The Smaller Evil Page 4

  But she didn’t. Instead, the old woman reached out and patted his arm. Her skin was very soft. Arman lifted his head to look at her, still abashed, still blushing, but wanting so badly to be brave.

  She smiled. “Maybe you can understand living a life where what other people think doesn’t rule your actions.”

  Arman tried smiling back, returning some of her warmth, but he couldn’t help blurting out, “I don’t, though. That’s just it. I don’t understand anything about that.”

  “You will,” she told him gently. “Soon.”

  SOMEDAY.

  You see the girl again and nothing’s changed. Sure, she doesn’t smile as much. And this time she’s the one asking the questions. She’s determined to be assertive now, to take charge, and you like that. She doesn’t know that this is the way it always goes. She doesn’t know that you need her doubt before her conviction.

  You meet at a park this time. The nice one off Soquel that’s not far from the beach. Lots of students lie in the well-kept grass, reading quietly, soaking up sun. You can tell the most studious types by the paleness of their skin and the way they roll their pant cuffs. They’re also the ones smoking cigarettes, not joints, and women with children throw dirty looks their way.

  She wants to know what you think about religion. She was raised Jewish, but she doesn’t believe. Or she doesn’t want to. This is causing friction with her family. What she wants is the freedom to make her own choices. To find her own path toward spirituality. You smile at this and say the things you always say. That she’s having the right kinds of thoughts, but that she’s looking for the wrong kinds of answers. That religion isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of now and then.

  Faith is an investment, you tell her, when you see she doesn’t understand. You bargain now for what you hope matters then.

  The girl laughs, not because you’re right, but because she thinks you’re clever. You don’t push it more than that. Instead, you switch gears, asking about her friends at school. If there are other people on campus as smart as she is. Not as smart, she says, and this time you both laugh. Then you enjoy the sunshine for a bit, which feels good. She doesn’t smoke, like the other students. You comment on this, in a positive sort of way. Seems like an easy enough thing to do, but at your words she frowns and looks elsewhere. You’re intrigued by this. More than intrigued. You’ve hit on something. A tenderness. You’ll be sure to remember that.

  It will be useful to you someday.

  5

  “SO WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” a voice asked.

  “Huh?” Arman lifted his head and looked around. It was nighttime now, almost nine o’clock, and he was seated at a dinner table, surrounded by three strangers, in a room lit by candle glow. He wasn’t eating, because there wasn’t any food. What he was doing, however, was surreptitiously shaking two pills around in his hand, while weighing the pros and cons of taking them. One was his pink oval-shaped Paxil, which had to be taken with meals. The other was one of his short-acting Adderalls.

  “I asked where you were from,” the voice said again, and it was Mari speaking to him, the old woman he’d met in the bathroom just hours earlier. Now fully dressed, she sat across from him, with her hair neatly braided, her soft face shadowy in the jumpy light.

  Arman decided that he liked Mari. He really did. The whole naked thing wasn’t that big a deal, and whatever kind of deal it was, well, that was on him. Not only had she been gracious this afternoon, she’d helped him out again when he’d shown up in the dining room alone after not being able to find Kira and Dale back in the cabin. In fact, Arman would’ve missed the meal altogether if he hadn’t seen the stream of people walking past his open window and decided to join them, following along in silence until he reached the dining hall, this cavernous room so completely different from the bright and sunny kitchen he’d eaten in earlier. No, this space, filled with heavy drapes and low-hanging candelabras, was grim and foreboding—full of secrets and dark wood, hushed tones and the rich scent of burning incense.

  Arman had been lost in the swell of strangers—there had to be at least a hundred people here, some dressed in those light gauzy clothes, others not—and he’d stood frozen by the entryway, like a sweaty-palmed zombie. In fact, he stood there so long, he’d started to imagine the aging, blond bodyguard-looking guy who was staring at him from across the room was plotting to drag him out back and put him out of his misery. The guy could’ve definitely been one of the guards Dale had mentioned, only Arman had no clue how to tell if someone was armed. He had no clue about anything, a fact made blatantly obvious when Mari had come up to him, taken his arm, and guided him to her table. There, she’d poured him a glass of red wine and shushed him when he said he wasn’t old enough to drink.

  “You know, you’re not supposed to ask him that,” the woman next to Mari scolded. She was younger than Mari, but still old. Maybe the same age as Arman’s mom. Forty something? He couldn’t tell. She had long black hair and brown skin and an accent he couldn’t place.

  Arman closed his fist around his pills. “Why aren’t you supposed to ask me where I come from?”

  “Drink your wine,” Mari instructed. “You’re too tense.”

  Obedient as always, Arman picked up the glass and drank his wine. It tasted funny. Not sweet like how it smelled, but acidy and thick. Almost gritty. He drank more, gulped it really, wondering if he would get drunk from one glass. Being drunk wasn’t something he had a lot of experience with, although that wasn’t innocence born from any moral compass, but rather a lack of opportunity.

  A short man on Arman’s left leaned in. “You’re new here, right? Just came in today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well see, then that’s why you don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That we’re not supposed to talk about our lives from before. Not at first. This is a place for rebirth. For rejuvenation. We make our own stories here. They don’t make us.”

  “Oh,” Arman said.

  “Quarantine’s not until tonight,” Mari called from across the table. “He’s still whoever he is until then. There’s nothing wrong with asking.”

  The man shrugged, and Arman wanted to be the one to ask more questions, like what happened at Quarantine and who would make his story and how could he possibly be anyone but who he already was? But the food came then, hot and steamy and aromatic, and the time for asking disappeared into the vapor.

  A table to their left got up to serve, six figures slipping into the kitchen through an open doorway and returning with various dishes. Arman got to his feet to help, too, in part because he wanted to go into the kitchen and see if things were how he remembered them, but Mari gave a shake of her head, her lips forming a frown, and he quickly sat again.

  Heaping bowls of wild rice and hot platters of roast chicken with buttery potatoes appeared on the table, along with warm rolls wrapped in towels and savory oven-roasted vegetables and green salad and peach chutney. A feast, practically. Arman’s eyes grew wider and wider. He’d never seen a meal this big, except maybe that dinner he’d had the year he’d spent a disastrous Thanksgiving with his father’s family up in Marin.

  The last thing to be served, a bowl of sweet corn sprinkled with mint, was set directly in front of Arman. At this he glanced up to see the cook standing there, right beside him, very close. Still in her yellow dress.

  Still with her bare legs and soft hair pulled off her neck.

  She nodded, giving Arman a quick tip of her head before moving her gaze downward, toward his hand. The one holding the pills. He shoved it under the table.

  “Hey,” he said.

  The cook didn’t answer. Instead she brushed against him, like a cat to a corner or an uncrossed knee, and whether that was by accident or design, he didn’t know. After that, she simply floated away, disappearing into the depths of the room. Arman watched her go
with a deep sense of both longing and loss. It wasn’t until she’d vanished beyond the reach of candlelight that he shifted his attention back to the table. Realized everyone was staring at him.

  Arman cleared his throat. Turned to the short man beside him.

  “So, uh, what happens tonight?” he asked. “The Quarantine thing? Can you tell me more about that?”

  “Weren’t you at the meeting earlier?” The man handed him the platter of chicken. “It was explained there.”

  “Well, yes,” Arman lied. “Of course I was there.”

  The dark-haired woman sniffed. “You don’t seem to know very much.”

  “Sorry. I sort of space out a lot.” Arman resisted the urge to pick at his arm. He set about searching for a piece of dark meat. Found the smallest one.

  “You have to be engaged at all times,” Mari told him. “Once sessions begin, we’ll expect you to retain everything you’ve been taught. You can’t evolve without awareness. It’s not possible.”

  “We don’t suffer fools here,” the short man said with a grunt.

  “Or tolerate ignorance,” finished the dark-haired woman.

  “Sessions,” Arman said slowly, realizing these three must be the trainers Dale had talked about. “Sessions that you all help teach.”

  “That’s right.” Mari gave him a warm smile. She was holding the basket of rolls. Arman watched her take two.

  “What about Beau?” he asked.

  “What about him?”

  “I thought this was his program. His, you know, community.”

  Mari’s smile grew broader. “A community doesn’t belong to any one person. It belongs to all of us.”

  “So it’s not his?”

  “You know, I think what would serve you best right now,” she said, “is to focus on your own experience. Growth can happen when and where you least expect it.”

  Arman nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. I can do that.”

  She practically glowed. “Wonderful. Now would you please pass the butter?”

  “So who’s on your list?” the dark-haired woman asked the short man, who was busy fingering his wispy comb-over while draining a second glass of wine.

  “There’s a couple that came in today,” he said with a smack. “Retired. No children. Nice house in Malibu.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Don’t know yet. The rest are Beau’s, so I doubt it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Arman couldn’t help but interrupt. But it wasn’t like their conversation was private. He could hear everything.

  The dark-haired woman glanced over at him. “Oh, we’re just making our predictions,” she said.

  “Predictions about what?”

  But the woman didn’t answer. Instead she leaned forward, edging her chair closer to the short man and laughing before whispering something into his ear. And this time, when she spoke, Arman couldn’t hear a word she said.

  • • •

  After the meal came dessert—some sort of spice cake—followed by hot tea with milk and nutmeg. Feeling like he was being judged and undoubtedly failing, Arman made sure to eat everything and drink everything, despite the fact he was starting to feel uncomfortably full. Drowsy, too, his neck turning laggy under the descending weight of sleep pressure. He was exhausted. More than exhausted, having spent the previous night tossing in bed, worrying about leaving home, worrying about getting the money from his stepfather’s safe, worrying about what would happen to his mother when his stepfather found out, worrying about everything. At the memory, a surge of anxiety threatened to bubble into his consciousness, but Arman shut his eyes. Strained to push it all away.

  You’re safe now. You’re free.

  Then Mari was standing behind him, shaking him gently.

  “It’s time to go,” she whispered, and Arman blinked, confused. When had she gotten up? When had everybody? He looked around. The dining hall was practically empty, people quietly streaming out, their chairs pushed back, piles of dishes and glassware left in their wake. What was going on? God. Had he been sleeping?

  “Go where?” he asked Mari.

  “The meeting hall,” she said. “It’s time.”

  • • •

  Arman swallowed his pills before he left. Mari went on ahead, and he did it when no one was looking, deftly slipping the Paxil and Adderall into his napkin, pressing the whole thing to his lips, and downing a mouthful of water while he got to his feet.

  He didn’t look back as he walked toward the door. He felt guilty about taking the pills and he hated that. The guilt made him feel like he was trying to get away with something rather than keeping himself from falling apart. It wasn’t just the rule-breaking that made him feel this way, either. It was the way he always felt, thanks to countless lectures from teachers fretting over his “wasted potential” and years of living with a father who believed ADHD and nerves and stomachaches were all signs of weakness, true failures in character. Like he was one to talk. Mikhail Dukoff’s current reality was the type of failure Arman was doing his damnedest never to experience.

  Of course, Arman also understood medication couldn’t fix his problems. Not the things that truly haunted him, like why he couldn’t connect to others and why he hated himself for that. But the pills helped. They were all he had. They cleared his head and calmed his nerves, and they held him together the way a plastic bag might hold the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had long since lost their box.

  6

  ARMAN WAS HALFWAY UP THE trail to the meeting hall when someone came sprinting up behind him. With no warning at all. Before he could turn to look over his shoulder, the person flew past, grabbing for his arm as they went. Whoever it was tried dragging Arman along, pulling him into a run. He was willing to go, only his body did things all wrong. He took one step only to have his shoes tangle, throwing him to the ground in an ungraceful heap.

  Landing hard in the dirt, Arman had the wind knocked out of him. He was working to catch his breath when the person who’d grabbed on to him in the first place started to laugh. They crouched beside him and pulled him up to sitting. Arman blinked and stared, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Jesus. It was Kira.

  Beautiful Kira.

  She was still laughing. “Hey, kid.”

  “Hey,” he said, pressing his hand to his lungs. “That hurt.”

  “Maybe you want to try not falling on your ass next time.” Kira leaned forward, so close that her soft braids brushed against Arman’s cheek, causing his heart to leap, among other things. She’d never touched him before. Not on purpose, and he waited, eagerly. Maybe she was going to kiss him—stranger things had happened today—only she didn’t. Instead she reached to brush the dirt and leaves from his hair. And she did it vigorously, like he was some ragged pup too filthy to come inside. Like she wasn’t the one who’d put the dirt there in the first place.

  He ducked away. Kira was more hyper than he’d realized. “Stop it.”

  She grinned a wide Cheshire grin. “Fine.”

  “Where’ve you been? Why weren’t you at dinner?”

  “I was at dinner. I saw you sleeping in there, by the way.”

  Arman scowled. “Well, where’s Dale?”

  She shrugged.

  “Kira . . .”

  “Where were you this afternoon?” she asked, and under the light of the moon, her eyes were bright, glittering. “You ever going to tell me about that?”

  Arman bit his lip. She meant when he’d gone off with Beau. Of course he couldn’t tell her about that.

  Kira grinned wider, crawling to her feet. She reached her hand down to help him up. “See? We both have our secrets. Things we aren’t willing to tell.”

  Arman let her pull him to standing. Kira wrapped her arm through his, an act of closeness that melted his irritation if not his injury. They began to walk, and Ar
man absorbed the thrum of her energy. He didn’t push the secret issue with her because his stomach was hurting, a tight, crampy pain he knew well and deeply resented. Why had he eaten so much? And drank that tea with milk in it? Just thinking about the meal now made him feel gross, swollen and queasy, like a fattened lamb.

  That’s when Arman lifted his head and stared up the hill toward the dome building.

  At the open doors.

  At the wood smoke puffing from the chimney.

  “Hey, Kira,” he said.

  “Hey, Arman,” she replied.

  “What do you think about all this? What do you really think’s going to happen here?”

  “We’re going to learn to make our own lives. Determine our own fate. Isn’t that the point?”

  “Yeah, but isn’t that something you were already doing? I mean, back home, you’ve always seemed, I don’t know . . .”

  “I seemed what?”

  “Lucky,” he said.

  She cocked her head. “That’s a funny word.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I know what you meant. It’s just . . . well, you know who my dad is, right?”

  “Sure.” Of course he did. Everyone knew. Kira’s father was one of the most famous civil-rights attorneys in the state. Maybe even the country.

  “Yeah, well, he’s pretty used to having people do the things he tells them to. And Dale’s one of the things he told me not to do.”

  “Oh,” Arman said. Then: “Because he’s white?”

  “Because he’s nineteen. Also he didn’t finish high school.”

  “So you think Dale’s worth running away for?”

  “I’m not running away, kid. I’m here to find myself. To find out how to be better than myself. Aren’t you?”