Topic 44: Unconditional
“And these people you work for,” she said slowly, her eyes never leaving my face, “they want you to kill me simply because I know an organisation named SD-6 exists?”
“Yes,” I said. There was a slight breeze, and I could smell the scent from the flowers. Suddenly I thought: even if everything will happen according to plan, Emily will have to leave her garden behind. All those plants she has cared for will decay and die.
It seemed monstrous.
“Arvin,” she said. “Arvin. Sydney works for SD-6 as well. I spoke to her about - “
And then I could see it; the realisation of what I had never wanted her to know. She understood at once. So many people tended to dismiss Emily as a kind of decorative object, “the wife”, someone without intelligence or will of her own. They were fools.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Sydney’s fiance. Danny. Does this mean they - no. No. Not they. You. Arvin. Did you have Sydney’s fiance murdered?”
“Yes,” I said. It was this act which made it real for her in a way my simple confession of working not for the CIA but for the Alliance had not. What were the CIA or the Alliance to her, really? Names. But she had known the young man who had courted Sydney so persistently; he had been at our house, enjoying dinner, not least because Sydney pushed the inevitable introduction to Jack as much away as she could. And of course she loved Sydney. Here it was, the moment of judgment, I thought. Only a few days ago, I had lived with the awareness death would take her from me soon, so very soon, and had been unable to help her in her lonely fight against the cancer eating her body. Then her cancer had gone into remission, and everything changed. Losing her in the way the Alliance had ordered was unthinkable, of course. If she decided that she could not be with me after what she had just found out, I would have no other choice but to ask the CIA for help, ask them to give Emily witness protection, and go into hiding myself.
But it would mean never to see her again. And that was unacceptable as well. For a moment, while the horror in her eyes became pain, for Sydney and that young man who had sat on our dinner table and everyone whom he symbolized to her, a third possibility occured to me. I could surrender. Surrender myself to the CIA, spend the rest of my life in prison. I would still see her then; she would never desert me in such a situation.
It would mean giving up everything else; all my work on Rambaldi, all I had gained throughought the years. It was my last option.
“I love you,” I said to her. “I need you. Emily, there is no excuse for the past, but I promise I will find a way for us both to be safe, forever, and together.”
I told her about the plan, that plan that had started to grow in me when the partners in London had first suggested her death, with what passed for tact for them. That plan that required so much of her, entailed so much risk. Even while I spoke, I expected her to say no. It was too much, surely. A sacrifice too many, after she had learned what I had done.
She took my hands then, both of them. I felt the ring on her finger where I had put it all those years ago, when we became man and wife. I felt the calluses from years of gardening, their quiet strength.
She looked at me, and in her eyes, her eyes that saw me now without any disguise, there was what only Emily had felt for me, and its greatness humbled me anew.
“Yes,” she said, and that one word was everything.
I never knew why, nor did I ever knew how to live without it, though I did somehow manage to. But Emily loved me; loved me unconditionally.
“Yes,” I said. There was a slight breeze, and I could smell the scent from the flowers. Suddenly I thought: even if everything will happen according to plan, Emily will have to leave her garden behind. All those plants she has cared for will decay and die.
It seemed monstrous.
“Arvin,” she said. “Arvin. Sydney works for SD-6 as well. I spoke to her about - “
And then I could see it; the realisation of what I had never wanted her to know. She understood at once. So many people tended to dismiss Emily as a kind of decorative object, “the wife”, someone without intelligence or will of her own. They were fools.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Sydney’s fiance. Danny. Does this mean they - no. No. Not they. You. Arvin. Did you have Sydney’s fiance murdered?”
“Yes,” I said. It was this act which made it real for her in a way my simple confession of working not for the CIA but for the Alliance had not. What were the CIA or the Alliance to her, really? Names. But she had known the young man who had courted Sydney so persistently; he had been at our house, enjoying dinner, not least because Sydney pushed the inevitable introduction to Jack as much away as she could. And of course she loved Sydney. Here it was, the moment of judgment, I thought. Only a few days ago, I had lived with the awareness death would take her from me soon, so very soon, and had been unable to help her in her lonely fight against the cancer eating her body. Then her cancer had gone into remission, and everything changed. Losing her in the way the Alliance had ordered was unthinkable, of course. If she decided that she could not be with me after what she had just found out, I would have no other choice but to ask the CIA for help, ask them to give Emily witness protection, and go into hiding myself.
But it would mean never to see her again. And that was unacceptable as well. For a moment, while the horror in her eyes became pain, for Sydney and that young man who had sat on our dinner table and everyone whom he symbolized to her, a third possibility occured to me. I could surrender. Surrender myself to the CIA, spend the rest of my life in prison. I would still see her then; she would never desert me in such a situation.
It would mean giving up everything else; all my work on Rambaldi, all I had gained throughought the years. It was my last option.
“I love you,” I said to her. “I need you. Emily, there is no excuse for the past, but I promise I will find a way for us both to be safe, forever, and together.”
I told her about the plan, that plan that had started to grow in me when the partners in London had first suggested her death, with what passed for tact for them. That plan that required so much of her, entailed so much risk. Even while I spoke, I expected her to say no. It was too much, surely. A sacrifice too many, after she had learned what I had done.
She took my hands then, both of them. I felt the ring on her finger where I had put it all those years ago, when we became man and wife. I felt the calluses from years of gardening, their quiet strength.
She looked at me, and in her eyes, her eyes that saw me now without any disguise, there was what only Emily had felt for me, and its greatness humbled me anew.
“Yes,” she said, and that one word was everything.
I never knew why, nor did I ever knew how to live without it, though I did somehow manage to. But Emily loved me; loved me unconditionally.