I remember leaving the shop a couple of doors from the school that evening, having bought some chocolate and a bottle of coke, and seeing a huge black 4x4 Landrover parked slightly clumsily in front of the window of my classroom. I smiled to myself as I realised it was Francesca's ride. Well, not really HERS- she drove her Dad's car when she was in town. Still, it seemed to me at the time an entirely appropriate car for this woman that I'd only met a few days before. It was unexpected, strong and impactful, just like her.
I got in, and she drove us to my house, where my roommate Gregory had already started the party. Even from within the car, from behind the closed white front door, we could hear the 80's classics that Gregory treasured blasting, and people laughing and singing along inside...Let me tell you about Gregory, really quickly. He was a real character. He was in his mid-fifties; a Baby-boomer, I guess... and adopted all the stereotypes of that generation. He always spoke as if he'd discovered a time-machine at Woodstock, and had blasted himself from the middle of the concert into the present day. He'd sold his house and most of his possessions, loaded the rest (including his guitar, which he never missed an opportunity to get out and play, and his golden retriever Ringo) into his white 4-door hatchback. He'd then driven over 4000km, through 3 countries, from his hometown to come and teach at the new school we were both working at.
He'd always wanted to be an actor, and from the conversations we had, I got the feeling he still held onto those dreams. He wasn't bad looking- although age had set his wrinkles deep and his hair was more on the grey side than his natural dark brown, it was obvious that he had the right "look" for television. He used to tell me that he didn't really suit main-roles... but that his looks meant that he could play side-characters and villains well. I think that's a pretty accurate assessment.
Frankly, although we respected each other, we didn't really get along for a lot of the time- I think he thought he'd be getting the house that had been provided by the school to himself and was convinced that, because he got their first, anyone else placed there would be automatically intruding. He certainly didn't make me feel welcome, and seeing as I wasn't much of a peacemaker at the time, we definitely butted heads more often than either of us would have liked... Still, despite our strained relationship, we largely kept out of each others way, and made the most of the situation.
Francesca and I stayed in the car. Guests arrived, and within the first 10 minutes of us pulling up outside my house, at least 3 of my friends and acquaintances had tapped on the car window to ask if we were coming in. Each time, I sent them on ahead inside:"Yeah, we'll be in in a minute...", I'd say with a wink, freeing them to sometimes wink back, or decide if they understood the reason for my reluctance to enter the party with an unsure "...OK..."... ring the doorbell, and for Gregory to shortly open to them. He'd greet them with an exaggerated, noticeably more drunk every time,
"WE-HEEEEYYYY!!!!"
a shake of their hand, a clap on their back, assisting them inside... and then the door would close sharply, deafening the music slightly, and Francesca and I would be left in the car. Just the two of us, again.
It didn't take much prompting, and it wasn't very long before we were all over each other. So far, I thought, as we kissed over and over again in the car, "The night is going how I hoped... how I planned". That, I would realise afterwards, was an awful thing for a man who had a girlfriend to think. But in that moment, in those hours with Francesca, I only thought about her...
...20 minutes later, observant party-goers, those who weren't too drunk to notice us, might have seen the front door open briefly, two quick-moving figures creep inside into the room of noise, music, laughing, cheering... the door close behind them immediately, and both of them, holding hands, without looking at anyone, without inviting or accepting any questions, head straight up the stairs... and not to be seen again for the rest of the night...
We met up as often as we could after that. On the times that we weren't meeting in order to go out to eat or to go to the cinema, the park or a public place, then we would meet at my house. She would arrive, that smiley, bubbly temperament hitting me as soon as I'd open the door, her upbeat attitude causing me to smile uncontrollably. She'd always kiss me as soon as she'd stepped inside, and then more often than not, we'd immediately head upstairs...
What did I feel for Francesca during that brief month we were together? Well, first of all there was an obvious and overwhelming attraction to her, which didn't fade at all for the time that I knew her. I felt OK with that- she was an attractive woman in many, many ways:
"I'd have to be crazy NOT to think so!", I remember thinking one time, as I cooked us up a snack, while she scribbled away in one of Gregory's Sudoku books, finishing around 3 puzzles in just under an hour. She'd asked if she could complete them, and, distracted, I'd said "SURE!". Once I realised what I'd granted her permission to do, instead of making a fuss, I just let her get on with it, wondering how much Sudoku books cost, and where I could find some replacements... (Incidentally, I took the rap and told Gregory that I had completed them. Although a little upset, he was more impressed than anything at my abilities, but fortunately didn't ask me to repeat the performance in front of him...)...
What did I feel for Eva during all of this? Honestly, very little. That sounds insensitive, but remember that this was during the period of my iniquitous lifestyle- in fact, it was one of the WORST periods. Almost everything I thought, said and did at that time was self-centred, and heartless. I felt no shame, because my nature was dark. Like a wild animal, I was just doing what came naturally to me. I wasn't bound by a moral code, wasn't yet moved to change by years of fruitlessly following my sinful passions and desires. This is not an excuse for my behaviour- but it is the reason behind the man that I was then.
I was years from even accepting that I had been wrong all this time. I was truly consumed, from every angle and to every degree, by my sin. Well, almost. As it turns out, it was actually possible for me to get worse...
So if I were to tell you that I felt tons of remorse, and shame at the thought of Eva, so loyal back in the country I'd left, blissfully unaware of what her boyfriend was up to, then firstly, it would be untrue. Secondly, it wouldn't make any sense, seeing as it would be completely out of character for the person that you've come to know over the last 13 chapters.
The facts are these: I fell for another woman while claiming loyalty to my girlfriend, and I acted upon those desires with little shame. The opinion of the man writing this testimony is, I hope you can guess by now, that this was MY wrongdoing, they were MY cold-hearted choices, and it's appropriate that I should remember them for the rest of my life, not as a punishment, but as a reminder of what I become and the hurt I cause when left to go it alone...
I never told Francesca that I had a girlfriend in another country. For all that I'd hated Carla for all those months, not even a year before, I had to hand it to her- she had been brave in telling me that she had a husband after such a short time of knowing me. She had told me that over a year ago... and I thought about how quickly the time had gone. "Has it really been over a year since I first met Carla?", I thought in my classroom one morning after my students had left the class...
It had. It had been 16 months in fact... and around 9 months since she'd broken up with me. Anyway, I saw then how hard it was to be honest at times. I didn't tell Francesca about Eva, because I was afraid she'd dump me, be angry at me, never want to see me again. I let that fear guide me, and pretended like everything was fine as the weeks went on. "Carla", I realised that same night, as I watched Francesca combing her glossy black hair in my bathroom mirror, "was braver than me". It was true. She surely would have been afraid that I wouldn't want to speak to her again. In fact, I remember her saying so, on the phone call she made to me when she got to the capital:
"But you're going to hate me... and you'll never want to see me again..."
That's what she'd said. And as I watched Francesca rubbing some face cream into her palms, and lightly spreading it onto her cheeks, she caught me looking at her in the mirror. She smiled into the mirror at my reflection- that wide smile that came so easily to her. I flashed a smile back at her, and as she focused on moisturising her face again, I let the smile fade from my lips, as I returned to my thoughts...
I imagined telling Francesca the truth. I imagined doing it- options flashed into my brain. Where I would do it. When I would do it. HOW I would do it. I thought about her face, her reaction, what she would say, what she might say... and just like that, there was the fear- the fear that I was bringing on my own destruction by telling her.
"Why would you DO that to yourself?", Fear asked me.
Immediately, I was stuck for an answer.
"What do you have to gain from it?" he continued...
Again, I couldn't think of any answer...
Francesca was saying something as she dug around in her bag, and I was responding minimally... my thoughts were too distracted.
"What does SHE have to gain from it? You'll only hurt her..." continued Fear, looking mournfully at Francesca. I said nothing.
"And you'll hurt her for WHAT? Nothing. Or..." Fear suggested... "...you could just keep quiet, and everybody's happy. Francesca's happy. And telling Francesca the truth won't affect Eva in any positive way... she's too far away to notice...
...And YOU'LL be happy. You like Francesca, right?"... he prompted me for an answer...
Francesca was heading downstairs, and I was following her to see her out... The night was dark. Gregory was already asleep, and a single dog barked from the neighbour's front garden in the cool air outside.
"Yes", I said to Fear.
"Well then, why ruin a good thing?", chimed in Lust.
Francesca and I kissed at the doorway, and with one more of her sweet smiles, she walked out to her car, leading my hand until it couldn't reach any further, and it dropped lazily, lovestruck, by my leg.
"You CAN have it all...", said Lust, as I leaned on my shoulder against the door frame, watching her car pull past the house, honking the horn twice, and returning my wave from behind the tinted window, before disappearing round the corner...
...And as I closed the front door that night, I realised that I believed it.
---
Escaping from that cell, I soon came to realise, was going to be just as difficult as it sounded in my head. Firstly, there was the obvious issue of the chains. As soon as I'd had the idea, I'd pulled at those chains, to see just how far they extended out. Although the chains on my wrists went out quite far, giving me enough distance to feel like I could get some real body weight against them, especially when I put both feet at the bottom of the wall behind me and pushed myself forwards with all my force, they were strong. Strong and thick. Heavy links well used to pressure, that settled into each other comfortably, and easily endured the change in force on them, scarcely noticing my efforts. Whenever I gave up pushing, and hopped down from the wall, sometimes barely able to stand on my weak legs, I'd hear them clatter and ring besides me, as the pressure between each link was released. Like a chorus of laughing voices, they mocked my efforts.
Next, it occurred to me over the following few hours, as the huge raindrops splattered on the outside windowsill, and a cold and sharp wind blew some of them into my cell to splat on the floor instead... there was the locked door. Even if I had managed to be free from my chains, what would it serve me? I'd still be stuck behind that giant oak brown and black cast-metal barrier until my captor eventually came in and found me out of my chains.
"There's no way you can get past that door without a key", I thought. And then I thought about the chains again, and how it was a mute point.
"But what if...", I thought, "... I wait until my captor comes in... and waited behind the door..."
"... and then what?" I asked myself. "Knock him out? Kill him? Push your way past him? Which of those kamikaze missions is preferable...?"
And again, I thought about the chains, and thought about how no amount of planning would be productive as long as I was in those chains.
Hours passed on that rain filled afternoon. The drops became lighter, until it was merely spitting, around late afternoon... just a shadow of the storm it had been, I thought to myself, as I looked across the cell at the sky through the window...
As darkness drew in on my "escape plan day", I was still no closer to formulating anything solid than I had been that morning. In fact, I was FURTHER from it. At least first thing in the morning, I'd had hope. Optimism. But by sunset, I'd convinced myself out of every possibility.
"And what if I even got out of the cell?", I asked myself, as the sun finally set on the most depressing day since I'd entered the cell. "Then what? This could be a castle- it could be huge! It could have a thousand corridors for all you know... and a thousand gates to block them...
... and anyway, how are you even going to get past the door?
... and the chains! Don't forget the chains!"
---
That night was particularly cold. The quantity of rain had made the whole cell damp, moist, cool. The floor was wet from the drips from the ceiling, and I had to be careful where I placed my feet, so as to avoid standing in a freezing puddle for too long...
I didn't sleep at all that night. "Fair enough...", I thought to myself. "I don't deserve sleep..."... as I stood there, hopping occasionally from one foot to the other in order to release myself from the pain of the cold puddles, I cursed myself for not thinking of an escape plan...
One day. One day was all it had taken to completely destroy any hope of escape. I had seen the problems in the morning. By midday, I had dwelled on them, repeated them, believed them, accepted them as truths. By nightfall, I was more locked in that cell than I had ever been. I was even further from freedom from that cell than I was the day before. And I told myself this. And this idea, this controlling, oppressive notion that I had trapped myself even more in that prison, turned me against my own mind...
The next day was dark. It was really clouded over, with thick, black clouds blocking the sunlight from the moment I awoke. Thunder rolled, but it never rained. It just threatened to rain, but it never actually followed through. Almost no light came into the cell throughout the day- everything took on a murky, dull tone, and I stood there, shivering in the cold of that day, for hours.
I accepted, painfully and with great reluctance, over those next few days, that the only way I would ever be able to get myself out of that cell would be if I died there... and even then, in that extreme circumstance, I had my doubts that my imprisonment would end...
---
...The homeless man's face, looking up at me, bloodied and bruised, those men jeeringly looking down at him, mocking him, daring each other to stamp on his hand, or his legs, or even his head...
I realised I was asleep. Actually, I didn't realise it- I guessed I must have been. But whether I was asleep or awake but drowsy didn't matter to me at that moment. It had been weeks since my captor's last visit, when he'd left so abruptly with his poisonous words ringing in my ears... and this was the closest to sleep that I'd come since then. Painful as it was to have this memory recalled to me, I decided it was preferable to another, yet ANOTHER night without sleep, with only those spiteful words for comfort...
I was still in the circle, trying to get out, to distance myself from that tortured man, lest the men should make it 2 for 1. I hadn't found Tom, and the wall wouldn't let me integrate myself into it. I couldn't even see Precious, although I guessed she must have been in the crowd somewhere, no doubt still filming. Selfishly, I feared that at that very moment, my terrified face was being recorded by her phone, and every second of footage would soon be used against me as a way to embarrass me. I tried to look relaxed, unscathed and unafraid...
After another terrifying minute inside the circle, I noticed a movement at the other end, on the other side of the homeless man on the floor. His gelled hair slightly dripping from the rain, causing the drops to fall with a white, chemical tinge, Tom stepped back into the circle, and before I could even react emotionally, his fist was in the homeless man's hair again. His face was smiling, a menacing grin that delighted in the pain of others, and it grew as the crowd of men around him turned quickly to face inside the circle, and jeered him on. The homeless man let out barely a whimper as he was lifted back to his feet again. Within the space of a single second, he had gone from a seated position to fully on his feet. I put it down to the force with which Tom lifted him up by his hair, failing to consider that this man still had some strength in him, despite the beating he'd endured. I watched, desperate to say something, desperate to DO something... but I just stood there, and watched.
"Let's go for a walk, eh???", Tom said loudly, supposedly to the homeless man, but more as a signal for the crowd of huge, violent men to follow them. A deep roar of laughter went up from all sides of me, and I really hated them all at that moment. I hated them for what they were doing... but as they pushed past me and in front of me, obscuring my view of the two main figures slightly, I realised I also hated myself for what I WASN'T doing. I could feel I would come to regret my actions in this moment very soon. It's a strange feeling, knowing what your future holds because of the choices you're making in the very present. It wasn't a nice feeling. But there was no escaping it. I just watched.
As the layers of the crowd moved away from me down the road, still jostling each other and laughing in hysterics and glee, and as Precious dodged between tree-like bodies, her phone in her hand, pointing as best she could at the backs of Tom and the homeless man, stumbling slightly, with Tom's firm grip in his hair, the rain continued. And I just watched.
