Property of Blood

by Magdalen Nabb

  ‘The migraines began when he was fifteen. The pain was so terrible it filled the whole house, weighed like lead in every room so that I could barely breathe. I wanted to comfort him, do something to help, but he would beg me in the faintest whisper, “Just leave me alone in the dark …” I had to sit in the dark myself, outside the just open door, so that no crack of light could disturb him. Caterina hated it because she felt neglected. She couldn’t understand, a child of ten, that her brother didn’t lie there still as death because he was sleeping but because of a pain so terrible he couldn’t move. When it was over it left no trace and he never talked about it.

  ‘There was such a stillness about him, such an unfathomable intensity, and, every so often, a bubbling up of thoughts and dreams or of stored merriment. He would suddenly burst out into astonishing imitations of the teachers in his Liceo Artistico, especially the local artisans who came in to teach their skills—casting, printing, and so on—with their loud Florentine dialect and scathing jokes. And I suppose much of the astonishment came from the contrast with his habitual silence. How he made me laugh! You must think I’m crazy, unbalanced after my terrible experience, though your face gives nothing away, because I tell you of dreadful experiences with a calm smile and now I’m telling you of joyful things and I—I can’t—I’m sorry. It’ll stop now. I’m sorry. I’ve missed him so much… Oh dear, this dreadful noise I make because I’m still afraid to cry, although the plasters are gone. I’m not crazy, I promise you… Thank you. Just a sip and I’ll be all right.

  ‘They used to change the plasters once a week—Woodcutter did that. Thank God it was always him. He told me it was once a week. I didn’t count in days and weeks, only in seconds and minutes, dripping slowly in time to my thoughts… Each time he came to change them, tugging gently twice on my chain so I would know who it was, I’d hope for news, developments, another newspaper article, anything. Well, I got what I wished for and I will never wish for anything again as long as I live, I swear to God. I knew that morning that something was wrong. When I was still sitting in the doorway of the tent with my breakfast tray—only bread and water that day, but I didn’t mind. The air was damp with impending rain and all the sweet smells of new grass and spring flowers were accentuated. There had often been rows before, though I could never hear or understand well enough to know what they were about. Perhaps their shifts, the food, their boredom and nervousness about how long this was going on. After all, they probably wanted to get back to their lives as much as I did to mine. I couldn’t follow their arguments but, like a small child, I was immediately aware of tension, a quarrel among the “grown-ups” which would often result in some unreasonable punishment for me. As I sat with my tray, raised voices penetrated the waves of my undersea world and I tensed up, careful not to turn or lift my head because sweat had loosened the plasters across my nose and they might think I was trying to look at them. I had only felt this edginess before on Sundays when there were so many hunters’ guns going off around us and the risk of discovery was at its greatest. Because of my blocked ears, the shots reached me as a far-distant plaff but they were hearing them sharp, clear, and near so it was bound to get on their nerves.

  ‘It wasn’t Sunday. It was the day for changing my plasters and that was never done on Sunday but on one of the two days a week when hunting was forbidden. And yet, something was very wrong. Woodcutter himself was rough with me, ripping the tray from my hands and ordering me in an angry whisper near my face to get inside and be quick about it.

  'I crawled into the tent and pulled in my chain.

  “‘Are you going to do my plasters?”

  ‘He didn’t answer and I heard the zip swish down, a fast, angry movement.

  ‘Trying to appease him, my only ally, I said, “You should change them. They’re coming loose over my nose. I promise you I haven’t touched them, it’s just sweat, and I haven’t tried to lift my head and look—”

  “‘Shut up!”

  “‘Please don’t be angry with me. You said I should tell you, for my own good, if they—”

  “‘Shut up.” He began ripping the plasters off himself instead of letting me do it slowly so it wouldn’t hurt. He tore some hair out by the roots near my temple and I cried out. I sensed his arm lift as though to hit me and I cringed. The plasters were off and he threw a newspaper onto the sleeping-bag, telling me to read it. My heart pounded as I saw Caterina. Caterina in dark glasses. She never wore sunglasses, she hated them, and I imagined her beautiful brown eyes, wide and childlike, ruined now with tears. And Leo, Leo in his old ski jumper, turning to look over his shoulder at me, the same as last time. Only this time I must force myself to keep control of my emotions and read about what was happening. Woodcutter wouldn’t leave my eyes unbandaged for long. I began to read. Stopped. Started again, unable to understand. I was stumbling, tripping over the words that danced around on the page so that I could make no sense of them.

  “‘Have you got the message?” yelled the agitated Woodcutter into my face. “They don’t want you back, your fancy educated rich children, do you hear me? They’ve decided to keep the money and do without you—well, it’s what would happen in the long run, isn’t it, so what’s the odds? This is the result of those stupid farts taking you instead of your greedy bitch of a daughter—you’d have paid up, wouldn’t you? Mothers do. You can never risk taking a woman like you without even a husband who wants her back. A husband, even if he’d prefer to keep the cash and set up with his mistress, would be ashamed to do it so publicly!” He flung the newspaper at me. “That’s what you’ve been bringing up all these years. Like the Florentines are always saying—the trouble with having children is you don’t know what sort of people you’re letting into the house. Well, you do know now. Your children want you dead!”

  ‘I sat staring at the paper and felt my stomach turning colder and colder, a coldness that spread upwards. When it reached my head I passed out, and only the pain as my stone-hard ear block hit the floor caused me to come to. I managed to grab the bedpan in time to vomit undigested bread and water into it. The sour smell of vomit mixed with the bleach and made me retch again and again but to no avail. Woodcutter took the bedpan and put it outside, closing us in again with the smell still there. He shunted close to me and, giving me the pads to hold against my eyes, said, “It’s over for you. The boss has decided. There are only a few days left to the deadline and they haven’t contacted us. If they don’t pay, or try to fob us off with less than we asked for, you’ll have to be killed.” His anger seemed less as he said this, his fingers gentie as he moulded new strips of plaster over my nose. Then he whispered, “Give me your hand.”

  “‘Why? Why?” This unnecessary cruelty was as much as I dared register and react to. ‘You never chain my hand in the daytime. Why? Please don’t! It hurts me.”

  “‘It’s for your own good. It’s so I can leave the tent flap open, get rid of this stink.”

  “‘But I promise not to move. I’ll lie in the sleeping bag. Please.”

  “‘Give me your hand.”

  “‘At least don’t do it so tight. It doesn’t need to be so tight.”

  ‘He did try it on the next link, only to pull it tight again. “It’s too slack like that. If the others see it, they’ll only tighten it even more than I do.” He snapped the padlock shut and I heard him crawl out backwards, leaving the flap unzipped.

  ‘I sat where he had left me, rigid, barely breathing, as if I could suspend life by not going on with it, keep at bay the tidal wave of grief that menaced me. My slightest move would loose the catastrophe. As long as I sat still, blind and deaf, I was safe. Movement, habitual movement, touch, would set life in motion again and I would be overwhelmed. But, perhaps because of my fainting spell, I was icy cold and was soon forced to seek the warmth of the sleeping bag. I had no choice but to take up my habitual thinking and sleeping position, the prop under my neck to relieve the pain in my ears, and let it come. An annihilating flood of despair, dro
wning me, destroying me, a litany of grief that tore at my brain and issued forth as rhythmic groans.

  ‘Caterina! Don’t let it be true. I’m trying to be strong. I want to live and I can do it but only if you stay with me. Don’t abandon me. Don’t…

  ‘And Leo, the greatest joy of my life—I fought your father and all his family who wanted you aborted rather than have a Brunamonti marry a foreigner. And I never told you because you’d say, as the young and unknowing always say, “I didn’t ask to be born.” But you did. I heard you. Hear me, Leo! Hear me, please. Don’t leave me alone in the dark …

  ‘Patrick, where are you? What’s happening?

  ‘Nobody will help me.

  ‘I was too crushed to form these words. As I said, they came out only as the rhythmic grunts and gasps of an animal in pain. I don’t know how long it went on because it continued even as I slept. I know that because somebody—I think Fox—unzipped the tent and woke me by hitting me because I was making too much noise. It must have gone on until next morning because I remember no more meals that day. The next thing I remember was breakfast again. It had rained in the night and I felt the earth and grass wet when I put down my tray. The fresh damp sunshine stroked my forehead, and I heard a bird singing. I felt very quiet. The decision had been made. I was going to die and that meant I could lay down my sword. My battle was over and I had nothing more to worry about. I could concentrate entirely on being alive. Nothing mattered except the little piece of bread softening in my mouth, the sun’s warmth, the bird’s song. My only regret was that I hadn’t known how to live like this before, giving proper value to all manifestations of life, all its griefs and problems. It wasn’t a battle you had to win but a privileged state to be savoured.

  ‘I remained calm despite the fact that my captors, especially Fox and Butcher, were in a state of extreme agitation, which they took out on me. One day, I felt for the food in my bowl and found a number of smooth metal objects. They were bullets.

  “‘Thought you might like to choose your own.”

  ‘I drew my face away, hating the acrid smell of Fox, who had spoken close to my cheek. So they were going to shoot me. They would probably do it on Sunday morning when the noise would pass unnoticed. That would be safest for them. I had accepted their killing me but, until then, I hadn’t thought about how. I waited until Woodcutter came, and when he was undoing my padlock in the morning I asked him if there wasn’t some other way.

  “‘I’ve always been so frightened of guns. Can’t you do something else to me?”

  “‘I asked the boss specially. He was against it because we can only do it on a hunting day. I persuaded him for your benefit. It’s quick and sure. You won’t suffer.”

  “‘I’ll suffer fear, horror. I don’t want to be shot like an animal.”

  “‘You won’t even see the gun. Your eyes are covered.”

  “‘But I’ll hear it. I hear the hunters, just about. I hear your voice if you’re close to me.”

  “‘You’ll not hear a thing because the bullet will be in your brain. You’ll be dead before the noise.”

  ‘I believed him but I went on protesting until he agreed to hit me a heavy blow to the head and then, when I was unconscious, to strangle or suffocate me.

  “‘It will be you? Nobody else will touch me?”

  “‘It’s bound to be me. I’m responsible for you.”

  “‘When will you do it?”

  “‘Probably the day after tomorrow.”

  “‘Will you take my bandages off first and unblock my ears so that I can see you and say goodbye to you?”

  “‘No.”

  “‘Don’t you have the courage to do it if I can see you?” I remembered how he’d called me Signora whenever I was unbandaged. Now he didn’t answer me but said roughly, “Get in the sleeping bag. I’ve got things to do.”

  ‘I zipped myself up as far as I could, and he did something he had never done before. Very gently, he tucked my arm with the chain well into the bag and zipped it up to the top for me.

  “‘It’s still raining. It’ll be a cold night.” I could feel his breath on my cheek as he spoke.

  “‘Why do you feel sorry for me? Is it because I’m going to die?”

  “‘No. Don’t think too much about that thing in the papers. They twist things. It’s all the same to us. They don’t pay, you die. But you shouldn’t believe everything that’s in that article.” He was sorry for me because my children didn’t want me. I heard him shuffle backwards out of the tent and I wanted to cry out to him to stay with me, comfort me, touch me. I could still feel his breath on my cheek, his sweet, wood-smelling breath. He was going to kill me and I wanted him. I don’t think I’ve ever desired a man so much. It was a stab of pain, a torment. I’m sorry if I’m shocking you.’

  ‘No, no…you mustn’t be afraid of that. It’s only natural.’

  ‘Do you think so? The need for comfort seemed to me to be natural enough but the desire shocked me. Perhaps it was a reaction against having to die … well, it hardly matters now, does it?

  ‘I slept just as always and the next day I found his words were still with me. How could I lose faith in my own dear children because of a newspaper article? They could have been delaying the payment because there’s a law of some sort about not paying kidnappers, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, there is.’

  ‘I remembered that—and then, maybe the bank was causing difficulties—or you had set up the article to help in some way in your investigation. After all, you rescued me. You had plans which the payment could have spoiled and so you asked for Leo’s collaboration.’

  ‘Yes. I personally asked him to collaborate … these things are very complicated. All that matters is that you’re safe. Let other people worry about the rest.’

  ‘Woodcutter was right then. It couldn’t be true. The others went on tormenting me because they must have been furious about the ransom’s not being paid but I had nothing to fear since I was to die anyway and Woodcutter had promised me that he would be the one to kill me. I wasn’t afraid to die. All that mattered to me was to die loved by those I loved. I began to think about preparing myself. I asked Woodcutter if he would also bury me. He said not. He said that all trace of the camp would have to be removed and I couldn’t be buried. He didn’t explain any further and I asked no more questions. I knew the wild boars in the woods leave no trace.

  ‘So there would be no burial. No one would cleanse my body and say a ritual goodbye to it. I decided to do this myself. I had thought so much about my life in the past weeks but never about the body which had served me well all those years. On my last day I convinced Woodcutter to bring a bowl of precious water into the tent and asked him if he had a comb. I think he understood me, and I was not disturbed by Butcher, who was on duty with him. I washed my body as best I could with swabs of rolled-up toilet paper, putting my dirty clothes back on over my damp skin. It felt odd, my skin, rough where it had always been smooth, especially on my arms and legs. My skin must be very dry and is flaking. Dehydration, I suppose. And my nails—undoubtedly long black claws—but Woodcutter had no scissors or he would have helped me. My hair was impossible to comb, being so long and, by now, badly matted. I did what I could with it but a great deal of it must already have fallen out and remained tangled with the rest so that the comb brought away thick strands and clumps of it. I gave up and smoothed it over with my wet hands. My fingers were hugely swollen. I didn’t recognize them as mine. I remembered Woodcutter taking off Patrick’s ring “for my own good.” He must have known this would happen. He wasn’t stealing it. He would have given it back to me if he hadn’t been forced to run away. I lay still then and felt my body, curious about it after so long an estrangement. I felt my breasts, my hips, my sex, and thought of them making love, giving birth, giving suck. I felt my arms and long legs, thin and flabby now, despite my little efforts at gymnastics. Still, I no longer needed muscles. I felt very peaceful and thought that dying was a grea
t deal easier than living.

  ‘After I had been fed at midday—the usual hard bread, a piece of Parmesan, and a miraculous juicy tomato which I savoured for as long as possible—Woodcutter took my tray and whispered near my face that he was leaving and would be back tomorrow at dawn with the boss. I knew what that meant. The last words he said to me were, “Go in. It’s going to rain hard.”

  ‘I could smell it. There were rumblings of thunder, too. I crawled inside, got into my sleeping bag, and pulled in my chain. I thought about Woodcutter tucking me in and zipping me up. I wished he were here to do it now. Even inside the tent the air was heavy with the approaching rain and I shivered. Both the sleeping bag and my skin seemed damp. I didn’t think about my usual things. There was no need to think anymore. For my last hours I could just be. However much I had enjoyed my precious thinking time, it was a relief. I was very tired and the pain in my ears seemed more violent than usual, though I could see no reason why it should be. Tomorrow Woodcutter would come and it would be over. I could trust him. He was responsible for me. Somebody had to be responsible for me because I was too tired…

  ‘I fell asleep. I don’t know for how long, only that the rain woke me. How hard could it be raining for me to be able to hear its whispered pattering on the roof of the tent? I extracted my arm from the sleeping bag to feel the canvas and was amazed at the vibrations. There was thunder, too, which must have been directly above me because not only could I hear it loudly, though distorted, its rattle even caused my ears to hurt more than ever. I tried to cover them with my hands but to touch those great hard lumps was agony and only made things worse. I reached upwards and felt the roof of the tent sagging under a great weight of water, which soaked through and ran down my arm the moment I touched it. How could that happen? As I scrambled out of the sleeping bag, pulling too quickly at my chain so that the pain made me gasp, I felt that the ground below the tent was awash and one side of it had come loose so that it was sagging inwards, heavy with water. I called out. Nobody answered me, and I remembered with dismay that Woodcutter wasn’t there. He had told me once that there was no need to be afraid of being left with the other two at night because once they had eaten and fed me, they setried down to play cards and drink themselves into a stupor. I called out again very loudly, remembering that my blocked ears tricked me into thinking my voice was loud when it wasn’t. Nobody came. Was anyone there? I hadn’t been fed since Woodcutter left at midday. How long had I slept? Could it be night already? Were they too drunk to hear me? I was completely disorientated and I began to panic at the thought of being trapped in the tent, drowned in it. I gave one last loud cry. If there had been anyone there I would have been punished for making half that noise. Nothing. Just more vibrations of thunder, water dripping onto me in my darkness. I searched for the zip, thinking as I found it that if it was night, not only should I have been fed, my wrist should have been chained. I opened the zip and knelt there, afraid to get out, calling for help. No one came.