Your Still Beating Heart

by Tyler Keevil

  You smoke as you walk – puffing and exhaling, puffing and exhaling – and hold your phone in the other hand, the screen illuminated, keeping it raised and following it like a water diviner sussing out a well. Halfway down the drive a single bar of signal begins to flicker on and off, and a little further along it solidifies, stays steady on the screen.

  The phone is a simple clamshell model. You only have two numbers saved in the address book: Mario’s, and the number you’ve been given to call. You highlight it, and the phone on the other end rings twice before somebody answers. They don’t say anything. They simply answer. You can hear them breathing. You tell them that you have made the exchange, and are at the inn. The person doesn’t give any sign that they’re satisfied, but you assume they are. They begin speaking. They tell you that in the morning you will leave the inn at seven-thirty a.m. and drive straight to the border, to be there by precisely eight o’clock. The left-hand lane. It must be the left. The voice is male, flat, toneless. You suspect it’s the man – Pavel – who was playing the harpsichord, but you can’t be sure. Reception isn’t good.

  ‘What about the boy?’ you ask.

  The boy will be put in the boot, you’re told. Make sure he can breathe. Tilt the back seats forward, an inch or two. They give access to the boot. The boy must live. Once you are over the border you are to call again – this same number – and they will tell you where to take him. At that point you will receive your payment in full and your job will be done.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There will be no problems.’

  ‘No.’

  The call is ended. You stand for a time holding the phone, smoking, considering. Then you do something that you haven’t been told to do, but you haven’t been told not to do, either. You call Mario. His phone rings several times before he answers. When he does, he sounds tense, anxious, asking immediately if everything is all right. You assure him it’s fine. You have made the exchange.

  ‘Ah, my snow queen,’ he says. ‘I knew I could count on you.’

  But he is still waiting, expectant. You have called him, after all. To broach it, you explain that you’re concerned: the people you gave the suitcase to did not seem happy. They threw things at you. Screamed at you in outrage. You’re not sure why. And your passenger: it’s this little boy. Only six or seven years old. What could they possibly need this boy for? You ask the question rhetorically, as if it’s just occurred to you. As if you’re thinking aloud, perhaps a bit rattled by the experience of picking him up.

  There is a pause. Just enough to suggest this information is startling, even for Mario – that the job involves a boy. Then he tells you not to say any more, even though you’re not talking. That he shouldn’t even know this. That the boy is not his concern, and not yours either. Just do what they ask. No questions. It is better that way. Trust him. You will get paid, he will get paid, and they will all be happy. ‘Of course,’ you assure him, and casually explain that it just seemed strange, how the people were so upset. It’s no big deal, though.

  ‘A boy is no different to an adult,’ he says, ‘no different to any other package.’

  ‘It’s all the same to me.’

  ‘You will still deliver him?’

  ‘What else would I do?’

  After you hang up, you tuck the phone in your pocket. Look up for the first time. The sky is a sprawling mass of black, against which the stars stand out starkly, in swirling clusters. You stare at the array, trying to make sense of them. Thinking of constellations, the star chart you had on your wall as a child. Chalk lines depicting creatures, heroes, goddesses. But those are just human fancies, images conceived to provide some meaning, and comfort. As simple as children’s dot-to-dot drawings. Tonight, you can’t make out a single constellation, not even the Plough. Up there, as down here, chaos is the rule. A void filled with futility. Chance encounters. Easy deaths.

  You walk back slowly, thinking, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. You are moving more cautiously now, catfooted, feeling your way in the dark. Aware of the danger that is looming, threatening, omnipresent as the stars.

  Halfway to the house, you realise you are walking towards somebody, or somebody is walking towards you. A shadowy shape, coming closer – bold, and making no attempt to be discreet. You stop, stand ready. Feel the furious crescendo of your heart. But as the figure draws near you can see a face, lit up by the glow of a phone. The man in the suit. Looking down, composing a text as he walks. He nearly stumbles right into you.

  He glances up, feigns fright: he was aware of you all along. He asks, gallantly, if you made your phone call, and you tell him you did. He jokes about texting his wife – to reassure her he is not doing precisely what he is doing. But the life of a salesman is lonely, and his wife uninterested. So what can he do? This with an innocent shrug. Then he pats at his pockets, in a way that reminds you of Mario – an affected gesture – and asks if you have a cigarette. You wonder if he timed his walk for this reason. You reach in your pocket for your pack of Smarts, and in doing so feel a rustling. Gogol’s papers. After you slide out a cigarette, light it for the man, you withdraw the two papers as well.

  On impulse, you ask the man if he reads Ukrainian. He jokes that he is Ukrainian, so he should hope so. You hold out the formal-looking document, ask him what it means. Squinting through smoke, he peers at it by the light of his phone screen. It is some kind of medical form, he tells you. A report or something, such as you’d get after a check-up.

  You point to the circled portion, and he says it denotes blood type. Then, curious about your curiosity, he asks where you got it. Just something you found, you tell him, taking it back. You thought it might be important, but apparently not. He smiles, blows smoke – a long thin plume that billows up and out, like a steam whistle, screaming silently.

  ‘Not unless you need a blood donor,’ he says, and chuckles. ‘Or an organ transplant.’

  You fold it up, wish him luck with his wife. He laughs heartily, as if you’ve made an excellent joke, and continues weaving his way down the lane, while you carry on towards the farmhouse. As you mount the steps, you keep your head down, but have that same feeling of being observed, shrewdly, from the side. Just an instinctual awareness, on the periphery. But you don’t look to check, try not to show any tells. Instead, you perform, play your part: rubbing your forearms vigorously to give the appearance of being concerned solely with being cold. Pretending you don’t know they’re watching. Pretending it’s all going according to plan.

  In your fist you are clenching the medical form, so tightly that your fingers ache.

  the crossing

  Three miles from the border, when the crossing and fences and guardhouses are still out of sight, you spot a disused side road, sheltered by a thicket of larch trees, and turn on to it. This morning, in the cold of the hotel room, after you’d dressed Gogol in his clothes that had been washed and dried by the innkeeper, you sat with him and tried to explain what was happening. Now, in the car, you go over it again, telling him in calm and patient tones that you have to put him in the boot. He sits with one leg – his bad leg – jittering anxiously, and looks at you, his expression baffled but trusting.

  You open your door, motion for him stay in his seat. ‘Just for a minute,’ you say. Your shoes crunch on the frozen ground as you make your way round to the boot. You pop the latch and it swings up forcibly. You look inside. Clean and spacious, with room enough both for a duffel bag and a boy, it could have been just right. But it’s not. Unfortunately, the Octavia doesn’t have access to the boot via the backseats, like some vehicles. Like the Corsa – which they’d originally and deliberately instructed you to book. This presents a problem when it comes to air, and oxygen, for anybody hidden in the boot.

  Your problem. You were the one who switched rental cars.

  If you simply close the boot with him inside, he could suffocate. This so seemingly obvious, but it hadn’t occurred to y
ou till last night, lying on the bedroom floor, thinking through the steps ahead. And as you listened to Gogol breathing softly in the darkness, you had stomach-churning visions of him asphyxiating – a slow, quiet, stifling death. You’ve heard about something like it: a girl, playing in a car park, manages to lock herself in the boot of the family car. The parents, coming out, driving about frantically, desperately, searching everywhere, and not realising that their daughter is in the back. Until it is far, far too late. Like Tod’s death, like so many everyday tragedies, this is both unimaginable, and all too easy to imagine.

  It frustrated you that you didn’t foresee this when you switched the vehicles, but you’ve adapted. Before leaving the inn you asked the owner if she had a nail, and though it took precious time to get around the language barrier, she provided one. You’ve brought it with you, couldn’t risk anybody at the inn seeing what you’re about to do. You get on your knees and use the nail, and a fist-sized rock, to punch small holes through the back panel, evenly spaced, above the number plate. It’s surprisingly easy: like puncturing a tin can. This damage will no doubt be noticed by the car company, and will no doubt look suspicious. Still. It’s all you could think to do. A necessity. Only now, you’re wondering if it will be enough. How many holes will he need to breathe? How much oxygen to power a boy’s small lungs?

  You choose to make seven. Seven seems enough.

  You quickly walk around to Gogol’s door and open it for him, granting him exit, then lead him back to the boot. You point to your duffel bag, tell him that he must get in beside it. He doesn’t understand, and instead reaches for your bag, assuming you have asked him to pick it up. You have to shake your head, no. Finally, you mime the act of clambering into the boot, awkward and clumsy, clown-like. You swing one leg in, then the other, and crouch golem-like inside. You point at Gogol, tap his chest, articulate the words for emphasis: You. Inside.

  He nods vigorously, eagerly – not only understanding, but pleased to be playing this game. You get out and he climbs in beside your duffel bag.

  When Gogol lies back, he looks fantastically small: he doesn’t have to crouch, or curl up, or bend his knees to fit in the boot. He can simply rest there peaceably with his hands on his belly, like a contented sprite. A goblin-boy. He smiles up at you, and you put a finger to your lips, gently pat his head, tell him it won’t take long.

  And you shut the boot, sealing it like a coffin.

  Then it’s time to move, fast. You get behind the wheel, put the Škoda in gear, drive right at the speed limit the last three miles to the border. Eyes focused only on the clock, the dash, the road as it slides beneath the wheels and the border crossing rolls towards you. It’s just before eight o’clock. You are right on time, right on schedule. The same border that you crossed over. But it looks different, from this side. Or perhaps you are different. No longer indifferent. The guardhouses look more threatening, menacing. The queues longer. They weren’t this long on the crossing yesterday. You steer into the left lane, as you’ve been instructed to do. It’s four or five cars deep, which doesn’t seem a problem. But then you sit there, and sit there.

  At the front of the queue is a large van of some sort, or small lorry. The guard talks to the driver for several minutes – too long for a typical exchange. Something is wrong. You feel it. If this guard is part of their scheme (as you suspect, due to your specific instructions), maybe he’s trying to cover his tracks, create a defence in advance. Show that he’s being extra meticulous this morning, not lackadaisical at all.

  Or else, the plan has gone awry. He’s the wrong guard. Not their guard.

  Now he’s walking around to the back of the lorry, calling over a comrade. Both of them dressed in the same blue uniforms, with rifles slung over their shoulders. At their request, the driver climbs down from his cab to join them, opens the big back doors. A brief, cursory check: boxes of vegetables, and tinned food. No people. No illicit cargo.

  All this is taking time. And you are thinking of Gogol, locked back there. You worry that you have not punctured enough holes, or large enough holes. You worry that he will rustle around, kick your duffel bag, somehow block the makeshift air vents. You worry that the carbon monoxide leaking up while you sit stationary will poison him, kill him. You turn off the engine, to listen. You hear nothing. You are tempted to call out, but don’t want to encourage him to make noise. You can do nothing. Except extend your will – willing him to be fine, willing him to be breathing: in, out, in, out. Those little precious breaths, like the fluttering of a moth’s wings.

  Time extends, elasticises. Until finally, you crack. Twist around, thump the backrest of the seats in the rear. Using your fist, hitting it twice. Thump-thump. Wait. Again. Like a paramedic using a defibrillator, seeking to jolt out a response, some sign of life. Faintly, you think you hear a reply. A muted echo from the boot. Subtle as a pulse, or a heartbeat. But enough to reassure you.

  Then the queue is moving again, the lorry driver having passed. After that delay the next three cars are cleared in reasonably quick succession. Then it’s your turn. It isn’t the same guard as the day before, of course. This one is portly, blackhaired, with a carefully groomed moustache. You hand over your passport, explain you were on a brief visit to the area, to explore your ancestral roots. Maintaining that plausible lie. He considers your photo carefully, then your car. At first you think he’s looking at the dent on the hood – where the rock struck – but it’s something else. He asks you where you rented the car. The question seems charged. Of course. The arrangements were for you to be in a particular vehicle.

  Another thing you didn’t foresee.

  You tell him, casually, that you rented it at the airport in Prague. Mention that the company had to upgrade you, due to stock limitations. He looks at you, hard, but nods at this credible and straightforward explanation. He presses your passport to the scanner, and stamps it. The whole process only takes two or three minutes.

  ‘Welcome back to the Slovak Republic,’ he says.

  And then you are driving, as fast as possible without drawing attention to yourself. Fleeing from the border, past those empty fields, dilapidated fences, barren trees. A lone wind-torn scarecrow who is guarding nothing, and has been for some time. As soon as you’re out of view of the border you pull over at the road side, slam on your brakes. You’re breathing heavily, feeling the heat – the burning heat – of dread, in your face, your throat. A tingling in your hands. Out of the car, and around to the back. Fumbling for keys. Opening the boot.

  And Gogol is revealed, lying still, his eyes closed, his arms folded. As if in a casket, for a viewing before burial. His hair sweaty, plastered to his scalp. A sheen of colour in his cheeks. Still and motionless. Clearly dead. Clearly gone.

  A terrifying moment in which you’re sure you have failed.

  Until his eyes flutter open, squint up at you. To him, from his low vantage point, you must look like a shadow, an outline against the stark quartz sky. You don’t wait for him to crawl out, but reach in, scoop him up – this act so easy, so natural. He puts his arms around your neck. His skin is incredibly hot, and you can feel the slickness of sweat on his forearms. You pull him out of the boot and he’s like a duckling emerging from his egg, being born into the harshness of the world: into the wind and the cold and the noise and the light and the emptiness. And with only you for protection, against the elements. Against everything.

  a change of plans

  Time has changed again. Since yesterday time has only meant sticking to their schedule, getting to your waypoints and destinations. Staying on track. Time has been useful, but not valuable. Now it is. Now, time is vital, critical, not only valuable but invaluable. You don’t just hear the clock ticking but feel each precious second, reverberating through your body, pounding in your head, pulsing in your limbs, your hands, your fingertips tapping the steering wheel. Time is life. Yours, and Gogol’s. And if you waste it, squander it, you may run out of time completely. The moment in a board
game when the sand-timer finishes: time’s up.

  It’s hard to say precisely when you made the decision. In a way it wasn’t a decision at all, but a realisation, a dawning awareness. You suspect why they want Gogol, what they intend to do with him. And that suspicion is enough. To alter course, to change the plans. To disobey them.

  You have considered all the angles – at least, all the angles you can see. You could have chosen not to cross the border. You could have gone east, the other direction. But if you were being watched at the inn (as you felt you were) this might have been reported. Or it certainly would have been reported when you failed to appear at the border. You would have been pursued, probably. And caught. Likely. You have little knowledge of Ukraine. Your ignorance would have hurt you. They would have got Gogol anyway. No, you had to return to the EU. At the border you could have confessed to the guards, told them everything, tried to save Gogol that way. But clearly at least one of the guards is working for them. One has been bought, or blackmailed, or coerced. No. The border was not safe.

  In Prague, you are convinced, you will find a way. A way home.

  It won’t be easy. Measures have to be taken, and risks. Risks that may or may not pay off. But you can hedge your bets. And the car journey will give you time to think, to adapt. For now, they still believe everything is going according to plan. You’ve made your pick-up, stayed at the inn, crossed back over. They’ll be expecting you to call, soon. To find out where to meet them. That’s the next step. And for as long as possible, it’s important for them to think it’s all going ahead. If they continue to expect your arrival, you’ll have an advantage. Once they find out, that will change things.

  Once they find out, they will be tracking you, hunting you, seeking to kill you.