Wednesday. It’s almost time. I’m lying on my mattress tying a handkerchief around my forehead, ready to be pulled down over my eyes. The black book is stuffed down the front of my jeans. I wait. I’m feeling nervous. I look around. I try to think of other things. How many girls have a I had sex with on this very mattress? Several. None of them Nanda.
A pen. I need a pen. I get up. There has to be one somewhere. I look on the kitchen counter, in the drawers. I’m sure there’s one in the car, but it’s close to seven thirty and I think it’s not a good idea to go out now. I look on the floor and under the mattress. There’s a knock on the door. I run into the bathroom, scan the sink, the floor, behind the toilet. Another knock. I check the medicine cabinet and lying beside a toothbrush I don’t remember being mine is a black pen. I put it in my pocket and run out to the door. I turn my back and as I’m reaching for the doorknob behind me I realize I’ve forgotten about the blindfold. Nervous fingers pull it down over my eyes. I reach back again and slowly open the door.
I stand for a few moments and then I feel someone take my left arm. Another moment later someone else takes my right arm. I’m led outside. I take the key to the studio out of my pocket and hold it up. “Would you mind locking the door?” I say. Someone takes the key, locks the door, and puts the key back in my hand. As I’m taken to the car, I feel the book down the front of my jeans. I’m helped into what seems to be a large sport utility vehicle. We begin to drive.
Someone is sitting in the back seat with me to my left. I can’t tell if there is someone in the front passenger seat. My guess is that there are three of us in the car. The driver turns on the stereo—National Public Radio. I try to be aware of our route, but I lose my sense of direction. I wonder who the two men in the car are. At one point I become almost convinced that the man beside me is Zan and the man driving is the green-eyed Asian I saw talking with V at La Parrilla Suiza. Then it occurs to me that I don’t even know if they are even men and could just as easily be women.
The black book feels more uncomfortable now, but I don’t want to be seen adjusting it, and I leave it the way it is. We seem to have left the city and the road has many curves. We drive for a long time, over an hour I think, and then we slow down and turn onto a dirt road. At first we drive fast on the dirt road, but the ride gradually gets more bumpy until we’ve slowed to just a few miles per hour. It’s not long before it’s so rough that I have to hold on to the door handle to steady myself. After another half hour of this the road turns smooth and we come to a stop. The driver puts his window down. I can’t hear anyone speaking, but it seems we’re at some sort of checkpoint. I hear a gate open and we pass through. We park and I’m helped out of the vehicle.
Three of us walk along, a hand holding my left upper arm and another hand holding my right upper arm. I’m sure they are both men now. They are gentle with me, but there’s a certain firmness to their grasp. We are in a corridor. Their footsteps sound manly as if made by a boots or a heavy shoes. We stop and stand in place for a short while. Just as we take a few steps forward, the man on my right has let go of my arm. We are decending in an elevator and I think one of the men has stayed behind. When the elevator stops, I’m led out and we walk along another long corridor. Footsteps echo as we walk. The man I’m with opens a door and we walk into a room. He sits me down and I hear the door close behind me. I sit. It’s quiet.
“Can I take off the blindfold?” I say.
There’s no answer.I push the blindfold up to my forehead. I’m sitting in a large room. I’m surrounded by shelves, all of them full of black leatherbound books. In front of me is a small desk with a laptop computer. I take the book out from The screen saver is on. I slide my finger along the touch pad and the Yahoo! homepage lights up in front of me. I check my e-mail. Yuni has left instructions for me: “Find book # 83-593-933 on the shelves. The books are in numerical order. Turn to page 87. You’ll see four columns of numbers. Each column is missing a number. Open the book you brought with you to page 87. Except for the missing numbers, the two books should have the exact same numbers running down the columns. Find the missing numbers in the book you brought and fill them in the book missing the numbers. Make sure to match the handwriting in the book as closely as you can. When you are finished, return the book to the same position on the shelf where you found it.”
She gives me directions like this for twenty-nine different books. Some books only have one page with missing numbers, but others have as many as sixteen pages than need to be filled in. I take one book at a time from the shelves and write in the missing numbers making sure the numbers are correct and trying my best to make the handwriting match the original. It takes me close to two hours to go through all the books.
I follow Yuni’s instructions and hide the book again, lower the blindfold over my eyes, turn my back to the door, and open it behind me. I’m taken by the arm and we walk back along the corridor we came and go up the elevator where the other man is waiting for us. I’m helped into the sport utility vehicle and we begin our drive down the bumpy dirt road. Looking up tables and filling in all those missing numbers has made me tired and now the rocking of the vehicle—it’s strange to call it that, but I don’t know what else to call it—is putting me to sleep. I’m awakened several times by some of the bigger bumps, but by the time we’re on the smoother dirt road I’m sound asleep.
I feel a hand shaking me shoulder. I’ve been asleep for a while. The door on my side opens and I’m led out to my front door. I take the key from my pocket and hold it up. Someone takes it and opens the door for me and then puts the key back in my hand. I go inside, close the door, and hear the vehicle drive away. I take the book out from the front of my jeans, and put it under the mattress. I take my jeans off, drop onto the mattress, and fall asleep.
In the morning I walk to the park and burn the second book the same way I’d done with the first, one page at a time. I watch white smoke spiral up from the trash, and slowly, the fire burns itself out.
