She
was glad she'd called Elisa, though it hadn't been easy, despite the
fact that contacting her old friend was the real reason she'd
accepted her friend Eva's invitation to come and stay at her
apartment. She'd been in Madrid a week and only called Elisa after
hearing about Colin Craig's death. Even then, she had her doubts. I
shouldn't
have phoned. We promised not to talk to each other.
But
her guilt was mitigated by the urgency of the situation. She might
have been hoping to renew a friendship, but the truth was that now
she needed Elisa's presence and her advice. She wanted to hear her
calming Words, to be reassured about what she had to tell her.
A
logical explanation: that was what she needed. Something that made
sense of everything that was happening.
She
went into her room, where the light was, of course, already on, like
those in the rest of the house. Eva would be sorry at the end of the
month when her electric bill came, but Nadja was planning to leave
her some money to make up for it. Two years earlier, in the Paris
building where she lived, there was a blackout that had petrified
her. She'd been paralyzed, curled up in a ball on the floor, for the
five minutes it lasted. She hadn't even been able to scream. Ever
since then she made sure to have portable battery-powered lamps and
flashlights with her wherever she was, just in case. She couldn't
stand the dark.
She
took off her clothes, opened the armoire, and looked at the
full-length mirror inside the door.
Mirrors
had always made her uneasy, ever since she was a kid. She could never
help imagining someone appearing behind her, some scary creature
sticking its head over her shoulder, a being that could only be seen
there, in the quicksilver. But, of course, that was an absurd dread.
There
was nothing there now. Just Nadja herself, her milky skin, petite
breasts, faded pink nipples ... Just like always. Or maybe not
always,
but
with a few changes. Changes she knew Jacqueline had gone through,
too. And maybe Elisa as well.
She
picked out some clothes and looked at the clock. She still had twenty
minutes to shower and get dressed. Walking naked to the bathroom, she
wondered what her friend would think about her new appearance.
What
she'd think, for example, of her dyed black hair.
ELISA
decided
to try to avoid traffic by taking the M-30 beltway rather than drive
through central Madrid in the early evening, four days before
Christmas. But when she got to Avenida Ilustracion she found a sea of
brake lights, twinkling like rubies. It was as if all the Christmas
decorations throughout the whole city had been thrown into the street
in front of her. She cursed under her breath, her cell phone ringing
in time with the blinking lights in front of her.
It's
Nadja,
she
thought. And then,
No.
I never gave her my cell.
Crawling
forward inch by inch, she took out her phone and answered.
"Hello,
Elisa."
Emotions
travel through our bodies at lightning speed. So do masses of other
information. They travel through our cerebral circuits each second
without producing the kind of traffic jam Elisa's car was stuck in at
that moment. In a flash, her emotions traveled a considerable path:
from indifference to surprise, surprise to elation, elation to
apprehension.
"I'm
in Madrid," Blanes explained. "My sister lives in El
Escorial, and I'm going to spend Christmas with her. I just wanted to
wish you happy holidays. It's been years since we last spoke."
Then he added, in a chirpy tone, "I called your house and got
your machine. But I remembered you taught at Alighieri, so I called
Noriega and he gave me your cell."
"I'm
so happy to hear your voice, David," she said genuinely.
"Me,
too. After all these years..."
"How
are you? Everything OK?"
"Can't
complain. I've got a whiteboard and a few books in Zurich. I'm
happy." There was hesitancy in his voice, and she knew what he
was going to say before he said it. "Did you hear about Colin?"
They
spoke superficially about the tragedy. In ten seconds of polite
cliches, they buried their old colleague. And in that time, Elisa's
car barely moved ten feet.
"Reinhard
Silberg called from Berlin to tell me," Blanes said.
"Nadja
told me. You remember Nadja, right? She's in Madrid, too, on
vacation, staying at a friend's house."
"Oh,
that's nice. How's our dear paleontologist doing?"
"She
left the field years ago..." Elisa cleared her throat. "She
says it was too exhausting."
Just
like Jacqueline and Craig.
She
paused, those thoughts swimming through her brain, disturbing her.
Blanes had just told her that Craig had asked for a leave of absence
at the university. "She's got a job in the Slavic Studies
Department at the Sorbonne, now, or something like that. Says she's
lucky to speak Russian."
"I
see."
"We're
meeting tonight. She told me she's... scared."
"Mmm."
That
"mmm" made it sound as though Blanes wasn't intrigued by
Nadja's state; more like he expected it.
"The
details of what happened to Colin brought some things back for her,"
she added.
"Yeah,
Reinhard said the same."
"But
it's just an unlucky coincidence, right?"
"No
doubt."
"No
matter how much I think about it, I just can't accept that there's
any relation between this ... and ... what happened ... to us ... Can
you, David?"
"It's
totally out of the question, Elisa."
Colin
Craig's wife had been running down the street, terrified, maybe in
her nightgown or robe. She saw her husband savagely attacked and
tortured, her son kidnapped, but she managed to escape and ran for
help.
It's
totally out of the question, Elisa.
"I
was just wondering," Blanes said, taking on a singsongy,
let's-change-the-subject tone, "if you'd want to meet up one of
these days. I know the holidays are always hectic, but, I don't know,
maybe we could have a coffee." He laughed. Or rather, he made
"I'm laughing" noises. "We could see Nadja, too, if
she felt like it..."
Suddenly,
Elisa thought she understood why Blanes had called her, what was
behind this call?
"Actually,
that sounds like a great plan." She thought
plan
had
been a good choice of words. "How about tomorrow?"
"Perfect.
My sister is letting me use her car. I could pick you up at six
thirty, if that's good for you. Then we can decide where to go."
They
spoke casually. Just two friends who, after not having seen hide nor
hair of each other for years, decided to meet up one afternoon. But
she got the message.
Time:
six thirty. Place: let's not say it over the phone. Reason: risk.
It's out of the question.
"Tell
me where I can reach you," she said. "I'll ask Nadja and
call you back."
Possible
reason: a frostbitten five-year-old boy, half frozen in his backyard,
mouth and eyes full of snow, waiting for his mother and father to
come back, but they won't, because his mother ran to get help, and
his father's inside, busy with something. In danger.
Other
possible reasons: soldiers, blackouts.
Yes,
we have a lot of reasons.
"Fine,
Elisa. Call me anytime—I go to bed late."
Traffic
finally picked up on Carretera del Pardo. Elisa said good-bye to
Blanes, put down her phone, and shifted gears.
Suddenly,
she couldn't wait to see Nadja.
WHENEVER
she
took a shower, she thought she was going to die.
Over
the past few years, the fear had become nearly vertiginous. Just
standing naked beneath an incessant stream of warm rain seemed more
like a test of courage than a hygienic necessity. Not because she
wasn't used to being alone—after all, she lived on her own in
Paris—but because, ironically, she suspected she never really
was
alone.
Even
when there was no one there.
Don't
be ridiculous. Elisa told you, what happened to Colin is horrible,
but it's got nothing to do with New Nelson. Don't think about it. Get
it out of your head.
She
scrubbed her arms. Then she soaped up her stomach, and then between
her legs. She'd waxed her bikini line for years, lately opting for a
full Brazilian. No hair whatsoever. At first she thought it was just
a silly whim; she just felt like it, though no one had persuaded her.
Then ... she didn't know what to think. After she bought all that
black lingerie (she'd never liked it before; it was too much of a
contrast with her almost-albino skin), and dyed her hair black, she
tried to convince herself that she was just acting on her own private
fantasies. She admitted that maybe they came from bad experiences.
But still, it was
her
life.
Or
at least that's what she thought. Until that afternoon when she spoke
to Jacqueline.
The
first few months after her return from New Nelson, she'd tried
unsuccessfully to reestablish contact with her old professor. She
called the university, the lab, even her home. The first thing she
heard was that Jacqueline had been "injured" in the
explosion on the island. Then they told her she'd asked for an
indefinite leave of absence. The people at Eagle reproached her for
those phone calls and reminded her she was not allowed to contact
anyone from the project, for security reasons. But that just annoyed
her, and she got worse. Then they changed tactics, started giving her
updates on Jacqueline almost every month. Professor Clissot was fine,
though she'd left the university. Later, she found out she'd gotten
divorced. She wrote books and was an independent woman who'd decided
to take a new path in life.
Nadja
finally accepted that she'd never see her again. After all, she'd
taken a new path, too.
Until
that afternoon, a few hours ago, when her cell phone rang and she
found out that her and Jacqueline's "paths" (and maybe
Elisa's, too) sounded very similar: loneliness, anguish, an obsession
with appearance, and certain fantasies related to...
She
couldn't even remember which of them had brought
him
(and
the things he forced them to do) up first. One of the basic rules of
her fantasies was that she not talk to anyone about them. But she'd
noticed Jacqueline's hesitancy, her anxiety (much like Elisa's, later
on), and resolved to confess. Or maybe it was the news of Colin's
death that tore down the wall of silence. And with every word, they
realized just how much their nightmares bound them together...