The next day she called me. “What are you doing today?” she asked. I had the telephone in my hand and walked around as far as the cable let me. “I thought of going out for a walk,” I said. She told me to wait for her.

Half an hour later a car stopped at my drive, from the windows I saw a different car. The car was as practical as the Porshe was cool and sporty. I went outside and closed the front door. She opened the passager’s door for me.

“You’re hesitant,” she said.

I put on perfume, it belonged to my father. The whole morning I focussed my thoughts on the perfume. It smelled grown-up, fresh, spicy. It didn’t smell like cheap deodorant that boys put on after a shower. This was something men wore at decent restaurants.

Yasmine got out of the car. She wore a long, red dress. I could see about five-inch of her leg, but I had her arms. She didn’t have any tattoos, just silky impeccable skin.

“I thought you’d be okay if I would drive,” she said. Her lips were red, her hair was done. I tried to absorb her as much I could. “Did you ever drove a car, Barnabas?”

I nodded.

“Good.” She smiled. She seemed to always smile and how I love to sit in her head that moment. I imagined her head felt like an evening in spring when the winds sleep and the earth is hot.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“I just don’t know what to say.” It was true, I didn’t know what to say. I focussed on the perfume and tried not to look foolish. I didn’t know how to do that.

“Well, it’s best if we start walking, so I can continue my story.”

I walked, watching the stones and trying not to touch the seams with my feet. It was a game I played since childhood, walking on my toes and trying to match my speed with the interior of the tiles. Here, it helped me focus, because I truly wanted to remember every single word she said.

“My uncle had this large house, I’m talking about the villa here.” I nodded. “And that place was a place of parties and fun. Writers came there to think, rich businessmen came there to smoke, politicians came there to fiddle with girls. It was a place very much like my old cafe. Remember yesterday I told you your house somehow manifests inside your mind?

“Yeah, you still dream of your old house.”

“What about you? Do you dream of your house?” she asked.

Strangely enough, I had been dreaming of my house recently. It was as if her words just unlocked a whole sequence forgotten in the night. I remembered now. “Yeah I did, I think this night even. But I don’t believe there was anything special about that dream. I went to the basement, but we don’t have a basement.”

“What did you see there?”

“A lonely lightbulb illuminating some kind of chest,” I said. “But what can it mean? There isn’t a basement.”

She smiled again. “There is always a basement, Barnabas.”

We walked to a local cafe where we got tea and cheesecake. Our table was at the window, where a cool breeze would whiffle against our legs. “So I lived in the villa as my mother was incapable of looking after us anymore. I later learned she was at an asylum dealing with her trauma. The family was ashamed of her, so much that we didn’t even know where she had been. We felt we were being excluded by the one who should hold us in our arms and tell us it would be okay. One day she escaped the asylum and ran up to the burned down cafe, just to scream our names. I learned all this when she died, of course. A friendly nurse at the asylum told me her sad story. I had only thought of us needing her arms, but she needed us as well. She died when I was twenty-one. Only me and my father remained. So I was ready for the world with my psychology degree. I was officially a doctor and the people I wanted to help first were already dead. And my father, I lost contact with him when my sister died. So I did what I thought was right and hang out at the villa. I slept with a lot of strange men, but every one of them learned me something they can’t teach you in school. Does it bother you?”

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“No, you sleep with whoever you want,” I said. Though it wasn’t completely true.

“I mean me talking the whole time. Look at that, I forgot my tea again completely.” It had turned lukewarm. I fiddled with my spoon as she cut a piece of the cheesecake and ate it slowly. She carefully mashed it, savouring the taste with her eyes closed and a smile on her face.

“It’s a tad too sweet for me, but delicious nonetheless. Anyway, back to my story. One of the men did something I didn’t see anyone do. He meditated, explained to me that it was a way to see his mind. He also had something special to actually visit the mind, one night we drank some special mix of exotic plants and everything changed. My whole world seemed to open. It was like I had lived with binoculars on my eyes, and now I saw everything. I saw my sister, unchanged in her teenage body. It was like we both shared the same skin, in a way. I don’t remember what happened next but I got terribly ill. The days after I stayed in bed in the dark, when I woke up again, the man who gave me this remedy or curse, had gone. I never knew the name of it, only it existed. So I tried countless things, occult things only achieved through carnal pleasures. Does it really not bother you to fill your young mind with such silly things?”

I shook my head. Encouraging her to continue without uttering a word. If anything I wanted more.

“Fine. Carnal, spiritual, poison, alcohol, I had tried it all. A way to reconnect with my sister or at least rebuild my broken home, she pointed at our head. Then I realised everyone is broken. The mere search for a cure is in itself a disease. You need to learn to accept and let go. My practice, because I had one. Do not believe I didn’t help or at least tried to help, people. But they say those who can’t do, teach. And in some ways, it is indeed true. I realised my faults, which helped me make others realise their faults. It’s like being a light in the dark but all the time you think you’re the light, you’re not. I am in the dark.” She smiled again.

We remained silent, as we let the words uttered seep into our minds. Now I realise she must also let the words seep in. Simple fact, no one knows where thoughts come from. So how one can trust itself? You can go crazy realising it. There the ego mediates between the conscious and the unconscious, giving with one hand and taking away with another.

“You tell something,” she said with a chuckle. “My voice has gone weary.”

“Well, what can I say,” I said.

“Fine, how about a bet. Or better, a transaction.”

“What kind of transaction?”

“A kiss… for sitting in the car with me.”

My face turned red. I could feel the blood coursing through my cheeks, temperatures rising. “I accept your challenge.”

She lent over and gave me a quick peck on my cheek. It was my right one, I still remember it even after all this time.