by Lucy Wadham
When at last she spoke, her voice was a little slurred.
Tell me where he is, Txema.
I don’t know where he is, Lola, and even if I did I would not tell you. For your sake. Wait for him. He’ll come to you when he’s ready.
Lola stared at Txema for what felt like a long time. He sustained her stare. At last she stood up. She edged past the pinball machine and walked a little unsteadily out of the café.
FIFTEEN
Kader watched Astrid sipping her coffee. They were seated at a small, square table, overlooking the motorway that ran underneath the restaurant like a deadly river. She was not speaking and Kader was becoming uneasy. His mind was on a useless loop. All he could think was: This is you, Kader. This is you. This woman needs you. Since her eyes had filled with tears, he had been aware that he had suddenly become someone to her. He knew that she expected something of him, knew that he was ready but he didn’t know what for. He was charged with a grand energy. He felt like a warrior about to go into battle.
He had driven for two hours while she worked. He had listened to her speaking into a pocket-sized tape recorder. He thought she must be practising for some kind of a speech but when he had tried to ask, she had held up her hand and he had not pushed it because he was so happy there at the wheel of this tank with its V6 engine, her there beside him, doing her work. He could hardly contain his joy: he drove and she worked.
But she had not said a word and Kader could not for the life of him think of what to say to her. He wanted to ask why the thought of the Réal Madrid defender had suddenly made her so sad but he knew this was a stupid question.
He could feel something sticky under his elbows. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
I hate that, he said. I worked in a McDonald’s once and I always made sure my cloth was clean. He nodded at the table. My cloth for wiping the tables. It’s a minimum.
Astrid put down her coffee cup. Her face was flushed and her eyes were shining. She seemed to be waiting for more.
When I was a kid, he said, I used to go to this motorway bridge with my mates. We’d hang our bare arses over the rail and try and make people crash.
Astrid stared at him as though from a long way off.
You look sick, he said. If you want to throw up, you should. You’ll feel better afterwards.
I’m fine. I’m fine.
You look terrible.
She seemed to be taking him in suddenly. He folded his arms in readiness.
Did you pay for the coffee? she asked him.
No, you did. She was withdrawing again: something happened around the eyes. Listen, Astrid, he said suddenly. My name’s not Karl. It’s Kader.
Why did you say it was Karl then?
He shrugged, then made a sweeping motion.
Karl, he said. I don’t know. I just like it. Kaaaal, he said, dispelling all other names with the back of his hand. Don’t you like it?
No.
What would you suggest? I want to change my name.
Carlos, she said.
Kader stared at her, then he looked down at the traffic disappearing beneath their feet. He let the idea settle on him.
No, he said, shaking his finger. It’s no good. It’s not serious. What will I do with a name like Carlos when I’m an old man? Be sensible.
Most of us outgrow our names, she said.
Karl’s better, he said.
Karl’s a Nazi name, she said.
That’s why I like it. It feels like stealing something from an enemy, like a trophy.
Stick to Kader, she said. Think of your mother.
Astrid was amused to hear herself being drawn into this fatuous exchange.
Do you have kids? he asked her.
The question caught her off guard. She looked into her empty cup.
No.
Why not?
I’ve just never wanted them enough, I suppose.
You don’t have to want them, he said. Plenty of people have kids without wanting them. You get attached to them once they’re there.
You don’t strike me as an unwanted child.
He looked pleased.
I’m my mum’s prince, he said, slapping his chest with the gesture that was already familiar to her. I had a dog. His name was El Niño. It’s Spanish.
I know.
It means the kid.
It also means the Christ child, baby Jesus.
No!
It’s true.
Kader grinned.
Cool. A Muslim with a dog called Jesus.
She looked at her watch. It was ten past four. She saw Mikel standing beneath that ridiculous bandstand. She still saw his young man’s face and his young man’s body. Neither existed any longer.
She stood up.
Let’s go, she said.
Where? he said, rising to his feet.
She faced him. For some reason he was clutching her handbag under his arm. She could not remember having given it to him. It occurred to her that to the outside world she could be his mother. She held out her hand for the bag. He gave it back to her.
Want me to drive?
She shook her head.
Oh come on.
Give me the keys, Kader.
He looked truly disappointed as he took the keys from the pocket of his tracksuit. He was a child.
Why do white girls go out with Arab boys?
I don’t know.
To get their handbags back.
He raised his eyebrows at her, his face full of encouragement.
She began to smile but some demon stole it away.
She turned and walked back over the motorway to the doors of the restaurant, Kader loping beside her. He held the swing door for her.
Where are we going? he asked.
At the top of the stairs she stopped.
I’m going to Spain. I think you should go to Marseille. Have you got family there?
Nope.
No one?
No.
Then why Marseille?
I knew someone who went there to look for work and he never came back. He must have liked it there. It’s full of Arabs, not just in the suburbs but in the centre of town. He paused looking about him as though for help. I don’t know. The weather, the football, the beaches.
Astrid stared at him. His face stripped of mirth was entirely different. He stared back at her. She saw that his left eye was paler than the right. There was a pink scar across the bridge of his nose where she could still see the stitch marks and an older cut high up on his forehead.
Don’t look at my scars, he said, covering his forehead with his hand.
How did you get them?
I box.
That’s not a boxing scar. None of them are.
Just let me come with you, he said. They stepped out into the fading heat of the afternoon. Please. She looked at him. There it was, the child again. You can work while I drive, he said. His face was slowly lighting up.
Astrid began to walk faster, eager to hide her face from him. She did not want him to see that she had already given in.
Are you sure you’ve got a licence?
Fuck off. Course I have. Give us the keys.
The car park backed on to a field of rape in full bloom. The smell was sickeningly human and reminded her of early autopsies.
No, she said, turning her back on him as she opened the car door. Get in. I’ve got a long way to go and I don’t like driving at night.
She could feel Kader’s excitement as he turned and walked with his fake nonchalance round to the passenger door.
The traffic on the motorway had thinned. Kader sat beside her, tapping out a fast, elaborate rhythm on the dashboard. Astrid drove with her arm resting on the open window. She had decided not to question her need for his presence.
What made you leave home? she asked him. I presume you still live at home.
Kader turned away from her and stared out of his window. He sucked on his teeth by way of reply. The Arab women
in prison had made the same sound when they were annoyed. It was the sound of their mouths holding back words of abuse they might regret.
You’ve got air conditioning, he said, facing her.
I know.
Why don’t you use it then?
I don’t like it.
Why not?
It dries up the mucus in my nose and throat.
That’s disgusting.
Kader hawked, wound down his window and spat a neat glob of his mucus into the hard shoulder.
Why don’t you let me drive? I know you’d rather work than make polite conversation with me. Anyway, I don’t like polite conversation.
Astrid glanced at him. He was restless and his long body, folded into the seat, looked redundant.
The sun was beginning to burn her arm. She wound up the window. They were still half an hour from Tours and at least seven hours from the Spanish border. Even if she wanted to, it would be too late to meet Mikel now. He would soon settle into his despair.
Astrid indicated and pulled over onto the hard shoulder.
Kader opened the door before she had come to a halt. He glanced at her, then sprang out and jogged around the bonnet. She moved across to the passenger seat, pulling her dress over her knees, but Kader was not looking. He was adjusting the seat and the mirror, then gripping the wheel, his arms straight, like a child in a carousel waiting for motion.
Thanks, he said without looking at her.
She guessed how hard gratitude must be for him. She began to work, speaking into her tape recorder: Since the late sixties death has been defined as the disappearance of brain function rather than as the cessation of heartbeat and respiration.
She played back what she had recorded.
What are you grinning about? she asked him.
Your accent.
You should hear yours.
What are you talking about? I don’t have an accent.
She turned on her recorder. Until recently the greatest single source of heart-beating cadavers has been the car crash.
You can’t say that.
She stopped the tape recorder.
Why not?
‘The greatest single source’.
Why not?
He lifted his hands from the steering wheel and dropped them again.
I don’t know. It sounds bad.
She paused. He was working his jaw and she could see the muscles moving beneath the skin of his neck.
She held the recorder in front of her mouth. Most brain deaths are today the result of brain haemorrhage, the increase of which has compensated for the reduction of road accidents.
She clicked off the machine.
There.
You look a bit like my mum you know, he told her. There’s something around the eyes, he said. He turned back to the road. Look in my Adidas bag. My wallet’s in there. Get it out. There’s a photo of her. He nodded at her. Go on. Have a look.
Astrid reached into the back and found his wallet. In the plastic window was a photograph of a woman in a sugar-pink headscarf. Out of the pale, fleshy face two black eyes shone infinite sadness and mercy. The picture reminded her of the lithograph of the Madonna that had hung above her and Lola’s bed as children. The chest open like a cabinet to reveal the flaming heart had always scared her. Perhaps, she thought, this was the origin of her dislike of heart surgeons.
Isn’t she beautiful? Kader was saying.
Astrid looked at him. She looked again at the photo. Under the flash of the photo booth the woman’s moon face glowed with perspiration.
She looks even lovelier with her head uncovered, Kader explained. She always wears the hadjib to go out. She’s not a religious fanatic or anything, she just feels naked without it. Do you know the story of the headscarf? It’s from the Koran. It’s not about covering women up and shutting them away like French people say it is. I’ll tell you. There was this young woman, very beautiful, out getting water or something, I can’t remember exactly but anyway, she was raped. When she came home her father put a beautiful cloth over her head, to show that she was still a princess, that the rape could not take that away. It was a mark of respect. Do you see?
Astrid nodded. His innocence made her unable to object.
She folded the wallet and put it back into his bag. Then she turned on her tape recorder.
There is life so long as a circulation of oxygenated blood is maintained to live vital centres in the brainstem.
She turned off the recorder. They passed a vast, convex field of wheat, still uncut, the late sun setting alight the dust haze that floated above it. In the centre was a miniature wood, a small concession to wildlife. She suddenly longed to see the grand oak forests around her village.
I dream of a simple life with you, Astrid. I want to build you a house.
Kader was looking at her.
Are you OK?
She turned on the tape recorder and kept talking: Departure of consciousness, however, may be said to be bilateral, irreversible damage to the paramedian tegmental areas of the mesencephalon and rostral pons.
Then the phone rang. Her heart leapt. But it was not Lola.
Astrid.
Years of sorrow were contained in her name. She wanted to hang up but an old idea of sin stopped her. His voice was deeper than she remembered.
Lola’s looking for you, she told him. She went to your mother’s.
There was a long pause. She could hear him breathing. She closed her eyes, swallowed, opened her mouth to speak but could not make a sound.
Where are you, Astrid?
His voice was shaking.
Astrid clenched her teeth. Her fist ached from gripping the phone.
Astrid. Please come. I need you.
She could hear: the outside world was too big for him. He was terrified.
Please, he said.
Cool air seemed to be rushing through her head. She was calm.
I can’t. Call Lola. I’m going to hang up.
No! His voice was hoarse.
She hung up.
SIXTEEN
Mikel Angel Otegui had no plan. He stood outside the call box, eavesdropping on the woman who had stepped in after him. She was discussing a trip to a DIY superstore called Conforama, planned for the next morning. She would pick up the dry cleaning and the mussels first. She did not want to barbecue the mussels, she wanted to cook them à la marinière and Mikel agreed with her. Her husband wanted sardines but she didn’t because she said they stunk the place out. Not if he lights a barbecue, Mikel thought, and cleans it properly afterwards. And sardines were local. He thought the husband was right. The woman was now looking at him through the scratched glass of the phone box. Her face took on an indignant expression and she turned her back on him. Mikel moved on. The woman had an overshot upper lip which he found appealing and he imagined that it must have been this that had conquered her husband all those years ago.
Mikel walked across the square to the port and sat down, letting his legs dangle over the water. The light was dying but he could make out a shoal of dogfish, their noses nudging the slick dark surface. He watched the shapes they made, letting his mind empty. As the light faded and turned blue, a breeze rose and set the rigging slatting. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the breeze, laden with salt, and listened to the clatter of the rigging and the lapping of the water against the walls of the dock. A dog barked. There, he thought, was a plan. He would find a dog, then he would find a job that would be acceptable to the dog. If the job were tolerable to a dog, who did not like confinement, then it would be tolerable to him. Mikel’s heart swelled and he smiled at the thought of this old dog that would be his companion. A moped without a silencer ripped through the scene and he opened his eyes.
He found that the world had turned in the interim. The light was no longer blue but grey. The clatter of the rigging was deafening to him now and the fish seemed to be fighting each other for an invisible prey. He thought of the noise of the canteen, the peculiar hostility
in the air when the men were around food, how it had offended him, how he would take his tray to some empty corner in an attempt to find peace. But there was none.
Peace. He sought peace. His fellow prisoners soon understood this about him and distrusted him for it. To his former colleagues, it actually made him a dangerous man, to some a man who should be eliminated. Mikel knew that his pacifism had begun to roll off him like a bad smell in prison. He knew that everything about him – the way he walked, the way he ate, the way he spoke and the books that he read – was observed and noted by the organisation. At times the scrutiny had made him afraid. Even after he was moved and there was not a single liberado in his wing, he could feel them at his back and he had to summon all his strength to dissimulate his fear. Now he knew that the fear was part of a much deeper fear of the outside world. As time went by, the fear of his release grew. At night he would dream that he would be let out to discover that no one could see or hear him. He no longer existed.
His letters to Astrid were the means he had found to stave off this fear. He did not write them for her rare and hesitant replies. He did not depend on reciprocity. It was simply that her reading of his letters was proof that he existed. Without this idea, of her in the outside world, reading his letters, he could not be sure of anything.
Mikel stood up and shook out his legs. He was stiff these days, in the hips. The thought of his bodily disintegration made him smile. It was a kind of revenge. The organisation believed in eternal youth. The endless flow of young recruits encouraged this belief. The old did not die; they became Histories. Mikel could have acceded to this high honour. By rights he was an Historic. He had all the credentials; he had joined under Franco, in the days when every Basque had a place in their heart for ETA, he had assassinated state representatives, he had trained young commandos, been tortured by the Guardia Civil and spent twenty years in prison. But even when he had belonged, he had never been interested in any honours they might confer upon him, nor in holding any authority over his comrades. Now he wanted nothing to do with any of them. Inside he had been told that they had thought of him for the Refugee Committee. Quite apart from anything else, he no longer knew or cared who ‘they’ were. All the people he had joined up with were either dead or had settled comfortably into ordinary life after the amnesty. Some had taken up mainstream politics but only one, his old friend Txema, had any real power.