Infrared (28 page)

A plague upon the planet!

As they head towards their B & B on the outskirts of the city, the silence in the car becomes so charged that Rena turns on the radio for the first time and stumbles upon a world news bulletin in Italian. The riots in France are now breaking news. The announcer runs through the statistics at top speed, citing the number of
macchine bruciate, carabinieri feriti
and
ragazzi arrestati
in one city after another. Rena doesn’t get it all, but her heartbeat speeds up uncontrollably. Wiped out, Simon and Ingrid sit in the back seat saying nothing.

A bucolic residential suburb. This time they have no trouble finding the place, but (alas!) no Gaia awaits them there. The owner is a young, blonde, and appallingly efficient mother of three. Sure, that’ll be fine, thank you…Shower’s in the hallway…Perfect.

They go back out an hour later. Admire the purity of the full moon (almost full, almost pure—above the Ponte Vecchio—was a century ago). Bundle back into the car to search for a restaurant.

Here? No…There? No…Over there, maybe? U-turn…Hey, there’s one!…Quick, quick, turn left!

The young man on the pedestrian crossing jumps, hastens his step.

‘Don’t
do
that,’ Simon mutters to Rena. ‘I hate people who do that!’

The phrase hits a nerve. (Flashback to 1975: ‘You hate me!’ ‘No, I don’t. It’s not you I hate, it’s your lies. I hate to see you stealing things, skipping school, lying to me and your mother. Rena, I really think you should see a professional. I have a friend who could at least refer us to someone…’ Simon and I have been at loggerheads for three full decades…)

‘Sorry, Dad,’ she retorts. ‘But I’m driving an unfamiliar car in
an unfamiliar city’—guided, moreover, she manages to refrain from saying, by a lousy Virgil…

Simon apologises in turn. He’s getting old, he tells her, and cars often force him to speed up when he’s crossing the street.

Father and daughter are both contrite, and mad as hell.

At last Rena parks and the couple gets out of the car. A few seconds later, Ingrid taps on her window: ‘You can’t park here, Rena, it’s a bus stop. If you get two parking tickets on the same day, they’re liable to press charges.’

Simon points to a spot across the street. Impossible (illegal) to make a U-turn. Rena tries to nose her way around the small square, but far too many cars are parked there and she gets stuck. Instantly, a dozen men rush over and surround the Megane, shouting advice at her in Italian. Flustered, she turns the steering wheel the wrong way as she backs up, grazing the fender of an Audi and eliciting even louder shouts from the men. They sense that she’s a foreigner and start haranguing her in English. This is the last straw: she rolls her window down and makes a most unladylike gesture in their direction.

Having extricated the car from that mess at last, she drives half a mile before finding a place to turn around. Her right leg is shaking so badly that the pressure on the accelerator is spasmodic and the car moves forward in fits and starts. Her chest slams up against the steering wheel, and an electronic beep berates her for not having attached her seatbelt. By the time she finally glides into the parking spot her father has been saving for her, she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

‘You could have stayed right where you were,’ he tells her, smiling, as she locks the car. ‘Turns out the buses stop at eight.’

Nothing has happened, nothing. Yet she wants to scream, beat this old man over the head, clasp him to her, tell him off, shake him so hard that his teeth fall out, collapse on the ground at his feet.

They embark on a lengthy examination of the menu, including the conversion of euros into Canadian dollars and an etymological discussion, possibly the three hundredth of Rena’s life, of the misleading word
pepperoni,
a type of sausage in North America and a vegetable in Italy. Somehow they manage to place their order.

Suddenly Simon turns to her and says, ‘That’s a lovely scarf!’

Rena freezes. Blanches. Lowers her eyes and murmurs, ‘Thank you—I like it, too…’ The conversation picks up where it left off.

He gave it to you, murmurs Subra. That beautiful velvet scarf in shimmering red and mauve and blue…

Yes, a good ten years ago. He chose it especially for me, wrapped it and mailed it overseas—accompanied, like all his gifts over the years, by a carefully chosen birthday card. Then he waited for my response. In vain. Hurt, he brought it up a few months later: ‘Didn’t you like the scarf?’ ‘What do you mean?’ I protested. ‘I loved it! Didn’t you get my thank you note?’ ‘No…’ His expression made it clear he didn’t believe I’d sent one. Since then, every time I wear this scarf, it brings back not my father’s generosity but his mistrust. I decided to wear it tonight for our last meal in Siena, and now… he’s forgotten it ever existed!

Their pizzas arrive and the conversation grows animated. Perspiring, Rena takes off the scarf.

Back in their B & B—panic. No scarf—must have left it behind in the restaurant. No, I don’t believe it!

Rushes to the car, drives like a madwoman, bursts into the restaurant—’Did you by any chance see…?’

Finds it, heads back towards the car, and bursts into tears.

Not tears of relief. No, not exactly.

She waves the remote control in the car’s direction…hmm. Instead of clicking, the car blinks at her.

She seizes up in silly fear.

Stop it, Subra tells her. Too many emotions. Obviously, in your haste, your forgot to lock the car doors two minutes ago.

That must be it, Rena nods. And she opens the door to the driver’s seat.

But. Wait. But. Wait. Stop it. Stop it. No. Think. No. Where’s my bag, what happened to my bag, what the fuck did I do with my backpack?

Rena, calm down, Subra says firmly. You wouldn’t have left it in an unlocked car. It’s in your room.

No, it isn’t. I brought it with me.

Then it’s in the restaurant.

Right. A fair exchange: the waiter gives me my scarf, and to show my gratitude I give him my backpack. No…what the fuck did I do with it?

Long pause, in the course of which her brain is forced to admit the truth.

Did I really do that?

Looks like it, little one, says Subra. After travelling to seventy-five different countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo without losing so much as a hairpin, you’ve actually managed to get your backpack ripped off in Siena.

It’s past midnight. Rena glances around the small square. Clusters of men stand chatting and smoking between parked cars and in front of the two or three cafés still open. Among them, probably, a few of the guys who yelled at her earlier, and in whose
direction she made her eloquent gesture.

Now what? she thinks. I can hardly go over to them and say, ‘Uh, did you by any chance notice…?’

If they wanted to tell her, they’d have told her by now.

Okay, Subra says. It’s neither the plague nor the slaughter of the innocents. Think. What was in the bag?

Canon. Notebook. Wallet containing cash, credit card, ID, driver’s licence.
Guide bleu.
Comb. Condoms. Tampax. Kleenex. Camels.

Is that all?

Yes. No. Mobile.

Okay. Is that all?

Yes, I think so. Not my passport, not my plane ticket, not the keys to Rue des Envierges. All that’s in an inside pocket of my suitcase. Just: Canon, wallet, guide, notebook, mobile.

Not a bad haul.

Rena sits at the wheel, dazed and motionless.

Quick, Subra says: your Visa card. Call to cancel.

My phone’s gone. And the number’s in the notebook.

She goes back to the restaurant, which is about to close. Intercepts the look in the waiter’s eyes when he sees her again: What does that old biddy want
now?
(Until recently it had been unthinkable for a young man to look at her that way.)

No, the waiter tells her. No, there are no police stations in the neighbourhood. She’d have go to Siena.

You’re going drive back to Siena
now?
Subra asks. At midnight? Alone? And wander around looking for a police station? Without a driver’s licence?

No, I’m not, Rena says. I’m just going to…um…get some sleep, that’s it. Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe it will all turn out to be a bad dream.

As she drives back to the B & B at a snail’s pace, Subra runs through the pros and cons of the
furto.

Aziz won’t be able to reach you anymore…But then, neither will your sons…But then, neither will Schroeder…Between now and tomorrow morning, the thief can reduce your meagre savings to naught…

But I have my ticket and my passport! Rena says. I’ll take off from Amerigo Vespucci Airport the day after tomorrow, that’s all that matters. The rest…well, the rest will sort itself out.

Aziz no not Aziz Paris no not Paris her job no she doesn’t have a job anymore Toussaint oh my god Toussaint is going to be a father, he’s only twenty-six, that’s too young to be a father, well, everything is relative, Simon had his two children at twenty-one and twenty-five…Help, Kerstin! Deliver me from my thoughts! A bit of cerebral acupuncture, I beg of you! Two days left. Just two more days. Wait for me, Aziz, I’m coming home to you, I swear. As soon as I get back, we’ll do a reportage together on the situation in France’s impoverished suburbs and sell it, not to
On the Fringe,
but to the best magazines in the world. That might seem hard to believe, seen from this bedroom on the outskirts of Siena, but…but…

She stretches out on her bed and looks up at the high, slanting mauve ceilings.

I’m attending an opera in an outdoor theatre, a bit like the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. In the middle of the soprano’s most famous solo, I suddenly get up and start hitting the other members of the audience over the head, as hard as I can…

She wakes up. Gets out of bed. Goes over to the window. Stands there, naked.

Mist. A still, silent world. Not even a dog barking. Beneath her window, scarcely visible in the ghostly fog: a vegetable garden. Infrared photo? No. Camera gone.

She stands there. Frozen.

Some days (it was before you came along, Subra), the sun would vanish without warning.

‘I love you, Rowan.’ ‘Shut up, you nobody. You crumb. Just shut your face and leave me alone.’ ‘But you promised to help me with my multiplication tables!’ ‘Poor little idiot. She’s nine years old and she still doesn’t know her multiplication tables. How dumb can you get?’ ‘Show me, I can learn. Please, Rowan. Please show me!’ ‘Get the fuck out of my room. Can’t you see I’m busy?’

And the next day: ‘I apologise for bothering you yesterday. Do you forgive me, Rowan? Can I come in? Do you forgive me?’ ‘Are you really sorry?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What will you do to prove it?’ ‘Anything you say.’ ‘Okay, give me your hand. Close your eyes…Come on… follow me…’

The garage again. But this time it was the month of January and the temperature, both out of doors and inside the garage, was twenty below. Our breath visible as steam in the semi-darkness. ‘Take off your clothes.’ I peeled off my coat; then, very slowly, my sweater. ‘Come on, keep going.’ ‘It’s freezing in here, Rowan.’ ‘Is that how weak your love is? It comes to an abrupt halt after a few shivers? I did hear you correctly, didn’t I? You did say you apologised and were eager to prove how much you loved your master, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes, but…’ ‘Then you have to obey him.’ ‘Yes, but what if Mommy or Daddy…?’ ‘They’re both busy. They won’t come out here.’ ‘I’m scared, Rowan.’ ‘Jesus, what a scaredy-cat. You’ll never amount to
anything.’ ‘Don’t say that!’ ‘Well, make it snappy.’ ‘Okay…’

Numb fingers fumbling with buttons and zips. At last I was naked, crouching, shivering violently, awed at the greyish-green hue of my own skin in the half-light, skinny arms circling skinny legs in an attempt to conjure up warmth. Fully dressed, Rowan stood there staring down at me. ‘Okay, now lie down.’ Shoulder blades on icy cement floor. ‘Get up…Lie down…Get up, I told you…What are you doing standing up? I told you to lie down.’ ‘Rowan, I’m freezing to death. Please…’ ‘Jesus H. Christ! Talk about the princess and the pea! Well, I guess we’ll just have to build a fire to keep my little princess warm, now, won’t we?’

He lights a cigarette and inhales. When he exhales, the smoke gets mixed with the white steam of his breath. I start to cry, but stop at once because the tears freeze on my cheeks. ‘Cry-baby,’ says Rowan. ‘Grow up. Aww, will you just grow up?’ I fight back the tears and my chest convulses in great, wrenching sobs. ‘Come over here, Rena. Come to your big brother.’ I move into his outstretched arms. He embraces me, clasps me to him, comforts and rocks me, gently blowing the warmth from his mouth and throat onto my neck—then, squeezing harder, imprisoning me, he applies the burning tip of his cigarette to my back. Once…twice…three times. Three screams. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he says, slapping a hand over my mouth. ‘Hey. Are you going to stop screaming?’ I nod wildly and clench my jaws as hard I can. He shoves me away from him. ‘Are you going to stop blubbering, you cry-baby?’ I nod again, then wipe my nose on my naked arm and watch the mucus freeze. ‘It’s all right, Rena. Everything’s all right. It’s all over now. It was just a test to see if you really loved me. You’ve passed the test and now you can put your clothes back on. Now we’re really in it together, aren’t we?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You’ll be rewarded for your obedience. Are you glad?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you proud?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you’ll never breathe a word to anyone about what just
happened?’ ‘No, Rowan, of course not.’ ‘You swear?’ ‘I swear.’

But Lucille saw the triangle of angry red welts on my back that evening, when she carried an armful of ironed clothes into my room. She drew up short. ‘What’s that?’ A reverse echo-chamber, the question growing louder each time it was repeated instead of softer—not fading away, not attenuating and disappearing but rising, rising in crescendo. ‘What’s that? Rena, what’s that?’ ‘They look like burns, madame.’ ‘Rena, who did this to you? Simon! Come and look at this!’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Rena, what happened to you?’ ‘Darling, you have to tell us. Who did this to you?’ ‘Who burned you?’ ‘Did Rowan do this?’ ‘Did Rowan burn you?’ ‘Did he?’ ‘Did he?’