Waves of Deceit

Botched from the start.

“You go this way,” I said. “And I’ll go the other. You got that?”

And with a flickered lip she nodded. Our eyes locked for eternity but hers left mine first. It was the first sign: of her desire, of weakness.

We traipsed opposite ways down the station. I wore my smile before and after our rendezvous, before and after I received that saddle tan suitcase. I carried both of these with an air of pride that didn’t match my heart. The clicks of her mauve heels drifted further away, their echoes coming back to haunt me like the memories of our time together. They flashed in my mind like scarlet dresses in the middle of the night, before they disappeared into a jazz bar down the street. I thought of my own pointed shoes and how they made little sound, how she’d have no choice but to turn back were she to remember me, but she wouldn’t. In any case, we did not have to worry about sound any longer; stealth didn’t matter with a civilian pretense. To everyone else we were just regular people.

I discarded all thoughts of her and focused on the mission. Notably, though, the ceramic tiles of the subway were too clean—conveniently washed over. That was the second sign.

As I turned the corner to reenter the atrium, old Gilligan, under his grey mustache and gold round spectacles, gave me a nod with his flat cap. Close to victory. I prodded down the marble staircase and assimilated into the crowd of shifting, melding black bodies, only a few spots of color to splash us throughout. Along the perimeter of the golden room sat semicircle clerestory windows where the false ceiling sloped and met the walls. I pushed past the crowds in the direction of the four-faced clock atop the circular desk. Above me stalked the star eye of the bull, Aldebaran, which sat along the celestial equator with its neighboring constellations. Its designs were inaccurate, I’d heard. The constellations travel backward while Orion points the right way. What was the point of spotlighting these faults? It has an image to uphold like the rest of us. No time to dwell on meanings and interpretations.

Did I wear my cap correctly? Something was off. Had I sleeved my socks on the wrong foot? Was my watch upside down? I strode over to Vanderbilt Hall and, sometimes, like a pleading child, the suitcase in my clutch would prod the side of my leg and leave the same spot aching. I couldn’t walk too rigid, too efficient, lest I’d ruin my cover. But I am methodically messy; the feeling that something was off was unshakeable. This growing prick on my nerves was, as I could only have guessed, the third sign.

I entered the large room where I was to meet my target. A number of benches were spaced evenly throughout the hall, some occupied by waiting travelers, some quite empty. Brilliant four-tier chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and the tall windows of the room were barred with grills. Though people shifted in and out of the entrances at unpredictable speeds, it felt as though everyone swam in one big flow, or as if they all knew their place in the greater tide. When you come here enough times, you start to notice little mannerisms which reflect upon all people in a given culture. Perhaps I’d been the odd one out, standing near an entrance to the room and gazing all about the space—because a moment later, a voice startled me from behind.

“Walk forward,” a posh gentleman said.

“Will you give me directions?” I protested.

“You will get what you get.”

I took a few steps further into the hall.

“Exit the West door,” he directed. And so I did.

He ordered me a number of directions. Though I thought I knew the ins and outs of this station, he bid me walk into corridors, rooms, and then alleyways I hadn’t seen before. Sometimes he repeated our paths so as to throw off any followers. We had long exited the station when I was strolling down the street, passersby paying no mind to the stranger with a suitcase and a gentleman directly in tow. Cars bustled down the road, their fronts wide and smooth, their backs lined with two fins, their bodies replicating the aerodynamism of our great 20th century war inventions. The river was up ahead. I pondered the war and wondered what great, awful prize lie at the end of my path.

We landed at a small park by the river. I set the suitcase down and laid my hands on the cold rail.

“I didn’t say you could put that down yet,” he stated.

“Why not? This is where we part ways.”

“No. Not yet it isn’t.” Before I could turn my head, there was a prod right against it, followed by a rattled click. I stood completely still. The cold metal barrel remained above the apex of my neck for a solid few more moments before he gave his next command. “Look out into the water.”

I glanced around rapidly. All I saw were the tall buildings across the river, the disparate waves, the sounds of cars zooming past behind us. “I’m looking.”

“Look closer. Down more.”

Craning my neck, I peered directly down into the water against the wall of the island. No sooner than I felt another protest build up in my throat than I had noticed something floating in the river. It ushered grotesquely in the waves, parts of it bobbing up and down as it came closer. A tattered body, a blood-soaked face. When I saw the face belonged to old Gilligan I wanted to scream.

“You may turn around now.”

As I shakily twisted to find my enemy’s eyes I instead found two pairs of them. His, leaden with cold, dead irises above that pistol, and hers, silent with betrayal.

“You set me up.”

“You were too easy,” her velvet voice spoke, and she trotted over in those mauve heels to retrieve the suitcase once again.

The man lowered the gun. “If you resist, you will die. We will send you back home to your wife, where you will live out your days well-fed, protected. You will not speak of this to anyone and you will die silently.”

“You can’t just decide that for me,” I objected.

“This is the life you have chosen for yourself.” And with those words I thought of Gilligan’s body in the river and began to tremble, my head soaking my hands.

The sunlight slanted through the soft blinds of the kitchen and landed across the table, casting stark rectangles and odd shapes on my food and drink. She turned off the stove top and, stepping over to the counter where we propped a brand new toaster and cutting board, she turned to face me.

“You haven’t been eating your meals,” she said, worriedly. She laid her hands against the counter’s edge behind her waist. Her white apron was a bright attraction amidst the rose-colored walls behind her. “You haven’t been yourself these past few days.”

I stirred the pale mush and peas with the fork. “I’m doing quite fine.”

With every hard intonation, her hair bounced. “But how do you know you’re fine? You say that, but you don’t act like it.”

“I’m fine, whether I want to be or not.” In response, she stood there expectantly, and knowing she couldn’t get to me she sauntered into the hall to our bedroom. She slammed the door shut and I let the fork fall on the plate with a clash.

I stiffly rose from my seat, allowing its wooden legs to screech on the floor. I went out into the living room where the venetian blinds had been closed all the way and cracks of light failed to peak through. The room was dark with a yellow glow, and sometimes as a bird flitted by the window it would cast vague, fast-moving shapes across the carpet. I went over to the front door with what felt like heavy weights on my shoulders.

Outside our house flew the flag of stars and stripes. I shielded my eyes from the dull sunset to get a good look at it for the first time in a year: it billowed greatly in the harsh wind, and as I tried to reach it, its fabric whipped away from my grasp and went on flapping violently. With great force I snatched an end of the flag and tore it down from its stand, ripping some of the seams where it held tight to the pole. As I wrapped the woven pattern around my grasp to take it inside, I saw across the street stood a few of our neighbors outside their homes, eyeing me with both curiosity and abject disgust. I looked away and turned to head back indoors, and as I reached to close the door behind me, the wind seemed to shut the door itself.