Read The Smaller Evil for Free Online

that.”
    â€œYou will,” she told him gently. “
Soon.
”

SOMEDAY.
    You see the girl again and nothing’s changed. Sure, she doesn’t smile as much. And this time she’s the one asking the questions. She’s determined to be assertive now, to take charge, and you like that. She doesn’t know that this is the way it always goes. She doesn’t know that you need her doubt before her conviction.
    You meet at a park this time. The nice one off Soquel that’s not far from the beach. Lots of students lie in the well-kept grass, reading quietly, soaking up sun. You can tell the most studious types by the paleness of their skin and the way they roll their pant cuffs. They’re also the ones smoking cigarettes, not joints, and women with children throw dirty looks their way.
    She wants to know what you think about religion. She was raised Jewish, but she doesn’t believe. Or she doesn’t want to. This is causing friction with her family. What she wants is the freedom to make her own choices. To find her own path toward spirituality. You smile at this and say the things you always say. That she’s having the right kinds of thoughts, but that she’s looking for the wrong kinds of answers. That religion isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of now and then.
    Faith is an investment, you tell her, when you see she doesn’t understand. You bargain now for what you hope matters then.
    The girl laughs, not because you’re right, but because she thinks you’re clever. You don’t push it more than that. Instead, you switch gears, asking about her friends at school. If there are other people on campus as smart as she is. Not
as
smart, she says, and this time you both laugh. Then you enjoy the sunshine for a bit, which feels good. She doesn’t smoke, like the other students. You comment on this, in a positive sort of way. Seems like an easy enough thing to do, but at your words she frowns and looks elsewhere. You’re intrigued by this. More than intrigued. You’ve hit on something. A tenderness. You’ll be sure to remember that.
    It will be useful to you someday.

5
    â€œSO WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” a voice asked.
    â€œHuh?” Arman lifted his head and looked around. It was nighttime now, almost nine o’clock, and he was seated at a dinner table, surrounded by three strangers, in a room lit by candle glow. He wasn’t eating, because there wasn’t any food. What he
was
doing, however, was surreptitiously shaking two pills around in his hand, while weighing the pros and cons of taking them. One was his pink oval-shaped Paxil, which had to be taken with meals. The other was one of his short-acting Adderalls.
    â€œI asked where you were from,” the voice said again, and it was Mari speaking to him, the old woman he’d met in the bathroom just hours earlier. Now fully dressed, she sat across from him, with her hair neatly braided, her soft face shadowy in the jumpy light.
    Arman decided that he liked Mari. He really did. The whole naked thing wasn’t that big a deal, and whatever kind of deal it was, well, that was on him. Not only had she been gracious this afternoon, she’d helped him out again when he’d shown up in the dining room alone after not being able to find Kira and Dale back in the cabin. In fact, Arman would’ve missed the meal altogether if he hadn’t seen thestream of people walking past his open window and decided to join them, following along in silence until he reached the dining hall, this cavernous room so completely different from the bright and sunny kitchen he’d eaten in earlier. No, this space, filled with heavy drapes and low-hanging candelabras, was grim and foreboding—full of secrets and dark wood, hushed tones and the rich scent of burning incense.
    Arman had been lost in the swell of strangers—there had to be at least a hundred people here, some