CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Cor Lee
I couldn't do anything else but return to my small apartment in the third peribolus, which is within visual range of the Circus, the Reception Hall and the President's Mansion, and the Training Center. Although my apartment tower is only four-storeys high, each floor measures between 1 ½ - 1 ¾ floors by the average floor measurement: its ceilings soar up above its floors, though its walls give you the feeling that they're closing in on you. The building was selected to be painted a lilac purple – decidedly less outrageous than its neighbors, which are traffic cone orange and red-light district red. The third peribolus is marked for its terracotta tiled roofs, and my apartment building dyed their tiles midnight blue to harmonize with the exterior color scheme. I have the corner apartment on the fourth floor… the one with the window seats cut into the interior wall, and the 3x3 balcony with French doors opening out onto it. When I step out into the morning on that balcony, I can almost see over the rim of the Circus… sorry, the Avenue of the Tributes. I can see the mountains very clearly from my apartment: when it's quiet down below, I can almost see this place for its natural beauty. I think that's the big trap with Panem… as much as it is a trap with the Capitol… it looks so pretty that you can't help but bow to it, never considering the poison coursing through it below the surface.
I was especially bitter this morning as I returned to the apartment and turned the key, stumbling into my small world. To my right is the sitting room with its fashionable lounging couches and a low-lying table laid out with small tumblers awaiting wine, small side plates awaiting cheese, biscotti and herbed olive oil, and long platters awaiting juicy midnight and red grapes or cherries or stuffed grape leaves. I hang an old fading print – oil on canvas – of the Fates in a garden, gender-ambiguous, sitting in a triangle formation. It used to be a favorite of my mothers'; that's why I keep it. To my left is a lover's arch carved out of the wall, leading into my very small dining room: a simple two-person table with a glass top and two empty chairs awaiting service. I have less than one length of counter, most of which plays proprietor to an electric tea kettle, a two-pot hot plate and a single-cup French press. There is a small dishwasher also, and a ¾ size refrigerator. It's an appliance big enough for a small wheel of cheese, a thin bottle of wine (or two half bottles), a half-pint of gelato, a jar of milk and one vine-tomato, one small package of grapes and two sticks of butter (should I have any). Against the wall beside my French doors is a three-shelf rack for my dishes, each with a basket on the edge for knives, forks or spoons (depends on the shelf's contents). On the opposite side of the French doors is my personal cutting table with a drawer containing my cutting knives. Above it, on the wall, is an angled shelf for bread. Directly in front of me is a small corridor that ends with my bedroom, which I won't describe except to say that it's best and cleanest features are the before-mentioned window seats. Just short of my room, to the right, there is a small room with a specialty door (latched, because I said so) that leads into the other crowning glory of my tiny apartment: the Prayer-Space. It is tiny, but big enough for a small bedside table-sized altar upon which is a triptych of the Fates and a small carved jewelry box containing my counting beads. There are no chairs in the Prayer-Space; there is a kneeling cushion at the foot of the altar. There are no electric lights either; on the wall at the entrance, in a wall-sconce, there are three thick candles: one is pink, one is white and one is purple – the Maiden (white), the Mother (pink) and the Wisdom Woman (purple). Directly behind me, down a one-stride-length corridor and to the right (my left as long as I'm standing here) is the washroom. At the dead end of the corridor is the towel closet (two shelves; big towels on the bottom, hand and face towels atop). This is the entirety of my small world, and I can't enter it willingly, not after the magic of last night.
It isn't until I've peeled off my clothes and tossed them to the washroom floor, and then stood, utterly naked, looking at myself in the full length mirror behind the washroom door – while running a warm bath – that I begin to think about something other than Atoka Menzies. I don't mean this literally but her marks are all over me. Everywhere she touched me is sacred, even though most guys would like to tell me that it's just sex. Putting it that way, how can any part of it be sacred? I think I understand when my mothers said that it is a natural instinct until it is practiced with someone entirely special. "Then, Ancora, it's not in any way ordinary. You'll see." I do: Atoka is everywhere on me.
The Fates are gender-ambiguous because they have no gender. As much as I assign a Maiden, Mother and Wisdom Woman personality to them each, they are also the Youth, the Patron and the Wily Man. I suppose they're Innocence, Discovery and Experience also, if you want to take a broader look at it. Whatever angle you're looking from, the Fates always come in three, just as fortune comes in threes. My fortune has thus far been misfortune, opportunity, more misfortune. Will I ever have fortune smile upon me? I wonder this because, as I look at myself in the washroom mirror, what I see is a boy who made promises he couldn't keep. Don't make promises you can't keep, Atoka said to me. I didn't understand her then, but I think I'm beginning to see her side now. The Fates are gender-ambiguous, probably because they engage all walks of life: man, woman and non-human.
I step into the bath and sink down. As I'm laying my head back on the tub, my doorbell is rung. I leave it, hoping my decision to ignore the caller will encourage them to go away; of course, it doesn't. The visitor knocks soon after the bell. Before I can ignore it, the bell is rung a third time. "Mr. Lee?" A man's voice calls in the accented Capitol fashion. (I know I grew up with it around me but I still think it sounds unnatural, put on). I can tell he's not going away, so I get up and find a towel to cover my lower body before striding to the door and opening it with as much force as I can; he needs to see that he's clearly intruding. Instead, he examines me with the sort of look on his face that makes me very uncomfortable. I think I've seen him before: he has a round face, big eyes and a wider-than-ordinary mouth. He wears a white dress shirt beneath a rich green blazer and sports a green bowtie. He looks at me the way that Atoka looked at me the first night she and I spent in each other's company, when she asked me to turn around so she could get a look at me. That's how this man is looking at me. He feels dangerous.
"What?" I demand, leaning against the doorframe.
"Oooo, temper," he says in a teasing voice that only makes me more annoyed. "Can I come in, or is this a bad time?" He waits a second before pushing past me and stepping into the apartment. I close the door behind me and return to the washroom, almost able to close the door on him before he sticks his foot out. With the smallest bit of leverage, this intruder manages to nudge his way into the washroom. Exasperated, I drop my towel and stand in front of him, hands on hips. He almost smiles.
"What?" I demand again. He finishes staring at me (all of me) and grins into my face.
"Don't let me interrupt your bathing," he indicates the filled tub.
"Shockingly," I say with bite, "you're too late."
"I always like a good bath," he says cheerfully, sitting down on the lid of my toilet, which is too close to me for my liking. "Well, go on," he gestures to the tub. "You've got a lot of washing to do." I get into the tub and sink low. "Good. Well, my name is Anura Bufo. I am a sponsor in the Hunger Games, and I came here because I learned from a mutual contact that you have been interested in the District 10 Tributes." He shook his head slowly, looking upset. "It's so terrible to know that two perfectly innocent children had to die, and both on the same day! And a brother and sister, no less!" I want to punch him. "Well, I share your disappointment because, you see, I was also sponsoring them. I even saved the girl once in the early going… not that she was in danger then, of course, hiding as she was and a good thing too. But the boy was rather a disappointment to me. I thought he'd make it farther than he did. Oh well, I guess the Games are unpredictable." He shrugs, nonchalantly. "I also came because I heard from a few witnesses that you had gotten yourself very close to the District 10 mentor, Miss Atoka Menzies. Is that true?"
"What's it to you?" I snap.
"Oh nothing except that, well, she seems to have eluded me. We were off to a great start, you know; she invited me up to her suite on the Opening Day night, although I did, of course, promise to keep her Tributes alive. She rather owed me one, so I took the chance the Fates gave me and spent the night with her." He looks at me, expecting something.
"Why do I care?" I spit at him, doing a poor job concealing my distaste for the man.
"I don't know," he says. "Should you care? I mean, after all, she's just a mentor from the Lower Districts." He chuckles. "Her value is not great."
"Why are you here, Mr. Bufo?" I ask.
"Well, you see, I don't really know. I think it is because I felt compelled to speak with the last man to see her, and by all accounts," he smirks, "that was definitely you." I'm sure I'm blushing because he continues to laugh in a conceited way. "You didn't honestly think that there are any places in the Capitol that aren't monitored, did you? Even the empty Theater Tiverus?" I think he's being coquettish by hiding his chuckle behind his hand. It's all very patronizing. "Besides," he says finally. "With a bent story like yours, I'd be impressed if there wasn't a locator on you personally." My blood runs cold. "You know, your little chat with Mr. Pavarol was a nice indicator that you still know how to tell a good story. But," he sighs dramatically. "In the end, the truth always comes to the surface." I watch him closely as he reacts to the silence that falls between us. He isn't like others who can't stand silence and stillness: he seems to expand and blossom in the void. I disliked him from the moment he rang my doorbell, but my feelings have changed since then: I fear him. Okay, not him exactly, but definitely something about him. He's like a predator lying in wait for his prey: patient, quiet, watchful, observant. I think of all these things while he stares back at me, unassuming in his gaze, a half-smile playing at his mouth. "Isn't this all so melodramatic?" he says at last.
"I don't follow," I say quietly.
"This. Everything the Capitol has: isn't it all so melodramatic?" He looks away from me, lacing his fingers and dropping them into his lap. "If I may, I do like your sense of style. May I ask you about the painting in your receiving room?"
"Sitting room," I correct him. "And I suppose you will anyway."
"Yes," he says. "Why the Fates? Why not another less macabre style?"
"Macabre?" I challenge him. "What do you mean by macabre?"
"I mean that the Fates are always concerned with death, and they're more or less tied to it. Why choose symbols of death in such a well fashioned domicile?"
"You're mistaking the Fates," I say. "They're about life."
"Oh, really?" He raises his eyebrows. "Say more."
"No," I reply. "You want me to tell you something personal. I'm not going to because it's none of your business about my life. And I think your welcome is on the verge of being overstayed." He smirks.
"As you wish, Mr. Lee." He gets up and pauses a moment to look at me. "I meant it when I said I'm sorry for your losses. I was beginning to believe that District 10 might have another female Victor. Isn't it odd whose lives are affected by poor decisions we make outside the arena?" My blood runs cold again.
"What?"
"I mean, really when the Hunger Games are played, who isn't a part of them?" He blinks a few times while I try to decide if that was an answerable or rhetorical question. "I'll see myself out." He leaves.
I stare at the painting of the Fates as I drip dry with a towel around my waist. What does he see in this painting that makes out the Fates to be about death? What do I see in it that makes them about life? For one, the progression from inexperienced to wise is a strong indicator that the Fates are about life, for me. For another, the sinister/mysterious nature of the Wisdom Woman/Experience/Wily Man could seem macabre to a simple mind; but Anura Bufo isn't a simple mind. He's precisely the opposite. What did he mean that I'm being watched? I rack my memory for answers and a few particular thoughts arise.
The fire was a mystery until conclusive evidence showed that it was purely an accident, that it was just poor wiring. Who was the worker who wired the building? I can see his face in my mind's eye, but I can't recall a name, so I pass by the avenue.
The circumstances surrounding Marton's job transfer from our family are also mysterious, but I think that's because I don't remember them very clearly. He was with us through the fire, and he was very devoted to staying on with us through the transition. After that, there's a large chunk of my memory missing because the next I remember, he's adamantly refusing to continue working for my moms. I remember him leaving, very clearly, because there is an equally perplexing sense of joy in watching him go, but from where that comes is invisible to my hindsight.
Growing into a young man is a passage in my book of life that I'd prefer to forget, but each page seems to be vivid in my memory. I apprenticed for a bookseller; he taught me how to repair torn book-binding and the meticulous craft of calligraphy; he took me into his care and provided for me a room above the shop (which is typical of apprenticeships except that masters tend to give dingy little rooms that are often cold in the winter, and yet my master gave me a spare room, complete with a small fireplace) and encouraged me to collect rare books; one day, he found a book of old prints from a place called Firenze, and among them was the print of the Fates I grew up with, which stunned me. "The original was in a museum, but it has been missing for many years now," I remember him telling me. "Probably stolen and then lost in the end-of-times." I remember him giving me the task of appraising a heavy crate shipment of old books that opened from the left and were constructed on thin paper in a script that ran from the right to the left and was wholly unrecognizable to me. Despite all that, it was beautiful. Another book in that shipment contained a list of symbols in different forms, one of which was the very form of the calligraphy in that first book; and as I dug into both tomes, I remember beginning to discover an understanding of the writing that I'd never known before. "Wisdom from the old ages," my master had said, but what age and what wisdom he left for me to decrypt. Finally, on an off day, I stumbled on a series of symbols that I remembered from a distant past. I could only recall them appearing on the side of our old house. I took leave of my master and returned to the peribolus of my childhood, only to find that the house had been knocked down (or had fallen down… either is completely likely). In the rubble, I found fragments of the symbols I was looking for – fortuitously, since I spent most of the day digging with severely waning hope – and collected them, bringing them back to my spare room.
I shake my head clear of those memories, simply because I have a growing sense of fear about retracing those steps. Plainly put, soon after that day, strange things started to happen: government officials seemed to follow me on the streets; merchants tended to avoid me; I was even visited by the President, briefly. I got scared and tried to dispose of the books and the fragments, and after that it felt like things went back to normal. Then, my apprenticeship ended when I woke up one morning and found my master had died in his sleep. I took on his business, doing well, until one day about two years ago, I received a parcel containing the books and the fragments sans one piece. Someone had tried to piece the wall back together, and in so doing, they'd created a very eerie spider-like wheel, in the shape of a square with four arms spiraling from the center point. The top and bottom arms formed a vertical line through the center point, but at the top the line broke and forked to the right and at the bottom it broke and forked to the left. Likewise, the right and left sides formed a horizontal line through the center point, but on the right side the line broke and forked downward, almost like an arm. The left side did the same, except that the missing fragment was the forked arm: it cut off at its elbow, which was indicating an upward curve. It looked something like this: I hid the pieces, not wanting to be connected to them. Now, as I remember all this, I know where to look if I wanted to find that symbol again. I look around me, though, remembering what Mr. Bufo said: You didn't honestly think that there are any places in the Capitol that aren't monitored, did you?... Besides, with a bent story like yours, I'd be impressed if there wasn't a locator on you personally. I choose wisely.
Tamora leans against the table as I return to the Viewing Room: she's smiling. She's so ugly when she smiles.
"Had a good evening, did we?" she jeers. "I saw your little birdie off this morning. Had to send her back to 10. No reason for her to be here anymore, is there?" I glare at her.
"Why did you do that," I ask forcefully. Tamora shrugs, still smiling.
"Dude, this is the Games. You win or you die. Most die. It's just a pair of starving murderous kids killing each other. A few less of them in this country isn't worth crying over." I lose it and knock her down with my punch. I have muscle memory of that jarring connection, my fist to someone's skull. It seems to creep up on me out of the shadows of that part of my memory I have imprisoned in darkness. It seems that the doors of that Hell are swinging open now as I find myself satisfied with pursuing another punch, breaking her nose and watching the blood flow free. A smile dawns on my face now, even as I'm pulled off her and away, into the custody of the benevolent Capitol Peacekeepers.