The Book Keeper (4 page)

‘What field are you in for your research?’ I asked inquisitively.

She shook her head.  ‘I can’t say…and you?’

‘Same,’ I replied, looking deeply into her beautiful eyes
, wishing at that moment that I could read into her mind.

‘Did you know Cohen
, that digitally, you don’t exist?’ she said matter of factly.

I placed my tea cup down before I spilt it, and stared at her, shocked.

‘I googled your name, searched data banks and profiles, and you don’t exist.’

I narrowed my eyes at her.  Why on earth would she be collecting data on me.  Is there something wrong with her?

‘I like to keep a low profile,’ I replied, hiding my complete and utter shock. Mmm, interesting.  CAI has eradicated my life details on digital data banks.  What is their plan for me?

I looked away from Georgia to my left, and my eyes came to a stop on a man staring at Georgia. He had short dark hair with the ‘in’ side burns, dark eyes and a day old growth of facial hair.  His
chiseled face sat perfectly with his perfect nose. Uncannily, he looked very similar to me.  We could almost be brothers in reality.

‘Is that your boyfriend over to your right, dark hair, dark eyes, staring at you?’ I asked, watching as Georgia followed my directions.  Her eyes stopped searching. She had found the guy I was talking about.  She smiled, showing her dimples, lighting up her face, taking my breath away at the same time.  I inhaled sharply, and shook my head to myself.  Like books, I don’t do girls.  They are way too complicated, unpredictable.

Her big blue eyes found mine.  She was still smiling as I sipped my tea.

‘No Cohen.  He’s not my type,’ she whispered to me, leaning in a little, enough so that I could smell her sweet perfume.  My heart sank a little.  I
f he is not her type, then I am not her type.  End of story.  Why was I hoping anyway?  I don’t do girls.

I reached down and grabbed the bloody book out of my black leather bag, and placed it carefully onto the wooden table, leaving my hand partly over the cover, watching Georgia’s expression the entire time.  I wanted to see her
immediate reaction to the condition of her bloody book, after I had tossed it into the fire to burn.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened in disbelief as she let out a small sigh.

She reached for it, her hand lightly brushing against mine as she dragged it towards herself, leaving a warm tingling path in its wake.  A small tear fell from her eye.  She brushed it away quickly with the back of her hand.  I wanted to do that for her.  I wanted to touch her.

‘Cohen….’ She choked back her emotion.

‘I…I’m sorry Georgia.  I did tell you that I was going to feed it to the fire, and, I did give you a time limit, that you never adhered to..’ my voice trailing off in apology.

‘No Cohen.  It is in far better condition tha
n when I lost it.  Did you clean it up, reattach pages, polish the leather cover?’  she asked, full of wonder.

My mind was in a w
hirl.  My heart was beating rapidly. Better condition than when she lost it?  It was in perfect condition when I set my eyes upon it beside my bed that morning.

‘You think?’ I questioned her, trying to hide the confusion on my face.

‘Yes, oh yes!  And the writing is so clear now.  I hope you didn’t read it!’  she looked up at me and blushed.

I stared at her face momentarily, and then I looked at the bloody book as she flicked through the pages.  There was no writing in the book.  Not a mark visible to the naked eye.  I was at a loss for words. Either Georgia is a fruit loop, or I have something terribly wrong with my vision.

Damn, I wished that I could read her mind.  What was going on here?

I clasped my hands in front of my mouth,
running my finger over my bottom lip, and watched her as she went back and forth through the pages of the book, like a small child opening a long awaited birthday gift.

Finally, she closed the cover, and looked up at me, her smile lighting up the entire café, shining brightly into my heart, my soul. I was glad that I had my hands in front of my mouth, because she wouldn’t be able to see the deep and sharp intake of breath that I took.

‘Thank-you Cohen.  You don’t know what this book means to me,’ she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek.  I reached over and wiped it away with my thumb, staring deeply into her beautiful eyes.  Her skin was warm and soft, I wanted to place my lips onto hers and kiss her tenderly.

I don’t do girls I reminded myself as I took in a deep slow breath to control my urges.  This is purely a
primal urge for the survival of the human species I told myself.

‘I am glad that you wanted it back Georgia, and that it has found its rightful owner.  I fe
el a ton of weight lifted off my shoulders now that it is in your hands.’ I answered softly to her, in response to her emotions.  I looked down at her hand on the book, and then to the table, and closed my eyes briefly, before I looked up into her eyes again.

‘I must go now.  Things to do.  Places to go.  I wish you happy reading and happy memories with your book,’

I bent down to grab my leather bag.

‘But
…. don’t you want to know what is in this book?’  Georgia asked, placing her hand over mine on the table.

I looked at her perfectly shaped hand and fingers over mine, and felt their warmth and magnetism reaching into my being.  Then I looked up into her face.  She was waiting in anticipation of my answer.  Hope, that
’s what it was.  She was hoping that I would stay a little longer to hear about her bloody book.

I raised my eyebrows and took a deep breath, finding the right words before I spoke.

‘Thank-you, but no.  I have no right to any of the information that you have in your book.  I don’t know you, you don’t know me – heck – you couldn’t even locate any information about me over the net.  Remember, I don’t exist,’ I said, trying to fob her off.  I wanted to stay for an eternity and look at her beautiful face and listen to her soul connecting voice.  I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her passionately, and make her mine forever, mentally, emotionally, physically as one.

She stared into my eyes for a moment before she looked down at the book in her hands, disappointment written all over her face. My heart pained.

‘Oh,’  she said softly, and slouched in her seat.

I wanted to say tell me all about it.  We have a lifetime together because you are mine.  But that was not the truth, and it never would be.

‘I’m sorry….’ I muttered sincerely, and grabbed my bag and stood up, looking down at her saddened face.

She looked up at me before standing in front of me.

‘The least I can do is give you a thank-you hug Cohen.’

She stepped towards me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.  In politeness I wrapped my arms around her back and held her gently against my body.  She felt so
deliciously good against me.  I closed my eyes and lowered my head down closer to her neck and into her apple scented hair, feeling my entire body come alive.

‘Thank-you,’ she whispered breathlessly into my ear, and then released me from her hug, and stepped back from me. I looked into her eyes and smiled coyly at her.

‘You are welcome,’ I said gently, and then turned to leave the café, the door bell announcing my departure.

Chapter
Six

The blast of cool air slammed into my face like a bucket of icy water stopping me dead in my tracks outside the café door.  My mind and heart were telling me to retreat, to return to her, to swoop her into my arms for a life happily ever after.

But I didn’t. 

Women are confusing and complicated.  Trouble in my experience and opinion - no matter how appealing she was to me. Instead, I turned to my right to head home, only to be approached by the taxi driver.

‘Good afternoon Mr Darcy. At your service.  Where would you like to go?’ he asked, the personal taxi drivers voice impersonal – business like.

I let out a silent scream.  I was being followed by CAI, and I was not impressed.

“Home.  Thank-you
sir,’ I answered abruptly, annoyed that my civil liberties had been removed from me.  And truth be known, that I had walked away from Georgia, the only positive emotional and chemical reaction that I have sincerely had to a woman. 

But I didn’t believe in love at first sight.  Was it possible?  Was love actually a measureable emotion?  Was it real?  What was I feeling, and what had caused it?  She was a human being just like me….or was she?  She could see words on the pages of that bloody book – I couldn’t.

I looked out the window of the taxi as we journeyed to my humble residence.  So many questions now, where did the book come from? How could it be in perfect condition when I had found it, to being thrown into the fire and damaged, blackened, to Georgia thinking that it was in better condition now than when she had lost it? Why did she affect me that way? What is the plan for me at CAI?  I had no answers….none whatsoever. I breathed out in frustration.

Play the game.  Play it better.

I climbed the three flights of stairs to my apartment two at a time.  I had never felt so alive.  Was it the act of releasing the bloody book from my life, or the physical and emotional connection with Georgia?

My mind
was in a distant place as I opened the door to my apartment and walked to the kitchen, and then stopped, my body frozen by the smell of a homemade dinner, and then by the appearance of a note on the kitchen bench top.

Cautiously, I place
d my bag onto the dining chair, and picked up the note.  It was typed.

Mr Darcy,

Domestic and cleaning services at your disposal.

R

I slammed the note down in anger. 
They
had been in my apartment.  I looked around. My own personal space had been cleaned – sterilized even by a tidiness that took away all personality of my presence in my home. I ran to my study.

They weren’t here to clean
I realised.  It was a decoy, a lie to cover the fact that they had searched my apartment.  I rummaged through my working drawings on my desk – all tidied painfully, and excruciatingly and obsessive-compulsively ordered, alphabetically.  I went to search my secret hiding place of documents, but then stopped calmly.  I could feel the eyes of security filming my every move.  My apartment had been wired for surveillance. I could hear the infinitesimal buzz of the electrical energy driving the mechanisms of digital recording.

Play the game.  Play it better.

I turned as if I was checking other paraphernalia in my study – my decoy.  I was absolutely aware that I was now owned by CAI, my life watched, scrutinized, counted, tracked and recorded.

I exited the study, and headed back into the kitchen, finding the peace offering of a home cooked meal that they had left me.  Is it laced with drugs, poisoned, sleeping potion
?  I did not trust them.

I found a freezable container and pushed the meal into it and placed it into the freezer for analysing at a later date.  And that way, on their surveillance film it would appear that I was saving it for another day. I did not want to arouse their suspicions.

I walked over to the television and turned it on, and settled down on the sofa for some football viewing, concealing my body language from the fact that I was problem solving and concocting plans to deceive them at their own game.

My first plan of attack was to deactivate
certain visual fields of their surveillance effectively creating black spots, one by one, fooling them into believing that nothing was happening with their surveillance. And then I would install my own surveillance, alerting me to their unlawful break and entry of my apartment, and tracking their movements inside my personal space.

I faked a bad headache coming on, and eventually went to the kitchen for some headache tablets, taking two of them.  Then I found my dark sunglasses and put
them on, as if stopping the bright light from entering my vision, making the headache worse.  I sat back down at the sofa for some time, acting out the perfect scene of a genuine bad headache – migraine even, pretending to run to the bathroom to vomit.

I rested again on the sofa, my head tilted back, and started scanning the room for the hidden surveillance cameras
, the dark sunglasses a perfect barrier to conceal the movement of my eyes as I searched intricately for my targets. I found two lenses.

One here in the right corner of the room, and the other located in the kitchen, covering the entry from the front door, the kitchen and a partial view of the study room. 

I started rubbing my forehead, feigning the recurring pain of the bad headache, and then retreated to the study, and lay flat on my back on the floor in the centre of the room.  I had a perfect view of every facet of the study.  Again I gently massaged my head, as if my headache was excruciatingly painful, all the while searching the room for the surveillance cameras.  I found three lenses.