by David Wood
“No consigo dormir,” she said. “O quarto é muito quente, muito barulhento. O quarto é muito sujo.”
Craig finally recognized some of the words. The room, she was saying, was too hot, too noisy, too dirty. She couldn’t sleep. But she was asleep. Asleep and speaking a language she didn’t know.
On his knees atop the bare mattress, hovering over Amy, he buried his fingers in his sweat-drenched hair and held back a scream.
(“Get the fuck over here! I’ve got the blow dryer!”)
In his ear the pulse that started three days ago on the plane intensified, beat like a steel drum inside his head.
(It’s a tumor.)
He didn’t know what to do, whether to yell at her, to slap her, to push her off the bed and onto the floor. Was it dangerous to wake her? Was she delusional or dying? Was she hallucinating? Was he hallucinating? What was happening to them in this fucking flat?
(Or an aneurism.)
He leapt off the bed and moved quickly toward the bathroom. He swung open the door and held his breath against the stench. Flipped on the light and went back into the bedroom, leaving the door open just enough for some light to spill in.
(With an aneurism you go like that!)
He dropped to his knees in front of the bed and stared at Amy, at her paper-pale winter face and drying lips, at her swollen nose and puffy eyes. He shook her again.
“Lava louça no funciona,” she was whispering. “Lavatórios, chuveiro no funciona. No ha agua. No ha agua!”
Under the panic, he felt a surge of regret for bringing her to Lisbon. As the sweat dripped into his eyes, he experienced a sharp pang of guilt. He had been selfish, narcissistic even, yanking Amy out of her element and dragging her across the Atlantic to Europe. But then he wouldn’t have had to do that had she stayed with him in Hawaii. If she hadn’t left him they would be in Honolulu still, in that beautiful Waikiki condo overlooking the tropical Pacific. This wasn’t his fault, it was hers. And more than hers, it was her mother’s. That old meddling bitch was responsible for all this, not him.
Her mother had been the one who ripped Amy away from him. Her mother had been the one who stole her from paradise and brought her back to that living hell. That was why they were here in Portugal. Her fucking mother. She might as well have sabotaged their pipes, wiped out their phone and Internet, and interred them inside this bloody flat herself.
He turned his head sideways and felt his ear lobes get hot and he tried to calm himself down. But there were no more Xanax, no more Vicodin, no water, no food, no nothing in this sorry excuse for a home. He listened to her whispering. Three fucking years with hardly a word and now she wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
“...nopossoabrir a porta. Nopossoabrir a janela. No posso abrir a porta. No posso abrir a janela. No posso abrir a porta...”
He couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t listen to another goddamn word. He stood up and started pacing the length of the bedroom, screaming at the top of his lungs and drowning out her whispers, drowning out the fado, cursing her, cursing her mother, cursing the next door neighbor, cursing Amaro Dias Silva and his associate, cursing himself.
Still she didn’t wake, didn’t stop her whispering, which had morphed now into an urgent whisper-scream. “Pare com isso! Chega! Vouchamar a policia!”
He squatted on his haunches in front of her and reached for her throat. He squeezed it, gently at first, then harder, then moved his hands up toward her mouth.
“No! No!” she whispered, her eyes fixed to a spot just above his head. “Fumo! Fumo!”
He covered her lips to stop her from speaking but they kept moving beneath his hand.
“Fogo! Fogo! FOGO!”
He squeezed her cheeks with all his might and yelled again at the top of his lungs. “Amy! Wake up! Wake up! Wake the fuck up!”
The whispering suddenly ceased and so did the fado. The room fell silent and Amy’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her lids fluttered and she seemed to come awake just then.
“Amy, can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me?” he begged.
In the bleak light her eyes fell on him but her gaze remained utterly blank, devoid of all recognition. Her dry lips parted and she seemed to be trying to speak.
He reached out and pulled her naked body to him. He rubbed her back and felt her heat. Her skin burned hot.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, rocking her gently. “Everything will be all right. “He could hear her whimpering in his ear, crying softly. “You’re fine, Amy. Just fine. You were just whispering in your sleep.”
Her muscles immediately tightened and she shivered in his arms. She pushed herself back from him and looked squarely into his eyes with that same blank stare. When she spoke, her voice was hers but it sounded low and distant as a voice might sound in a dream.
“The dead don’t whisper,” she said flatly. “They scream.”
Thirty-six hours have passed since the tremors, and Xavier’s mother hasn’t come home. He remains in the flat alone, watching out the window as fires rage across the city of Lisbon.
Xavier is scared. He is trapped in the flat and no one has come to check on him. With all the destruction the city has suffered, it is no wonder. He isn’t even sure whether potential rescuers can gain access to his building. Most of the surrounding structures have been reduced to rubble. Those that still stand are engulfed in flames.
There is no water in the flat, and Xavier is parched. His throat is dry and his mouth feels as though it is filled with cotton. Briefly he cries. But then he turns back to his drawings.
Xavier draws what he has seen, what he has felt. He draws a picture of himself in the flat with pieces of ceiling falling down all around him, with walls that shake and a door that has twisted grotesquely in its frame. He draws what he has seen outside his window—buildings in mid- collapse, flames that reach up for the sky, smoke thick and black enough to choke an entire city.
Xavier writes his thoughts on the back of these drawings as best he can. Yesterday he expressed worry, today he expresses fear. He hopes he will no longer have to draw pictures tomorrow. He hopes his mother will come home and take him away from here.
What is keeping her? If only she had come home the night before the quake. She would know what to do, she would get them out of here. What was so interesting about these men that kept her away all night? What did they provide that Xavier couldn’t?
Xavier’s mother never speaks about her men. Well, only the one— Xavier’s father. She speaks of him all the time, calls him a bastard. And when Xavier misbehaves, his mother calls him a bastard, too. Says he is just like his no-good father. “Cut from the same cloth” is the phrase she sometimes uses.
She often reminds Xavier that he was an “accident.” This, Xavier doesn’t quite understand. An accident? Like the time he knocked over that jar of cookies in the kitchen? An accident, like the time he peed in his pants?
As he draws, Xavier’s stomach grumbles and he tells it to shut up. Tells his stomach there is nothing he can do about his hunger; they will both have to wait. Xavier’s mother will be home soon. She will bring food.
Chapter 22
He stood by the window in the early morning light, watching steam rise up from the grate in the alley. He scratched at his face. It had been three days since he shaved and the coarse growth was itching, irritating his skin. He was parched. His lips were dry and cracking and felt alien against his tongue. His head ached. From the top of his eyes to the base of his neck was just one great length of pain. He ran his fingers through his shaggy damp hair and wiped away some of the sweat with his sleeve. The flat was getting hotter and hotter and it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe.
But at least he was writing. In fact, he had written nearly seven thousand words last night, which meant that nearly a third of the book was completed. One third of the book in just three days was unprecedented; that much typically took him a month.
Amy was still asleep in the bedroom and he didn
’t want to wake her. But he did want to pound against the front door with his fists and scream at the top of his lungs. Someone other than their next door neighbor had to live on their floor and he was sure that at the crack of dawn someone would hear him and come to their aid. Time was quickly slipping away. This would be their second day without water, their third without food.
And Amy, it seemed, was losing her mind. Any way he looked at it, she had sexually assaulted him last night. And she had been speaking in Portuguese. In her sleep. She had been speaking about the dead.
(“The dead don’t whisper. They scream.”)
Clearly she wasn’t right in the head. She had hallucinated earlier in the day, had acted like a complete loon last night. Maybe it was the thirst or the hunger, or maybe it was shock inducing delirium. Whatever it was, she needed serious medical help and fast. He probably did too, for that matter.
He picked up his microcassette recorder and clicked it on, put the microphone to his mouth. He parted his lips to speak into it, then he set it back down.
When the hell did she learn how to speak Portuguese?
He searched around for his phrase book. Maybe she was just uttering random words here and there, common phrases she had picked up from his travel guide. The room is too hot. That was common enough. Too noisy. Not so difficult. The room is too dirty. Why not? But No consigo dormir? I can’t sleep? Where did the hell did she learn that? He finally found the phrase book under a pillow on the couch. So she had been looking at it while he was asleep. He sat on the sofa and started flipping through the pages, trying to remember what else she said.
Chiera mal. That had stood out. Mal, he knew, meant bad. But what about chiera? He found the phrase. It smells. It smells bad. He thought about the vomit, about the feces, and was ashamed of himself again.
He tried to remember what else she had said. His mind was fuzzy. And he hadn’t really been paying attention when she first started mumbling in her sleep. Had thought she was just speaking gibberish. But toward the end he had listened quite carefully. And he had a fairly good ear for language.
What was it she kept repeating?
Porta. He skimmed a few pages. Found it. Porta. Door. What about it? No posso. I can’t. I can’t what? Abrir. Open. I can’t open the door. Jesus, what else? Janela. She kept saying janela, too. No possoa brir a janela. I can’t open. I can’t open what? He followed his finger down the page. Window. I can’t open the window.
That was what she had been repeating over and over again. I can’t open the door. I can’t open the window. I can’t open the door. I can’t open the window.
He looked up from the book, tried to picture her sitting alone in the living room learning these Portuguese words, deciphering how to string them together as sentences. He couldn’t see it. But somehow she’d done it. And in only a few hours. While throwing back two bottles of port wine.
What else had she said?
He stood from the couch and stepped over to the table, stared down at the microcassette recorder, wishing he had taped her last night. First he noticed that the button was pressed down, then he saw the red blinking eye. The recorder was running. That’s right, he thought, lightly smacking himself in the head. He’d clicked it on to dictate some notes, had forgotten to click it back off. He did that now.
A few moments later Amy stepped out of the bedroom. She was dressed now in nightclothes and her hair was a mess. Her eyes were small and bloodshot and she looked as though she hadn’t slept. She held her hand against her forehead.
“What happened last night?” she said.
Craig pursed his dry, cracked lips. “You don’t remember?” She shook her head. “What happened to the sheets?”
He scratched at the growth of beard beneath his chin. “You, um, you had an accident, baby.”
“I did?”
“A couple of them actually. It was coming out both ends.” He stepped around the boxes and moved toward her. “It’s all right. I cleaned you up with the last of my Purell and you’re fresh as a daisy now.” He tried to smile. “Good as new.”
The waterworks started again. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. He reached for her “Don’t sweat it, honey.”
She sobbed harder. “But it smells so bad in there.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Really. It’s not your fault. You just drank too much.”
“Oh my god. How the hell are we going to get out of here, Craig?”
He clenched his teeth, pulled back and looked at her, tried to think of something comforting to say. Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Outside the window, down in the alley, hustling along the cobblestones toward the street. It was a man, a young man of maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, dressed in a light black coat and a pair of shabby blue jeans. Craig tore himself from her, went to the window and began pounding as hard as he could against the pane.
“Senhor!” he shouted. “Up here!”
Amy joined him, smacking against the glass with the palms of her hands, screaming inches from Craig’s ear. “Help!” she yelled. “Help us! Up here!”
Together they hollered until they were hoarse. They punched at the window until the young man disappeared.
Craig stood back, hunched over with his hands on his knees. The man hadn’t heard them. Or if he had, he hadn’t let on.
“Holy fuck,” Amy shouted, crying again.
Craig took deep breaths, fighting the panic that set in. Think, you son of a bitch, think... His heart pounded in his chest and he feared he would hyperventilate. He was resilient, skilled in problem-solving, resourceful; if anyone could escape this fucking prison it was him. But his mind, his mind was clouded, his thoughts floating away like helium balloons cut from their strings. How could he wrap his mind around a solution when he couldn’t concentrate?
Finally he lifted his eyes from the floor, looked wildly around the room. What did he have to work with? Luggage, boxes, clothes, books, furniture. After a few moments, he focused on the front door.
“Let’s try something.”
He located the nearest legal pad and tore off the top yellow page. Then he moved toward his luggage and dug into his carry-on for a Sharpie.
“What are you doing?”
“Here.” He held the items out to her and guided her back over to the table. He took the piece of paper out of her hand and set it down flat. Then he held the table steady with his hands. “Write a message,” he said. She uncapped the Sharpie and the smell of the marker hit his nostrils like a piece of lead. He and his friends had used these markers in middle school to get a quick, cheap and easy high. These and whipped cream cans and cough medicines and glue.
“What should I write?” she asked.
He looked up at her. “Just, you know, tell whoever finds the message what’s wrong. That we’re trapped in our flat. That we need help.” His throat was sore and it hurt to speak. “Keep it short and simple.”
Her right hand was shaking; she tried to steady it with her left. She started writing.
Help! We’re trap
Craig yanked the sheet of yellow paper from under her hand. “What are you doing?”
“I’m writing what you told me to write.”
He swallowed hard and scratched at his face. “You’re writing in English. The message can’t be in English. It has to be in Portuguese.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyebrows shot inwardly. “Well, how the hell do you want me to do that? I don’t know Portuguese.”
“You know enough.” He tore off another piece of paper and set it down, smoothing it out flat. “Just write down what you were saying last night.”
She capped the Sharpie and bounced it off the table. “What are you talking about?”
He slapped his palm down against the splintered wood and let fly an exasperated sigh. “I know you’ve been studying the phrase book, Amy. You were speaking the language pretty goddamn fluently last night in your sleep.”
“In my sleep?”
He exhaled.
“Look, we don’t have time for this.” He hurried over and grabbed the phrase book off the couch. He set it open on the table and leafed through the pages with quivering fingers, looking for the Portuguese word for help.
Finally he spotted it. Socorro. Sounded familiar. He thought maybe Amy had used that word last night. He picked up the Sharpie, pulled off the cap and wrote the word in big bold letters across the top of the page.
“What is that word?” she asked softly, peering over his shoulder.
“It means help.”
She suddenly grabbed hold of the chair, her legs trembling. She faltered, very nearly fell to her knees. Her face had drained completely of color again.
He reached for her arm and steadied her. “What’s wrong? He followed her eyes back to the yellow page. “Socorro? That word? You recognize it?”
She nodded, maintaining her gaze on the page. “It was...That woman on the phone when the lines were crossed. That’s...That’s what she said.” He waited a moment and then let go of her, turned back to the phrase book and found his place. “She was probably trying to reach the operator,” he said. “No—”
“Probably just asking for help with the phone.”
“No. That’s not what it sounded like, Craig. Not what it sounded like at all. She sounded...scared. Terrified. At the end...At the end she was screaming.”
(“The dead don’t whisper.”)
He ignored her and wrote the word Emergência! on the yellow sheet. Then he started searching for the phrase: Call the police.
“I’m telling you, Craig, this woman...”
(“They scream.”)
“...on the other end of the line, she was absolutely frantic.”
Found it. He quickly scribbled the phrase down and folded the note so that the writing faced up. He read it again and said, “All right. Let’s slip this bad boy under the door.”