Veracity

by Mark Lavorato

  There was a strange sound on the other side, like that of a scratching sigh, then a muffled crinkle, then an irregular hiss. He hadn't even touched the key, and the door latch hadn't budged. I noticed movement near my feet, and my eyes shot down, alive with attention, focusing on an unlikely shape slipping into view; it was lighter grey, angular, and passing along the piece of wood that you had to step over to get into the gangway. Paper.

  I bent over and grabbed hold of it, holding a hand out to the door lest it be shoved open while I was in a vulnerable position, and pulled the sheet into the room. Immediately, the person on the other side stood and began walking back to the upper deck with the same gentle steps that had brought him, his sounds quickly fading into the clamour of the galley.

  Interesting. I looked down at the piece of paper, squinting, the darkness of the floor bleeding into its hazy edges. The paper was fairly thick, its texture course, and I recognized it as being a ripped corner of one of the maps. Obviously, there was something written on it, but it was impossible to make anything out. (The fact that I didn't have a lantern in my room seemed to be a bit of an oversight on the sender's part.) I brought it to the window to see if the first bit of starlight would be enough to read by, varying the angle of the paper to catch the most light. I could barely see the thin grey lines at first, but after focusing on them for several minutes, I started to be able to distinguish letters, and then words. Slowly, I pieced them together. And once I did, I had to read it over and over again to make sure that I wasn't making it up.

  Sighted land at sunset. Others don't know. Will get as close as I can to let you off with the raft. Wind in your favour. Will come later tonight. Eat this note. Onni.

  I leaned against the wall, looking out the window, and the muscles in my body relaxed to a point that I felt I was floating off the ground. The air in the room was stagnant, stale, yet every breath I drew in seemed to fill me. Suddenly, there was a very real chance that I would walk on land again, that I would smell the stickiness of budding plants, that I would feel soil pressing beneath my feet, or the warmth of a rock in the sun.

  It turned out that I'd completely underestimated Onni. Smuggling in the fish alone was enough of a risk; but the risk that he was taking in helping me get off the ship was a very serious one. And though neither of us knew what would happen if he were caught, he seemed to know enough to avoid it at all cost. Which was why he had slid a note under the door instead of crouching down and mumbling the same lines through the wood; because, considering the racket they were making, the galley door could have burst open at any moment, a few people toppling over each other and spilling into the hall; and then they would have looked down the gangway and noticed him there, his face pressed up against my door; or worse, they could have seen him quickly shutting it, their smiles melting into grave comprehension. And the fact that he knew enough to avoid even the possibility of that happening meant that he understood the dangers involved, that he must have weighed them out carefully - yet had still decided to help me. With that thought, and knowing that I couldn't do much for him in return besides what he'd asked of me, I shoved the note into my mouth and started chewing, its taste bitter, the fabric of the paper stubborn, until I could swallow it down in one gummy mass.

  I paced around the room, thinking about drifting on the dark open ocean, and trying to come up with useful things to do. I thought of a few; like locating every spot on the floor that creaked when weighted, even prioritizing them from the loudest to the most quiet. And after doing this, I mapped a path between my bed and the door that was absolutely soundless, and another one to the window. Then - thinking that the lantern in the gangway would probably be out when he came to get me, and that fumbling on the stairs, or even running a hissing hand along the wall to help guide myself, could mean disaster for us both - I took to closing my eyes tightly for long periods of time, and then opening them, suddenly awake to a few more details that I wouldn't have seen before.

  But there was something about Onni's plan - that had also been a part of Knut's plan for staging a realistic escape for me - which I couldn't help but think of as a little intimidating. And that was the life raft. Because, really, it was a contraption that none of us knew the slightest thing about. Mitra had 'trained' us on the use of the raft, but really only told us what we could have figured out from the clearly labelled procedure list on the side of it. She confessed to never having deployed a raft of this kind in her life, shrugging her shoulders to begin the explanation. "I don't really know what it looks like, but it's supposed to hold 10 people and it inflates itself in an instant. The only thing you have to do is unfasten it from the ship, and then pull this red cord and - poof - you have a raft." A few of us raised our eyebrows sceptically; it wasn't an explanation that evoked a lot of confidence. But, like Mitra, we all thought the chances of having to use it were so slim that it wasn't worth the energy to think about. Yet, after having shaken my head at how dubious it all sounded, I would have to go on the faith that whoever had created it, and from whatever time, knew what they were doing. Which was a bit scary, to say the least.

  I continued to mull over the other details as well, and the more I thought of them, the more critical they seemed. Like the sound that the raft might make as it inflated itself, which made me think to swim with the bulky red bag in my hand and deploy it as far as I could from the ship. I even thought of how I would get into the water. If I jumped, the splash might be enough to stir someone from their sleep; so I decided I would lower the rope ladder and climb down it, easing into the water in complete silence.

  I also thought once more about what the land looked like on the map. I knew that the very first thing we would come to was the same spiny peninsula that I'd chosen as an ideal means of escape only a few nights before. It was both scratching the edge, and marking the beginning of the wide gulf that we would be passing through. It happened that the deeper inside this gulf that one went, the safer the points of disembarking became. So for the ship and the crew, the peninsula was useless, not even viable, but for me it was perfect. It had access to the mainland, which would give me the opportunity to continue on if I wanted to, it was so small that the ship would pass by it in the matter of hours - the shoreline probably being lost in the haze of distance by the time the morning came - and I could be sure that they wouldn't turn around to try and find me, as it was a spit of land that they wouldn't be able to access anyway. So, I imagined, it was only a matter of making it there alive. Everything else would work out wonderfully.

  The fact that Onni was the only one to have sighted the land, or even to have known about it, didn't really surprise me. Our course hadn't exactly been foremost on their minds over the days prior to that, and I'm not even sure Knut had taken any readings. Instead they were busy worrying about whether they should kill me or not, which, oddly enough, stood to be the one thing that might save me. I'm sure they had no idea that Onni had veered toward the peninsula, because they didn't really have a reason to look at the charts or worry about distances anymore; the sail worked, as did the fishing gear - we were out of danger. But as it stood, as soon as we reached land, I would be released, dropped onto some random island, free to walk away, which was something that, perhaps most of them, didn't want to see happen. No. Instead they needed time to carry out their plan, and maybe even time to convince a few others of its necessity. If anything, they wanted to stall a bit, because, as I'd already ascertained, it would have been far too obvious to do it that night. They wouldn't dare be so bold. I was sure of it.

  I listened to the noises in the galley slowly diminish, and then came the sounds of a few people wandering into their quarters to go to sleep - all of them perfectly quiet as they passed by my room - then a few more, and finally, the last of them. Doors closed, latches shut, and bunks squeaked as people found the most comfortable position to fall asleep. Then, finally, it was quiet, except for the predictable to and fro creaking of the ship, which was accompanied once in a while by Onni's movements on t
he upper deck, and someone, somewhere, snoring contently.

  I lay on my bed, wide awake, thinking about the brand new life I would be given before the night was through; amazed that it was all going to come to me without costing anyone a single thing.

  * * *

  29

  As the time passed, my mood faded, and the darkness seemed to press up closer against my face, smothering me with restlessness. The muted black had no end, no beginning, it was just empty, which, somehow, as if time needed a reference of space before it could advance, seemed to make the hours slow to a crawl.

  Finally, at one point, I noticed the circular rim of my window giving off a point of light. I walked over and saw that a sliver of moon was rising out of the ocean. Perfect, I thought to myself. Let alone was it a respite from the oppressive darkness, it would also give me the light I would need in the ideal scenario that I was still holding in my mind; the one that had me drifting away undetected, uninjured, and no one on the ship having inflicted an inkling of harm to one another. I grinned through the glass.

  After following the path of soundlessness back to my bed, I lay there for what felt like a few more hours, though might have only been a few minutes. I spent that time wondering how I could thank Onni, what I could say before slipping into the water, what momentous phrase I could whisper that would stay with him for the rest of his life. I wanted to find the right words that would let him know both how completely indebted I was to him, and the fact that I would always remember what he'd done for me, what he'd risked. And I was turning over different phrases in my head, even thinking about the intonation I would use, when it happened.

  There was a creak in the floorboards along the gangway. Just one. Then nothing. It had come from the end of the gangway that Onni wouldn't be using. I lay there, not breathing, my body stiff.

  Silence. Absolutely nothing. Just the gentle rocking of the boat, the wooden groans accompanying the oscillation of the ship's weight as it shifted on the sea. There was nothing else, no sounds haphazardly shoved between the predictable ones, nothing breaking the endless rhythm. I had imagined it. I was being foolish. Paranoid.

  I ventured a guarded breath.

  Another creak. But this time, it was much closer and just off from the rhythm of the ocean. Whoever it was, was advancing with the sounds of the ship to go undetected. I bent all of my attention at the door to listen.

  Another. Only this time, I distinctly heard two separate pieces of wood being weighted, two complaints from the aged joints in the floor as someone passed over them.

  These were my murderers, there were two of them, and they were already nearing my door.

  The truth is, I don't remember thinking much. Everything I did, the strategy that I formed, the set of tasks that slotted into my head - which I knew I would have to move through as quickly and quietly as possible - were all automatic, instinctive.

  I stepped on one of the memorized locations on the floor in front of my bed and arranged the sheets to appear something like a sleeping body - at least at a glance. And as I did this, I worked in the same noisy time intervals that my rivals were working in, with the same precision, all of us fluttering into movement with the creaking of the ship; a clatter of noises one moment, silence the next.

  I turned to look behind me and saw the latch twitch slightly. Someone had his hand on it, probably to help find the key sticking out of the lock in the dark.

  I crept through the room, stepping in all of the right places, and crouched to sit in the darkness, away from the dull light of the window, and beside one of the shelves near the door that had kept the cases. I had time enough to notice my heart thumping, and to flinch at the sound of one of my toes cracking.

  They were doing a perfect job at unlocking the door. Slowly, the mechanical parts rotated, and didn't so much click out of place, but settled there, with only miniscule dripping sounds like sprinkled water on grass. There was only one definitive click near the end, timed well with the creaks of the boat. They obviously intended on taking me by surprise. I would have been stirred out of sleep with the sensation of cold metal against my throat and a finger over my lips.

  The latch began to rotate, then stopped. The door opened in one quick swing, also timed with the creaking of the ship. A knife entered the room, followed by a body. Then the second person, hunched forward and moving in the same way. I recognized their profiles. Toivo turned to close the door as quietly as he'd opened it, while Knut continued toward the bed. They were both easing into flat-footed steps, distributing their weight evenly on the floor.

  Knut was in reaching distance of my sheets and about to touch them and discover the illusion; Toivo was lagging behind, a little apprehensively, his arm extended out to the side. It was my side; the knife was almost right in front of me.

  I stood, aware that I was in Toivo's periphery, and moved toward him. I only had to step on two of the silent spots before I reached his hand with my face. I grabbed onto the knife with one hand and onto his wrist with the other. He flinched, jerking his grip toward himself, so I had to follow his arm with my head before I could sink my teeth into his hand. I felt a joint of one of his fingers dislocate in my mouth, could taste the sharp metallic flavour of blood.

  Suddenly, the knife was in my hand. He'd let out a stifled whimpering sound when I bit him, and was now covering his mouth - which had momentarily betrayed his code of silence - with both of his hands, his good one massaging the injured. He looked at me, baffled, seeming to need time to take in what was happening. He was awestruck, useless. I grabbed him by the hair, and instead of pulling him toward me, only really succeeded in pulling myself toward him. But I adapted quickly, circling around him from behind and putting the knife to his neck, exposing it more by pulling back on his hair. He didn't resist. He was petrified.

  Knut, of course, had realized what was happening, and was waiting for an opportunity to do something about it. I didn't give him one. I turned Toivo to better face Knut and pressed the knife up tightly against his throat (a little too tightly actually, as I felt a warm liquid creep down the blade and over the handle of the knife, oozing into my fingers).

  I spoke to Knut in a whisper, though my words were quick, commanding. "Put your knife on the bed. Now."

  He didn't think about it for a second. He twisted around and tossed it onto the sheets, probably knowing that I would have ended Toivo's life without the slightest hesitation - I had nothing to lose. He turned back to look at me again, waiting for the next order. I gave it to him. "Kneel down facing the wall. Don't make a sound." I took the knife from Toivo's neck and jabbed it lightly into the back of his head, "You too." Both of them knelt as they had been told.

  I moved onto the next task, my mind still numb, still blank. Stepping forward onto one of the silent spots on the floor, I grabbed Toivo by the hair, and waited for the ship to creak. Just before it did, I brought my fist down, with the blunt handle of the knife protruding from the bottom of it, and struck him on the top of the head with a furious blow. His body went limp. I lowered it to the ground as gently as I could, wads of his hair coming out in clumps as he settled to the floor. I let go, throwing the sticky tangles to the ground beside him.

  I stepped over to Knut, who was mumbling something under his breath, and clenched his hair in my fist, raising the handle of the knife above my head. The moment the ship groaned, I brought it down on the top of his skull. But he wasn't unconscious. And suddenly, he spoke with a completely normal volume; his words, which were mumbled drunkenly, sounded like hollers in the quiet of the room. "Ow. Thah... tha hurtz." I hit him again, hard; but still, he was awake. He was beginning to moan, trying to turn his head, maybe even trying to get up, his fingernails scratching against the grain of the wood on the floor. I brought the knife down again, as hard as my body would allow. Finally, he was quiet. He had become a heavy weight in my hand, and I lowered him to the ground by his fine blonde hair, which was quickly being blackened with a runny darkness.

  I stepped
back from them with a kind of cold satisfaction, looking down at the shapes that they made heaped together on the floor, their limbs sprawling out from under them at unnatural angles, like the fallen boughs of trees.

  I turned and walked to the bed, stepping carefully in the memorized places. I put the knife that was in my hand beside the other one, a blotch of darkness from my fingers smearing onto the white sheets. But before I turned to leave, I hesitated, thinking of the noises that Knut had made. They might have woken someone. And more importantly, if that someone was awake, they could be listening carefully for movement, waiting for just one other unfamiliar sound before they roused cautiously from bed and gathered some others to investigate. And with that thought, my hand hovered above the handle of the knife for a moment more. Yes. I scooped it back into my hand and turned from the bed. Just in case.

  Across the room again, to the door. I turned the latch as quietly as Knut had, and slipped into the gangway. Closing it, I made a louder click than I would have liked. Then I waited for the ship to moan in its rhythm before I moved, doing exactly as Knut and Toivo had done: a few fast steps, then stopping, waiting, then a few more. As I passed by one of the doors, I could hear movement on the other side. I swallowed, dug my fingernails into the handle of the knife. Someone was urinating against the side of a bucket. This wasn't good.

  I crept on until I gained the stairs, easing onto them two at a time, still in keeping with the predictable flux of noise. Then I was through the hatch, on the upper deck, and in the cool breeze and brightly shadowed night.

  I looked around for Onni, but couldn't see him nor did I have time to find him; he could have been anywhere. I imagined that he was nestled in one of the dark corners, stealing a half hour of sleep - like every one of us did on night watches. It looked like my well-chosen words would have to go unsaid, which, I must admit, didn't really bother me at the time. The only thing I really cared about was getting into the water before anyone came up the stairs behind me.