Red Gloves, Volumes I & II

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Wait, there’s a helpline to call.’ Mia pointed to the number printed at the base of the panel. She fished in her briefcase for her mobile, then studied the screen. ‘It says No Access to Network. Can you try yours?’

  ‘I haven’t got mine on me,’ Galia admitted. ‘It’s still on my desk. I was going downstairs for a smoke. Wait, maybe it needs a hard reboot. Try turning it off, taking the battery out and putting it back in.’

  Mia unclipped the mobile’s back, shook out the battery, slipped it back in and turned it on. A minute later the same message came up again.

  ‘Wait, it might just be a dead spot. Let me try.’

  ‘I can manage,’ said Mia.

  ‘I’ve got longer arms.’ He took the mobile and held it up to the corners of the elevator, then down at the base of the door. ‘Nothing. Not even a weak signal.’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to get it looked at.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s your phone. There’s a lot of sensitive data on the fourth and fifth floors. The rooms are probably shielded. If we were just one floor further down—’

  ‘Well, we’re not,’ said Mia testily. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Galia admitted. He tried the intercom button again, but the line was definitely dead. Mia reached around him and stabbed harder at it. She had no fear of enclosed spaces, but it was getting late and she was supposed to be cooking her mother a beef stew tonight. The shops would soon be closed. Besides, the building was emptying out and would be shut up for the weekend. She studied the button panel carefully. ‘Is something supposed to be in there? Look.’ She pointed to a small rectangular hole in the panel that looked as if it should house a fuse or a button.

  Galia shrugged. ‘It’s made by a Russian company. You never know which buttons are supposed to be there and which ones aren’t. They take out broken ones, then find the replacements don’t fit.’

  ‘Should we bang on the doors? The caretaker might hear us.’

  ‘I doubt it, but we can try.’ Galia balled his fists and pounded the doors hard. They shouted, directing their voices to the slender join in the far corner of the door. Galia produced a strong, loud bellow but it made no difference.

  They took turns to shout for about an hour. Galia pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket and inserted it between the door and the wall. He tried to lever open the door, but gave up after a few minutes. ‘I think it has a metal catch that prevents the door from being forced,’ he said finally. ‘It’s pretty solid.’ He almost sounded impressed.

  Mia sank back against the wall, frustrated and angry. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to wait until someone comes,’ she said finally.

  ‘Someone will come,’ he told her. ‘We can’t be the last ones out of the building.’

  ‘What if we are?’

  ‘Then we’ll be stuck here overnight. There are always people in the place on Saturday mornings. I sometimes get called in for the whole day. Hopefully we won’t have to wait that long. Someone will come.’ He gave her an optimistic smile.

  That was the first day.

  The Second Day

  The contents of her briefcase were laid out neatly across the floor. They included an almost empty bottle of water (it was unsafe to drink from the taps at the archive), an apple, a nutrition bar, various pots and tubes of makeup, her useless mobile, its battery now almost dead, a comb, a nail file and some documents she had been planning to work on over the weekend. She separated the items with precision. ‘My mother has Alzheimer’s,’ she said. ‘My brother thinks it’s quite a useful disease. Sometimes he says he’s been to visit her and he hasn’t, but she can’t remember. She relies on me, but I don’t suppose she rang anyone when I didn’t turn up,’ she said. ‘Later today my brother is supposed to look in on her. She’ll tell him I didn’t come and he’ll call me.’

  ‘You think he’ll figure out what’s happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s not very smart. Probably not. He’ll just think I’ve gone to visit friends, and our mother forgot to tell him. I was due to look in on a colleague today, but Masha only has my mobile number.’ She studied the contents of her briefcase. ‘Okay, now it’s your turn.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Galia asked, concerned.

  ‘No, of course not, but there’s no point in panicking, is there? What have you got?’

  Galia sighed and began to sort through his case. He found a handful of boiled sweets underneath his papers.

  ‘Ah ha! A treasure trove. You’ve been holding out on me.’

  ‘I didn’t know they were there.’ He unwrapped one and passed it over. Mia examined it and made a face. ‘Yuk. Butterscotch. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.’

  It was cold in the lift, but at least Mia had a thick fleece jacket to sleep beneath. Galia had curled himself up on the floor and dozed. It was 4:20 a.m.

  At half past seven Mia awoke and saw the contents of Galia’s case laid out at her feet like votive offerings. A screwdriver. A penknife. A pencil. Some rubber bands. A tube of glue. A lottery ticket. A scarf. Some unopened letters that looked like bills. An entry form for a marathon run. It wasn’t a very inspiring collection of items. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sweeping them back in his case. ‘If I’d have known we were going to get stuck here I’d have brought better equipment with me.’

  ‘Look, you’re an engineer—’

  ‘Electrician.’

  ‘You must know what to do in a situation like this.’

  ‘The lift is jammed because the brake-shoes have come on, so there’s no danger of us falling. They’re programmed to spring out and lock into place if there’s a power failure, but I think what happened here was a current surge that tripped the circuit breakers. The system is old and they probably have to be reset manually, and if there’s no-one around to do it, it doesn’t get fixed. There’s another possibility. Maybe somebody forced the doors on one of the other floors; that would also cause the lift to stop. We can’t call out on the intercom because the fixed line is dead, but there should still be an alarm—a light and a buzzer—working somewhere, even though we can’t hear it. We just have to stay calm and wait.’

  ‘What if nobody comes? They’re closing down the building.’

  ‘Not yet, not for good. There are people coming in and out all the time,’ Galia assured her. ‘Those men with the boxes, they’re bound to need to use the lift. They can’t carry everything down all those flights of stairs.’

  ‘But they’re just temporary workers, they don’t know who’s in the building and who isn’t. There’s no reason why they should care. If the lift’s not working they’ll find another way down. Maybe there’s a goods lift.’

  ‘You worry a lot.’

  ‘That’s what my mother says.’

  ‘What happened to your father?’

  ‘He died of lung cancer. His own fault. Chain-smoker.’

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never go anywhere where I’m likely to meet one. I’m always working.’

  ‘But you’re very pretty.’

  She gave him a cool look and raised her hand. ‘Look, don’t—just don’t, okay? This is not the time or place.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was just an impartial observation.’

  ‘Galia, I need to pee.’

  ‘Okay.’ He looked around. ‘Finish the water in your bottle and use that.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we save the water?’

  ‘We’ll be out soon. It can’t be much longer. Here, look. Now we make a funnel from the plastic cover on my paperwork.’ He took out his penknife and expertly carved a small cone, neatly locking the edges together.

  She looked at it. ‘That’s amazing. What are you, a survivalist?’

  ‘Putin is a survivalist. I’m not a fan of the president.’

  ‘Quite right, keep your shirt on. Face the door.’ She turned away from him and squatted, filling the bottle.

&nbs
p; ‘Okay,’ he said when she had finished, ‘now give it to me.’

  She looked suspicious. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m getting rid of it. It’ll start to smell.’ He pushed his weight against the door and carefully emptied the bottle down into the gap between the door and the floor. ‘Let’s hope neither of us needs to do anything bigger.’

  ‘I doubt it. I’ve been on a diet all week. The apple and the nutrition bar are my lunch from yesterday.’

  ‘Why are you on a diet?’

  ‘Have you seen what happens to Russian girls?’

  ‘I didn’t eat either. I forgot the time. I usually have sandwiches in my case. Try and get some sleep. There won’t be anyone here before nine at the earliest, not on a Saturday.’

  ‘Okay.’ She settled herself back in the corner of the elevator. ‘This floor’s hard.’

  That was the start of the second day.

  The Third Day

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘It hurts. Let me take a break for a second.’ Galia dropped back down on his soles and rubbed his thighs. ‘Okay, let’s try again.’ He reached up onto tiptoe and fitted his screwdriver into the screw head, carefully scraping at the layers of paint that covered it. ‘Russian workmanship,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘They’d rather keep painting over it than bother to sand it once.’ The screwdriver skidded across the ceiling, hitting the neon light panel. ‘Support my legs, will you?’

  Mia had no desire to touch him. Her skin was coated in a layer of sweat, her eyes were gritty. They had finished the apple and had agreed to eat the nutrition bar later. Neither of them expected anyone to show up on Sunday, so they would have to hold out at least another twenty hours, until the remaining members of the archive’s workforce came into work on Monday.

  ‘Got me?’

  ‘Yes.’ She gripped harder. His legs felt surprisingly muscular; she had figured he was a weakling—it had taken this long for him to think of climbing out through the roof. In fairness, neither of them had been thinking rationally, because until now they had expected to be released any minute. The ceiling panel was small and unpromising, not at all as it might appear in a film.

  At his fifth attempt, one of the screws holding the panel began to turn and eventually came out. The second one gave more easily, the third easier still. But the thread on the fourth had torn, and there was no way of removing it. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, staring at the ceiling panel. ‘Can’t you just force it?’

  ‘How?’ Galia asked. ‘I can’t get any leverage up there.’

  ‘Then let me try. You can hold me up, can’t you?’ They switched roles. Once he had balanced himself, Galia raised her above his head, balancing her on his thigh. He let her hammer at the panel with the butt of the screwdriver. One half of it slowly lifted, but the metal was folding diagonally, raising only a triangle that was not large enough for a cat to climb through.

  ‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘I can’t move it back any further.’

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Nothing, just black and a bit of the wall. Wait, lift me up a bit higher.’ She pushed her arm through the hole and felt something wet. A small amount of water was dripping into the shaft.

  ‘There must be a leak somewhere above us.’ She cupped her hand and carefully brought it back through the hole. The water was iridescent with petrol contamination and looked grey in her hand. She touched her tongue to it.

  ‘I don’t think you should drink that,’ said Galia.

  ‘We haven’t got anything else. It’s a bit brackish, tastes like water, though. Take the lid off my facial cleanser and pass it up.’

  He handed her the plastic lid, and she pushed her arm through the space once more, waiting for the cup to fill. ‘I heard about a cleaning woman in Samara who got stuck in a lift and survived for thirty days by drinking the water in her mop pail.’

  He was exhausted from holding her so high, and nearly dropped her. It was hard work, and took several trips just to fill the little lid of her makeup case. ‘I hope I don’t get sick drinking this,’ he said, eyeing her doubtfully as he sipped from the container. ‘So, how come you don’t have a boyfriend?’

  She rolled her eyes and dropped down into the corner, retreating behind her furry coat. ‘I don’t want to go into it, okay?’

  ‘Do you think we’ll be on television when we get out?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t care, I just want to go home and see my mother.’

  ‘It’s weird that no-one’s come looking for us.’

  ‘They’re not worried.’

  ‘You usually go missing?’

  ‘No, it’s just—we don’t check in with each other much. I take turns caring for my mother. That’s part of the deal.’

  ‘What deal?’

  ‘My brother and I don’t really get along, so we don’t overlap our visits.’ She pulled the jacket tighter around her. ‘Anyway, you’re always asking me questions. What about you? You live here?’

  ‘I just moved to St Petersburg. I’m from Moscow. And before that, a small town you won’t have heard of.’

  ‘Do you have family here?’

  ‘You mean am I married?’ He shook his head as if enjoying a private joke. ‘No, I don’t have family. Here or in Moscow. My father died, Mother’s family emigrated. There’s nobody left. There’s nothing to say.’

  Mia knew how private Muscovites could be, and did not press him for details. There was no point in trying. Getting personal information out of them was like tearing out fingernails.

  ‘You’re pretty good,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No tears, no screaming fits, no tantrums. I mean, this is a pretty nasty situation, and you’ve handled it very calmly. That’s impressive.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I’m not having a very bad time. My back aches. I really need to walk around soon or it’ll seize up. And I’m fighting the urge to scream. Could you try the door again with your penknife?’

  ‘I told you, it won’t open. This thing’s a cheap knock-off. I’ll only snap the blade.’

  ‘Just try it again for me.’

  Galia opened out the longest blade of the imitation Swiss army knife and inserted it into a narrow gap at the edge of the door. Gently leaning his weight against it, he pushed. After a minute there was a crack and he swore, snatching away his bloodied hand. The blade clattered to the floor. Mia jumped to his side. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The damned thing broke. I told you it would.’ He sucked at the heel of his hand.

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He pulled away, dripping blood. She could tell by now that he hated to be touched. It was odd, considering how small the space was, that they had shared so little intimacy, not a hug of comfort, little more than the accidental brush of a hand. Last night, while she had been forced to defecate into a plastic makeup bag, they had shifted to the far corners of their cell in denial of their own humanity.

  ‘It’s just a surface cut.’ He shook his hand out, turning aside. She noticed that he hardly slept. Whenever she dozed, her last sight was of him watching her.

  ‘Why won’t you let me touch you?’

  ‘I don’t need to be comforted. I know how to handle a cut.’

  ‘I’m not saying you don’t. It’s just that you won’t let anyone help you.’

  ‘I don’t like being fussed over.’

  ‘By anyone? Or just me?’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Well, we’ll be out of here in the morning,’ she pointed out primly. ‘Then you won’t have to worry about me after that.’

  The Fourth Day

  Something had gone wrong. It was 10:00 a.m. There should have been people in the building by now, but they had not heard a sound. And it had become cold in the lift.

  ‘The main boilers are in the basement,’ said Galia. ‘It’s always hot down there. I think they’ve been saving money by turning off the heat to the occupied floors. It’s
a stupid system.’

  ‘Why can’t we hear anyone?’ Mia asked. ‘Someone must have noticed by now that the lift is stuck.’

  ‘The fourth floor has been cleared. Maybe the fifth as well, I don’t know. I never have to go there.’

  ‘Me neither. I don’t see many people going in and out of the building, but I figure there has to be staff still working on other floors.’

  ‘Maybe not. Maybe they managed to clear the building on Friday. But even that shouldn’t make a difference. There must still be people here, and everyone has to pass the elevator bank.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mia wearily. ‘Nobody tells me anything, I’m just a junior. I can’t shout anymore. I have no voice left.’ It was true. Both of them were now speaking in hoarse whispers. She threw a desultory kick at the door, but as usual it barely registered the sound. Some things built by Russians were liable to fall to pieces overnight, and others were built to last a century. It appeared that the lift belonged in the latter group.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No, not really. I feel spaced, but then I’ve been on a permanent diet for the last three years. I’m used to feeling like this. I’m thirsty, though. Can I climb up again?’

  Galia rose and waited for Mia to get to her feet. He allowed her to climb up on his bent leg, noting that she seemed to feel lighter, but perhaps that was his imagination. He was still uncomfortable about physical contact. She reached through the bent panel with her cup and waited for water to drip, but none came. ‘It’s stopped,’ she called down. ‘Maybe the leak was fixed.’

  ‘Or maybe it only leaks when the heating system is turned on. The heat might expand the pipe joints and cause them to leak.’

  She lowered herself back down. ‘I can’t believe you brought nothing to eat in that toolcase.’

  ‘I didn’t know this was going to happen.’

  ‘Try the intercom again.’

  ‘I’ve tried it a hundred times, Mia.’

  She gave him an odd look. ‘That’s the first time you’ve used my name.’