Cristal - Novella (10 page)

He made that statement as if it were a fact
and nothing more.

She rolled her eyes, then stood up, and
said, “Oh, please!”

Kerim reached out and grabbed her hand. “Let
me finish,” he said, and pleaded with his eyes.

Cristal sank back down onto the bench. This
was Kerim’s last chance to explain himself. Patience was never her
strong suit.

“I don’t know what it is, but when I’m with
you, I feel something more.” He held her hand tight. “I can sense
what you are feeling, especially when you are under stress.”

She didn’t know why she was still holding
his hand. He looked down at her hand and released it from his
grip.

“You mean like this?” she asked.
So
you
can
read my thoughts.

“I sense what you feel. It’s like you’re
sending me messages with your mind. Never in my life have I
experienced something like this with anyone.”

He spoke so differently from people she
usually hung out with. He spoke in plain English—straight to the
point and blunt. Not like the vague way Harry spoke to her. She
closed her eyes and tried harder to take in what he was saying.
“Are you okay?” he asked.

She opened her eyes. “Yes, I’m fine. Just
trying to process the info.”

He patted her hand and gave her a small
smile. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked.

“Not really. I hope you’re not going to tell
me you believe in destiny and all that fluff.”

Kerim raised his eyebrow. “Well, not really.
But I was told that kismet or destiny would bring me to someone who
would change my life.” He paused for a second as he searched for
his words.

“When I first met you, the word ‘kismet’
entered my head. Honestly, I don’t know why.” He looked into his
hands.

Thoughts were swirling in Cristal’s mind. Kerim had
just admitted to hearing her thoughts. And now he’s given her a
bunch of stuff about them being destined to be together.

Kismet? I don’t know what to say,
she thought
to herself.

Suddenly, a dark blue four-door sedan drove
up, slowed down in front of them and then stopped. They both
glanced up to see Harry sticking his head out from the passenger
window. He had a crazed look on his face.

“Cristal, get in the car.”

Who the hell does he think he is?

She could see Dr. Saeed was in the driver’s
seat. She stood up, clenching her fists while trying to keep her
cool.

“Like I said, I’m not going to be part of
your experiment anymore, Harry.” She shot a look at Kerim who was a
few steps behind her. “Come on, Kerim. I want you to take me
home.”

Harry flung open the car door. He stepped
onto the street, his intent gaze never moving away from Cristal. He
walked up to her with long strides and stopped only when his face
was inches away from hers.

“Get away from me, Harry,” she said in a low
whisper.

“You have to let me explain,” he said.

Cristal couldn’t believe her ears. Harry had
a 200 IQ but the social skills of an ass.

“Explain what? Explain that you planned all
of this, because you want to find your mother?” She jabbed her
finger into his shoulder. “You never told me she was missing. And
to think I thought we were friends.”

She blinked her eyes hard, trying to stop
the tears from coming.

Harry paced in front of her, like a black
panther ready to pounce on his prey.

Kerim stood up from the bench. With Harry
walking around her as if claiming her as his property, Kerim seemed
unsure of himself.

Cristal hoped he wouldn’t leave her there.
Kerim,
please stay.

He looked intently at her, as if affirming
that he wasn’t going anywhere without her.

Harry stopped and turned towards her. “There
were times when I thought about telling you about my mother. About
everything, but…”

“But what?” She could feel the anger wrap
its fingers around her heart.

“But nothing. I’m not very good at sharing.
You know that about me.” His voice sounded tired.

“Is that it? Are you serious? You used me
for your experiment like one of Dr. Saeed’s lab rats? I trusted
you, Harry. How could you do this to me?”

The tears she didn’t want to cry started
burning her cheeks.

Harry didn’t let down his guard. He was
never good with expressing his feelings and she knew that. But
knowing that wasn’t enough. She had shared with him everything
about herself—all of her deepest, darkest secrets and fears.

Cristal didn’t want to hear any more excuses
from Harry. She waved to Kerim to come over. “Take me home.”

He walked up to both of them. Harry stepped
in front of her, giving Kerim a dirty look.

“Sorry, Harry,” Kerim said, “but you got
yourself into this on your own.”

Cristal reached out for his hand. “Let’s go.
Where’d you park?”

Harry grabbed her by the arm. “No, you’re
not going anywhere.”

She froze, unsure of what to do. Harry Doubt
wasn’t a touchy feely kind of guy. For all the years she knew him,
she never witnessed him even pat a guy on the back before.

“You can’t stop her from going, Harry,”
Kerim said. His words were respectful but firm.

Harry didn’t move, but his hand squeezed her
arm tighter. “When I asked you to be a Truth Seeker,” Harry said,
“I never promised to tell you everything. You knew that and you
accepted the invitation. I’m not going to apologize for not telling
you about my mother. I didn’t tell anyone about her.”

His jawline was tense and she felt like his
words were coming at her like sharp knives.

She tugged at her arm, trying to remove it
from his tight grip. “I don’t want to play your game anymore, Mr.
Doubt,” she said. Her words revealed the bitterness she felt in her
soul.

Harry stepped closer to her. His gaze was
magnetic. His eyes were a deeper blue than she had ever recalled
seeing before.

“It’s not about me, or you, or any of us.
And you know it. Your dad still communicates with you. You told me
that yourself.”

Her eyes widened. She glanced over to see
Kerim’s dark frown. Turning back, she could feel her heart pounding
wildly against her chest wall.

“What does that have to do with anything?”
she cried. The shrill tone in her voice could have broken glass.
She looked over her shoulder to see Dr. Saeed standing with
them.

“It has a lot to do with everything,” Dr.
Saeed said. “Your dad and all your friends’ missing loved ones are
trying to communicate. We need your help to find out what your dad
and the others are trying to say.”

A beacon bright in the
blackness,
Fragile sanity within all this madness.
They fill her dish with love and
Broken promises.
AR Vasquez

THE SUN WAS POURING into the musty hotel
room. Cristal walked over and closed the shutters, which were made
out of flimsy aluminum, the white paint peeling on the edges. They
made little difference blocking out the blistering heat or the
sounds of car horns blaring and the chatter from the street below.
She had arrived in Tel Aviv ten days earlier, but she still could
not adjust to the climate or the culture.

The days were blurred with meetings at the
GN office in Haifa in the day and mission meetings with Harry, Dr.
Saeed, Gabriel, Kerim, and Rinaldo at night. After the earthquake
one week earlier, many GN computer networks had a melt down. Harry
used the opportunity to get a temporary transfer for Cristal and
himself to the GN Haifa office citing that the data that she had
recovered all point to Israel being the location where their
missing family were being held. Dr. Saeed must have made
arrangements, too, because he arrived a few days after they
did.

She could have pretended that she was
vacationing, if she wasn’t staying in a shabby two-star hotel where
the only good feature was that it was close to the Bograshov Beach
and restaurants. Global Nation proudly stated at their regular
all-staff meetings that they did not misuse their donors’ funds for
unnecessary travel expenses. Of course, that same rule didn’t seem
to apply to senior management. She recalled how her senior manager,
George Beaver once bragged that when he went with Lionheart to a
convention in Brazil, they had stayed at a “Five Star All-Inclusive
Resort.”

Her room was on the fourth floor and was
modestly furnished. It had a queen-sized bed with a mattress that
had a huge depressive dent in the middle with wired springs that
jabbed into her back when she slept. Two wooden chairs were
positioned by the window that looked like they were held together
with rubber bands. The other furniture included a wooden side table
and a small twenty-four-inch old style Cathode ray tube television
that sat on a metal bracket hung from the ceiling in the corner of
the room.

Although she had a “non-smoking” room, she
spent the first morning “airing out” the room to get rid of the
cigarette smoke stench. And despite the fact there was an air
conditioner, she preferred to keep it off, because instead of the
box spewing out cold air, it filled the room with smelly dank air.
To top it all off, the bathroom was so small that she could do her
makeup, have a shower and sit on the toilet all at the same
time.

She spent the first day by herself staring
at the worn marble tiled floor and at the walls with their ugly
strokes of lumpy plaster covered with salmon-colored paint.

Instead of staying at the same hotel, Harry
had decided to camp out with his aunt who lived fifteen minutes
away. He had told them that he needed to connect with his family in
order to help them with their missions.

Kerim had been busy arranging accommodations
for Gabriel and himself. He found an ex-military friend who lived
close to the hotel, which left Cristal by herself in her miserable
room.

To pass time, she flipped through the photos
on her cell phone, and stopped to enlarge a photo of Kerim where he
was smiling at her and his fingers gestured a peace sign. The photo
was taken onboard the flight to Israel.

***

It had been her first international flight
on a Boeing 747 across the ocean. It started out horribly. The
plane was full of screaming kids and crying babies. Thankfully,
Kerim and Gabriel were on the same flight, although they were
seated in different rows.

Her seat number had been F29, the middle row
in front of a wall with a toddler on her left who spent most of the
trip wailing at the top of her lungs. The child’s mother who was
seated on the other side of the girl had put earplugs in and
covered her eyes with an eye mask. Cristal couldn’t believe how she
could ignore her own child who obviously was frightened and
uncomfortable. She tried to talk to the little girl in an effort to
comfort her. But the girl only reacted by screaming louder.

So much for trying to be a Good Samaritan.

On her right side sat an unsociable woman,
probably in her early forties with dark hair, cut short. Sitting
like a queen on her throne, her elbow hung over the arm rest
between them, digging into Cristal’s side. She was what Kerim
described later as a “full-bodied woman” referring to her wide hips
and generous-sized bosom. The woman had eyed Cristal carefully, her
lips pursed together as if she had just eaten a bucket of
lemons.

Get a life
, she remembered thinking to
herself.

When she gave up all hope of having any rest
on the flight, Kerim had suddenly appeared in the aisle. He looked
over at her and gave her a wink.

What is he doing? Harry had told all of us to be
inconspicuous.

The woman who had been flipping through a
beauty magazine glanced up to look at him. Cristal noticed that her
grim face melted and her pursed lips turned into a warm glowing
smile.

Kerim, you have the power to melt glaciers.

Kerim began speaking in a language that
Cristal guessed was Hebrew, given that the flight was a direct
flight to Tel Aviv and over 60 percent of the passengers were
Israelis returning home from their holidays in New York. The other
20 percent were New Yorkers who apparently had dual Israeli
citizenship. This is what Kerim had mentioned to her while waiting
at the airport before boarding the plane.

Although Cristal couldn’t understand what
they were saying, she knew Kerim was doing what he was good
at—charming the lady and making her giggle like a schoolgirl. Kerim
pointed towards Cristal and said something that caused the lady to
burst out into peals of laughter.

What the hell?

His hands then waved towards his seat at the
back of the plane.

Still giggling, the lady nodded her head,
grabbed her things and stood up, her fat bottom brushing against
Cristal’s arm. She glanced down and offered Cristal an apologetic
smile before turning back to Kerim. He offered his hand to help as
she squeezed herself out of the row into the aisle.

“
Shalom
, handsome. I will see you in the land
of milk and honey,” the woman said, purring like a cat, as if in an
attempt to sound sultry, but instead, it reminded Cristal of a
squawking seagull.

Cristal rolled her eyes, trying her best to
contain her laughter. The woman waddled away, swaying her hips. She
glanced back at Kerim, blowing him a kiss.

Oh, how sweet.

When the woman was far from sight, Kerim
eased himself into the recently vacated seat. He slipped his
messenger bag under the seat in front of him and leaned back with a
boyish grin on his face.

“What was that all about?” Cristal asked,
looking at the aisle where the lady had said her good-byes.

He smirked.

“My skills come in quite handy in these
types of situations.”