The Hermit (16 page)

He gets up and walks out. Stands beside the shed.

– Hello, she says. – Hello, Taxi-man?

– I’m not letting you out, no matter how much racket you make.

– Let me out, you psychopath, you fucking psychopath, you motherfucking shit, you… Hello? Are you there?

– Not until the hearing is over, he says.

That makes her cry again. She tries to hide it, but there’s something about the sound a woman makes when she cries. You can always tell, even at a distance.

– I’m OK now, she says. – I’ll calm down. C’mon, please let me out. We can talk it over. Erhard almost reaches for the lock, but he checks himself. She has foul mood-swings. He must remember to remind himself of that.

– I’ll make some breakfast for you. Be quiet and I’ll bring you something, he says through the door. He makes it sound as though he’ll serve a small tray with fresh melon and tomatoes, cold cuts, bacon, and an omelette. But the truth is, he doesn’t really have anything. He rarely eats breakfast and so he stands staring for some time at his cupboards and fridge. He grabs some peaches, olives, and relatively fresh bread. Plus a glass of water.

– Get away from the door, he says, before opening the padlock. He holds out the food, so she doesn’t shove the door against his head. He peers inside. She’s seated on the ground in the back of the shed, tiredly watching him. Her clothes are wrinkled and filthy, and her arms are browned with dust and dirt, as if she’s tried to dig her way through the floor.

He sets the tray down at her feet.

She looks at it disinterestedly. – My smokes, she says. They’re in my purse in the car.

He closes the door, locks it, and walks to his car. Pushed underneath the passenger seat is her small purse, which jingles when he pulls it out. There’s not much inside. A wallet, a key ring with four keys and a plastic dollar sign, a mobile, and a pack of fags – a brand he doesn’t recognize. There’s also an entire bag of the coloured marshmallows that she was eating the last time he saw her. He tastes one, but it’s too synthetic and sweet for his liking, and he spits it out. He tries the lighter, which catches with a long, eager flame. Why should he be nice to her? He thinks of her almost as a guest on whom he’d like to make a good impression. One cigarette probably isn’t too much. Perhaps it’ll make everything easier. He lays the purse and her other things inside the shed.

– You promise not to try anything? he says, when he lights a fag for her, and she sucks on it greedily. People and their cigarettes.

– I can report you to the police. You know that, right?

He hadn’t thought of that. Not yet. This idea had come to him so swiftly that he hadn’t really thought it through. But she’s right. If he lets her go in the afternoon, there’s no reason for her not to go directly to police headquarters and report him. The only thing he has hindered today is the court hearing, which in all likelihood will only be delayed while they search for the girl. He needs to find out what the police are doing before he lets her go. But she can’t sit inside that shed. If she keeps turning off the generator it’ll be hard on him, and he can’t just hide her like Bill Haji’s finger.

He locks the door, and she begins to curse him again. He’s got to go to work, in any case, for a few hours. Before he leaves, he shoves her mobile in his pocket and rifles through her wallet. It’s stuffed with business cards – probably from all the men she services – and two 50-euro notes. There are also a few photographs, the kind you take in a photo booth. She was probably ten years younger when the photos were taken, but it’s Alina all right. Alina and another girl that resembles Alina, the same slightly puffy face, just prettier. They’re both wearing black jackets, white shirts, and some kind of bow in their hair. A school uniform, the fashionable kind. And they each have pigtails. Two sisters, the elder sister strong and serious-looking, the younger sister curious-seeming and more naive – her appearance so thoroughly maintained, so puritanical, so held in check by reprimands and maybe religion that it’s easy to be confused by the trembling gaze of her defiance, the near hatred, that burns through, especially in one of the images: Alina leaning towards the camera as if to stop the photographer, while her sister, seated on her lap, laughs without laughing, turning her head away from the camera. Of course she was someone else before she became a whore. She was a broken soul long before she took the job that destroyed her body. No one becomes a whore by her own free will. No one. The prostitutes who say otherwise, who say they like it, they are the most hardboiled of all.

He folds up the bills and stuffs them in his pocket. He hides the rest of the wallet’s contents behind his books, on the shelf next to the finger. It’s not the most original hiding spot if someone were to search for valuables in the house, but for now he can’t think of a better place. And anyway, who would look for valuables in such a dump?

When he reaches the road, he parks the car and cuts the engine to listen. Her banging and shouting were so clear up at the house, even after he’d climbed into his car, that he feared they could be heard down here. But the wind, always the wind, erases all sound. Even the wind is difficult to hear; it’s just part of the scenery.

Maybe he doesn’t need to work, but he needs to think about his situation, and a few hours in the car, on the road, tends to help him whenever he feels this way. He drives around picking up some pedestrians, but at eleven o’clock he parks in the queue at Carmen. He pulls out his book and tries to read, but he can’t focus on the pages. He imagines Alina slipping out of the shed and running – naked for some reason – down the road, to Guzman, where she points up the hill and explains how the Hermit, that crazy man, locked her up. He knows that’s not likely. She can’t get out of the shed. Despite its rickety appearance, the shed is solidly built, the boards are thick, the door has four hinges, and it would take two men with a bolt cutter to break the padlock. Then he imagines a scene in which he comes home and invites her into the kitchen; he grills a fish – for some reason, they eat it together – and sit out back watching the goats and gazing up the hill. He doesn’t even like grilled fish.

While he’s out grabbing a cup of coffee, he saunters past a taxi, inside of which two men are arguing. One is Pedro Muñoz, who normally drives on weekends, and the other is Alberto, an older cabbie who works a regular Monday to Friday shift. Alberto waves him over to the window.

– Hola, Jørgensen. Tell this young man here, again, why we use a taximeter.

Erhard dips his head forward and peers into the car. Muñoz looks a little trapped.

– What’s the problem? Erhard asks.

Whenever there are disagreements, his colleagues come to him. He’s earned a reputation for being a fair man of few words.

– The problem is that Alberto doesn’t like a little competition, Muñoz says.

– All I’m saying is that you’ve got to use your taximeter and not give customers any discounts.

– You always tell me that the taximeter is best for the customer, and I get that. But, well, don’t you get discounts when you buy new shoes? The price signs are only for tourists.

– It’s not just about money, Erhard says.

– We’re not shoe salesmen, Alberto says, affronted.

Pedro Muñoz throws up his hands. – Ridiculous. What about regular customers who ask for you? Or some girl who’s afraid to walk home alone?

– I know it’s against the rules, but why can’t Pedro do as he wishes, so long as he settles his accounts? Erhard asks.

– Because it’s my car, Alberto says, and I need to pay TaxiVentura along with all the expenses! I can’t tell if he’s had a bad day or just pocketed all the money. His discounts don’t always make it into his accounts.

– Did you cheat? Erhard asks Muñoz, knowing that will push his buttons.

– Of course I haven’t! he says, red-faced. – Honest.

– Why would you let him drive your car if you think he’s cheating you?

– Because he takes 70 per cent of the cut, Muñoz says on Alberto’s behalf.

The men fall silent.

There are two possible outcomes to this. Either they figure it out or Muñoz quits driving for Alberto and officially begins working for TaxiVentura. It’s happened before. Alberto would have to work full-time again, at least until he finds someone new to drive nights for chump change. Some drivers still rent out their cars to substitutes; it’s a way to finance their cars without working all the time. But it’s usually not a good deal for the substitutes. That’s why part-time cabbies are on the way out, and the two large taxi companies, TaxiVentura and Taxinaria, have organized all the drivers on the island.

– What if Pedro gets 35 per cent and stops giving discounts? he says to Alberto, offering one last chance to keep his comfy day shifts.

Alberto stares at the photograph taped to the dash. It’s a faded old photo of a woman balanced on a ladder picking olives. His wife, or maybe his mother. – OK. But from now on everything goes through the taximeter, he says.

Muñoz appears to be calculating whether it’s worth it for him. He simply nods. In a few months’ time, he’ll probably move on. Erhard doesn’t know what the guy wastes his time on during daylight hours, but if he wants to earn real money driving a cab, he’ll have to find a better arrangement. The 35 per cent solution only solves the problem here and now, and it helps Alberto as he draws nearer to his retirement.

– And you have to clean up all your coffee cups, Alberto says, handing Muñoz a paper cup.

– Muñoz smiles, takes the cup, and steps out of the car. For a moment he and Erhard walk side by side on the pavement, each carrying a cup. When they come to Erhard’s vehicle, Erhard sets his on the roof to open the door.

– Thank you, Muñoz says.

– You’re welcome, Pedro.

– It’s hard, you know, because he’s a nice fellow.

– Alberto’s not as friendly as he seems. Just ask some of the others who started with him.

– Why did you help me? I thought you’d help him. You go back a bit, don’t you?

An honest boy. Curious. Erhard appreciates that. – Justice, he says. – It’s a matter of fairness. Without justice, what have you? What comes around, goes around.

– Kind of a yin and yang thing, huh? Is that what you mean?

– Why do you ask?

Either the lad’s smarter than he looks or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

– They say you’re a wise man, that you read a lot of books. Muñoz peeks through the passenger window at Erhard’s book.

– The blind leading the blind, or whatever people say, Erhard says, getting into his car.

– What?

– Don’t believe everything you hear. And come speak with me if you have any more trouble.

Erhard starts his engine and rolls forward in the queue.

During siesta he drives home, suffering from a bad conscience. She’s been locked in the dark shed all day long. He listens at the door and calls out for her to step forward. Without waiting for her response, he prepares a few things inside his house, then carries out a long tow chain and hitches it to a metal ring on the side of the house, where the tarpaulin used to be. He drags the chain to the shed and unlocks the door.

It’s silent in there. At first all he can see is darkness, the compact kind that swallows virtually all light. But then he sees her face. She was waiting just inside, and has begun sneaking towards the door, trying to slip around Erhard to get outside. He discovers her in the nick of time, forces the door shut with all his might, and slams the padlock closed. She screams in frustration.

– You can’t do that, he says.

She doesn’t reply, but he hears her punching the wall.

– I want to let you out, but don’t try anything. Do you understand?

No reply.

– Do you understand?

– Yes! she shouts shrilly.

– Stand against the wall. And stay there. Cautiously he opens up and peers inside, positioning his foot against the door. She’s standing against the back wall, hands at her sides. She’s been in the shed for only seventeen hours, and yet she looks like a shipwreck. Her hair, once meticulously coiffed, has tumbled loose. Her makeup is smudged and smeared with dirt, and the thighs of her creased, filthy trousers are torn. He steps towards her, and she stares in terror at the chain he holds in his hand.

– I’ll let you go soon, he says. – When the police have figured out they’ve got the wrong person.

She says nothing.

– Did the telephone ring?

She doesn’t look at him.

He shakes her. – It’s important. Did the telephone ring? He hopes the journalist will call to let him know that he went to the hearing, and that the police will now continue their investigation. Maybe he should’ve gone to the hearing himself. It was probably open to the public.

He repeats his question, but she stares at the ground.

He shows her the chain. – I thought I’d put this around your ankle, so you can be outside instead.

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, but he quickly drops to his knees and fastens it to her ankle, securing it. It’s clamped tight around the skinniest part of her leg, and will begin to hurt at some point, but it’s got to be better than sitting in the dark.

The chain is long enough for her to enter the house. She can use the toilet. She can reach the kitchen and open one of the cupboards, which he’s removed the glasses from and stocked with water bottles, biscuits, old cookies. If she’s inside, he won’t be able to close the main door because the chain will be in the way, but that doesn’t matter. No one ever visits anyway.

He shows her around and explains everything. – You can’t reach the telephone or the bookshelf, so don’t bother trying. You can sit here or sleep.

He points at an old mattress that he’s positioned in the corner, near the door. She stares at it disinterestedly, almost in disgust. He’d hoped for gratitude, and he’s irritated at himself. It confuses him that he continues to give her chances, acting like she’s a guest in his house. Perhaps it’s her wretched appearance and round, dirty cheeks that arouse his compassion. She deserves exactly what she’s getting, an old mattress and a chain around her ankle. He leaves her alone while he boils water for coffee.