Run Jane Run

by Maureen Tan

  “Tommy and I, we got real drunk one night and talked about it. About the cages, and the VC, and the guys who didn’t make it. Turned out that during the really bad times, we’d both imagined ourselves back here, playing Swamp Fox, drinking lemonade on the verandah. Thing is, neither of us ever really lost touch with reality. Maybe worrying about each other kept us coming back to those damned cages. Some of the guys, though, they just, well, escaped permanently. I remember the look . . .”

  He went silent, and the hand around mine tightened briefly.

  Some memories, I thought, were best left unvisited.

  After a minute, I felt him shrug.

  “So there I was, and there she was under the kitchen table, and I panicked. Damn it. I was maybe twenty-three years old and the only thing I’d ever done in my life was fight in ’Nam. I had no business taking care of a little girl. Especially one who’d been through what she had. But I knew if I didn’t figure out the right thing to do, she’d end up in bad trouble. So I said a prayer, and I crawled under the table with her.

  “It was about then I spotted the red pencil. I’d been balancing the checkbook the night before, and the pencil probably just rolled off the table. I don’t know why I picked it up, but I did. And then, more to have something to say than because I had a coherent plan, I said to her, ‘Maybe we should write Mommy and Daddy a letter.’ Joey looked at me with those big solemn eyes of hers and said, ‘Cain’t. Don’t have any paper. And the postman doesn’t deliver mail to heaven.’ That’s when I thought of this.”

  He turned on the torch again, shined it upward.

  “I told her that the table was magic, and Mommy and Daddy’d be able to read anything she wrote here. For the next few months, she wrote a lot of letters. I wrote a few myself. Even years later, I’d occasionally find her here. She’d grin up at me, say ‘Just visiting,’ and invite me to join her.”

  He let go of my hand, gave me the torch.

  Mostly to please him, I aimed the light randomly at one message, then another. I quickly found myself engrossed in a little girl’s feelings, a little girl’s thoughts.

  ‘I miss you. Why’d you have to go and die like that?’

  ‘I hate Alex. He made me eat spinach.’

  ‘Will Santa Claus still know what I want for Christ mas?’

  ‘I punched Bobby Simms because he said Alex was a pig.’

  ‘Mrs. Greene is the meanest teacher in the whole school.’

  ‘Alex says that when parakeets die, they go to heaven, too.’

  After a few minutes, Alex wrapped his fingers lightly around my wrist and guided the beam of the torch to a far corner.

  It spotlighted a sentence that was printed in bold red marker.

  I stared at it.

  Inside my head, I heard a child’s voice asking that very question. English accent. Not wistful or unhappy. Angry and aggressive.

  Just like the red letters printed on the underside of the table.

  ‘Why didn’t I die, too?’

  I yanked my hand away from Alex’s, rolled onto my side, put the torch down so its beam illuminated nothing more than the kitchen floor.

  It was long past time to get out from under the frigging table.

  “I need a cigarette.”

  I made the words a challenge, made it clear that I would fight him if he tried to stop me. Then I sat up, taking care not to bang my head.

  Alex didn’t touch me.

  “Funny,” he drawled. “Never figured you for a coward.”

  I hated him, hated his perceptions.

  “Damn you,” I said.

  But I lay back down.

  * * *

  Alex spoke quietly, his tone coaxing.

  “Why didn’t you die, too, Jane?”

  I was still angry.

  “If I could remember that, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  He repeated the question.

  Fucking cop.

  I didn’t answer him.

  The kitchen was dark.

  The linoleum was hard and cold.

  The room was silent, except for the ticking of the damned clock. It hung above the kitchen sink—a black cat with a clock for a belly and green rhinestone eyes that moved in opposition to its tail.

  I pressed my lips together tight, imagined the cat’s glittering green eyes moving back and forth, back and forth, as it marked the seconds. Childish stubbornness, but that’s how I felt.

  “Why didn’t you die, too, Jane?”

  I finally answered him just so he’d quit asking.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You remember being dragged from the car.”

  A statement, but I answered it anyway.

  “Yes.”

  “And you remember looking up at a gun.”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of gun was it?”

  No one else had ever asked me that. Why would they?

  The scene flashed to mind again.

  Olive trees. The afternoon sun hanging in a cloudless sky. Rocky dry earth beneath my knees.

  I looked up at the masked man.

  The sun outlined his figure in light, haloed his head, cast his face in shadow.

  He pointed his gun.

  I stared into its muzzle.

  I was going to die.

  The scene shifted.

  Or, rather, the way I viewed the scene shifted.

  For the first time, I looked at the gun, not the dark hole at the end of its barrel.

  Fear forgotten, I sought details of the weapon with adult expertise.

  I measured the size of the gun relative to the shooter’s hand.

  I saw a magazine-fed semiautomatic of World War II vintage and a one-piece wraparound walnut grip.

  I noticed a safety lever on the left side, convenient to a right-handed shooter’s thumb.

  “A Mauser 1934.”

  Surprise in my voice.

  Alex didn’t give me time to think about it.

  “Did the man in the mask have his finger on the trigger?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’d fired before.”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?”

  “Three times.”

  “Who did he shoot?”

  “Mama. Papa. Stavros.”

  “Then he pointed the Mauser at you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it jammed.”

  Without really thinking, I shook my head.

  “No, that’s not what happened.”

  “Why didn’t he shoot you, Jane?”

  I blurted out the answer I didn’t know I had.

  “Because the other man wouldn’t let him.”

  Alex stopped asking questions.

  Hardly daring to breathe, I considered what I said. And another piece of my childhood fell into place. I sought Alex’s hand with mine, tucked my fingers beneath his. Only then did I feel safe enough to tell him what I remembered.

  * * *

  I stared upward at the man holding the gun.

  He’d shot Papa and Mama and Stavros. Now he would shoot me.

  “Sorry, love. You weren’t supposed to be here.”

  He was interrupted by a shout.

  “No! Not the child.”

  The man sounded British, like the gunman, like my parents, like most of the people in the embassy compound.

  I turned my head toward this new voice.

  The Mercedes that made us crash was now parked on the other side of the road. The man who had just spoken stood beside it. Like the gunman, he was dressed in the rough, dark clothing of a Greek peasant and wore a stocking mask.

  The gunman kept the Mauser pointed at me.

  “You said no witnesses.”

  “She’s a child.”

  I stayed very quiet, waiting for them to decide.

  Maybe they’d forget I was there.

  My stomach hurt.

  The man with the gun shrugged, moved the gun closer to my head.

  “Childr
en listen. Children talk.”

  The second man lifted his chin in the direction of our car, then stared down at me through the ragged holes cut in the mask. His eyes were light brown flecked with yellow.

  “Those two are a political problem, something for the British to handle. And the driver? A Greek, yes. But not an important man. And not from this area. The locals will investigate, but soon they’ll be distracted by other matters. But if you kill a little girl . . . We’ll have British intelligence after us. And the bloody Greeks. You know how they are where children are concerned. Sentimental fools. They’ll be outraged. And persistent.”

  * * *

  Overhead, the kitchen lights were on.

  The digits on the microwave read 10: 30 P.M.

  The cat clock moved its glittery green eyes and swung its tail to mark the seconds.

  Alex and I sat at the table, drinking coffee.

  Back to normal, I thought. Except now I knew. That was assuming I could trust what I remembered. Once again, I wondered how much was fact and how much was imagination? How much had the nasty little drug session with Mac influenced my memory?

  Good questions. No answers. Confirmation would come when Sir William tried to kill me. Then I would really know.

  I made sure my voice was more confident when I spoke to Alex.

  “There is one thing I’m now certain of. Mac isn’t lying about Sir William’s involvement. It was him that day. The eyes were the same. Unmistakable.”

  Alex nodded, scooped sugar into his coffee, banged the spoon around inside the mug much longer than was necessary. Finally, he met my eyes and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There were two men, Jane. Sir William saved your life. Who the hell was the shooter?”

  22

  My arm cramped in the middle of the night.

  I woke to muscles caught in violent spasm, muscles locked so tight that they no longer seemed to be made of flesh. I sat up in bed, bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  Beside me, Alex was asleep.

  I hugged my right arm to me, kneading the biceps with my left hand, waiting for the spasm to pass. Eventually my muscles relaxed and knotted cords became pliable.

  Released from pain, I closed my eyes, exhaled, and continued cradling my right arm with my left. I concentrated on breathing, on relaxing, on trusting my body not to betray me again. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to move my arm. I began by wiggling my fingers, built confidence by clenching and unclenching my fist and flexing my wrist. I risked extending my arm, then straightened my elbow.

  The muscles locked up.

  I whimpered, grabbed my arm, held it close, bent my body over it.

  “Let me help,” Alex said.

  I didn’t know that I’d awakened him, hadn’t noticed him sitting up in bed. But he seemed to know what was wrong.

  He ran warm, strong fingers down my right arm, pushed my left hand away from my biceps. He massaged my arm slowly, beginning at a point just below my shoulder, ending at the elbow, increasing pressure as my arm relaxed beneath his hands.

  I let out a long sigh as the pain diminished. Then I tried to move my arm.

  Alex stopped me.

  “Stay still,” he said. “Give the muscles a chance to recover.”

  He supported my elbow with one hand as he shifted so that he was sitting with his back against the headboard.

  “Here. Lean against me. Try to sleep.”

  I did as he said, felt the warmth of his bare chest against my naked back, realized how chilled I was.

  He slid his right arm around me so that it supported the length of my arm, caught the edge of the blanket with his other hand, and pulled it up around me. He put his left arm on top of the blanket and held me that way.

  Naked, warm, and protected, I drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  I dreamt that the kitchen table stood in the midst of an olive grove. I was on hands and knees beneath it. Four chairs were pushed in around the table. Three were occupied by men who sat frozen, unmoving, unspeaking. I recognized their trouser legs and their shoes. Sir William. John. Mac.

  All around the table, the twisted trunks of the olive trees grew up from the sun-dappled earth, their twisted branches clawing at a brilliant blue sky. In the distance, birds sang. A gentle wind rustled the leaves and carried the smell of petrol to my hiding place.

  I knelt there, listening, not making a sound, ignoring the legs and feet that shared the space with me. I peered out between the tubular chrome legs of the single empty chair, looked down between the rows of trees, and watched the road.

  Two cars were there.

  The white one was off the road. It had crashed among the trees. Broken branches covered its hood, lay across the windshield. The front passenger-side door was open. And inside the car—

  Even my dream mind sheered away from what was inside.

  I looked instead at the man standing beside the car.

  He wore a mask and, though I couldn’t see it, I knew he had a gun. A Mauser 1934 with a walnut stock. He was holding a lighter to a long piece of cloth that hung from the gas tank. The cloth was streaked with furniture stain—dark walnut for the wardrobe in the guest suite, golden oak for the furniture in the bedroom.

  Flames shot up the length of the cloth.

  The man in the mask ran to the roadside. A battered black Mercedes waited there, its motor running, smoky exhaust pouring from its tailpipe. He slid in next to the driver.

  The Mercedes pulled onto the road, then roared away, leaving a cloud of dust and exhaust in its wake.

  The white car exploded.

  Thick, black smoke boiled up into the cloudless sky.

  I cowered beneath the table as chunks of metal rained all around me, crashing through the tree branches, clattering against the tabletop.

  Something warm and wet dropped onto my shoulder.

  I turned my head, watched as a blob of crimson oozed down my bare arm, tickling me on its journey to my hand.

  Where had that come from?

  I sat back on my heels, tipped my head, looked upward.

  Above me was a message scrawled in thick red liquid.

  Why didn’t you die, Jane?

  It oozed and crawled across the underside of the table, dripped onto my face, my arms, my bare legs. Huge droplets splashed the white sundress I wore and spread darkly across my skirt.

  A deep, drawling male voice spoke close to my ear.

  “Let me help.”

  Startled, I turned my head.

  Alex was there beside me, within the circle of legs and chairs. He sat with his legs folded, one of his knees touching one of mine.

  He was dressed just like Stavros.

  The bill of his chauffeur’s cap was black and shiny, his starched shirt was spotlessly white, the creases in his slacks were sharp. His boots were polished and the thin spaghetti laces were neatly tied.

  A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth.

  I was horrified to see him smoking. Hadn’t he just been released from hospital? I clearly remembered a doctor’s grim face and the words tension pneumo. I couldn’t recall what it meant.

  “I’m certain that can kill you,” I said.

  He shook his head, took a long drag, used two fingers to lift the cigarette from his lips. He smiled, offered it to me.

  I took the cigarette, inhaled deeply. Then I put it out on the ground beside me.

  “I don’t want you to die.”

  Alex shook his head, laughed.

  “Vietnam didn’t kill me. Neither did that bullet. We live and die at the whim of Atropos.”

  He pulled a knife from his belt. Marine Corps issue KA-1217. Black single blade, half a foot long.

  “Don’t you remember the Parcae?” he said. “Clotho holds the wool. Lachesis spins the thread of life. And Atropos—”

  He laid the razor edge against his leg, just above his boot, and sliced downward.

  “—cuts it.”


  * * *

  I cried out, wrenched awake.

  Woke up in Alex’s arms.

  He held me tight, called my name, told me it would be all right.

  I didn’t believe him.

  23

  Dawn came, as it inevitably does, and pushed away the horrors of the night. I turned off the alarm a full hour before it was set to ring, slipped from beneath the blankets, and left the bed where I had lain sleepless for hours.

  Alex was snoring softly into the pillows, body oriented toward the center of the bed, an arm outstretched across the blankets as if he were still holding me.

  It was absurd to stand beside the bed like a character in some silly romance, my eyes lingering over my lover’s lean cheeks and long lashes and sensuous lips. I didn’t need to watch him sleeping, didn’t want to be reminded of his passion or his kindness or his little-boy sweetness. Or of the words he’d whispered when he thought I was asleep.

  I didn’t care that he loved me.

  When this was over, I would leave Savannah. Leave him behind.

  That was easy enough to do when you were an exemplary undercover operative. Mac had once described me that way, proudly claiming me as one of his best creations.

  Given a role, I could become it.

  Given an environment, I could adapt to it.

  Given a situation, I could manipulate it.

  Then I could walk away, casting off the latest alter ego, discarding irrelevant experiences, and suppressing disruptive emotions. Like a snake shedding its skin.

  Given a few weeks to recover, I could repeat the cycle again.

  And again.

  And again.

  I’d worked in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, the States. I’d been a factory worker, a college student, a terrorist, a drug smuggler, an escaped criminal. They’d called me Molly Shanks and Morgana Keast and Moura McCarthy and so many other names I could hardly remember them.

  Mac’s exemplary undercover operative.

  Until I’d quit.

  Coming to Savannah last spring was my idea. The experiences and emotions of the past ten months didn’t belong to some alter ego conceived to serve Mac’s requirements. They belonged to Jane Nichols.

  If I ran away from her, then who the hell would be left?