by David Wood
“Please,” he begged. His hands were trembling. “Just let me speak...” Despite his crying her voice remained cold. “I’ve let you do enough. I’ve let you walk all over me, walk out on me. I’m through letting you get your way. Either come home now or you can die there for all I care.”
Craig looked up at Amy, whose eyes were wide with expectation, and shook his head. “She says she won’t help.”
Amy glared at him. “Is she really on the line, Craig?”
His face flushed red. “You still think I would make this up? That I somehow orchestrated all this?” He waved an arm toward the soiled bed and the palpable wall of stench emanating from the bathroom.
“Let me talk to her.” Amy held her hand out for the phone.
Then his mother’s voice came through the receiver loud enough for both of them to hear. “Tell her I don’t talk to whores. That’s not what they’re for. But you know that, don’t you, son? Maybe that can be your next book title! What Whores Are For, by Craig Devlin. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
He heard a click then the line went dead. He held the receiver out in front of him with his bubbling, blistering hand, staring in disbelief so all-encompassing it took away the pain.
“What’s going on?” Amy said with a befuddled look on her face. “Is she at least calling the Lisbon police?”
He grimaced. “You were right.” He steadied his arm and set the phone down, glanced around the room, trying to catch his breath. “There is something happening here.”
He felt faint. His stomach growled, sweat dripped into his eyes. He needed to think but his mind wouldn’t cooperate. Everything was foggy, like that night not long ago in the mist. With the gypsy whores—you know what they’re for! He felt drunk, drugged. Uneasy on his feet. Amy was saying something but he couldn’t make it out, could barely discern her words over the rapid beating of the pulse in his ear.
(It’s a tumor.)
(Or an aneurism.)
He stumbled, grabbed hold of the bedpost to keep himself on his feet.
(With an aneurism you go like that!)
Then came the pounding from the front door.
Amy reacted first. She staggered toward the bedroom door and he followed her into the living room, where the blows sounded as though they were being delivered by a nail gun or maybe a ball pein hammer.
Amy limped toward the door. She turned to him. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t look through that peephole again.”
He nodded slowly and moved past her, breathing heavily. The knocking reverberated in his stomach.
As suddenly as it started, it stopped; the pounding replaced by a dark, disquieting silence.
Gradually he moved his face toward the door. Closed his left eye and opened his right wide. He placed it against the hole.
It was his body he saw, arms pinned to its side, blood gushing from the neck, thrashing backward and forward up against the far wall as if flung by some invisible force, its mouth frozen in a silent, hideous scream.
His real body began convulsing. Still he forced himself to watch, to maintain his gaze a few moments longer while his real body slammed itself into the door with random muscle spasms.
Amy grabbed hold of his arm. “Look,” she shouted, pointing down at the floor.
Beneath the door their yellow page reappeared. His vision was blurred but Craig recognized his own writing. He lowered himself on his haunches and lifted the paper.
The first thing that struck him was the smell. The page reeked of shit. When he turned it over in his hands, he saw why. On the back there were two words scribbled in excrement. He dropped the page and gagged.
The yellow paper floated to the floor, face up, Portuguese words staring up at them. He bolted to his feet, tried to keep himself from being sick.
Amy had her hands over her mouth. Tears streamed down her face and over her fingers. She seemed to dry-heave, then gathered herself. She knelt to pick up the page.
“Don’t,” Craig warned. “Don’t touch it.”
She froze and looked up at him, her eyes pleading for help. “We have to look these words up in the phrase book. We have to see what they mean.”
Craig shook his head. He put the inside of his elbow over his nose and mouth and tried to breathe. “Don’t bother,” he said into his arm. “I already know what they mean.”
Amy rose up, took a step back from the page as though it were a widening hole in the floor. Then she hunched over and with both hands she clutched her wobbling knees, whimpering in pain. She took two deep breaths, then stared up at him again.
“Vivimos aqui,” he said, glaring down at the page. “It means, ‘We live here.’”
Chapter 25
She sat alone on the stained and tattered bare mattress, her knees curled up against her chest, rocking slowly back and forth, humming along trancelike with the fado. She was all cried out, the flesh around her eyes as crimson as her dry cracked lips. Scarlet spider webs draped across the whites surrounding her pupils. She looked as she felt, like death.
She glanced again in the clouded mirror atop the dresser. Her auburn hair had somehow darkened. Her small body had gotten smaller, and her flesh was as white as printer paper. Her breathing had become more of a wheezing, her sweating more profuse. The temperature in the flat continued rising for seemingly no reason at all. Outside, the Lisbon sky remained a solid gray. Earlier it had even rained.
Her head throbbed from thirst and hunger, her neck was stiff with stress. Her thoughts, when they steadied long enough to coalesce on anything other than her profound misery, lingered on the filthy ice lining the freezer. She stared hard at the visage in the mirror, no longer recognizing her eyes, and realized it was time.
It took all of her strength to move herself off of the bed. She used the dresser and walls as crutches as she staggered to and through the bedroom door, into the living room still dressed in her nightclothes, a faded red tank top and pale yellow shorts.
Craig was stationed in front of the laptop, his fingers still pounding at the keys.
How can he write? she thought. I can barely keep my goddamn head up.
His eyes turned to her then turned quickly back to the screen. She said nothing as she shuffled past him, just continued to whimper and wheeze.
The kitchen linoleum tiles were cool, almost soothing against her bare feet. She closed her eyes and savored the sensation as she teetered toward the fridge.
Then she heard a crunch, felt something wet yet solid beneath her left foot. She lifted her foot and hopped clear of the spot. Nothing was there. She set her foot down tentatively, heard the crunch again, felt something writhe and squish.
She lifted her foot again to see. Stuck to her sole was a large brown roach, the top of its carapace cracked, its six legs flailing frantically, its antennae twirling in circles. Panicking, she screamed and kicked at the air. The creature wouldn’t dislodge, just stuck there near her toes, doing its danse macabre.
Frantically she searched the counter. Finally she spotted a dirty dishrag behind the sink. She balanced herself on one leg, reached for the rag and nearly toppled. Then she snatched the rag and snapped it at the sole of her foot, knocking the insect away.
“What happened?”
Craig stood in the kitchen’s entranceway, his head at an odd angle, his hands on his hips.
“A fucking roach,” she cried. “I stepped on it and it stuck to the bottom of my foot.”
He looked down at the insect, a strange, doleful look on his face. The roach was still on its back, still thrashing its legs about, its two large antennae probing the air, trying to turn itself over.
“You should put some shoes on,” Craig said.
She stared at him silently, irritated by his calm. She motioned to the icebox. “I’ve got to try it,” she said. “Do you want some?”
He shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the roach. “I’m going to get back to work. Thirty-eight thousand words. I’m almost halfway done with the book.
” He started back into the living room, then stopped and turned his head. “Have you seen my memory stick? I want to back my files up.”
She glared at him. Are you fucking kidding me? she thought. “No, I haven’t.”
He disappeared back into the living room.
She rolled her eyes and opened the freezer, took a good long look inside. The ice was melting. It now looked like a great big slushie. Used kitty litter-flavored, yum. She wouldn’t even need the icepick.
She reached her hand in, scooped out a palmful. She closed her eyes. Gagged, just picturing the slush in her mouth. Still, her body ached for sustenance. She needed something in her stomach, even if it was nothing but yellow snow. She put the slush under her nose. The frost smelled of spoiled meat. She dry-heaved then held her breath, parted her lips and shoveled the slush onto her tongue.
Her throat resisted, threatened to hurl it back up. But after some coaxing she was able to get it down. The taste lingered, but somehow she held it down.
From the living room Craig called out, “What the fuck is this?”
She turned. Her first thought was that he had found something gruesome, something ghastly somewhere in the flat. Something horrifying; he sounded so upset. She took two painful strides toward the living room and then froze.
Craig stood in the walkway, blocking her exit. In his hands he held the broken lockbox that held his homemade videotapes. The beige metal box still wore that hideous grin.
“Well?” he shouted at her. “What the fuck is this shit?”
She barely remembered viewing the tapes; didn’t at all recall tucking the damaged lockbox away. She’d been so soused with wine.
“What do you mean?” she tried. “Where did you find it?”
He scowled at her. “You know goddamn well where I found it. I found it in one of my boxes when I went looking for my memory stick. What the hell did you pry it open for?”
“I didn’t...”
“The hell you didn’t.” His hands were shaking, the tapes inside the lockbox rattling against the sides like chattering teeth. “Don’t play fucking dumb with me, Amy. You went through my things, found this and took a tool and pried it open. Pried into my life. You’ve got a fucking hell of a lot of nerve. Chastising me for reading your emails, for looking in your calendar. And now you do this? You’re a sneak. A goddamn worthless sneak. Voce é curioso! Mind your own goddamn business!”
She lurched backward. “Wha- what did you say?”
“You heard every fucking word I said. Don’t play stupid with me.” His arms were shaking savagely. His face had turned a deep red. “Everything was fine before I met you. I was working hard, I was having fun. I was able to fucking sleep at night. Dormi como um anjo. My life was going just fine. I had money, I had friends. Tudo foio ptimo! Everything was fucking great.”
Amy moved backward again, her heart racing, her hands trembling now as badly as Craig’s.
She listened. His voice was deeper, angrier than she’d ever heard it before. And the Portuguese, it wasn’t spoken in the usual halting manner that he spoke all of his foreign words. The words were clear and fluid and precise, as perfect as the words he spoke in English.
He took a step toward her. She held up her hands defensively.
He stopped, softened the features of his face. “How could you?” he said calmly. His voice seemed to change again. “How could you fuck that son of a bitch downstairs?”
“What?” she cried. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes started tearing up. His mouth contorted. The tapes jumped in the lockbox as his hands began shaking again. “How could you do this to me?”
He shut his eyes. She thought in that instant of storming past him, even knocking him to the floor. But what then? Where could she go? Only as far as that goddamned sealed-up front door. When he opened his eyes they seemed darker than before, almost navy. His lips were quivering; he parted them and bore his teeth.
“You cunt,” he spat. “Tu das-me nojo.” He raised his thin pale arms above his head, the lockbox grinning down at her. He was poised to strike. “You dirty cunt. Quero que morra!”
He launched the lockbox at her. She jumped back. The box slammed against the linoleum at her feet, spilling the tapes on the floor. She grabbed blindly for the drawer that held the icepick, keeping her eyes on Craig. She jerked it open, fumbled around with one hand and found it.
But by then he was somewhere else, his head returning to that odd angle, his eyes open yet unseeing. He turned for the living room just as she raised the icepick over her head.
She remained there, frozen in that position. She listened as he padded across the carpet then heard the bedroom door slam closed.
Slowly she made her way out of the kitchen, the icepick still in hand.
Her feet welcomed the carpet. She surveyed the room and then moved cautiously toward the window.
In the fading light in the alley she saw the dog lying in the shadows on the cobblestones. It looked exhausted, ragged. It shivered as though from the cold.
She swiveled from the window and faced the table. Craig’s laptop sat open, the screen saver now a deep navy blue. The marquee swept by fast; it took Amy a few passes to read it. It no longer read keep writing, as it had for the past three years.
Now it read socorro! ajude-me!
She stared at it curiously. She knew what the first part meant. And after a few turns of the page in the phrase book she knew what the latter part meant as well.
Help! the screen saver read in Portuguese. Help me!
Chapter 26
Craig stormed into the bedroom, microcassette recorder in hand, the pulse beating obsessively in his ear. Whatever it was, it was worsening, growing louder, fiercer. Beginning to take over his world. He dropped face-down onto the mattress and tossed the recorder. Broke down and sobbed into the pillow on the bed.
The room was sweltering. As hot as a tanning bed. And it seemed to be getting smaller, too. He lifted his head and looked around. Yes, the bookcase seemed closer to the bed. The dresser, too. He sat up on the bare, stained mattress. Fado permeated the room.
Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he barely noticed the sting.
(“Get the fuck over here! I’ve got the blow dryer.”)
Were the walls really closing in on him? Can’t be, he thought. It’s my fucking imagination.
He pulled himself to the edge of the bed. Reached out toward the heavy wooden bookcase standing like an armed guard just outside the bathroom against the wall. His hand stretched at full length and still came up a foot short.
He waited, taking in the stench of his own sweat, the pungent body odor seeping out from under his arms, mixing with the vomit and shit filtering through the bathroom door into a hellish potpourri.
He lay back down on the bed. His pillow was drenched with sweat.
(“Get the fuck over here!”)
He didn’t know much about nutrition or survival. But he knew the heat would cause them to dehydrate much faster.
(“I’ve got the fucking blow dryer.”)
He lifted the microcassette recorder and rewound the tape a bit. He didn’t have the strength to type, but at least he could still speak, could still record his story before it was too late. He hit play, listened to the empty air, the static. Remembered searching through the phrase book as the recorder ran. A waste of batteries—what a waste, when there was no store right down the street. When there was, in fact, no street. At least no way to get to it.
“...corno...”
What was that?
He put the recorder closer to his ear. His left ear, since his right was beating like a goddamn drum. He heard nothing but white noise. Dead air.
Then: “...chupa me a...”
It was clearly a voice. Male. Angry. No, not angry. Incensed. “...puta...”
He listened closely, his breathing quickening, the thumping in his right ear sounding along with his pulse. Puta. The Portuguese word for bitch.
“...Va
’ se foder!”
He punched the stop button and threw the recorder down onto the floor. It bounced up and smacked into the bookcase, its battery door flying off, its AA Duracells becoming dislodged and rolling on the gray carpet.
The bookcase was too close. Craig stared at it wide-eyed, in disbelief. It can’t be, he thought. But it was. The bookcase was closer than it was just moments before.
He had to know. So with his left hand he grabbed the edge of the mattress. With his right he reached out again. Stretched as far as he could.
This time his middle finger nearly touched the binding of one of the dust-covered old books. He snapped his arm back and shook.
I moved the mattress, he thought. That’s it. I shifted the mattress by accident. And that book I almost touched, it’s sticking out a bit from the others. I must’ve reached for another one last time. One set back on the shelf.
The room was so fucking hot, sweat was now burning his eyes and blurring his vision. He felt a steady and intense heat on his head. Like a blow dryer. Just like the blow dryer his mother used to hold to his scalp every time he had dared to sweat as a child. Every time he managed to slip outside to toss the ball around or engage in a game of freeze tag with some of the kids from school.
“I told you not to fucking sweat,” she’d say. “I warned you. Now you’re dirty, it’s disgusting. You smell like a piece of shit.” He’d always try to run away. “Where do you think you’re going? Get the fuck over here. I’ve got the blow dryer.”
And then she would hold the damn thing to his head. It didn’t matter the time of year, even if he’d just been outside running around in ninety-degree heat. He’d get the blow dryer. And not just until his hair was dry. He got the blow dryer until his scalp was raw, until it began to burn and he started to scream.