People of Mars

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  She scrutinised him in silence, contemplating whether to believe him or not. He kept a straight face and started stroking her hand.

  “And are you a good Muslim?” Had she really asked that? For a moment she hoped he hadn’t understood what she meant.

  His well-known mocking smile appeared on his face. He had definitely understood.

  “Well, if you are asking me whether I might behave like your father …” He made a theatrical pause and Anna found herself holding her breath, fearing what could now come out from that man’s mouth. She knew his moment of seriousness was over. “What should I say, Anna? We are confined in a desert planet, where the fuck am I supposed to go?!”

  And he smiled, that bastard.

  “Also because, if you try, I kill you,” she replied, staring back at him.

  Hassan raised his hands in surrender. A moment later they were laughing.

  Where the hell had they been hidden?

  He had searched through all the cupboards in the infirmary, but without success. Only silly aspirins, antibiotics. All useless stuff.

  His hands were shaking. Accompanied by a constant nausea, an acute pain radiated from his nape along his spinal column and down his limbs. Bathed in sweat, he had dragged himself into the box room where the medicine provisions were stored, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. There were at least fifty crates, neatly stacked, but they only bore incomprehensible abbreviations. Or perhaps he wasn’t able to give them a meaning right now. He’d had to climb on a ladder to reach the higher ones and had opened them, while trying to avoid leaving too many traces. A part of him would rather tear them all open, but somehow he managed to keep control, as if there was something in the bottom of his mind, projecting inside his brain and preventing him from exploding.

  He went through the pots, one by one, until with great relief he came across the word ‘Oxycodone’. Agitated, he turned the lid open and swallowed two pills. Then, after a moments consideration, added a third one. With his eyes closed, his thought followed the drug down to his stomach. It would be a while before it took effect. It would’ve been better to crush it and then sniff it, but that would have caused too much noise. The awareness that he would soon feel well, however, sufficed to calm him down.

  He nervously scratched the back of his neck. The itching sensation was worsening.

  Still balanced on the ladder, he sized up the pot. At that rate, it wouldn’t last for long. There were ten more in the crate. Perhaps he might have found more, if he had checked the other crates, but he knew they would finish, sooner or later. No, he couldn’t think about it now. He would find a solution. The thing in the bottom of his mind seemed to agree with him. He placed two pots into his pockets and held a third in his hand. He needed the other hand to descend the ladder. But before doing so, he closed everything with care. This time, they wouldn’t catch him.

  He heard a laugh. He thought he might have produced it himself. Maybe the oxy was already kicking in. The laugh repeated, but it was doubtless a woman’s voice. Anna.

  With caution, he moved closer to the door and cracked it open. A silhouette passed before the chink and Robert drew back, afraid to be seen.

  He breathed slowly and waited. Again, a laugh, but it was farther away now. In silence, he opened the door again, just enough to let him look out in the direction from which the sound was coming. At the other end of the corridor were Hassan and Anna. His arm was on her shoulders and she was stroking his back with her palm, then she let her hand slip onto his hip. They were speaking in a low voices, and from time to time, they chuckled, hushing each other as they did so.

  Robert squeezed his fingers, closing his hands in a fist. He took a deep breath to keep calm and, when he exhaled, his muscles relaxed. He would’ve liked to follow them in secret, but the photoelectrical cells would’ve revealed his presence, turning on the lamps in the ceiling. So he did nothing but stare. The corridor continued straight up to reach the end of the station. In that area were the crew quarters.

  The couple stopped by a door. Hassan whispered something, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying. Anna tilted her head to one side, as if she was pondering his words. Then her mouth moved and she nodded. He let the door unlock and they both disappeared through it. It was Hassan’s quarters.

  When he was sure that nobody else was out there, Robert ventured into the corridor. He paused outside his room, but he couldn’t stop looking at Hassan’s door.

  He had figured there was something between the two of them, but for too long he had preferred denying the evidence to avoid hurting himself. He felt his rage building. He wanted to break down the door and then … do what? He pushed the image away from his thoughts. Little by little, the physical pain was starting to lessen; the one in his mind would follow suit very soon.

  He whirled about and walked back. He crossed the entire station. The sound of his light footsteps on the floor was the only perceptible one around him. The lights in front of him turned on and went off behind him. He had the sensation he was completely alone. A wonderful sensation.

  As he entered the communications room and, after closing the door, took one of the seats, he was already grinning, in a daze. The data scrolled by on the large screen occupying the wall in front of him; they were detections from the various satellites to which the system was incessantly connected. No contact with Houston was expected until eight in the morning. The commander used to send a detailed report at the end of the day, at eight p.m., in which he summarised all the performed activities. Another one followed twelve hours later, with the purpose of informing mission control about the events programmed for the day that was just beginning.

  Since Dennis wasn’t able to perform this task, surely Hassan, the second in command, had sent the report a few hours earlier. Who knew how he had explained the absence of the commander? Perhaps he had already reported about his condition.

  If that was the case, they were fucked.

  But that fact made him laugh. The sense of well-being had become more intense; maybe it might even improve. He placed a hand into a pocket and took out a quite rudimentary cigarette and a lighter. He lit it and started inhaling avidly.

  Oh, yeah, it was definitely better now.

  With a rapid movement of his fingers, he activated an animated icon on the screen. Sweet classic music started spreading from the loudspeakers. Robert sank into the seat, raising his legs and placing his feet on the desk.

  Another pull and the music became even more beautiful. Now it seemed to come from an undefined point on the top of his head and was flowing down, like liquid, along his face, his neck and the remainder of his body.

  It was a complete pleasure.

  The thing in the bottom of his mind started pulsing, following the tempo of the music like a metronome. Wrapped in iridescent colours, with each beat it became bigger, expanding in his thoughts.

  Robert.

  He snapped up his head and looked around. He was alone. He laughed and tasted the smoke again.

  Robert.

  He laughed out loud and let the notes lull him as he moved his left hand to the back of his neck. He bent his finger, scratching his skin. The loudspeakers quieted, but the music kept on playing in his head, as the screen was filling with a radio signal. He didn’t worry about it.

  You know what you have to do, Robert.

  He closed his eyes. He knew.

  She’d let the water run down her body for at least ten minutes, before realising she was staring at the shower’s wall, without doing anything.

  She had woken up in that foreign bed alone and that had been a relief. She’d thought to get dressed and go back to her quarters, but Hassan had exited the bathroom in that very moment, so she couldn’t find anything better than rushing in herself. Now she was still there, hesitant about how to behave. She would like to have stayed in the shower until he went out, to avoid facing him, but she knew he would wait for her. In fact, if she remained there too long, he would end
up coming in and asking her if she was okay.

  How could she conceal the sense of discomfort she was feeling? What had happened the previous evening was the result of a day bordering on folly, but most of all she had revealed too much about herself to the man, too much about her father. She feared that might be turned against her. The fact she had put aside her prejudices and diffidence for a night hadn’t really erased them. They were back again, more alive than ever, now that she had slept and cleared her mind.

  If only she hadn’t accepted that last invitation of his, and had gone back to her own quarters. She had only done it to taste that moment of peace for as long as possible. She knew that it might have been broken in a second. She had desired him to ask her to stay and, when he had done so, she had been happy.

  Now, instead, she just wanted to escape, resume the routine activities, as far as possible, regain her space.

  But who was she kidding? Considering Dennis’s condition, from now on there wouldn’t be any routine anymore. The launch of the Isis 2 was surely evaporated, the commander was dying, their life in Station Alpha would change, leaving them with only uncertainty. And in the middle of all that she had thought to fraternise with one like Hassan, as if her head wasn’t already prey to the chaos.

  She had to regain control, yes. In the meantime another five minutes had passed. She looked down at her hands; they’d become wrinkled from the excessive stay under water. She left the shower and wiped the condensation from the mirror with a towel. The bathroom was identical to hers, but Hassan’s personal belongings, scattered more or less everywhere in a jumble, revealed the difference.

  She dried herself and dressed. She rubbed her hair, while she searched for the right determination to get out of there with any excuse; the faster the better.

  Finally, she felt ready. She tossed the towel to the floor. Yes, she could make it; what was the problem? It was late and they both had many things to do. Confident, she opened the door that connected the bathroom to the remainder of the quarters.

  She didn’t see him right away. The bed was empty, as she had left it. The wardrobe was closed. It seemed like he wasn’t there, then she heard a murmur and lowered her gaze. And she froze.

  Hassan was kneeling on a rectangular carpet with his arms stretched forward and his face on it. He raised his upper body and, whilst continuing to look down, resumed murmuring an obscure prayer. He repeated a series of movements and words a few times, apparently unaware of her presence.

  There was something fascinating in those gestures. Anna kept on staring at him during such a private moment. She could see a side of him that for some reason was abhorrent to her, because it was the symbol of everything she hated, but at the same time she couldn’t help but admire the harmony, the palpable devotion, the expression of a relationship with something intelligible that aroused her curiosity. And perhaps even some envy.

  He rose onto his knees once more and a moment later his eyes turned in her direction.

  Anna gave a start and moved back, feeling caught, afraid, in danger. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  Hassan’s face relaxed in a half smile. “You don’t disturb me at all.” He turned to the window, from which faint rays of sunlight filtered. “It’s been a while since I did it.” He looked at her again. “But today I woke up with the desire to get closer to God.”

  She didn’t know what to reply to those words, nor if he expected her to do so. With a certain amount of surprise, she realised that her impelling desire to leave his quarters had become a little less urgent. It had all been a great deal worse in her mind than it actually was. She didn’t know whether such awareness was good. She feared she might be on the point of falling in a trap. Or perhaps she’d already fallen into it without realising.

  “Come,” Hassan said, standing up and holding out his hand to her. “I want to show you something.”

  An invitation she couldn’t refuse, not without a good reason.

  Hesitating, she followed him again to the unmade bed, where he sat and started searching in the closet beside it. Eventually he took out an object, which captured Anna’s attention. She found herself seated beside him, watching what he was holding in his hands.

  “Is that a … book? I mean, a real one, a paper book?” She hadn’t seen one for more than ten years and had almost forgotten the peculiar fascination that such an object, such a rare one, had always caused in her. But she had never seen one like that.

  Hassan handed it to her and she took it, eager for such a contact. The cover was rigid, but the surface delicate to the touch.

  “It’s a refined edition with a leather cover, published more than sixty years ago.”

  Leather. That was the cause of that feeling. Anna let her fingertips run along the spine, and then, after laying the book on her legs, she examined the front, lingering on the golden letters of the title. It was then she realised what was written, and her hand, as if pushed by its own will, pulled away, as if it had got burnt.

  The Holy Quran.

  Surely, Hassan must have noticed her sudden gesture, but he didn’t react in any way. He reached out and opened the book in the middle. It was still on Anna’s legs, and with a certain amount of indecision, she took courage and helped him to keep it open. The feeling of the paper on her fingers was fantastic.

  “My grandfather gave it to me when I was ten.”

  “But it’s in English,” she replied. Only now had she noticed that.

  “Well, my English has always been far better than my Arabic.” He paused for a moment and Anna heard him smile, even if she wasn’t looking at his face. “Fault of my mother, I suppose. And this was the first copy of the Quran in English that my grandfather bought, after moving to Canada. A purchase with a symbolic meaning, to unite his origins with that which would have become his new homeland.” He appeared to linger on that thought. “Many years later he gave it to me,” he concluded.

  Now it was Anna’s turn to smile. She had imagined a little Hassan with the same shameless expression she had seen on him hundreds of time since when they first met.

  While she was distractedly browsing the pages, something a little thicker slipped out from the bottom of the volume. She opened the book by that strange bookmark and found an e-photo. It animated at her touch, revealing the image of a young couple: he was no doubt Middle-Eastern; she had snowy skin, golden hair, and eyes the same colour as the sea. They were smiling, happy; beside them a sailing boat.

  Anna turned to look at Hassan and thought she could glimpse a hint of both of them in him. “They’re your parents.”

  He nodded. “A long time ago.” He was watching them with affection.

  “Can I?” she asked, reaching out with a finger to the photograph.

  “Go on.”

  Anna let her index finger slip from right to left on the surface of the device, as thin as an open folio, but much smaller. The next image depicted Hassan, not very different from how he appeared now, with a couple. Another image of joy. The man was younger than he was, but they looked quite alike. She was shorter, with Asian features as well, wearing a beautiful ethnic dress, with a finely decorated veil covering her hair.

  She was having conflicting feelings over the image. She could acknowledge its beauty, but she felt compassion for that young woman, forced to dress up in such an anachronistic, chauvinist way.

  “My brother and my sister-in-law, on the day of their wedding, seven years ago. They have two children now.” The last bit of information sounded like a merit.

  As she wanted to close the subject, Anna went on, and there she stopped again, to grasp the meaning of what she was seeing. They were no doubt Hassan’s parents again, only they seemed to be over fifty. His mother’s eyes shone with the same azure light, but her hair were hidden by a veil.

  “Your mother is Muslim?” She couldn’t help saying that, even if it was a rhetorical question.

  “She converted before marrying my father.”

&nbs
p; “Ah …” That sarcastic cry escaped from her mouth a moment before she could repress it. She felt she had exaggerated, but also that she had every reason to. His mother had to convert to marry his father. Although the lack of her own faith couldn’t really allow her to comprehend its extent, she perceived in that deed the echo of an abuse.

  “My grandparents were a bit old-fashioned and she decided to make them happy. It was her choice,” Hassan explained, replying to her unexpressed thought. “I guess she’s a good Muslim, unlike me.” An amused tone just emerged from his voice.

  For a split second Anna had the feeling it was a kind of test and she was under examination, but her curiosity prevailed.

  “And does she always wear a veil?”

  “She wears it often in certain public situations. This photo was taken at my brother’s wedding, too.”

  “Ah …” Again that unintentional cry. “Let me guess: oddly enough, all those with your grandparents.”

  “My paternal grandparents are both dead.”

  Anne remained speechless at her gaffe. He had mentioned them using the past, just a while earlier, but she wasn’t listening with due care. But, when she turned to look at him, Hassan appeared still to be having a lot of fun.

  “I guess I must go,” she said.

  “Do you guess so?”

  “I need my …” What could she need? “Hairdryer,” she added, touching her wet hair.

  Of course, there was an identical one in Hassan’s bathroom, but he avoided pointing that out.

  Sitting on a stool, her elbows resting on the counter and her hands supporting her head, dejected, she looked at the images from the microscope on the screen, then at the results of the analyses on her folio, and tried to make sense of it, in vain. She felt that the answer was before her eyes, but her head was elsewhere, preventing her from seeing it. Or believing in it. She needed a fresh mind to analyse everything with tranquillity.