Now that he had begun to think coherently, it occurred to him that should the power be restored, he would be instantly electrocuted standing in all this water. It was very possible that he would not be rescued before he was burned alive in this deadly metal cage. Weakened by his struggles, his voice a mere croak, he stayed still for some minutes, trying to escape this horrific notion.
With desperation surging as he felt the water creep slowly up to the level of his chest, he groped for the umbrella and used it to try to reach up to lever the roof of the cage. There was a slim chance he might be able somehow to scramble out of the lift and escape from this stinking water. But a new thought struck him which made his hair stand on end. The electrical mechanism of the lift and its lights were located and connected to the mains on that roof.
He abandoned the effort and let the useless tool plop back into the dirty water… “I’m just asking to get killed”, he scolded himself. He was astonished now to find himself riding a wave of energy, shouting at the top of his voice and hitting out in all directions like an enraged bear. If this stupid little metal box had ambitions to become his coffin he would put a stop to its nonsense! His survival instinct roared to the surface, wild and urgent, taking him over. He had thought so many times over the years how welcome his death would be, longed for it since that accursed December when she had been taken from him so brutally.
Had he reached the last stop that Maura had explained to him? Was it time for his very own greatest and final loss?
But at the moment when he was stepping over death’s threshold, he found himself resisting with all his might, battling to escape. His habitual mental habit of grief and mourning was replaced by an inexhaustible power of self-preservation. A force rose up in him crying Live! A voice, her voice was calling to him, Live! At all costs, live! Do not welcome death! And while these impressions were tumbling about in the thick and deadly darkness of the flooded cage, he thought he actually did hear a voice, a weak high voice sounding faintly from the beyond... or were his ears playing a mocking macabre trick on him? Or he was hallucinating. Going insane. There could be no one calling out in this wet black hell.
“Is anybody there?” He heard again, now more clearly through the darkness, the faint but persistent and identifiable voice of Mme de Vichsser from the ground floor. In spite of her deafness, she must have heard his desperate screams from the stairs. She’d replied with all the energy she could summon. He tried to shout to her, explain what had happened and beg her to fetch help, because if he didn’t drown in the rising sewage, he could all too easily become a lump of charcoal when they restored the power. “Get police! Quickly! Or the Fire Brigade!”
He heard her quavering voice through the darkness. “Mr. MacFarland? Is that you? All the phones are dead, mobiles too. I’m ringing all the doorbells, but no one seems to be there.”
“Try to get somebody from outside! Can you hear me? Get someone to get me out! Please!” he shouted as loudly as he could. There was no answer.
How long would it be before his mouth and nostrils would fill with the foul water? Hope had risen and been dashed to pieces. As always. He began to cry like a baby.
In mid-sob, he heard a loud splashing in the basement and other voices. People were trying to push through the water to the lift. A male and a female voice. “Are you all right? Are you on your own or are there others in there with you?” asked the male voice in French.
The bright beam of light from a strong torch cut into the darkness, dazzling him through the small glass pane in the cage and nearly unnerving him. Mme de Vichsser had somehow gone out into the wild, flooded streets and dragged a couple of police officers into the building.
“I’m all right, I’m alone. Please get me out of here!” He tried to shout with what was left of his voice, but it emerged as a pitiful groan.
“Never fear, sir,” he heard. “The rain’s stopped and the water level won’t get higher. The storm has affected the power supply for the building but even if they fix the damage, the power won’t come into this building. You won’t drown or be electrocuted! The Fire Brigade has been notified that you’re here and will come for you as soon as they can – things are pretty chaotic just now. Be a little patient! We have to leave; they need us elsewhere, but it won’t be long. It will all be over soon.” His saviours tried to comfort him and splashed off through the viscous water.
He passed the next fifty minutes in acute discomfort up to his armpits in stinking liquid, but something had radically changed. He was not going to die here. Not here, not now. He would live. The firemen finally arrived with noisy tools, and ground their way into the cage. Their efforts were greeted with the applause due heroes from the excited Mme De Vichsser and a few others who had appeared out of nowhere to see if they could help. As he was carried out on a stretcher, he managed to turn to Mme De Vichsser where she waited on the ground floor and smile. “Thank you! Thank you all. I owe you my life!” She came over to him and caught his hand for a moment as the stretcher passed by her. Her gentle touch brought back a flashing memory of the touch of his grandmother, Maura.
“Everything’s all right. Old Death was close, but that rendezvous was postponed,” she whispered tenderly, as her warm hand was slowly withdrawn, leaving him to the nurses of the ambulance, who fell to applying first aid, apologising for the masks that covered their mouth and nose. A second ambulance was already waiting to take him to hospital for a complete check-up and a tetanus injection, and, he sincerely hoped, a thorough bath.
When he was released from hospital that same night, it was too late to disturb her, but the next morning he scoured the florists for the grandest bouquet he could find and placed it carefully with a thank you card at Mme de Vichsser’s door, rang the bell and left. Two days later, he found in his own mailbox her own thank you card. It showed the crystal calm waters of a sapphire blue alpine lake, reflecting the surrounding snow-capped peaks.
Dear Sir, said the card. I hope you have recovered from Friday’s shock. Water is one of the most precious elements of nature and the greatest ally of human survival. I especially love it because it creates such beautiful things on this planet, like this lake you see on the card. Don’t let your recent experience make you afraid of it or hate it.
Sincerely,
Maryana Alexandrovna de Vichsser
****
Months later, Keith was making his way home through November sleet and saw from a distance that light was pouring from the open doors of his block of flats. Agitated people were coming and going. The door of Madame’s ground floor flat was likewise wide open. His heart tightened. That dear lady Mme de Vichsser had reached her own last station on another rainy evening only a few months after she had saved his life.
It flashed through his mind that Maeve would have been like her, had she been allowed to live to be old. For the first time, the thought of Maeve was not a dagger twisting in his guts, but the touch of a gentle hand on his cheek.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
First Stop Roodebeek: The Belgian Basilisk
When the 35 years old Maryana Alexandrovna met at the restaurant she was waitressing the dark, liquid eyes of the owner’s son, she was quite swept off her feet. The way he looked at her sent shivers up her spine. She well knew she was no great beauty, stricken with shyness in company, but here was this vibrant much younger man, gazing at her with smouldering eyes of desire.
It would be years before she regained her footing, as before she knew it, he had obtained her father’s consent, she had been gowned in a heap of white lace and told to repeat the words of the priest, which she obediently did, as was her habit. Her parents had been rather surprised that their almost spinster at that stage daughter had attracted this scion of the owners of the very successful ‘Moroccan Palace’ restaurant in Brussels, but it was clear that there was money to burn, so they agreed. And their daughter was clearly taken with him. They had not seen her so starry-eyed since her third Christmas.
On her wedding night,
all of which was a complete surprise to her, Maryana's handsome groom took her with such force and gusto that her head slammed against the headboard and thus she missed most of it. This was repeated for the duration of the honeymoon, during which she became more and more aware of a great deal of soreness on awakening and a perpetual painful headache during the day. She assumed that these were among the burdens of married women and so did not discuss it even with her mother. Such things were far too intimate to talk about. No wonder none of the marriage books mentioned it.
For his part, her husband was quite content with a passive wife who never pushed him away or said ‘that hurts’ or ‘stop it’, or even ‘not tonight I have a headache’. For him, it was a marriage made in heaven.
As she learned the rules for a Moslem household, she gradually came to understand that something seemed to be brewing in the restaurant, and it was not simply beer. She had to accustom herself to the passage of men through the house speaking a tongue she did not understand; she had always understood that Moroccans spoke French. The family’s living quarters were above the restaurant and there was traffic through the place at all hours of the day and night. No explanations were forthcoming. She was told to hold her tongue and stay in her room. If she did not, she was beaten. And worse was to come. There were, of course, no more courtship gifts, or romantic dinners. She was sharply disciplined if she spoke to him at all. She slowly understood that she had been taken on as a promising, trouble-free incubator for his son.
Now she did speak to her mother, who assured Maryana that it was all par for the course, and women were expected to bear up and often. In that time and place, no one had ever even heard of marital rape, much less condemned it.
In the course of time, morning nausea was added to her troubles. At which point the family’s midwife informed him, after the manner of women, that he must curb his enthusiasm for the marital couch. For this insolence, Maryana was punished.
But as the days wore on, his temper was becoming very short. When he trod on the cat’s tail and dashed its brains out when it squawked, she became more and more fearful for the child. It was a relief when whatever was going on took up more and more of his time, and he visited her less and less. When he informed her that she was to hold herself ready to entertain his business guests in her bed, her horrified response infuriated him. Her time was approaching. She was told she would not be going to the maternity hospital; the midwife would attend her accouchement.
Then suddenly he was gone; a business trip, they told her. Two days later she was in labour, and after endless painful hours, she heard the thin cry of a newborn. The women of the house gathered around her; the midwife placed the little bundle in her arms, and no one said a word. The women looked at one another and shook their heads. “He will not be pleased.” The midwife shooed them out of the room and they filed out in silence.
“It’s a girl,” the midwife explained gently. She was not an unkind woman. And she knew him well. She offered to help the new mother escape the coming wrath. A few days later on a dark winter night, Maryana crept from the house in a dark burkha, carrying underneath it a heavy bag with a few clothes, her jewellery, some blankets and nappies for the baby. She disappeared from the house and the district that January 1978 night, never to be seen there again.
****
A frosty Brussels night a few days later, in another part of the city...
Past midnight. The shadow of Maryana Alexandrovna, holding tightly in her arms something which looked like a bundle of blankets, emerged from nowhere into the street, barely discernible in the dark. She crept silently, watching her steps one by one, like a cat. Occasionally her attention wandered for a moment from her burden. The feeble light from the old-fashioned lamp posts failed to illuminate dark corners and potholes in the pavement. She studied her surroundings, and stumbled briefly into one of the potholes. She almost fell. She caught her breath and hesitated, then, regaining her balance, trotted towards the end of the street and stopped in front of an impressive but neglected mansion at the intersection of Boulevard Saint Michel. She looked around once more to be absolutely certain that no one was watching. Then she placed her bundle gently and carefully on the marble steps of the mansion, continuing to cast furtive glances from side to side. Once sure that all was well, she bent over the package for a last look and slunk away as fast as she could.
She stepped back slowly but she didn’t go far. Huddled in the recess of a shed a dozen or so yards below, hidden in the viscous darkness, her body shivered uncontrollably exposed to a chill cocktail of weather conditions and intense emotion. There she remained, tears trickling from eyes fixed on the little bundle on the marble steps. Time passed slowly, every minute a century. Four agonising hours in the same position seemed very far from the nineteen years of her life till now. Her heart ached. On the marble steps of the shabby mansion lay part of her soul; she was fragmented, dissolved into a thousand pieces.
The local church clock struck five thirty.
A shadow appeared from the next corner and stopped at the mansion door. Maryana caught her breath. Well-hidden in the dark doorway of her refuge, she watched the form of a plump middle-aged woman with a string of keys in her hand begin to ascend the steps. When she noticed the strange parcel on the steps in its thick covering, she paused in surprise. She bent down, lifted the bundle and peered at it curiously. Perhaps roused by the movement, the contents of the package uttered a mew of protest.
But it was not a kitten. Once the woman realised what she was holding, she hurriedly turned to open the heavy door, balancing the weight of the small bundle tightly in her arms with the other keys and her bag. She clutched the unknown manikin close to her chest to protect it from the bite of the morning chill and the harsh reality of the world. With the baby held tight in her arms, the unknown woman was finally able to open a side door next to the main gate of the mansion. The door swung closed behind her with a loud squeal.
Far below, a sob of relief escaped Maryana. Silent, frozen, her heart bitter and torn apart, she her tears trickled down to soak into her collar. She had got what she wanted and never wanted. Her baby was safe; whatever comfort she would find would be insignificant compared to what she should have, but it was all Maryana could provide. She was torn apart without her precious newborn daughter and wanted to die. But she knew there was no other choice.
She tried to gather her resources against the bone-piercing cold. Summoning what courage remained her, she dragged herself stumbling from the scene. Wearily she made her way back to a shelter on the other side of town. Each step required enormous effort. Yet at the same time, she somehow felt unburdened, even surprisingly relieved. Her tears had dried for now. For a while. The gnawing teeth of remorse would return again and again to besiege her for the rest of her life, whenever her thoughts wandered to the Boulevard Saint Michel, to that neglected mansion with its heavy door where a tarnished bronze plaque declared in capital letters:
ST MARTIN’S HOME FOR FEMALE ORPHANS
****
Brussels, 2006
Valerie Noutens jumped out of bed full of energy and vitality. It was a rare and special day. Perhaps the most important day of her life so far.
In just a couple of hours, her three hard years of intense training at the Belgian police academy would be rewarded. Along with Paola and two hundred and ninety-nine future colleagues, she would swear that she would faithfully serve the law in the police force of the Belgian capital. The ceremony would take place in the central hall of the Botanical Garden of Brussels, just a few blocks away from her humble apartment in Saint Josse. Paola had already left to pick up her uniform coat from the cleaners.
For two months now, the city of Brussels had been under attack by a sharp-toothed winter. It was early January and it raged on unabated. Successive layers of snow, week after week, and polar temperatures kept the city frozen in ice tinted by dust and exhaust, daily smothering it with a shapeless, stinking, glossy mass, declining to melt despite all the t
ons of salt that had spilled across the streets. Whiteness alternated with the pale grey of ice on roofs, courtyards and squares, making crowded streets more dangerous and turning pavements into skating rinks.
But this morning, despite the bitter cold, a bright winter sun sparkled in a blue sky devoid of lowering clouds, through air empty of a single falling snowflake. It was such a lovely day, as startling as Valerie’s sudden feeling of elation! As she brewed her coffee, she began to paint a mind- picture of the Botanical Garden in its minutest detail: a winter wonderland covered by the last sheet of snow of the night before. Its glass dome would proudly reflect the winter light. She imagined the whole garden as a glorious whitewashed sculpture of nature, a glamorous snow-jewel, a glowing monument of white marble reflecting the amazing sunlight. There would be all the young police graduates with bright smiling faces, lining up proudly for the ceremony in brand-new uniforms.
As she danced into the shower, she blessed her good luck that that this special day had dawned just as she had dreamed of it, the day she would take the oath: bright and dry, free from the heavy depressing winter dampness of Brussels, almost festive. A day where sunlight sparkled on the snow, a wonderful omen, a buoyant signal for the great day, the future and for the rest of her life.
So Valerie decided to go on foot to the Botanical Garden, to the scene of the great event. She thought that it would help her to prepare her mind for the climactic moment of the ceremony. She would arrive fresh and well-prepared after a brisk walk under this heavenly sky and the cool north wind, instead of what passed for air every day in the dusty half-dark burrows of the metro.
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