Life Will Have Its Way (7 page)

I couldn’t help but notice the clear path that was being created as we worked out way through the crowded sidewalk. For the most part people ignored my escorts, instead they were intent on looking directly into my eyes. They searched them, trying to decide whether I was guilty, trying to imagine what it was that I could have done, what I must have been accused of. I was quite relieved to see that the car had been parked on a deserted back alleyway. At least I would be spared the disgrace that would have gone with a curious audience, watching closely, as I was pushed into the back of a dusty, unmarked sedan. Unmarked as it may have been, there was no question about what kind of car it was. Everyone knew what kind of car it was.

Friedrich pulled the door open and a blast of foul air hit me in the face. It had a distinctively rotten fish smell about it and I imagined someone had probably either lost their lunch or forgotten it somewhere in the car. In any case, the odor wasn’t the only thing making me reluctant to climb inside. The upholstered seat was worn and stained, the fabric had completely surrendered in spots revealing the crusty, yellow foam padding beneath it. I cringed and took what I felt might be my final breath of fresh air as I lowered into the vehicle.

As the crow flies, the police station was relatively close but Friedrich, for his own enjoyment, chose the painfully slow, highly congested, scenic route over the highway. The windows were never lowered, the air in the car seemed to be turning thick and soupy and I was sure exhaust fumes were coming in through the trunk. By the time we arrived at our destination, I was in the late stages of nausea. I no longer cared where I was headed, my priority had become leaving the back seat of that dreaded car.

The police stati
on was just as I had imagined, washed in various shades of brown and covered with cheap, synthetic fibers. Faded plastic plants hidden beneath several layers of dust filled the corners and adorned the reception desk. Friedrich directed me to the end of the hall, our footsteps clicked loudly on the well-polished floor and echoed into the empty corridor. We entered the last door on the right. The room was empty except for a table with opposing chairs. Friedrich signaled for me to sit down and I reached for the chair closest, cringing as the metal legs caught hold and drug themselves screeching across the floor.

He took the seat opposite mine, his face turned cold and stony, his eyes darted about restlessly, he seemed to be staring at me in the same way that someone tries to look and not to look at a piece of food stuck in the teeth of the person they’re talking to. I knew exactly what he was trying to do, he was trying to unsettle me, trying to make me feel uncomfortable and self-aware. People like Friedrich used so much unnecessary energy manipulating and jockeying for position that they had nothing left to run their own lives, which in turn forced them to siphon energy off of every person they came into contact with. The bad news for Friedrich was the fact that I wasn’t going to play his stupid game, and I certainly wasn’t going to be his next source of energy.

Marko stood off to the side, he was quietly looking at his hands and showing an unusual amount of interest in his fingers, rubbing the sides of the nails and trying to push the cuticles back. He appeared completely disinterested in what was going on at the table. His obvious detachment seemed to contradict the mood Friedrich was trying to set and I wondered for a moment if his behavior wasn’t just part of a well-rehearsed act.

Friedrich waited for me to settle, then dramatically slapped a file folder on the table. I fixed my eyes on the name on the tab, it was mine. It was my file. I could tell by the state of the paper that it wasn’t exactly new. The folder was almost an inch thick, there appeared to be at least fifty to one hundred sheets of paper inside, possibly more. How could they have enough information about me to fill one hundred sheets of paper?
I was dying to reach across the table to grab it.

”Why do I have a file?”

Friedrich looked at me indignantly and scoffed, “Everyone has a file.” 

His face started to melt and the outer edge of his silhouette became blurry, he became nothing more than an accumulation of pulsating colors. I blinked my eyes trying to restore focus but the room seemed suddenly to be covered in a blue-grey haze. The furniture and fixtures had more dimension than normal and
the bits of energy that made up each object were gently vibrating, I could feel myself sliding down into the chair. The room went dark.

I was shaking. Someone was shaking me. It was Friedrich. Friedrich’s face, just inches from mine, I could feel the heat of his breath on the side of my forehead. He was swatting me on the side of the cheek. “Wake up, wake up!” he said, half demanding, half pleading.

Marko reentered the room with a glass of water. He moved slowly toward me, looking hard into my eyes, I could tell he was wondering if I was really going to be all right. I tried to smile, but my face muscles weren’t completely responsive and I feared I had made a terrible half smile, the kind of slobbery half smile you make to the receptionist as you pass her desk on your way out of the Dental Clinic. He helped me back into my chair, his mouth opened and I waited for him to say something, he looked to see what Friedrich was doing and bit his lip to stop himself from speaking. Friedrich clasped his hands together in front of him, tilted his head to one side and watched impatiently as I took several slow sips of the water. Each time the glass was placed back on the table I could see him tense and lean forward as he tried to decide whether or not it was the right time to resume.

“I’m giving you the chance to tell us everything,” he said finally. “Of course… there’s a chance that we may already know everything there is to know,” he continued. Perhaps he did already know everything there was to know. I felt weak and ill prepared to hold him off, if he already knew about the girl, shouldn’t I just tell him the truth? Was there really anything wrong with what we’d done so far?

“Stop!”
Anja’s voice poured into my head.
“No one must know about the girl!
Images of the filthy orphanage flooded my mind.
“No one must know about the girl.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

“We just want you to tell the truth.”

“I’d love to tell the truth,” I answered cynically, “just tell me what you want the truth to be about.”

“The truth about your involvement in the kidnapping,” he replied.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The door opened slowly, the young woman that had been attending the front desk walked to the table, she approached cautiously, the way a beaten dog approaches its abusive owner. Never quite sure what reaction they’ll get, afraid to come close, but knowing that to choose not to would have far worse consequences. Her arm moved slowly from her side, her hand gingerly grasping the edge of a piece of paper, I feared she was holding it too loosely, so loosely that she might drop it before it got to him and I held my breath hoping she wouldn’t. She moved her arm until the note was placed directly in front of Friedrich, she winced and turned her head away from him.

“What is it now?” he snapped as he snatched the note from her hand.

She turned quickly and disappeared before he had a chance to look up again.

“Well, well, well,” he gloated. “What do we have here?”

He leaned back in his seat, his elbow on the table holding the note up waving it in the air, his face frozen in a smirk, his head held loosely on his neck.

“Looks like you might be in a little more trouble than we expected.”

He looked to Marko, staring at him, taking his sweet time, it was so obvious he was trying to draw out the moment. “Says here,” he drug his tongue across his teeth under his top gums, “says here that there’s more than just one child involved.” 

“Really?” I asked sarcastically. Now I knew he was bluffing. I finally felt confident that he didn’t know as much as he claimed, “You’ve been to my apartment,” I snapped, “you’ve actually searched my apartment. Remember?” I felt I may have been raising my voice, but I wasn’t sure I cared. “If someone was there… if a child was there… if more than one child was there… don’t you think you would have found them? Good Lord, you didn’t leave so much as a hand-crocheted doily unturned!”

He stood up abruptly, “I’ll ask the questions!” he yelled.

I glanced at Marko, his eyes were wide, he shook his head, a quick, tight, shake. He was telling me no. But what did that mean? He was telling me not to
do something. But what was it that I wasn’t supposed to do? Friedrich realized we were looking at one another, he whipped his head back and forth between us and his eyes lowered resentfully, he turned to Marko and cleared his throat. Marko nodded, he seemed embarrassed by the reprimand and looked away. I could see that Friedrich had quite successfully conditioned all of his co-workers to be fearful of his dramatics.

Friedrich sat back down, he reminded me of a doll that I’d had when I was about seven years old. As you turned the head from left to right the expression changed. Laughing, happy, sad, laughing, happy, sad. Friedrich was this doll. Someone had just returned his head to the center and here he was again smiling. He was certainly the most erratic person I had ever met, but to be honest, it was hard to discern how much of it was just an act and how much of it was genuine instability. He opened my folder, carefully positioning it so that I couldn’t see what was inside. He looked over the top of it, taunting me as he turned the pages, slowly, stopping to read the different entries, nodding to himself, frequently stopping to check my reaction, making sure he was properly getting under my skin.

“Oh yes, the winter formal, the winter formal.” he repeated several times, “I remember the winter formal.” He looked at me again over the top of the folder, “The winter formal.”

“Yes, yes, okay, the winter formal.” I finally snapped. “What is it about the winter formal?” 

The fingers of his free hand rolled one after the other across the top of the table. He looked even more disturbed when his eyes were the only part of his face that could be seen. He shut the folder abruptly. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he said, “we know you were seen in the garden with a little girl on Tuesday night.”

We’d sat in the garden for over two hours, of course someone had seen us. I was sure many people had seen us. Everyone that had passed by on the sidewalk that night, everyone that drove by in a car, a cab, a bus, they’d all seen us, everyone in the shops and buildings that surrounded the garden, they’d all seen us sitting together on the bench. Why was it such a big deal to be seen in
the garden with a little girl? I wanted to say something. I couldn’t not say something.

“Yes. I was in the garden with a little girl on Tuesday.” I blurted out. “She was waiting for her grandmother.”

I instantly regretted my decision. Why did I say anything? Anja would be so disappointed. I imagined trying to tell her that it was no big deal, that it was all really very harmless, it was harmless for me to admit to something they already knew. She wouldn’t say anything, she would just shake her head, the disappointment would be unable to leave her face.

“Who was she?” he asked.

“How would I know?” I replied in a tone I hadn’t used since I was a teenager, “I didn’t say I knew her.”

“Then why were you sitting alone with a girl you didn’t even know?”

I was starting to see what Anja meant. You couldn’t give them anything to work with it just made it easier for them to keep going. I wished I could watch things unfold in a parallel universe where I would take back my words, replace them with a denial, and see where the conversation would have headed instead.

“I just happened to see the girl in the garden,” I said in a slow, monotonous tone, “and thought she might be a little young to be sitting there alone.”

He still hadn’t looked at me directly since he mentioned the dance, he was keeping his focus just slightly above my eyes, at my forehead. It was quite unnerving.

“Can you just tell me if there is a little girl that’s actually missing?” I asked.

Friedrich didn’t respond.

“You said there were other children involved, right? Are they missing too?” I looked back and forth between Friedrich and Marko.

“We are talking real children here, aren’t we? Are there any
real
children missing?” 

Marko snickered, which was apparently more than Friedrich could take. He smashed the folder onto the table, his lower jaw moved side to side before his lips became locked in a sharp pucker. He stood, the chair shot out from under
him, nearly hitting the far wall before it came to a stop. He turned toward Marko and whispered something that I couldn’t quite make out, then grabbed him by his sleeve and pulled him into the hallway. I had originally thought the two of them had been set up as part of a good cop, bad cop arrangement, but I was starting to realize it was more likely a version of crazy cop, sane cop.

The folder. He had left the folder on the table. I looked behind me. I looked around the room, the door was shut. There wasn’t any two-way glass but I knew the room was surely being bugged. I reached across the table and carefully, quietly slid the folder toward me and flipped it open. The cover sheet listed all of my basic information, full name, height and weight estimates along with a general description. My most recent ID photo had been pasted over a stack of other photos that were presumably also mine. The next page was covered with a list of addresses. Addresses for all the places I had ever lived or visited for more than a couple of weeks. Some of the addresses weren’t immediately familiar but came back to me once I gave it some thought. It was funny to think that someone had bothered to note addresses for places that even I had forgotten about.

There was a section including all of my school records. The names of the schools I had attended, the teachers, my classes, all listed. I looked around the room again to make sure I was still alone and continued to turn the pages slowly so they wouldn’t make any noise. The following section contained medical information, a summary of all my visits to the doctor from the time I was born, fever, flu, goose egg, broken wrist, torn ligament, sprained ankle.

I was well aware of the fact that files existed. I knew they had files on people they were watching, the suspicious, unsavory types that were sure to eventually cause trouble. But me? Why me? Could they really have a file like this on everyone? Why? Why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned this to me? Why hadn’t Anja mentioned anything about files? Surely she would be aware of their existence. She had such a strong opinion on everything else that had to do with government bureaucracy, the unnecessary intrusions, the lack of privacy, but never the files, why hadn’t she complained about the files?

The next section was separated with a tab. The pages were typewritten, very well organized, each entry was dated, some with time stamps. There was a notation about a spelling competition, how far I had advanced, the word I had misspelled. There was something about a swim meet. My coach, my teammates, they were all listed. There was an entry for every dance I’d attended in high
school, the name of my date, the type of car I’d been picked up in, the color of my dress. I flipped through several more pages. Near the back of the file the information on the pages was more recent, college, employment, professional associations. The newer pages weren’t as organized and appeared to be mostly handwritten, page after page filled with clumsy, masculine handwriting.

I felt so exposed, so violated. How could they know some of this stuff? I wandered through my past, speculating about all the people I might blame for passing on my private information. For half of a split second I thought of Anja. No, no, stop. Not Anja. Why did I even have to think of her? Why did she even come to mind? I knew she would never tell anyone anything about me, I knew I could trust her more than practically anyone I knew. I felt horrible for even having let the idea pop into my head. I tried to stop thinking of her, I tried to stop imagining her relaying my every detail to the police. Why was I even able to create this image when I knew it wasn’t real? I shook my head. Stop! Maybe there wasn’t anyone that had given up my information, maybe someone had just followed me around, day after day, year after year, transcribing everything they saw. I couldn’t decide which made me feel worse. Either. Both. Who cared about what I did. My life was so boring, so trivial. I couldn’t understand why anyone would care that I had gone to some stupid dance ten years earlier.

And then it hit me. Dance, dance, winter dance… the winter formal.
I’m standing in a noisy, crowded hallway, the white-grey from the overhead fixtures reflects off the tile and paints everyone with cold, unflattering light. The walls are covered with row above row of battered blue lockers. Talking, laughing, squealing, cursing, the cold echo of thin metal doors being slammed again and again. A group of my closest friends surround me, a circle of about five or six girls. I can see over the shoulder of one of them. It’s Friedrich. There stands Friedrich, young, awkward, nervous Friedrich. He’s fidgeting. He looks even more uncomfortable than normal. I swap out my notebook and grab a fresh pencil. As we pass him, his hand grasps onto and slips off of my sleeve, “Excuse me,” he says in a small, barely audible voice.

My friends stop along with me.

Without looking up, he mutters quietly, “I was wondering if you would… like to… maybe like to… go with me to the dance?”

I don’t have a chance to answer, one of my friends grabs me and pulls me away. Another confronts Friedrich, she stands face to face with him, she mocks him for having had the nerve to ask someone from our group to the dance.

“Who do you think you are?” she asks blankly.

His lower lip folds into a frown and his chin becomes wrinkled as he fights the urge to breakdown. My friends all laugh as they huddle around me and push toward the other end of the hall.

“Oh my God, I didn’t even know trolls could talk,” one of them calls in his direction.

More laughter. Everyone in the hallway is laughing. Laughing at Friedrich. His sad face reminds me of my little brother and I don’t look back. I can’t bring myself to look back.

I was brought back to the moment with the sharp click of shoes in the hall outside the door. I knew it was Friedrich. I was sure he’d had a metal tap attached to the bottom of his heel. He’d say it was an effort to extend the life of his soles, but in reality, he did it for the attention. He wanted people to notice him, to hear him as he approached, to look up as he passed, to feel fear when they heard him coming down the corridor to the interrogation room. I froze. Instead of replacing the folder I gripped it tighter. This was my life. This was my folder. For a second I felt like the one with the power, felt like I was the one in control. But as the door opened behind me, I reverted to my well-trained, obedient self and the folder released from my hand as I flung it across the table. It was still in motion when Friedrich entered the room. We watched as the olive paper outer casing went off the edge of the table. The shutter stop in my mind slowed almost to a halt, capturing every frame, storing each image so I could replay it again later, over and over, reliving the moment the way I relived every potentially life altering moment. It drifted to the floor, slowly, gently, back and forth like a feather in a breeze, a breeze so insignificant it would go unnoticed by everything except for the feather. When time caught up to itself the folder hit the floor. Papers, what now looked like hundreds and hundreds of papers, were ejected across the room and thrown back into the air where they repeated the same slow motion process of drifting back to the ground. We watched in silence.

The composite of my life, carefully, meticulously compiled by diligent bureaucrats, year after year, had been spilled out of its protective shell. We rushed toward the papers, snatching them up, joining together to return things to their proper order. I didn’t know why I was so willing to help Friedrich rebuild my file, but I did know that as long as my life story was splayed across the floor, I felt vulnerable, unpleasantly vulnerable. I reached over to hand him another stack of papers, our hands grazed each other and I felt briefly repulsed, like a six-year-old girl who’d just accidently touched a six-year-old boy she was certain had cooties. I immediately felt bad for being so immature, for feeling so disgusted by him. Then stopped to wonder why I kept feeling sorry for him. Sure, he was mean, and he was certainly cruel, but he was also quite pathetic and for some reason, I’d always felt bad for people that had so much trouble getting along in life. “I’m really sorry about the dance,” I said quietly, trying my best to sound sincere.

He wouldn’t allow me to make eye contact.

“You know how silly and immature high school girls can be.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he said meekly.

I sat back in my chair and looked over the table at Friedrich who was anxiously trying to reassemble the file. He reminded me of a helpless little boy trying to rebuild a sandcastle that had just been destroyed by a rogue wave.

“You are restricted from seeing what’s in your folder, you know.”

“But it’s mine,” I protested. 

He didn’t say anything for a while, he just sat there, struggling to organize the papers, with a sort of false urgency. “We don’t have anymore questions for you right now,” he said finally, then added in a tone so low I could barely hear him, “you are free to go.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are free to go,” he repeated. He looked to the ground, still refusing to look directly at me. I picked up my things and left the room without looking back. My chest swelled with feelings of both relief and annoyance. I spun through the lobby doors and emerged on the other side. The wind blew sheets of rain across the entryway, giant drops hit at angles and splattered on the sidewalk. The streets were nearly deserted with the exception of a few people dashing from overhang to overhang, pausing under each awning, waiting for the right moment to dash across to the next, crouched and scurrying as if trying to avoid sniper fire. One poor woman, dressed unusually formal for a weeknight evening struggled to stay steady, the wind pulling at her umbrella like the sail of a boat, she fought against it, teetering on red leather heels, too tall, and never meant to be worn in the rain.

A cab pulled against the curb, the driver leaned into the passenger seat, rolling the window only low enough to yell out, “Get in. No fare, no fare,” he shouted.

I shook my head then waved to thank him. The rain felt good, completely drenching me as it washed away the ugly stench of the police station.