Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case

by Conor Fitzgerald

  It was only when she looked around and saw a few of the youngest girls had been called down that she realized she was going to be made an example of. Mikhail, the bouncer, closed the door to the club and stood there with his back to it. Fyodor, the owner, came up to her and placed his thumb under her chin and his index finger on her temple, and gently, like a doctor assessing the bruising that was yet to come, tilted her face sideways till her gaze met his. He had deep brown eyes, soft, and he was smiling down at her. Then he slipped his thumb into the hollow beneath her chin, and pushed hard against the pressure point, forcing her to stand. As soon as she did, he let go, stood back, and kicked her hard in the base of her stomach. She heard, then felt, the breath go out of her, and, as she fell forward, he hit her in the eye with an uppercut.

  Fyodor grabbed her hair and dragged her around the room. He did not have to say anything, because actions speak louder than words. He forced her to her knees and undid his fly.

  It was not an unusual situation. She had seen it happen to others. It was whispered that Fyodor could only really get it up in this way. She knew she should not resist, but she did. She pictured the firefighters, their mouths open in laughter, and found her mouth clamping shut. She clenched her teeth, twisted her head. Fyodor was loving it.

  Alina found herself praying. She had not been brought up to pray, though her grandmother, daughter of a famously cruel atheist who let children starve, had made a point of being religious and had tried to pass it on, skipping her daughter and concentrating on the grandchildren. Alina could remember the image of the Theotokos in her grandmother’s apartment. In the ‘good’ room, the Redeemer’s face was eerily, maybe miraculously, visible in a damp patch in the wallpaper. Her grandmother worshipped the face in the wallpaper as much as the icon of the Theotokos, and maybe more. But Alina preferred the icon, which was suddenly remarkably clear in her mind, as if she had seen it yesterday. The Mother of God was slightly hunched, with her arms folded, and Alina, relenting, imitated the gesture now. Christ’s mother was leaning forward, and Alina, steadying herself a little, leaned forward too on her bruised knees. Her ribs ached, her mouth was swollen, she could smell Fyodor’s urine and groiny fug around her face. Her grandmother had often told her of the power of prayer and fasting. Alina there and then resolved not to eat until she was out of Istanbul. Nothing but water. And if she did not escape, she would starve to death or be put to death. He pushed pack her head, and she closed her eyes and tried to think of a prayer.

  It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God. More honourable . . . more glorious . . . without defilement.

  She apologized for not remembering the words, and prayed for guidance.

  Guidance came.

  When he had finished with her, Fyodor had a drink, then another, and ordered her out into the street. As she went past him, he touched her arm.

  ‘You . . . understand why that had to happen?’

  She nodded.

  He seemed unsatisfied. ‘You want a drink before you go out?’

  She looked down at him slumped in his chair. Fyodor avoided drink most of the time because he could not hold it, and because when he started, he couldn’t stop.

  ‘You think I want to drink with you?’ she said.

  A look resembling hurt passed over his face, and he averted his eyes for a moment, then suddenly grabbed her arm, and pulled her towards him. ‘I think you liked it. I think you . . .’

  She walked out.

  Alina returned to the club at two in the morning. She told the barman that Fyodor was awake and waiting for her, and he jerked his head backwards towards the stairs at the back, hardly glancing at her. But at the foot of the stairs, she veered off to the left to the storeroom and kitchen.

  ‘Where are you going, whore?’

  Her challenger was a Turk, aged about seventeen, whose distinguishing mark was the utter failure of a moustache on his upper lip.

  ‘Mr Sholokhov wants egg and onion with yufka or anything else in the way of bread,’ she told him. ‘Anchovies, too.’

  He glared at her, then retreated into the kitchen, ‘Stay there.’

  She nodded. As soon as he was gone, she went into the storeroom. She found what she was looking for immediately. She placed it on the floor behind the door. A few minutes later she took a plate of pita bread, egg, onions, and anchovies, paused to pick up the plastic tube she had got from the storeroom, and walked upstairs. Fasting and praying were fine for her grandmother; she had a better idea. At the top of the stairs, she went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and ate ravenously. As usual, stinking black water sat in the sink. The water did not seem to be draining, but a tide mark around the edge showed that it had been higher earlier on.

  She finished her meal, and walked down the corridor. Already she could hear Fyodor’s snoring. She shook the crystal contents of the tube, rhythmically, like a maraca. It was a pleasing sound.

  Softly she opened the door and went over to the bed, where Fyodor was deep in an alcoholic sleep beside the young Georgian girl he had sent to fetch her earlier. Gently, Alina stroked her arm, and the girl awoke as if she had applied an electric current. Alina put two fingers to her own mouth, then touched the girl’s lips.

  ‘He wants me. I was told to come here. You must leave.’

  The Georgian girl’s eyes were colourless in the dark but shone with fear. Alina imagined a miniature version of the girl standing behind her own eyes, taking in details. The girl would faithfully report who it was, the time it had happened, everything. Alina would do the same in her place.

  Alina realized she had spoken Turkish. She repeated it in broken Russian. The girl nodded, understanding. Fyodor snorted violently, stopped breathing for a few seconds, and twisted in his sleep.

  ‘Kauchmar,’ said the girl.

  ‘You must say he sent you to get me. Alina. You understand?’

  The girl did not, but she nodded.

  ‘And that he made you leave once he had me.’

  She nodded again. ‘Go.’

  The girl went.

  Fyodor slept on his back, aiming alcohol fumes at the ceiling, his mouth as wide open as he liked hers to be. She pressed down and twisted the childproof cap on the white tube. She hoped it would be enough. Then, leaning over, she tilted the entire contents into Fyodor’s gaping mouth.

  She had not been completely prepared for the high pitch of his scream. Nor for the immediacy of the thrashing of his body. Most of the rest of the drain cleaner went over his face and into his eyes. From the bedside table she grabbed a bottle of vodka, and poured it over his face to get the crystals fizzing and popping. He roared ‘Alina!’, which was fine. It was better he knew who it was.

  His screams became more pitiful and the voice higher, but he showed no signs of dying. Some of the foam from his mouth splashed on her hand, cold for a second, innocuous, then suddenly extremely hot. Fyodor was out of bed now, flailing wildly about, trying to breathe, whisper-screaming for water, bringing his hands to his eyes, then his throat. She cast libations of vodka at him. Somehow he made it over to the desk, grabbed at a chair, and, with one rip, tore the back off it, cast the pieces on the floor. He stumbled on the rug edge and fell with a thud on the floor.

  If they heard this, they would think he was giving her another lesson. She thought of screaming a little herself to add to the fiction and maybe release some of the tension and excitement she felt inside, but already he was quieter. Soapy pink and white liquid was coming from his mouth. She could smell the fizzing chemicals and alcohol and underneath them a scent that reminded her of singed hair. It did not look as if he was going to die.

  His voice was gone, but his muscles were still working, and he continued to kick. She watched for a while, took the pillow from the bed, and put it over his face, but he pushed her off as if she, too, were filled with feathers. Still strong, then. She grabbed a piece of wood from the splintered chair and hit at him, but she might as well ha
ve been using a matchstick against a horse. But he had given up attacking her, and was simply writhing on the floor, describing a circle with his naked hairy legs. She took another piece of splintered wood and rather than slapping at him, drove it downwards with all her force into his face. She missed completely, and the piece of wood went through his throat, without much resistance at all. The first spurt of blood went so high it shot over her shoulder, and she was in time to dodge the second, and third, which, she noticed, were followed by a foaming white liquid. After four spurts, it was all over, or at least the noise was. Fyodor still seemed to be alive, in that his chest was heaving, but his mouth was a ragged red hole filled with foam, and his eyes were an unseeing white. He no longer seemed to have eyeballs.

  She sat there waiting, indifferent now, occasionally sending a thought up to the Theotokos, who sat in her imagination smiling down at her. No one came. Unexpectedly, Fyodor started rasping again. She waited till this had passed. At one point, he lifted up his index finger, like a reasonable man might do to emphasize a point in his conversation.

  Fyodor had shouted her name, and the screams that followed, his screams, had been woman-like. The smashing around of furniture, the thumping and rolling were common night-time sounds. The silence afterwards was also to be expected. Everyone would be expecting a chastised and compliant Alina in the morning, or a dead Alina.

  They would not be expecting this.

  She found his wallet under the mattress. It had as much cash in it as she could have saved in six months. Turkish liras, euros, some dollars. Almost €1,000. It had a credit card and two ATM cards, too.

  She took his phone. He had loved his phone, always stroking it, staring at it, talking into it, and making deals. The screen presented her with a 4 x 4 matrix of dots. She pictured him, sitting at the table, picking at food, then wiping his greasy fingers on a paper napkin. He had this habit of touching the corner of his mouth, as if always worried some food might be sticking there. She couldn’t resist going over and looking at his mouth now. It no longer had corners. It resembled an exploded red flower, swollen genitalia, a gash. This creature had wielded his phone with a flourish, swiping his finger down, then up, a tick mark, a V-gesture that he could manage with his thumb while holding the phone in the same hand. She tried it. Fortunately the phone gave her unlimited attempts, and after ten minutes, the matrix slid away to reveal his screensaver, a photo of tall ships on a blue sea, which she found disconcerting. Maybe Fyodor, too, had dreamed of sailing away some day. Maybe he did not want to be where he was, doing what he did.

  She scrolled down through the contacts. There were not that many. Fyodor, who spent so many hours playing with the phone, had filled in names and surnames, even addresses, and added photos here and there. Except for three entries all of which began with + 333 6666, the dialling code for Turkey and Istanbul, followed by a series of digits.

  The Georgian girl had left an ugly golden clutch bag. She emptied its contents on the floor and replaced them with Fyodor’s keys, wallet, and phone. She let herself out, locking the door behind her, and left through the rear of the building, via an emergency push-bar door that was kept closed with two chains and a heavy padlock, to which Fyodor had the key. It led into an enclosed square courtyard full of garbage and coal dust. The gate to the street outside was also locked, but reliable old Fyodor, his face still melting in the bedroom above, had a key to that as well. She let herself out, then flung the keys into the middle of the street.

  She walked straight to the first ATM, and slotted in the first of Fyodor’s cards. She scrolled down the names in the phone book to where he had entered a first name without surname. She ignored the area code, and punched in the remaining five digits on the ATM panel. Planting a false name in a phone to disguise an ATM number was a trick her brother Michael had once told her about.

  She got an error message. So much for Michael. She tried the same trick using the next name on the list. No good. One attempt remaining. She keyed in the last digits in reverse order. The machine wanted to know what sort of operation she needed. She pressed withdrawal, then ‘Other amount’. When the transaction was complete, she did the same for the next card, reversing the five final digits on the first entry. Then she walked on to another ATM and repeated the process twice over. At the third ATM, she got a maximum-exceeded message on one card, but the first card paid out again. On the fourth ATM that card, too, was exhausted, and the Georgian girl’s bag was stuffed beyond capacity. She had to slip the remaining notes into the waistband of her skirt.

  The night-time blackness was now greying into early morning. She needed a taxi, and she needed to fetch Nadia and they needed to go right now. But before she could go, she needed to check up on an idea that had come to her while praying. She walked through the streets, at risk of arrest or capture, an obvious lone and vulnerable figure, yet strangely confident that, for now at least, she was untouchable. It took her 20 minutes to get to her tree, that base of which was still wet from the dripping hosepipes. She slipped her hand into the hollow. Men’s hands were too big. The firefighters had been laughing simply because they were happy, just as she was. She stretched out her fingers and felt the bundle. It was still there intact. Alina pulled it out, and knew with absolute certainty that she was under the protection of a goddess.

  Chapter 12

  The faint grey light had gone. So although she had at last found a piece of furniture, from the feel of it a broken stool with one of three legs missing, that might help her climb up, she had no idea in which direction to drag it. Immediately, Alina began to wonder if the whole thing had been a dream. She ran her hand over the hard wood of the stool. It felt real. Deliberately, she ran her hand against the grain. A splinter lodged itself into the fleshy part of her palm, sending a cold shock of pain down her spine. She brought her palm up to her mouth and tried to suck it out, to no avail. The pain remained and with it, the clarity she had been looking for. The stool was invisible in the dark but real. The patch of grey must also have been real. And the gust of air? Maybe not. The light was gone now, but if it appeared again, then she would know day had come above her, and that even if she could not get out, she might at least measure out her time.

  If the stool could be propped up against the wall and she could raise her head towards the patch of light, then she could, what, shout for help? Her throat was parched and closing, and she no longer had strength enough to climb. The chute, or air duct or whatever it was, would be too small. But if someone happened to be walking in the garden above just at the right moment and she made noise, she would be saved.

  Nadia would surely be looking for her. Just as she had gone looking for Nadia, so Nadia would come looking for her. Nadia was good at finding good people. That was her speciality. Out of the thousands of bad people, Nadia could spot the good ones, and they were not the likeliest. She had found the taxi driver. Called him on her mobile phone, and he had not been on duty that night, yet he had left the warmth of his family and travelled across the city to help them. Two foreign prostitutes.

  Five minutes into the taxi ride, Nadia opened the window, and said to Alina, ‘If you have a phone, get rid of it now.’

  Alina took out Fyodor’s phone. ‘Like this?’ She held it out the window.

  ‘Just drop it. If it doesn’t break, it might even be better. Keep them looking hereabouts for you.’

  ‘What about yours?’

  ‘This is a never-used phone I have been keeping for this moment,’ said Nadia.

  The taxi driver, who knew he was helping them escape, had not even wanted any money. Nadia had left some anyhow, stuffed down the back seat. She called him soon after he had gone, telling him the money was not intended for his passengers, so he had better take it. Alina could hear his protests. He almost sounded angry to be so cunningly rewarded.

  ‘Why?’ was all Alina could ask about the taxi driver.

  Nadia opened her arms in a helpless gesture. ‘Some people are put together so well that they stay g
ood no matter what. Maybe they have to be very stupid to stay so good. The taxi driver? He is a very devout Muslim. Now he can tell his God he saved two women.’

  They were standing outside a freight area of the port. The sun was coming up over the Asian side of the city. Alina felt far from saved yet.

  ‘You need to find a bad man trying to become good,’ Nadia explained. ‘That is where you can find some hope. Someone who has done a very bad thing, but wants to become good. Because someone like that knows what direction he is moving in.’

  ‘Last night I became a killer . . .’

  Nadia raised her hands to her ears. ‘Don’t tell me, Alina. Not now.’

  ‘I killed a man who wasn’t always . . .’

  ‘No, Alina!’

  She stopped. What had she killed? What had Fyodor been? Soft brown eyes; his almost empty contact list on the phone; the picture on his phone of the tall ships cutting the open seas; the jokes he tried to tell; and, then, the things he did. They would be finding his body soon. They might have found it already.

  Nadia had resumed her senior role and taken charge of the money. Now she was showing breast and cash to two men at the heavy-duty dock security-gate, which rolled open. They stepped through and the gate rolled closed. Nadia giggled as she allowed herself to be touched by the older of the two men, and the men giggled as they received their money. Alina stood there, sick with fear and loathing. If they wanted, these two men could simply take all the money from them, and with it their freedom and their lives. They looked like weak men, but physically they were stronger. Nadia seemed to be exchanging telephone numbers with them. She pulled out another wad of notes, smiling. After a few minutes of whispering and pointing, they walked away, the elder one slapping the younger on the shoulder.

  Nadia came over, slightly breathless, her eyes, which had seemed so dead the other day, now alert and shining.