Jennifer Egan - Black Box

People rarely look the way you expect them to, even when you’ve seen pictures.

The first thirty seconds in a person’s presence are the most important.

If you’re having trouble perceiving and projecting, focus on projecting.

Necessary ingredients for a successful projection: giggles; bare legs; shyness.

The goal is to be both irresistible and invisible.

When you succeed, a certain sharpness will go out of his eyes.

Some powerful men actually call their beauties “Beauty.”

Counter to reputation, there is a deep camaraderie among beauties.

If your Designated Mate is widely feared, the beauties at the house party where you’ve gone undercover to meet him will be especially kind.

Kindness feels good, even when it’s based on a false notion of your identity and purpose.

Posing as a beauty means not reading what you would like to read on a rocky shore in the South of France.

Sunlight on bare skin can be as nourishing as food.

Even a powerful man will be briefly self-conscious when he first disrobes to his bathing suit.

It is technically impossible for a man to look better in a Speedo than in swim trunks.

If you love someone with dark skin, white skin looks drained of something vital.

When you know that a person is violent and ruthless, you will see violent ruthlessness in such basic things as his swim stroke.

“What are you doing?” from your Designated Mate amid choppy waves after he has followed you into the sea may or may not betray suspicion.

Your reply—“Swimming”—may or may not be perceived as sarcasm.

“Shall we swim together toward those rocks?” may or may not be a question.

“All that way?” will, if spoken correctly, sound ingenuous.

“We’ll have privacy there” may sound unexpectedly ominous.

A hundred feet of blue-black Mediterranean will allow you ample time to deliver a strong self-lecture.

At such moments, it may be useful to explicitly recall your training:

“You will be infiltrating the lives of criminals.

“You will be in constant danger.

“Some of you will not survive, but those who do will be heroes.

“A few of you will save lives and even change the course of history.

“We ask of you an impossible combination of traits: ironclad scruples and a willingness to violate them;

“An abiding love for your country and a willingness to consort with individuals who are working actively to destroy it;

“The instincts and intuition of experts, and the blank records and true freshness of ingénues.

“You will each perform this service only once, after which you will return to your lives.

“We cannot promise that your lives will be exactly the same when you go back to them.”

Eagerness and pliability can be expressed even in the way you climb from the sea onto chalky yellow rocks.

“You’re a very fast swimmer,” uttered by a man who is still submerged, may not be intended as praise.

Giggling is sometimes better than answering.

“You are a lovely girl” may be meant straightforwardly.

Ditto “I want to fuck you now.”

“Well? What do you think about that?” suggests a preference for direct verbal responses over giggling.

“I like it” must be uttered with enough gusto to compensate for a lack of declarative color.

“You don’t sound sure” indicates insufficient gusto.

“I’m not sure” is acceptable only when followed, coyly, with “You’ll have to convince me.”

Throwing back your head and closing your eyes allows you to give the appearance of sexual readiness while concealing revulsion.

Being alone with a violent and ruthless man, surrounded by water, can make the shore seem very far away.

You may feel solidarity, at such a time, with the beauties just visible there in their bright bikinis.

You may appreciate, at such a time, why you aren’t being paid for this work.

Your voluntary service is the highest form of patriotism.

Remind yourself that you aren’t being paid when he climbs out of the water and lumbers toward you.

Remind yourself that you aren’t being paid when he leads you behind a boulder and pulls you onto his lap.

The Dissociation Technique is like a parachute—you must pull the cord at the correct time.

Too soon, and you may hinder your ability to function at a crucial moment;

Too late, and you will be lodged too deeply inside the action to wriggle free.

You will be tempted to pull the cord when he surrounds you with arms whose bulky strength reminds you, fleetingly, of your husband’s.

You will be tempted to pull it when you feel him start to move against you from below.

You will be tempted to pull it when his smell envelops you: metallic, like a warm hand clutching pennies.

The directive “Relax” suggests that your discomfort is palpable.

“No one can see us” suggests that your discomfort has been understood as fear of physical exposure.

“Relax, relax,” uttered in rhythmic, throaty tones, suggests that your discomfort is not unwelcome.

Begin the Dissociation Technique only when physical violation is imminent.

Close your eyes and slowly count backward from ten.

With each number, imagine yourself rising out of your body and moving one step farther away from it.

By eight, you should be hovering just outside your skin.

By five, you should be floating a foot or two above your body, feeling only vague anxiety over what is about to happen to it.

By three, you should feel fully detached from your physical self.

By two, your body should be able to act and react without your participation.

By one, your mind should drift so free that you lose track of what is happening below.

White clouds spin and curl.

A blue sky is as depthless as the sea.

The sound of waves against rocks existed millennia before there were creatures who could hear it.

Spurs and gashes of stone narrate a violence that the earth itself has long forgotten.

Your mind will rejoin your body when it is safe to do so.

Return to your body carefully, as if you were reëntering your home after a hurricane.

Resist the impulse to reconstruct what has just happened.

Focus instead on gauging your Designated Mate’s reaction to the new intimacy between you.

In some men, intimacy will prompt a more callous, indifferent attitude.

In others, intimacy may awaken problematic curiosity about you.

“Where did you learn to swim like that?,” uttered lazily, while supine, with two fingers in your hair, indicates curiosity.

Tell the truth without precision.

“I grew up near a lake” is both true and vague.

“Where was the lake?” conveys dissatisfaction with your vagueness.

“Columbia County, New York” suggests precision while avoiding it.

“Manhattan?” betrays unfamiliarity with the geography of New York State.

Never contradict your Designated Mate.

“Where did you grow up?,” asked of a man who has just asked you the same thing, is known as “mirroring.”

Mirror your Designated Mate’s attitudes, interests, desires, and tastes.

Your goal is to become part of his atmosphere: a source of comfort and ease.

Only then will he drop his guard when you are near.

Only then will he have significant conversations within your earshot.

Only then will he leave his possessions in a porous and unattended state.

Only then can you begin to gather information systematically.