Authors: Veronica Melan
Of course, my new clothes and the second bracelet on my wrist hadn’t gone unnoticed. The evil tongues of local whisperers immediately began speculating about my newly found relationship with the ranch owner and my fresh, after an aromatic shower and a comb look, only reassured them in the accuracy of their assumptions. People didn’t openly whisper behind my back and often it was done even without a sense of anger but in a more discreet and quiet way, in order not to provoke Hulk’s wrath. I got the impression that a lot of the people felt some sort of respect towards me as I’d provided them with some useful things, which had also played a major role in their attitude and a reduction of envy and aggression. In addition to this, none of them could boast of any precise knowledge about me spending at least one night in the owner’s chambers or not. However, it has long been known that people don’t need any particularly accurate information to start spreading rumours.
Sometimes I felt surprised thinking about their assumption that I was Hulk’s lover; sometimes I felt entertained, sometimes indifferent - it all depended on the mood I was in. People always think what they want. After all, no one knows what I would have thought, seeing some girl going on his private territory and transforming not by leaps and bounds, becoming fresh, good-looking and doing almost whatever and whenever she wanted to. Of course, what other conclusion would I make about her in their shoes?
Even Tabitha was laughing and thoughtfully noting from time to time that people will always make up stories but not all of them have the brains to know what to believe, even if they like to think so. I would agree with her but sinful thoughts about Hulk kept on entering my mind. Not that I was seriously contemplating - "what would Hulk be like if we were to ...", because I still couldn’t quite work out his personality or his actions, and nevertheless, I often caught myself thinking about the gossips while sitting on the porch, sipping my tea before the bedtime, or admiring the glistening gems given to me in light of the sunset.
Hulk in my opinion was a dark horse - a man with many contradictions and mysteries. Some people saw him as a ruthless tyrant without an ounce of compassion; others were just scared of him for no apparent reason, and I could sympathise with them, because I saw Hulk stressed, although I’d never seen him being angry.
Anyway, Hulk always kept himself composed and only an invisible aura around him would change following his mood. I was not sure if anyone else could feel this completely invisible presence. But never, as far as I could remember, Hulk shouted or yelled and spluttered but acted quite the opposite - his restraint was too powerful even in critical moments. Sometimes I had the illogical desire to crawl deeper under his protective shell and see what he was really like? But I wasn’t particularly pushy at my attempts, not because it didn’t make any sense, but simply because the wall around him was too solid to break.
Yet, some moments were scratching my mind, like stones with sharp edges. Hulk was shrewd, calm, balanced, intelligent, and in general had all the qualities that a normal person and businessman should have. Yes, normal. But he hadn’t got the qualities of a tyrant who owns the ranch in a desert. And yet, Hulk stubbornly kept the reputation of one of the toughest people in Tally - the "glory" of his merciless attitude towards the humans managed to circle around the city from top to bottom and there was some truth in it – now and again the local guards would ruin someone's life, not thinking about the consequences because they were never punished for it. But Hulk himself was never a direct part of their actions, although he had the ability to influence any situation both in good and bad ways - he could, but he never did, and that was strange.
Several times I tried to instigate a conversation with Tabitha about Hulk’s personality, which she’d always cleverly avoid, keeping any comments to herself. This was making me think even more about the whole situation. For a while now I’ve been feeling like something important was being left unsaid, as if an invisible hand was holding the curtains tightly drawn, and as much as I wanted that – I still couldn’t get any closer to solving this puzzle so I gave up trying to understand, though I continued to listen and observe everything around me.
Jenny tossed on the dirty sheets draped over a hard mattress on a narrow bed, and finally woke up. The small room was flooded with almost impenetrable greyish-pink light - the sun was about to rise. Greg, who drank too much yesterday was snoring intermittently next to her; it seemed that every inch of the wretched room soaked up his bad breath.
Jenny frowned. Her mood, which was already pretty low, was on its way to plunging even deeper, to a “shitty” mark, where it was at most of the time now and after the latest events it got even worse. She scratched her head that’s not been washed for over a week, trying to run her fingers through the sticky and greasy hair. Her pale blue eyes stared at the crumpled curtain covering the grubby window, although her mind was completely focused on different matter - waves of anger, one after another, like a poisonous ocean was washing over her mind.
Shereen.
The mere thought of her made Jenny clench her teeth so hard that the jaw began to ache miserably. What a con artist, what a suck-up, what an inventive bitch! Her imagination immediately filled with images - there she goes across the yard, all glowing, fresh and smelling of perfume, wearing a new T-shirt, clean jeans. Here she is handing out the hats to the corn workers to protect their heads; here she is giving out some gloves to the women in the barracks so that the bushes don’t scratch their hands... Fucking Mother Theresa she is! Right from the start she managed to get a room in the house and she didn’t waste her time. First she got into a habit of drinking tea with Hulk, and then she receives a second bracelet, gets spruced up. Just incredible!
Thinking about it, Jenny radiated poorly suppressed anger again and again. And what about her? No matter how hard she tried to get a better position on the ranch, she’d only managed to reach to a role of this dork’s lover. She glanced with hatred at sleeping Greg.
Jenny’s been sleeping with the senior warden for a month now and there was no use from it whatsoever. But it’s alright. One day she’ll celebrate the victory, and she’ll celebrate in style, with a party, champagne, lobsters and caviar. As soon as a duplicate is ready, Jenny will get everything she ever dreamt of. And it’s OK that for the time being she has to be patient, listen to the dirty words from this old drillmaster, greet her teeth, feeling the pain between her legs and pretend to be as loving as she possibly can. That’s OK. This gal has seen much worse things than this and knew how to handle it, since there was enough confidence that it was all worth it.
Jenny hastily climbed out of bed and began gathering up her clothes scattered around on the floor, cringing from the mess - empty beer cans, cigarette butts and the smell that permeated the room with alcohol vapours. What a disgusting apartment!
After she put a white T-shirt, spattered with numerous stains and torn by the sharp bush thorns, and a skirt over her naked body, Jenny ruthlessly shoved Greg in his side. He just smacked his dry cracked lips, moved his tongue, went quiet for a while and then continued snoring again.
“Wake up!” Jenny hissed and furiously shook his shoulder, “Close the door behind me, I have to go to the barracks - the others will start getting up soon!”
Greg produced a particularly loud snoring noise, which stopped half way through, as if the man choked on a piece of steak, and after a short pause, reluctantly opened his eyes.
“What?” he whizzed, not understanding where he was, and why he was being shaken.
“Wake up! And close the door!”
“A-a-ah...”
Standing by the door, Jenny threw a brief glance at Greg’s bare chest wrapped by scars, which was hanging over her so often lately, shuddered with repulsion and said:
“When will it be ready?”
“What?” Greg sleepily shook his head and frowned.
“The key!”
“Tomorrow night.”
For the first time this morning, Jenny allowed herself to relax. Even bad breath of the man standing in front of her wasn’t as irritating as much now.
“Good.” she smiled sweetly and patted the hairless chest of her lover, “You were wonderful as always, my dear!”
Greg grinned and muttered proudly "Oh, yeah! ....” slapped Jenny’s bottom and slammed the door behind her.
“I’d cut your bloody dick...” she hissed, trying to get away from the men's barracks as quickly as possible. Her anger quickly gave way to a feeling of euphoria that now quickly and pleasantly filled her whole body. The key! The key from Shereen’s room will soon be in Jenny’s hands and that was the only important thing, all the rest is rubbish.
Quietly and quickly, like a limping, but happy ghost, Jenny disappeared into the fog.
A few days passed by unassumingly with no incidents, but one of the following evenings imprinted in my memory deeply and probably for good. This only happens when you are not expecting any surprises from life but it just pours like a bucket of ice cold water over your head, turns everything upside down and you can never forget about it, no matter how hard you try. It’s not possible to delete such moments from ones memory - there is no magic switch that can be put in an "I don’t remember" position, although many would have paid a lot of money for it.
The day started off pretty ordinarily, as well as the noon and nothing spelled any changes - the same heat outside, same quiet voices in the depth of house, same rough pages of the ancient books before my eyes. But at six o'clock I was distracted from my daily grind by a delicate knock on the door - it was one of the maids who I often saw cleaning the floors.
“Mr Conrad wants you to come to his office.” she said as I opened the door.
“Should I bring the translated pages with me?”
She uncertainly ruffled the dusting cloth in the hands.
“I don’t know. I’ve not been told anything else.”
I thanked the girl and shut the door. That was weird. I didn’t usually appear in Hulk's office before eight or nine - that was the only time when he could read the new pages and treat me with some tea. I shrugged, picked up my notebook, turned off the lamp and went to the hallway to find out why our usual schedule had been changed.
“Come in.” said Hulk as soon as he saw me, “Sit down.”
Something in his face and his voice seemed worrying to me. I stared at him for a while and then decided that I was wrong because I didn’t notice any obvious signs of anxiety. Anything can happen. I already had the book opened up, ready to explain the new translation and my notes that I made on the page margins, when he stopped me and repeated:
“Sit down. You don’t need your notebook for now.”
I sat in a chair that I occupied every night, alarmingly looking at Hulk.
Something had subtly changed, the atmosphere in the room was tense, my anxiety increased. The premonition of something bad grew stronger.
“Why don’t I need the notebook for now?” I asked unusually quietly, as if my raised voice could crack and shatter the worlds in pieces like a poorly glued together glass. Hulk didn’t say a word, staring through the window facing the front yard. He stood with his back turned to me, and this silence in the room began to feel uncomfortable.
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked hesitantly, trying to remember, if I’d got into any kind of trouble recently or caused any problems for somebody else but fortunately or unfortunately my conscience remained as still as a pond’s surface and absolutely nothing came to my mind. The last days were the same old routine, quiet and calm.
“No. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Hulk finally turned to me; his eyes were still very serious and I got the urge to come closer and give him a good shake. I didn’t like what was going on at all and I couldn’t find any reason for it, yet it was obvious that something bad had happened.
“What is it? Why aren’t you saying anything?” I felt nervous and knew that I’d crossed the appropriate line of our communication but I couldn’t stay calm any longer, “Has something happened?”
“I have news for you.” Hulk went to the table and picked up a white envelope. It had nothing written on it.
My heart skipped a beat in anticipation of something awful. Hulk sat on the sofa opposite me and began to take out some papers and photos from the envelope.
“Shereen, I found Alex.”
His words took my breath away, and my hands tried to reach the photos but Hulk put them face down and said harshly:
“Wait.”
“He is alive? He’s not been killed?” I asked, suddenly realising that those could be photos of a dead body and a whirlpool of terror weaved into an already tangled up ball of emotions. I could barely breathe from the tension.