Inbetween
By David M. Antonelli
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
David Antonelli on Smashwords
Inbetween
Copyright © 2011 by David M. Antonelli
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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There are a few people I’d like to acknowledge:
Paul Antonelli is thanked for helping to design the cover page, which includes an image from teh film version of this novel. Marylu Walters is thanked for editing an early version of this manuscript. Joanne Kellock is thanked for guidance while writing the early drafts of this book.
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Inbetween
By David M. Antonelli
In a still and barren field
a horse kicks violently about.
Later, the horse is asleep and the field
is alive with fire and sound.
Unknown poet
I
1 The Sacrifice
Late winter. London. Heathrow. A few grey-black clouds coughed out a few drops of rain; a few jets took off, a few landed. It was the kind of day that normally passes by unnoticed. Dreamy, ephemeral, almost unreal. Jan Markowicz sat on the edge of his hotel bed staring out the freshly cleaned window. He tightened his finger on the trigger of his gun. Then he stretched back painlessly on the bed and squinted his eyes. The evening sun focused its gaze on his pillow and in quiet response he focused his gaze away from it. He took off his white cotton shirt and tossed it on the bed beside him and turned to the mirror to examine the contours of his naked torso. Intricate muscle layers wrapped beneath tight folds of creased skin forming patterns across his chest with the elaborate symmetry of oriental lettering. This was a terrorist’s physique. This was his equipment. With it he could plant a bomb in the most highly guarded military installations before quietly disappearing behind the velvet membrane of a cold dark forest where nobody would ever catch him.
He picked up a copy of Melody Maker placed on top of the television across from his bed. Flipping through its pages he passed a picture of a rock singer in a full-page ad for her latest CD. He flipped back to look closer. He was immediately struck by the white-phosphorous glow of her delicate face. She was clearly Nordic. The mischievously slanted eyes and pale complexion said as much. The light curves pencilling up from the corners of her smile stirred new images inside him. The rustling of wind through dried grass, the gentle bending of frozen rivers, the warm touch of another’s skin, crumbling rooftops in the spring. He gazed into her dark marble eyes for a long instant before closing the pages of the tabloid. Such alien beauty was never meant to exist.
He tossed the tabloid on the floor and looked out the window, shivering at the thought of the bombing and what would happen to him if he backed down. Luinstra would certainly come after him. Jan looked at the wall and his insides froze and shattered in a single motion. The Dutchman was ruthless, cunning, almost mechanical. He spoke with sewing-machine precision through a pair of thin, motionless lips. Jan imagined his pock-marked face hanging whitely in front of him, the icy nozzle of a gun digging into the back of his neck.
He looked at the runway stretching out in the distance. An aircraft moved gracefully upwards at a speed that seemed to slow to keep it airborne - its soft grey underbelly reflecting shards of light from the low-lying sun off towards the control tower. But instead of the angry shrieking of its aluminum engines all he could hear was the imaginary ticking of the bomb he’d stashed beneath the bed a few hours earlier. He walked over to the mirror and put his shirt back on. Then he ruffled through the sheets of the bed until he found his wallet. Inside were the codified plans for the bombing. He took out a folded piece of paper with a series of numbers scribbled on the outside. Then he flattened it on the side table and held it up to the light.
The plot was so perfectly drawn. Like even the best suit of armor, Heathrow had its flaws, its seams. It was only a matter of divining them, unravelling them. A loose thread pulled is already a hole. All he had to do was set the explosives in the suitcase and send it on its way. He looked down at his hands - pink from the cold. He looked out the window at the strange heavy shapes assumed by the rumpled masses of fog hovering in the distance. He looked back at his hands and watched his fingers tremble over the smooth surface of the bomb’s cold putty. He felt what he’d felt all day. Sympathy.
Jan opened his suitcase and emptied its contents onto the bed in front of him. A fuse, a timer, and a small grey lump of putty. He picked the putty up and squeezed it in his left hand. It wasn’t as malleable as he thought it should be. He pinched it between his index finger and thumb and tossed it back onto the bed. It was a form of beauty few men had ever experienced. The beauty of pure destruction. Destruction as man’s final creative act. All the fire and chaos: perfect like rose petals and milk. Einzurstende Neubaten: the dismantling of new buildings. Destruction. The concept of violence. He stepped back from the bed and a strange nostalgia for explosives welled up inside him. After all, that was what had brought him here in the first place. Explosives. It was why he was here, and why he was anything at all. He undid the top button of his shirt and stepped over to the curtains. He unfurled them. Then he took the bomb and hid it securely in the inner pocket of his raincoat hanging on the chair beside him. He might need it later. Any weapon would help.
Sympathy. The word hung in his mind as he pulled the heavy curtains back together and packed his suitcase. He had to escape. If he stayed in the room any longer, de Koenig would find him for sure. Then Jan would be finished. He would never be forgiven for failing to go through with the plot. He had to leave immediately. Rosalyn was waiting for him at Crystal Palace and he couldn’t afford to miss their appointment. He wondered what she looked like. Was she still as beautiful as the last time he’d seen her? It was in Tokyo almost a year ago, and he could still remember the deep red of her lips when they met at the airport. With any luck, he could sway her to his side and get her to help him. He felt cold as he wrestled his arms into his coat and walked down the hallway to the elevator - the bomb hidden securely in his pocket.
He rushed through the hotel lobby and caught the first shuttle to the Underground station. The train came almost immediately and he boarded the crowded car. The first stations passed by slowly. Hounslow West. Hounslow Central. There was even a Hounslow East to round things off. After each stop his eyes scanned the train for potential enemies. Grey-clad professional after grey-clad professional boarded and got off at each passing station, crowding the doors and platforms as they shuffled indifferently off to their next destination. Any one of them could be a spy sent to check up on him. And even if they weren’t spies, it wouldn’t be long before The Organization got wind of his escape and sent someone after him. When the train passed through Acton Town he looked at his watch. It was nine thirty. Three minutes after he was supposed to meet de Koenig. He tightened his grip on the gun in his pocket. Its cold heavy metal comforted him, but it could just as well have been a pacifier jammed between his lips. What good would a pistol do him if at any second he could be machine-gunned to the floor by a team of hit men waiting at the next station?
Twenty minutes later the train whistled downwards from the surface rails into the dark sleeve of a tunnel, signalling their arrival in central London. As the train nudged into Victoria Station Jan sat in silence, drawing on the back of a pack of old matches. Bridges, walls, rivers, a face – the singer’s face, its diamond-point bone structure moving up from the top of her neck and extending upwards to the first patch of hair pushing out from under her ear. Her eyes: warm and sharp. Her hair: dark, uncombed, troll-like. She looked like the offspring of a savage Mongolian warlord and a Northumbrian fairy princess. Radiant and unnatural, she stood before his mind’s eye like an outcast from behind the stars, never meant to walk the earth for fear it might crumble in the face of her archangelic beauty.
2 Rosalyn
Jan took a quick look at his watch and stuffed his hand into his pocket. Rosalyn was already ten minutes late. He clicked his feet together like a soldier in a line of salute and walked over to a set of three garage doors beside the entrance to Crystal Palace station. Its walls and windows looked shapeless and imaginary in the death-white light of the moon. He looked across the street. A billboard stood without color or form, as if carved from a pillar of total darkness. He heard a sudden crackling.
“Who’s there?” he whispered.
Like a spout of blood from the throat of silence, Rosalyn stepped out from around the corner. She was holding a gun at the head of a gagged man in a mechanic’s uniform. Her hair was still long and brown, short bangs falling just above her eyebrows. She walked towards Jan, her arm locked securely around the man’s neck as she held him in front of her like a shield. She said nothing as she approached. Jan could hear the occasional muffled holler coming from the man’s mouth. He looked at her. Her eyes told him she knew about Heathrow.
“What happened?” Her voice plunged through the stillness.
“I couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t do it? Are you crazy? It was your one last chance to redeem yourself and you had to fuck it up.”
“Redeem myself? They would have killed me either way. I’m not that stupid.”
“I can’t imagine what Luinstra’s going to do when he finds out.”
“Fuck Luinstra. I’m sick of this whole business. Can’t you see what we’re doing? Do you even care?”
Rosalyn straightened her face and looked coldly into his eyes. “Satisfaction,” she said as if reading from a manifesto. “The satisfaction of destruction leading to a final and ultimate cause.”
“There is no ultimate cause.”
“Satisfaction leading to an ultimate cause,” she repeated as though she expected him to bend to the force of her will.
“Who’s the man?” Jan stepped towards her and she pulled back.
“Don’t you remember? You were supposed to meet de Koenig and switch clothes with an air traffic controller.”
Jan stepped back and shook his head in remonstration. “I want out.”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
“Say for myself?” He grimaced. “After what happened in Thailand? And you think you have the right to criticize me?”
“That has nothing to do with this. Don’t you understand? You violated the code. Our code.”
“Code?” He lifted his eyebrow.
“You took a vow six years ago. You devoted yourself to The Organization. In your own words you swore yourself to the overthrow of America.”
“It was just for the bombs. The extra money. That was the deal. I’d make the bombs and that was it.”
Rosalyn’s face softened for an instant as if she was savoring a pleasant memory. She loosened her grip on the man’s neck. The man struggled and elbowed her in the stomach. Without a flinch she rammed her gun into the man’s ear and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed off the walls of the station. She pushed him away as he slowly dropped to the ground. The body convulsed for a moment and then went still.
Jan rushed towards the body and dropped to his knees. The sidewalk was wet with blood. He touched his thumb to the man’s wrist. There was no pulse.
“What the hell did you do that for?”
“Tell me you’re just bullshitting me,” she said. She raised the gun from her waist and pointed it in his face.
“I’ve been doubting this all for a while,” he said with sudden conviction. He stood up, shaking his head in disgust. Rosalyn’s gun followed him like a spectroscopic probe. “What did this guy ever do to you?” he said.
“There’s some things you just don’t question. He was the hostage and it was his role to die.”
“Role?”
“Everything has its role in life. Just like it’s the hummingbird’s role to fly from flower to flower looking pretty for all the schoolgirls, this was his. Now it’s over.”
“You get more fucked up every time I see you.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t screwed up the bombing I would have let him live.”
“How merciful of you.”
She let her arm drop to her side. “It was my duty,” she said.
“You don’t give a damn about all that. You never did. You just want violence.”
“This isn’t about violence...”
“Yes it is,” Jan interrupted. “That’s what that business in Thailand was all about. Violence. Violence towards me. You were bored and you needed to stir things up.”
“Bored? I’m not that simple.”
Jan stepped back from the body and looked at Rosalyn. In the darkness her face seemed almost childlike. Her nose looked small and white, her cheeks clear and rounded. For a moment it was as if nothing had ever happened to pull them apart. “And now I suppose you want me back,” he said.
She smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.” Her face tightened with conviction. “What happened to the guy who made the bomb that destroyed the oil refinery five years ago? What happened to the guy who did me on a bridge in the middle of New Jersey three minutes before it went up in flames? What happened? What the hell happened to you?” She pushed him away as if to provoke him to slap her. “And so quickly. It must be a woman. You always had a weakness when it came to matters of the heart.”
Jan narrowed his eyes in anger. He pulled her closer and moved his left hand over the crease between her legs.
She stepped back. “I don’t know what’s become of you,” she said. “Sure, there’s been other men, but I always loved you the most. You were the only one who could handle me, who wasn’t scared away. Men always want their ladies wrapped up in a little pink bow. They can’t handle it when they find out their woman is as wild as they are. And now you...” She looked at him with hard accusing eyes.
“Now me? If anything I’m more brave than you for having the strength to break away.”
“You’ve just turned into a coward. Five years ago you made a vow not to quit until the streets were red with the blood of Americans. In your own words.”
“You just do whatever Luinstra says. You think you’re following some higher principle, but you’re just one of his tools.”
“Tools to reach that higher principle.” She inhaled deeply as though she had just recited an epitaph.
“And I’m supposed to love you?” He shook his head contemptuously. “You look so pretty standing there on your pedestal of blood.”
“You’re a hypocrite. Your bombs have killed so many people I’ve almost lost count.”
Jan turned his head away in resignation. “I only made them,” he said as though speaking to an invisible presence hovering beside her. “I never set them off. You know that.”
“What difference does it make?”
He looked back at her. “If I sell you a gun and you kill somebody is it my fault?”
“In so far as it never would have happened unless you gave me the chance.”
“I’m not going to blow up some plane and kill hundreds of innocent people just to live out someone else’s fantasies.” He turned and looked up at a light that was flashing in the distance. From its position in the night sky he guessed it was coming from the top of a radio tower. There was a smell in the air that was both damp and fragrant. As he shifted his gaze downwards to the ground he wondered if it had anything to do with death.
“Jan,” Rosalyn said as she shook her head. Her tone was suddenly soft and tremulous. He sensed she was confused underneath her hardened exterior. “I’m afraid.” She traced a circular pattern across his chest and hung her head down. For an instant it was as if everything was calm and time had reeled backwards to the years they spent together in New York. As she pulled him into her, the gust of air created by her sudden motion wafted in his direction. Suddenly the strange scent became more clear. It was Fendi. She hadn’t worn it since they’d split up for the first of several times four years earlier.
“So am I,” Jan finally responded. Although he didn’t want to feel for her he couldn’t help it. Rosalyn moved out of the light from the overhanging street lamp. She quietly sang a line from “The Clash’s” Guns of Brixton under her breath as she beat the rhythm with her finger on his chest.
When they come to get you,
how you going to come,
with your hands behind your head
or on the trigger of a gun?
“On the trigger of a gun,” he said slowly, savoring the words as they fell out of his mouth. He remembered the song well. She always used to play it on her Walkman when they drank cheap red wine behind her parent’s trailer in Flint, Michigan.
She smiled warmly and stepped even closer to him. The scent of Fendi grew stronger. The scent was meant for her. Him and her. He thought of her walking through a revolving door, her slender, black-stockinged legs slipping through the fluttering play of half reflections created by the rotating panes of glass. He pressed his head against her cheek and inhaled deeply.
His eyes moved from a dangling lock of her hair to the dead man beside her. He trembled at the thought of how much she’d changed, how far she’d dropped, how much her loyalty to The Organization had demolished the woman she once was.
A car roared by. Rosalyn stiffened up and pushed him away.
“We’d better go before the cops come.”
“Yes.”
“You’re in serious trouble. You’d better lay low,” she whispered. The words came out slowly and deliberately. Her eyes looked tender and sincere. “I’ll try to help you.”
“Why? You’ll only jeopardize yourself.”
“I feel I owe you something - owe you something for Thailand. I didn’t think there was anything left between us. I know some people who don’t know anything about The Organization or the bombings. You might be able to stay with them. I met them a few months ago and they said they’d be glad to take in some borders for extra money.”
Her voice was strangely soothing. “Maybe I can even talk to Luinstra,” she continued. “I could make up a story. Tell him that the bomb malfunctioned and you were afraid of being caught. Then I can get you another job.”
“Can’t you see?” Jan took a strand of her hair and wound it tightly around his finger. “I don’t want another job. I want out of this. Completely out.”
“So, what are you going to do instead?”
“Paint.” He let her hair drop from his finger. “From violence to art. A natural progression.”
“Please…not this again.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know how I feel. Art only reinforces bourgeois values. It does nothing but feed the establishment with the illusion that it’s in tune with the counterculture to ease their guilty conscience and make them forget how many people had to die in order to sustain their greedy lives.” She threw her hands up in a gesture of victory.
“And have our bombings ever helped anyone?”
“It goes without saying.”
“How?”
“Violence is the Great White Light,” she replied automatically .
“The Great White Light in the middle of nothingness.”
She paused for a moment and stepped towards him. “Don’t be a fool, Jan.” She pulled him close to her breast and kissed him on the head. “We could take over. We helped start it all anyway. I don’t know how Luinstra fell into power. We could do a few more jobs and then get rid of him. Then we could be in charge. Then it could all be the same again.”
“And do you think I’m just going to forget the last few months?”
“It’s over,” she said. She looked down at the ground.
“Is it really?” he asked.
“As over as anything ever is.” He sensed her shame and embarrassment.
“I don’t know if it can be the same.”
She looked at him with soft burning eyes. “Yes it can,” she said. “I’ll prove it.” She pulled down her panties and leaned backwards into the concrete ledge separating Crystal Palace park from the sidewalk. He unzipped his pants and pushed inside her. The tiny hairs on her face plucked up and she squinted her eyes.
“Come on,” she said with a taunting grimace on her face. He pressed her against the concrete ledge and pushed her head into the wrought iron fence perched on top of it. But the harder he pushed the more she seemed to like it. He pulled her head back and thrust it into the fence. She had to pay for cheating on him. She dug her nails into his back and grimaced.
“I love you when you’re rough. Tell me this is all a mistake, tell me, Jan, tell me.”
He slammed her head into the fence a second time, only this time she screamed.
“Stop it! You’re hurting me.”
“I thought you liked it when I was rough. Was he rough?”
“Look,” she said as she tugged his coat. “I’m trying to do you a favor. Remember Code Seven? I could face court marshal for not turning you in to Luinstra. You made it up yourself before he took over.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his head tilted downwards.
She pushed him away and pulled her panties back up. The dawn light was just barely visible on the far horizon. Jan noticed for the first time a love message spray painted on the side of the station. My Crystal Palace Ballerina it read. Beneath was scribbled an indecipherable address.
They began walking down the road towards Gipsy Hill.
“Please give us one last chance,” Rosalyn pleaded. It can all be good again. I’ll talk to Luinstra. We can plan another attack.”
Jan remained silent.
“Meet me here in three weeks,” Rosalyn continued. “I have to go to Tokyo until June 5th.” She moved into the darkness, stepping backwards and away from him. “I love you, Jan. It was all a mistake with him. I’ll do anything to save our love.”
“Then prove it to me and meet me somewhere more neutral.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“How about The National Gallery? Luinstra wouldn’t dare try anything there.”
Rosalyn nodded in agreement. “June fifth.”
“Two P.M.”
She took a scrap of paper from her purse and scribbled something on it. She handed it to him. “The address. Remember?” Jan nodded. “They’ll put you up. Come back to us. To me. We need you. I need you.”
Jan took the scrap of paper and looked at it. The address meant nothing to him. It could have been anywhere for all he knew. He looked at her. He sensed something cheap and dirty lingering behind her look of hope.
“I need to know,” Rosalyn said. “Know if you love me. I’m not going to risk betraying Luinstra just to save a man who doesn’t even love me.”
“I’ll think about it,” was all he said. She seemed satisfied with his response. He kissed her.
She turned and walked slowly up Anerly Hill to Crystal Palace Palisade. Across the street a group of car dispatchers had gathered around a parked car as if to inspect a dented bumper. He turned away from them and walked back in the direction of the station. The shops lining the street leading up to the station were illuminated by the dusty haze of the morning sun. He had to squint to make out the signs above the doors. There was a Jamaican cafe, a pub and an ironmongers.
He made his way to the train station and tried the main door. It was locked, obviously too early for the first train. He picked up a tree branch from the sidewalk. He walked over to the wall with the message to the ballerina written on it and started thrashing the letters with the branch. Feelings, stupid bloody illusions, he thought. Feelings. That’s how it all started. That’s how everything always started. A teenager in love with a ballerina: Jan in love with Rosalyn. Nineteen and crazy. Her nasty red lips, sexy in their wicked brilliance. Her bright white skin. Her short pink hair: dyed and cropped the first night he seduced her. Molotov Cocktails. The Anarchist’s Cook Book. Explosives. Rosalyn. Back in the early days he was the angrier one, filled with an almost insatiable hatred. Hatred of his parents, and hatred of Michigan with all its stink-grey trailer parks and burger bars. Hatred blossomed inside him like a sick and brilliant flower. But like all flowers, it eventually faded and died. And Rosalyn, once so full of life, had hardened like a glowing glass vase made brittle and cracked from too rapid cooling.
He folded up the piece of paper she’d given him. It looked like a set up. But it was also a perfect lead. It would help him locate Luinstra. Rosalyn knew where he was. All Jan had to do was pretend to fall for her renewed love so he could use her to get to Luinstra. It was a dirty game, but was there really any choice? He had until their next meeting at The National Gallery to hide out and plan his strategy. His body lurched into motion. He lifted his head and ran off into the newly fading darkness.
3 Liisi
Jan took the first train to central London and spent the next few hours wandering the streets trying to figure out exactly what he should do next, and then what he should do after that. There were so many possibilities. Yet each scenario seemed, after allowing his mind guide it through to its logical conclusion, equally treacherous and foreboding, involving capture either by the police on the one hand, or by the Organization on the other, or some convoluted combination of both. The afternoon sun disappeared behind a veil of cloud and the air was suddenly thick and noxious, making it difficult for him to breathe. He kept his gun hidden beneath the folds of his coat as he made his way past Kentish town to Archway. As he passed a large park his anxiety almost seemed to vanish and he felt a sudden urge to find a place to sleep. He sat on a bench watching as a group of school children played soccer, using piles of clothes as goal posts. When a policeman walked by, his mind suddenly regained its focus. He needed a place to stay. That was the next step. He tightened his hand around his gun. Its barrel was smooth like a baby’s skin. It was heavier than most pistols the same size with a thick black handle and a short blunt snout. Security. Dense black steel. The marvel of a hammer in a child’s hand.
He explored the neighborhood until evening and found a small pub near Highgate Station and walked in. He pulled up a chair at a table just across from a woman who was sitting alone at the bar. She looked about thirty-five. Her hair was blonde and straight and hung defiantly over her eyes. She tilted her head to look at the wooden clock hanging on the wall to her left, revealing the outlines of her smooth, triangular face. She had big eyes, bluish and almost perfectly round, with a small drooping nose and rounded jaw. It was as though her genes had strayed away from their European origins to assume the traits of another people, possibly Turkish. She was wearing a black-and-blue-striped tee shirt with black jeans with a pair of oversized work boots. She looked lonely, troubled, not quite strong, yet something about her presence suggested she might be able to help him find a place to stay. He stood up and approached her.
“I’m not from around here,” he said in an unassuming way. “Do you know where I could find a listing of available housing in the neighborhood?”
“Not a clue.” She had a strange accent he couldn’t place.
“Thanks anyway.” He turned away and found a seat on the other side of the bar.
Five minutes later she tapped him on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry if I seemed rude,” she said. “Why don’t you come and join me?”
He agreed. Her name was Liisi.
“You’re American?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I came over on business and missed my flight back. Now I’m not sure that I want to go back. Not yet anyway.”
“What sort of business?”
“You probably wouldn’t be interested.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not really interested myself.” He picked up a book of matches from the table and opened it. He struck a match and watched it burn until it was too hot to hold. Then he threw it on the floor.
“Ah. Attitude. You need a new job.”
“Possibly.”
“Why aren’t you ready to go back?”
“I’m looking for a girl. I can’t leave until I find her.”
“A girl?” she broke the silence. “Is she lost?”
“You could say that.”
“You should go to the police.”
“Yes.” He fumbled with the pack of matches before finally setting it down on the table. “And what do you do?” he asked bluntly. She looked uncomfortable. “Maybe I shouldn’t be asking. It’s just...”
“That’s fine. I don’t do anything.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Why do you always have to do something? Besides, you’re the one who’s bored with your work. Maybe nothing isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
He looked into the glimmering blue domes of her eyes. There was an inner sun burning behind them. He could feel it spinning carelessly about its axis, spitting out tongues of fire into the darkness around her. He wanted to touch it, but couldn’t. It was either too strong or he was too frail. He turned his head downwards, avoiding the line of her gaze. He watched her hands play with a broken cigarette. Her fingers were chapped as though she had been working as a cleaning lady and the skin was slightly tanned.
“I’m sorry,” said Jan. “I’m not myself. I’m in a bit of a bind. I can’t be great company.”
“You need a place to sleep? Is that it? Where have you been staying?”
“Nowhere. I tried to sleep in a park last night, but couldn’t.”
“A park? How awful.”
“I’m almost broke and the hostels were all booked.”
“Maybe you can stay at my place until you find something better,” her eyes warmed up and she rubbed the inside of his thigh. “I don’t usually offer my place out to strangers.”
There was a long pause and she stood up.
“I only live a few blocks away,” she said. “There’s even left over Vindaloo. I could fix you some while you clean up and relax.”
“I really appreciate it,” he said.
She smiled and touched his shoulder. “You’re not so strange after all. I wondered at first. When you first approached me. You seemed...” Her voice hung as she struggled to grasp the right word.
“Troubled?”
“Not quite. No. Detached maybe. Anyway, I’m sorry I was unfriendly when you first came over.”
She lived on the main floor of a sagging brick townhouse just off Muswell Road. They stepped inside and she tossed her coat on the closet floor. The walls were a dirty white and the air smelled of damp mattresses. “We’re lax around here,” she said. He laid his jacket on top of hers and they walked through a corridor into the kitchen. The walls were decked with oriental rugs and South East Asian travel posters for countries like Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. She opened the refrigerator and he looked out the window into the backyard. There was a garden - dimly lit by an inverted funnel of light cast by an overhanging street lamp - and a stone fence. He could even see what looked like a wooden birdhouse.
“Let’s see. Vindaloo. That’s right. There’s also wine if you want it. Wine, beer, even asparagus.” She giggled.
“Wine sounds good, but I’ll take a rain check on the asparagus.”
He touched his hand on her shoulder and she turned to him, moving closer than he’d anticipated.
“Wait,” he said.
“What?” The kitchen light brightened, laying bare the dirty corners of the linoleum floor, and he pulled her into his chest.
“You look sad,” he said.
“No. Not really. Tired maybe.” Her eyes softened. He could see what he thought was a dried tear in her right eye.
She kissed his nose and pulled back.
“Vindaloo,” she said.
“Vindaloo,” he said back.
She took a small Styrofoam box out of the fridge and handed it to him.
“Sorry, no microwave.”
“That’s all right. It’s better cold anyway.”
“Then you won’t mind the day-old rice either,” she said.
He ate quietly while she washed a few dishes. Then they walked into the living room. There was an old red couch, a newer blue couch, two faded armchairs, a coffee table, a television, a stereo, and posters all over the wall. One caught his eye in particular. Myanmar.
“What’s this?”
“Burma, don’t you know? You Americans don’t know anything.”
“I was just wondering if you’ve been there.”
“Never. Always wanted to. Don’t have enough money, though.”
“I met some French tourists in LA once who said it was the greatest place they’d ever been to.”
“Pagan,” she said.
“What?”
“The ancient city. A thousand years ago it was the capital, but now it’s deserted.”
“Funny. Think of London a thousand years from now.”
“Please, she said. It’s bad enough now.” She unzipped a small pouch from her pocket and pulled out a whitish lump. Then she lit a candle on the coffee table in front of her. Jan said nothing as she crumbled the lump into a tiny heap and scooped about half of it into a wooden pipe she’d pulled out from her purse. Then she turned on the stereo and put a CD on. The opening beats of a song he recognised but couldn’t quite place filled the room. She lit a candle and turned off the light.
“Hash?” he asked.
“Don’t give me that, young man,” she said in a playfully scolding tone. “I know you better than that. If it were hash, it wouldn’t smell like opium, now would it?”
She lit the pipe, inhaled, set it down, and pulled herself up against him, exhaling into the thick of his half open mouth. A warm feeling surged into him as he smoothed back her hair. Then she straddled his thighs.
“You’re Finnish, aren’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“Your eyes. Your accent.”
“Actually, I’m Estonian. But really British. I’ve been here for so long.”
“Good guess, though.”
“Not bad. Somebody did guess right a few years ago, though. That makes you a close second.”
They finished the pipe and he dropped his head into her chest. He wrapped his arms around her and exhaled. Images of Luinstra, the putty explosives in his suitcase, and the stark grey wings of a burning plane swirled through his head, clouding over the soft and compliant triangle of her face. She pressed her cheeks into his and then moved her head over to kiss him. He relished the soft smear of her lips against his.
“Liisi,” he said deeply. He tugged on her hair. An instant replay of his hands slamming Rosalyn’s head against the wrought iron fence flickered through his mind. She lowered her head and slid her hand underneath his shirt. He pulled the side of her head into his lips and ran the tip of his tongue over the contours of her ear. She pulled off her shirt and stood up.
“It’s time for bed,” she said and smiled.
Jan looked to the floor. His face darkened.
“It’s that look again.”
“I’m sorry. It’s me. I’m screwed up about something.”
She took his hand and pulled him up from the couch. “You can tell me all about it there.”
She finished undressing as he stood in front of her and then grabbed a dark blue bathrobe from the floor. In the meshing of the candlelight and the shadows cast by the candlelight, the robe seemed to match the blue of her eyes.
He suddenly noticed a sweaty smell he hadn’t noticed before. “Someone lives here,” he said. “A man.”
“He’s gone,” she said in a nonchalant tone that suggested it made no difference to her.
“When’s he coming back?”
“Maybe never,” she said, almost whispering.
He stood up and followed her to the bedroom. She let the robe drop but in the faint light he could only discern the outlines of her figure. Her breasts were small and her hips narrow, giving her a unique femininity burning in bright defiance of its origins in biological necessity. He set his hand on the curve at the base of her spine and pulled her towards him as she pulled him down on the slatted bed in turn. Here, the pillows - damp and musty but smelling weakly of perfume - seemed to command their own existence, a form of being both distinct and superior to that possessed by either of them. A world of half-smelled odors, crumpled linen, and grainy light bouncing from skin to cloth and back again. She rolled over on top of him and whispered in his ear. Her voice was delicate and quiet and he pretended not to hear it. Her frail body nestled up against him, she fell asleep almost immediately.
A few minutes later he stood up and made his way back to the living room. He emptied his clothes out from his suitcase and placed the gun from his coat pocket neatly beside the bomb. He repacked the clothes and closed the suitcase. He went back to Liisi’s room and tucked it quietly under her bed. Then he slid back between the sheets and fell asleep. In the middle of the night he opened his eyes and pulled her closer. Her hair smelled like a mixture of wax and raspberries. Then he fell back asleep, soothed by the slow rhythm of her breathing.
4 Martin
The next morning Jan woke up to an empty space beside him. The room was still dark but he could hear Liisi humming from another room. He put on his pants and followed her voice to the kitchen. He touched her shoulder from behind and there was a sudden ear-splitting noise. Before he had a chance to turn, there was a prod of cold hard metal into the back of his neck.
“Ricki Ticki Tavi,” whispered an angry voice directly into his ear.
Liisi stumbled and backed up against the refrigerator. There was no fear or surprise in her expression.
“I’ve come to save you from yourself,” said the voice from behind.
“Leave him, Martin,” said Liisi.
“I don’t want to get involved,” said Jan. Liisi grabbed his arm.
“What?” the voice said bluntly from lips now crushing up against his ear.
“I’m sorry, Jan,” Liisi said. She bowed her head. Her face was drenched in deep yellow light, and her eyes were almost saint-like in their contrition.
“For what? Cough up your money, snake!” shouted the voice.
“Don’t hurt him, Martin. Take his money, but let him go. He’s got nothing. He missed his plane and he needs a place to stay. Can’t you leave him be?”
“The mongoose shows no mercy,” said the voice, still from behind.
“Oh, shut up, Martin!”
The pressure from the nozzle eased on Jan’s neck.
“Turn around, then,” said the voice. “I want to see your simpering little face. I want to hear all those precious little things you said to her last night.”
“Leave him!” she begged.
Jan turned to find a tall man standing before him. He had a wide face and dark hair waxed from the temple down. His eyes were a soft shade of brown and his nose was small and crooked. He looked strangely like a sailor who jumped Jan four years ago outside a bar near a naval base in Connecticut. It was dark and foggy and the sailor tied him to a post and violated him with a wine bottle. Jan slipped out of the ropes and slashed the sailor’s face with an iron rod he found leaning against a nearby boathouse.
The man glared at Jan.
“So, you think Liisi’s ugly, then?”
“Martin!”
“An insult perhaps?” Martin stuffed the gun back in his pants.
“Look,” said Jan more firmly.
“Now you look here!” Martin pushed Jan against the wall. “Most guys come back and want to bonk her right there on the doorstep.” He pointed out the window. “What’s so special about you?”
“I needed a place to stay.” Jan turned and started walking towards the door. “I’ll leave if it will make things better.”
“Stay, Jan,” Liisi begged. She grabbed Jan’s hand.
“If you were a gentleman, you’d apologize to her.”
Jan stood still and looked over at Martin. He looked far too loutish to be involved with a woman like Liisi.
“Don’t try to tell me she didn’t offer herself to you,” said Martin.
“That’s enough, Martin. I’ve had it!” yelled Liisi. “Cut it out or I’m out of here.”
“Apologize, snake!” Martin glared into Jan’s eyes and rolled up his sleeves as though preparing for a fight.
Liisi stepped between them an they all looked at each other. Martin inhaled a deep, impatient breath. Then he exhaled the same deep impatient breath.
“I’m sorry,” Jan said to Martin. He set his hand cautiously on his shoulder. Then he turned to Liisi. Right now she was the only friend he had in London.
“Well done. Now that wasn’t so bloody hard was it?” said Martin.
“Let’s quit it, Martin,” said Liisi.
“Fair enough,” said Martin.
“Martin, this is Jan. Jan, this is Martin.” She stood behind them and wrapped each man’s arm around the other’s shoulder. A smile broke across Martin’s face, finally giving his warm eyes some credibility.
“So, this is some kind of racket, is it?” asked Jan flatly.
“No, more of a prank. Racket sounds too corrupt. I just like to scare people.”
“Well, you did a good job.”
“We’re room mates,” he said as he looked at Liisi. “She brings all these guys home. I like to see them sweat before they get off with her. We used to be lovers, right Liisi?” He punched her lightly in the arm.
“A long time ago,” she said. “We’re over all that stuff. We’ve been living together so long nothing can come between us. We’re really just friends now. It’s better that way,” she said and laughed.
“So, you need a place to stay,” said Martin.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trouble?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“What for?” Martin pulled a package of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook it. “Damn,” he said. “I always run out when I need one.”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Liisi told me. Have you tried the police?
“I’d get deported. I’m here illegally.”
“Now we’re talking,” said Martin.
“Illegally?” Liisi asked with confusion. “I thought you were here on business.”
“What I mean is that I’m not a citizen. I was supposed to fly back. It’s not like I can work here or anything.”
“I guess,” she said, appeased.
“Liisi was deported three years back. I managed to sneak her in a few months later, though. I won’t say how, but I was worried for a while.”
“I can imagine.”
“We laid low after that. We’ve been unemployed for years. There’s just nothing out there. A few deals here and there and the occasional theft always seems to get us through. I’m telling you because it doesn’t matter. We’re too small time for the cops. Usually we just sell to our friends.”
Jan tented his eyebrow in curiosity. Martin’s eyes narrowed in response - almost comically evil - and then he smiled.
“Hash, opium. Occasional heroin. It’s not so bad as they say. No violence. Meth dealers - on the other hand - are always crazy. It makes them that way.”
“What about the house?”
“Not ours. Condemned for rats. Some rich old lady apparently owns it, but we’ve never had trouble.”
By the end of the afternoon Martin decided that Jan could stay for a few weeks - as long as he cleaned the house, tended the garden, and bought his own food. There wasn’t an extra bed so he’d have to take the floor or one of the two couches. Jan agreed without hesitation. It was a perfect hideout. He could sort out his life while tracking down Luinstra and de Koenig.
They spent the rest of the evening in the living room with Jan doodling on loose scraps of paper while Martin watched endless news loops and Liisi read a book on the orient, changing her clothes several times over the course of only a few hours. “Gets boring wearing the same thing all the time,” she said as she lit another bowl of opium and played with her scarf.
As night fell Martin was still staring into the bluish cowl of the television’s half-light while Liisi and Jan took turns in the white enamel bathtub. Eventually Martin joined Liisi in the bedroom and Jan fell asleep in the living room.
When Jan woke up he was alone on the couch. A few minutes later Liisi came out from her room as though she had sensed his awakening. She was holding a beat-up teddy bear under her left arm. Jan was still lying down when she crossed the room to sit in his lap.
“Everyone always goes for the red couch,” she said. “I think the blue one is a little hurt. It’s really not all bad, you know.”
“Where’s Martin?”
“He’s gone out to meet some friends at a warehouse party. He’s out almost every night. Too much energy. He’s been a bit worried lately.”
“About?”
“I’m not sure. You feel uncomfortable, don’t you?”
“Sort of.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Martin doesn’t mind me sleeping with you? I can’t believe that.”
“Martin’s sorry.”
“It’s not him.”
“He really doesn’t mind. Really, really, really. We haven’t been lovers for so long. It’s more like we’re brother and sister.”
“That’s a bit idealistic, isn’t it?”
“It seems to work, but we’ve never had anyone else stay with us. I think it’ll be fun. I get lonely sometimes.”
“So, he’s not going to pull a gun on me again?”
“No. He was just taking the piss. We have to roll people sometimes, but only when we really need the cash. I’m sure you understand…it’s not like we’re trying to hurt them.” Jan nodded his head sleepily. They seemed decent enough. They’d somehow lost out, fell through the cracks. They were wanderers just like him. He understood. She touched her lips to his shoulder and they fell together slowly.
Two hours later Jan woke up to a loud mumbling from outside. The door opened and Martin walked in and sat down on the blue couch across the room. Liisi patted Jan on the head. “I’m going to bed,” she said. She ran her hand through her hair, gathering it together with her fist at the temple and then pulling it tightly upwards like a Sumo wrestler.
“Good night boys,” she said. She turned and almost seemed to float out of the room, leaving Jan and Martin alone together for the first time.
“What do you say we have a beer and toast the end of the world?” asked Martin in a jocular tone. Martin went to the kitchen and brought back two cans of lager. He opened one and handed it to Jan. Then he opened the other.
“To the end of the world,” said Jan. Martin drank the whole can in one motion and burped.
“To the end of the world,” Martin repeated.
5 Mad Love
The next day Jan combed the neighborhood making a mental map of every detail that might help him: alleyways, walls, garbage dumpsters - anything he could use to his advantage. If The Organization came after him, he had to know exactly where to run. A block from the house stood a newsagent with a dark green enamel door and blue awnings. A block further was a pub and then a bedding shop, across from which stood a park with large green bushes and a stone fountain in the middle. At the end of a long row of trees he found a large wooden shed behind a bank of large bushes. There was a large metal lock on the door. Turning his head to make sure that nobody was watching, he took out his gun and smashed the lock with its butt. He opened the door. Inside there was an old lawn mower and a hoe with just enough free space for a man to curl up. A perfect hiding place.
He continued walking until he came across a record store. In the window hung a poster of the singer he saw in Melody Maker at the airport hotel. He walked inside. Without looking at anything else bought a copy of her CD. Was she as good a musician as she was beautiful? That was the question. His next mission was to find an art supply store. When he was nervous, drawing was the only activity that could engage him enough to calm him down. He had never tried hard enough or long enough to know if he had any real talent, but in the back of his mind he always imagined he did. His urge to draw was something that came from so deep inside him that he was sure it was uniquely his, something he had scarcely been aware of when he was with Rosalyn, yet something that, if he was ever able to grab a hold of and take control over, might finally allow him to free himself from all the memories of those cold bleak days in Flint as a teenager when he felt like life was worthless and all he wanted was to die.
On his way out he passed an old woman with a red sun hat. She had an art magazine tucked under her arm. He asked her where he could find an art store and she said she thought there was one next to a video store a few blocks down the street, although she couldn’t remember how far.
“Thanks,” he said and continued on. Fifteen minutes later he found the store she must have been referring to. He walked in and a bell rang instantly. A salesman rushed into the front room. Jan tilted his head away and ducked behind a shelf of German inks. After browsing for a few minutes he picked out a handful of sable brushes, a box of pastels, and a basic selection of oil paints including three or four shades of each of the primary colors and one large tube each of black and white.
“A fine selection,” the salesman said. “My wife uses them. Very rich color saturation.”
“I’ve never used this brand before,” Jan said, trying to be polite without provoking any further conversation. He had to get home as soon as possible. For all he knew Rosalyn might have already traced him. After a few platitudes about the weather Jan tipped an imaginary hat and stepped out into the rain.
When he got back the apartment was empty, so he sat alone in front of the television skimming the news channels for possible updates on the status of his aborted bombing and any subsequent leads or fallout investigations. When he was satisfied there was nothing, he turned off the television and put on the CD. The singer’s name was Nina Oldman, but in the liner notes it explained how she thought of herself simply as The Singer whenever she was recording or performing because her artistic explorations had nothing to do with the person she was in day-to-day life. He slowly sunk into the music. The songs were quirky and vibrant, the smooth enamel of her voice punctuated by the cold beat of an electronic percussion section. Her vocal chords moved through his head like fingers over the wet plaster of a sculpture - giving wings, weight and substance to every last syllable. She could pull a word in any direction: compress it, draw it out like a strand of gold wire, or flatten it into the rippling surface of a lazy river on a breezy day.
Her voice had a range and impact Jan had never heard before. Sometimes it would quiver for a moment only to break into a half sob - her nerves suddenly exposed like frays of wire on a severed phone line. Sometimes it would shatter into a thousand pieces of pleasure, only to turn around and slash you a minute later. The tracks were mostly love songs - her strange inflections giving every last word its own life, its own fingerprint. Jan was captivated. He wanted to know her, to touch her. She was a different kind of woman - a different kind altogether.
Mädchen. The word bit into his head like black tea on the gums. Three years of German in university back in Michigan and this was the only word that stuck. Why it was neuter and not feminine he never understood, but listening to the music brought it all back to him. Mädchen. The word had its associations. It conjured up all that feminine sexuality could be. Although it generally referred to younger women, it wasn’t like girl or woman. It sounded far too foreign for that. But, this was the key. Sex to him was all that contradicted the normal, the plain, the commonplace. Like explosives and art it too was alien. To confront the object of his desire, to stand before the glistening pond and face the other in all her foreignness: this was love. Like a meteor burning in the penetrated the earth’s atmosphere, love was the slow and brilliant disintegration of the self in the arms of the other.
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