dream and the other by bizarre visions. Both wanted to be comforted but avoided explicitly stating it. Instead they had to take comfort in the idea of comfort. Well, each had the other’s comforting presence and that was enough to go on. So they continued on with their journey as they had continued it many times before, expecting nothing but hoping for everything, with the briefcase as their only guide.
The clouds had clouded over any sense of time. As far as Amitai knew it could have either been five in the evening or midnight. If midnight then he wondered what he was missing: all those pretty stars and the sometimes planets that came out to haunt them. He wondered how full the moon might be. Would all of these be concealed by that damp grey drapery? Then it would be as if they were not there at all. In any case, his watch was broken, so he could not be sure if it was night.
‘Do you have a watch, Vera?’ he asked as they climbed a slippery hill.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I had a watch from elementary school that I kept in my pocket but I eventually lost it. That’s what I get for biting the strap off out of boredom.’
‘You know, that’s incredibly bad for your teeth.’
‘I guess I just didn’t think about it at the time.’
Over the hill was more grass and more hills. But they smiled because it did not matter, for they had no real destination. In some ways the journey itself was the destination, one that they had finally arrived at after years of searching for a purpose. Vera lay down on the ground again, now a regular habit. She gazed at all of the individual blades of grass with her mouth slightly parted, looking like she could yawn at any second – one false move and she would go off. But she closed her mouth when she noticed a tiny red dot moving along the edge of a thick brown blade, a ladybug in the miniature process of exploration. ‘A ladybug!’ she exclaimed in exultation. Then she made a wish and blew on it, watching it fly off the blade, somersault in the air and collide with another blade of grass before dropping to the mud. ‘Well, that was kind of funny. I wonder if my wish will come true.’
‘What did you wish for?’ Amitai asked.
But Vera tapped her nose and pulled herself back up. She stretched silently. She looked at Amitai and winked. Then they raced clumsily down the hill, during which Vera lost one of her shoes.
‘Where on earth could it have gone?’ asked Amitai as he surveyed the hill from where they had descended.
Vera looked around with obvious consternation. ‘I – I don’t know. I can’t believe I just let it slip off like that.’
Amitai sighed. ‘Well, it should turn up at some point or another.’ Then: ‘Here, look, I found it already.’ And he tossed the shoe to her feet.
‘Yay. Where did you find it?’
‘I just looked at the same place twice. Maybe it fell from the sky.’
‘Or maybe it tumbled down from the hill.’
Amitai nodded. Vera sat down to pull her shoe back on. She had seemed surprisingly worried when she lost it, Amitai thought. Like she had lost a part of herself. But perhaps it had merely been instigated by the memory of the watch; that was a very Vera thing, yes. Nothing to worry about. She looked quite cheerful now.
And indeed she produced a childish grin once she was finished tying the shoe. ‘I’m glad to have it back,’ she said gratefully. ‘The other one was lonely.’
Amitai smiled at her stubborn humour. This time he helped her up by pulling on her arm, wrapped as it was in too many sleeves. Holding onto Amitai’s shoulder, she wobbled a bit as she stood up as though temporarily losing her shoe had also caused her to temporarily lose her balance. She managed to regain it quickly and skipped ahead.
From above came the caw of a lone crow. Amitai looked up just as the black dot shot by; he blinked and he missed it. When he was a teenager he was fascinated by the unusual speed of birds; all of them seemed capable of breathtaking speeds, at least in relation to their bodies. For example, during a journey through a forest he had come across a handful of Canadian geese that, upon his presence, sped away like motorboats in competition. There had also been times when various other species of birds would fly from branch to branch as though disregarding the interval of flapping wings and falling feathers between. Now that he was older he found himself taking greater joy in watching young birds hop excitedly in parking lots, picking at stray bits of food. The effect was nearly pacifying.
He felt like one of those little hopping birds now as he made his way through the fields and hills. Vera came across as one of the speeding, teleporting birds to him, alerted by some presence or other and making her escape. Only there did not seem to be any place to escape to; in such an open world there was no place to hide. Someone would be coming for them eventually; if the Jack hallucination had been anything to go by then it was possible that they had already been found. All that they had to continue – despite the stark reality of their eventual discovery – was the determination to press on.
Yes, that was enough. Amitai had Vera, Vera had Amitai, Amitai had the briefcase and both of them had the play. Thus everything was connected in some way. Then what was the enemy? Anything that was not connected to them: outside influences. In that case Jack and Zeeman were not enemies. What about projections of Jack and Zeeman that did not necessarily reflect who they truly were? Then those would have to be enemies. Amitai pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought all of this over, then thought about how he was thinking about it too much. So why was he thinking about enemies? Because something or someone would be out there trying to prevent the pair from enjoying their newfound sense of freedom (which was awfully strained and meandering). They were going up against his father, Marcello, Jack, Zeeman and what felt like the rest of the world. But were they really enemies? No, they had to be something else. Amitai was becoming worried that the only real enemy was himself: the thief, the betrayer, the lunatic. What was he? Who were they? Enemy, enemy, enemy – somebody had to be the enemy!
Vera tripped him and he fell to the ground with a muddy splash. He looked up at her smiling face in confusion. ‘Why on earth did you do that?’ he asked.
‘You just looked so determined, I couldn’t help myself,’ she answered with the air of a mischievous fairy. She helped him up as he had helped her before.
‘I think I understand,’ he said. ‘But I doubt I would have done the same in your shoes.’
‘Well, that’s because you’re Amitai and I’m me. Most people don’t go around trying on other people’s shoes, because they rarely fit – usually when you try on someone else’s shoes it’s just for a laugh. I’m speaking from personal experience, so I should know.’
‘Yes, that does sound like something you would do.’
Vera beamed. Her joviality was like a densely focused ray aimed squarely at Amitai. They stood where they were to admire the rainy scenery; Vera seemed to have relaxed more with the miniature monsoon, as she no longer appeared to be upset with the watery turn of events. Luckily the perpetual rain prevented any mud from caking on their skin or clothing, keeping them fairly clean if not utterly waterlogged.
Then, as though to render its acres of repetitive description meaningless, the rain eventually, finally stopped. Vera looked particularly pleased. ‘Yes!’ she shouted as she kicked up air. ‘I thought we’d be close to drowning; that went on forever! Ah, aren’t you happy, Amitai?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. He was looking up at the great grey silent sky. ‘It hasn’t rained like that for so long, it’s almost purifying. Like all the evil in the world was being washed away . . .’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Vera. ‘But I guess – kind of, sort of – I guess I see what you mean. Though isn’t money the root of all evil? I mean, I see you’re still clutching that briefcase – weren’t you afraid of it being washed away? Come on, Amitai.’
‘We could survive without the money,’ countered Amitai. ‘The play requires heart far more than anything else, and I have all of my heart to give it. Whatever’s left of my brain it can have as well.’
‘Oh, that’s so strange, you’re so strange,’ said Vera as she shook her head, though she followed it by looking up into his eyes with a beautiful smile.
Amitai smiled back at her confusing nature. Then he raised a hand to cover his widening mouth. He still had no sense of time, but if the yawn he had just attempted to stifle was any indication of the hour, then they had been wandering for quite some time now (‘Well, obviously,’ Vera would say). He tried to get away with rubbing one of his eyes without Vera noticing but failed; her gentle giggling quite confirmed this.
Then once her fit of girlish laughter ended, she sat down on a particularly grassy patch of land and invited Amitai over with a simple glance. He went obediently and sat beside her. ‘Here, rest your head in my lap,’ she suggested as she stretched out her legs. ‘You can go to sleep for a bit while I watch over you.’
Without a word in response, Amitai did just that after some minor physical rearranging. Her lap, beyond the damp, was so comfortable that he fell asleep almost instantaneously; the world only lasted for three weary blinks before he left it for another. And whether it was from the magic warmth of her body or the psychic impression she left with him, the dreams were, without question, veritably Vera. The briefcase ceased to exist.