There was a small mirror in his cell. Just big enough to frame Raymond’s face. But he could not bear to look at himself. He would turn his whole body away as he walked past to go to the cot. Or adjust the television or go to the wardrobe. Sometimes he would duck underneath it so there would be no reflection at all, even though he wasn’t there to see it. The prison guards were friendly, they weren’t ogres with egos. They looked upon him with sad tolerance when he asked to have the mirror removed. They apologized and said it was impossible. They were right. The mirror was sunk into the wall. It wasn’t even made of glass but some kind of reflective sheet so prisoners couldn’t smash it and cut themselves. He had tried to hang a shirt over it but there was nothing to hang from. He was stuck with it and the more he avoided it the more of a malignant presence it became. Like a hideous painting that had come alive. Most of the guards knew why he didn’t want the mirror but one of the younger ones had to ask. “Because I see myself,” Raymond replied. “Because I see a monster.”
The prison cell was comfortable. Clean, quiet, soothing pastels, calming curves, no sharp edges. Western European prisons were luxurious compared to the rest of the world. Even maximum-security prisons housing the worst of criminals recognized the right to a reasonable standard of living. The International Criminal Court held its detainees in the Scheveningen prison, close to the ocean, in a pleasant seaside district of The Hague. At night, if the wind blew in the right direction, Raymond thought he could hear waves on the shore. It may have been a dream, a hopeful aural hallucination, he had been in here long enough to suspect his mind may be playing tricks on him. If the sound of the ocean was indeed conjured from his allergic imagination, it was a comforting distraction from the malevolent mirror.
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Raymond’s cell was nicer than many rooms he had rented in his previous life. Fifteen square meters of efficient space utilization. Apart from the mirror, it was a cell conducive to contemplation and Raymond needed to separate the searing recollections of his past from the current distractions of his wandering mind. He needed to isolate and dissect his memories, even though he knew having a clear focus would not change his destiny. His fate had long since slipped from his grasp.
When they finally arrested him and Dresden, after tracking their drone swarm, Raymond didn’t know what to expect but he wouldn’t have been surprised by a quick death. To be here, alive and in good health, leading a solitary but satisfying existence was more than many people thought he deserved. He would not let himself feel guilty about being a content prisoner. There was a lot more guilt to consider. He only had to look in the mirror.
He often thought about Dresden. He knew he would never see her again. Maybe from a distance, in court for sentencing, or on television. But she lived in his head, never far from his thoughts, glancing at him with her dark inscrutable eyes, one manicured eyebrow raised. She had noticed his reaction when it first happened. He flinched like he had been slapped as he walked past a mirror in the hotel room they had once shared. “Don’t be stupid,” she’d said when he told her what he’d seen. “Mirrors can’t eat people.”