The Company Man

ACT 1

Chloe Miller.

There was a light in the air that seemed to make things liquid when I knew her, like a haze that filtered the light and sounds of the world. Time seemed to move differently, or at least one remembered things differently. Some things seeming to move slow, as if to allow one to savour the experience. Other things, one doesn’t remember happening at all.

A summer one could not forget.

When one is young perhaps, life can seem unfair in many areas, the world seems sharp, harsh and extreme. But then something beautiful enters your life and there is only that thing. And time.

And the world glows in a liquid haze and you only remember that feeling.

My first love.

The sharp sound of the chair being moved on the concrete floor brings me back. I remember the cold of the room.

“Time for your treatment Mr Kesher”

I return from my reverie. The darkness. The cold. The notebook on my lap.

Page 1. Chloe Miller. Phone number.

ACT 2

I wake from my stupor.

I could not recall falling asleep, but then I remembered the drugs.

Those who have had hospital operations recall a different sensation than those waking from sleep. A loss of the concept of time. I did not know how long I had been out or if I had done or said anything during that time.

As I turn my head, I see a glass of water at my bedside. No other features stand out in the spartan surroundings, except for one other thing.

The little black tatter-edged notebook.

And as I rose slowly I reached for the glass. Sitting up I took a long drink and then reached for the book. I had not got past the first page I recall before my memories baulked my progress, and I feared to open further. Chloe Miller, they would not find much there I believed, she was a long time ago. A short search would probably find that she had little to do with my life now. It was only one summer when I was young.

But there was little I could do in this room. I opened the book again and flicked through a few pages before I arrived at another name.

Kate Porterfield.

I did not want to linger there, but my pause was as involuntary as my memory.

She was very different from any woman I had known. Business like. Sharp. Capable. Dressed like the ideal woman.

And she brought out thoughts and feelings from me that no woman had before or since. I realised that before her, I had not really known what a real woman was.

Which allowed her to recruit me.

Initially, I hesitated and would have likely said no. But then, there was the $20,000 cash she carried in a bag.

How could I say no? My mother needed that money to save her life.

She had probably known that with her calculated efficiency, mixed in with those moments of vulnerability which gave you a glimpse of what drove her and allowed me to fall in love with her. And she lingered after even though I expected her to leave at any moment after I had said yes, so that I dared to think that I also was different.

She did not smile much. But she was beautiful.

In the bedroom together I also felt that the world could be different. That I was a child before and life and love could be so much more.

And so much more pain.

The memory came to me within seconds and I consciously turned a few pages to some innocuous name I had forgotten before I paused again, so they would not see the significance of her.

Then I turned back to my memory.

The countries I ended up going to. The places I started working at only to betray them for the higher cause.

But memories betray. The $20,000 did not buy the medical treatment to save my mother in the end, and she also left me. Left me with nothing but the memory and promise.

She left because in part I left to do the job she recruited me for in the years that followed. I wondered how many more she went on to recruit afterwards.

I had always longed to see her again. I never saw her again.

THE TREATMENT

I flicked through the pages of my book for a while. Occasionally recalling a person, a mission. But even though this book was of personal contacts rather than sensitive contacts, I employed a random structure to my viewing. Pausing randomly at names I did not remember, deliberately moving through other names passively. I did not want to give those watching me some hint of who or what I might be thinking.

I should have found a way to burn the book. Or dispose of it. But the room was scant in resources. And lacking any other sources of information or engagement I was loath to discard my long-neglected notebook as my resource for continued sanity that they had suddenly indulged for me.

But it was not long (or so it seemed) that the door clanged again and another orderly entered. Two this time, with a guard. I put the book aside, readying myself for treatment.

They took me down the familiar corridor, passing 2 rooms to the treatment room. I wondered about those rooms. Were there others? It was a necessary distraction for that short journey so that the dread I felt would not totally envelop me. In the treatment room, as cold as my own room was a bespectacled man in his 50’s in a white overcoat. Dr Klein.

“Good evening Mr Kesher,” he said in the clear but grating voice of his age.

So it was evening now. The next day?

But I knew what was to come next. I sat on the metal layback chair and soon the mechanical whirring sounded to stretch me back more to almost a prone position, facing the ceiling.

Soon I would be given my drugs. There would be flashing lights, disorientating sounds, then voices, maybe questions.

Or perhaps they may go back to physical pain again.

I closed my eyes and thought about Chloe Miller. I thought about Kate Porterfield. I thought of the woman I married.

ACT 3

My hands started to shake. I didn’t know if it was some physical deficiency caused by deprivation or diet, or if it was from my treatments? Perhaps those treatments were starting to cause other permanent damage? Or perhaps I was just losing it.

I never considered myself that tough, but I guess there is always a limit. I now started to wish that my body would fail before my mind.

And my mind was also unstable, spinning. Quivering like my body. I reached for the little black book again not so much out of desire any more but out of need. I needed to be able to think and be myself a little longer.

The pages quavered in my hands which shook them. I flicked through as well as I could before I stopped again at a new name.

Sharon Lee.

We have heard that the idea of falling in love is like a rush of desire, a physical reaction that a man or woman cannot control let alone hope to fully understand. One only understands the desire to see that person. Touch them. Make love to them.

But I think there is a different kind of love. Instead of the heat of passion, one indulges a different kind of warmth. Instead of being willing to do anything for the other, one thinks only to see the other smile while they look at you.

It doesn’t sound very glamorous actually until one experiences it. From there one realises that all before was folly and false purpose. It wasn’t until I met Sharon that I even considered that what I was not doing what I should be doing. Or doing what I should not be doing.

She did not know who I really was, but we met in London where she worked in advertising. She was not my mission, but we somehow met again when I was having drinks with my target at the Intercontinental. She had casually walked over and said hello again. There was an ease about her, a genuineness, that was both innocent and worldly.

One month later I had spent half my time with her and half my time on my mission.

We married 1 year later.

The clang at the door was unexpected. Despite my long time here, it gave me chills at the pit of my stomach which I had not anticipated. My regular sessions had become familiar, expected, and their timing allowed me to prepare mentally for them. This was early.

A man in his mid-30s strode in without hesitating nor pausing to look around. He was dressed in a navy suit with one guard following behind.

It spoke of field experience. And it spoke of an opportunity. He moved a chair close and sat down.

“Mr Kesher.”

He paused, looking around me for the first time. He was calculating his words, but when he spoke it was all business.

“We can end this now you know.”

That told me a few things. It told me they were not winning.

After months, this was the first time they had sent someone directly to me to talk to me outside treatment.

I did not answer, looked at him and tried to gauge the motives behind his earnest look. After a moment I looked back down at the page I was on like returning to the absent attention of old age. His response also told me more.

“Tell us….. What we need to know…...”

His voice was cold. Clear. Was there some urgency suddenly?

I had my gaze down and slowly raised it. But my mouth did not open. My attention was fixed on him but negligent.

He got up abruptly and the chair made a screeching sound as it moved aside quickly as he rose. He and the guard left quickly without turning back.

My heart rose for a moment but sank again as an orderly and 2 guards strode in after them.

ACT 4

I was barely conscious when the commotion started. My eyes opened barely but they had already administered the first dose of drugs. My mind flickered from remembering my mother who passed some 30 years before. To Chloe, Kate, then to my wife. Somehow I could not remember her face. I reached for it but like in life, she was gone.

Noise filtered through dully but there was no mistaking the quick motions of the doctor and orderlies. They were almost running. Then I saw a white overcoat turn red with blood. The sound of automatic gunfire seemed to come afterwards.

They had come.

After 6 months they had found me. That would explain the sudden urgency, the out-of-schedule treatment.

I held on to the women in my life as they had been the reason I did things. But now the company had come to save a company man. I wondered if I would still be of use to them now, paralysed from the waist down from my treatments. I hope they would be able to wheel me away and not have to carry me. But one thing I hoped beyond any of the women I had known.

I did not love them - the company. But I hoped they were loyal.