Down in the workshop, Menzies flicks a rubber band, trying to hit a mark on the wall. He achieves it once, then tries for three consecutive hits. He tires of the game and turns to sketching unrealistic inventions that he will never build.
She knocks at the door. "Hi," she says uneasily. "Am I disturbing?"
"No, no. What's up?"
She takes a hop closer. "What can you show me? Some new invention that's gonna make us millions and revolutionize life as we know it?"
"I wish."
"You're not working on some evil plot against me, are you?"
"Yes, I'm going to drive you slowly mad with my diabolical cheese-grating."
She sticks out her tongue.
"We should work on a revenge invention," she says.
"For him, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"I must admit I've thought about that."
"You have to tell me."
"No, it's stupid."
"Come on."
He half smiles. "It's this: a little audio player that we'd stick in his bedroom and that would play an endless loop of a mosquito whining. But it would only activate in darkness, so every time he turned off the lights the whining would start. Then he'd turn on the lights to hunt for it and the mosquito wouldn't be there. And so on and so on, until straitjackets were required."
"That's genius! We have to do it!"
"No, no."
"Why not?"
"Well, many reasons."
"Like?"
"First of all, I'm not even sure how. Also, we'd definitely get caught. And I don't want to spend my time building a gadget for the purpose of tormenting someone. What would be the point? Making this guy's life a bit annoying? So we'd sit around at night feeling happy that someone else was irritated?"
"Okay, not your mosquito thing necessarily. But something-a bit of revenge. No?"
"I suspect revenge is one of those things that's better in principle than in practice. I mean, there's no real satisfaction in making someone else suffer because you have."
"You are so wrong there."
"And does revenge even work? I mean, is the point to get justice-to balance out something unfair? Nothing does that. Is it to make you feel better? It wouldn't make me feel better."
"So if someone does something shitty to you, there's no way to fix it?" She looks away, as if casually.
"I don't think there is, no," he answers. "The way to get over stuff, I think, is by forgetting. But there's no way to 'fix' in the way you mean. Not in my opinion."
She shakes her head. "I hate this."
"What?"
"I feel-I don't know-out of balance. You're not a vengeful person like me. You should get pissed off."
"At him?"
"At me. You know?"
"That doesn't appeal in the least, making you suffer."
"Then I end up suffering more."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Why are you getting mad? We're just talking."
"I'm not mad. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do." He clears his throat. "What you don't realize is that I'd be in real trouble without you. That sounded melodramatic-sorry. I just meant that, to be honest, even if you did something worse, I'm not about to reject you. I can't. Getting hurt by you only makes me need comfort more. Comfort from you. Not something I should admit. But…"
"It's okay."
It isn't okay. He ought to shut up. She's drifting away, more with each word of pardon he thrusts upon her. "I'm forty-one now," he says, "I live in a country whose language I don't speak, where, without you, I don't remotely fit it, where my colleagues consider me some kind of weasel."
"No, they don't."
"They do. Look, I'm Kathleen's henchman. She gives orders and I hop to it. And I don't have another option. That one day I'll come up with some great invention and get out of journalism? It's not going to happen."
"It might."
"It won't. I have no alternative to this life. Without you, I'm-you've seen me, Annika. I told you what I was before you. So I'm slightly worried. I mean, I'm terrified essentially."
"Of what?"
"I spent almost a decade alone before you."
"I know. I know that. But-" She pauses. "You can't be with someone just because you can't face being alone."
"No? Isn't that the best reason to be with someone? I'd put up with anything for that reason. I mean, look, I've never been so humiliated as I have over this situation with you. Did you know he sent that letter to everyone in my office?"
She freezes. "What?"
"I'm serious."
She covers her mouth. "You never told me that."
"And there was a photo with it. Of you. On our bed."
She goes pale.
"I'm not joking," he says. "It went to everyone."
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "I want to die."
"It's okay," he says. "It's okay. Look, my point is that all of this, from start to finish, makes me want to, makes me want to be sick or-or, because, I don't know. Sorry, I'm sort of overwhelmed. Feel free to laugh at me. But that is how I feel about it. It doesn't matter. It's all right." He touches her cheek. "Thank you," he says, "for traveling out here to Italy with me." He kisses her. "Did you come downstairs to leave me?"
She is quiet.
"You can leave me," he says.
"I," she says, "I can't bear that I humiliated you." She can scarcely get the words out, but repeats them. "I can't bear that. I wish you would do something. I wish you were evil like me."
"What are you talking about?"
"I could do anything to you, then? You'd put up with anything?"
"I don't have a choice."
"Do I make any difference here?" Her voice wavers; she is losing control. "I mean, please-get angry with me. Give me the impression I'm involved here, that I'm not just some random girl whose job it is to make sure you don't get lonely at your new life overseas." She struggles out the words. "I don't want you to-if it's possible-to think of what I did as a humiliation to you. It was my selfishness. My acting dumb, like an idiot, for my own selfish, I don't know what, boredom. It wasn't important. I wish I could, you know, make you know that."
She calms somewhat. But there is a distance in her.
"Why did you come down here?" he asks. "You never come down here."
"I had something for you." She holds out an envelope.
He removes the letter and reads the opening lines. "Oh," he says with surprise. "You applied for a patent. In my name." He looks up. "And they rejected it." He laughs.
"It says why, though. You could make some changes maybe."
He reads the letter in full. She must not have realized that his infantile science projects are not nearly sophisticated enough to obtain a patent. He won't look up from the letter. If he does and she is gone, he will not make it out of this room. Of course, that is untrue-he will make it out, climb upstairs, return to work tomorrow, and the following day's paper will come out. That feels even worse.
He must keep her here. He must make his point. But what is his point? What is the point he's been trying to make all along? His impulse is to apologize, but that's wrong, too. Another apology would surely spell the end. She wants him to do something.
"Okay," he says.
"Okay what?"
"Thanks, but who said I wanted a patent?"
"Didn't you? I thought you did."
"And how did you get this stuff, anyway? I mean, did you go through my material down here? That project wasn't even finished."
"What's the problem?"
"Well, it's an intrusion is the problem. I mean, this is none of your business."
"Oh, come on. You're overreacting."
"I don't interfere with your shit."
She goes silent-he never swears. "Personally," she says, "I'd be happy if you entered my stuff in some competition."