backstory;
The story of the Danish accountant is one of Eames's favourite. In his brain, it occupies a central place as a cautionary tale about what can happen to a young, overconfident, newly-minted international criminal when he gets a little ahead of himself. At one times, Eames preferred to bury it away out of shame, but Eames's ego has grown solid and substantial enough over the years that he can now look back and admit that a lot of it was very funny, even if all the jokes are at his expense.
So really, there's no reason why he should avoid actually telling anyone anymore. He just does it out of habit at this point.
"You shouldn't keep bringing it up if you're never going to bloody tell me," Yusuf tells him one night when it's so hot that neither of them are particularly willing to move. Yusuf's balcony is a mess of dehydrated house plants and ugly stonework and his cat's water dish which, once a week, gets pushed off accidentally onto a passerby below. But it's about the only place in Mombasa that gets a breeze half the time, so Eames finds himself sitting with Yusuf more and more often out of practicality if nothing else.
Eames is silent, considering and drinking in alternating bursts of activity. The rational part of his brain has to admit that Yusuf has a point. The less rational, but more fun, part is unperturbed.
"All I'll say," Eames says in the end, "is never forge someone in their own subconscious."
In the beat that follows, Yusuf's expression becomes increasing incredulous, like levels of a dream: an incredulity within an incredulity within an incredulity.
Eames nods his head in agreement and waves his hand. "It was all very Escher after the first few seconds."
Eames is driving near Jerusalem when he turns 30 because a rich guy in Tel Aviv wanted confirmation that his corporate paranoia was justified. (It wasn't.) The Judean Mountains roll all around him, dropping away into a series of valleys and, eventually, the sea. There are tombs all through the mountains, they say, and it makes Eames think about Arthur's obsession from when they were soldiers together, always building ancient cities that don't exist anymore.
He composes letters in his mind. Dear Arthur, Haven't written in a while. But I'm feeling old, and it made me think of you. I bet you've been old since you were born. Or Dear Arthur, I'm not one for nostalgia, except, apparently, when I am.
But it's only an intellectual exercise, something to keep his thoughts busy as he tries to avoid the instinct to drive on the other side of the road. Because he and Arthur haven't been friends for years, and Eames has never been the sort to spend his time building things that don't exist anymore.
Mallorie believes in beauty like other people believe in oxygen, a necessity. And Eames may not agree, may find her ethereal constructions of old world Europe as improbable as Arthur's cities of geometric perfection, but he finds it fascinating nonetheless.
"You sanitize everything," he accuses as they sit by her Seine, and the air smells clean, and they are served coffee in spotless white porcelain mugs by politely silent projections.
Her foot hits his thigh under the table, the sort of playfulness she can indulge in with him because he's the one man in her life who isn't in love with her.
"And you rub dirt on everything and call it real," she counters, hiding her smile in the palm of her hand. "Who's to say what's more correct?"
They're all young and stupid, Eames thinks - and after a moment, he'll even include himself in that assessment. Sooner or later, they'll find the answer to that question.
Gray was an old school son of a bitch, the kind of hardened military lifer that Eames had been raised to expect from a childhood of war movies and the stories his grandfather used to tell. He was impervious to brown-nosing or charm or the kind of half-serious insubordination Eames had specialized in during his Phase 1 training.
But even he wasn't insurmountable. Adults, he'd observed, especially adults of a certain age who had reached a place in their professional life where it was clear that they would go no higher and achieve no more, had a tendency to gravitate toward potential and the rougher the package, the more eager they seemed to lift you up and clean you off and take credit for the great things you'd do in your future.
Eames had spent years crafting the appearance of potential, scattering it in everything he did like a tangible brilliance you could pick up and hold in front of your eyes. If he had also made a habit of ruthlessly and pointedly never achieving that brilliance, that was a different matter entirely. It drove his mother to distraction, but Gray didn't need to know that.
"Flight Lieutenant," Gray said, drawing out the f-sound with his teeth against his lower lip, a habit that Eames had seized upon when performing impressions for the other Credenhill boys in their free hours, "what do you think about America?"
Eames considered. "Practically or metaphysically speaking?" he asked finally.