"I can't apologize enough...," I begin.
Adam now smiles, but mainly with the bottom half of his face. "Well, that's not even the strangest thing that happened, though. To begin with, they did start hitting me. One of them grabbed me and pinned my arms back while the other one punched me in the face, I don't know ... Three times? Maybe four. It reminded me of being at school on a lunchtime punishment, and this guy seemed to think he had all the time in the world to just keep on hitting me. He'd hit me, then pause, then blow on his hand because it was so cold, then hit me again."
"My God," I say.
"Then the man who was holding me said, 'This isn't working. This is some religious guy who probably thinks he's Jesus or something. We could crucify him and not get any fucking information out of him.' The other one then said something like 'Well, the Romans didn't have these, did they?' And then he took out his gun. I must admit that he was right: I did become a lot more frightened then. I struggled and the man holding me slipped on the ice and released his hold on me. Not knowing what else to do, I half ran, half fell into the chapel and shut the door behind me. I kept thinking of St. Thomas, and I tried to reconcile myself with the idea of death. It was easier than I'd thought. I knew I was probably going to die, although I was equally aware that it would be absurd to be shot dead in the university chapel. Instinct made me hide under one of the pews, but I knew that the next moment the door would open and they'd come in and shoot me. There was nowhere else for me to go."
I have stopped eating now. This is insane. "Then what happened?"
"The door opened—I think they kicked it—but they didn't come in. For about five minutes or so they stood outside calling in to me. They were just swearing, trying to get me to come out. They went into great detail about the things they'd do to you if I didn't come out—but I just blocked out what they were saying and, for the first time in years, I prayed. I heard them argue about their guns and about what they should do next. At one point one of them told the other to 'Just go in there and finish him off.' But the other one said he was crazy if he thought he was going to go in there and lose something ... Something I didn't understand." Adam sips some more water. "Anyway, this is why I thought you'd be safe here. I got the impression that they felt that they couldn't enter religious places."
"But what happened after that? Did they just go away?"
"Yes. Well, eventually. It felt like hours, but it must only have been about five more minutes or so. Neither of them was willing to go into the chapel, and I wasn't going to come out. I don't think they fancied a siege in which they had to stand in the snow for days while I lived on Communion wafers and wine inside."
"I think this is probably the bravest thing I've ever...," I start.
"Don't flatter me," he says, holding up his hands. "After they left I was shaking so much I couldn't stand up for about twenty minutes. Then, when I did get up, I drank all the Communion wine. I'm not brave."
I should argue more about this. But something's bothering me.
"That thing you said before. Something you didn't understand. What was that?"
Adam has picked up his fork and is now eating his stew as calmly as if he'd just told me the football scores, not a story about escaping from men with guns.
"Sorry?"
"You said that when one of them said the other should go into the chapel he then said he was going to lose something if he did. Can you remember what it was?"
"Um ... Yeah. It was an acronym, I think. Three letters."
"Sorry. There's no reason why you should remember what they are."
"No, I do remember. The letters were KID. 'I'll lose my KID.' That's what he said. But it doesn't mean anything to me. Does it mean anything to you?"
I shake my head. "No. I don't know why I thought it would."
Chapter Seventeen
After we've finished eating, Adam comes out to the cloisters with me so that I can have a cigarette. The cloisters here consist of a small grassed quad—currently iced with snow—contained within four thin gray stone walkways. As Adam explained, it's like being outside inside, or the reverse. When I asked, he said he wasn't sure if smoking was actually allowed in the cloisters but that no one really bothered the guests here, anyway. So now I'm standing here drawing toxic smoke into my lungs, thinking about the cloisters in Russell College, and how people only use them to smoke in: Most of the students wouldn't think cloisters were for anything else.
"You're quiet," says Adam, leaning against a stone pillar.
"I just feel so out of place here," I say. "As though I'm going to be struck down any minute for smoking or swearing. Or worse—for caring about stupid things like being struck down for smoking and swearing when really I should be feeling guilty about your face, and the fact that my being here puts you all in danger and ... And as well as all that, I've got to work out how to get away, and where to go."
"You could just stay here," Adam says.
"I can't," I say. "There's someone I need to find."
But I don't tell him who, and I don't tell him how I'm planning to find him.
"Is this connected with the book?" he asks.
I nod. "Yeah."
"I suppose I can't ask you about the book?"
"No. It's probably better that you forget there ever was a book."
Adam shrugs. "Oh. Well, I'm glad I saw you again, anyway."
"You can't be," I say. "Look at what's already happened to you."
"But I don't mind that," he says, looking away from me. "At least pain is real."
"I know what you mean," I say, after a pause.
"Do you?" says Adam.
"Maybe not," I say, blowing smoke out into the cold air. "But I have ... I don't know. I have an odd way of looking at things. It's yet another reason I feel out of place here ... And with you, actually." I clear my throat, and it feels as if my words are being swallowed back along with all the phlegm and junk. Everything I want to say (and also don't want to say) contracts into one sentence: "I've done a lot of bad things."
"Everyone's done a lot of bad things."
"Yes, but there's a difference between forgetting to buy your grandmother a birthday card and the kinds of things I've done. I..."
"Whatever you've done doesn't matter to me."
I can't explain my sexual deviance to Adam, so I throw my cigarette butt into the snow in the quad, where it sinks like a monster's eye. "I'm a self-destructive person," I say. "Or at least that's what I am in magazine-speak."
"Self-destructive," Adam says. "That's an interesting term. I suppose I'm self-destructive, but in a more literal way. It's what the Tao asks you to do: to destroy the self and get rid of the ego."
"So being self-destructive can be a positive thing?" I say. "That is interesting."
"Well, since I lost God..."
"You lost God?" I say, half my face dimpling into a smile. "That was careless."
Shit. This isn't the time to make jokes. Ariel, for God's sake, don't be offensive now. But Adam just looks at me for a second and then, suddenly, he walks the couple of paces towards me, pushes himself against me, and kisses me hard. I kiss him back, although I know we can't do this here. His lips press against mine with a cold urgency, and then he's using his teeth: biting my lip, almost tearing my flesh. I pull away.