E causa ignota
Christine's heart was about to speed out of control. And she felt hot and dehydrated - she was sweating uncontrollably under her clothes. There, in the hallway, she - always a stranger to reason - had stood in front of a black door for fifteen minutes doing nothing but staring ahead and wishing for a different kind of life. It was an achievement for her. Usually it was dark outside when she made it to this point - to the standing and the wishing. But like always, she felt confused... and therefore stupid. Because it was in these moments that she became aware of how abnormal she was. A normal person would have gone through the door and done one's business a significant while ago, where as Christine spent silent minutes until even an inch forward could be considered.
The corners of her mouth curved upwards as a sudden positive thought popped into her mind - the person behind the door wasn't really that ordinary either! No one confronted him fearlessly! Indeed, he was so peculiar that people tended to go out their way to avoid having to approach him. One would presume. She had never seen him talking to anyone else besides her. She rubbed her palms in approval, smiling happily, gaining long-awaited reassurance and courage from the thought. Although, perhaps, the right word to describe her was more 'inadequate' than ' not that ordinary'. Inadequate to act like a human being... She sighed. Well... There was only one thing to do. The thing that normal people supposedly would do. She scratched her arms making sure that it hurt and drank the third of a water bottle which she was carrying scowling at the door... Get a grip woman, remember why you are here!
To get rich.
So.
Open.
The.
Door.
Before your bladder bursts from all this water you've been drinking here in your nervousness.
Finally, her hand twitched, rose...pushed. And there he was - standing right in front of her.
"Ugh!" The cool demeanor she had gained in the comforting silence of the hallway vanished and went back hiding in to its usual cell. All the phrases and dialogues she had planned were lost too. She was left alone with the rickety grounds of the kind of human behavior she knew best - the basic instincts. From this moment onwards it would be a matter of survival only. And in a state of survival one never thought like a rational, normal human being. On top of all that, her hand shook a little. She frowned. It took only a sight of him and she was at a loss for the concepts of normal and ordinary. He, on the other hand,didn't seem baffled at all, even though she had just swung the door open with much more force than necessary. Had she been worth kidnapping, she would have taken this as an attempt to stalk. After all, he must have stood there behind that door for a while, listening.
"I...I'll be off then! And...see you in two weeks," she announced and glanced in the direction of her clothes to make sure they still existed before hopping to them like a wolf after prey. Prey, her clothes, her path to freedom. To her credit she really did her best to appear calm and casual about it until she bumped into a coffee table, that is. Her face turned into a cringe of fear, but when she peered down, she was relieved to remember his office for what it was - something out of a black and white IKEA ad. The ultra-modern coffee table was made of nothing but glass. And was thus unhurt despite her clumsiness.
Mr. Destler insisted that she keep her personal stuff in his office - apparently the staff of the house was not to be trusted and might steal her belongings. Christine found this opinion most strange, she never even saw anyone around the house and, frankly, nobody would want her coats or hats - they practically reeked poorness to the heavens. But in her money-lust she hadn't questioned the quirk Destler insisted on. For her paycheck was quite spectactular. Oh yes indeed, she had spent quite a time that fall in restaurants eating food she had never even dreamt of - Japanese, Vietnamese, Finnish...and yet had something to digest in her own fridge too! If she had had any friends, she would have boasted about her salary every time they met until they'd do the only reasonable thing and leave her in her solitude.
Although there was this one minus in her job that she could hardly ignore anymore... It hadn't existed from the start. It was just lately that had he developed a habit of bolting from behind dark corners to question about her well-being when she came to work and tiptoed to his office. It wasn't some casual small talk that he practiced - it was always the same downright police interrogation about her lifestyle. He seemed to be playing the role of a cop who had no desire to meddle with the criminal but had no choice and because of that got straight to the point and hammered her with questions she had never even thought about. Sometimes she was on the verge of crying when she stumbled out of his office in the mornings after not being able to answe correctly what a regular sleeping rhythm was. Sleeping, for God's sake! It was just sleeping, to her at least, but he had evidently even thought so far as her bed clothes and their materials. A few times she had jus tried just running into his office and throwing her clothes onto the sofa from the door, but he had shown no signs of letting go of his... routine and always stopped her at the stairs next to his room at the latest.
She wondered if Destler had noticed her attempts to avoid him, but, obviously, even if he had, he wasn't backing off. Was he afraid of paying for some sort of expensive disease that his employee might catch? Christine suspected, no, she was 99 percent sure that that was the real reason behind the stranded hallways too - he must warned the other employees of the danger she presented. Yes, she might have looked a little pale in the past, but that was before, when she had had no money for proper nutrition. Beware of the ill hag wandering around! Or whatever it was that Destler kept telling his staff. Obviously something vile, though. Why else would they avoid her, a harmless-looking midget.
"Two weeks?"
Christine startled from her thoughts.
"Yes. It is Christmas after all," she said and straightened her posture. "And it is in our contract, remember?" But don't check, cause I'm not sure.
Mr. Destler shrugged his shoulders, "Oh". But his gaze didn't express idleness. Christine was satisfied that she could resign sometime soon after New Year. There was nothing wrong with an introverted mind, but Mr. Destler intimidated her. Not physically, not verbally - it was the eyes. She despised common beliefs (since based on them she herself should be poked with a thousand torches), but she had taken a liking to the saying "eyes are the door to one's soul". It would spin in her mind like a stone would in a washing machine every time Mr. Destler looked at her. And that was often. Oh, she wouldn't have given a shit about that disparaging attitude if it hadn't been for that gaze of his! It was constant. It seemed to track her like a limelight accentuated an actor. A bloody Hannibal Lecter he was, Mr. Destler.
Christine took a deep breath. He looked very strange at the moment. Like a statue. It was as he had forgotten the earth and swam to the stars. Or to his blood-filled pool. How can you work for someone with whom you cannot speak, breath or move normally? It wasn't work she had done during the last five months, it was a series of miracles one after another!
"Right. I'll just take my jacket, um..." She spoke unclearly, muttering. It was a habit she was unaware of and came out with whenever her mental balance bumped into rocks. With Destler there was no footing at all. She could barely hear his voice over blood-induced roar in her ears.
"What are you going to do?"
"Mmmmm... mhhm. You know."
"During your holidays. Do you have any plans?"
He had moved next to her, for which Christine was actually grateful. She wasn't sure if she had heard him right.
"Oh yes!" Her fake cheeriness was the sickest kind when she looked at him in the eyes for a very brief moment. "I'm going to New York to see my old friend. Couldn't say no when he advertised his house as the biggest place on the island. If not in the whole country," she added with a low voice and flashed a wide smile to the floor.
"What is his name?"
What? Why on earth should he know? She eyed his shoes, suspecting something malicious waiting around the corner of his thoughts. Ugh, the pressure! She couldn't take it anymore, she wanted to leave! She was wasting time! Why had he decided to bother her in afternoons too?
Feeling her nerves snap, she then gobbled like a nutless squirrel: "Raoul de Chagny". If nutless squirrels could talk, that is. Her face actually rose to meet Destler's.
"I wonder...," Mr. Destler said quietly. If Christine could have seen the future, she would have excused herself out of the door, but her curious mind stopped her.
"What do you mean?" she asked and stepped closer to him like a scientist before a new species. Something unfamiliar to her blinked in his eyes and made her forget about her wariness around him. His gaze took its time to drift along walls until it focused on her.
"I don't believe his house is that big," he said seriously, like a teacher telling his pupil that there would be no transition to the next grade this fall. Silence.
Then...Christine closed her eyes and exposed her little teeth to the ceiling in a very "a whale bursting through surface" kind of motion and even grasped her stomach, her fingers settling to rest along her abdomen when the first wave of laughter erupted. The sound was deep and unhibited even though she knew in the back of her mind it would be short-lived and in no time she would, yet again, feel uneasy and stupid and eager to leave this murky house. But it was as if she wasn't alone in her head, she would have never laughed at Destler if it had been just the two of them.
But the idea of schizophrenia wasn't to her liking. Exhaustion, better - it had been a long day after all. She noticed through her hardly open eyelids that Destler actually looked surprised. But his voice didn't emit confusion when he asked a question after a few minutes of one-sided joy. Christine wasn't given the time to feel embarrassed.
"Do you always run after money?"
WHAT THE HELL? The joys of his weirdness faded, and a powerful wave of irritation took over. Christine had never dealt well with rapid mood changes like this, but he tended to have that impact on her. The question he had put out of his shameless mouth froze the air, if not time for her. Christine glared. Who does he think he is? Had he ever paused to think how off-putting his questions were? Had he been some sort of a bully since birth?
"No. I do not," she lied and wrapped her fingers around her coat as if it was a washing sponge. How he had gained his wealth, she did not know, but he wouldn't have to seek help in a homeless shelter if one of his cars disappeared. Christine... her daily routine involved a penny-counting session. There had not been a single birthday in her life that had been spent among relatives. Foster-care had provided her birthday cakes. Of course she knew that a poor start in life didn't prevent her way to luxury,
but expensive education seemed to be out of her reach. And, like always, there was another side to this: she had no desire to become a doctor or something else as... esteemed, her heart belonged to the arts. But she had pride, oh yes she did. She wasn't about to milk Raoul like Destler was hinting, even though, she admitted, the thought had been appealing at times when she had had her stick-impaled onion weeks during which she pretended to be in an ever-lasting cocktail party tasting the appetizers. She had learned that even the emptiest stomach could be repressed with pop music and the promises of a better tomorrow. And here she was, still alive. So she should be able to overcome this man too.
"And," she continued, "I know that he was joking. How could he have a house bigger than... well, your house, for example. He works for a company, he doesn't own one."
"Ah, so you've noticed," he said in an oddly cheery way. If Christine had had more understanding of people, she would have classified the tone as sarcastic. But there was no time for a study of human behavior as her boss suddenly made a move towards the door. That really got Christine's attention. It was as if... He was trying to block her way out! Christine was so furious her brows tripled in volume. Well, it shouldn't take a Harvard scientist to understand that one usually wants to leave when getting insulted!
"Yes. I'm not completely stupid," she replied warily, expecting him to make some rude remark of her appearance. Hopefully Destler concentrated his nastiness to people's natures rather than to the clothes they wore. Christine focused on her posture again, thinking of how a potato sack could look like million dollars if presented right.
"Then why would you want to spend your holiday with him, when you have a big house right here?"
Well, that was a not-so-bright question. This time air didn't freeze - now it felt like a warm blizzard had burst through the door and taken care that Christine saw nothing. Understood nothing. Or maybe she misunderstood.
"Well... You know... Or are you implying.. that... you are... uh. Huh?" They were in a stupid discussion, for sure. Maybe he was seeking for a reason to fire her! But if he was, she wouldn't let him. Not just yet.
"Do you want to leave?" he asked quietly. Did he mean permanently or was he referring to this day? Christine bowed her head and shot subtle side-glances around her making sure that this was reality, not just some reality TV show mocking her failure to see through it. But would she be able to spot the cameras if she actually lived in her own Truman Show?
"Yes."
"Are you in a hurry?" Perhaps he indeed meant this day. Yes.
"Yes. Yes. For starters - I need to pack. Haven't done that because...of some stuff."
"So you would mind spending your... Christmas with... uh, in this house?" Christine almost slapped her cheek.
"YES!" came the definite answer. She hurried to soften her response, "It is just that... I... just..." She needed time to form an adequate answer. She needed to come upon words that would mend her rudeness and simultaneously appear reasonable. She needed words that would keep her alive until she was out of the building! But she knew there was only one answer to give. Unfortunately it wouldn't make her lady-like, but it was a depressing fact that her storage of excuses and lies was rapidly diminishing - all she had left was that she had a dentist appointment, which wouldn't do, since who the hell saw a dentist at Christmas? Was he testing her in some way? She desperately wanted to hit him with something for being so strange!
"I don't know you. That's why." Maybe, just maybe, the truth would solve something this time. Or why else was it that people kept talking about truth in such adoring words...
Unpredictably, silence ensued after her stiff reply. Alarmed, Christine started to sway in her resolution. Now what? Should she speak more? Did he still wait for something? Could she leave, finally? Or maybe..Maybe he just died on his legs and was too stiff to fall on the floor. Shit, how awkward, on so many levels. What do you say when you call 911?
Then, an intake of breath by him followed by an immediate relaxation by her.
He said: "Well, that's too bad."
He spoke in a such tone that Christine lifted her gaze to have some clarity in the situation and find out where exactly she stood with him now. She clutched her backpack closer to her chest - he looked downright feral! Oh my sweet Jesus, he truly was a cannibal of some sorts! Mr. Destler sure was a man who had the ability to make her recoil in shock.
It was, however, she, who managed the next surprising turn of events. She presented a small black object in her hand, levelling it hurriedly with his eyes... and without hesitation pressed the button on top of it. Then she lifted her leg and swung it with force towards his privates and ran like the devil, as if foster-care and every failure of her life themselves were after her until she faced the door of her apartment and stopped to clutch her throat, catching her breath. Then she stormed inside, throwing everything off of her. Her next move was to grasp a liquor bottle and thank the fate for yesterday's payday. And then, finally, around two a.m., she collapsed to bed.
