Harrowing (26 page)

Romeo was towering over me. An aura of ethereal white light surrounded his entire being, illuminating him like a mystical creation in spite of his tacky T-shirt and dusty jeans. I thought he’d died and turned into an angel. He held something out to me.

“Look, Mami,” he whispered. “Water. I’ve found water.”

The blue-tinted plastic bottle glinted in the air before me, shimmered and shone like a miasma, a mirage, an illusory heat-wave. I wanted to reach for it, but I was scared it would turn out to be just a hallucination.

“This is a mirage,” I said.

Romeo shook his head.

“No, Mami. It’s water. I found it in a corner.”

I tried to pull myself up high enough to glance into the corners, but I had no strength left.

“Are there...” My voice was merely a croak, my throat harsh and dry as sandpaper. “Are there any more?”

Romeo squinted.

“I dunno, Mami,” he said. “But I didn’t find any more.”

I rolled over a bit, so I could pry the bottle from his hands. I grasped it in my fists. Twisted the cap. I peered inside and sniffed it.

It was water. Pure, sweet, crystalline water.

Water that could quench my raging thirst. Water that could grant me one more minute of life. Water that could save me.

I stuffed the neck of the bottle in its entirety into my mouth, greedily, and tilted myself backwards, ready to guzzle down the entire load in one swallow.

Water. I’d never wanted. Desired. Needed. Anything more in my whole, entire life.

Except Romeo.

I wanted Romeo more than anything.

I glanced at Romeo. His skin was dull and sagging, like that of an old man. His eyes were sunken into their sockets and the veins stuck out on the backs of his hands.

Romeo was dying.

I longed more than anything to tilt that paltry little drop into my mouth and swallow it.

I
needed
to drink it. I
had
to
have it.

The need was so primal, so basic, so bestial and irrational. I
had to
drink.

If I didn’t, I would die.

But if I drank it, Romeo would die.

I looked at Romeo.

He had brought the water to me, his mami, instead of gulping it down when he’d found it.

He
had the self-control I was lacking. He was better than me.

What would be worse than death for you, Annasuya Rose?

Living without Romeo would be worse than death for me.

I couldn’t live without him.

I’d rather be dead than spend the rest of my life without him.

I wouldn’t be able to survive one minute in a world where Romeo no longer existed.

Reluctantly, even though it cost me the world, I replaced the cap on the bottle. Held it aloft and handed it back to Romeo.

“You drink it, honey love,” I whispered with a smile.

Romeo began to sob.

“If I drink this, you’ll die.”

I shook my head, although it was barely a hint of a movement.

“I won’t die. I’ve got more reserves than you,” I lied. “Go on, drink it.”

When I saw he still hesitated, I added: “Drink it and get your strength back. Then you can go and look for another bottle and when you find it, I’ll drink that one.”

Romeo clawed at the bottle, eyeing it with unceasing longing.

“Are you sure, Mami?”

I nodded again. I wanted to whisper the word “yes”, but it wouldn’t leave my throat.

My eyes closed of their own accord. I forced them open long enough to watch Romeo uncap the bottle and guzzle all the water.

PART III

The newscaster was perky. His tie was adjusted just right, the smile plastered on his face was perfect, the row of immaculate white teeth behind his smile could have worked in an ad for dental brightener.

“The badly beaten and mutilated bodies of two residents were discovered early this morning in a shed,” he explained without ever losing his cheery expression. “The bodies had lain there for at least a week before being discovered, due to the remoteness of the area. The victims have been identified as thirty-four-year-old Bruno Jarvas and forty-six-year-old Sandra Bleckley. Jarvas worked as regional Vice President of the international clothing corporation Herbert and Mons. Bleckley was the office manager at a local business, Quality Movers. She was married and had no children.”

The host grinned with delight towards the camera.

“The murderer is still at large,” he concluded happily.

He shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him in an obviously fake gesture. Everyone knows that newscasters read from some sort of cue cards projected on a screen behind the camera.

“In other news,” he continued, “the young boy rescued from a basement in the Bedford Park neighbourhood on the verge of dehydration is up and running about now, according to his doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children. He and his mother had been taken hostage and locked in a room for several days without food or water. The doctors have pronounced his survival a miracle. He is slated for release in a day or two.

“The mother, on the other hand...”

Someone turned the television off.

I felt water on my lips. I remembered that.

Then someone was holding my head up, sticking something hard between my parched lips, tilting my head backwards.

Water splashed out over my face, trickled from the corners of my mouth and slipped into my ears.

But a little bit of it made it between my lips and down my throat.

My throat was swollen. I couldn’t swallow. There was a lump in it about the size of a golf ball.

A raspy, spiny lump. Like a cactus.

More water poured down my throat, soothing it, smoothing over the cactus.

For a while water just dripped into my throat drop by painstaking drop.

I wanted to open my eyes, but my lids were stuck together.

Vaguely, faintly, I heard voices. It sounded like the voice of my bestie, Lindsay. But what would Linds be doing here? She didn’t even know this place.

Eventually, I heard and felt more presences about me. The shuffling of feet. Someone lifting me up onto some sort of board or hard bed. A prick in my arm.

Then everything was a blur.

When I woke up again, all I saw was a sterile white. Antiseptic and alcohol stung my nostrils. People talked in hushed voices.

Lindsay was sitting in an armchair next to me. She leapt up with a yelp as soon as she saw that my eyes were open.

“You’re awake, Annasuya!” she shrieked.

I smiled.

“Obviously,” I said, weakly.

She dashed to my side and seized my hand in hers.

“I knew you’d be okay. The doctors said you’d pull through.”

She grinned like a child on Christmas morning.

“Oh, I’d hug you if I could,” she gushed. “When I found you I thought you were dead.”

“Found me?”

“Don’t you remember what happened?”

I shook my head from side to side.

“I’ll probably remember, soon,” I said. “But tell me
now.
”

“You were both lying in the basement. Both you and Romeo, I mean. You were all covered with blood. I thought I’d got there too late and you were dead,” she repeated. “I couldn’t wake you. But Grant – he’s the guy who brought me over, cos I don’t have a car. I hope you’ll meet him soon. Anyways, Grant’s studying nursing, and they learn a whole loada symptoms over there. So he said you looked like you needed water and at any rate, it wouldn’t hurt to give you a bit.”

She paused, looking thoughtful.

“Well, there are some circumstances in which you should give water, and some in which you shouldn’t. I haven’t got that all sorted but then
I’m
not gonna be a nurse. So I gave you some water from a bottle that I always carry around with me. Well, you and Romeo too.”

I started up.

“Romeo. How is he?” I cried, starting to feel desperate as memory returned to me.

Lindsay laid her hand soothingly on my arm.

“Don’t worry. He’s doing great. They’ve got him in at Sick Kids but he’ll be out soon. I’m going to pick him up myself.”

I glanced around. Now that I could remember, it was clear I was in a hospital.

“How did you find me?” I said.

“You gave me the address, remember? When you called me, when you were looking for Romeo. You said you were there, at that address.”

I glared at her.

“So what the hell took you so long to come for me?”

Lindsay giggled.

“Well, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with you, at first,” she exclaimed, defensive. “It was only after you went so many days without answering your phone that I really got worried.”

“And what made you think to come to
that
address, of all places?”

“Well, you weren’t at any of the usual places. I even went to your office, and they told me you’d been missing for a couple of days. They assumed you were sick. Then I went to your apartment and asked the building manager to let me in. You know, normally he wouldn’t. But he knows me pretty well now and when I told him you’d disappeared he was more than happy to open the door for me—”

“Sounds like that damn building manager’s been letting in half the city lately,” I cut in, a bit annoyed.

Lindsay batted at me.

“Oh, be grateful he
has.
Or I might never have thought to come looking for you,” she said. “Anyways, I saw your phone in the charger and I knew something was up. You
never
leave home without your mobile.”

She pulled the armchair next to me and clasped my hands in hers.

“I went
everywhere
you usually go. I went to Calvin’s house but his neighbours hadn’t seen him in days. So then I really started to worry. I mean, like, I was just freaking out. I mean, I was climbing up the walls. So as a last resort I went to the address you’d told me. The door was open, and I thought that was strange. So I went in. And I could see there’d been a fight there. So then I got alarmed. I remembered you told me about this place and it was the last time I’d talked to you. So I got down to exploring the whole house.”

She cracked a smile at me.

“I’ll bet you’re sure glad I did. Aren’t you?”

I giggled and reached out to hug my bestie.

“Where’s Calvin?” I said. “Do you know?”

“Of course I do. I sent him down to get a coffee. Cos he was just tipping over on his feet, he was so tired. He’s not all that recovered yet, you know. I told him he oughta go home and sleep for twenty-four hours
,
but he refused to leave your side.”

The sigh of relief I breathed swept all the way down to my toes.

“So he’s not dead,” I murmured.

Lindsay nudged me playfully with her fist.

“Course he’s not dead. Just bleary-eyed. You’ll see, he’s just fine.”

I glanced down and noted with surprise all the many fine cuts dotting my hands and arms. Lindsay followed my gaze.

“Oh yeah, that sleaze of a nut, Bruno, really cut you up good and well, he did. But you’ll get better soon and they said you won’t have any scars. You’re lucky.”

“I’m
lucky?
”

Lindsay grinned.

“Yes you are!” She spoke emphatically.

“I’m all cut up, I nearly died, and you think I’m
lucky?
”

“Well, it’s nothing permanent. It could’ve been much worse,” she pointed out optimistically.

We stared at each other in silence.

“You know that whacko, Bruno, is dead, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I just heard the news, while I was coming to. I didn’t realize they were talking about
him,
though.”

“Well, they said their names.”

I nodded.

“Yeah. But I was too out of it to pay much attention.”

I looked down at the blanket.

“Who killed him?”

“They don’t know yet. Geeze, don’t you watch the news?”

We both giggled.

“Well, whoever it is, you ought to be grateful. Now that sleazeball that raped you will never go after you again.”

I shook my head.

“I’m never grateful someone is dead,” I said. “I’m sure he had many good things about him too. At any rate, regardless of what he did, I don’t think he deserved to die.”

Lindsay gaped at me in mock horror.

“You don’t think he deserved to die? Annasuya Rose Adler, I’ve never! You’re much too good. You’re a saint.
Normal
people like me are just crowing inside cos he’s dead.”

She laced her fingers through mine and gazed into my eyes in wonder.

“I can’t believe I’m looking at you,” she said in a breathy whisper. “Did you know, turns out the police were looking for you after all. Well, you and Romeo, both. But they didn’t even get anywhere near to finding where you were.”

I arched my eyebrows at her.

“How’s that?”

“That addle-brained teacher of Romeo’s – what’s her name?”

“Mrs. Garrison?”

“Yeah, that flakehead. Anyways she called the police, and they tried to call
you.
But you had your phone disconnected. And then you disappeared too. And no one could find you.”

She made a face.

“They searched your apartment. But it sure didn’t help that you didn’t have any info on Bruno in your computer or on your mobile phone – or at least, nothing like an email address or phone number or anything like that. So they never made the connection.”

“They took my phone and computer?” A wave of indignation washed over me at this unwarranted invasion of my privacy, even though I knew (or at least half believed) they meant well.

Lindsay crinkled up her nose.

“Weeell, I think they did take your computer. But I’m sure they’ll return it to you in half a sec now that you’ve turned up,” she hastened to add, clenching her fist around my arm before I could protest again. “But your phone was still there when I got there. So I guess they must’ve just made a copy of the card or something.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Well, after I found you, they talked to me about it. Only natural, right, seeing as I was the one who found you to begin with and I’m your bestie and all that. Don’t you think? And they explained all this to me.”

She patted my hand.

“But don’t you worry your li’l head ‘bout nothin’ no more. All that’s in the past. Now Bruno’s dead, all they have to do is find his killer. But that’s not got a thing to do with
you.
”

She giggled all of a sudden as a thought apparently occurred to her.

“Oh, and you know that... Well I’m sure you must’ve noticed a skeleton lounging around in the living-room as comfy cosy as you pleased, just like it lived there, right? Well, I mean, it
did
live there. Do you know who it was? Who it used to be, I mean?”

I nodded thoughtfully as the memory returned, now that she had mentioned it.

“Yes. Sandy said something about how it once was Bruno’s sister? Is that true?”

Lindsay seized my hand and cracked up, dropping her head face down on the bedsheet.

“Yeah. That guy was seriously fucked up. That same police agent, or detective or I dunno what he was. Anyways he told me just this morning that turns out that creepy crawly thing’d been dead for over fifteen years. Can you imagine living with a thing like
that
in the middle of your living-room for fifteen years? Phew!” She pinched her nose in mock horror.

“Did Bruno really kill her?”

Lindsay shrugged.

“They don’t know. They’re still looking into it. Anyways, do we care? That freaky murdering rapist’s dead now.” She seized me by the collar of my flimsy hospital gown and drew her face up close to mine, shaking me. “Dead, d’you hear, Annasuya? He’s dead as a doornail now.”

There was a stirring at the door. I glanced up, and Calvin waltzed in as hale and hearty as rain.

“Linds, if you want, I’ll stay here and you can go for a cuppa,” he said. Then he saw me. His eyes just melted.

“Annasuya,” he gasped out in a daze.

We just stared at each other.

Then the next thing I knew we were both in each other’s arms, melting into each other like gumdrops on a hot summer’s day.

Lindsay grabbed her handbag and tiptoed to the door.

“I think I’ll go for that cuppa,” she whispered.

We hardly paid any attention to her.

For a long while we just held onto each other and stared into each other’s eyes. Finally, I said:

“You know, I’d been thinking about Eli. And I realized I haven’t been fair to you. I’ve idealized Eli. But it’s time I moved on now. And made a happy life next to someone else.”

Calvin coughed and fumbled about with his hands.

“You know, I’m... um... Not quite ready for that... um... that type of proposal. I mean, I realize nowadays it’s more common for the woman to—”

I batted at him.

“I was going to propose that you move in with me. Not stand under the canopy with me,” I exclaimed.

Calvin breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

“Only that?”

We grasped each other’s hands some more.

“Don’t you want to know how I got out?” Calvin asked at last.

I shook my head.

“I don’t really care. I only care that you’re here now.” I paused. “But anyways, how
did
you get out?”

“It was easy. When I woke up, my mind was a blank. I found myself lying all alone in some bushes. I wondered if I lived in that house. But when I went to try the door it was locked. I looked all over myself for a key, but of course I couldn’t dig up anything. So then I figured, I said to myself: geeze, you know, tough guy – I called myself tough guy cos I couldn’t remember my name. Anyways, as I was saying, I said to myself: it’s not normal to not even know your own name, big guy. Something’s up. So I figured I’d hitchhike to a hospital. So I got myself onto the road and started to hitch a ride—”