I started up the engine again, eased myself back into the flow of traffic. At first I only continued wandering about. But then I saw a sign. The name of the town I was in. A set of arrows pointing the way towards the nearest autoroute. I headed towards it.
As I drove along, all of a sudden I knew, as sure as if someone had slipped a letter through my mailbox or sent me an SMS, exactly where Sandy had taken Romeo. I knew it the way I knew the way back to my own home. I knew it as if Sandy were sitting right here next to me in this very instant, confiding her secret to me.
I coasted onto the highway and rushed back to the city. Within a few minutes I was pulling up into Bedford Park.
The house was strangely dark and eerie but I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when I placed my hand on the doorknob, and it turned, swinging open into a muted living-room. I stalked in, furious, felt about for the light switch and threw it on.
I shrieked and nearly leapt out the door at the sight that awaited me.
There before me, spread out on some sort of disgustingly filthy lounger covered with nauseating stains, lay a repugnant, mud-coloured skeleton draped in red satin, its hideous, lidless eyes turned towards me in a species of grotesque greeting. A weird glow emanated from those eyes. It was almost as if it were alive.
Sandy stepped out from the shadows and laid her hand affectionately against the two wisps of discoloured hair sticking to the top of the skull. She stroked the hairs with love.
“Welcome, Annasuya,” she said.
Her wide grin indicated that she had been fully expecting me.
“No, I’m not surprised that you’ve found me,” she said, as if reading my mind.
“Us.”
She gestured towards a door in the back, which I instantly took to mean that Romeo was hidden away somewhere over there.
As I gaped at her, wordless, she turned her gaze towards the monstrosity on the sofa. She smiled, baring her teeth.
“Ah, yes. I don’t believe you’ve met Lulu yet,” she said in a simperingly sweet tone of voice. “Lulu was, once upon a time and in a previous incarnation, Bruno’s beloved older sister, Brionna. Before she gave him his very last beating. Before he finally socked it to her and gave her what she deserved.”
She turned towards the ghastly apparition and tickled it underneath the chin, as if it were a cat, or a doll.
“After that we changed her name to Lulu. We felt that Lulu suited her better. It’s more sensuous. Seductive,” she crooned. “Just like her. Isn’t that right, Lulu?”
I stared at her incapable of moving a muscle to save my life. As if springing suddenly into business, stepping into the shoes of the office manager that she’d worn for so long, Sandy turned away and began moving briskly towards the door in the back of the room, motioning towards me.
“Well, Annasuya, it’s time we got to work. Don’t you think? You came here for someone, I do believe?”
Startled, I shook my head and began to follow her towards the door almost like an automaton. At the last minute, mistrust overtook me and I thought better of it.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I said, edging away from the door. “How do I know Romeo is there?”
Sandy smiled. A creepy smile.
“You don’t know it,” she replied. “But you’re about to find out for yourself that I’m telling the truth.”
I began to cast about frantically for something I could use against Sandy. There was something about her movements... Her gestures... I nearly missed it, but out of the corner of my eye I caught her lunging towards me. Reflexes cultivated in Rudolph Verenich’s classes came to my rescue and urged me to duck instinctively before I was even aware of what I was doing.
Sandy’s groping hands missed me. I dropped to the ground and reached out towards a table, fumbling for the first item I could find. It turned out to be a remote control. Well, I could hardly bash Sandy in the head with
that!
I glanced about and saw the television, pressed my finger over the on-off button. Sudden peals of oversized toddler laughter boomed out all around us, catching Sandy off guard. She whirled around, turning her back towards me.
I grasped the first thing I saw, a clunky marble statue of some abstract, unidentifiable artwork, and jumped onto Sandy from behind, riding her like a horse. She bucked about, flailing like a stallion. I clung on for dear life and bashed the statue over Sandy’s head.
She dropped like a lump of lead to the ground. Caught off balance, I tumbled on top of her. For a minute, we both lay there, winded.
At last, I managed to pull myself off of Sandy. She lay still, unmoving. I chucked the statue behind me and retreated out of reach of Sandy’s probing hands, my heart in my mouth, scarcely daring to breathe.
I counted off the seconds: one, two, three... Sandy continued not to move.
My breath whooshed out of me in a tremendous sigh of relief.
I backed towards the door near the end of the living-room, never taking my eyes off of Sandy. She didn’t stir one whit. At last I reached the door and yanked it open.
There was a stairway that led to some sort of basement. Well, it made sense. Of course, wherever they were, they’d want to keep us quiet and shushed up in some basement or cellar. There was a faint light down there. I heard whimpering.
My breath caught in my throat as I edged out tentatively onto the staircase, my hackles bristling. A peaked face stared tentatively up at me. Romeo!
I must have scarpered down the stairs about five at a time. It was a miracle I didn’t fall and break my neck. In two seconds flat I was draping myself over Romeo, leaping into his arms, grabbing him about the shoulders and covering him with a mass of kisses without stopping. When I was finally able to control myself a bit, I began stroking his cheeks and silky hair the way I used to when he was small.
“Are you all right, baby?” I cried. “Did she hurt you?”
Romeo shook his head.
“She didn’t touch a hair on my head,” he declared proudly. “Do you like the new expression I learnt? I learnt it the other day at school.”
I grasped his hair by the handfuls.
“Well, I am definitely going to touch more than just one hair on your head,” I screamed.
Suddenly I realized that this wasn’t exactly the best place for us to linger. I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the staircase.
“Let’s get out of here already as if the house were on fire,” I urged.
As we neared the top, a bloated and almost unrecognizable Sandy reared herself up before us. Her face was red and swollen, her hair sticking out in all directions as if she’d stuck a finger against a live wire, her eyes wild and flashing with rage. Before we could stop ourselves, she jabbed out a foot and sent us catapulting to the hard dirt floor below.
Romeo was kneeling next to me, crying. I knew if he’d been at school no one would have ever caught him dead in such a pose. But now he was alone with me. With his mimi. His mami. Who’d known him since his very first cell ever existed. Who’d known him since before he was ever even aware of himself as a living, breathing, pulsating being who existed in this world. Someone who loved him and would give her life for him, if she had to.
I opened my eyes and tried to raise my hand to touch him. My head was throbbing and I could barely see straight.
“Mimi. Mimi, are you okay?” Romeo gasped out between sobs.
I tried to eke out a smile.
“Of course, sweetie pie.”
I pressed my palm against his cheek. Against that soft and tender baby cheek, still almost the cheek of a baby. I wanted to hold myself against him forever.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“Don’t you remember? How that mean, stupid lady pushed us down the stairs?” Romeo cried out, a bit exasperated.
“No. I meant, what happened when she took you away? Did she hurt you?”
Romeo shook his head.
“Naw. She put this thing up against my throat, but it was to scare
you.
So you’d think she could hurt me, if you didn’t do what she said. But it was only a twig.”
He rubbed his throat where I’d seen that evil woman pressing something against him.
So the medium had told me I’d be up against an evil man. Well, what about that evil
woman?
Why hadn’t he warned me about
that?
“We have to get out of here,” I said.
Romeo hunched down next to me.
“No, Mami. That’s all you ever think about. Fighting. And beating down on the people who try to beat
you
down. But sometimes you’ve gotta rest, you know. Like now, when you’re hurt.”
I cuddled his cheek in the curve of my hand.
“I’m not hurt,” I said.
Romeo made a face.
“Well, not
very
hurt,” I hastened to clarify. “And when did you start to call me Mami again? Hasn’t it always been Mimi?”
Romeo grinned.
“Mimi, Mami, Momi, Moo,” he recited.
“You remembered?”
He batted at my hand.
“Course I remember.”
I closed my eyes. I felt near the end of my line.
When I opened them again, Romeo was sitting a short distance away. I must have drifted off.
“Honey sweets,” I called, softly.
Romeo raised his head and smiled.
“How long have I been sleeping? Have I been out a long time?”
Romeo grinned again.
“Not long.”
I tried to push myself up. Everything hurt. I felt like a sack of broken bones. I was relieved to discover that I could still move like normal though so, apparently, nothing was really broken.
“She really battered us, didn’t she?” I tried to exclaim. It came out more like a sigh.
Romeo merely nodded.
I tried to get up, but I still felt like rubber.
“We should try and find a way out,” I said.
“I told you, Mami. You oughta rest.” Tears burst from his eyes again. “Please, Mami. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
More tears began to pour out of him. I cradled his head and he began to wail as if a dam had just crashed inside of him. I held him for a long time, just letting him be.
After a while he sniffled and wiped at his eyes.
“Don’t feel so sad,” I whispered. “Nothing’s happened to me.”
This only inspired a fresh outburst of tears from him.
I don’t know how long I lay there but the minutes dragged into hours. Before long both of us were famished, consumed by hunger. I tried to calculate, with my ground-up brain, how long we’d gone without food.
“You disappeared yesterday, I think.” I fiddled absently with Romeo’s fingers.
Romeo squirmed restlessly.
“I did
not
disappear. I was with somebody. Disappearing is what happens when no one knows where you are. But someone knew where I was. That freaky man who had me.”
“Well, for me it was the same as if you’d completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Because
I
didn’t know where you were.”
I began counting hours off on my hand.
“It’s been over twenty-four hours,” I said. “I think.”
“Well, I’m hungry.” Romeo patted his tummy. “But people can live for lots and lots of days without food,” he hastened to reassure me.
I reached up and stroked his cheek again.
“Yes, but not at your age. You don’t have a lot of food stored up. ‘S why you’re so lucky skinny.” I tried to joke, but it sounded more pathetic than funny.
Romeo shrugged.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said, evincing a wisdom people five decades older than him would envy. “We’ll just have to wait till Calvin finds us.”
He glanced at me, his eyes shining with hope.
“Calvin
will
find us? Right?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had no idea how Calvin was. Or if he was even alive.
*
The shadows dragged out long and colourless before us. There was a light bulb in the room, that was perpetually lit. But there were also some windows. Some of those basement windows Calvin had shone his torch app through, barely two days ago. I could hardly believe it had been two days. It felt like a lifetime away.
Other than the windows and the dirt floor, there was barely anything more in this putrid hidey hole. A few skinny wooden columns which served to hold the roof up. And that was about it. No furniture. Nothing.
Romeo had dug around the room about a hundred times already, searching for a way out. He’d drifted up to the door a few times as well, but it remained stubbornly locked. There were the windows, but they were too high for us to reach. The panes of glass looked thick, and we had nothing to break them with anyways. Not even a chair.
Romeo designated a far corner to use as a bathroom, since there was no such installation available. It was a good thing it was a dirt floor, he told me. He’d scoured the entire room and come up with nothing. Not even, most importantly, another exit or escape route.
I needed to use the bathroom. But I didn’t have the strength to pull myself to my feet anymore. I wondered if my wounds were festering. Or if I
was
indeed broken somewhere, after all.
Broken, like my grandmother, who couldn’t have babies after the war. I was broken.
I longed for my mother to come to me, the way she’d come to the medium. I squinted around the dim half-light, trying to scrounge up an image of her, no matter how vague or faint, reassuring me that she was still watching over me. In the smoky corners of the room. In the flagrant flitting of the sunlight through the window. In a shadow or shade.
But there was nothing.
I was broken.
I pulled myself to my elbows and tried to drag myself across the dirt to the far corner that Romeo had designated as the bathroom. I managed to make a few “steps” with my elbows. Two, perhaps. Or three. Then the effort turned out to be too much. I dug my elbows in with all my strength, gritted my teeth and made one last-ditch attempt. I only succeeded in dragging myself perhaps two more inches across the ground.
In the end I gave up and peed into my elegant dress pants. They were all torn up anyways. A puddle formed underneath me, quickly sucked away into the desert-dry dirt floor.
I had no strength left. No vitality, no force.
I was dying.