by Camilla Monk
I missed her . . . I missed her so much.
We paused at a red light, side by side with an old white BX whose driver’s window was open, and inside the car I could hear the radio blaring Mort Schuman’s “Allô Papa Tango Charlie.”
His slow, depressed voice fit my current mood perfectly. I closed my eyes, mouthing the lyrics. “J’ai perdu celle que j’aimais, je ne la retrouverai jamais. Je vais noyer ma solitude dans le triangle des Bermudes.” I’ve lost the one I loved. I’ll never see her again. I’ll go drown my loneliness in the Bermuda triangle.
Whether because he noticed I was crumbling and wanted to depress me further, or simply out of boredom, March shattered my reverie with a seemingly innocuous remark that felt like a kick in the shin. “I trust you had a pleasant time with Kalahari?”
My dream plane came crashing down in flames, and I felt my ears heat up to an unbelievable temperature. Had he overheard the conversation about Kalahari’s Barefoot Contessa thing? Never in my life had a question tortured my mind more. I could feel it on the tip of my tongue, forcing its way out. I chickened out, though, like every time something touched me intimately, and I chose to divert our conversation to safer grounds. “Yes . . . I guess it was kind of them to welcome us into their apartment. It’s a nice place.”
“Yes, very typical of the French postwar architecture: bright and spacious.”
Wow. March was a master of making small talk. I bet he had a complete set of premade conversation starters encompassing a broad range of fascinating subjects such as the weather, the price of bullets these days, or how to clean your windows with newspaper to get a perfect finish . . .
Tangled in a web of confusion and frustration, I curled up in my seat and looked away, staring at the ballet of cars driving through the Place de la Concorde. “T’es vraiment un mec horrible.” You’re really a horrible guy.
He laughed. “Thank you. Why are you no longer talking to me in English?”
I went on, still in French. “Because you understand French, and I felt like it. How long did you live here anyway?”
“What makes you think I lived here?” March asked, a touch a suspicion in his voice. It was the first time I was hearing him speak French. His English accent was unmistakable, but, as I had suspected, his grasp of the language was excellent.
“Kalahari told me things . . . about you.”
His driving became more aggressive. He actually sped up when he had room to do so. “I’ve been here often, but I’ve never lived in France.”
The blocks clipped together in my brain, and the answer escaped my lips at the same time. “No, you lived in Africa.”
I couldn’t be 100 percent sure I was right, but I thought it made sense. The scarification on his back, Kalahari’s claim that she had arrived in Paris after their breakup, the fact that he understood and spoke French but claimed to have never lived in France.
“Please mind your own business in the future,” he snapped back.
Africa it was.
The car took a sharp turn along the Seine, on the Quai d’Orsay, and March deemed it necessary to complete his warning. “Listen, Island, I won’t ask what Kalahari told you while you were alone with her. I will, however, tell you this: it doesn’t change anything. I have a job to do, and I will do it.”
Before I could ask what didn’t change anything, a monstrous shock shook the car. March hadn’t seen it coming—likely because he had allowed our conversation to distract him—and I obviously hadn’t either. Needless to say I couldn’t have imagined that the second car accident of my life would happen with him. Statistically, it should have occurred in my father’s car, doing ninety miles per hour on I-84, not in March’s Mercedes, waiting at a red light like decent road users.
The vehicle came from a small one-way street on the right, crashing into our side and blocking the car. I have this memory of a huge noise and my entire body being projected to the right, with my head slamming violently against the side air bag I hadn’t even seen burst out. There was talcum powder everywhere, in my eyes and on my burning cheek, but also a dull pain in my abdomen. The seat belt had locked itself during the impact and was squeezing me tight. March’s hand pushed my head down so hard I thought he was going to break my neck. I was in a complete daze: my ears were buzzing, and when my nose crashed into my own lap I was still wondering what had just happened.
Well, what had happened is what I believe to be called an ambush—though it didn’t fully dawn on me until I heard the first gunshots. I kept my head down and shrank to the size of a lawn gnome while March tried to maneuver us out of this mess. A choir of panicked screams and wails rose in the street: around us, drivers and passengers had started scrambling out of their cars. Soon the Mercedes was surrounded by empty vehicles encasing ours in a trap.
Still dizzy, I felt March undo my seat belt and pull me toward him while he unlocked the driver’s door. A projectile slammed into the windshield with a loud noise; it would have ended its course in March’s head had it not been blocked by bulletproof glass. I glanced up at the crystal-like star now decorating the glass. God. He wasn’t seriously thinking of getting out while people were shooting at us, right?
I felt him shift next to me and peeked up again. He was removing his jacket, under which a black holster circled his shoulders. Was it the best time for stripping? I felt the navy-blue garment fall on me, strangely heavy and smelling of his clean scent and Kalahari’s perfume. Frightened, confused, I stared as he pulled out that black gun with the long suppressor and unlocked his door.
Then I heard it.
A voice, a yell in the midst of chaos, echoing between gunfire, terrified shrieks, and the distant sounds of French police sirens approaching.
“Mademoiselle Chaptal! DCRI, on vient vous aider!” Miss Chaptal! Homeland Intelligence, we’re here to rescue you!
My heart exploded in my chest as if I had scratched a goddamn winning lottery ticket. I jackknifed up, shrugging off the oversized jacket, and looked through my window to see a blue minivan and a guy standing in front of it, wearing the bright orange armband identifying a French police officer. March’s determined blue eyes met mine, and he certainly read my distrust, a reminder that he wasn’t the good guy here. He was the bad guy, and I was being given one single chance to escape him and that Board organization.
“Island, don’t! Stay here!”
A large hand clasped around my wrist, cutting the blood flow there, and I struggled against his grip, kicking him, pulling desperately at my arm. I cried out in pain as his fingers tightened, bruising the translucent skin protecting my veins, and he let go. My free hand flew to my door handle and tugged frantically. Damn thing wouldn’t open! I remembered that there was a button near the wheel commanding the door locks. Panting, I batted his hands away with all I had. At some point I dug my nails into his skin until he bled and managed to hit that damn button. When a dull sound indicated that my door was unlocked, I tried the handle again. The door opened, and I tumbled into the street, my legs reflexively kicking in response to March’s forceful attempt to grab them.
The gunfire had ceased, perhaps because the cops were waiting for their announcement to produce some sort of effect. The sirens seemed to grow closer, and I was progressively being filled by a sense of incredible hope. Later, it took me several sleepless nights of replaying the scene in my mind to understand how and why I was able to exit that car: March had hesitated. He could have stopped me in a hundred different and equally painful ways, grabbed one of my ankles again and simply broken it to incapacitate me, but the couple of seconds he spent trying to make that decision proved to be too long.
I finally managed to crawl away from the wrecked Mercedes, and I registered a flash of panic in his eyes. I didn’t give a shit; I couldn’t hear anything but the sirens calling, and at the time I assumed he was mad because of losing his paycheck and ending up caught by the police.
I saw the cops shooting at our windshield again to stop March from going after me.
I think he managed to get out anyway. I heard more gunshots and a scream behind me. My eyes darted to the left; the driver of the car that had rammed into ours had since come out and tried to fire at March as well. I barely had the time to see the shooter collapse, a stain of deep red blood rapidly spreading on his chest.
“Couvrez la!” Cover her!
It was that bald guy near the Citroën minivan who had shouted, shielding himself behind the vehicle to avoid ending up like his unfortunate colleague. A second black-haired cop wearing the same orange armband stepped out of the minivan and fired at March with what looked like a powerful automatic rifle, successfully stopping his progress toward me. I looked back to see March plunge to the ground and shield himself behind an open car door.
The strangest thing happened then. All the adrenaline pumping in my blood was still propelling my feet forward, and I didn’t stop running toward the cops, but part of me wanted to look back again to see if March was okay. Thank God I was a rational person, the type who steals toilet paper but doesn’t let inappropriate feelings for her kidnapper stand in the way of her freedom.
I blocked that thought and ran toward the voice, my arms flailing, snot running all over my nose and mouth. This had been no dream. There, standing behind the minivan and already opening the sliding door while his colleague fired again and again into the car shielding March, was the man who had called my name. A tall young man with a neatly shaven skull, a black parka, and that flashy, goddamn-beautiful orange armband.
The time it took me to cover the distance between us felt way too long, but really, the whole thing—car crash included—had probably taken less than a few minutes. Soon I was collapsing in his arms and sobbing with relief. He helped me inside the vehicle, and within seconds it was all over. We were driving fast along the Seine’s right bank, and my bizarre adventure was reaching its conclusion. No one would ever search my things again, or even threaten to tenderize me.
“Complètement conne, ma parole . . .” I swear, she’s completely retarded . . .
My head shot up.
I looked at my savior in surprise. He was sneering at his colleague’s statement, and a surge of panic washed over me, making my skin prickle.
Turned out I had been right: it was over, and quickly so. The bald man grabbed my neck, pressed my carotid, and I blacked out.
I know it was a little late for that, and maybe I deserved what I got anyway, but my last conscious thought was of March.
FOURTEEN
The Table
“Ramirez tore Rica’s red blouse open, revealing the sumptuous globes of her breasts. ‘You are mine, Rica! Love is the sentence, and my shaft is the needle!”
—Kerry-Lee Storm, The Cost of Rica
Have you seen that movie—Being John Malkovich? The one where everyone had John Malkovich’s face? My dream was kind of like that, except everybody had March’s face, and it was terribly creepy. I had sometimes dreamed of the months my mom and I had spent in Tokyo or of my stay in the hospital, but never of the accident itself. Those few minutes and the two weeks that had ensued remained a complete black hole.
At the moment, however, and for the first time in ten years, I was back in the car, driving down the Keiyo Dori with her. She was talking about where we would go next—Australia, maybe? I could see the flicker of sadness in her green eyes, concealed by a bright smile. Did she miss the man in Pretoria? Had she perhaps loved him a little?
I was trying to focus on her lips, on what she was saying, but the passersby all had March’s face, even that little dog, so it wasn’t easy. Suddenly, my mom’s head jerked a little, and she went limp. I watched in incomprehension as her hands slid off the wheel. Had she passed out? Was the blood on her shirt coming from her head? Everything went quiet save for that soft buzzing in my ears. My own voice. I was screaming so loud my throat hurt, but it was muted. I couldn’t hear myself.
The car was still moving. I had no idea how to stop it, and we were almost at the gas station. I already knew what happened next: we were going to crash into that white car, the one with an old man filling the tank. He ran away, dropping the nozzle, and everything felt fast, and slow, and inevitable. When we hit the white car, I was able to hear again—metal crashing and panicked shrieks. The heady scent of gas permeated my nostrils, and I saw the first flames rising from the rear of the white car and licking the blue hood of ours.
Everybody still had March’s face, and they were all looking in our direction, but no one was doing anything. They were certainly afraid to go near the cars, afraid that they would explode. I couldn’t move. My entire body seemed numb, and my head hurt where it had slammed against the headrest. I didn’t open my door because my hands were trembling too much, but someone else did. Another March? No . . . he was the only one who didn’t have March’s face. Well, not exactly. My savior did look a lot like all the other Marches, but he had longer hair, and he was much younger. He cut my seat belt with a small incurved knife, and I thought it was nice for a man to carry a knife around like that. How handy. He cradled me while pulling me out of the car. It almost felt like a hug, but I couldn’t hug him back. My body was sort of paralyzed, and the street, the faces around me were starting to blur into a white haze. I wondered if that man smelled like mint because it was a dream where everyone was March, or if he liked eating mints as well.
I wanted to tell him to save my mom too, that maybe she was okay, but an insistent touch on my face made my eyes flutter open, and I floated back into reality. Someone was tapping against my left cheek, and there was a soft masculine voice.
“Wakey-wakey, sweetheart.”
I squinted. Surrounding me was a blinding light that made my eyes hurt. There was a pungent smell—Listerine, maybe? I felt a little cranky; I wished I had slept some more. I didn’t freak out until I noticed I couldn’t move my arms and legs. Then I felt the particular tightening in your chest that starts when things go wrong. And, sweet Raptor Jesus, they were going extremely wrong. With a quick, frantic motion, I shifted my head right and left, trying to make out the rest of the room through the white light engulfing me. I came to realize that I was in what looked like an old white-tiled hospital room, entirely naked and secured to some sort of black leather operating table.
This mildly romantic setting wasn’t my biggest issue, though. Indeed, possibly worse was the fact that I was now staring into the rainy gray eyes of none other than holy fucking Creepy-hat.
You know how sometimes you’ve done something silly and you hear yourself squeak “oops” in your mind? I heard that then; I heard it loud and clear. As I took the time to reacquaint myself with Creepy-hat’s pale and surprisingly smooth skin, one specific moment kept playing over and over, furthering my considerable dismay. Resounding in my ears was the word March had said back in the car, the one I had refused to listen to: “Don’t.”
So, at this precise moment, the only two bricks my neurons were able to assemble were “Don’t” and “Oops.”
And I wanted to cry very much.
“Oh no, please don’t cry.”
His voice was a syrupy whisper as he took a square of gauze on a nearby metallic tray to wipe tears I hadn’t even felt roll on my temples.
I watched him through blurry eyes. He was wearing some sort of lab coat over his dark suit and white surgical gloves. My gaze lingered on his features, noticing for the first time how strange they seemed: Creepy-hat didn’t look young, yet he didn’t sport obvious wrinkles either. His face was delicate and chiseled, like there was almost no fat underneath his skin. I hated his eyes. They looked too intense, too . . . eager. I was no longer so sure how old he could be, now that I was seeing him up close. Maybe he was ageless after all, like Dorian Gray. The scar on his cheek looked less impressive than it had when I had first seen it in the glade in Pennsylvania, more shallow perhaps, and it didn’t have a different color than the rest of his pale skin.
The whole situation didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be real. My deal with March, the flight
to France, Paulie, Nick, Ilan, Kalahari. All this to end up back to square one, on the infamous table I had been spared from the day prior. Creepy-hat’s hands approached my body, and a wave of nausea contracted the muscles of my stomach as his fingers touched it feverishly. When they reached higher and traced my breasts, I convulsed, letting out a desperate wail.
He didn’t seem to care. “I want to make you feel better about all this. I’m not like March. I don’t enjoy inflicting pain.”
Hearing March’s name gave me the strength to focus. He had suggested he knew Creepy-hat, and the guy seemed to know him well enough too. “You’d better not touch me! March won’t let go of his contract that easily. If you steal his job from him, he’ll kill you!”
I had no idea if this was true, and to be honest, rational logic would have demanded March drop the issue altogether at this point, because I was probably becoming more trouble than I was worth. It’s just that making up that sort of bullshit made me feel better. I half-expected Creepy-hat to brush off my threats as nonsense, but he did worse: he laughed.
His high-pitched cackle echoed throughout the room, sending a painful shiver through my chest. I had never known I could be that funny. Once he had calmed down, he let out a contented sigh. “You’re one of the sweetest patients I’ve ever had. I’ll save a part of your liver for March, if you don’t mind. That will teach him some manners.”
The index finger of his right hand scratched his long scar nervously as he said this, and, apart from being on the verge of passing out at the prospect that my liver might somehow leave the safe haven of my abdominal cavity, I wondered if March had anything to do with this wound. Was he somehow responsible for Creepy-hat’s scar?