by Hiba Basit
ABOUT THE BOOK
Fate. Or Choice.
Are they separate or can you make choices within a fated life? Can these choices change a path that already exists?
Eleven-year-old orphan Alex Cupar has never had anything worth losing. This is what makes her so unpredictable. Everything could go up in flames and Alex wouldn’t care. In fact, she feels it’s exactly what’s meant to happen. What Annette Coulter, a child psychologist, believes is depressive thinking about her future, Alex explains as ‘it’ leading her down a fated path. But Annette herself is just returning from an unplanned sabbatical and is not herself. When Alex’s belief starts to cloud her own judgement and her mission to help the girl quickly morphs into a domino of disasters, everything that has once been obediently accepted is called into question.
Copyright © 2020 Hiba Basit
Cover image by Ismail Faryad
All rights reserved.
For those who try, I look up to you.
THE TIGHTROPE
Hiba Basit
Prologue
When you’re certain about something, do you question it? Or can someone only be certain when no doubt exists? All of my life, instinct has been my certainty. When something feels right, it’s one hundred percent right. But living at the orphanage hasn’t felt right or wrong, it’s just felt like it was meant to be. Fate is different from instinct. Instinct is predicting something simply by a felt sense. Fate is when, against all odds, things happen. No one talks about Fate in good terms. Fate has sinister qualities; you were doomed from the beginning, you were fated for failure. I want you to make up your own mind about what you think happened to me. It could have been Fate. It could have been Choice. That’s what threw me, that word that made me round my mouth to utter its existence.
Choice.
She said we all have it.
Chapter One
My hands are different from other people’s hands. Mine are mostly purple and blue. They were my two favourite colours until I saw them on my skin.
Beyond the colours of my hands, the door to the room I’m in comes into view, blurring at the edges. It’s open. A blurry shadow appears in its frame. The shadow looks around to check if anyone is nearby and then enters and closes the door, swiping the lock sideways. As it approaches me, I recognise the shadow as Andrei, my nurse. He looks like a giant as I stare at him from the floor. When he bends over, our noses almost touching, I smell the familiar scent of musk.
‘Alex, what happened?’
He already sounds tired, as if he’s spent the evening desperately wishing he wouldn’t find me alone, today of all days. I decide not to say anything to him just yet – maybe if I let him wonder, he’ll think the worst and then I can tell him I wasn’t as bad as he’d thought.
Gently, he strokes the gash on my forehead.
‘Shit! This is going to hurt. You have to be brave,’ he says, watching me closely to make sure I’m listening. I catch sight of a box in his hands. He whips it open and pulls out tweezers and a square patch. When he pokes the tweezers into my gash, the pain nearly blinds me. He holds me down, removing the piece of glass and wiping the blood dripping down my face. It feels like forever but when he’s finished, he quickly packs everything away and sits down next to me.
‘Here,’ he says, with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes and opens up his palm. A piece of cake sits in his hand. I am eleven today. All of the children are at my party. I should be there. Why did they still throw me a party when they knew I wouldn’t be allowed to go? When I ask questions like this one, I always start to feel sick. I turn away from the cake, pull my knees to my chest and rest my head in between them. I often sit like this, liking the darkness it brings.
‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened,’ I hear him say helplessly.
I think back to the morning. I was running late for spiritual studies. Hurrying from my room, I ran past the toilets and was quickly approaching the study room when I had to hide. In front of me stood a man and a woman I didn’t recognise. They were coming out of the main office and walking towards the exit. My heart was hammering inside my chest. I remember crossing my arms over it because I was worried the strangers would hear.
‘I know I wasn’t meant to be there,’ I whisper.
‘Ah,’ I hear him sigh.
I frantically try and explain how it was a stupid mistake, how I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but nothing comes out.
‘What have we spoken about, child?’
I want to tell him how desperately hard I try to stay out of trouble, but trouble runs into me.
‘I tried…’ I say, and this is all I can manage. I’m afraid I might scream if I open my mouth again.
‘Alex, you always try,’ he whispers, and the way he says it makes me feel like I’m a lost cause. He doesn’t believe that I can do better and this hurts more than anything else.
‘Let’s take you back to your room. It’s bloody freezing in here!’
As he lifts me into his arms, I fold my own arms tightly around him, needing the warmth from his large body. In my room, he slips me into bed and hugs the covers around me.
‘Good night, Alexandra Cupar,’ he says, kissing me.
I hold onto him, hoping to draw out the kiss. It works, he gives in for a moment, but, eventually, he unwraps my hands from around his neck and leaves them on the bed beside me.
I’ve been awake since Andrei left. Andrei is always nice to me on my birthday, even when I do something wrong. He spends the whole day with me and then later in the evening, he silently vanishes for a few hours. It’s the same each year. I love my birthday because it’s the only day when I know what he’s going to do.
Every time I blink, the pain shoots through my eyebrow. The sickly memory of being caught swims around in my head.
‘Stop your slithering and sneaking around you little fuckwit or you’ll end up in the same room as the Basilisks!’ the nurse had yelled, the force of her grip burning itself around my wrist as she dragged me into the office.
My heart skips a beat as the venomous image slithers into mind: “Basilisk: a large lizard with sparkling scales and hypnotic dark eyes, the strong magical gaze that turns the victim to stone. The skin is covered with a greasy poison, which will pierce the skin and enter the blood within a single turn. The Basilisk: the incarnation of the Death God.”
I recite the definition aloud on my bed, hoping that I give myself a fright and never again forget class, even if it is my birthday.
After all, Andrei can’t always save me.
Mathias, the boy I share my room with, enters and quickly curls up in the corner of the room. I’d forgotten about him. When he doesn’t move, I feel my heart beat faster. Slowly, I lift myself off the bed.
‘Math, ready for a story?’ I whisper. He winces and I know he’s in pain. I know they’ve done something to him too. I bend over and gently touch his shoulder. It’s soft and warm. I turn him around and catch sight of the bruises running down his arm. He’s crying. I sit down beside him. ‘They’ll go away,’ I say, trying to be strong and giving him my widest smile. ‘They always do.’
I am an orphan. For all of my eleven years, Green Orphanage is the only home I’ve known. It’s in the middle of Pascani, Romania, and stands in the shape of a concrete arch, a smile turned upside down and hammered into place.
Inside, the orphanage looks small and pathetic, even with its raised ceilings and wide corridors. The walls look as if they’re made out of paper. I don’t touch them because I’m scared that they will collapse around me and I will be trapped.
‘Alexandra!’
My eyes snap open. One of the nurses has caught me next to Mathias.
‘You good-for-nothing stray! Get up!’
I feel her podgy fingers beneath my armpits as she pulls me towards my bed, the points of my toes barely scraping the floor as she does so. Feeling shaken, I sit down. My whole face feels hot and the heat creeps up towards my ears, which start to burn. I hate feeling embarrassed. I’m usually careful but Mathias looked so scared, I had to do something to comfort him. I’d hate myself if I didn’t help him because then I’d feel a feeling worse than embarrassment.
I wait until I hear her enter the room next to ours. Then, I slowly turn and look at Mathias. He’s awake. My lower lip begins to wobble and I slot it into my mouth with my front teeth over it. Mathias giggles at the rabbit expression on my face, thinking I am doing this to amuse him, but things are not funny anymore, things are getting worse. I turn back to the wall and stare at the blank space until the tears stop.
Crying is for fuckwits.
The next morning, Mathias has disappeared. At first, I think they’ve taken him but then I spot the time on the clock in front of me and feel sick with fear. Sprinting out of the room, I scramble down the stairs, hurry past the study rooms, open the back door of the orphanage and eyes already filling, scamper across the field and take my place with the squad of children. The cold air hits me in the face and as I struggle to get my breath back, the tears start. My head hurts even more than yesterday and I have to shut my eyes just to stop the dizziness from tipping me over.
‘Start running!’ the nurse yells and I feel the weight in the air shift around me as the children cluster and clatter, vanishing to all sides of the field.
Oh no! I should have woken up in time for breakfast. Now I won’t get anything until noon.
When I open my eyes, the gate behind the orphanage comes into view. Behind the gate is a whole new world.
‘A world not meant for you!’ One of the nurses grabs me from behind. Her front pinpricks my back and before I can think about running, she has me tightly in her grip.
‘Alex, you think a lot about what isn’t yours,’ she says. I know she’s right because it’s how I daydream but I keep quiet; I’m terrified to speak.
‘What are you planning?’ she suddenly barks.
My heart starts to race. I hate how easily I’m frightened.
‘You’re always planning something, what is it? Spit it out!’
And just as she says this, I have a wonderful idea. She’s planted it. The gate is my only way out.
Suddenly, she pinches the edge of one of my nails against the skin of my index finger and the pain shoots up my arm, making my shoulders jolt violently towards the sky.
‘I don’t know, Miss,’ I stammer. She looks away, bored by my answer.
‘Start running,’ she barks, slapping the palm of her hand against my spine and making my legs snap forward. I try to complain and tell her that I haven’t had any breakfast, that the cut on my head hurts, that I feel sick and need to pee, that I don’t like moaning but I feel like I will fall over any second.
‘Run!’ she shouts but everything is spinning around me. Before I can say another word, she grabs me and her hand painfully squashes my stomach, making me piss all over my legs and onto the grass. I squeeze my eyes shut as she starts to yell.
The bell rings for dinner and the green light flashes on, brightening the dark room. Mathias creeps up from behind me and sits at the side of the bed, without making a sound. I feel nothing alter, no extra pressure on the bed, and I wonder how light he is. He takes hold of my hand and his grip quickly tightens. I feel the pain burning up my arm as he locks his brown coconut eyes on my blue ones. We’re still, searching each other for answers. Maybe if we stare at each other for long enough, we’ll be able to make sense of the world.
But I already know the truth. This is our fault and no one else is to blame.
‘Go and eat your dinner,’ I say, and he gets up and leaves.
It’s getting worse. I try to think about something other than the pain but I can feel it all over my body now. Tears sting my eyes again and I rock myself on the bed until I’m putting more force into fighting the pain than into fighting hunger.
Suddenly, a question comes to mind and I desperately latch onto it to distract myself: why do I crinkle my face to cry? It makes me drift into a sea of answers. Maybe the tears put pressure on my eyes and by squinting, they can pour out. Maybe the rising of my cheeks provides a hill for the tears to drop right off my face so they have a path. Maybe crinkles are only for sad people.
Someone’s shoes squeak on the floorboard. Has Mathias finished dinner already? I lift my face to find Andrei leaning against the door. It’s no longer my birthday. I suddenly feel more terrified of him than of the Basilisks.
Chapter Two
In Canberra, the heat is scorching. Abigail-Veil Doll sits on her chair with her knees pressed together to hold the papers lying on them. The sun burns through the tilt and slide window and crackles on her skin. Right now, the hour that’s passed examining the papers feels like a week to her. She shifts them onto the desk and lets out a sigh. She looks around her scented office, turned modern by the touches she has made to it. When she’d first walked in, her mouth had dropped wide open, disgusted by the piles of dusty files rising ten-storey high and the sweaty damp smell that hadn’t quite caught up with the fresh summer breeze outside. If it weren’t for her manager stopping her, she’d have taken a wrecking ball to it.
She gets up and walks towards the window, slipping her head outside into the tepid breeze. Her auburn hair hangs loosely around her face and she swipes at her fringe several times before resting her arm on the windowsill. It’s been three years since she’s been working as a social worker for Children Down Under (CDU). When she answered her mobile at the Medina Executive Hotel in Sydney all those years ago, she was oblivious to the realisation that the terrifying dread she’d experienced all her life of her one dream not coming true was never going to happen. She hadn’t the slightest clue that Felix, her future co-worker and best friend, would invite her to Canberra and offer her the position of full-time social worker. As soon as she’d agreed to the interview, she was gleefully aware that she had succeeded in the challenge of finding social worker jobs in Australia when everyone else seemed to be going into redundancy.
As she smiles at the triumphant memory from her past, she watches Felix enter the site, park his car in his usual space near the boab tree and step out to look at her.
***
My heart is pumping fast as Andrei unlocks the chains that tie my feet together. At first, my feet feel as if they have disappeared, but then the pain hits back. I look up at him and thinking he’s going to pick me up, lift my arms out, but instead he lifts and props me against the wall. I feel myself sliding back down. Andrei tries again but the same thing happens. He lets out a sigh but climbs onto the bed, finally cuddling up next to me. He lets me rest against his chest and supports my head with his shoulder, his crisp white shirt scraping the top of my ear. The plate of food on the bed suddenly comes into view and I grab at air as hunger gets the better of me. He feeds me and I eat quickly, biting, swallowing, gulping and glugging. My mind feels like a chess game, winning and losing a war that I don’t understand. My body feels like chess pieces, discarded and shattered.
Andrei drops me onto the bed after I’ve finished eating. As soon as his hands leave me, I feel colder. I watch his lips move but my head rings so loudly, I can’t hear the words. He shrugs and plants a kiss on my head. During the moments he holds it there, an image of my mummy kissing me floats in front of my closed eyelids.
When he pulls away, she pulls away too. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and grab onto him. ‘Mummy!’
‘Alex, you know your mummy is dead.’ There’s coldness to his tone that makes the words harder to hear. I hit him because he knows how much I miss her, because I know he misses her too. He’s stronger than me and he manages to grab my hands and hold me down until I can’t breathe.
‘Stop,’ I yell, but he doesn’t let me come up for air. I know what he wants me to do. H
e wants me to give up but it’s hard when I’m panicking. ‘Andrei, stop!’
‘Submit to it, Alex,’ he whispers, pressing me further into the bed with each word. I do as he asks and, like magic, the air rushes into my lungs. I feel his hands in my hair, ruffling the roots and then he’s gone.
As night falls, my hope and courage rise. I feel a current of energy running through me as I get off the bed and slip beneath Mathias’ covers. He wakes at the feel of my cold body brush against his sleepy warm one.
Instinctively, I wrap my arms around him. ‘You’re going to get through this,’ I whisper quickly into his ear. ‘You’re a strong boy.’
Looking confused, he shakes his head so forcefully I get scared it might fall off. ‘Stop that! You’re stronger than me!’ He starts to whimper.
‘Be quiet or someone will hear you,’ I say, cursing myself for waking him up. ‘Go to sleep. Go on.’
He closes his wet eyes and I wipe his face with my sleeve. His breathing soon slips into a shallow rhythm and when I’m sure he’s lost himself in a deep sleep, I leave his side and pull my shoes on over my swollen feet. I turn around, my hand hovering over the doorknob.
‘Remember, Mathias, it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow. Don’t give up.’ I open the door and silently slip out.
It’s pitch black outside but the gate shines so brightly, I don’t need light to see it. It’s as if it’s created a path for me, as if it’s calling out to me. I start moving towards it but it’s hard, the gate is actually quite far and the straps on my shoes are beginning to tighten around my swollen feet. Then, the burning starts at the back of my legs and although it’s chilly outside, I sit down on the grass, beads of sweat stuck to my lips.