Pressure Chamber, page 26
When he’s eaten breakfast, he returns to the hostel to collect the bag with his dirty clothes. He has no doubt that he’s being followed. He doesn’t even bother to check by whom as he walks to the station’s parking lot. He weaves his way among the cars and stops behind a silver Kia Picanto. He retrieves a key and remote control from inside the exhaust pipe. He gets into the car and drives out of the parking lot. In his rearview mirror, he spots two men shouting into their two-way radios. When he hits the road, he immediately puts his foot on the gas.
Above him, he can hear the faint chopping sound of a helicopter’s blades. They clearly have no intention of allowing him to disappear on them. The Kia zips through traffic, moving eastward away from the coastline, until it turns into the Sarona Center parking garage.
His tires squeak around the corners underground. -1. -2. -3. He parks close to the elevator, scatters the clothes from the bag on the backseat and takes a blue jerrycan out of his trunk. He douses the backseat in gasoline and throws the empty jerrycan into the vehicle. From his pocket, he pulls out a box of matches that he took from the hostel, lights one, tosses it into the car and runs.
He races up the stairs to -1 and to a white Mazda, which also has a key waiting for him in the exhaust pipe. He reaches into the car for a bag of clothes and shoes, gets undressed and changes everything that he’s wearing. After pulling the test results from the back pocket of the pants and tucking them into his new jacket pocket, he throws the pants onto the floor of the parking garage with the rest of the discarded clothes and gets behind the wheel.
He turns the car on and drives quickly towards the exit onto HaArba’a Street, taking note of the silver Renault that’s stuck to his tail. Just before the barrier at the exit, he brakes, puts the Mazda in reverse, jams his foot down on the gas as hard as he can and slams into the Renault. He reaches into the glove compartment for a gas mask, puts it on and jumps out of the car, running back to the stairs.
The parking garage is already filled with black smoke, and people, coughing and panicking, pass him on the stairs on their way up. On -2, which is empty by now, he stops next to an old white Mitsubishi, takes the key from the exhaust pipe and gets into the driver’s seat. Waiting for him in this glove compartment is a black curly wig, which he takes out and replaces with the gas mask. Looking in the rearview mirror, he fits the wig to his head and then starts the car and drives carefully towards the Kalman Magen Street exit.
The barrier is up. The parking garage guard and a group of police officers are directing the flow of cars and studying the faces of the emerging drivers. He slows, opens his window and addresses the policeman standing nearby.
“What’s going on? Was there a terror attack?”
“No. Just a fire. Keep driving. Move on.”
And move on he does.
He needs to disinfect himself before the sacred union. To remember to antisepticize the tubes and make sure the needles are sterile. Swimming pool chlorine. Iodine tablets. More bleach.
Things are progressing exactly as planned. He’ll wait to read the results of the tests. He’ll look at them in the white place, the clean place. Not now. Patience is something he has, though it’s lacking in all the other fools around him. Patience and determination. Mrs. Maroz once asked him what he did for a living, and he saw the small, familiar, contemptuous smile that crept to her face when he told her that he was a maintenance man. An invisible man. A small cog in a machine. And if He were to transform into vapor, would you not breathe in His flesh? And on that day, the Four will come to crush your skulls.
78.
Scattered on the floor are small board books, colorful building blocks, a xylophone with a small stick, and a wooden rod stacked with plastic rings of various sizes. The Four are playing as Lee continues her search. She’s already gone through the Images Room and its computer again, as well as all the equipment in the X-ray Room and the hallways, and she’s tried to open the doors to the other rooms.
Temple
Food Store
Medical Equipment
Communications
Office
Generator
Pumps
The Laundry Room, like before, is the only one with an unlocked door. The washing machine and dryer are silent. The cupboards are neatly arranged as if waiting for inspection.
The key behind the wall lamp in the hallway affords her access again to the stairwell, and she ascends to the EXIT door. But it’s locked. She isn’t expecting anything different, but she tries, nonetheless. She goes down the stairs to the hallway of the floor below her. There, too, all the doors are locked except for one, at the end of the hallway, to a room marked Emergency Equipment. She goes in.
Cupboards cover three of the walls. She opens them all. Gas masks. Medical equipment. Flashlights. Batteries. Work tools. She rummages through the items, feeling between them, running her hands down their sides, searching for another key or switch, but she finds nothing. The equipment in these cupboards have also been meticulously arranged. In one, a sign reading Fetuses hangs over a metal shelf supporting rows of jars of yellowing formaldehyde solution.
The police haven’t gotten to her yet, and that means he isn’t talking, or he’s been talking – and lying. Maybe he’s told them that he killed her and the babies; and finding their graves is less urgent.
She has to get out of here. She can’t despair.
She takes a break from her searching to check on the babies. As she’s coming up the stairs, the click of a lock sounds from the door at the top of the upper staircase. She thinks momentarily about running to the door and calling out, but what if it’s not the police at all, what if it’s him? Or an accomplice he’s sent in his place? A rescue team would have already called out to identify themselves, she would have heard sirens, a megaphone – something.
Her walk turns into a run. She flies up the stairs, along the hallway – hearing the door above open – through the X-ray Room and Images Room and into her room, taking care to shut the door as quietly as she can.
She flops to the floor beside the four babies and smiles at them, trying not to pant. It wouldn’t escape his cameras and microphones. She hopes her face isn’t flushed from the run and quickly holds her hands to her cheeks. Time to play some peekaboo.
She needs to wait patiently. At least she knows now how to get out of this room.
PART 6
DREAM ON
DECEMBER 2017
79.
Tonight, I’ll remember my dream
Tonight, I’ll lucid dream
Tonight, I’ll have particularly interesting dreams
Tonight, I’ll remember my dream
Tonight, I’ll lucid dream
Tonight, I’ll have particularly interesting dreams
Tonight, I’ll remember my dream
Tonight, I’ll lucid dream
Tonight, I’ll have particularly interesting dreams
The building is eight stories high and we’re sitting on the edge of the roof, looking down at the cars moving along the roads below, swinging our legs in the air and singing songs by Mashina. There’s something I’ve forgotten. Something important I’m supposed to do and I can’t remember what it is.
My friend looks at me and smiles. “Want to go on a journey?” she asks.
“Just a moment. I need to remember something.”
A flock of pink flamingos passes overhead. I look at my hands and they look strange. Translucent. I’m in a dream. What was I supposed to remember? Ah, I know.
“What’s your name?”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not important.”
She looks at me and smiles. She has a hair band on her head that changes color. Stripes that look like a beam of light refracted through a prism run along the hair band in a wavy motion. I suddenly think I know who she is.
“Your name is Makoto.”
She laughs. “Your name is Makoto,” she says.
I place my hands on her shoulders and look her in the eyes. “Tell me who you are.”
She laughs loudly now, flashing her white teeth. “I’ll kick you out of this dream. Don’t be annoying. You are Makoto.”
I remain silent and the penny drops all at once. I keep my eyes fixed on hers.
“Did I make up the past two months in my dream? Has everything happened only inside my head?”
“Yes.”
“Did I dream up Anna? Is she not real?”
“It’s all a dream.”
“When I wake up, will she no longer exist?”
“It’s all a dream.”
“And Nathan?”
“A dream.”
“And Rotem?”
“Rotem is real. You didn’t make her up. You really did meet her a few years ago when you were in the army, but you haven’t seen her recently.”
“And my job with the police? And the abduction of the babies? All made up by my brain?”
“Yes.”
“And you too?”
“Yes. I am you. Pleased to meet you. You can call me Daph.” She touches her finger to the tip of my nose.
She laughs. I take my hands off her shoulders and turn away from her. The landscape has changed and we’re sitting on the edge of the roof of a high-rise in Chicago or Montreal. The streets below us look like black stripes with silver dots moving along them, reflecting the sunlight in a display that looks like faraway sparkles. Transparent wings like those of a dragonfly appear on our backs. She flaps hers rapidly and takes to the air, reaching a hand out to me. I flap my wings too and we fly hand in hand.
I say, “I can’t forgo them. They’re a part of my life. My work at the police is a part of my life too. And so is this investigation. I have to find them. Lee. The babies.”
“If you wake up, they’ll disappear. Everything will end and you won’t remember anything. The writing exercises, the dream signs, the reality checks – they’re all part of this singular dream that you’re dreaming. The moment you wake up, everything will be erased within minutes. Forever. You’ll have no knowledge of dreaming about them at all. Lee is you. The babies are you. The Babysitter is you. The predator is you.”
No. That’s not possible.
“If you stay here with me, they’ll still be here with you. In your head. You won’t forget them. You’ll be able to call them and they’ll keep coming back. You can go on with the life you’ve created for yourself. With the investigation you’re handling. With your job at the police Forensics lab.”
“But the dream will come to an end at some point.”
We fly over a frozen sea. The light from the sun crashes onto the ice crystals, shattering into millions of fragments that bounce in a multitude of colors. Kaleidoscopes of bold purple-blue butterflies swirl around us.
“It doesn’t have to end. The time dimension here is different. How many times have you been in a dream for an entire day only to wake up and discover you napped for just ten minutes? Time here works in another way. Like recursion. An image within an image forevermore. You can live here for an entire lifetime while your body goes through its last state of REM over a period of an hour and a half. As far as you’re concerned, there’s no need to wake up.”
The ice below us is replaced by lakes surrounded by trees. We land on the shore of a lake and walk barefoot along the white sandy beach, our feet dipping in the chilly water.
I don’t say a word.
She says, “And what do you think – that they won’t cotton on to you?”
“About what?”
“About what you did to your foster family? Those who abused you. Those who tied you up. Starved you. Tortured you. Left marks on your body. About how you exacted revenge on them years later? How you took the law into your hands. Do you remember the smell of gasoline that wouldn’t leave your hands even after you scrubbed them with a scouring pad and green Palmolive dish soap when you got back to the boarding school? The smell of the smoke. The hair on your forearms that was singed. The black smear of soot across your cheek. The clothes you got rid of in the blue trash bag with the yellow ties. The long, boiling hot shower afterwards, with the soot residue spinning at your feet into the drain.”
“What? How do you know all of this?”
“I told you already. I am you. Pleased to meet you.”
“I didn’t do anything to them.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they get to you.”
“You don’t know that. You’re lying.”
“They’ll work it out in the end. They’ll get to you in your room and lead you out in handcuffs. That’s what will happen.”
“No.”
I wonder if I should stay here. If I’m lucid, I can stay here with Anna and Nathan and Rotem and everyone else. I can catch the Babysitter. Free Lee Ben-Ami. The babies. Maybe it’s a good idea. I don’t know who I am outside my dream – who I know, where I live, what I like. Who will I be when I wake up? Could the police really discover what I did? Do I even work in the Forensics Unit outside my dreams?
“If you don’t want to play with me, then we won’t play.” She turns her head to the side. The folded dragonfly wings on her back vibrate. We continue walking along the shore of the lake until, a few minutes later, she turns her face to me and I can see the tears in her eyes. She stops, taking my hands in hers. She looks me in the eyes. “I’m waking you up,” she says.
I wake up in my big double bed, wrapped in soft sheets with a delicate, pleasant scent. I stretch, place my feet on the heated parquet floor and then get up and walk into the brightly lit living room. The panoramic glass wall looks out over a forest, and for a few moments I watch the sun rising above the golden-red treetops. I go to the kitchen and use the coffee machine on the island to make myself a cappuccino. The coffee tastes great. It was such a long dream and I’m already starting to forget parts of it. They’re vanishing from my head like fall leaves blowing in the wind. Did I go to university? Have I studied something? Computers perhaps? Or chemistry? Not my style. I hear the chirping of birds outside. I had friends there. I think I dreamed about working for the police and that we were investigating something? We were investigating something. What was it? It’s all gone. I know that the dream was interesting, but I can’t remember what happened in it.
Never mind.
I go over to my favorite armchair, the one in front of the glass wall, and sink into it. I look out at the woods, at the flowing stream, at the pool, at the trees losing their leaves. I’m warm and snug. I drink my coffee and then get up and place the mug in the sink. Iris will wash it later.
The telephone on the island rings and I lift the receiver.
“Hey, babe.”
“Hey there, sweetie.”
“You asked me to wake you at eight. You’re meeting your friends at the country club at nine, right?”
How could I have forgotten? That long dream has left me confused.
“Wow, thanks. Good that you remembered; we’re doing an aerobics class. I’m meeting with a client later in the afternoon. When will you be back?”
“At around six.”
“I’ll be getting back around the same time.”
“Great. We’ll have dinner together. I’ll order something for us.”
“Bye, babe.”
“Bye.”
I replace the receiver and step into the studio for a moment. I have a quick look at the sketches laid out on the table. I don’t have too many changes to make. I’ll have time to get them done after the aerobics class. I sink back into the armchair.
“What’s wrong with that?” Another armchair appears to my left and a young girl is sitting there.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
She stands up and leans in closer until her forehead touches mine. It all comes back to me.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“With what?”
“With what’s around you. Isn’t it better than a room in a rented apartment with an empty refrigerator and a roommate?”
“No.”
I feel really strange. I’m someone else. I’m a different me. Why is everything moving? The world around me is swinging back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“Come on already, Daph, get up…”
Anna is sitting on her bed and shaking her gently, then less so, until Daphne opens her eyes. Anna’s here, and she’s completely real. A wave of joy washes over her. The world in which she lives genuinely exists. Genuinely? Dream and reality swirl together in her head, she’s struggling to tell them apart. She does a reality check to make sure she’s awake and then hugs Anna tightly.
“You haven’t disappeared from my life.”
Anna laughs in surprise and hugs her back. “You’re losing it, Daph. You need to slow down with that dreaming thing. Take a break.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“Okay, okay,” Anna says, squirming out of the embrace. “Come on, get up, we’ll have some coffee.”
“I’ll just get dressed and I’ll be there.”
“And brush your hair,” Anna shouts as she leaves the room.
Daphne laughs and checks her reflection in the mirror. Her hair really does look like she had a rough night. She gets out her notebook and quickly records the dream before she forgets it. She does another reality check, just to be on the safe side.
Anna and two cups of coffee are waiting for her in the kitchen.
“What’s that? Chocolate?”
“My parents just got back from a trip to Barcelona.”
“Pass on my deepest love to them.”
She breaks off a row from a slab of chocolate the size of a small shelf and bites into it.
“Wow, it’s delicious!”
“They think I’m too skinny; they’re trying to fatten me up. What did you dream about?”
Daphne swallows her mouthful of chocolate. “What?”
“Why did you hug me like that when you woke up?”
