The Skin Room

by Morgan Fleetwood

  I opened my mouth and it just stayed open and wouldn’t close. Inside, I felt very cool, the coldest I have ever felt, as though my blood were a pool of black water at the bottom of a deep well. Then I started to make a low, moaning sound. My mantra was Sonia and I said it over and over again in my head. It was my mantra and nobody could steal it, because I knew that mantras had to be singular and unforgettable, and very fucking private.

  “Are you still there, Madame Chambers?”

  I sat with my head at an angle, like a blown-out wick. I wanted to scream out my mantra, but my voice was wrought and tangled in wire.

  You kept talking on the phone. “…There will be an internal investigation, of course.” You spoke as though to reassure me: “It would appear that the security arrangements were insufficient.”

  “In-sufficient?” I finally spoke up. “I thought the location was secret. How could they know about it?”

  “As I say, we will be conducting a special investigation. I will be in charge.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “One policeman was killed. Your cousin also. I wish to offer my sincerest condolences. I know it must come as a terrible shock. I wonder if you could meet me, just for some formalities. Would you mind?”

  “OK,” I said. “But not at the police station. It’s too depressing. Meet me in a café, or a bar. I’ll need a drink.”

  I lit up my joint and took a long puff, my thoughts slowly coagulating.

  “I’m afraid, Madame Chambers, we will need someone to come and identify the body. You are the only member of her family that we have been able to contact. Could you come down to the station tomorrow, say at 11 a.m.?”

  My blood turned even colder now: a frozen lake.

  “The body?” I asked. I was not sure I wanted to be confronted with such a thing. It was my sister, not a body.

  “Yes, it’s a horrible business, I know,” you said, “but quite important. I’m sure you understand. Can we meet tomorrow, then? Just ask for me when you arrive. Around 11 o’clock?”

  “Better make it midday,” I muttered. “I’ll have a hangover.”

  “Fine. Midday tomorrow. Goodbye.”

  I nodded but said nothing, and eventually the phone clicked dead.

  I dropped the phone, got to my feet, and walked around the room. I groaned and called after Sonia but she would not appear. I spoke to her in the mirror but nothing happened. There was no startling apparition.

  I played the music: Marlene, Marilyn, Marlene, Marilyn.

  I opened another bottle of red wine and drank it straight from the bottle and poured the rest over my head.

  I sprayed myself with Sonia’s perfume.

  I played the music loud, and sank to my knees, and wept uncontrollably.

  Tomorrow, Inspector, I would know what happened.

  5

  The mix of alcohol and drugs had an alarming effect. I was sick in my clothes at daybreak and sat at the bottom of the shower, the warm water ploughing over my head. I was sick again as I crawled out, clutching the toilet rim. After retching several times, I curled up on the bathroom tiles, unable to move, my head pounding.

  I fell asleep and woke up again at 10 a.m. By 11 o’clock, I felt half-alive. At midday, I stood with my back against a wall on rue Glesener, opposite the police station, bowing my head in the shade, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.

  My stomach felt wrung out. My head was a lump of base metal.

  I saw you park your car, a red Mercedes, on the opposite side of the street. You saw me and stopped and gave a half-hearted wave. You carried a briefcase in your hand.

  I did not respond.

  I stepped out into the sun and thought my head might crack open like one of Carlo’s nuts. For once, in Luxembourg, the sun was shining. And when it did shine, like today, the effect was nuclear.

  I tried to walk with consummate elegance across the street but heard my shoes clopping on the concrete like a horse, and all I wanted was to go home and sleep and die.

  My voice creaked, “Bonjour.” It sounded more like the squawk of a crow.

  You led me to your car, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

  “Hot weather,” you said, as you took a paper handkerchief from your pocket and dabbed your forehead.

  “Infernal,” I whispered.

  Your face was a mixture of caution and guilt. I was afraid you would try to console me with the phrases printed on cards dispatched to grieving widows. Commiserations were worthless; I didn’t want to decorate the chaos. You opened your mouth and before you said your piece I cut you short: “What do you think is the point of life, Inspector?”

  You were silent, rubbing your chin.

  “Is there any point?” I added.

  You started to smile but, maybe thinking it indelicate, reshaped to a frown.

  “I’m not the person to ask, Madame.” You looked down and avoided the glare of my hungover eyes.

  “I don’t think there is any point.” I scraped my shoe along the sidewalk.

  “Opinions differ,” you said. “Are you, by any chance, religious?”

  I shrugged, unable to think straight. I didn’t want to go ahead with the gruesome formalities. I wanted to hide out in Sonia’s flat and smoke and drink until tomorrow, or the day after, or the month after that.

  “Would you like to go for a coffee first?” you asked. “There is a café just across the road. They make a good cappuccino.”

  So, this was your attempt at counselling. You pointed to a café with a red sign at the corner of the road. It had brown windows, one blocked with cardboard, and a poster on the door advertising a Portuguese Karaoke night.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Why not?”

  I was happy to delay the inevitable, and wanted to step out of the sunlight in case my make-up started to deteriorate in the heat.

  You said, “Let’s go, then.”

  We entered the cool-aired café, and sat down. There was the smell of dry croissants and egg-filled pastries coming from behind the counter. The place was definitely Portuguese with no Italian coffee machine in sight. I doubted they could make a proper cappuccino, despite your assertion, Inspector.

  “I’ll have a café au lait,” I said. But then the thought of milk sounded unpleasant, unfeasible. “On second thoughts, just a small one. Black.”

  You nodded and stood up. “I’ll order, but first I must go to the restroom.”

  Your footsteps clacked the unwashed floor. Brown shoes, expensive. Italian, perhaps.

  You left your briefcase on a chair.

  Inspector, did you underestimate my feral curiosity? Did you think, because I was hungover and heartbroken, I had no mind to interfere?

  I reached across the table, hoisted the briefcase and untied its thick leather straps. I put my hand in and pulled out some papers: an unlucky dip.

  I found some police manuals, a file on a company named Androstar S.A., and some photos of the crime scene. I was not meant to see these images, I soon realized. Sonia’s throat was slit. Her lips were slightly parted; her body was surrounded by cat’s-eye marbles; her hands had a terrific stillness; her fingers crooked like crab’s legs; and her eyes, in close-up, looked silvery like those of dead fish on an icy stall.

  I put my hand on my stomach and bowed forwards. I swallowed and tipped my head back. The sickness climbed in me again. I needed, I needed…

  I pushed away the photos in disgust. As I did so, the pages of the company file spread out on the table. The minutes of the Board Meeting of Androstar S.A. for June 2010. Perhaps it was not surprising that you held this material; after all, you were investigating the company run by Carlo Riccio. Presumably that was why you were keeping Sonia. I lowered my hand into your briefcase and kept looking for more information, more evidence, more truth. My fingers touched something sleek and cold—your cell phone with its black edges. I looked over toward the door of the men’s room to check on your whereabouts: no
sign of you. I quickly thumbed through the text messages sent and received. The last message, two days ago, was to the person registered as C123. I studied its contents. It was a series of numbers, hard to decipher. I took a green biro from my purse and wrote the code on a red napkin, rushing my hand. I was no code-breaker, but I knew it had to mean something. Then I thought of another angle, a smarter move. I pressed the green button to redial the number. There was a soft purring sound as the phone began to ring at the other end. I heard a flush of water in the restroom. Then the door started to open.

  Pick up, pick up…

  There was a scuffling sound on the telephone. A man’s voice, thin and waspish, spoke up: “Hello–?”

  My heart stopped beating. I hit the red button to kill the conversation. I tossed the papers, photos and cell phone back into your briefcase, and looked up to see your hand, arm and torso emerging through the restroom door. I was sure you had not seen me. I tried to look casual, closed my eyes, and hummed a jazzy tune.

  I was safe. And yet I was not safe. There could be no total safety. Not now. I had recognized the voice—Carlo’s two-syllable “Hello.”

  You walked straight past me, strolled to the bar and ordered an espresso and a cappuccino.

  Did I eye you differently? Did you walk stooped? Bent?

  A minute later, you came over and sat down, pushing my small coffee cup across the table.

  “I think I’m going to be sick again,” I said.

  “Don’t drink it then.”

  “It’s not that.” I looked up. “It’s the thought of what you … I mean, they did to her.”

  “They were afraid she was going to talk.”

  “To testify,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Will there be a post-mortem?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I want to see the results.”

  You looked startled. “The results? I doubt we shall learn anything new.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It seems quite clear cut. Carlo’s men got in there and killed the guard and … slit her throat.”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “You saw that?”

  I coughed. “In my mind’s eye.”

  You leaned back on your chair and folded your arms. Your eyes were green with dark slits, the gaze of a pensive crocodile. “We seem to have underestimated the danger.” You leaned forwards and your smile creased your cheeks, etching sudden lines beneath your eyes. Your porridge-colored hair was combed to one side, with care, one could even say, with vanity. “If there is anything we can do. Anything at all.”

  “Tell me the name of the doctor conducting the post-mortem.”

  You frowned, leaned back, and moved your hand toward the straps of your briefcase. Your hand seemed to pause in mid-air. I had not had time to tie up those straps. You seemed to hesitate for a second, then shrugged briefly, and lifted up the bag. Did you suspect foul play? Hard to say. You pulled out a piece of paper but seemed unable to focus on the text. You squinted and sighed. “Sorry.” You lifted your glasses from your breast pocket and put them on. “There now, that’s better.” You said: “Dr. Schergen.”

  “The address?”

  You closed the file. “He’s in the book.”

  We left the café and stepped out into the atomic light. The sun razorbladed my eyes. You walked to your red Mercedes and I followed, a few steps behind, wondering if I was capable of violence again, so soon. I levelled a caustic gaze at the back of your neck and conjured up some ugly scenes in my head—a smack to the back of your neck with an iron rod, another smart blow to smash in your face. But I had no iron rod, and I was dressed in drag: unarmed, unable.

  My fingers curled, uncurled. I had to think of a way…

  “Please, take a seat,” you said, opening the car door.

  I crept into the passenger seat while you went round to the driver’s side and stepped in. You flicked the key in the ignition and the engine throbbed effortlessly.

  “Nice car,” I said. “A police vehicle?”

  You smiled. “My own.”

  I frowned, remembering suddenly where we were going.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Not far. Kirchberg.”

  A short drive, then, through the European Institutions district where my father used to work. It seemed like another lifetime, a sane one. We crossed the red bridge, cruised between the office towers, past the modern abstract buildings and the concert hall with its white-tubed walls. I hated the drive. I hated driving anywhere. With you.

  I had to make funeral arrangements, you said.

  I had to contact the other relatives, you said.

  I had to do lots of things. And I hated all of them.

  The morgue was located next to the hospital. We parked the car and took the elevator down two floors. I walked by your side and scanned the reception area as we passed the cream-colored walls, silver chairs and arrowed signs. I was looking for something I might use to attack you, and yet, at the same time, I knew that I would not harm you, not now, not in this way. At the back of my mind, a plan was already hatching, one darker and more complex than mere violence. The obscure fantasies were beginning again. The urges. I had half a mind to go to the front desk of the hospital and ask to be admitted and treated for psychopathy.

  We entered a long room with steel doors. I smelled the concentrated odors of bleach and disinfectant.

  You stopped and turned to wash your hands at a washstand. You nodded your head to indicate that I should do the same.

  “I’m not going to touch anything,” I said.

  “Even so,” you shrugged.

  In fact, I was glad. My palms were sweaty and I used plenty of liquid soap and a dash of disinfectant, squelching it between my red-nailed fingers.

  “You have large hands,” you said. Your voice was quite calm, as though you were making an observation, not an accusation.

  My face turned rigid. I did not want to catch your eye. “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  You shrugged, turned away, and dried your hands on a few paper towels which you then jettisoned into the trash. “Nothing,” you said.

  You strode away through the steel doors, a shrinking figure.

  I would have to be on my guard.

  How convincing was my appearance? I stood up tall and checked my make-up in my tiny pocket mirror: my skin looked too beige and my eyes looked too male. I rearranged the wig, did what I could, but I sensed I was playing a losing game.

  Two men accompanied us, both wearing white coats. To me they seemed like angels guiding us into another dimension, not Heaven, certainly, and not Hell either, a kind of purgatory, perhaps. The waiting room of lost souls.

  Our footsteps tapped across the marble, sounding echoes.

  I tried to walk in feminine strides, carefree, but inside I felt a nervous sickness swelling in my stomach. The thought of seeing my dead sister drove me crazy.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said, halting.

  You approached and pressed a heavy hand on my shoulder. Even though I despised your grip, your fucking proximity, I was in my zone, already plotting my revenge.

  “We can take it slow,” you said. “Take a deep breath.”

  I did, several deep breaths. I felt dizzy and down.

  “Perhaps the sooner we get this over with, the better,” I said.

  You nodded.

  We reached the middle of a white-walled room and one of the angels bowed his head in reverence and opened the slot. There was the smooth sound of gliding metal as he slid back the body-length tray with the covered corpse.

  “Ready now?” you said.

  I nodded, though I wanted to vomit.

  The man flicked back the cloth from the dead face of Sonia. Her skin was grayed to a concrete color, bloodless. Her arms were white and wafer-thin, showing blue traces that could have been bruises or injection marks. Her hair, too, had lost some of its pigmentation; the bright blonde locks had faded to a slush
y yellow. I saw the open slit of her throat where the skin looked charred and green. I felt the knife-wound in my flank, now burning in a kind of silent symmetry.

  “Sonia Melville?” you asked.

  I nodded but was unable to speak. The tears came again. And this time they really spilled down my cheeks.

  6

  I spent the next few days wrapped up in a nightmare.

  Finding it hard to cope in Sonia’s absence, I hung out in her flat, drank and smoked, sorted through her clothes, lifted them to my nose and sniffed them for her body scent, picked up and toyed with her trinkets. The debris of my sister’s life lay all around me. I listened to her music, the hard rock and electro-punk albums I’d never liked. I kept the curtains closed and switched on the lamps. Didn’t want to see the daylight. I stayed indoors and crept around in the furtive manner of some nocturnal animal.

  I thought about you, Inspector, about your motives and your links. That code was still a mystery to me. No matter how much I stared at the sequence of numbers their significance would not be revealed. I scrunched up the red napkin and tossed it into a dusty angle between fridge and oven. It halted among curls of hair, garlic peel, and drops of olive oil.

  Sonia’s funeral? A nightmare, too. It was too risky to invite my father. I felt a prick of remorse as I recalled abandoning him in Catania. Maybe he’d found an even better way to live in my absence: content, at ease. Who could say? I had to organize my dead sister’s funeral on my own and then not show up for fear of being singled out as a wanted man. I stood just outside the force field of proceedings and leaned against the cemetery wall in Merl, watching the mourners come and stand and shiver and pray and shuffle off again under September rain.

  They thought it strange to see so few people.

  They thought it strange that my father and I were not there.

  They thought it strange.

  I got the urn, after the show. Sonia’s cash paid for everything. Money in return for flames and ashes. I admit I had a funny way of looking at things. It must have been the stress or the heartbreak or the generalized feeling of disintegration. I was coming unstuck like an envelope in the rain.