The evening following the Zings’ “explanation lunch” was a still and balmy one. Cath’s apartment blinked, apprehensively, when she threw open its front door.
In her arms she held a Tupperware container filled with Mrs. Zing’s meringues, and a brown paper bag of lemons from Mr. Zing’s tree. These she appeared to notice now with startled exasperation, and she allowed them to tumble to her feet. She marched straight to the dining-room window and ran her fingers up and down the frame. It took only a moment to find the camera, although it was smaller than her smallest fingernail.
At the lunch, she had calmed herself, and set herself apart, by finding the Zing family absurd. I don’t believe a word of this, she had said to herself, comfortably, but it’s very amusing!
But even as she reassured herself, the contents of the garden shed had rained like arrows through her memory.
And now, here was a camera in the palm of her right hand.
Was it all true? Had this tiny object been observing her all this time? Could something so slight as this have shaped her life? Had fat Mrs. Zing watched her eat dinner, making notes about how much pepper she ground onto her food? Had those strange, smiling sisters slipped into her home and replaced or repaired the camera when she wasn’t home? She brought her palms together hard, crushing the camera. When she opened her hands again, she almost expected to see a drop of blood, as if she had killed a mosquito.
She began a frenzied search through the apartment, without knowing quite what she was looking for: more fingernail cameras, of course, but also anything electronic or odd, anything she might recognize from movies about spies or surveillance. The Zings had assured her that the only equipment in her apartment was the dining-room camera, but she thought she had also caught odd half-references to one additional camera which only ever photographed her ankles. So she ran a knife along the baseboards, pried open electrical outlets, and even turned her socks inside out. Her cat, Violin, watched.
Finally, she collapsed onto the living-room couch. She found that her head was shaking back and forth in disbelief, and her hair was getting caught on the fabric.
She sat up and gazed around the room, from the low bookshelf to the standing lamp to the plasma TV on its chrome stand. At that moment her eyes caught the shape of a small green V. It was the V on her TV remote control. There was a similar V, she saw now, on the side of the leather-bound box by the DVD player. It was her collection of Valerio Classics.
Valerio! She had almost forgotten. The Valerio Empire had been funding the whole thing!
Well, that part, she thought scornfully, was certainly not true.
Valerios connected to her mediocre life? It was ridiculous enough to think of the Zing family examining her ordinary days, but the Valerios! She had studied Nikolai’s films in high school Social Studies! She owned a Valerio electric toothbrush, and used Valerio conditioning treatments on her hair! She loved to eat Nikolai Gingerbread Men and had recently signed up for the Young & Fit Valerio Health Plan. That small green V filled her life!
She reached for the leather-bound collection of classics, opened it, and took out the movie at the top of the pile. Nikolai Valerio smoldered up at her from the photo on the front cover. There was the trademark smudge of motor oil, and there were the elegant cheekbones.
“Dad?” she said, then laughed uncontrollably.
Unconsciously, however, she touched her own cheekbones.
I am the daughter, she thought doubtfully, of Nikolai Valerio. It was like thinking: I am a princess.
It’s not true, she reminded herself, as Violin skirted her ankles. But just in case, she took the movie collection down the hall and hid it in the linen closet. Even as she pressed the cupboard door closed, she was distracted by the small green V on the side of her coatrack. Her eyelid began to flicker.