The Secret Knower

THE SECRET KNOWER

She was keeping a secret in her apartment. A rather small secret: a puff of fur and happiness named Bello. Bello had to remain hidden because dogs and house pets of any kind were absolutely forbidden in her apartment complex. Then again, she was used to keeping secrets.
Her name was Anna Sergeyenva, and that was the truth. She was from Russia, and that was the truth as well. But she had told her neighbors in broken English that she was a 22 year old single exchange student, and that was a lie. Actually she was 25 and still technically married. She was on the run. Through a thin slice of luck, she had managed to escape to Switzerland on the pretense of study. She was working up the courage to contact Immigration and hoped to eventually become a Swiss citizen. She dealt her life out before her like two piles of cards. A stack of truths, a stack of lies. Shuffle and deal, mix and match. Anna was an expert player. She hugged her secrets close to her, because they were the only friends she had in her new country. Secrets, and now Bello, who was also a secret.
But Bello had to be taken outside. He was a dog and had to do his business, and Anna didn’t like him to go in the apartment. She was clean by nature, and liked her things in order. Cleanliness gave her a sense of control because the rest of her life had none. She had developed a system that when she arrived home from her waitress job at 2 am, they would watch television together for a while and then she would take him out in the courtyard half an hour later when all her neighbors were asleep.
It was drizzling and cool when she arrived home on the morning of September 14th, a Friday. Bello greeted her at the door with joyful leaps. He was getting used to their night outings. Anna smiled and reached down to pet him. He sprung to meet her hand and knocked the telephone off the stand. She frowned and replaced it, wondering why she even bothered having one.
Nobody ever called her.
Anna stripped off her black mini-skirt and white blouse, her waitress uniform, and hung her clothes neatly on the hook on her door for tomorrow’s use. Bello was darting back and forth between her legs.
“Soon now, very soon,” she cooed to him in Russian. It gave her pleasure to speak to him in her native tongue, and to her delight Bello was learning to understand it. He sat on the floor, panting with barely suppressed excitement. Anna pulled on her jeans and pulled a grey sweatshirt over her head. She sat on the couch that also doubled as her bed and turned on the television. Same thing as yesterday. All the channels were carrying reports on the terrorist attacks in America. Bello jumped up in her lap and she stroked him as they watched pictures of towers falling down half a world away. She watched the American President promise to fight terror and bring the responsible to justice.
“How can they ever do that?” she asked Bello. “This terror, this is like the cancer of the world. They can cut off the diseased arm of the man with cancer, and yet it is still in the body. All we can do is hope for our own safety, and pray for the dead.” She turned off the television and picked up her small dog and held him close to her. The whole world was collapsing, but it didn’t change the fact that she still had to take out her dog. She carried him out the door and locked it, shoving the keys into her pocket with one hand.
Bello seemed to know that he had to be quiet. She stroked him more to calm herself as she padded down the hall. As usual, it was early morning silent. Weekends were always more of a risk because some of her neighbors went to parties or clubs, and came home in the wee hours. She imagined them, sipping blood red wine or colored drinks with umbrellas in them, laughing with their friends. Anna had no such luxuries.
The tiny water drops swarmed around the security lights and Anna felt the dampness soak into her exposed skin and hair. She carried Bello to a dark corner were the lights did not reach so well and put the dog down. She sat down on the large rock where she always sat to watch him, soaking the rear of her jeans. She smiled as he trotted back over and licked her hand. They would go back up in a few minutes, and Anna would towel Bello off, unfold the couch into a bed and Bello would sleep at her feet. Happiness.
Then she saw him. He was leaning against the lamppost in the parking lot, lighting a cigarette. He inhaled, exhaled with gusto, looked up and their eyes met. He waved.
Anna did not wave back. Panic gripped her. What was he doing here at this time of night? Was he going to report her and her dog?
He began to walk toward her and she stiffened, ready to grab Bello and race for the safety of the apartment building. She did not talk to other people apart from work as a general rule. She saw other people as complex, because she herself was complex, honeycombed with things that she didn’t want other people to know. Better not to talk in depth. But as he approached he offered her a warm and friendly smile.
“Does he bite?” he asked her in English. He leaned down and scratched Bello between his ears. His cigarette was clamped firmly between his teeth.
“No,” she answered. But Bello was already darting happily between the stranger’s legs. He laughed and squatted down to stroke the dog. He squatted with unusual grace for a man. His black hair shone with rain and grease and when he looked at her again she saw that his eyes were as black as his hair, smoky and intense. The eyes of an artist, perhaps. And who but an artist would be standing in a parking lot smoking on such an ugly night?
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My name is Anna.” The truth.
He straightened up and held out his hand. “I’m Jacob. Jacob Ami. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I live near here,” she answered, not wanting to give her address. She shook his hand twice, gently.
“No, I mean, you’re not Swiss.”
“I am from Russia.”
“That’s interesting. How long have you been here?”
She began to relax, sensing the start of the small-talk dance. It was a dance she knew well, often answering customer’s questions at the restaurant. But it had been a long time since she had engaged in conversation without a tray in her hands.
“Three months.” That was the truth. “I go to school at the university.” A lie.
“Mind if I share your rock?”
She moved over a little so that he could sit beside her. She was keenly aware of his denim jacket touching her sweatshirt, almost as if they were touching each other’s bare skin. She shivered.
“Are you cold?”
“A little. I must be going in soon.”
“Here.” He slipped out of his jacket and placed it gently around her shoulders. “I can’t have you running off already, I just met you!” They were silent for a while, a strangely comfortable silence, listening to the soft rain fall all around them. He pitched his cigarette away. “You speak English very well. But your accent is a knock out. Different, y’know? Not like the other girls around here.”
“Thank you.” His profile was exceptional, his nose large and well-shaped positioned high over full lips. Her stomach did a joyful little flip and she took a deep breath. Best to use the memory of her abusive husband to block out any excitement for a new man. Best not to go too deep. Yes.
“Look,” he cracked his knuckles. “You are really beautiful. I mean it. Really. Would you like to go out on a date sometime?”
“When?”
“Sunday night. Is that your night off? There’s a band playing down by the lake, a really good one. They do Bob Dylan covers. Would you come with me?” He looked at her, and in the half-light she realized that he was older than she had first thought, at least forty.
“You haven’t told me about yourself yet. Are you a student at the university?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped an invisible hat. “I’m a student everywhere. My major is sociology, y’know, the study of people. You’re married, aren’t you? I can smell a married woman a mile away.”
She shifted on the rock. “No, I am unmarried.”
“Oh c’mon, you can tell me, I’m Jacob Ami. But you don’t have to. I already know. It doesn’t matter to me, though. Not one bit. Do you want to go out or not?”
Anna thought fast. “Why don’t you give me your telephone number, and I’ll phone you tomorrow with my decision?”
“You could at least be honest about it:” He stood up and faced her. “I can handle rejection. But you would take my number now and then not call me.”
She looked longingly at the apartment complex doors. Bello shivered beside her leg. “Well, I could give you my number.”
“So you can pretend not to be home when I call? Forget it.”
“I will answer my telephone. I always do.”
“Give me a break! Nobody calls you! You have no friends here, except me, Jacob Ami.”
“I have friends!” she protested.
“Nobody calls you,” he repeated. “Look, maybe this was a bad idea. If you give me back my jacket, I’ll be leaving you alone.”
She handed him his jacket, blinking back sudden tears. Bello sniffed Jacob’s boots. Jacob gave him a kick. The dog yelped. Anna gasped. A light went on in a room above them.
“Look, you better do something about calling Immigration. They won’t just make you Swiss at the last minute, you know. You have to fill out all kinds of papers.” He smiled. “You see, I know all your secrets.”
She felt naked, exposed, pinned to the rock. With a gigantic effort she heaved herself up, grabbed Bello, and took off running.
“I know all your secrets!” he screamed after her. More lights went on. Windows opened. Curious heads leaned out. Anna had almost made it to the door. “And you won’t be able to keep that mutt much longer either! And the Americans will never make the world safe from evil! The evil lies in us all!” Anna was gone. The others were ducking their heads back in, returning to their uneasy sleep. Sleep where everything that they kept so well-hidden during the day floated to the surface and lay there: bloated, ripe for examination by the whole world. Jacob smiled. He lit another cigarette and ambled back to the lamppost to wait for the lesbian with the cat.