they say the owl was a baker's daughter: four existential noirs

by KUBOA

  I seethed the expression, said This gentleman is lying and I do not understand what is happening or why any of what you’re telling me has brought him into my home.

  This calmed everything.

  Everything stopped.

  The first officer approached, taking me into the main room, moved me to the sofa and told me it would be better if I sat, considering my condition.

  I sat.

  -Did you steal the key to your neighbor’s bedroom?

  -No.

  He knelt, parental, and though he wasn’t touching me I felt the weight of his hand, the molesting warm of it on the top of my legs in grips and pats.

  Certain elements of the narrative we’ve had delivered to us this morning seem consistent with evidence we’ve come in contact with both in your apartment and the neighboring apartment.

  I covered my eyes, absurd, but I did, literally like a three-year-old first learning they could instigate a peek-a-boo.

  He paused.

  I listened to him breathe.

  -Is there anything you’d like to say to that?

  I moved my hand from my face, clasped it to my other, let these limp over on one of my knees.

  ***

  Again, I was left to myself on the sofa. Someone had turned the volume on the television down, but hadn’t shut the thing off. Some advertisement I knew the tune to, knew the idiot dialogue to, showed—tick tick tick tick image image longer image longer image image image I supplied the sounds quietly along behind my face.

  By this point—and well before this point I sniffed, affirming the truth of the interjection—it was futile to ask anyone to leave, to make them leave. They’d just come back. Or other officers would. Or the man would just smoke a cigarette downstairs, come back up.

  My apartment had become wholly irrelevant, as had my participation. They were going to unlock that room in thirteen, there was nothing I could do about it.

  I whissed some thoughts about arguing with them the legality of such a thing, some rhetorical construction about how it would be tantamount to being able to break and enter by simply saying I think my stuff is in that house—anyone could steal into anyone’s life if they were liars, could pout their faces concerned.

  Anyway, they’d probably point out that the door had been found unlocked, that their initial investigation had led one thing to the next to the next to the next, that they wouldn’t just have gone into the apartment on someone’s say so.

  Even pointlessly, in ancillary degrees, this was my fault, the very construction of the situation. I could’ve locked a door, could’ve refused to open mine. None of it would’ve mattered.

  I wondered about Ginette, vaguely. Didn’t care. Just blinked a few times in silence, wondered the name and nothing about it.

  ***

  They exited the bedroom, an air to them of having agreed to something—I’d barely been able to hear anything except for the sips of Ss, the few coughs or throats clears for whatever emphasis.

  I made no gestures of argument when it was explained that I was to remain in my apartment, that one of the officers—they didn’t make any indication of which at that moment but I assumed it would be the second officer—was going to stay in with me, the other would accompany the man to thirteen while we waited for someone who could remove the lock without causing damage to arrive.

  I tried to understand if this had import, if it seemed more like they thought there would be a dead body in there or less like it because they weren’t going to break down the door, pay some bill for it later or something.

  I didn’t understand why it wasn’t just being assumed that the missing person had the key with them, but also didn’t ask, didn’t want to hear the answer they would be able to give, simply, hear and know how obvious it was, face that I’d failed to arrive at it myself.

  I abandoned everything, wasn’t even waiting.

  As they were turning to go, I cleared my throat, directly faced the man with the sack for an eye who had just stood, bearing himself down on me, his shoulders leaned to the wall.

  -Why did she put those locks on her door?

  I regretted the question, felt the weight of myself, offal, when he answered, a sadness even in the inhuman wheeze of his voice, She’s afraid.

  In that moment, the officer and the man leaving, I felt the movement of what was myself, like a coin I’d swallowed, knew I couldn’t bear this man to whom I was so obvious, so infantile, ever knowing he was correct. He left my apartment as I understood I was regarding him as a corpse, nothing more to me than that—everything else was nothing, he was a corpse and I was a thing that hated him, too late for it to matter.

  ***

  I’d just stood up again when my telephone rang, the beeping tones of the ringer muted from the handset being on my desk chair, face down. I frowned, didn’t want to pick it up, let it go to the machine, listened to my voice explaining I wasn’t at home, to the line shutting dead.

  I breathed out my nose, felt it on my wrist as I squeezed my hands, cupped around each other, in front of me, almost touching against one of my cheeks.

  I asked the officer I’d been left with—the first officer, the fact I’d been wrong actually making me happy—what it was they thought they were going to find in that room if they hadn’t found anything in my apartment.

  He said that he didn’t quite understand the question, but I couldn’t think of a way to rephrase it, didn’t want to just repeat it, thought that would be miserable to endure, his saying I heard you, but I said I didn’t understand. It was as though I kept making myself the imbecile to everyone. I began to wonder what I’d actually said, if I couldn’t even recognize this from that.

  -Has anyone heard from Ginette? I asked, the officer looking up from having just started to return his attention to his thoughts, his milling glances.

  -Nobody has heard from Ginette.

  There was something to his face, I didn’t sense the hostility I had before, but was wary because a moment before he hadn’t understood a simple question—I’d no idea what he thought I meant by what I’d said, if he was even following me.

  -Why hasn’t that man gotten hold of her? I said, just to see the reaction.

  -He’s tried.

  We stopped looking at each other, returned to how we’d been away.

  There was no bottom to anything. Or there was no fall. Just the endless prolong of impact.

  ***

  While the officer made a telephone call, I walked back over to the sofa, didn’t care to play with what I could make out of his half of the conversation, wanted alone with my thoughts, but didn’t want to seem hiding.

  The police thought they’d find Ginette in that room. The man knew they’d find Dimitri. I knew they’d find Dimitri. I knew someone would find Ginette elsewhere, someday, sometime, completely irrelevant and by then connected to nobody.

  I didn’t understand what it even mattered to the man with the sack for an eye. He just wanted me caught. It was strange, I didn’t even think he wanted me dead, just caught, punished. That was the only way it could be, because otherwise he could’ve slaughtered me anytime he wanted, today, tomorrow, ten years from now.

  There was such an ugly cling to thoughts and ideas that meant nothing, we just humped at each other, waited to hear something, see what sound came from our barking into the empty air.

  Maybe he just couldn’t reach Ginette, I sighed, not even able to keep list of what I was thinking about, driving at.

  The police didn’t seem like they thought they’d find dead anyone in that room.

  He knew they’d find Dimitri.

  I knew they’d find Dimitri.

  Then what would happen?

  I’d be arrested, at least. I’d have to make some statement.

  How would it look if I gave the actual narrative of what had happened, revealed the man as a liar?

  It would be irrel
evant. He was everything I was not—had done everything I’d thought about doing and hadn’t—and so it was irrelevant, the consistency shifted, his lies were fine, mine outrageous, my truth perverse, his reasonable, even somewhat admirable. We’d done the same thing, behaved when there was no reason at all to behave.

  ***

  -I was in apartment thirteen, tonight, I said.

  Immediately I wondered why, felt myself go light headed, lost sensation in my hands, my head titling, eyes glazed to the ceiling in a spot, soiling it almost.

  -When were you in the apartment? the officer asked, changing his posture, I think trying to find a way to leave the kitchen, approach me without me moving out of his line of sight.

  -I held up my hand to stop him, said The key to that room might still be in the sink, there, in the drain. I don’t know if it is, but I put it there.

  The officer now eyed me, like he was almost dismayed by this—he seemed hurt, but I could also have no idea what he seemed like.

  I listened to him move his fingers around, a hollow scrape of the key—a toe scraping cement, drawing blood, the grind felt in your ears, at the pit of your mouth.

  -When were you in the apartment? he asked, again, and I answered him that I didn’t know what time, during the night, the early morning.

  While I said this he was taking out his telephone, hit a button, said just a few words, quietly, closed the thing and ducked it back in his pocket.

  A signal to his partner who’d would come in from thirteen, the other man left alone in there.

  -What’s that man’s name? I asked, knowing I was beginning to grin, felt myself licking the undersides of my top teeth. I repeated the question, the officer still not answering, his head moving slightly like he wanted to glance behind him, a quick flit to the apartment door, but felt I’d think it a weakness.

  I sat down on the sofa, curled forward, covered my head in my arms, breathed through my clogged nose against the tight of my pant fabric over my knee, closed my eyes but they stung and so I opened them.

  ***

  The was a cake of sunlight through some space in the curtains to the carpet, it lasted a moment, two, I was glad when it was gone, when I could tell from the tone to the shade that replaced it the morning was remaining dominantly overcast, hardly different than the night, just the spread of the sun a stain somewhere behind clouds instead of the weight of the moon a dull sag.

  Even though I was not showing any sign of moving, felt no intention of moving, the officer was not approaching me. I only noted him peripherally, he asking me if I still felt ill at one point, at another point if I had used the key, if I had taken anything.

  I made gestures, mumbled, none of it seeming disconcerting, aggravating to the man.

  He just kept to the kitchen.

  It must’ve been ten minutes from when he’d called his partner, I couldn’t think why the other officer hadn’t joined him. It seemed the officer was unsure of how to proceed left alone, edgy.

  The content of the call, I supposed, could’ve been He’s starting to talk, let me have a few minutes.

  It could’ve been, except the officer wasn’t talking, wasn’t trying to get me to talk.

  It didn’t make sense.

  There was nothing suspicious to them about the man with the sack for an eye, there’d be no hesitation in leaving him alone.

  My stomach began to unspool. I stiffened but didn’t straighten up.

  There also wouldn’t have been cause for the officer not to mention something to the man, offhand, after the call, either freely or as unguarded response to What’s going on? The man might even have intuited what I was doing, pinned me down, saw what was happening in me before I even realized it, have foreseen my confession, but had no choice but to go along with being segregated, writhing in the confinement of our separation, wondering if I’d go through with it.

  Something he could never allow.

  The officer in my apartment seemed alone, nervous, covering it in gauze of quiet, of inappropriate nonchalance.

  ***

  I stood, didn’t feel that it’d be difficult but the compression in me refused to slacken, I kind of wheeled in the direction of the kitchen, caught myself on the outside of the counter, lifted my chin, neck outstretched but not raised, knew how feverish I’d appear, purple enough to seem grey. My mouth dried out, my throat, my words creaking with a quality of wet chalk on painted walls.

  -I killed Dimitri.

  It came out a whisper, so I repeated it on purpose as whisper, this coming cleaner, louder out of me that the first attempt to declare it.

  The officer looked at me, his features altering from the set they’d been taking of concern—likely he’d been about to insist on helping me to the toilet. He withdrew a step, his hands automaton to his sidearm.

  -Please, you have to take me out of here, I whispered, beseeching the way a feeble dog would growl desperate to back someone away. Please, I killed Dimitri. Dimitri is in that room.

  He was taking his telephone from his pocket and I waved fingers at ends of hands hardly able to raise from flimsy wrists begging No no no no no don’t tell him. Please, you have to take me out of here, downstairs, take me out of here.

  Not because I’d said so—my voice a trudge through wrong letters, breaths where there shouldn’t be—he held off on dialing.

  -I pointed to the wall repeating the words That man. That man that man that man that man, I said. I don’t think your partner’s safe in there, I don’t think he’s safe.

  It was anguish. Nothing I said had reference, there was no explaining myself, the air turned molting hair.

  I could hear the knife the sack eyed man had pulled from a kitchen drawer, slit the officers throat with.

  I had my hands up, little child asking his shirt to be pulled off, mouthed Please please, turned my back to the kitchen, moving my mouth to myself.

  ***

  The handcuffs, though heavy, didn’t seem to clasp firm to me—even when I gave timid tests at them, found they pinched and that I couldn’t budge my hands from each other, they felt pretend somehow.

  The officer moved to stand in front of me, touched my face, my eyes recoiling from his if they happened to lock, darting every way as though they were a man drowning, gnashing for someplace to breathe. He touched my face, held me fast, told me that I was under arrest and I nodded, shivering whimpering I know I know I know I know each time making it twenty syllables long, trying to fit the words Thank you into it, likely sounding like nothing.

  I heard the apartment door open and wailed, the sound stuffing in me from congestion, from cramp in my lungs.

  The other officer approached, alone. I hyperventilated, was left to flap, twist, squirm, need out. I couldn’t get my bearings, couldn’t calm myself, just wanted to be inside of a locked car, away from this place, knew that I was in danger, that I’d waited too long, was exposed to whatever the man in thirteen wanted to do.

  He could already be in the corridor, brandishing something, could’ve closeted himself in the elevator, waiting to stick me when I was brought there.

  -What did you tell him? I asked, not getting a reply. We have to leave right now, I blubbered, broken, tensed all of my body like I was tugging against restraints.

  I felt giddy when I was finally moved toward the door, helpless, felt intoxicated beyond the pain of any of it.

  I counted how many opportunities the man still had to kill me in the space from the door to the police car, felt them crawling over each other, lurking behind each other, slobbering over each other, groping, fingers inside each other, knew I’d started to drool, felt it cold then warm as it got in through my shirt front.

  ***

  Only a short distance along the corridor, I could tell that one of the two officers had turned back in the direction of the apartments.

  Over my sniffling to clear enough room to breathe and the shudder of my feet drag
ged along the carpet roughing up along my body, I could hear the officer telling the man to stay in the apartment.

  I looked at the shins of my pants and the tops of my shoes, found they had new wets of vomit on them, tried to get my chin in toward my chest enough to see if I’d made a mess all down myself, tried to see was the officer dirtied, but my eyes just up down up down up down started looking at the carpet, looking at the carpet, looking at the carpet, at the change when there was a light fixture and when there wasn’t.

  I gagged, sounds of dry heaving, pulled ahead like an impatient mule on a lead when the officer still escorting me stopped, probably looking back to see what was happening.

  It took a moment for my progress toward the elevator to be allowed again, by this time the voices from outside thirteen had intensified, shouts to calm the man down and odd tangles of things likes words, high pitched out of the man, old steam from a locked kettle.

  The officer with me, now holding me very sharply—my body thrashing, but not at all under my control, just wanting in the elevator, not wanting away—hit the summon button while flailing down the length of the corridor came peals of the man croaking, senseless calls of the name Dimitri, meaningless sips of train whistle and wet gravel, opera song sunk in an ocean bed.

  I turned my head, impossible not to, screamed for him to shut up, a demand, something said from a position of superiority, a squeal that he should shut up, concede that there was nothing left, and finally this collapsed into an incoherent screesh of I’m Sorry and I don’t care and Leave me alone.

  ***

  The elevator, inside, smelled of day old drying rainwater, wet paper, worms, the perfume of the last woman to ride it.

  The officer at first pinned me to the wall, stabbing at the button to close the door, but I quickly realized this was only because I was still panting, struggling. As soon as I went limp, he completely released me and I flopped against the warm of the closed door, top of my head to it, the toe of one shoe tip straight into the ground, the other foot skewed out funny.

  I spit a few times, little tiffs of mostly nothing, one last spasm of my stomach that amounted to a schoolgirl belch, went to my knees, fully sat, crumpled over onto my side.