by Darren Shan
As dawn broke above us, Margaret dropped me off about twenty miles outside the city. "You ever need a lift again," she said, "get out your thumb and hitch!"
"Here," I said, and gave her an extra roll of hundreds. "That's for sticking by me. You could have fled and nobody would have blamed you."
"Thanks," she said, and looked me over. "You've got blood down your front." I realized I looked like something out of an abattoir. "I've got a coat in the back. I use it when the weather's bad. You can take it if you like. It'll cover you until you find something better."
"You're sure?"
"Mister, for what you paid tonight, you could have my dress and panties."
The station was preparing itself for the morning rush when I entered. A tired man in his sixties swept the floor lifelessly. His uniform was crumpled and worn, like his face. He looked up as I passed, sniffed, returned to his work. A waitress was raising the grille of a cafe.
"We ain't open yet," she snarled as I approached. "Come back inten."
The newsagent was the only cheerful soul. He smiled, rambled on about the weather, studied my battered face with concern. I bought some chocolate, a couple of papers, a magazine and a map. I asked him about train times. When he was through talking, I thanked him, tipped and left. Cleaned my face in the washroom, bought a cup of coffee in the cafe, then purchased a ticket and caught a ride.
The train chugged west. I studied the map, trying to find Sonas. I had to search hard. It lay to the southwest of the city, about two hundred miles off. A small town like any of a million others.
I spent the day traversing the country. I'd hop on one train, go north, get off at random, head east, west again, then south. I avoided crowds, let busy trains pass, found the quietest compartments in those I boarded. I bought a new suit at one stopover, along with a pair of dark glasses and a hat to hide the worst of my bruises. I hid behind newspapers for hours on end.
I knew it was a waste of time. I wasn't being followed, so I had no one to throw off the scent. The Cardinal's men didn't need to track me-they'd be waiting for me at the other end. He knew where I came from and that I'd have to head back. The longer I took, the more men he could post. I'd be shot the minute I stepped off the train. I should just go and get the whole thing over with or forget about it all and flee for real.
But I couldn't forget, and moving around like this gave me a sense of working to thwart my destiny. I needed the distraction of the game. It gave me hope.
I thought about waiting. Leave things for a few weeks, wait for the flames to flicker out. There was no hurry. Staying away would give my body time to heal, my mind time to clear. I could formulate a plan, maybe get some more of my memory back. Nothing was compelling me to rush to a certain death.
But The Cardinal's patience was legendary. He might have none where personal dealings were involved, but on a broader scale there was no better man for sitting on a fence, waiting for things to swing his way. His talk of ruling the world proved that-he was prepared to wait beyond death to make his dreams come true. Hanging around in small towns and villages would be of no benefit. I could leave it for months, years, and the end result would be the same. I could walk into Sonas an old man, seventy or eighty, and there'd be a young punk waiting to put a dozen bullets through my head. Nobody could beat The Cardinal.
I caught some sleep, stretched across uncomfortable seats, waking every time the train lurched or jumped. People tried to enter my carriage several times. They all stopped, paused, then walked on when they saw me. I was grateful for the solitude.
I thought about the two lives I'd ended. One by hand, one with a gun. I'd enjoyed the stabbing more but there was a certain thrill in shooting a man, a voyeuristic pleasure in being able to stand back and murder from afar. You felt a bit like a god with a gun in your hand, dispensing death as you saw fit.
I boarded one of the night trains which passed through Sonas. It was twenty-four hours after my showdown with The Cardinal. I was still alive, courting death, moving another voluntary step closer to the grave. The Grim Reaper must have been shaking his head in disbelief, muttering, "Some guys just don't know how to quit."
The train was quiet, no more than a smattering of passengers. I found one of the many empty compartments and made myself comfortable. Leaned over to close the curtains and stopped. The night was pitch-black, so the window was almost as good as a mirror. I took my glasses and hat off, laid them on the chair to my right and stared at my reflection, tiredly wondering when the madness was going to end.
The face before me, which The Cardinal had split, cut and ruined for good. The broken nose and raked cheeks. The chewed ear. The puffy lips and tender cheeks.
It had healed itself.
A bit of bruising around the eyes. The nose slightly crooked. A couple of small scabs. Otherwise good as new. I checked my hands. Knuckles which had been torn and busted-fine. Palms which had been lanced by the shards of the vase-pure. I stood and jumped on the spot. No pain or the creaking of broken ribs. All my bones were whole. My flesh was clean. It was like I'd never been in a fight at all, as if the savage battle in Party Central had occurred only in my mind.
uma raimi
I didn't alight in Sonas. I wasn't about to make things too easy for my pursuers. Let the bastards work for their money. I peered out of the window as the train rolled through the unexpectedly large station. No sign of a welcoming committee. They were probably waiting outside, covering the exits. I couldn't expect everyone to behave as foolishly as Vincent had.
I got off at the next station and took a cab to Sonas. "I don't know why you didn't get the train," the driver grumbled. "It's just one stop further." Some people don't know a good thing even when it bites them on the ass.
He dropped me in the town center and made his way back home. I absorbed the surroundings. A milk van passed. The driver tipped his cap to me and I nodded in reply. A cat skulked past, sparing me a dirty glance as it skirted around my feet. Otherwise the streets were undisturbed. It was quiet as a grave. I'd spent so much time in the city, I'd forgotten places like this existed, towns without hookers, shift workers, gangsters and clubbing teenagers all heading home in the early hours of the morning, where police sirens didn't blare at any given hour. Out here, with the sun blinking over the horizon, I felt out of place. The quiet was eerie. I didn't like it.
I walked around, hat and glasses shading my face from the dawn light. I tried not to gaze at my reflection in windows as I passed. I didn't want to see that unblemished face. Didn't want to think about what it might mean.
Memories flooded back as I slipped from one street to another. I recognized landmarks. There was the sports store where I had bought my first tennis racket. I'd been a kid, six or seven. I could feel it even now, the wooden handle, the tight plastic strings.
The movie theater. Scene of many a teenage sexual encounter. My first kiss, tucked away in the legendary back row. Here was where I cupped virgin breasts, where a girl first let my hand slide up from her knee without resistance.
That small corner shop. We used to steal candy when I was nine or ten, me and some bigger kids. I got caught. I had glimpses of my parents shouting, my father taking a belt to me.
There was where I bought my lawnmower, shears and hoses for watering the grass in the hot summers. My barber. A visit once every six weeks, regular as clockwork, except for a couple of teenage years when I grew it long. The park-days of eternal sun, running around in shorts, firing water balloons at irate mothers, knotting the swings, smearing jam on the slides, not giving a damn if we were caught. The pool hall, cobwebbed lamps, rickety cues, chipped balls, pimply boys and girls mating clumsily, too young to get into the clubs.
It was a town of memories. I'd spent years here, most of my youth, all of my adult life, but although my memories were opening to me at last, I still couldn't piece everything together. Many buildings meant nothing and I couldn't remember the people in any great detail. I could see some friends and family faintly, might
recognize them in the flesh if we passed, but I couldn't have described them if I'd been asked. It was like a jigsaw puzzle which had just been started-I could see a bit of the picture here, another chunk there, but I had no way of telling what it was working up to.
I saw more of the woman, the one person I had to track down, who'd hopefully be the catalyst for the rest to fall into place. She was in a lot of the memories, eating ice cream with me in a mall, making out in the movie theater, digging hard in the garden. But no name or blinding flash of revelation.
I wandered further from the town center, out to the suburbs. I walked without thinking, following routes my feet remembered even though my mind had forgotten them. The further I went, the more familiar I felt. This was where I'd spent most of my time, beyond the hub, climbing giant trees, playing football in the open fields, growing, loving, living.
On the far outskirts, where the trees outnumbered the houses and streams cut wet paths across the land, where birds and squirrels reared their young, I found my home. It was a small white house, tucked away behind a plethora of bushes, shrubs and draping vines. A bungalow built from rough stones, capped by a newly tiled roof which jarred my memories. The windows were round. The path to the house was sentried by tall hedges, as green as those on the path to Oz. The short wooden gate was topped with a floral arch. One might think it was the mouth of a tunnel similar to the one Alice fell down. How fitting-at the end of my bizarre journey, I'd come to a cottage from the pages of a fairy tale.
I lifted the latch and moved closer to the truth.
The brass knocker on the front door was oiled and it swung smoothly. I tapped gently, too softly to be heard. Drew back and knocked again, louder this time. It occurred to me only then that the occupant might be asleep. I checked my watch. Not yet a quarter to eight. Maybe I should…
I heard rustling. Moments later the door opened. A woman stood there, dressed casually, arms crossed, smiling curiously, not afraid of this early morning stranger. There was little to fear in Sonas.
It was the woman. I recognized her immediately. The sight of her in the flesh sent a shock wave through me, a blow worth any ten of The Cardinal's.
"Can I help you?" she asked brightly.
I raised a quaking hand and removed my hat and glasses.
Her mouth dropped and her eyes widened. She backed away from me, gasping, mouthing the word "No!" and shielding her face with a hand, like Macbeth trembling at the sight of Banquo's ghost.
I followed and reached out to touch and calm her. She jerked away from my fingers and sank into a rocking chair by a huge iron stove. Her eyes were burning question marks. Her lips shook from the force of a thousand unaskable questions. I closed the door. Walked over. Crouched and touched her knee. She gasped again, shied away, then brought one of her own hands forward and carefully, fearfully, touched mine, like someone stroking a rattlesnake.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said kindly. "I didn't want to startle you. But you know me, don't you? You know who I am?"
"Muh-Muh-Martin? " Her voice was a wheeze. "Is it yuh-you?"
I thought about it. "Martin." Tossed the word around, testing, liking the sound, feeling it fit. "Yes, I'm…" And then there was a surname to go with it and I knew that much about myself at least, at last. "Martin… Robbins? No. Martin Robinson. I'm Martin Robinson. And this is my house. I remember it now. And you…" I stared.
The woman stared back. She touched me again, firmer this time, moving up my arm, my elbow, biceps, shoulder, finally running the tips of her fingers over my face, brushing my lips, my nose, my eyelashes. Shesmiled hesitantly, starting to believe this might be real and not a dream.
"Martin? It's really you? But I thought… all this time… oh my God. Martin! " She threw herself on me, dragging me to the ground much as Ama Situwa had on the stairs of Party Central, but this woman wasn't interested in sex. She only wanted to feel me and make sure I was real, half-expecting me to vanish.
"Martin. Martin. Martin." She repeated my name over and over. It became a mantra. She said it as she touched me, pinched me, felt my legs, my arms, my chest and back. As she caressed my face, gazing into my eyes through a veil of tears, trembling, crying, laughing. As she hugged and kissed my neck, pulling me to her, holding me in a grip as if she never planned to let go of me again. "Martin. Martin. Martin."
"And you," I whispered, trembling as the memories flooded back. "You're my wife," I said wonderingly, and for a long time I could say nothing more.
The stove was the only source of heat. We'd used it for everything, cooking, boiling water, keeping the place warm on cold winter nights. We'd argued about it occasionally, especially on frosty nights when the roof was leaking and gusts of wind were having their chilly way wherever they wished. Dee wanted to tear it out and get a modern oven and heaters, but I loved it. My grandparents and parents had relied on that old stove and it gave me a strong link to the past. I'd agreed, reluctantly, to upgrade when we had kids, but as long as it was just the two of us, the house would stay the way it had been for the last seventy years.
Some nights, curled up in front of the range, Dee and I would pretend we were animals and lie there for hours, saying nothing, touching, kissing, feeling, being.
Dee. Short for Deborah. She had to tell me. I couldn't recall it myself.
I raised the lid of the kettle, checked the bubbling water, moved it to a cooler corner of the stove. Dee loved a brew first thing in the morning. It had always been my job to make the tea, often bringing it in on a tray, breakfast in bed, a spot of quick loving if we had the time.
Dee was still in the rocking chair, hands in her lap, eyes fixed on my every movement. She'd always been a pale creature and now, so early in the morning, not yet recovered from the shock, she was white enough to put Casper to shame.
I walked around the room, studying the ornaments, the hangings, imitation paintings, a Gary Larson calendar. Dee loved Larson. The house had never been named by my grandparents, their children or me. Dee soon put that matter right. The Far Side, she called it, loving the name, the house, me.
I poured the tea. She sipped, peering at me over the rim of the cup. Grimaced. "You forgot the sugar," she reprimanded me.
"You take sugar?" I frowned.
"Oh. That's right. I only began after you… left." She hesitated on the word. "Life was bitter enough. I needed something sweet. These days I can't touch a cup without a couple of spoonfuls." She glanced down into the mug, swirled its dark contents, looked up and smiled. "I thought you'd disappear. I thought you were a dream and I had to keep my eyes on you, like with a leprechaun. I used to dream of you so much. Sometimes they'd be nice dreams, memories of you as you were. Other times you'd be a monster-you'd creep out of the shadows and maul me."
"Which do you think I am now?"
"I don't know." Her eyes betrayed her fears and hopes. "When I saw you, so real, so vivid, I thought you must be a nightmare. You were always more substantial in the dark dreams. Now, seeing you walking, whistling, brewing the tea… Martin, what happened? Where have you been? Why stay away for so long? Why come back now, without a-"
"Dee. Stop." I knelt and tipped two spoons of sugar into her cup. "No questions. Later, yes. Not now. I've got to hear your story first. Ican't remember all this. A lot has come back but much is still dark. You told me your name is Dee but I have no memory of that. If you'd said Sandra, Lynda or Mary, I wouldn't have known any different. I know we were married but I don't know when. I know we loved each other but I don't know why or how it ended. I want you to tell me who I am, who I was, what I did, what I was like, how I lived. How I disappeared."
"OK. But not until you tell me where you've been. I don't have to know any more right now. But that much I need."
I thought about it. "A year ago, I got off a train in a city and went to live with a man who said he was my uncle. I joined his business." I chose my words carefully. She might know more than she was letting on, but I didn't think so. And if she didn't know abo
ut The Cardinal and my education in the ways of crime and death, so much the better. "I've been there ever since. I can remember everything from that day but nothing before. Little," I amended. "For a long while, I didn't know anything was wrong. When I realized I was missing a past, I found an old train ticket and followed it here. That's all I can tell you. For now."
"Amnesia?" she asked.
"I think so. Delusion too. I'm not sure who I was here, but I'm pretty certain Martin Robinson bore little in common with Capac Raimi, the man I was in the city. Was I a bad man, Dee? Was I involved in shady deals?"
"No!" She was startled. "God, no. Nothing like that."
"You're sure?"
"Certain." She began rocking gently, composing herself. It always helped her think better if she was rocking. "You weren't born in this house but you grew up here. This was the family home, the Robinson castle. Your parents treated you like a young prince, but they reared you to be polite and compassionate. You were a cute kid.
"You're eight months older than me but we were in the same classes at school and our parents were good friends. You used to make fun of my hair and clothes-my mother had terrible taste, buying outfits you wouldn't put on a doll-while I'd mock your buckteeth."
"I had buckteeth?" Not remembering my childhood, I had assumed I'd always looked this way. It hadn't crossed my mind that I must have changed dramatically over the years, like anybody else.
"Not really," she said. "A bit protuberant, but you were very self-conscious. A few Bugs Bunny jokes usually had you in tears. We went through that preteen phase where we wanted nothing to do with each other. I hung out with the girls, you with the boys. We hardly saw each other for three or four years. At fourteen we discovered each other again and were soon going steady. We got engaged when we were seventeen."
She shrugged and rocked a little faster. "Crazy, I guess, but we were in love and wanted to prove it would last forever. At least we didn't rush off and marry. We agreed to wait until after college. We were going to different colleges and you told me years later that you expected us to split within a couple of months. That's why you proposed-you didn't think you'd actually have to go through with it."