TWENTY
Life had to go on. And it did.
Nicki not only recovered, she flourished with the opportune success that came with an event that gained global news coverage. She left the airline almost as soon as she was allowed out of Kerobakan. If she was made to leave or left on her own accord I could not tell. I was sad to see her aviation dream ruined by the likes of the human scum that was Tanya’s crew. In an online chat she told me that the “Bali incident” gave her the adventure she had hoped for and she was completely “satisfied” with the ironic turn of events. She said she had planned to go into journalism or become a travel writer once her two-year contract was up. The “incident” had given her a head start. She was just been approached for an interview by a major current affairs program and she was writing several articles about the ill fated “extended layover.” With the news that she was okay, I was a little more convinced that I might not be going to hell.
Maria was soon engaged. I pictured with a tall, handsome millionaire-the type she had a taste for. Instead I was shocked to see her with a frail looking, nerdy type still finishing his studies. I
Ella became something of a recluse after Bali, cutting off ties with her Elhalia friends and heading back to her parents house in Southern California. She eventually found at a beachfront restaurant and was assistant manager last time I checked. It suited her personality. She need to get back and ingle with people. Living at home, isolated everyday would lead to her decay, and I was glad she could move on. I could condemn her and wish bad things on her, but I could do the same thing to myself. I wished her well.
Simon and I never spoke again. I heard he was trying to make a career out of modelling, but as rumour had it, was not succeeding due to his personality. I pictured him trying to direct the show and tell the photographer and the client how a shoot should be done. I couldn’t imagine him pulling the straight, serious face so often used in advertising either. And in black and white, without the blue eyes, the white teeth and the tan, he had little photogenic quality to him. He must have been hurting badly.
The arrests of Tanya and Daniel led police to cliff top villa, where Miguel stood by and watched his private sanctuary be raided by police who helped themselves to his property while uncovering enough evidence to lead to a death sentence. Putu and her servant friend have taken control of the house and have made it their own home while Miguel awaits his trial. Chances are it will be theirs to keep.
Soon after the incident, Cam’s case was heard. The company tried to avoid any more damage to its public image and finaly agreed to do something. It paid off the aggrieved passenger, and with there being little impetus to keep him locked up, he was released.
The office of Dr. Schulz was brightly lit, thanks to the floor to ceiling glass panels that formed the exterior walls of the high rise. The leather bound chair in which I sat felt luxurious and very expensive. Considering the cost of his expertise I was probably correct. There was no sofa to recline on like you would expect in a movie but the swish chair was comfortable enough to make me feel as at ease as possible in such a situation.
"And are you feeling better on the medication, Liz?" He asks looking at me down his nose, over the top of his glasses.
"Oh yes. I think so. I bit numb some days. But on the whole, I would have to say better." I was making things up, I still felt like a zombie.
"That's good… So have you given thought to the process that led you to the Bali incident?"
I looked out at the cityscape of my home town, and thought about the words of my old professor: "Only our psychiatrists can tell us why we do the things we do." Now, here I was in the shrink's chair and he was no closer than anyone else would be to working out why I had done the things I did. Nobody, it seemed, could explain why I had become such a monster. I was expecting some Freudian psychoanalysis from the doctor to explain my actions, but there was none. I didn't need it anyway. In the time I had for introspection in jail and in my first few weeks back in the familiar and uneventful surrounds of home, I could do this particular job of the psychiatrist. All of the crew had their reasons to do the evil they did. Their paths to cruelty were all paved differently. Some needed the money. Some were simply sociopaths, while others did it because they liked it.
I could make excuses and blame my decaying state of mind for my actions. I could say it was my desperation to survive in a vicious social system. I could blame the entire universe and everything in it. But I knew why I did it. I started off as a bystander and eventually, I simply lost my humanity. I didn't see people with individual lives before me in the seats of an aircraft. After being dehumanized myself, I began to dehumanize my victims. Their welfare, and happiness meant nothing to me. The effect of my actions upon them and those who cared about them meant nothing. I had control over my situation and chose to do nothing. I was not forced to stay with the company. I could have rebelled against the crew. I could have gone home. I could have told Tanya to go ahead and tell the company about my tattoos and left with some integrity. I chose to be a monster.
I am now trying to reverse course, stepping backwards over the sticks and stones of stressful events of my time at Elhalia that were scattered along my path to evil and self-destruction. I am not yet fully recovered. I cannot say I am now a merciful person with a renewed heart of gold. Tanya and Daniel still sit in Kerobokan, rotting away. I could help with their trial or say some nice things about them to the media, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I had heard Tanya had paid for the privilege to have renovations made to her cell. It was the logical choice for someone as precious as Tanya. Even her prison cell had to be fit for a princess. I pictured the crowded cell painted pink and her telling the inmates not to touch her things. She could get out to the beach if she paid the money for it. And there was surely plenty of that stashed away in her many secret bank accounts. She could arrange all the sex she wanted, with a long line of deprived foreign men who would consider her a godsend. I could see her making friends in Kerobokan, and building up alliances. The system of corruption would suit the conniving Tanya's needs perfectly. But she could never make it to the top of the food chain in there. In any other social setting she could claw her way up with her mind-bending and emotional manipulation. But prison was a place where physical strength and brutality ruled. She was brutal, but not in the way she needed to be. She could never be top dog. She simply lacked the strength or the potential to gain it. She was rake thin–nothing but skin and bones. She would struggle to gain weight and strength. She would be in a perpetual state of subordination to the bigger, more violence-prone inmates. She could stay there and continue to rot, for all I cared. One day I may find the humanity and the mercy to forgive her. But for now, I don't have it in me. I want her to suffer for what she did to everyone around her. I still hate her for targeting me and recruiting me into her crime ring, regardless of how much free-will I held over the situation. She can suffer my evil until I am ready.
"And you killed Mags as well, didn't you?"
"Yes." Killing Mags was my decision too. I needed the doctor's help on this one. He was glad to offer the analysis I needed. Mags had saved my life and been there all the other times I needed her. She had done so much for me. Still, without thought, I rid her from my life forever. I gave her life and so, I had the right to take it away, was how I justified her death. I shifted uneasily in the expensive chair.
"Do you remember how she came about? When you first remember her? What you were doing, when you first saw her?"
"Yes, uhh, in the crew room. I needed her to get through that day, especially when it took a turn for the worse.” I stammered out the words that sounded so strange to hear spoken.
"About that day…I think the event was so traumatic and neurologically speaking so difficult for the human mind to cope with, you invented in your recollection of the day.., that person… Margaret. This is the day she first appears in your memory. The day you so badly needed her in the memory of that flight."
I nodded and felt a
tightness in my throat.
"Elizabeth, it was an horrific thing you dealt with that day. You must know that. You must admit that. It’s essential for your recovery." He leaned forward in his chair to emphasise the urgency of his statement.
"I know that now."
"So it was not Margaret, errr Mags who helped you with the CPR that day?"
"No… Err. It was another crew member. Her name was Ingrid. We didn't exactly get along well."
"I see. You err, you superimposed Mags onto the situation." He was having an 'ah ha' moment. "And from then on into many events in your memory." I could almost see the light bulb appear above his head. Doctor Freud had arrived. Here was the psychoanalysis I so craved.
"Before I go on, Elizabeth.., you do know that Mags never existed? Don't you?"
"Yes, I know that."
"Good." He approves with a nod. "And has she come back into your life since she died?"
"No." I was telling the truth, I had moved on. Although the memories of Mags, her voice and her laughter were lucid and I hoped would always stay there. I still missed her.
"So from this point, at which the seeds of post traumatic stress were planted, along with other probably genetic abnormalities of the mind were present, you introduced Mags into your life. It was how you coped. You weaved her in wherever you needed her. Sometimes it was in the present moment you needed her."
It was so true. Mags was there for you at the top of the skyscraper in New York. She saved your life."
I was ready to explode with emotion. I was fighting a flood of tears ready to burst forth.
"She was there on the lonely trips with no one else to befriend you. You two discovered the world together. With a friend, the way you always dreamed you would."
I started playing nervously with my key ring and its many attachments. It hurt to hear these words, although I needed to hear them. I looked down at the photo key ring from 30 Rock. Me, sitting alone on the steel beam, looking back at the camera with a smile that masked many deep lies. No Mags. The things Mags had told me I had heard from another source. Galley gossip or even a careless crew member with loose lips gave me the information that I had imagined came from the mind of Mags. Her noble story of first generation American gave me something to admire in her. Her humour made me feel like I connected with someone among the thousands of robots at the company.
"Do you know why you killed her?" I am not sure if he knows the answer, or if he is asking me because he wants to know. The answer suddenly falls upon me. I could almost hear the penny drop.
"I think so. When that plane went down, it was a chance to again weave her conveniently into real life events. It had got to a point where it was becoming difficult to separate the real world and my world with Mags. Tanya’s crew were deepening their ties to me. They knew everything I did: where I went, whom I spoke to. In London, I realised Mags and the crew were going to crash together at any moment and ruin the illusion for me. I didn't want to lose my friend. So I had to kill her so that her memory would be real."
Schulz nods along. "You didn't think it strange that her name was never mentioned in any of the media reports about the crash?"
"No, I just put it down to a lack of interest in the lives of the crew in plane crashes."
"I see."
I took a deep breath and prepare for the next set of soul-searching questions.
"And the Bali incident. I think this series of events and your state of mind are factors that led you to your actions on the flight that put you in prison."
I shook my head in disagreement. It was a reason, but not an excuse. I knew it. I now had to face the consequences and answer to myself. I had no idea how long it would take for the Chameleon to change back into a good girl–back from the monster known as Lizard.
It had taken a lot of work from friends and family to get me in there. It must have been excruciatingly frustrating to watch my opposition to getting help. To them, it must have been like throwing a drowning friend a life buoy, but the drowning friend argues: ‘well, maybe soon, I will grab it…. When I’m ready.’ It was equally hard for me to realize just how far overboard I had been thrown, and that I was drowning in a psychological swamp. I had failed to see what was right in front of me––my own decay. The session ended and I rushed down the elevator to meet an old friend.
I stepped out onto the busy city street, where Cam was waiting for me. He was looking better after taking time off after the prison stint and the inflight freak out. I latched onto him, giving him the hug treatment that I learned from Ella. We had only a few days to catch up before he left for the UK.
“They sort you out yet?” he said.
“They’re trying,” I said, “actually we need to talk about something.”
“I’m not going to beat anyone up for you.”
I laughed. “Stop it. Its something important, and only you can do it for me.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
“I want you to go to Bali. I can’t do it because they won’t let me into Indonesia.” I said, reaching out for his hand.
“I’m not doing any more trafficking. I’m just getting everything else under control.”
“No, no. I need you to visit Kerobokan. I need you to make sure Tanya’s okay.”
“What!?”
“It’s important. I can’t do it myself, and I wouldn’t want to either. I still hate her too much. But I need you to do this. Its for our own sanity.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. I have some friends there that I want you to visit. I want you to ask them to keep an eye out for her.”
“After everything she did to us?”
“Yes. After everything she did to us.”
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