Harrowing

by S. E. Amadis

  “I’m not hurt,” I said.

  Romeo made a face.

  “Well, not very hurt,” I hastened to clarify. “And when did you start to call me Mami again? Hasn’t it always been Mimi?”

  Romeo grinned.

  “Mimi, Mami, Momi, Moo,” he recited.

  “You remembered?”

  He batted at my hand.

  “Course I remember.”

  I closed my eyes. I felt near the end of my line.

  When I opened them again, Romeo was sitting a short distance away. I must have drifted off.

  “Honey sweets,” I called, softly.

  Romeo raised his head and smiled.

  “How long have I been sleeping? Have I been out a long time?”

  Romeo grinned again.

  “Not long.”

  I tried to push myself up. Everything hurt. I felt like a sack of broken bones. I was relieved to discover that I could still move like normal though so, apparently, nothing was really broken.

  “She really battered us, didn’t she?” I tried to exclaim. It came out more like a sigh.

  Romeo merely nodded.

  I tried to get up, but I still felt like rubber.

  “We should try and find a way out,” I said.

  “I told you, Mami. You oughta rest.” Tears burst from his eyes again. “Please, Mami. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

  More tears began to pour out of him. I cradled his head and he began to wail as if a dam had just crashed inside of him. I held him for a long time, just letting him be.

  After a while he sniffled and wiped at his eyes.

  “Don’t feel so sad,” I whispered. “Nothing’s happened to me.”

  This only inspired a fresh outburst of tears from him.

  I don’t know how long I lay there but the minutes dragged into hours. Before long both of us were famished, consumed by hunger. I tried to calculate, with my ground-up brain, how long we’d gone without food.

  “You disappeared yesterday, I think.” I fiddled absently with Romeo’s fingers.

  Romeo squirmed restlessly.

  “I did not disappear. I was with somebody. Disappearing is what happens when no one knows where you are. But someone knew where I was. That freaky man who had me.”

  “Well, for me it was the same as if you’d completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Because I didn’t know where you were.”

  I began counting hours off on my hand.

  “It’s been over twenty-four hours,” I said. “I think.”

  “Well, I’m hungry.” Romeo patted his tummy. “But people can live for lots and lots of days without food,” he hastened to reassure me.

  I reached up and stroked his cheek again.

  “Yes, but not at your age. You don’t have a lot of food stored up. ‘S why you’re so lucky skinny.” I tried to joke, but it sounded more pathetic than funny.

  Romeo shrugged.

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said, evincing a wisdom people five decades older than him would envy. “We’ll just have to wait till Calvin finds us.”

  He glanced at me, his eyes shining with hope.

  “Calvin will find us? Right?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had no idea how Calvin was. Or if he was even alive.

  *

  The shadows dragged out long and colourless before us. There was a light bulb in the room, that was perpetually lit. But there were also some windows. Some of those basement windows Calvin had shone his torch app through, barely two days ago. I could hardly believe it had been two days. It felt like a lifetime away.

  Other than the windows and the dirt floor, there was barely anything more in this putrid hidey hole. A few skinny wooden columns which served to hold the roof up. And that was about it. No furniture. Nothing.

  Romeo had dug around the room about a hundred times already, searching for a way out. He’d drifted up to the door a few times as well, but it remained stubbornly locked. There were the windows, but they were too high for us to reach. The panes of glass looked thick, and we had nothing to break them with anyways. Not even a chair.

  Romeo designated a far corner to use as a bathroom, since there was no such installation available. It was a good thing it was a dirt floor, he told me. He’d scoured the entire room and come up with nothing. Not even, most importantly, another exit or escape route.

  I needed to use the bathroom. But I didn’t have the strength to pull myself to my feet anymore. I wondered if my wounds were festering. Or if I was indeed broken somewhere, after all.

  Broken, like my grandmother, who couldn’t have babies after the war. I was broken.

  I longed for my mother to come to me, the way she’d come to the medium. I squinted around the dim half-light, trying to scrounge up an image of her, no matter how vague or faint, reassuring me that she was still watching over me. In the smoky corners of the room. In the flagrant flitting of the sunlight through the window. In a shadow or shade.

  But there was nothing.

  I was broken.

  I pulled myself to my elbows and tried to drag myself across the dirt to the far corner that Romeo had designated as the bathroom. I managed to make a few “steps” with my elbows. Two, perhaps. Or three. Then the effort turned out to be too much. I dug my elbows in with all my strength, gritted my teeth and made one last-ditch attempt. I only succeeded in dragging myself perhaps two more inches across the ground.

  In the end I gave up and peed into my elegant dress pants. They were all torn up anyways. A puddle formed underneath me, quickly sucked away into the desert-dry dirt floor.

  I had no strength left. No vitality, no force.

  I was dying.

  Chapter 30

  Two days dragged into three. Three days without water.

  Romeo lay next to me, as exhausted as I was. Neither of us spoke much anymore. I dragged myself to his side and cradled his head in my arms. At least we’d die in each other’s arms.

  “Mami, tell me about Daddy. Please,” Romeo used some of his last strength to whisper. “Remember, you promised me you’d tell me about him.”

  I hugged him as close as I could.

  “You’re my miracle child.”

  The words were barely audible. But Romeo was so close he could even hear my heart beating, still pumping away valiantly in spite of the lack of salts or proteins or whatever it was that hearts need to keep going.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Your father and I loved each other very much,” I began. “I don’t know, if he were alive today, if we’d still be together. I like to think that we would. That he was the love of my life. The one right man for me.”

  Calvin’s laughing countenance sprang to my mind and floated before me, almost as real as if it were actually there. I wondered if I was hallucinating.

  “Or perhaps there is indeed more than one right man or woman for every person. And it’s just a matter of time. One time in life is right for one man, and another is for you to be with another.”

  Romeo smiled wanly.

  “We loved each other very much. And we loved you. We wanted a baby more than anything in the whole wide world. More than cars, or a big house or a holiday in the Caribbean. All we wanted was a sweet little Romeo or Romea to hug and kiss and play with every day.

  “We were the two happiest people in the world when I found out I was pregnant. We’d prepared a room for you, all painted cream, because we didn’t know if you’d be a boy or a girl. Eli’s parents were crazy about you. With their love and care they tried to make up for the parents that I didn’t have. No one could have been happier, and no baby more desired in the world.”

  “Mami, what happened to the grandma and grandpa? My daddy’s parents?” Romeo broke in.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m sorry, but they blamed me for the death of their only son. They couldn’t stand to be near me after he died.”

  Romeo’s face f
ell.

  “How can anyone be so cruel?” he said. “How could Daddy’s death have been your fault? You didn’t do anything wrong. It was just chance. Bad luck.”

  I patted his arm and hugged him close again.

  “Just let me continue,” I said. “One day – I remember it was a radiantly beautiful morning in May, when the birds were finally starting to arrive from the south, and the flowers were blooming at last. That day your daddy and I decided to go for a walk about town. I wasn’t up to walks every day. Sometimes my back hurt. But that day I was feeling up and full of energy. So we thought we’d go for a walk, for some pastries, maybe. Get out of our part of town.

  “We went walking downtown, on the east side, a bit off the financial district. We didn’t often go there. I don’t know why, I guess it just wasn’t on our radar normally. A sudden rainstorm caught us off guard, and we ducked into a doorway to take shelter. It didn’t last long, but when it had passed, all the streets were deserted.

  “We dashed out, laughing as we jumped into all the puddles. I held your daddy close and smelt his cologne and after-shave. I was used to smelling it every day, but I never got tired of sniffing it on him. It was him. It was his fragrance.”

  “What did he wear?” Romeo asked quietly.

  “Old Spice. One of the things I’m glad about is that Calvin doesn’t use that brand. I could never stand to smell it on anyone else again. It belonged to your father. Only your father.

  “I hugged his arm, and we started pacing the empty streets, laughing and joking. Somehow I ended up turning into a sleazy alleyway. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute we were on a main street, chatting up a storm. And the next, there we were, someplace shady. Even today I still don’t know how we ended up in there. What got into me, to make me lead Eli to that nefarious place. Eli’s parents say it was my fault. If only I’d been paying attention...

  “We heard loud voices ahead of us. People swearing. Angry screams. We should have hightailed it out of there. Every instinct was screaming at me to leave. To just get the hell out of there as fast as we could run.

  “But I just had to be brave. I had to prove to everyone, including your daddy, that I wasn’t scared of anything. ‘I’m not going to run, just because those people sound mean,’ I remember telling him. ‘I can stand up to them. I can stand up to anyone. We can’t live our lives ruled by fear.’

  “‘Fear no. But maybe prudence...’ I remember your daddy replied. It was the last thing he ever said to me.

  “As we rounded a corner in the alleyway, they confronted us. Five huge, burly beasts. Well, they weren’t beasts, they were men. And they weren’t that burly or massive. But that’s just how I remember it.

  “I remember I just froze and pressed my arms against you, my baby. I couldn’t let anything happen to you. It never even occurred to me that anything could happen to your daddy.

  “Three of them went after your daddy, and two of them for me. Perhaps, if I hadn’t been pregnant, I could have done something. But my only objective was... well, protecting you! It was the only thing I could think of.

  “The two of them approached me, one from each side. All I did was stand there like an idiot, and wrap my arms about you. Around what would one day be you, my honey pops, the little struggling life inside me. I couldn’t move a muscle. They crept up to me, like hyenas approaching a female in heat, and reached towards my tummy. Towards you. I tried to spin away, keep you safe. And one of them pounced and grabbed me from behind in a stranglehold and lifted me off my feet. You know how tiny I am.

  “Well you just can’t imagine how I kicked and battered away at him with my feet. But it was all over in one instant. I was out in a flash.

  “I remember, when I awoke, I was completely oblivious to the fact that anything had happened at all. I felt an absolute peace surrounding me, as if I were living some sort of bloody mystical experience. It felt like I was floating in a pool of warm water. Like I myself, like you, had returned to the womb. Warm sunlight beat over me. I felt good.”

  Tears began to slide down my cheeks from underneath my closed lids, in spite of the years that had passed since this had happened.

  “I betrayed your daddy. I felt good while he was breathing his last in a pool of blood.”

  Romeo squeezed my hand.

  “You didn’t know, Mami,” he said, with a wisdom far beyond his years.

  I smiled faintly at him, then continued.

  “I opened my eyes, and I saw the sky above me. After the initial shock, it occurred to me that I’d probably gone with your daddy to a park, lain down on the grass and fallen asleep. During my pregnancy, we’d often go to explore different parks around the city. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, there were still so many remote and reclusive corners I’d never discovered before.

  “I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and the world began to spin and dip about me. Instead of the sun-drenched grass and idle birds that make up a park, I saw nothing but trash bins and fire escape ladders covered with rust. Seedy buildings decaying with mould and pollution-tainted moss.

  “I glanced down at myself in surprise. Found I was lying in a deep pool of muddy water left over from the storm that had just passed. I pressed my hands dripping with mud over you, I began stroking you hard. All of a sudden I remembered what had happened. I remembered those burly men. I remembered them reaching for you with their vicious claws. With their tainted, filthy tentacles. With the sneer in their eyes and on their lips.

  “I looked around and I saw my purse nearby. I picked it up in a daze, shock starting to overwhelm me by then. I know I should have thought about your daddy, worried about him. But all my thoughts were only upon you.

  “I stumbled to my feet, nearly losing my balance because I was quite far along with you. I was covered with slime and sludge from head to toe, my embroidered white blouse was plastered against me with mud and water but I couldn’t feel a thing. The only thing I was aware of was your own little footprints against my insides. Your reassuring patterings against me, letting me know that you were still alive and kicking and no force on earth was ever, ever going to beat you. That you were meant to be born, no matter what.

  “Just as now you will make it too, Romeo. Never stop believing that. You’re a survivor. You were meant to live.”

  I stopped to catch my breath. My breath came in much shorter spurts now, and I was starting to feel dizzy. I reached out and grabbed Romeo’s hands in mine with a death grip.

  I took a deep breath and pushed on, doggedly.

  “At first, I’m ashamed to admit, I didn’t even think about your daddy. I began pacing up and down the alleyway talking to you. ‘Don’t go, little baby. Don’t ever leave me. Stay with me. Stay by my side forever,’ I whispered to you without stopping, over and over again.

  “But then, suddenly, I don’t know why, my gaze was attracted to something sticking out from behind a rubbish container. Something that looked a bit like a foot wrapped in a dirty sock. I don’t know. I approached it. I went near it. I followed the foot up to the ankle. The ankle to the leg. And then...”

  I buried my face against Romeo as if suddenly he had turned into the father, and I into the helpless, bereft child. My eyes smarted, burnt and stung with the agonizing desire to weep, but there was no water left inside me.

  “And then, it was your daddy, Romeo,” I concluded in a tiny little voice. “I knelt beside him, but... but, there was no pulse. There was no...”

  I swallowed. I had hardly any saliva left to swallow.

  “I grasped him in my arms and rocked him. I just couldn’t let go of him.”

  Chapter 31

  My shoulder was bruised and it was all the fault of that blasted little vixen. And to top it off, the worst humiliation: she’d stolen my car to boot. I wasn’t worried about it, oh no. I knew she wasn’t taking it for a joy ride. And I knew, sooner or later, her footsteps (or rather, her free ride in my car) would lead her back to my place at Bedford Park.


  But in the meantime, I was left high and dry without wheels, way out in the boonies. What a life. What a mess.

  I considered calling Sandy up and asking her to come and get me. But I imagined she’d probably have her hands full with that hyperactive, smart-alec brat.

  Yep, Sandy definitely had her uses. That was why I deigned to work with someone as dull as her to begin with. With her simpering obsequiousness and her eagerness to please, she would have done anything under the sun that I ordered her to. Hell, she’d lick the soles of my shoes if I asked her to do it. I rubbed my hands together.

  Yes, Sandy did deserve a slightly more special place in the new world order. When I’d established my own governing body over society, I’d grant her something a bit more exalted. A higher position in the government, perhaps. Say, head of my kitchens, for example.

  I went into the house. I’d call a taxi. Yes, that’s what I would do. But I could just fancy a taxi from here to the centre of town would probably cost a fortune. Maybe I could just catch one up to the nearest subway station.

  It would probably take ages for me to get there. But ages was better than spending the rest of my life sitting out here in the outback twiddling my thumbs.

  I flipped on my cordless phone, strolled with it out onto the porch. I was about to dial the number, but then, something caught my eye. Some furtive movement, out there in the bushes.

  That was weird. Usually I was the only way who made furtive movements in the bushes.

  I waited, but nothing else happened. It was just my nerves, of course. All this fuss and row and running about was getting to me. Holding someone hostage in my cellar wasn’t something I did every day, after all. My nerves were just frayed, that was all.

  A fleeting image of a dead cat in a plastic bag, squirting me with liquefied innards, flashed for an instant into my mind. I shuddered. But that didn’t mean anything. Nothing had happened in the end. At any rate, it wasn’t any worse than what I had done to her.

  I flipped on my cordless phone again. And then, the next thing I knew, something dark and fuzzy had found its way from behind me into my mouth and nose, pressing down hard against me, cutting off my respiration. I struggled instinctively, tried to turn around and see what was happening.