How I Lose You

by Kate McNaughton

The Adam image is now frozen with eyes lowered to the keyboard, forehead leaning into the camera. He pings an instant message over.

  You’re breaking up.

  Try switching your video off.

  Adam’s face disappears from the screen.

  ‘#### … C … #### … y … o – o … u … h … ####’

  ‘Hm. It’s still pretty crappy. Can you hear me?’

  ‘I … ####’

  ‘I can’t really hear you, if you can hear me.’

  ‘I – I – I …’

  ‘Adam, let’s try both restarting Skype.’

  ‘I – I – I …’

  Let’s try restarting Skype.

  Yep.

  He blips offline. She closes down on her side, waits a beat, then restarts the program. It takes ages to load, struggling to find a decent pathway to the internet. The light in the ceiling flickers menacingly – oh Christ, don’t let it go out again. They’ve been battling electricity cuts ever since they got to this hotel, which normally wouldn’t particularly bother Eva, but in this cloying heat, a night without air conditioning would be unbearable. It was out all this afternoon, apparently, so she returned to find her room solid with warmth; it’s only just returned to a vaguely acceptable temperature. Although a power cut would give her a good excuse not to have to speak to Adam. Not that she doesn’t want to, but these conversations really take it out of her when she’s on assignment, the reminder of her normal, Western life too sharp a contrast to the new realities she’s exploring, and plus she and Tom still have a couple of things they need to go over this evening. Her laptop starts ringing at her.

  ‘Hi. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. Great.’

  ‘It’s weird, it often helps to just restart.’

  ‘Yes, I think it must set itself on a different channel or something.’

  ‘There’s kind of a weird hissing noise in the background, though.’

  ‘Oh – that’s probably the air conditioning. I will literally die if I turn it off, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can hear you fine. So, ####’

  ‘So, how are things? Oh. You just broke up there.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘You just broke up. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I can now. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t hear what you asked me just then.’

  ‘I was saying how’s Congo?’

  ‘Hot. Like, you have no idea how hot it is here.’

  ‘Make sure you drink loads of water. And that it’s boiled.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘But the job’s going OK?’

  ‘Yes, it’s great. I mean – we’re seeing some pretty rough stuff. But I think it’s going to be a really good piece. Today was tough, though.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’

  Images, feelings flash through Eva. The anxiety about travelling down those roads, which can still be quite dangerous, especially if you’re a high-added-value white journalist; Tom somehow sensing that, and putting a reassuring hand on the small of her back. His hand on the small of her back. The face of that girl, only twelve but already looking defeated by life, like she has seen more horrors than any form of happiness could make up for. The paradisiacal colours of the Congolese countryside, all luscious green and rich ochre and vibrant blue skies, the closest to Eden Eva has ever seen. Grace, who runs the crisis centre, her incredible vitality, the long black scar that runs down her arm, and the other scars she showed Eva when they were in the privacy of her small, stifling office. The children playing outside, laughing at Tom as he magicked sweets and rollerball pens out of various pockets. The stories that those women told. My God, the stories.

  ‘We went to this village today, a couple of hours’ drive away …’

  ‘Really? Are you sure it was safe?’

  ‘Yes, it was fine.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because I was looking at the Foreign Office’s website, and it recommends not leaving the cities at all at the moment …’

  ‘Honestly, it’s fine. The Foreign Office is always over-cautious …’

  ‘Still, you know. It says there are still armed rebels out there, that hijacks are pretty common …’

  ‘Well, I mean … yes, but we’re careful, you know? We made sure to avoid the really dodgy areas.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that? You broke up there.’

  ‘Can you hear me now?’

  ‘Yes. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. I was saying we’re very careful. Plus Tom’s been here before. He knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Hm. Well. Just don’t do anything stupid, you know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s not worth it, Eva.’

  ‘No. I know.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘But, so, anyway, you were saying you went to this village?’

  ‘Yes. It’s this place where these women have set up a rape crisis centre—’

  ‘####’

  ‘Oh. Ad, can you hear me?’

  ‘I … ####’

  Ad, I can’t hear you.

  ‘I … c – c … aaaa …’

  ‘Oh, hang on, maybe it’s coming back.’

  I can hear you, more or less.

  ‘Ah, OK. Well, I can sort of hear you better, maybe let’s wait and see if it gets better.’

  OK.

  ‘Keep talking, though, otherwise I won’t be able to hear whether I can hear you or not.’

  ‘O – o – o – o – h … Y … e – e – e – a – a – a … h – h – h’

  Oh yeah.

  This is so annoying.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh. I think it’s back. Say something?’

  ‘Can you hear me now?’

  ‘Yes. Great.’

  ‘Great. So you were saying: some women set something up?’

  ‘A rape crisis centre.’

  ‘Oh wow.’

  ‘Yes. It was a huge problem during the civil war – a lot of systematic rape.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that? I didn’t catch the end of your sentence.’

  ‘A lot of soldiers would systematically rape the women in the villages they captured. There’s basically a whole generation of women – well, several generations, in fact – who are collectively traumatized in this region.’

  ‘Right. Wow.’

  ‘Yeah. It was really intense. Some of the stuff they were telling me, Adam, it was just …’

  ‘####’

  ‘… it was just so shocking.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘No, I was just saying, some of these women have some really shocking stories. I haven’t really been able to process them yet, I don’t think.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Like, this one girl …’

  ‘####’

  ‘Oh. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Y – y – y … e – a – h … N – n – no – o – o – o …’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘####’

  ‘Adam?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh. Can you hear me now?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry, the line keeps breaking up.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘You were saying.’

  ‘No, I – well. There was this one girl who was, I don’t know, maybe fourteen or fifteen … And she was telling me she was gang-raped by this group of soldiers, they took her to this back room somewhere and just raped her, over and over again.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Hey – can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening. It’s horrible.’

  ‘Yes. And so then she overheard them saying they should kill her, she didn’t really know why. This was after they’d raped her, she was alone in the room and they’d all gone outside. And they were having this debate about whether they should take her with them or just kill her.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘
But then they came back in, and she must have been in shock because one of them took her hand and it was so cold that he thought she was dead.’

  ‘####’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘No, nothing, I was just saying, wow.’

  ‘Oh. And so anyway, they thought she was dead, and she just continued to play dead, and let herself be completely limp, and they chucked her into this other room of the house where there were the bodies of her father and two of her brothers – they’d all been killed when the soldiers arrived.’

  ‘Christ Almighty.’

  ‘Yeah. So then she had to lie there pretending she was dead for, like, hours, because she could hear the soldiers were still coming and going in the village, and she was worried they could probably see in to where she was. They’d thrown her across her brothers’ bodies, and she said she could feel them grow colder, she could feel the blood on them drying, she could hear them making these weird sounds, emptying themselves, the stench. And the hardest was she had to be completely still, even when there were, like, flies crawling over her, she said it was almost impossible to resist the tickling of these tiny flies. And then even after the soldiers had gone, she said she lay still for a few more hours, just in case. Then when she got up at last – this is, like, in the middle of the night now – she realized she was the only person left alive in the village.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah. It was – God, Adam, I mean, that’s just one of the stories. It was so intense.’

  ‘####’

  ‘Oh. Adam?’

  ‘####’

  ‘Ad?’

  ‘Ah, there you are.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I can hear you now.’

  ‘I missed that last part, what were you saying?’

  ‘No, I was just – I was just, you know, I was just saying it was all pretty intense.’

  ‘Yes, it sounds like it.’

  ‘But anyway. How are you?’

  ‘Well – nothing as dramatic as that to report. Obviously.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good thing.’

  ‘Yes. Although there is one thing I need to talk to you about – sorry to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, here … b – b – b … u … t – t – t … ####’

  ‘Oh, hey, Adam, you’re breaking up.’

  ‘####’

  ‘I can’t hear you, Ad …’

  Adam’s voice and intonations pour forth in a garble, sound waves sliced up and broken down into their elemental ones and zeros and blasted halfway across the globe at her, but all in the wrong order. All in a muddle.

  Adam, I can’t hear you.

  Oh.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  I can’t hear you either.

  Maybe we should try another restart.

  Yes, OK.

  It’s almost ten already. Tom will be back in the bar by now. She feels an urgent sense of every minute she is not seeing him while she is up here, and fights back an impulse to rush out of her room right there and then. His hand on the small of her back.

  She is online again. She rings Adam.

  ‘Hi there. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yep. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. Great.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘So, yes, I was saying, I’m afraid the washing machine has died the death.’

  ‘Oh. Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah. Really annoying.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, it stopped spinning the other day. I put in a load of clothes and th – e – e … y … c – c – c … a – a – aaa … m … e … ####’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘… soaking, and then—’

  ‘Adam, sorry, I didn’t catch that bit. What happened to the clothes?’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘I can now – just lost you for a few seconds there.’

  ‘No, I was just saying I didn’t hear the bit about what happened to the clothes.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, so I put in a load and it came out half dry and half soaking wet, basically. So then I tried putting it on again and the machine wasn’t spinning.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s so annoying.’

  ‘Yeah. And that’s not the end of it. It’s started pissing water now, too.’

  ‘Oh you’re joking.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not. OK, I mean, pissing is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s leaking.’

  ‘Oh fucking hell.’

  ‘Yeah. So I think … ####’

  ‘Oh fucking hell. Adam, I can’t hear you.’

  ‘… two days or so.’

  ‘Sorry, Ad, I didn’t catch that last bit.’

  ‘Oh. No, I was saying we kind of need to replace it pretty quickly, otherwise it’s just going to leak everywhere and fuck up the basement flat.’

  ‘Fuck. Yeah. This is so annoying.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m not around to help sort this out …’

  ‘Well, you know, it’s not your fault. But don’t worry, I’ve arranged for a guy to come over next week – the only thing is we need to have the new washing machine to install by then.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Which pretty much means … ####’

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘It means ordering it in the next couple of days, otherwise we’ll never get it delivered in time.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How much does a washing machine cost?’

  ‘Well, so, yeah, this is what we need to discuss – how much we want to put into it, and what model we want.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘I’ve looked into a few options already, I’ll send them over to you and maybe we can talk through them …’

  It’s ten now. She told Tom she would be down in the bar by ten. She accepts the file transfer from Adam.

  ‘Adam, I don’t think I’ve got time to do this right now, I told Tom I’d meet him and I’m already late …’

  ‘What – now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it must be, like, ten your time right now.’

  ‘It is, but we’ve got some stuff to prep for our trip tomorrow.’

  ‘What, you’re going off again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘To this place called Nkanwa.’

  She hears the clatter of Adam googling Nkanwa.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s about a five-hour drive. Well, it’s closer than that really, but we’re going to stop off in a couple of places on the way.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s safe?’

  ‘Adam, we’re being really careful, I promise.’

  ‘I mean, Eva – look at the woman you met today.’

  ‘I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t be going if I thought anything like that was going to happen to me.’

  ‘You’re always sticking with Tom, right?’

  ‘Yes, and we’ve got the fixer there, too. Honestly, Adam, it’s much safer than whatever you’re imagining.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Well. Just make sure you’re careful.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What shall we do about the washing machine, then? Can we Skype tomorrow evening?’

  ‘Hm. I’m not sure I’ll have a great internet connection in Nkanwa.’

  ‘I really need to order it on Friday, otherwise it won’t get here on time.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should just decide.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Adam?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘I mean – yeah, obviously, I can do that, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Well, you know, I mean, this is really a decision we should be making together.’

  ‘It’s only a washing
machine.’

  ‘####’

  ‘Adam?’

  ‘What was that? I didn’t hear that last thing you said.’

  ‘I said it’s only a washing machine.’

  ‘Well – yeah, but … It’s a fair chunk of money, you know. And we want to get the right one.’

  ‘We just need one that washes clothes properly.’

  ‘Look, take a look at this list I’ve made and you’ll see that’s not as easy a call to make as it sounds.’

  ‘Right, well …’

  ‘How about you just email me what you think once you’ve had a look at it, and call me with the satellite phone tomorrow evening?’

  ‘Those calls cost a fortune!’

  ‘We won’t need to talk for long, you can just tell me what you’ve decided.’

  ‘I’m just not sure I’ll have time to take a proper look at it before we leave …’

  ‘Oh come on, Eva. It’ll take you five minutes.’

  ‘Well – OK. Fine. I’ll try and email you before we go.’

  ‘I don’t want to be annoying, it’s just …’

  ‘Yeah, no, look, it’s fine.’

  ‘It’s just …’

  ‘Adam, honestly. You’re right, it’s just five minutes. I’ll email you tomorrow morning at the latest.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I really need to get going now.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And I’ll call you on the satellite phone tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. Well, have a good evening, then.’

  ‘####’

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘Oh. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I can hear you now. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. I was saying be careful tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah. I will be.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too.’

  ‘So. Bye.’

  ‘Bye. Talk to you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah. Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  She shuts Skype down. Quarter past ten. Eva grabs her room key and hurries out.

  There is no air conditioning in the corridor. The air is so humid it sticks to your skin immediately, coating it in a veil of moisture that is indistinguishable from your own sweat. She tries not to rush too much down the stairs – she’s going to be drenched enough as it is by the time she gets to Tom. She hopes the air conditioning is working in the bar. His hand on the small of her back.

  The air conditioning isn’t working in the bar. Eva can feel a red flush spreading over her face. Tom is sitting at the counter, chattering amiably to the barman – though she notices him clock her as she walks in, and puff up ever so slightly, even though he doesn’t turn towards her until she is just a few feet away. He is glistening in the heat, too, but with his tanned skin it just makes him look even more sexy.