Page 163 of You + Me – Against the World

I hate her a little for that.

So, why am I thinking about her? The blades of grass between her fingers as she tried to keep her composure. Her amused look when I challenged her. Her scathing comebacks when I thought she was going to fall apart instead. The smile she didn’t try to hide when I imitated her accent. The way there’s something entirely unique about her, despite her classic beauty. The arm that held her prisoner and that I wanted to break. Her lips kissing him and not me. The descriptions of me she came up with, thinking she had me figured out: a tortured artist who’s also a petulant brat, a wannabe rebel full of prejudices, a loner who keeps company with fakers.

That isn’t me. She doesn’t get me at all.

So, why do I want to talk to her again? To start over. With no one around to interrupt us. Without the pressure that comes from Abrams giving us an hour to find some common ground. If I think about it, we have plenty. Cinema, first of all, even though she’s probably a fan of movies that make you cry. Next, verbal sparring. I’m sure I saw a spark light up in her green eyes when she was trying to shut me up. And like me, she isn’t a fan of labels that cling a bit too tightly to the skin.

That isn’t her. She would like to be someone else…

So, who is hiding behind the good girl in the front row? What’s going on in the mind of the half-English, half-French girl who doesn’t want me to call her by her last name? Why does she defend her obnoxious boyfriend when, deep down, she seems to hate him as much as I do? Why does she hesitate, all the time, about everything? And why, damn it, why do I want to see her again so badly?

VADIM’S LIFE

Three months later

A video diary? What do you mean, a video diary?

Keith seriously seems to take me for one of those troubled teens who refuse to talk to their shrink, who hurt themselves by carving lines into their arms until they bleed, and who desperately need to pour their hearts out, to get it all off their chests.

Okay, that might have been me once.

I have nothing against them; I don’t judge them.

But now? Now, I’m fine.

I’ve got no problem talking about my life—I just don’t want to. And anyway, I hate writing. The pen never moves fast enough, and all the words stumble into each other, while my ideas have already rushed ahead, a tangled mess, impossible to contain or put in order. And besides, what for? To leave something behind? To reread it all and find myself pathetic? To publish my memoirs? I’d rather go to confession. At least there, I could have a little fun shocking the priest, or the pastor, or whatever they call them.

I’d still be curious to know who actually makes the worst listener: the religious types, the social workers, or the therapists. All these “great men” who are supposed to guide you through life but who are simply convinced they can think for you.

Well, tough luck, because in this crazy world, I drew the “orphan” card. And apparently, when your parents are gone, your caseworker decides everything. Even when you’re twenty years old. Just because he’s been looking after you since you were little, just because he found you a place at college to get you out of the foster home, and just because he got you a scholarship by filling out the right paperwork. Suddenly, you owe him everything.

But I’m the one who worked to buy this camera. It’s what I used to make the film I submitted with my application so I could get into this program. It really was my own little brain that saved me. Not him. So, he can shove his diary where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m going to do the only thing I like to do. Make films. Tell stories. And put a little part of mine in there.

Keith says it could help me “make peace with my past” and bring me some calm when I have the urge to throw it all away. It won’t do any of that—I already know it—but at least it will give him a clear conscience. And he’ll get off my back a little.

***

If I’m going to start at the very beginning, I need to film the only photos I have of my parents. They’ll do. Camera in hand, I make a few adjustments before clearing my throat and starting the voice-over. There’s no written script. I’ll improvise. The photos are all worn out from being stuck on and pulled off of every wall of every place I’ve ever lived. But they’ll do.

“So, this is where I come from. The people I owe my life, my first name, my last name, my face, and part of my story too. My parents: Volodia Arcadi and Jane Howard King. Well, the people they were then. It’s been seventeen years since I saw them, so I have no idea what they’d look like today. They both died at twenty-four; they would be… forty-one now. That’s right between young and old. I think my mother would still be just as beautiful, but maybe I’m idealizing her. She and my father met on a film set by pure chance. Him, the Russian who came to the United States searching for a better future and ended up becoming an actor. Her, the American pin-up who also had a brain and was starting to break through.”

“I have very few memories of them. Just my father’s deep voice and my mother’s gentle touch as she stroked my hair until I fell asleep. But maybe someone actually just told me those things, and I’ve told them to myself so many times that I started believing I remembered them. Memory is clever: it selects, it creates, and it nurtures, without you ever asking it to.

“In the few films I’ve managed to track down, my father has a heavy Slavic accent, and he always plays the bad guy. The token Russian. My mother’s roles were generally the naïve, young girl batting her eyes. The complete opposite of what they were, I think.”

I press myself against the wall and turn the camera lens on myself, to film my face next to the three photos hanging on the wall. The result will probably look terrible, but I’m not aiming for an Oscar. I’m just making a navel-gazing documentary about my fascinating, little life to justify my social worker’s paycheck. What a plan.

“The other day, when Alma came here for the first time, she told me I looked a lot like my father. It’s probably a pretty ordinary thing to say, but no one ever says it about me. I mean, naturally, since no one in the United States knows who Volodia Arcadi is, and you can count on one hand the people who have seen me next to him. It’s strange, being the son of a man no one remembers. But back then, the newspaper articles described him as a handsome man. It’s true, he has a striking face. Slightly atypical features, a distant look, a somewhat cold presence, and eyes that looked like they’d seen a lot. So, I don’t really know what Alma meant, but maybe coming from her it was a compliment.”

But who cares whether I look like him or not? And since when does her opinion matter to me?

This video diary was the lamest idea.

Alright, I’ll talk about the other two photos, and then stop. Keith will have to be satisfied with that.

“Here, I’m two years old, and it’s the year before my parents died. From what I’ve read, my mother got pregnant by accident, and my father married her because that’s what you did back then. But I think he was already crazy about her. In my case file, which I was able to access when I turned eighteen, there were some old love letters my father wrote to my mother, just a few sentences in broken English. But he was a true poet. At least he dared to try.

“Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked…