On the tenth chime, she accepted the chat.
Reuben appeared instantly, but it was not the same man she’d known for so long. His face had always been eye-pleasingly rugged, but this was a haunted man, purple shadows descending from underneath his eyes to the tops of his cheekbones. His jowls sagged, his mouth was drawn downward as if gravity and time had wrought ten years’ damage in a matter of days. The rueful lift of his eyebrows told her that he was only too aware of his transformation.
“Hello, Lin.” His voice, at least, was the same, colored warm with cigarettes and affection.
“Where is Sabine?” she said, immediately. But he appeared to not have heard her.
“Lin? Say something.” There was a glimpse of the familiar tender concern that he always carried for her, but it was an illusion, a trick of the light. Or had he not read her message? She could only stare at the man she had once trusted. Of course he would act as naturally as possible; he didn’t know he had anything to defend or explain. He couldn’t know that his deeds were written on his face.
She’d play it cool until he came out with it himself. “I’m here.” Her throat constricted and she cleared it several times before the words came out properly. “I’m here. How are you?”
“I was going to ask you the same question. I got your message, but I didn’t understand it. Are you all right?”
“I feel as bad as you look.”
Reuben smiled then, even though his eyes remained clouded. He let out that familiar deep chuckle that had always disarmed her. “Oh, Lin. I love you for your honesty.”
“You value honesty?”
“Very much. Especially for a man like me, surrounded by people who only tell me what they think I want to hear. You tell me what I need to hear. Thank you for that.”
He raised a glass to his mouth and took a long swallow from it. The display cut in and out for a second, with the glass at his mouth and then out of frame. Lin could tell that he had been drinking for a good long while already. His nose was slightly reddened, his mouth a little more slack than normal. Several times he opened his mouth and then closed it again. The small movements of his face, the tic in his left eyelid, made the fear blossom in her anew. “Reuben, tell me. Where is Sabine?”
Reuben brought his hand to his mouth and ran his fingers across his beard and lips, as if he wanted to keep the words trapped within. She heard the truth in the long pause before he could bring himself to speak.
“She’s dead, Lin.”
Lin strained to see his face properly, but his head was bent, shadows obscuring the long upper half of his face. “You’re lying.”
“Lin, I wish I were.”
“What do you mean, dead? Did you see her? Did you see her?”
“I saw her. I’m telling you the truth.”
“I don’t believe you. You were supposed to keep her safe until she could come home. What did you do to her?”
“I saw her lying on the ground outside Joseph’s apartment. I knew she was unwell, so I took her to the hospital. They took her in after I dropped her there. Later I went back. I met her doctor and told him to look after her. Just for a few hours. I was going to bring her back to you. I swear it.” Reuben took another swallow from his glass. Lin wished it were poison.
“She was all right, or so he said. Young man, called Julien Asfour. He was willing to do as I told him.”
Another sip. He was rambling now, talking in circles to himself. A coldness was invading Lin, cell by cell, vein and artery.
“There was a sandstorm. Did you hear it?”
“No.”
“All the roads were closed. It took me hours to get to the hospital. When I got there, Sabine was gone. So was the doctor. And a senior doctor with them, Rami Bouthain. I knew him from school.”
“So?”
“So I went after them.” Reuben’s eyes flicked back to Lin. Reuben the Official was speaking now, the one who spent his days going after traitors and transgressors against the state. Not the man who loved her. “They stole an ambulance, declared a quarantine, and went out into the desert. In a sandstorm. Either they were crazy, or they were trying to escape with her.” The ice clinked in his glass as he lifted it to his mouth and drained the last of the liquid in it. Lin could hear the opening of a bottle and the gurgle of another glass being poured.
“Did you catch them?” She could only speak in short sentences: she tried to add other words, but they evaporated on her tongue.
“Eventually, yes. But it took a very long time. We stopped them a few miles short of the border. They were heading for the crematorium. I had the ambulance unsealed. Inside were two funeral pods.”
Lin breathed in sharply.
Reuben nodded. “I know,” he said. “It was horrible for me to see her.”
“Keep going... just tell me everything.”
He pressed his hand over his face, grotesque on the display. He had the largest hands of anyone she’d ever known, big-boned, broad-palmed. She shuddered to think of them touching her. She felt tainted, as if she’d been with a snake instead of a man.
“I ignored the quarantine, though Bouthain told me it was too dangerous. I had the pods opened.”
“And?”
“Sabine was in one and Julien Asfour in the other.”
“Who?”
“The doctor. Julien Asfour. The one I’d told to look after Sabine.”
“Are you sure she was dead?”
“Yes, Lin. I’m sure. I touched her body. She was cold and stiff to the touch.”
Her body. Lin couldn’t form the image of Sabine lying there, devoid of life or breath. The barrage of information was too much; she found herself unable to grasp the fact of Sabine having become just a body, no longer a woman living under her protection. She focused on Reuben’s face, flickering on the display, with great effort. “Why were they in quarantine?”
His voice dropped lower, as if he were about to speak words too profane to be said out loud. “Bouthain said she caught the Virus. That’s why she died.”
“The Virus? That doctor, too?
“No. He killed himself. Because he’d broken a lot of rules to try to save her and he knew he was going to lose everything because of it. Asfour was responsible for Sabine’s death, I’m sure of it. I don’t know who else was involved but I’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you.”
Lin glanced around at her room, her beloved sanctuary within the Panah. She stopped listening to Reuben as he droned on; she was overwhelmed with grief. But then, through the anguish a thought occurred to her: that Reuben wasn’t telling her everything; there was more to the story, and that probably he had some hand in the way things turned out for Sabine. “I can’t believe you, Reuben. You’ve lied to me already.”
“What have I done? How have I lied to you?”
“Why can I not believe you when you say she’s dead?”
Reuben swallowed hard. “All right, then maybe you’ll believe this.” His face disappeared, and in its place an image flickered onto the display. Lin stared hard without blinking, trying to absorb what she was seeing: a darkened space that looked like the inside of an ambulance; the prone figure, encased within a funeral pod; the familiar, beloved face, pale and so incredibly and unnaturally still. Lin wanted to hold Sabine, to warm her cold face and hands, to see her open her eyes and laugh at the idea that she was dead. It was ludicrous, it was obscene, to witness Sabine as a corpse.
The image vanished after a minute, and Reuben’s face reappeared. Lin’s eyes snapped to his, red-rimmed and blurry. For the first time she thought it all might be true. That Sabine was really dead. And she realized he hadn’t lied to her. He’d just made a mistake. Just as she had, in giving Sabine the drug to help her sleep.
“Well then they lied to you. It wasn’t the Virus that killed her.” She pulled the vial out of a drawer and pl
aced it in front of her as she spoke. She lifted it up so he could see the pills glistening within. “Reuben, why did you never tell me that this was so dangerous?”
“What?”
“This drug. The one you gave me. You knew what it does to women, and you still gave it to me. Why?”
Alarm flashed across his face in the twitch of his eyes, and he swallowed quickly. He took a moment to gather himself, and when he spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. “I didn’t know about the other side effects. Just the ones I told you about. That you can’t take this drug with alcohol.”
“Well I gave it to her and I know that she drank with it. I’m guessing that’s probably what killed her. And I am responsible for that part. Imagine if she’d been pregnant.”
“Lin, I was only trying to help.”
Lin fell into silence. Reuben leaned back in his chair and looked away, at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but Lin’s eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like, do you? All my life I’ve worked for this city. Its security has been my entire focus, all my life. And in return, I was given a measure of power and responsibility. It was a fair exchange. Until I met you.
“Before I met you, I only ever had one mistress. When I first met you, I thought I could be with you, but still stay loyal to Green City. I thought I could keep it all separate. Green City in the day, you in the night. And I thought that even that was part of my job: keeping an eye on you and the Panah, in case it ever got out of hand. I had it all worked out in my mind, how to help if it all went wrong. I’d bring you all in, discreetly, cleanly, and neatly. A few months of reeducation and no harm done: you’d all be put in the system and things would go back to normal.”
His so-called reprieve was nothing more than a prison. She knew she’d rather die than be put, no matter how gently, back into the system. “You have your world and I have mine. I wish you hadn’t interfered. With your substances. With your ‘help’.”
Reuben lowered his head. “I fell in love with you. I know I shouldn’t have.” The confession, coupled with the sight of his thinning hair brought a flood of regret that washed over her tense body. He’d had such thick hair when they’d begun, she could put her hands in it and not be able to see her own fingers. “I made a mistake,” he admitted, after some thought. “I should have been more careful and not given you that drug. But I never, ever meant to hurt anyone. Not Sabine and never you.”
For a few moments Lin couldn’t speak. Sabine’s death, she knew, was entirely her responsibility to bear. His love couldn’t save Lin from that. She leaned in close to the display, taking a deep breath and gazing at his face for a very long time before speaking. It was strange to cherish a last moment of intimacy between them, at a distance. “Listen to me, Reuben, listen carefully.”
Again the visual cut out for a second. When it returned, his expression was smooth and blank, as if he’d washed his face with innocence. “What is it? Tell me,” he said.
“Reuben. I need a favor. The biggest favor I’ve ever asked of you.”
“Anything.”
“You tried to help Sabine. It wasn’t your fault that she... that she didn’t make it.” Lin had to stop for a moment and compose herself before continuing. “But now I need you to help the others.”
His expression grew quizzical, then suspicious. “What do you mean, Lin?”
“I’m shutting it down, Reuben,” she said, in a soft voice.
“Shutting what down?”
“The Panah.”
“Well at last you’ve seen reason. You can shut it down and then we can be together, properly. As man and Wife.”
She winced at his visible relief, but she had to focus on the next step. “No, Reuben. It’s not going to be. You have to help them but we can never meet again.”
Reuben scowled. “Lin. I know you’re in shock, it’s terrible news, but we can still save the Panah, the rest of the girls. One of them died; it’s a tragedy, but you and I can go on as we were before. You’ll see.”
Lin felt a surge of energy now her decision was made. She could see the path in front of her, clear and unhindered. “The others can’t stay here any longer. The Panah is finished. And you can’t put them back in the system. You have to help them leave Green City.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’ll make sure that all of Green City knows you’ve supplied drugs to Green City women that will kill their unborn children.”
“But you aren’t Green City women,” said Reuben, bewildered.
Finally he was telling the truth: he saw them differently, their lives more expendable than the ones above ground. She replied, “We’re women just the same. And I have the proof of what you’ve done. I have the drugs in my possession. And I would never have gotten access to them except through you. That means you’ve helped perpetuate something that is against the rules. Not mine, but Green City’s rules. You’ll be accused of the treachery of killing precious unborn children. They might even think the Panah was your idea in the first place: a harem for the rich and powerful like yourself. Your reputation will never recover.”
Reuben jumped up and backed away from his display. She could see him a few feet away, pacing up and down like a caged animal. Then he came back and leaned over his desk, his face so close that she could see the red veins in his eyes, the dark holes of his nostrils. “Don’t threaten me! I don’t want to hear this nonsense! Do you understand? If you don’t stop talking like this, I’m going to—don’t make me come over there, Lin, don’t.”
“Reuben,” Lin smiled. “That’s what I want you to do. If you loved me ever, you’ll help me get these women out of here. Bring transport in an hour. They’ll be waiting for you. Goodbye, Reuben.”
Abruptly, she terminated the session. Reuben’s face instantly snapped to blackness, leaving only her own image staring back at her, twenty years older than she was.
There was a hesitant knock at the door. Lin unlocked it and opened it to find Rupa standing there, two steaming mugs of tea in her hands. “I heard you talking, so I waited outside until you were done.” She caught sight of Lin’s face, and her eyes widened. “Are you all right? Wait, Lin, Lin, where are you going?”
Lin lunged past Rupa, leaving the girl standing there, holding the mugs of tea. She ran, stumbling through the corridors until she came to a stop in the Charbagh, gasping and panting for breath. The day sky was shifting into twilight, lavender and rose, to simulate the setting sun. The water of the four streams splashed at her feet. Stars twinkled in the eastern corner of the garden, where the night was gathering strength.
As she clutched her knees and rubbed the stitch in her side, the women, who had followed her into the Charbagh, murmured and whispered among themselves. She straightened up to regard each of them with a long, hard stare. Some of them met her eyes, others averted their gaze.
“Listen to me, all of you. Listen hard, now. The Panah is in danger and I have to shut it down. That means that all of you will have to leave.”
“What?”
Mariya whispered, “But where will we go?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve made arrangements. You’ll be safe.”
“We want to stay here!” said Su-Yin.
“And wait until Sabine comes back,” added Diyah. The rest nodded in agreement.
“You can’t,” said Lin. “I told you. Things have gone terribly wrong. None of us can stay here anymore.”
“But where...”
“Don’t ask any more questions. Do you trust me?”
They all nodded: Diyah, Su-Yin, Mariya, Rupa, all of them except for the one whose absence was a void in the midst of their tight circle. Lin wished she had warned them when they’d first arrived at the Panah that this could never be more than a temporary resting place, a pause in their lives. The Panah could never have gone on forever as Ilona and Fairuza had hoped. Lin hadn’t even known it herself until now
. The Panah was the only life she’d ever lived.
Finally Diyah spoke up. “Tell us what you want us to do.”
Lin willed herself to stay strong, not to cry in front of them. “You’ve got an hour to get ready, get your things together. Pack the essentials. Leave everything else behind.” She knew Reuben would come: he would not be able to resist interfering this one last time, to try and dissuade her in person from the path she had decided to take.
“Should we bring food?” said Diyah. Lin heard a new tone in her voice, authoritarian, decisive; she felt unexpectedly grateful. First Rupa’s help, now Diyah’s cooperation: maybe this could work after all.
“You’ll be provided for, where you’re going. Now go. Hurry. Meet at the entrance in an hour. Hurry!”
They ran helter-skelter toward their rooms. Lin waited until they had dispersed before returning to her own quarters. She was taking a huge gamble, all hinging on the threat she’d made to Reuben. It had to work. He could keep one fallen woman hidden from the Agency; a half-dozen of them emerging from the Panah in broad daylight was completely different. It would be all over the Bulletins; the whole of Green City would know about it by nightfall. And when the women were taken by the Agency and questioned, they would tell all, on Lin’s coaching, about Reuben’s involvement with the Panah, his collusion with Le Birman, the drug that wrecked women’s bodies and killed their children. The Agency would turn on Reuben. Lin knew he had no option but to help the rest of the women escape.
She gathered the half-dozen small devices in which she stored all her records and set them on the floor of her room. On top of that she piled up other objects: cushions, clothes, small decorative trinkets, anything that wasn’t too large for her to lift. She took down the silk wall hangings and placed them on top of the heap. It took ten minutes for her to accumulate everything, and when she stopped, her back and shoulders were sweaty and trembling with the strain.
Black Diamond Fall Page 51