B.HER PACKAGE ARRIVED amid all the other junk, three feet deep in the mail cart, a small padded mailer, hand-addressed to the PO box. I don’t know why I gravitated to it among everything else. Now that I believe in fate, I’m going to call it that.
Inside was a picture of me and a letter like every other letter, telling me to be strong, wishing me well, asking for the privilege of my signature. Her name was not on it, of course, because she could not risk it being seen, but what caught my eye was her insignia in the top corner of the paper, a small pink rabbit (her nickname is “the bunny” for her ability to cover the whole court). I brought my nose to the paper and it smelled salty but clean, just as she did that last night we spent together at the Center. Turning it over, I held the paper up to the light and I could see that certain letters stood out in greater relief that others. I quickly transcribed them onto a sheet of paper and found the message contained within them.
I have been thinking of you and of how we can be together regardless of the outcome of your trial. I am out of room, but I’ll write more soon. B.
I wished for more, but perhaps this is all she had time for, particularly because she had to also encode the letters. I imagine she is being watched fairly closely by her handlers. She had, after all, disappeared not just from the tour, but the face of the planet for better than two months, returning without a single answer to any of the questions about her whereabouts at her first press conference. This was before my walk in the rain and the attempted robbery. I watched live on the sports news channel. I had not seen her since I’d left the Center and she looked great, rested, tan (as always). She smiled for the cameras as she made her brief opening statement: I’m back and I intend to win a couple of major tournaments and then I will leave tennis and live happily ever after.
The press crowd chuckled lightly and there was an awkward pause when they realized she had nothing else to say. Flashes popped as she looked left and right, grinning. Finally a hand went up:
Q: Where have you been?
A: I’m not talking about that.
Q: Why not?
A: I’m not talking about why I’m not talking about where I’ve been.
Q: Why not?
A: Because I can’t talk about it.
This went on for a couple additional minutes until they tried a slightly different tack.
Q: Can you tell us anything you’ve been up to lately?
A: I’ve been getting into music.
Q: What kind?
A: Old stuff. Classic rock.
Q: Like who?
A: Oh, you know, the usual suspects, Beatles, the Doors, Hendrix, Joplin, that kind of thing.
Q: What turned you on to that music?
Here, as I watched the television I could see a brief, faraway look come to her eye before she refocused and answered.
A: I heard some of it performed live and it just really spoke to me.
Q: What do you mean live, like a cover band or something?
A: Sure, or something.
I hoped, I trusted that the “happily” ever-after part of the equation was a reference to me. To us. But then, I shot an armed robber six times in (alleged) self-defense and blew it.
But now the messages are coming and the hope is rekindling. I search each new arrival of signing items frantically for her latest missive and there isn’t one every time, but often enough to make each search worthwhile.
This arrived today, on a postcard, symbols hidden in a panorama of the Eiffel Tower, invisible to others, bold as neon to me:
We’re going back, somehow. Some way. The day after our country’s independence. That’s the day. B
So she has given me the when, but we still need to figure out the how, a not inconsiderable task considering that by her deadline, my trial won’t yet be finished and my ankle bracelet keeps me tethered to very few spots, one of which is not where she and I met.
The hurdles are high, but for the first time since my arrest and the start of my trial I have something I have lacked for quite some time, a sense of purpose.