Chapter II. Curfew #3
Sometimes, I have nightmares about the children I was not able to save. When that happens, I find myself returning to the old habit of praying before bed, a habit I thought was as lost as the parts of me I left in Stalingrad …
Guls believe we reincarnate in groups of similarly minded people, and that we meet our loved ones in life after life. I hope they are right, and that the ones who died can come back as tabulae rasae, one day, one day …
Ariadne yawned, drying herself with a towel and dressing while she read.
She had vague memories of other children who cried too much, brought by a man in a hat, and the impression that they never stayed for long.
Sometimes, she convinced herself she had been born in the house where she was found, and while she knew she hadn’t been, it was true that she had grown from childhood into adolescence in the nightmare that still visited her from time to time.
She lay on the sofa to read, but words and sketches merged inside her head, becoming chimeras of facts.
A massive, brutish man taking her to the garden of his house when she still could walk.
Erik wrapping a duvet around her shoulders on a cold night.
Finding medicine books in the office upstairs and reading them for weeks until Erik finally agreed to teach her.
Ladyfingers if she was good, and you’re so, so good whispered in her ear with a wet kiss, the sound of it muffled by the opening song of an afternoon telenovela.
A man taking off his top hat when he entered the house.
You won’t believe who I found hiding my books under her pillow, Erik had told Irene when he thought she was sleeping. Smart little thing, isn’t she?
A girl with no limbs and no face, but it wasn’t her.
No, she thought, and the image was gone.
Gone, gone, and the world became Erik again.
Keep following the thread, Ariadne, written affectionately in a book about the myth of Theseus given on her sixteenth birthday, when she decided that she would keep that name.
The 2014 World Cup, and how she had wept when Brazil conceded the fourth of seven goals to Germany.
No, no, no, Erik turning off the television despite having joked that he would cheer for the European team before the match had started, shocked to finally see her cry. Come here, let me hug you.
How she had craved Erik’s attention, and despised him for giving her a life she never asked to have.
A life where she was not wanted—he wanted me before—where she was not touched—why can’t you touch me?
I only exist if you touch me—where she was only a child—why now, why not then?
A life where Erik was the only man worth loving, and the only one who wouldn’t do anything to her.
It shouldn’t have been like this—I was only good enough to get fucked, now I’m nothing, why did you take this from me?
—she should have been dead, dead with the other kids, dead with him.
But I didn’t ask to live! I don’t want to be happy!
It was she who was shouting. She had shattered a glass against the wall and scratched the synthetic skin of her arms to no avail.
She could feel him on her, his touch, his voice, his orders, crawling on her body like the legs of a spider.
He was even in the new limbs. And Erik’s eyes, his sad blue eyes, looking at her while he swept up the shards.
The answer came from her: I didn’t mean … I’m sorry, Erik …
Ariadne woke up to the sound of footsteps. The journal had been set aside, her cheeks were marked with the lines of a pillow, and the sky was still dark outside. For a second, she thought the prostheses were malfunctioning, but soon she realized she was just tired and in pain.
“Quaint?” Her body was heavy and sluggish, and Ariadne barely managed to sit down. “I’m sorry, I started to read and dozed off—”
She stopped speaking.
The man standing in the entrance of the room was the same man she had met at the clinic, but something wasn’t right.
His hair, usually slicked back, was disheveled, and his jacket and shirt were gone.
From his usual clothes, only the white undershirt and the pants remained, but both were stained with blood.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this.” Quaint ran his dirty fingers through his hair. She realized the rings were gone as well, and he only wore the one with a golden crystal box and a lock of dark brown hair. “I thought you’d be in your room.”
Ariadne froze. She tried to tell herself that he was still Quaint, that nothing had changed, but the dried blood gluing wild strands to his forehead made her body vibrate in alarm.
The gul left his shoes at the entrance of the suite, and she flinched instinctively.
“You’re afraid of me.”
“No.” Ariadne spoke too fast. Part of her, a detached and curious part that didn’t want to pretend she wasn’t there, wanted to know what kind of person he had eaten, and if that would have any effect on his health.
Like Ms. Terebê and her diabetes, she thought stupidly, feeling like she was still in the middle of a dream. “I’m not.”
“Can I come closer?”
Ariadne nodded. Even his smell was different, perfume and sweat and something metallic that bordered on sweet.
Her eyes fell to the unbuckled belt as he walked toward her, the tattoos going from his fingers to his shoulders, the dark stain in his abdomen, as if someone had tried to grab him in the middle of their struggle.
It was strange to see him like that, so uncovered, but it was also a reminder that she could not underestimate his strength.
“So?”
“A squad stopped me, you see.” Quaint’s belt went down with a clack, whipping the floor beneath her feet.
“Human, all of them, like you said. Not too kind to foreigners, but that changed very quickly, when they noticed. Told me I was free to roam at night. Could even bring me food, like we were in a damn restaurant. That’s what they call the politically unwanted. Food. Sounds very planned to me.”
Ariadne’s breathing was uneven and sparse, coming out in inaudible staccato gasps. Food. Food. Food. Could Erik be involved with this? No, they had taken him. Could he be forced to … No, he would not comply, would he?
“Nobody saw you?”
“Only the guls from the laundry.” Quaint raised her chin with his index finger, and the proximity made her realize he had blood under his nails as well. “I thought you weren’t afraid of me.”
“Only if you give me good reason to be.” Ariadne held his wrist, fingers curling into claws around the peony on the back of his hand.
For a moment, she wanted to rip the tattoo off his skin and show those creatures they were not the only ones who could do harm, but the thought vanished as quickly as it came. “If you do, I won’t forgive you.”
Quaint smiled.
“Let’s make it a promise, then.”