by Asa Avdic
“You should know that we’re worried about you.”
Just as I started to wonder what he meant by “we,” he went on: “Those of us with the RAN project, of course, but above all, your family. Your mother and daughter. They need you. They don’t want to lose you. We don’t either.”
I swallowed. My mouth felt dry, so I took a sip of water from the plastic cup. There was a wilted bouquet of flowers at the foot of the bed; next to it was a card on which Siri had written “Get better soon, Mom,” in carefully printed little-kid letters. I wondered what they had told her was wrong with me. I hoped they hadn’t told her the truth. I turned to the Chairman.
“Why are you here?”
He hesitated for a moment.
“Why am I here . . . ? Well, I wanted to see how you’re doing, of course, with my own eyes, so to speak.”
He gestured toward a big box of chocolates on the windowsill, one of those gold, expensive ones with the portrait of the Minister on it. I wondered if the Chairman dreamed of a box of chocolates with his own face on it. I looked at him, sitting there in that ever-present suit. Judging from his expression, my health was not the only reason that he was at my bedside. I didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him, until he began to speak again.
“I think it’s time someone sat down with you for some straight talk, to explain the situation. All of this tiptoeing around and coddling you—I think it’s only making things worse. The doctors think you need it, but I believe you’re tougher than that. I believe . . .”
He took a deep breath. There was something self-righteous about his tone that both irked me and made me feel suspicious.
“I believe that the only way to help you heal is to be completely honest. With you and with ourselves. I believe there are things you need to know about and take into consideration when it comes time to make decisions about your future. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded.
“Okay then. Do you think you know enough about what happened on Isola and what went wrong?”
I nodded. Yes, I had read the report; it was absolutely unbearable.
“Then I would also like to ask, personally and honestly, for your forgiveness. As you know there are many things that should not have happened, and although I am ultimately responsible as the director, I would still like to emphasize that the secretary has admitted that he acted on his own authority, without informing his superiors as procedure dictates. He will be prosecuted for this. Yes—it was decided that Henry should be there to watch over you. It was not, however, officially decided that he should bring a gun. Nor was it decided that he was a second candidate, nor was it on my initiative that FLL was present on the island. The fact that these things did happen is of course my own fault in some respects, in that the person who made these unfortunate decisions was directly under me, but I want to assure you that it was never my intent for things to turn out the way they did.”
I looked at him.
“Bullshit.”
He was startled.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you really telling me that the secretary did all of this on his own? Without informing you? ‘I knew nothing.’ Of course you knew all of this; you’re just disappointed that it went to hell, because now you have to clean up the mess.”
The Chairman leaned back in his chair and held up his hand as if to stop me. His lips had narrowed into a grim line.
“Let me say first of all that I am happy to see you have recovered some of your old spunk, although naturally I am hurt that you don’t have greater trust in me. But I suppose it’s understandable, in its own way. But let’s get back to the straight talk. I’m here because I want to offer you the job.”
“Excuse me?”
I thought I must have misheard.
“Just what I said. We have evaluated you under the most extreme of circumstances, and, given your background, I still consider the decisions you made to be well motivated throughout. The price was high, sure, but we’re all in agreement that you handled the situation with just the type of resolve and rationality it demanded.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. It felt like there was a volcano inside me, a sudden rage that had been slumbering in my chest; it welled up with an unforeseen power.
“What the hell are you talking about? I shot my friend! He was innocent!” I screamed. And then came the tears. The tears that had been dammed up since the moment I began to suspect that something was terribly wrong, the moment those two military helicopters landed. One beside me, the other on the other side of the island. Paramedics hurried out; two of them wrapped me in a blanket and gave me something to drink. I tried to tell them that Henry was in the house, but they were already heading in with stretchers and medical bags. I shouted, but what came out was so incoherent that they didn’t seem to understand me at all. “Drink, drink up. You need to get warm” was all they said.
Suddenly I started to think about the other helicopter. What was it doing behind the house? I didn’t understand. At that moment, someone came out of the house, supported by two paramedics. It was Lotte. I hurled myself up to run over to her. The paramedics caught me and held me down. I tried to call out to her, but she just stared at me with dim, blank eyes as she stumbled off toward the back of the house with a paramedic under each arm.
“She’s alive! She’s alive!”
I was hysterical with delight even as my overcooked brain couldn’t figure out how this could be. My head was a jumble of various impulses; I saw soldiers and paramedics running around the island as if in a movie, and I didn’t really understand what was going on or why.
Then I saw the second helicopter sail up into the sky from behind the house. It had an open cockpit and it was full of people. I saw the colonel. The wind was whipping at his hair and he raised his hand as if in a greeting, but the helicopter veered away before I could respond; it headed toward the mainland. I grabbed the collar of one of the paramedics holding on to me, pulled him down, and screamed straight into his face:
“Why are they alive?”
“Anna, you have to take it easy. You’re in bad shape. We have to get you out of here.”
At that instant I saw something else. More paramedics were carrying a stretcher down from the house. A stretcher that was completely draped. The way you do with people who are definitely dead. People who have been shot in the head. I didn’t understand what it meant, how this had happened or why, but suddenly it was like I understood anyway. Like window blinds opening and revealing the whole picture, in all its beauty and horror. I suddenly understood what I had done and what I needed to do.
I took a deep breath, let it out, and made my whole body relax. I felt the paramedics’ grip loosen. Then I breathed in again, as deep as I could, wrenched myself out of their grasp, ran for the edge of the cliff, and threw myself over it.
I remembered all of this, as one does, in a single image and full of tiny details all at the same time. After the cliff there were only tiny images, like the individual frames of a film. A hospital corridor with lights on the ceiling. A needle in my arm. A cervical collar holding my head still. An operating table. A blurry view of Nour and Siri through a pane of glass. A nurse changing a cast. A scalpel someone had set aside on an examination table. A bathroom. Blood, blood, blood. More needles in my arms. Fresh bandages. Straps around my arms. Sleep, darkness. Someone changing my pillow. Worried voices speaking softly. Someone giving me pills. Someone checking under my tongue to make sure I actually swallowed the pills. Someone forcing me to swallow them. Periods of unbearable wakefulness and clarity. More sleep, more darkness. And then, today, birdsong. And the Chairman at my bedside. I remembered all of this as I sat there in my bed. What started as trickling tears soon turned into sobbing unlike anything I had experienced before. It was as if my entire body were crying, and it came from an ancient place so deep inside me that I had never
been aware of it. The Chairman made no move to comfort me; he just sat there and let me cry. Eventually my tears ebbed away.
“Can we continue?” the Chairman asked in a low voice. I nodded.
“Then I would like to get back to laying out the conditions for you. The job is yours if you want it. Before you decide to decline the offer, I’d like you to listen to the alternatives. This job is a permanent position with the RAN group. Your work will be classified, and I believe you will come to find it both rewarding and extremely demanding. You will never want for anything, when it comes to the material side of things. The amount I mentioned as compensation for the Isola assignment will be your yearly salary. Your daughter will be able to attend the best schools. We’ll destroy the old reports on your mother. We will provide any necessities you and your family could possibly need: housing, transport, during both working hours and vacation time. You will not be working all the time. There may be weeks and months when we don’t need you. During those periods, you will have time off with full pay. But you will always be on duty. When we need you, you come. It will be trying sometimes, but it won’t be any worse than what you’ve already experienced. Does that sound reasonable?”
I nodded mutely. The Chairman went on in his low voice, his eyes on the door as if he wanted to make sure no one would come in and interrupt us.
“Anyway. If you choose to decline this offer, then I must inform you that, unfortunately, what awaits on the other side of the balance is not particularly pleasant. The fact is, you will no longer be in our employ and as such you will not enjoy the immunity of the Union, which means that you can expect to be prosecuted for homicide or manslaughter of your former colleague Henry Fall. This is a pity, of course, but there is nothing I can do about it. You may certainly hire a lawyer, someone who can do their best in court, but I would say that the evidence against you is overwhelming and your chance of going free is minimal. Perhaps you can claim extenuating circumstances and plead your sentence down to a fixed prison sentence instead of life or the death penalty. Maybe ten years. Maybe less, maybe more. How old is your daughter, by the way?”
He looked at me. I said nothing. He went on: “I must also stress that if you take your own life, your daughter will not only lose a parent, she will also lose everything in her possession. It is a crime against the state to commit suicide when you are facing indictment. Obstruction of justice, it’s called, and it is punishable by seizure of property, which extends to surviving relatives. This is a relic from the days of Cold War II, and it is seldom put into practice, but in this case it would certainly be appropriate. We would also have to examine how familiar your mother was with your views, and we might need to go back through her old files and consider the reasons she left the party.”
The Chairman fixed his eyes on me. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
His hand searched his jacket pocket and took something from it. It’s a gun—he’s going to shoot me, I thought. But it wasn’t. It was two envelopes, and he tossed them on the blanket before me.
“One is your employment contract; the other is a detention order. Your choice.”
I didn’t look at him; I didn’t look at the envelopes—instead I looked at the wilted bouquet at the foot of the bed. It wasn’t really much of a bouquet, more a bundle of grass and leaves. I knew that Siri must have picked it herself, probably in Nour’s courtyard, where weeds blossomed between the cobblestones, where Nour liked to put out a few pots and try to grow tomatoes, even though it was too cold and shady and they failed every year. Nour’s rough hands growing older and older, more wrinkled and trembling; hands that might not manage very much longer, hands that dug in the dirt alongside Siri’s small soft ones, black rinds of dirt under their thin nails. Her hands had been so tiny when she was a baby, round as stuffed cushions, little dimples at the knuckles. Her hands around my finger, in my hair. Her heart against mine. Nothing between them. Now her hands were thin and strong. But they were still small. They were still awfully small.
And suddenly I understood. I understood everything.
“Anna? I’d like to hear how you feel about all of this. Which envelope will it be? Do you accept the offer?”
“There was no test.”
My own voice sounded like a stranger’s, dry and creaky. The Chairman was perfectly silent. He didn’t move; he stood absolutely still. I continued:
“There never was any test, was there? Not of me or anyone else. Because if there had been one, I would have failed on all fronts. So there wasn’t one. It was a trap. You’ve got me exactly where you want me. You wanted me to have no choice. You wanted me to take this job; I don’t understand why you want me, but there it is. But you knew I would never under any circumstances accept it willingly, so you put me in a situation in which I would have no other choice. And you got rid of the secretary while you were at it. I don’t know why you wanted to do that either, but I’m sure you have your reasons. Now you can lock him up for the rest of his life. Poof, he’s gone.”
I gave a laugh. It sounded strange. The Chairman still hadn’t moved a muscle. All I could hear was my own breathing.
“But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why did you want to get rid of Henry? What did he ever do to you?”
I waited for the Chairman to say something, although I was aware that I wouldn’t receive an answer. After a long silence, the Chairman spoke in a mild tone.
“That’s certainly an interesting theory. And maybe some of your questions will be answered eventually, what do I know? And there certainly may be reasons why the RAN group needs you in particular, reasons I can’t discuss with you at the moment, but which might come to light in good time. If you accept my offer, that is. Otherwise, of course, you will never know. So now, Anna, I would like to ask for your response. What will it be?”
I looked the Chairman straight in the eye. His pupils were wide and black. Deep down inside them I caught a glimpse of a cold, surreal, and terrifying madness. I really had no choice. Somehow I had known all along that it would end like this. So I nodded at the Chairman. That was that.
His face split into a brilliant smile; he picked up the other envelope, stuck it back in his inner pocket, and put out his right hand.
“Excellent! Anna Francis—I would like to extend a warm welcome to the RAN group.”
STOCKHOLM
THE PROTECTORATE OF SWEDEN
MARCH 2037
HENRY
“I’M SORRY, BUT I don’t quite understand what it is I’m supposed to do. What is this all about?”
The secretary took out an envelope and handed it to me. I gave him a curious look and he nodded at the envelope.
“Open it.”
I opened the envelope and took out a folder made of stiff paper; when I turned it over, a familiar face was staring up at me from a copy of a passport that was fastened to the upper left-hand corner. It was Anna Francis.
“She’s our candidate,” said the secretary. “Your job is to watch over her and protect her.”
I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say.
“It won’t be that difficult. She’ll be dead for the better part of the time. Or at least, that’s what everyone will think. Everyone but you and another trusted participant.”
I looked down at the picture of Anna. The picture must have been taken by a photographer, because she didn’t look like herself. She looked beautiful in a doctored sort of way, as if she had been relieved of her soul. I tried to think—which question was the right one to ask now?
“How will this all transpire?”
“She will go underground by way of a staged murder. Then you will take out the others.”
He noticed my expression.
“No—that is, not for real; but to her it must look like the others are disappearing one by one. We want to see what she does, how she acts, what sorts of weaknesses she shows. Above all, we want to ma
ke sure she is capable of sticking to an order, of not revealing herself, even though everything will suggest that she ought to do the opposite. We want to give her a stress test, is the long and short of it.”
This all seemed incredibly strange. I tried to gather my thoughts and figure out how it would work. The secretary was giving me an expectant look, as if he assumed I would have questions.
“So . . . in the end, she and I are the only ones left. What do I do then?”
“Then you may tell her what’s going on, if you like. But not before.”
A thought struck me.
“She’s going to think I’m the murderer if she and I are the only ones left. What if she doesn’t believe me, no matter what I say?”
“That’s why it’s so important for you to be there. She trusts you, if I’m not mistaken. You know her; you know how she thinks. She likes you, I’ve heard.”
I wondered where he had heard that, but I didn’t ask. The secretary seemed to be able to tell I wasn’t following.
“Did you ever play Wink Murder when you were little?”
I shook my head. The secretary began to explain: “It goes like this: One person is randomly chosen as a murderer and another is the detective. The other players, the victims, know who the detective is, but they don’t know the murderer. Then everyone walks around the room. The murderer kills people by discreetly winking at them. When someone gets blinked at, they fall down dead. When the detective thinks he knows who the murderer is, he accuses the suspect. If the detective is right, he wins; if not, the murderer wins.”
The secretary stuck his knife into the salmon on his plate. It was so pink, almost raw inside. I suddenly had the sense that he was cutting into a newborn.
“Perfect,” the secretary said with a contented sigh. He didn’t take his eyes from the plate. “It’s really no more difficult than that. You can think of this little exercise as a version of Wink Murder.”
He stuck the pink salmon in his mouth and appeared to swallow it without chewing. I cleared my throat.