by Nikki Owen
I reach to the passenger seat for a water bottle, drain a litre then, grabbing my cell, dial Balthus, winding down the window, a wall of heat blasting in. I fan my face, prop a hand above my eyes until, finally, the dialing tone clicks.
‘I have arrived,’ I say when Balthus picks up.
‘Nice of you to say hello.’
‘I didn’t. What is your location?’
‘I’m in Spain.’
I check my watch. He is on time. My leg from the wound throbs. I scratch it.
‘Are you close to Chris’s house yet?’ he asks.
I glance down the street. ‘I am approximately 1.76 kilometres from my final destination.’
‘Okay. I’ll be with you soon. Get to Chris. And, Maria?’
‘What?’
‘Be friendly.’
‘Friendly,’ I say. ‘Friendly is an adjective that means to be kind and pleasant, or in British terms, can be a noun used to describe a match or game that does not constitute part of a point scoring competition. Which one do you require of me?’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
We say our goodbyes and I switch off the cell and begin my walk to my final destination. I get one metre and fifty-five centimetres in when ahead an old woman, hair crowned on her head and deep grooves etched into her cheeks, shuffles into the dusty alleyway and halts. She stares at me, stooping, eyes squinting, two cloth bags swinging from her fingers, her body shawled in a tent of black lace. She stays there, one second, two, her eyes locked on mine. My skin prickles. Why is she gazing at me? Is she with them? With the Project? Her eyes appear glazed over, cloudy, and, at first, I don’t connect what it is—the unusual appearance, the arresting fear stopping me from concluding the answer. I hold my breath, when her head suddenly turns, slowly, millimetre by millimetre then stops, and I finally understand what I am looking at.
Her eyeballs. They are completely white.
No black pupil, no iris, just the milky, white sclera. She shuffles away and I stand for a moment, shiver despite the heat, then, head down, not wanting to glance at her again, I move on as fast as I can.
When I arrive at the villa of Balthus’s contact, I count to thirteen and stop. My heart is racing. My shirt is damp with sweat and when I sniff my arms I smell of body odour. I don’t feel comfortable here. Friendly, Balthus said. Be friendly. Does that require making social conversation?
I force my eyes upwards and observe the villa door. It is small, square, two metres in height and creaking. Blue paint peels from the edges like cracked skin on the soles of ageing feet, torn, ripped, and when I scan the inner ridge, splinters protrude. I listen. There is a hiss somewhere, a grass snake sliding unbidden, free among the long rushes that sway drunk to the left. I watch, on alert, yet see nothing among the grass but an old stone fountain stooping, cracked and forgotten.
My nerves rising, I recite a mathematical theory then look again to the door. There is no bell, no buzzer, just an iron ring to bang on the wood, and when I sniff the air, I smell beetroot and jam and old, damp wood. I scan the area once then twice and tell myself that I have to do this. I have to speak to a stranger. And so, counting to three, I knock on the door and wait until eventually the door creaks open and a man stands there before me.
‘Are you Maria?’
The first thing that strikes me about him is that he is tall. His shoulders are broad and his frame appears to fill the entire entrance area and when I open my mouth to speak, I find that I am uncertain what to do. Remember, I tell myself, Balthus said friendly.
‘I am Dr Maria Martinez,’ I say. ‘Balthus sent me—you know him.’ I track the man’s frame. ‘You are 187.96 centimetres in height. Your muscles are defined, which signifies that you must lift weights regularly.’
‘Rrrright.’ His accent is American, a low, vibrating twang.
Unsure what else to do, I thrust out my hand as I have seen others do.
He shakes my hand. ‘I’m Chris.’
I expect his skin to be rough as the stubble that shadows his cheeks and chin, but instead his palms are soft and warm, reminding me of the freshly baked bread Papa used to buy from the local bakery when I was young. A broad smile now spreads across this man’s face and the effect of it takes me by surprise: it is like the white foam of a wave trickling onto a beach, gently soaking into fine sand. I swallow. There is a strange flip inside my stomach.
‘Balthus told me a bit about you,’ he says. ‘It’s okay. You can trust me.’ A slick of hair flops into his face and when he flicks it away, I notice his eyes are sunken, so much so that it is almost impossible, at first, to see the blue waters of his retinas. He scans the area behind me. ‘You’d best come in.’
Yet, instead, I wait, uncertain, my leg beginning to jig. If I go in, it is harder to protect myself if he is not who he says he is, if he is someone I cannot trust.
‘Your name is Chris,’ I say, ‘short for Christopher, yes?’
‘Er, yeah.’
I stare past him into the hallway and see mustard-coloured walls and dark, mahogany scraps of furniture leading to a rusty old kitchen with one hob and a scratched enamel sink.
‘Chris is short for Christopher,’ I say, looking to him. ‘Christopher derives from the late Greek name, Christophoros which means to bear or carry Christ. It is ranked the twenty-sixth most popular boy’s name in the United States of America and has been used as a first name since the early tenth century.’
He laughs: it is light, a ripple of water glistening in sunlight. ‘You’re funny.’
I don’t know what he means, but right then I make a decision.
‘I am hungry,’ I say, counting up in fives and walking straight in. ‘Do you have food?’
Chris presses his lips together and shakes his head, then, closing the door, gestures to the hallway. ‘Well, please—come on in.’
Chapter 13
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
‘Ramon?’ I croak.
My brother leans forward and moves his arm, but instead of touching me, he reaches out and flicks a switch, sending straw-coloured light seesawing into the room. I blink, the sudden brightness burning my eyes that have been used only to darkness. A corn on the cob bulb swings in the air above.
I immediately panic. ‘They have got you! Ramon, are you hurt? Have they hurt you?’ I look round, fast, worried. ‘Where are we?’
As my eyes adjust to the light, I realise we are in a room, a brick-built room. The walls are dirt brown and smeared with a tar-like paint onto flaky masonry, and when I look closer I see that some of the bricks are not flat or solid but raised and soft, padded with some kind of fabric or filler. I crane my head to the side and see the timer and the medical stand and the bag of drugs, and a lump sticks in my throat, a feeling of dread growing in my stomach.
‘Where is Patricia?’ My eyes start to roam the soot-covered floor, but there is no sign of her.
‘Who are you talking about?’
My brother’s voice is rippled like bark. Confusion spills over as I examine him, his tall frame, broad shoulders, lean, taut limbs, a glow that even here shines from a face that has never looked three years older than me. He appears, Ramon, as he always has, his silk tan, his almost plastic features, hair a perfect round mass of slick black. To my relief, he seems okay, uninjured, and yet still something bothers me, something I cannot yet pinpoint.
‘Are you … safe?’
He nods. ‘Yes. Of course I am.’
I look around. The door is shut, but at least Ramon is with me, and even though I am tied up, there may still be some chance that I can keep him safe. But where is Patricia?
‘Does the Project have you too?’ I say, words tumbling out as I try to assess the level of danger. ‘What did they say to you before they sent you in here?’
He tilts his head the way he used to when we were young. ‘M, who is “they”?’
‘Do they have Mama, too?’
‘Mama is safe.’
‘Is she still ill
?
‘Yes, but stable. The cancer’s not spread.’
Air billows from my lungs, yet my chest immediately tightens as I try and think it all through. We must be at a Project facility—that has to be the answer—and somehow, they have captured my brother and put him in here now with me. The Project at least don’t have Mama, and her health is steady and yet why does that information not calm me?
My brother reaches forward and flicks another switch, and the room is bathed in more light, another, smaller bulb this time, casting a tepid, sepia sheen in front of me, illuminating now my wrists. I blink at them and see plastic blue rope that ties not just my arms to the chair, but, as I scan further down, my ankles to the base, too.
I strain forward. ‘Where is Patricia?’
‘Your friend from prison?’ Ramon drops his head, shaking it. ‘M, she’s not here. Did you think she was?’
I look round, agitated now, the light scratching my eyes and brain. ‘Yes. She is in here somewhere,’ I say, searching the room. ‘She is very ill. You have to help her.’ Then I stop, feeling confused, suddenly not aware of what I am saying or why. ‘Why are you here? Where is Patricia?’
‘M, I don’t know what you are taking about.’ He raises his hand, slicks back a strand of fallen hair then adjusts the collar on a white linen shirt that has tiny thread lines of blue cotton sewn into the fabric.
‘Patricia was in this room,’ I say, scanning the room again for any sight of her, worry rising fast. ‘You must be able to see her. Or she may have been moved. Did you see her when you came in? Did the Project take her out? Is she safe?’
I raise my head, searching the illuminated ground, but there is nothing there, no sign of Patricia’s long frame slumped on the floor or her soft, shaved head, only dirt and bits of maggot-sized white cotton string and the fallen dust from the brickwork on the wall. ‘She was talking to me not …’ I try to calculate the time, but find I can’t …‘not long ago.’
My brother looks at me for three seconds and for some reason I shiver, goose pimples popping out all over my skin. He walks to the dark corner on the far right and returns with a wooden crate. He sets it flat in front of me and takes out a white handkerchief from his pocket, brushes off some dust and sits, crossing his legs, lacing his fingers on his knees.
‘M, I’m sorry this has had to happen.’
I barely move, because even though he is my brother, I find that I am suddenly scared. ‘What has had to happen, Ramon?’
He glances to the timer. ‘Who you think you’ve seen—it’s all just a hallucination. It’s … it’s all just a side-effect of the drugs. She … she was never really here.’ He points now to the medical stand behind me, to the timer that still ticks like a hammer in my ear.
I look back to my brother and a deep, raw fear rears up now, juggernauting forward, reaching my throat, until finally I make myself ask the question I dread the answer to.
‘Who was never really here?
He sighs. ‘Your ex-cell mate. Patricia.’
Montserrat mountain valley, nr. Barcelona.
26 hours and 44 minutes to confinement
Chris has led me to a room on the right side of the house. He said he would be back in a minute with food. That was thirty-seven seconds ago.
I wring my hands together, squint my eyes in the sun and wait. To keep myself calm, I scan the room for details, automatically searching for a source of focus. Dimensions, corners, curves, grooves. Late afternoon light streams in through a closed, locked window decorated with grey, ripped netting, and because there is no fresh oxygen, the air feels thick and pungent on my face, a faint smell of feet in the air.
The room is small, six metres square. There are seven pieces of furniture slotted against four fading walls decorated with pale green paint, and inside broken wooden picture frames are three old photographs. I step forward and examine them. Three faces, old and grained, stare back. The eldest is a man with white hair. He is stooped and wearing a chewed straw hat, and by his side is a woman of similar old age, an apron squeezed around a balloon waist, eyes dark and wrinkled, mouth downturned. Next to her is one small boy, eleven, maybe, head bowed, but light eyes that light up. In his hand there is a tennis racket and by his foot lies a small, yellow ball, white shorts on his legs, a grey long-sleeved jumper on his torso. Who are they? Why are they here? Do they mean something? Or are they simply pictures of people forgotten in time, never to be recalled or recounted, slipping by silently, invisibly as we do from present to past.
Agitated, I turn my attention to the corner of the room where a computer sits, and walk towards it. Sliding my rucksack from my back, I dig out my USB stick and Dr Andersson’s SIM card and, listening out for any signs of this man Chris returning, I switch on the computer.
I call Balthus. ‘I am here.’ I settle into a small, splintered seat and fix my clothes so the fabric does not itch me.
‘Maria? Oh thank goodness. You’re at Chris’s?’
‘Yes.’
I peer at the computer. I need it to find out some information, but, when I turn it on, the connection is slow and no matter how much I tap my finger, it will not speed up.
‘Is Chris okay?’ Balthus says. ‘Is he there now?’
‘He is fetching food.’
‘Oh, right. What are you doing?’
I get out the SIM card and my USB stick and place them on the dark wooden table where the computer sits. ‘I am switching on Chris’s computer to see if I can access any information that will tell me which Project facility the flashback was from.’
‘Oh, right. Okay. So soon? How are you going to do that? Use the grid reference you found?’
‘Yes.’
I do not need to check the reference number from Dr Andersson’s phone as it is already in my head, but it is frustrating. I am ready to search, but the computer is still loading.
‘Will Chris be back soon?’
‘He said he would be one minute.’ I check the time, tap my foot. ‘He is late.’
When Chris does finally enter the room two minutes and thirteen seconds later, he is carrying a tray containing bread cut into rough chunks, a block of sliced Manchego cheese on a white plate with blue swirls and two steaming mugs of coffee in black cups.
He sets the tray down on the table to the right and puts his fists to his hips. ‘Er, like, what the hell are you doing?’
‘I am using your computer,’ I say. ‘Balthus is on the cell.’
‘Oh,’ Chris says. ‘Hi, Balthus.’
‘Chris! Good to hear you. Thanks for this.’
Chris picks up the cell and puts it to his ear, and I desperately want to grab it from him, not wanting anyone else’s scent on it, but I see the bread Chris has brought and realise it has been several hours since I have eaten and my stomach is rumbling. Reaching across, I grab a chunk of bread, take a slice of Manchego and shove it all in at once. The food all instantly expands in my mouth like soaked cotton wool balls.
‘You have been three minutes and thirty-seven seconds,’ I say to Chris. Crumbs spit out.
Chris lowers the phone and just stares at me. ‘What?’
I swallow the food. ‘You said you would be one minute. You were not. You were three minutes and thirty-seven seconds.’ Taking the cup, I swig a gulp of coffee. It tastes good—hot, bitter. I start to thaw out, a little less tired, a little less worn. ‘What are you discussing with Balthus?’
Chris’s eyes follow me. ‘Do you have any manners?’
‘I did not hear you.’
‘I said do you have any manners?’
‘Oh.’ I pause, think. ‘No.’ I look at my phone at his ear, think of his skin touching it, his smell all over it. I can’t stand it any longer. Standing, I unhook the cell from his hand, put it back onto speaker mode and place it on the table.
‘What the—?’
‘Did she just take the phone from you?’ Balthus says to Chris.
‘Uh, like, yeah.’
‘Don’t take it perso
nally. She does that kind of thing to everyone.’
Chris shakes his head, stares at me a little again then eventually picks up a cup and taking a small sip, nods to the computer. ‘Why do you need to use my stuff?’
‘ Stuff?’ I frown. Is he referring to the computer? I conclude he must be. ‘I have some confidential files to access. Your computer takes a long time to boot,’ I say. ‘What modem are you using?’ I drink more coffee.
‘What?’
‘You say what with reasonable frequency.’
Balthus laughs.
Chris’s mouth hangs open, and it seems I should speak some more, but I don’t know what to say. The uncertainty of the social situation makes me want to hum, but I know that may seem strange, so instead I divert my anxiety by counting the pixels on the screen while the modem loads to the connection.
‘I have to go,’ Balthus says. ‘Just about to go through customs. Chris, you have the rendezvous location, right? It’s not far from you.’
‘Yep. Got it.’
‘Good.’ He pauses. ‘Look after each other.’
Chris throws me a glance. ‘I think it might be me that’ll need looking after.’
Balthus laughs again and I lower my head, listening, unsure what could be funny. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘See you soon. Stay low.’
‘Will do.’
I switch off the cell and Chris blows out a breath then pulls up a stool and sits. ‘So,’ he says after a moment, ‘you know Balthus from prison, right?’
‘Yes.’ I have counted one hundred and twenty-three pixels, and that’s in just the far right corner. I grab my cell, pull it close, sniff it and scrunch my nose, unhappy: it smells of this Chris now, of spiced cologne and baked bread.
‘How long were you inside for?’ he asks now.
‘What is this inside?’