by Alex Adams
“No. I know mice.”
TWELVE
The mouse with the bent whiskers is gone. There’s another in its place, one whose whiskers run straight and true.
“Wow, they look great,” I say.
Schultz is leaning back in his chair, munching on Doritos.
“I’m glad this lot didn’t die.”
“Yeah.” Chip crumbs fly from his mouth. “It’s great.”
“Hey, Schultz, what happened to all those mice that died? I mean, do you guys incinerate them or what?”
“Why?”
“Just curious, I guess.” I try and look dumb. Like there’s nothing more to me than a mop.
He grunts. “We burn ’em. It used to be Jorge’s job.”
“I hope I don’t have to do it. Eww.”
“Don’t worry, the big guy does it himself now. Doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“Well, I’m glad of that.” My mop continues to slap the ground.
I find the jar’s siblings crowded onto a low shelf between nested tables and a magazine rack. They’re not just brothers and sisters but clones spawned from the same mold. The only past they’ve emerged from is a truck, and before that a factory, and before that a bag of dust.
If there really is a book of fools, both old and new, I am surely on the first page.
The label reads: Made in Mexico. I laugh like a madwoman, because that’s the possibility I hadn’t considered.
DATE: NOW
The Corinth Canal is a hungry mouth cut into the landscape.
“See those?” The Swiss points to the twin breakwaters that cup the chasm, their lighthouses dead and impotent to guide ships between them. “Whore’s legs, wide open to let everybody inside.”
“Why do you hate women so much? Was your mother a whore?”
I saw something on TV once about Scott Base in Antarctica. The coldest place on earth, I remember thinking. Until now. His eyes make the South Pole seem warm and welcoming.
“My mother is none of your concern.” He taps on the railing. The canal nears. “I will tell you something, but you must not speak of it. If you do, I will cut up your friend just as she asked.”
I watch the dead stone cones and hope for light.
“Look in the cargo hold tonight. Tell no one what you see there.”
I go. Of course I do. I can’t help myself. Dropping a mystery in my lap is like waving chocolate cake in front of a starving woman. And I am famished. Not right away, though: I wait until the dark creeps in, just like the Swiss told me, and let the shadows tuck me in their pockets for safekeeping.
My feet fall lightly on the steps; they barely rattle. Through the guts of the boat I slip, seeing no one, until I’m at the cargo hold door.
It’s not locked. How bad can it be if the door’s not sealed shut? From my pocket I draw out a lighter and hold it ready to flick. Through the door I go, though I do not close it behind me.
“Loose lips sink ships” is a lie. It’s dead lips that are going to sink this boat.
The whole crew is here for the death parade. The captain is on the top of the corpse pile, his face caked in blood, his body bent like a crude coat hanger. The others are there, too, although some are just faces without names. Someone has stacked them as fishermen do their bounty, minus the ice packing to keep them fresh.
The Swiss.
This time I thunder up the steps, not caring about a quake that pinpoints my location. I race to the simple lounge where the others are in various stages of sleep, some twitching, some snoring. Others keep a weary eye open for danger. Lisa is curled in a corner, her head cradled by our backpacks. Scan. Pan. No sign of the Swiss.
I try the door, the one that leads to the bridge. Its handle is a battered, broken barrier between the controls and the rest of us.
“Wake up!” I shout. “Everybody, up. We’ve got a problem.”
They stare at me, these sheep awaiting slaughter. Nobody bothers beating the door; watching me try and fail is good enough for them.
My mind scans the possibilities and clutches on to the most likely answer: the lone lifeboat that had hugged the rails on the port side.
It’s warmer tonight. The air stinks of salt, a smell I used to love, but now it no longer reminds me of cheerful days at the shore. Now it’s the smell of defeat and death. Here I lost my president. Here the Elpis lost her crew.
The ferry grinds onwards. The lights are on but they barely penetrate the dark, and the moon gives me little to work on. The only tell is a small counter ripple in the water.
“You piece of shit!” I scream into the night. “Why did you kill them?”
The Swiss’s words drift back to me.
“The captain was already sick. Some of the others, too. Better to kill them now than let them suffer.”
“They might have lived.”
“Then they’d be changed. Unfit. Inhuman. What I did was merciful.”
“Bullshit. This is all a sick game to you. We’re toys.”
“Life is an experiment and I am a scientist! Will you survive, America? We shall see.”
“Then why bother warning me? You’ll skew your results.”
“Did you look at those other people? They are sick with wanting death. But you want to live, so I give you this chance.”
Then he floats into what’s left of the night, leaving nothing behind him but a thin lunule quavering in the sea. I go back to the others and wait to live.
We stand. We wait. Eventually the sun thrusts her horns over the horizon and we see.
Piraeus speeds toward us.
What happens next comes fast and slow, like any good disaster.
“What’s happening?” Lisa asks. “Tell me.”
Her naïve question pokes holes in my tenuous temper.
I grab her by the shoulders, turn her body toward the swelling landmass, describe what’s coming for us.
“This ferry has no captain and plenty of fuel.”
She considers this, stuck on stupid. “How do we stop it?”
The words fly out like knives. “We don’t. We’re going to hit that concrete, like it or not. Unless another ship drifts into our path or someone here can do magic. Can you pull a miracle out of your ass? Because I can’t.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Stand at the back. When I say jump, we jump overboard.”
The other two women are panicking. They cling to each other, weep snot and tears. The men, being men, remain stoic. Too calm, almost. And in a moment I understand what the Swiss said is true. The world as we knew it is gone. We’ve lost families and friends and enemies. What do we do when there’s no one left to love or hate?
The shore is a concrete and steel tiger coming for our throats. There is no time to admire its stripes, there’s no time to pray. We barely have time to survive.
“Jump!” I scream at Lisa, and drag her fingers from the railing. Holding her wrists in mine, we fall.
The sea makes us work for our landing. It does not surge to meet us but waits until we slam into its membrane and sink. For a moment, peace. Then the water shakes until my bones want to fly from my body.
DATE: THEN
Jenny and I are drinking our coffee on our usual corner when she drops the bombshell on me.
“I’m seeing someone.”
“You’re cheating on Mark?”
She frowns. “Jesus, no. I mean a therapist.” She takes a mouse-like sip of coffee. Today we’re both shivering. “It’s too hard. I’m not coping. I keep telling myself I am, but it’s just a lie, and it’s getting thinner by the day. You’re great, and Mom and Dad are supportive, but I need somebody outside of all this to help me cope.”
“I understand.”
“Really?”
I nod. Sip my coffee. Try to savor the warmth. I don’t think about Nick. I searched for his name again today and didn’t find it; that’s all I need.
“I’m glad. I needed someone to tell about the person I needed to talk to, which is funny,
isn’t it? I can’t tell mom and dad because they’ll say—”
“You can talk to us about anything,” we say in unison. We laugh.
“Exactly,” she says.
“I had a therapist for a while.” The words blurt out, bridging the gap between us.
“Did he help?”
“He might not agree, but yeah. It’s his name I look for on the list every day.”
“Because you love him?”
“No. Because I could have.”
“It’s the same thing,” she says. “You just don’t know it yet.”
DATE: NOW
If I stare up at the sky, I can pretend I am at the beach, that my mother and sister are paddling in the shallow waters, that there will be ice cream when I tire of floating. In my fantasy I’m not surrounded by splintered wood and steel. The Elpis is not burning, her fuel weaving smoke plumes thick enough to chew. Her front half is not concertinaed against the concrete docks of Piraeus. Her backside does not dangle in the water, a beached whale of a vessel whose faulty instincts have sent her to her doom.
Sea birds circle overhead. Their cries are a dirge; to them I am nothing more than a big fish. Their obsidian eyes watch me for signs of surrender, but I will not do it. I will not.
But oh, how sweet it would be to let go.
I close my eyes just for a moment, and when they open again the sun has shifted behind the clouds, and me along with it. The tide is a helping hand pushing me toward the bulb-shaped concrete shore. Then it shifts again and I am being dragged sideways, parallel to the shore, into the path of a drifting yacht. We collide. It’s a gentle bump for the boat, but a sharp blow to my shoulder. Salted tears flood my eyes and instantly blend with the seawater that laps my face.
“America!”
My flagellating feet spin me around so that I’m facing the shore again. The Swiss is there. Lisa, too. She’s on her knees, panting, trying to pull as much oxygen as she can. But the Swiss stands, legs apart, hands on hips, his lips in their familiar cruel twist.
She’s alive, and so am I. We’ve made it this far.
“America, do you need help?”
I do, but I don’t want his brand of help. Help that costs is no help at all. So I struggle to the shore in the great harbor of Piraeus where the land races skyward, its spine an intricate trellis of houses and roads. This is Brindisi all over again, great ships low-slung in the water, their corpses rusting. In time they’ll sink below the surface when there’s no one to patch the red powdery bubbles and the sea first seeps, then floods through.
Already weak, my arms ache as they fight the steadily thickening water.
“You won’t make it,” he calls out.
My head is heavy, my arms, too. My whole body longs to stop and let the sea claim it. There’s a sleepy fog rolling into my mind. I blink, shake my head, try to clear a path, but it persists. The shore is too far. Too, too far.
“Come on, America.” He bends, picks up a tattered life preserver, waves it in the air, declaring his victory with a makeshift banner.
Another painful stroke.
“Maybe you need incentive. European incentive. Americans only act for money. But you … I think you will act for something else.” He turns, circles Lisa. “For her you will do anything, even though she is close to worthless.”
“No,” I start, but the salt water sloshes up, fills my mouth, stings my eyes. A hefty slug of brine pours into my stomach and I spit it back up again. Up on the concrete dock, the Swiss draws his leg back. Look, he taunts me with his icy eyes. I control even this. I have power, you have nothing.
No. No. No.
Then he unclenches his glutes, lets that leg fly, nails Lisa in the ribs. She makes an oofing sound as she collapses flat on the concrete. Another subtle wave drifts through the water, covering my face. I hold my breath, tilt my head, search for air. When my vision clears again, the Swiss is watching me.
“Come on, swim. Lazy American.” This time he catches Lisa in the shoulder. She cries out.
Fresh anger is a forest fire burning through me. Fueled by rage, my body conjures up energy stores from nothing. Maybe my muscles saved a doughnut for emergencies. Or that chunk of cake I once ate in the kitchen after a lousy date. Maybe my body is devouring itself.
Slowly, I cut through the water, my arms duel blades slicing so that my kicking feet propel me forward. On dry land, the Swiss continues to mock me. His words are punctuated with Lisa’s cries. I wish she would fight him, but I know she’s afraid—of his temper and losing his cruel affections.
One stroke turns into two. Two turns into three.
He pins her to the ground, boot grinding her neck.
Three leads to four. Four to five. My lungs ache. On stroke thirty I touch concrete. Is it victory if you’re too exhausted to care? Does it matter that you’ve survived?
Hugging the ground to me, I swing my body ashore, not caring that the rough surface is sloughing my skin away. Oxygen, sweet oxygen, is what counts. It comes in jagged clouds, stinging my throat and lungs. With each breath the pain lessens.
The Swiss laughs. “You’re alive. I’m impressed. You saved this one, of course.” He pokes the girl at his feet.
“If you’ve got a problem, take it out on me, you piece of shit.”
“I like this better. I enjoy watching your reactions. Your face tells me everything. I can see what you want to do to me. And for what? This creature would turn on you for little more than a bag of hot chips. Wouldn’t you?” He prods her with the tip of his boot. When she groans, he plants it in her ribs once more.
I can’t help myself. Every time I look at Lisa I see Jesse, I see Nick, I see everyone who’s crossed my path since this all began. They collect in my mind, bunching into one violent black cluster, so that when I finally fix my gaze on the Swiss, I … just … can’t … stop.
Every ounce of energy that drained into the water comes roaring back into my body. My muscles quiver with rage until my whole body shakes. I am a cat coiled into a tense crouch, waiting … waiting … waiting for my prey to move. Goddamn you, move.
He laughs at us.
No more.
My spring-loaded muscles snap into action and I hurtle across the concrete until I’m pummeling his chest with a combination of weary fists and limp hands. Laughter, that’s what he gives me to spur me on. The balance shifts. His hands encircle my wrists, squeeze them until the bones want to shatter.
“You can’t hurt me,” he says. “You don’t have it in you.”
“If I can kill you, I will,” I tell him.
“No.”
For a moment I think the cry has come from him, but his lips are pale stone lines. The noise is Lisa’s.
“No,” she repeats. “Please, don’t.”
He holds me there; I am at his mercy. My attentions shifts from him to Lisa and back to him before making the journey to her once again. To which side of the fence has she slipped? Is she sitting on my grass or his?
“He’s a monster,” I say. “He’ll kill us both if we let him.”
“What do you keep saying? What do you keep telling me? We have to hold on to what makes us human. That’s what you said.”
She pulls herself along the ground, one arm cradling her ribs.
“Don’t move. Your ribs might be broken,” I say.
“You told me that. We have to show compassion and mercy because it’s part of what makes us us.”
The Swiss grins, tightens his grip. “Do it, you fucking coward. Fight for your life. Try to kill me. You can’t survive in this new world if you can’t kill.”
“Shut up.”
His body shakes with silent laughter.
“Zoe,” Lisa says. “Stop.”
The fight melts out of me. There’s a soft thud as my hands fall from the Swiss’s vise. My shoulders slump. That vital force that kept me burning bright enough to fight slips back into the harbor. Energy is never lost, only transformed, yet I feel as if something is lost to me.
&nbs
p; “Okay.”
This time, when my body uncoils, it’s like a ribbon tugged loose from a ballerina’s ankle when she’s pushed herself past exhaustion, languid and halfhearted. “Okay.” There I sit, beside the man I could easily murder were Lisa not here to stop me—and draw my knees up to my chin. “I hate you.”
The Swiss stares down at me, his mouth a rictus grin. He prods me with his boot. “Coward.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
“Make no mistake, you are a craven fool. Anyone with guts would find a way to kill me.”
“I wanted to. I want to.”
“And yet, you stopped fighting.”
“Not my idea.”
“Then you are no better than me. We are the same shit, America.”
“Make up your mind. Either I’m a coward or not.”
I crouch and help Lisa to her feet. Her side looks like an oncoming storm, all black and blue with flashes of raw red. Right now I’m useless to her. I’m no doctor. There’s no way of telling if anything is broken, but we have to take the chance that she’s fine and move on.
“Is your baby okay, do you think?”
She shrugs. Does not ask after mine.
“Go,” the Swiss says. “I will not stop you.”
I don’t say anything lest he change his mind.
Map and compass in hand, we limp toward Athens and let the Swiss’s cackles fade first to white noise, then to nothing.
The sky is the flat and constant gray of a paint swatch, but at least it does not rain. Here we are again, Lisa and I. The bike is gone. Our food is gone. Her cane is gone. My knives are gone. The Swiss is gone.
I could have killed him, erased his life like it was nothing more than a smudge. I should have tried. But the sea sipped away my strength, leaving me as empty as a forgotten wineglass. Still, my hands quiver and quake, and no amount of gripping my backpack’s straps will steady them.
If he comes for us again, he’s a dead man.
Holding hands, we trek the Peiraios, the highway that will take us to Athens. Abandoned cars are few. The Greeks must have been courteous enough to die in their homes with their automobiles safely ensconced in their narrow residential streets. We weave between what’s left of the dead. It doesn’t seem respectful to step over them. In my nightmares they grab me, try to grapple me to the ground and take me to where the dead things are.
