The Candy House(66)
At high velocity, a speedboat slams along the tops of waves.
Fear and excitement are sometimes indistinguishable.
When the captain of a boat adjusts his course to commands from your Designated Mate, he may not know where he is taking you.
If your Designated Mate keeps looking up, he’s likely using the stars for navigation.
The Mediterranean is vast enough to have once seemed infinite.
A beauty should require no more context than the presence of her Designated Mate.
She must appear to relish any journey he undertakes.
Feign such enjoyment by putting an affectionate arm around him and nestling your head beside his.
Aligning your head with your Designated Mate’s will allow you to share in his navigation and calculate your route.
At night, far from shore, stars pulse with a strength inconceivable in the proximity of light.
Your whereabouts will never be a mystery to us; you will be visible as a dot of light on the screens of those watching over you.
You are one of hundreds, each a potential hero.
Technology has afforded ordinary people a chance to glow in the cosmos of human achievement.
Your lack of espionage training is what makes your record clean and neutral.
You are an ordinary person undertaking an extraordinary task.
You need not be remarkable for your skills, only for your bravery and equilibrium.
Knowing that you are one of hundreds should not diminish you.
In the new heroism, the goal is to merge with something larger than yourself.
In the new heroism, the goal is to throw off the scourge of self-involvement.
In the new heroism, the goal is to renounce the modern fixation with being seen and recognized.
In the new heroism, the goal is to dig beneath your shiny persona.
You’ll be surprised by what lies underneath: a rich, deep crawl space of possibility.
Some liken this discovery to a dream in which a familiar home acquires new wings and rooms.
The power of individual magnetism is nothing against the power of combined selfless effort.
You may accomplish astonishing personal feats, but Citizen Agents do not seek individual credit.
The need for personal glory is like cigarette addiction: a habit that feels life-sustaining even as it kills you.
Childish attention-seeking is usually satisfied at the expense of real power.
An enemy of the state could not have connived a better way to defang and distract us.
Now our notorious narcissism is our camouflage.
23
After a juddering ride of several hours, you may not notice at first that the boat is approaching a shore.
A single lighted structure stands out starkly on a deserted coastline.
Silence after a roaring motor is a sound of its own.
The speedboat’s immediate departure suggests that you won’t be returning anytime soon.
Knowing your latitude and longitude is not the same as knowing where you are.
A new remote and unfamiliar place can make the prior remote and unfamiliar place seem like home.
Imagining yourself as a dot of light on a screen can be oddly reassuring.
Because your husband is a visionary in the realm of national security, he occasionally has access to that screen.
If it calms you to imagine your husband tracking your dot of light, then imagine it.
Do not, however, close your eyes while ascending a rocky path in strappy sandals, in total darkness.
At Latitude X, Longitude Y, the flora is dry and crumbles under your feet.
A voice from above suggests that your arrival has been expected and observed.
An empty shore is not necessarily unpatrolled.
The best patrols are imperceptible.
24
A formal handshake between your new host and your Designated Mate may mean that they haven’t met before now.
In certain rich, powerful men, physical slightness will seem a source of strength.
The failure of your new host to acknowledge you may indicate that women do not register in his field of vision.
Being invisible means you won’t be closely watched.
Your job is to be forgotten yet still present.
A white, sparkling villa amid so much scrabbly darkness will appear miragelike.
A man to whom women are invisible may still have many beauties in his domain.
These neglected beauties will vie for his scant attention.
Among neglected beauties, there is usually an alpha beauty who assumes command.
As you enter the villa, her cool scrutiny will ripple through the other beauties and contract around you.
The sensation will remind you of going as a child to a school, or a country club, where you knew almost no one.
Feeling at the mercy of those around you prompted a seismic internal response.
The will to integrate and thrive among strangers felt deeper than yourself.
You were never childish, even as a child.
Your unchildishness is something your husband has always loved in you.
Once the new children had become your allies, it was wrenching to leave them.
25
A small table and chairs carved into a spindly clifftop promontory are doubtless designed for private conversation.
If your Designated Mate brings you with him to this spot, he may be imperfectly at ease with your new host.
When your new host dismisses his alpha beauty, important business is likely under way.