I bought my plane tickets to and from Rome today. Something that is helping our possible deniability in case of incident in connecting with Kaszymyric is that he hasn’t been announced as a speaker yet. In fact, the Soviets haven’t given any public indication that they’re going to allow anyone to attend, much less speak.
The downside of us buying the tickets ahead of these announcements, and setting things up the way in which we are doing so, is that if we get caught, and they’re able to show that we connected with Kaszmyric, we’re fucked. Having no public information, is great to help the dumb guy defense, but if they can prove we’re not dumb guys, then we’ll look like spies. It’s pretty dangerous. But it is necessary.
Melanie and Judy have been telling us both that we need to find another option. Judy told Elliot that he had to listen to her because she was his mother. He laughed and explained that he’s older than her, and as much as he loved her and respected her, this was absolutely necessary.
I haven’t seen him put his foot down on something so intently, which scares me a little.
Melanie, for her part, was less demanding, and more pleading. She played to my sense of humor and told me that if I went, she wasn’t going have sex with me for a very long time.
“Judy’s terrified, and I can’t blame her, after everything she’s been through losing baby Elliot for so long,” she told me, “and I’m not going to lie. I’m terrified too. This seems like such a big risk compared to everything, and I don’t want to lose you. But I also don’t really understand what happens if I do. Will you fail to come back in time, will you cease to exist. Will you erase from my memory? I’d be sad if you died, but I don’t want to lose you completely.”
“We’ve got months to plan. And who knows, Elliot knows more about what’s going on than I do, this might be a bluff to get me to do something else I need to do that he can’t tell me about. I trust him though.”
She nodded. “I trust him too. But trusting that he’s got the best of intentions, and trusting that he’s got everything under control are wildly different things to me.”
She and I have talked a lot about control in the time since I told her the truth. She understands that none of us are entirely in control of our destinies, or our paths. She hadn’t really given it much thought until she met me, and realized that there was some alternate plane of existence where she’s thirty years older, or dead, or whatever, and that it’s already happened. It put a finer point on it for her.
She told me one night, maybe a year ago, that she was worried about me. She said that while the control that she felt like she lost had made her feel like it was out of her control, at least there was some control over her life. She thought for me, it must be chaos. I have interrupted the plan or destiny, or whatever, and that it makes things even more uncertain for her.
I want her to tell me when she thinks about things like this, or when she feels it. I want her to tell me, but it also tears me up a bit. Have I introduced that chaos into her life? Have I taken away her natural… I don’t want to call it destiny, but the natural order of things for her?
Michael Christopher Cole 
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