If this time through we don’t get it right / I’ll come back to you in another life
(EMA, Anteroom)
*
1. First times. Nothing can beat them. You know how it is. A new touch. A new woman. You never can tell how she will smell. Everyone's a little bit different. Eve walks into a hospital room. A woman stabs her. She bleeds to death. 44 years old.
2. Round two. Different lifetime. Same hospital. Same itch. This time Eve stops at a bathroom. She looks at a woman and scrunches her brow. She holds a dying patient’s throat. She loses her job. She leads a team. She tells a coworker: “I think I’ve met her.” She visits a village and saves a man and drives away on a country road. The killer shoots her through the window. Twice in the head. Once in the shoulder. 44 years old.
(Can you see it? The repetition?)
“3. I’m thinking,” Eve says, because third time’s a charm and it raises the question: What is she thinking? Does she remember? Why does she say “she’s waiting for me”? Eve gets out the car. She places her hand upon her heart. The killer swallows. What does she know? The killer runs. Later that evening they fight in a bathroom. They tussle with knives. The killer stabs her and steals her phone. Her husband finds her. Dead already. Fated. Murdered. Cosmic punishment.
(What? You thought they were fated for happiness?)
4. Redo! Next time Eve tries drastic action. She smashes glass. A bus shelter window. It changes something. She puts on the killer’s perfume. She breathes her name. Villanelle says, “you’re wearing it.” It gives them time to make it to Russia. They stand in a restaurant and stand at a juncture until Eve says “drop your gun.” As if it’s a job! Villanelle shoots Eve straight through the heart. As if it’s a job too.
(Hand, extended! Hope, extinguished! Fate, sadistic! But. But).
5. What is it with them? They always return. Do they actually think that they can beat me? Be together, against the odds? “Come with me, just you and me.” Well. A few words do make a difference. Villanelle runs. They make it to Paris. They make it to bed. A kiss. A touch. Another. Another. Shit. Yes. There. Fuck. A memory made to stretch across lifetimes. This one ends when the Twelve arrives. Dead. Dead.
(Oh come on. You know want they are. Bad people. I’m the good guy. Fate, at your service).
6. What’s that? You’re rooting for them? Fine. Do it! This will be fun. Come on, Eve! Don’t get distracted! Do what you want with her! Grab that knife! Stick it in! Knuckles deep. Bloody. Wet. “Don’t pull it out,” Villanelle screams. Eve listens. She actually listens! A deadly thing. The Twelve burst in with guns a-blazing. Forty four. Twenty six. Boo hoo.
7. Boring! They can do better. Next time, Eve pulls out the knife. Villanelle lives. Eve looks for her. “I need you, Villanelle?” Too soon! Dead in Basildon. London. Amsterdam. Eve starts to lose her. Eve starts to miss her. Absence makes the heart grow mad. Eve hires Villanelle to kill her. Villanelle, babygirl, does. Once with a dagger. Once with a pistol. Twice with greedy bare hands.
(So much death. Still no birthday).
8. How about this? What if I give them a fighting chance? Do it, Eve! Touch her cheek. Take her poison. Swallow her arsenic-coated love. Will you? “Yes.” Everything? “Yes.” Watch as she trembles. Watch as she trusts you. Watch as she’s strangled to death.
(Oops! Sorry. This is too easy).
9. Again? Really? You are the worst! Next time, Eve chops a man to pieces. With an ax! She swallows her vomit. So romantic! Stuck in a tunnel under a city, Villanelle shoots her. Nobody finds her. Forty four. Twenty two (caliber pistol).
10. “Are you okay?” Villanelle asks on the ninety-ninth cycle as Eve breaks wood - as Eve broke glass - to exit the tunnel, to exit the darkness. No escape! She enters the sunlight. Ruins await. Shot in the back where someone will find her.
(“What if I shot you?” “You wouldn’t?” “I wouldn’t?” “In the hand.” “The shoulder, Eve?” “You can’t.” “I can.” “I think I’ve met her.” “See you soon.” “I think I’ve met her.” “See you soon.” “I think I’ve met her.” “I think I’ve met her.” “You never stood a chance.”)
11. “I should have shot you in the head,” Villanelle says three hundred lifetimes and six months later. So she does. Over and over. Eve can’t stop pursuing Villanelle. Villanelle can’t stop killing Eve. Fate isn’t pretty. It’s bloody and messy. Defying fate?
12. It’s drunk and depressing. “I’m done with her.” Even Eve doesn’t believe it, but stays away and stays the course that leads them to a London ballroom. A moment of rest. After the violence. After the blood. “I’ve killed so many people, Eve.” They notice it, pocket it, hold it as freedom. A resource for living. “I know.”
(It only gets worse. The pain is exquisite).
13. “Go, Eve,” but Eve doesn’t listen and Villanelle stays and Rhian slaughters them later that evening. There was a birthday. There was cake. Forty five years old.
(Old!)
14. There will be more. Cakes and kisses and death repeated. Life, relived. In some other version, Eve leaves the ballroom. Later they reunite on a bridge. It’s never that easy. Don’t get excited. They leave together, too distracted to notice the gunman in the vehicle.
(“Now we walk?” So long suckers!)
15. “Now” can cover infinite time loops, always resetting, always repeating. “Now we walk.” No. “Now we walk.” No. “Now we walk.” Every time a few moments more. How many moments for them to survive this? To grow old? Villanelle is a stubborn shithead. Eve is a stubborn shithead too. They die together a thousand times: in vain, in love, in pain, in conflict. “Help me make it stop,” Eve says.
16. Plot twist! Christianity pisses Eve off. They fight. They live. At what cost? Other versions crowd their vision, cloud their minds. Remember the time Eve answered her invites? Remember the time Eve let her stay? “Paris?” “Paris.” Dreams? Delusions? Some other memory. Some other life. Doomed, yes, but wasn’t it worth it? “I thought I lost you.” Did Eve lose her? Will she lose her again?
(Spoiler alert! I set their end time. No more redos. April 10. 9:52pm. Shall we fast forward?)
17. Here it comes! Final hours. I’m too excited. I’ve lost track of the times they’ve relived it, trying to shake off the strings of fate.
- They teamed up to fight the Twelve together. Eve was stabbed in 34 seconds.
- They stayed on the island. The Twelve looked for Gunn. Bang, in the head!
- They chose each other! They bypassed London. They died outside a Belgium motel.
- They blew up the boat. They burned to death.
What can I say? I’m a professional. I know what I’m doing. I’m fate. It’s fated.
“Only if I let it,” Eve says.
18. “Villanelle. What time is it?” They leave the pub. There’s time to kill. Sometimes they head straight to the Thames. Sometimes a movie. Food. Sex. What’s the difference? Time is time. Theirs is over. Villanelle checks her wristwatch. Flashback! Blood on her watch at the start of the time loop. Blood in the water at its end. Villanelle says: “It’s three, Eve. No. It’s two. I didn’t reset it after Berlin.” Berlin! Starts? Endings? All that blood! Love can be a slippery business. Time can be a slippery concept. A missing hour? Where did it go?
19. “Jump, Eve.” How many times? Off a boat, a bridge, a rooftop. Are you ready? How much longer? April 10. It’s already here. 9:52. Approaching. Approaching. I set it. I did. They can’t avoid it. What’s that sound? I hear it ticking. Eve thinking? Brain like a hamster on a wheel. Add. Subtract. Time zones spit. Time zones swallow.
20. “Jump, Eve.” When Eve was a girl she used to play jump rope. Jump up. Leave the earth and someone is living. Touch down and someone has died. Jump. Jump. Every rotation. Leave the ground. Escape it escape it. Time. Place. Tether it. Sever it. Raggedy pigeon wings fly.
21. “Jump, Eve.” What time is it now? They jump the queue at the ticket counter. They run through the airport and jump over luggage that blocks their way. They push over children. Eve reaches out and grabs Villanelle’s hand. “The gate is closing…” When? Now? Wrong question! Time needs place and place is changing. 9:52. Where?
21. “All the time.” Where does it go? West? East? 2018 feels like yesterday. 2022? The plane leaves Heathrow at 7:00pm. “Ladies and gentleman. Reset your watches. The local time is…” Twenty four hours after take-off when they land. Thirteen hours on the plane. Lost hours. 9:52pm? Non-existent. Time repeats. Time disappears. What happened to it? What happened to them? Can you see them? I can’t see them. It doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
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