Sudden Lockdown

by Amos Talshir

  “On the last page I have left in the world, I wrote you how much I love you,” she said. “I wrote you a poem.”

  Charlie knew how precious paper was, and not just to her. The standards of cleanliness maintained in the stadium left no room for paper waste, or bottles and wrappings of any kind. Veronica’s poetry notebook had filled with the poems she wrote at night. In tight handwriting, in French, she filled all the pages and margins, as well as the notebook’s covers. Short, dense lines of letters that were incomprehensible to him. But the letters and the words weren’t the only mystery, as far as he was concerned. Charlie couldn’t grasp the matter of Veronica falling in love. She talked about love and soul and eternity in a way that made him defensive. How could she fall in love that way with him, Charlie, without having any idea who he was? What he had gone through, what was going to happen to him. Maybe it didn’t matter, if she wanted to fall in love—after all, it was good to fall in love. But if that was the case, well then, why make a big deal about it? How would it end? If she were to be disappointed, she would be badly hurt. Veronica fell in love easily and wrote love poems. Good for her.

  Veronica had withdrawn into herself, hugging her poetry notebook.

  “I didn’t even write down that poem, because I don’t have any more room in the notebook. I wrote it in my head,” she whispered and began to recite the poem, dedicated to Charlie.

  He understood that the poem had been written in the Mediterranean language. Usually, Veronica wrote in French or Spanish. Although he understood the words, he didn’t really understand the poem. But he imagined Brigitte Bardot luxuriating in the seat next to him, sounding out short lines with great intention. He seemed to hear Brigitte Bardot in Veronica’s warm voice, in all kinds of words he understood but could not manage to link together. She said body and soul, and said my man many times, and said heart and love. Her chin was resting on her knees, and her blond curls covered her pink cheeks, which her constant tan had tinted the color of roses. Like Brigitte Bardot’s, Charlie thought. She continued whispering the poem to him, so as not to disrupt the quiet of the stadium’s nightly sleep. Charlie heard words but understood other things. He realized Veronica felt that he was distant. That she was committed and he was merely taking. He realized that every time, he was disappointing the woman who was with him anew. He understood that every affair became a commitment he could not fulfill. Did it have to be that way, the sand and sea and sun and smiles and squeezes becoming expectations and demands, the caresses, sweat and scents becoming disappointments, the concern for a woman who wanted to pee and drink water and not be afraid at night turning into a failure to fulfill expectations? What was wrong with him that he couldn’t grasp this? Why did he never demand anything from anyone, and yet the moment always came when he himself failed to meet their expectations?

  Veronica finished reciting the poem and looked in Charlie’s eyes. He was paralyzed. He felt that she was so right, and didn’t know why. Knew that she so badly wanted something he didn’t know how to provide.

  “I just want you to help me get the doctor to Rose,” she said, and Charlie thought she was talking about her great love for him.

  He tried to convince Veronica that the doctor wouldn’t do any good, since he had no medication. That the doctor would not agree to come, and anyway, going there at night would bring about their death. Veronica continued to claim that in any case, the doctor could improve Rose’s condition even without medication, certainly more than Charlie could or was willing to do for Rose. Charlie’s temper flared, and he said he could do a lot more for Rose than any doctor could, since he was in possession of one last wish that could attain anything for him. Veronica’s mouth gaped open in amazement, and she urged Charlie to repeat what he had just said, but he was certain that Veronica would be dismissive of him and of his third wish.

  “You have a wish that can save lives?” Veronica asked.

  Charlie was hesitant to repeat what he had said. It didn’t really matter to him what Veronica thought of him and his wishes. The whole thing had become too complicated for him. He was no longer the beach bum roaming the coast and seducing northern female tourists with exercises on the pull-up bar that displayed his tanned body. He was not the same orphan on the bluff, abandoning his wife and two children. The days of tanning and sex in the warm sand were over. After all, he hadn’t even meant to suddenly become a father. He’d only wanted to keep on swimming far into the waves. And all of a sudden, his daughter had been born as well, before he had even managed to take in that he had Simon, who might be disabled.

  Everything had gotten all complicated and his wife, Clara, had lost faith in him, and in any case, she didn’t speak the Mediterranean language and he couldn’t learn her language, and the relationship between them fell apart completely when Clara wanted them to sleep under separate blankets at night. He wanted her. No doubt about it. She was attracted to him, but the anger turned into distance and filled the abyss of his cheating with casual beauties who came to tan on the beach. He continued parading around like a peacock. Clara didn’t fight him, didn’t toss her pain in his face and didn’t demand that he be faithful. She would gaze at him with a look of dismissal and contempt for his shameful behavior.

  Her righteousness hurt him so much that he couldn’t stand being around her, especially when she told him what a good, dedicated father he was to Simon, who so needed his care and their long swims into the heart of the sea, but that he was unworthy of her. He felt it every time she would sit on her own on the terrace, looking out on the sea, and ignore his presence, resigned to her loneliness in the Mediterranean country, far from her family in the northern states. She was paying the price of exile for her addiction to the sunny, magical shores; to the confidence displayed by the tanned young man who fixed her bike with a motion of his skilled hand; to his rock-like shoulders, which she held on to as he climbed with her on the shortcut leading from the escarpment to the house on the bluff; to his considerate arms, which carried her when they returned from a night swim and she was laid out, exhausted, on the foamy waves that caressed the beach. She would snuggle peacefully into his hug and look into his black eyes, which were smiling, turned toward whatever lay beyond the stormy sea. Later, he taught her how to make love in the warm sand and be silent for the long nights across from the moon diving into the big sea, swiftly wrapped her in a blanket that would pop up out of nowhere when the wind suddenly began to blow, fixed the windowpane that had shattered in the storm before she could even ask. He always returned from the sea with fish, throwing his rod into the corner of the room, and before she could even tell him she had thought there were no fish in the sea when it was stormy, he was already placing them on the grill he had set up in advance on the terrace. Only with him had she learned to sip the wine straight into her misting soul, her body remaining light and sensitive to the touch of love that always served as a dessert to their meal.

  He never really knew her, never got close to her, to her world, didn’t know what had brought her to him, and did not ask, either. They lived on his sea and his bluff and the house and his yearning for his mother and father. He didn’t talk to her about her home and her mother and father and her sea, if she had a sea. And maybe she had never loved him at all.

  And there was that night he would never forget. Ten years after he had fixed her bike and carried her into the deep sea, after she had given birth to his children and flooded the house with books, some of which contained pictures of different lands that Charlie would inhale with his eyes, after thousands of sunsets they would watch through the kitchen window. She would plan the meal, marveling at the swiftness of his boat engine repairman hands as he chopped up the vegetables. “There’s no man in the world who can chop up vegetables like you,” she told him and he stayed silent, proud of himself. Suddenly, one night, Clara told him she thought they should sleep with two separate blankets, her whisper swallowed by the murmur of the waves that flooded the house on t
he bluff. She couldn’t sleep well when she and Charlie shared one blanket, she said. Charlie was stunned; he had never thought he would sleep with a woman who would cover herself with a separate blanket. The nights rolled by on their own until they stopped on the two ends of the broad bed and could no longer be restarted.

  Charlie was afraid it would happen again, here at the stadium, and didn’t know what he should do differently, what he had to understand, know, change, in order not to lose Veronica. Could he stop the collapse, or was it one of those things that had no solution? One man went out to sea despite knowing the storm was coming, and yet he left and came back too, while the other man was overcome by the storm. That’s how it was, one survived and the other drowned. This time, he would claim responsibility for Simon as well as for Veronica, who was carrying his baby, believe in what he had to offer, and strive to go in the right direction, without being ashamed of what he had. Even if it was just a tanned, muscular body on the beach or a third wish left to him by his wretched father. He had known for years now that Clara was better than him and might have made a mistake when she entangled her life with his. He had to stop trying to justify himself using excuses such as Simon’s childhood illness. That was what the situation had been like, and maybe now was his chance to be better. What could have happened that was worse than this awful stadium in order to make him start to believe in himself, in the little that he could achieve? He was healthy, his son was talented and loved him, Veronica was relying on him, and he had one last wish.

  What would he ask for? Health and healing for Rose, his son Simon’s first love, or was that less important than Simon’s initiative of escaping from the stadium, or ensuring Clara and Emily’s safety? He wished he could consult Clara. She would certainly know how to make the decision for him. She always knew what was best and what was right, while he only knew what he felt like doing. But even if he could reach her, he wouldn’t get an answer from her. The questions no longer came up between them, and the answers were unnecessary since the blankets in their queen bed were separated. The warmth of the sun caressing their passion on the beach became a painful memory. They would still talk about Simon’s recovery and about his devotion to his sister Emily, coordinate Charlie’s visits, marvel together at Emily’s beauty and express their pride over Simon’s talent, but they had become estranged from one another. He resumed wandering the beach when he was not repairing boat engines, while Clara sat on the terrace of the house on the bluff and missed the innocent guy who had fixed her bike chain and had not had time to love her for long enough before she had given birth to his son.

  Maybe he would talk to Simon. Simon had grown and matured in the stadium. He could definitely see more aspects to the situation. Or perhaps it would be harder for him to decide between Rose and his mother and sister. It occurred to Charlie to spare Simon this difficult deliberation between his beloved and his family. Charlie knew how dangerous it could be to favor love over family. But he still thought he should allow Simon to decide.

  Veronica’s head fell heavily on Charlie’s shoulder. He was amazed by her innocence. One moment she was fighting for her opinion, and the next she simply fell asleep. The truck had left the pitch free of bodies and of those wounded following the clash between the locals and the visitors, and she had fallen asleep in a sort of peacefulness he could not understand. Just as he didn’t understand her insistence on getting pregnant by him even though she knew he wasn’t planning to stick around. Actually, it didn’t even matter if he stuck around or not; she hadn’t even gotten an answer from him about the third wish, and there she was, getting pregnant and falling asleep on his shoulder.

  Simon woke up on his other side and focused upon his telephoto camera lens, seeking the bats hanging from the edge of the stand roofs.

  “They’re going crazy,” Simon mumbled.

  “The bats?” Charlie asked.

  “They licked so much blood from the wounded, and they could have licked a whole lot more, but those neat freaks turned on the sprinklers and disappointed the bats.”

  “Why are the bats going crazy?” Charlie asked.

  “Just like the locals can lose control because of the circumstances, the bats can too, if people aren’t considerate of their needs.”

  “What do they understand?”

  “Dad, they’re not birds. They’re mammals. They have thoughts and understanding; they might even have opinions. It’s a mistake not to take them into consideration. We have to get out of here.”

  “Simon, what about Rose?”

  “We have to help her too, Dad.”

  38.

  Veronica waited for the moment Charlie fell asleep. She knew exactly where Dr. Thomas’s seat was in the VIP box, beside the deposed cabinet members. She cast one last look at the sleeping Charlie. His head was resting on Simon’s shoulder, though his son was taller than him. Once again, she saw that Simon was smiling even in his sleep. If only her baby would inherit that smile from Charlie, she thought a moment before she was about to carry out the swiftest, most dangerous decision she had ever made in her life. She knew the fate of those violating the nightly curfew. But time had had its effect on the sharpshooters as well. And if it hadn’t, perhaps they could see through their sights that it was only her, a pregnant woman leaving her seat to pee at a forbidden hour of the night, and would relent. How much of a danger to the revolution’s regime could be caused by a pregnant woman who needed to pee? Everyone knew that pregnant women needed to pee a lot. She inserted the note she had written into the pocket of Simon’s shirt, because she suspected Charlie could not read the language they spoke. She felt pretty silly when she wrote the note. If I don’t come back, you should know I loved the two of you until the end of my life.

  Charlie and Simon will also tell themselves that I was just a stupid woman who wrote stupid teenage-girl notes. Let them think that, she told herself. But I really do love them. Her agile body twisted cautiously out of the chair, and she shrank into herself and left the row of seats without waking the sleepers. She descended from the stand quietly and quickly, managing to keep herself away from the moonlight by clinging to the supporting walls. She repeated the steps she had to take to herself, again and again, but first of all, she had to get to Dr. Thomas. She couldn’t think of anything else. It would be hard, but she would deal with it. The first thing she had to do was get to his seat. That was the easy part.

  Her legs bore her silently to the VIP box area. She hoped no one there was experiencing insomnia and might discover her forbidden presence and perhaps even alert the sharpshooters. She had to get to Dr. Thomas without being discovered. The rest would work out. She wanted to keep on living. Once, she would have been willing to give up her life. In the nights of despair—when she would lie awake after returning from a pleasure trip, when another man had taken her for a quick foray abroad, and find herself alone in the apartment with the plastic bottles she had to take down to the recycling container. She would try to suppress the contempt she felt for herself during the three hours of training at the gym, but even the sweat could not wash off her self-loathing. Alone in her apartment, she would get caught up in her thoughts—what would she tell her mother when she interrogated Veronica the following morning? Then, she had wanted to die. To die by drowning in the bath when washing her body after the hotel nights. To die from the appetite-suppressing pills she had been taking for too long now. To die by jumping from the third floor. To die due to her own contempt for herself. To die from stupidity. But now, in the dark, sneaking over to where the doctor sat, she suddenly felt different. She thought of an idea, perhaps even a trick, that only she knew and only she was capable of carrying out, because she was a woman who acted wisely, or at least slyly. The important thing was to get to him; she had more experience with the rest of it. It was true she had employed seduction in the past quite a few times, but this time, she had a worthy cause. All the other times, she had deluded herself that the man would sta
y with her although she knew it was just an escapade in a foreign hotel. But in her stupidity, or her desperation, or because she had nothing else to believe in, she had deluded herself, allowing herself to believe that perhaps something else would happen, not a one-night stand, longer and warmer and promising and concerned. It didn’t happen. That was not the case this time, she thought as she approached the row of seats hosting the seated sleepers in the VIP box. This time, she would achieve her goal using the exact same tools that had failed her before. This time, it was a worthy cause.

  She passed by the row of dignitaries sprawled in their chairs. Occasionally, she couldn’t help but brush lightly against their knees. They continued to snore in their sleep; she had gotten used to that, as well. I’m lucky that I have plenty of experience touching men who kept on snoring beside me, she thought, managing to amuse herself. They always keep on snoring even if I make them change their position. She never made herself laugh. That was an achievement too. It was true that it was because she was tense, but that didn’t matter. I’m cracking myself up, and that’s not something I believed I was capable of.

  She reached Dr. Thomas’s chair, beside that of Fredo, the deposed president. He, too, was snoring as he slept, naturally enough. All of them snored after the age of fifty. Don’t be scared, you managed to reach him and you weren’t shot. You already know how to do the rest; you’ve done it many times before for nothing. This time, I’ll be at my best, she told herself.

  She placed a soft hand on Dr. Thomas’s cock and felt the current of light excitement passing through him. Immediately, she presented her lips to his mouth and kissed him with a moist tongue that invaded his still-sleepy mouth. The doctor opened his eyes for a brief second, as if in a dream. Veronica massaged the organ between his legs, excelling in her kisses and in licking his lips. The stunned doctor savored this activity with his eyes closed, and she whispered the line from the Beatles song in his ear: Close your eyes, and I’ll kiss you… For a long moment, he did not awaken completely. Before he came to his senses, Veronica disengaged from him with a last caress of his testicles and instructed him to follow her.