by James Frey
My mother and father I cannot bring myself to think about. The pain I have caused them is far more than they should ever be expected to bear. For them, this will be like a death. My name will cease to be spoken in the house. Their friends will pity them, or worse. What was once a source of pride and joy for them will now be a bitter taste in their mouths. Even though Cassandra will do everything she can to remove the tarnish from the Calligaris name, there will always be those who delight in reminding them that they birthed a traitor.
And what of me? The entire course of my life changed the moment I agreed to help Boone steal the weapon. Before that, even. If I replay the events of the past week (has it really been only a week?), I suppose it all began the moment I first had the opportunity to kill him, and didn’t. That decision altered my destiny, although my grandmother would say that the Fates did that the moment they spun, measured, and cut the thread of my life. I don’t believe that I am simply acting out a predetermined story, or that any of us are. I think we make our own fates.
What, then, have I determined for myself? Now that I am no longer a Player, everything is gone. I have nothing but the few things I brought with me: a small amount of money, some clothes, a pistol, several items of sentimental value. I no longer have access to the resources of my line. No safe houses. No weapons. No money or documents. No information. Only what’s in the small bag in the backseat. And what Boone will share with me.
I don’t want to be dependent on him. We are obviously now something more than two Players working together. I have cast my lot with him. I still don’t know what this means, however. When this is all over, where will I be? Who will I be? All of my life, I’ve been a Minoan. For much of it, I’ve been a Player or training to be a Player. Now I am just a girl. A girl with unusual skills, yes, but what use are they to me now? What kind of life can I make with them?
Everything is a question. And I have no answers.
Boone stirs in his sleep. He stretches, then opens his eyes. When I look over at him, he grins. “Hi,” he says. “How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours,” I tell him.
“You were supposed to wake me.”
“I’m not tired,” I say.
“You mean you were thinking too much. Come on, pull over. I have to pee anyway.”
I steer the car to the side of the road. Boone gets out and walks off into the field a little way. When he returns, he comes to my side and opens the door. “My turn,” he says.
I get out and we switch places. When I’m sitting in the passenger seat, Boone reaches over and takes my hand. We sit there for a while, both of us looking out at the falling snow. I don’t express my fears to him. I don’t know why, except that I already feel too unsure, too vulnerable. I trust him, but I’m afraid of letting him see how much I’ve given up for him. Maybe he already knows. He probably does. But we don’t talk about it, and I find myself wondering if he’s just as unsure as I am.
After a few minutes, Boone starts the car and pulls back onto the road. I close my eyes and sleep fitfully.
We stop for the night in Krško, finding a small inn where the proprietor doesn’t even give us a second look as he takes the money Boone offers and leads us upstairs to a small room with a single bed. It’s freezing cold, and after washing up in the tiny bathroom, Boone and I climb into the bed still wearing our clothes, and pull the heavy woolen blankets over us. We’re both exhausted, and within minutes I’m asleep again despite the nearness of him. We wake before dawn and get back in the car.
After another long day of driving, in the small hours of the morning we reach the tiny French village where Lottie is staying. When we knock on the door of the house, it takes a long time before anyone answers. When the door finally opens, we’re greeted by a woman who looks less than pleased to see us. Boone addresses her in French, she closes the door, and we wait some more. The next time the door opens, Lottie is there.
“Come in,” she says. She doesn’t look any happier to see us than the first woman did.
She leads us into a kitchen, where we sit at a table as she brings us something to eat and drink. It feels good to be sitting in a real home after so long in the car, even if the home is not mine. I listen as Boone fills her in on what’s taken place.
“You have the weapon?” Lottie says.
“It’s somewhere safe,” Boone says. We’ve agreed not to let Lottie know that we have it with us.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“We don’t know yet,” Boone tells her. “I’m supposed to be in Moscow, looking for Karl Ott. I told the Cahokian contact that he has the weapon.”
“But you have it,” Lottie says. “Why not just give it to them?”
Boone hesitates before answering. “We don’t know if they should have it.”
The way he keeps saying we is obvious, and not just to me. Lottie looks at me, then back to Boone. I can tell she wants to know what’s going on between us, but she doesn’t ask. Instead she says, “What do you need me to do?”
“After Sauer, your father knows the most about the weapon,” Boone says.
“Yes,” says Lottie. “But he’s in prison.”
“We’re going to get him out.”
Lottie laughs, not because this is funny, but because Boone has taken her by surprise. “Taganka Prison is not a place you simply walk out of.”
“Karl Ott’s father is there as well, isn’t he?” Boone asks.
Lottie nods. “Yes. That’s how I know how impossible what you suggest is. Karl’s tried for the past several years to find a way to free his father.”
This is exactly what Boone and I have been counting on. Now Boone says, “Perhaps if he had people with special training assisting him, it could be done.”
Lottie’s expression changes. “The two of you?”
“Not to brag, but few people are as well equipped for something like this as Players,” Boone says. “And you have the two best Players in the world sitting right here.”
This flash of cockiness reminds me of when we first met. Then, it annoyed me. Now, it endears him to me. His self-confidence is reassuring. I find myself suppressing a smile as Boone keeps working on Lottie.
“Ariadne has spent a long time living and working with the Soviets,” he says. “And both of us are trained in every type of combat and rescue technique you can think of. If Ott can help us get into Taganka, we can get your father out.”
“Why should he?” Lottie asks.
“Because we’ll also be springing his father,” Boone reminds her. “And because he still really wants to get his hands on the weapon, and we’ll let him think he has a chance if he helps us.”
“But you have no intention of letting him have it.”
Boone shrugs. “Like I said, I don’t know what we’ll do with it.”
Lottie thinks over what he’s said. “I don’t know that my father will help you,” she says, and I can tell from her tone that she means this. “His relationship to that work is . . . complicated.”
“Let’s worry about that once we get him out,” Boone says. “Whether he will or won’t, I’m sure he’d rather not be sitting in that place. From what I hear, it’s brutal. Especially for political prisoners.”
A shadow of worry passes over Lottie’s face. I know she’s thinking about her father being in the Soviet prison, about what might be happening to him. Boone is right: Taganka is a terrible place. The MGB I worked with used to refer to it as the Devil’s Playground because of all the unimaginable things that await the prisoners there. Almost nobody who passes through its gates comes out again, and if they do, they’re forever changed. If there’s a chance that Lottie can get her father out, she should take it.
She does. “I’ll contact Ott,” she says, standing up. “I’ll let you know what he says. In the meantime, there is a room upstairs where you can rest. You’ll have to share.”
She looks at me, and I don’t look away. Her unspoken question hangs in the air, and I answer it
by saying, “I think we can manage.” Lottie smiles briefly, and I think that despite our past, despite everything that happened in Berlin, she is happy for us. Having lost Jackson must surely be a huge blow to her, and maybe she sees the possibility of Boone and me being together as a sliver of hope in the darkness.
She shows us to the room, then leaves us alone. When she’s gone, Boone says, “Did that just work?”
“I think maybe it did,” I say as I open my bag and take out some fresh clothes. I’m hoping the bathroom we walked by has a bathtub in it, but I’ll settle for washing my face.
Boone sits on the bed and bounces on it like a little boy. When I look at him, he stops. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just kind of excited. I know everything is weird, but it feels good to have something to do.”
“Once a Player, always a Player,” I remark.
He stands up and comes to me. “Sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I tell him. “Not about this.” And I’m not. Because Boone is right: it is nice to have something to focus on other than my personal worries. Something like going to Moscow to break into one of the most notorious prisons in the world is a problem I know how to work with. It will involve planning and skill, but it can be done. Unlike fixing the rest of my life.
He still looks sad, so I lean up and press my mouth to his. It’s the first time we’ve really kissed, and when our lips meet, my entire body comes alive. I have to force myself to pull away. “It’s okay,” I reassure him. “I’m going to go see about a bath. I’ll be back.”
I leave him in the bedroom and go next door. There is a bathtub, and it does work, although the water is only lukewarm. That’s good enough. I fill the tub, add some bath salts from a jar, and then sink into water that smells like roses. I take a bar of soap and rub it on my skin, enjoying the way the lather washes away the feeling of being in a car for two days. When I’m done, I feel, if not like a new person, then at least like someone who has more options than she did a few hours ago.
I rinse off, wrap a towel around me, and return to the bedroom. I half expect to find Boone already asleep, but he’s not. He’s sitting on the bed, the box with the weapon pieces in it open before him. He’s holding up a piece and looking at it.
“Is it wise to have that out in the open like that?” I ask as I shut the door and lock it.
“No,” he says. He hasn’t looked up yet, as he’s too busy examining the piece in his hand. “But I’ve risked a lot for this stuff, and I wanted to see what all the fuss is about. It’s weird to think that this was made by people from outer space, isn’t it?”
I walk over to the bed and stand in front of him. I let go of the towel, and it falls to the floor. The air is cool on my naked skin, and I shiver a little. Boone looks up. The piece of the weapon in his hand tumbles from his fingers, and he scrambles to catch it.
“Oh,” he says. “Wow. Um . . .”
He seems so unnerved that for a moment I almost pick up the towel again. Have I made a mistake? Is he not interested in me this way? Then another thought enters my mind: Maybe he’s never been this close to a naked woman.
I sit down next to him and take the weapon piece from his hand. I put it back in the box, then close the lid, pick up the box, and set it on the floor. Boone is reclining against the pillows, just watching me. I lean over and kiss him, softly at first, then more deeply. Again he hesitates, but only for a moment. Then he kisses me back. His hands grip my arms, and he pulls me down beside him. I feel like I’m falling, tumbling through space after letting go of a lifeline that has tethered me to something safe and familiar. Now I’m floating in unfamiliar territory, where the rules no longer apply and I don’t know what will happen. It’s frightening, but at the same time, I’ve never felt so free.
CHAPTER 8
Boone
The village has a very old church, built centuries ago and dedicated to Saint Roch, who Lottie tells me is the patron saint of, among other things, dogs. This explains the half dozen mutts curled up on blankets below a statue of the saint that is surrounded by lit candles. One of them opens an eye as we walk by, then goes back to sleep.
“The villagers bring them food,” Lottie says. “They consider them good luck.”
We continue through the sanctuary, then down a set of stone stairs into a room beneath the church. It’s bitterly cold here, and our breath fogs the air. In the room are several wooden tables, on which rest simple coffins. There are three of them.
“They store the dead here during the winter,” Lottie tells us. “The ground is too hard to dig, of course, so they rest here until the spring.”
We’ve come to see Jackson. Well, not to see him, as I’m not about to open the coffin. But I do want to pay my respects to my brother. Not wanting to upset Bernard, we’ve left him playing with a neighbor’s boy. The woman whose house they’re staying in, who I’ve learned is Lottie’s friend Bérénice, is watching them.
“Jackson’s is the middle one,” Lottie says. “I’ll be upstairs.” She turns to go.
“I’ll go with her,” says Ariadne.
“No,” I say. I reach out and take her hand. “Stay with me.”
I can’t help but think about what happened between us last night. I haven’t told her that it was my first time, but I’m pretty sure she knows. Even though I might not have been as good as I could have been, it was still absolutely amazing.
I feel weird thinking about this in a church and in front of my brother’s body. Then again, I think Jackson would be happy for me. There’s so much going on right now. So much uncertainty. Ariadne is one thing I can count on. One real thing that I can touch and hold. One person I can believe in.
I no longer worry that she’s playing me. She’s taken a huge risk by helping me, and by taking the weapon from her own line. She’s trusting me not to hurt her, which for someone who was trained as a Player is the biggest thing she can do for someone else.
Ariadne keeps hold of my hand as I walk to Jackson’s coffin and put my other hand on it. I stand between them, my brother and my—what, girlfriend? That seems like such an inadequate word to describe how I feel about her, like we’re just two normal people who go to the movies together. We’re more than that. Much more. I don’t know what the word for it is, though. I do know that she’s my future, and Jackson is my past. The living and the dead, with me in between them.
I want to say something to my brother. But what? I’m sorry? I love you? I wish we hadn’t lost so much time, and that we had more now? All these things are true, but saying them out loud feels weird, like reciting lines written for a play. I feel them, but my mouth can’t bring itself to say them.
“Where do Minoans believe we go when we die?” I ask Ariadne.
“It’s said that heroes go to Elysium,” she tells me. “A kind of paradise where they’re rewarded for their bravery in this life.”
“And everyone else?”
“It depends who you ask. Some think there’s an underworld. Some think we just die. What do Cahokians believe?”
“Different things,” I say. I think about my mother, who spends every Sunday morning at the Methodist church, while my father only goes to Christmas Eve services or if someone’s getting married. Jackson sometimes went with my mother on Sundays, but I don’t know what he actually believed. We never talked about it.
“Wherever you are, Jackson, I hope you’re happy,” I say, and touch my fingers to my brother’s coffin. “Maybe I’ll see you again someday.”
I’m done talking, but I’m not ready to leave, so I stand there for a while longer, my arm around Ariadne. We have a long, difficult road ahead of us, and for the moment I want to just stand in this quiet room, far from the world of Endgame and everything associated with it. As soon as we leave, it’s all going to become more and more complicated.
We stand like this for a while, not talking. Then I take Ariadne’s hand and walk back up the stairs. With each step, I feel the weig
ht on my shoulders grow heavier. At one point I pause on the stairs, and Ariadne moves ahead of me, gently pulling me along with her. It’s as if she’s leading me back into the world. I could hold back, fight against it, but I go with her, and together we enter the church. Lottie is sitting in one of the pews, waiting. She has a strange look on her face, and is staring at something. I follow her gaze and see that she’s looking at the crucifix on the wall. Christ hangs on it, his sad eyes looking heavenward.
“I tried to pray,” Lottie says. “I couldn’t. I don’t think God is there. Or if he is, he isn’t listening.”
I want to say something to make her feel better, but I can’t think of anything.
“If it’s true what they say,” Lottie continues, “about Endgame. . . . If it’s true, then where is God? Where is the hope?”
Ariadne squeezes my hand. I think about the conversation we’ve just had in the crypt below the church. These are big questions. Questions I haven’t given a lot of thought to, honestly. Mostly because they’re hard, and I don’t know that there are answers, or at least not answers that will bring anyone any satisfaction.
“These creatures that made the weapon,” says Lottie. “Are they gods?”
“It’s said they can be killed,” Ariadne replies.
Lottie snorts. “Many cultures have gods that can be killed,” she says. “Does that make them any less gods?”
Again I have no answer for her, and this talk is only making me more uneasy.
“We should be getting back,” I remind them.
As we leave, a dog enters the church doorway, covered in snow. It shakes, then trots by us to join the other dogs at the feet of Saint Roch. It was snowing when we left the house, and now it’s begun to fall more thickly. We walk through the streets, returning to the house. The visit to the church has made us all quiet, and I wonder what Ariadne is thinking about. I don’t know much about Minoan religion, about their gods and beliefs, except for what she’s told me about the afterlife. I want to ask her more about it, but Lottie seems upset now, and it’s important to keep her calm given what we have left to do today.