“What’s another woman who’s mad at me? Between Vivika and Dragon Lady, I’m surprised I haven’t been stabbed in the kidneys by now. Between both of those psychos, I practically have to sleep at a safe house.”
“Vivika is nothing like that! She’s emotional, sure. Angry, yes. But she’s a good friend. She honestly cares about me, and I care about her.”
“Just be careful with that one,” he responded after a small pause. “I like her too. Hell, if I knew her a little better, we’d probably be friends. Maybe I’ll try to bridge that gap a little bit in the future… if there’s a future to be had. But I’ve been doing this a while. I know the look of someone who has a plan. And whatever plans she has, they don’t involve either of us.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just be careful around her. She’s not psychotic or sadistic like Dragon Lady…, but she’s just as calculating. She has a secret agenda, that one, and she’ll say or do anything to get what she wants.”
When Lena entered Little John records, she found Vivika huddling on a couch in the corner of one of the small studios. Since Little John had essentially become a safe haven for the punks on the label, beds, couches and other makeshift sleeping accommodations had been placed everywhere from the studios to the sound booth. Like Jakob and Vortecx (wherever they were), Vivika slept here more than she slept anywhere else. She wasn’t sleeping now, however. She was curled up in a fetal position and balling her eyes out.
“Vivika?” Lena asked softly.
“Go away.”
“Vivika, what did I say?” Lena asked, as she walked over and sat close to Vivika. In response, Vivika shouldered her away roughly. Lena was undeterred, however. She simply sat there, trying to be as close as Vivika would allow her. She was so sad, just sitting there sobbing her poor heart out all over the couch. Lena was familiar with the emotions of musicians, and the general malaise they exuded for no particular reason. But this was something else—and whatever it was, it was something worth crying about.
“Don’t worry about the band, Vivika. We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, fuck the stupid band!” she sniffled angrily, “I don’t care about the band!”
“Well… then what…” Lena attempted. Truth be told, she didn’t precisely know what was wrong, so she didn’t know where to start.
“Look, you remember what I said back at the show?”
“About?”
“About not leaving me behind?”
“Of course, Vivika. I would never leave you behind!”
“That’s a lie, and you know it. I… I just really need you to convince me that it isn’t a lie. Just for a little while, I need to believe that I’m safe. Because I really don’t feel safe right now.”
“Of course you’re safe, Vivika! I promise you’re safe!”
“That’s not a very good lie… and you know that, too!”
“Why don’t you feel safe? What’s going on?”
“Look around you!” she shouted, “you know as well as I do that we’re surrounded by hidden cameras, in a fake label that’s run by assholes like Victor. You know they follow us everywhere. They have us follow each other too. We just had two of our band members disappear… poof!… without a trace. And… and…”
“But we’re safe right now! It’s just you and me, right here!”
“That doesn’t make me feel safe at all. Not in the least!”
Lena draped herself awkwardly over the crying Vivika then, wrapping an arm around her tightly, and began stroking her hair. Embraces like these weren’t her forte, but Vivika at least deserved the attempt. She lay there, stroking and hugging for quite some time until sobs became sniffles, and sniffles turned to quiet breathing.
“Vivika, why don’t you feel safe?” she asked calmly, after some time.
“Because…” she started, seeming to weigh her words more than she needed to, “Lena, what if they aren’t coming back?”
“Honestly, I doubt they are. Would you?”
“Yes, Lena. Yes, I absolutely would. I may hate this country, but it’s my home. It has all my friends, my family, my routine, my job, my apartment… it has my stuff. It has the beer I like, the shows I watch on a television I purchased, the clothes I stole, and a phone I can use to call for help… help that will arrive. Out there, I’d be nothing but an orphan. Worse, I’d be some illegal orphan that doesn’t speak the same language, has nothing in common with anyone and can’t call anyone for help. I’d just be dodging another country’s Stasi. Sure, our Stasi would happily throw me in a black cell; but the police in other countries would rape and murder me. Or worse, send me back here, where the Stasi would torture me for being a traitor.”
“But that’s just fear talking, Vivika! You’re a resourceful person! You would be able to make it!”
“No, Lena, I wouldn’t.” she began sobbing anew, “Maybe you would. You seem to have the world just throwing opportunities at you. You have help. I don’t know where from, but someone is looking out for you. But I live in the real world, where the rest of us women are worthless… where the rest of us women are nothing but property. Someone somewhere finds you useful, and I’m glad they do. But I’m nothing but a marginally pretty girl that plays keyboard decently. If someone can’t find an immediate use for either of those, they’d just as soon throw me away like trash.”
“There’s nothing marginal about you, Vivika! You’re beautiful!”
“Oh Lena…” Vivika said, turning her head to look her in the eyes, “If you only knew how much it hurt to hear you to say that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Being beautiful is a terrible thing, sometimes. You know, maybe I don’t want to be ‘the beautiful one’… maybe I would rather be just ‘a great keyboard player.’ Maybe I would rather be, I don’t know, a good writer, or a good chemist, or a good… you know, whatever. But being beautiful in a place like this only gets you treated worse than the rest.”
“Vivika, what happened? Where is all of this coming from?!”
Vivika trembled slightly, as she wiped her eyes roughly with her wrist. For the life of her, Lena could not figure out what the problem was. All she knew was this was the moment that she needed to earn Vivika’s trust. Sure, Patrick may have been speaking the truth about her… but she would deal with those implications later, once Vivika was stabilized.
“You… you wouldn’t understand.”
“What do you mean I wouldn’t understand?”
“You wouldn’t… understand,” Vivika said, enunciating her words carefully.
“Well, maybe if you tried to explain…”
“Listen Lena,” Vivika said in a slightly dire tone as she pointed her finger around the room, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Awareness dawned on Lena. It wasn’t safe to speak openly here on the best of days; yet for some reason that Lena wasn’t privy to, it was inordinately dangerous to speak openly, now. Something definitely had changed, and whatever it was had spooked Vivika to the point of hysterics. Attempting to be as natural as possible, Lena ended the conversation. The best course of action was simply to stop talking and hold the poor girl as tightly as she could.
“Lena?” Vivika asked after some time.
“Yes?”
“I… I know this is a little strange to ask. But…”
“Anything, Vivika! Ask and it’s yours.”
“Can I stay at your place for a while? I can sleep on the floor if I have to. I just… I just don’t want to stay at home. It would make me feel a lot safer.”