by Fitch, Stona
The water was close to boiling and dosed with bleach to kill off bacteria. My fingers moved toward the coin, just a silvery shimmer at the bottom now. I could feel the hot pressure of the scalding water around the glove. Then as I pushed one last time, the water washed over the top and down to my fingertips. I jerked my hand out, but the water held the glove to my hand so tightly that I couldn’t get it off. Instead, I hopped around the kitchen doing what was known as the rinse-water polka, the kitchen staff told me later. One by one, the cooks turned and applauded me, the latest in a long line of summer help to fall for the silver dollar, soldered to the bottom of the tank decades ago. Finally, one of the waitresses helped me peel the glove off of my hand.
The next day, my fingers were red and blistered, my forearm pink up to a line just below my elbow. I wore this burn for the rest of the summer, charted its transformation from red to pink to peeling skin to scar.
Now both my hands burned with an intensity far beyond a simple scalding. It was as if the thick gloves from the resort kitchen had turned molten and adhered to my skin. The jelly had congealed to a solid, rubbery finish. I could move my hands, but slowly and painfully. They were thickened, cured of grace. I would never catch a bar napkin in midair again.
The spots and scars and familiar creases in my skin’s terrain were gone like topsoil washed away by a flood. My hands were yellowish gold in color, flecked by bright bloody patches and whitish places where the grater had taken off the skin all the way down to cartilage. Sitting in the center of the living room, I looked at my hands dispassionately, since they didn’t seem to be mine, perhaps part of a Halloween costume. Encased now, my fingers had turned clumsy. I could move each one, but couldn’t pick up my cigarettes or raise a bottle of mineral water. When I ran my finger along the floor, I could feel nothing. I raised my fingers in a cathedral, all touching at the fingertips. The familiar warmth was buried, gone.
Sitting among the dirty clothes and rancid food cartons, I started sobbing. I cried not for my lost feeling, which I couldn’t even begin to contemplate yet, but for my lost wedding ring. It had been on my finger since the June day in 1973 when Maura and I were married.
It was a wild, disorganized wedding, kept intentionally simple, since neither Maura nor I liked formal occasions. We stood on the public beach in Carmel, our group of relatives and graduate student friends huddled around us as the sun set over the Pacific. Darby had been officially deputized by the State of California to perform the ceremony, and wore a small-town justice of the peace getup of his own creation – a white shirt and black bolo tie, jeans, boots, and a silver badge. I can still picture the ring shimmering in the last of the day’s sun as he handed it to Maura and she slid it on my finger.
We were broke, so our rings were simple gold bands inscribed with our initials along the inside. Any jeweler could replace my ring for less than I used to spend on lunch with clients. That something innocent and simple had wound up so thoroughly defiled seemed awful. A fate I shared. It was my recognition of my complete helplessness that set me crying.
After a few minutes, the tears ran their course and my anger at Blackbeard rose up again. I remembered his greedy mouth, swallowing. Nin was right – he was consumed by his own vision. I couldn’t imagine that it was shared by the others in his group. Yet the Doctor had complied in his methodical way, grating at my knuckles like a Parmesan rind. The others, too, had not stopped for a moment in the entire procedure. Perhaps they believed I actually deserved this mistreatment.
No cause was righteous enough to condone what they were doing. If I were being held hostage by psychopaths who had escaped a Belgian prison, their actions would have at least had an explanation. But such cruelty from seemingly intelligent people, well versed in politics, economics, and technology, seemed impossible.
I stood in the shower beneath water as hot as I could bear, trying to scrub the biopolymer from my hands. It was no use. It stayed tight on my skin, fused there forever. This was to be my first day without feeling, gone from my hands now, but not from my mind.
Day 28.
“Excellent, excellent, excellent.” Blackbeard held out a thick set of print-outs. “All I can say is keep doing what you’re doing.”
I said nothing and merely continued cleaning as well as I could without a broom, or hands capable of holding one. I was sick of how disgusting the apartment had become. I kicked the trash around, tidying up like a good hostage, amazed that I was still here, unsure that I would be leaving anytime soon, or at all. How would I unmask Blackbeard without using my hands? The corners were soon thick with debris of my imprisonment – food cartons, balled-up clothes, the silver wad of duct tape that originally bound my ankles, a bandage from my mouth, the blood darkened now to chestnut.
I stopped cleaning and stared at Blackbeard, trying to find any hint of humanity in his glinting eyes. He looked away.
“The audio is off for a few minutes,” he said. “We can speak frankly.”
Again, I said nothing. I had realized that any discussion with Blackbeard was wasted. I remained a simple pawn to him. Only by denying him any conversation could I attempt to diminish him.
“You are being broadcast to the world from the United Nations site for the next couple of days,” he said. “Until they figure out how to kick us off.” He leafed through the pages the way my father used to page through the newspaper, looking for interesting items to read to me at breakfast. “Our audience particularly liked yesterday’s performance. Contributions are up. We are well on our way to our goal.”
I knew that greed and public attention kept Blackbeard going more than any cause. But I said nothing. Protest would simply fuel Blackbeard’s bluster, his self-righteousness.
He rustled through the papers. “Here’s an interesting aspect, Eliott Gast.” He found the page he was looking for. “There’s been a turn of the tide in your favor. Many people are asking for your release. There have been highly visible campaigns in the press. A Washington Post editorial. Statements by the Belgian government. And your wife has been very active in gathering support…”
I looked up suddenly and met his black eyes, shining behind his stupid mask. This news was the first I had heard of Maura in weeks. I had imagined her at the farm, tracking my condition on her computer, making calls to try to get me released. I should have known that she would go beyond that. Maura never shied away from a challenge. It was her hard work that had turned our farm from a ruin into a home. She was doing what she did best, organizing. Except now the cause was her husband.
“Don’t you want to know more about what’s happening?”
Of course I did. But I said nothing. “I’ll give you a little more.” He moved closer. “Despite the efforts of your wife and others, more people are making donations to see our project continue than to stop it. Any teenage boy who can get his hands on a credit card number has been contributing money… and intriguing ideas about what we should do next.”
I said nothing at this news, which might or might not be true. It seemed too horrifying to think that anyone would want to see my ordeal continue.
Everything had its price and someone willing to pay it.
Blackbeard shrugged. “Now for the good news. We’ve found that there is a high percentage of return visitors. People are seeking you out, following you like fans. You are truly famous now, Eliott. We have become a recognizable brand.”
He smiled at me, as if this alone was worth the scorching of my tongue and nose, the grating of my hands. How I wanted to reach out and grab the thin plastic mask with my deadened hands and pull it away. I wanted to kill him, to return to him all he had done to me, to put my thickened fingers around his throat and choke him until he turned limp.
Blackbeard stood. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” He leaned down as he passed me. “If I were you, I’d keep talking. I’d talk as much as I could,” he whispered. “Beca
use soon, it will be very, very quiet for you, Eliott Gast. That I promise you.”
Day 29.
The Doctor held my hands in front of him, examining them for infection. The red patches at my knuckles had darkened. The grated areas had turned the speckled red and yellow of maple leaves in October.
“When you look at what you’ve done, how can you not think about how this must feel?” I asked quietly.
The Doctor looked around the room, then whispered. “Because they are not my hands.”
It was the first time I had heard the Doctor speak. His voice was soft but resonant, and he spoke completely naturally with me, as if we were old friends from university. We had, after all, been through a lot together.
“But what if they were?”
“Then I’d be glad that someone like me was making sure all was healing well. Everyone else here would ignore you and you would become infected. They’re too busy with their computers, their Internet. They know nothing else. I call them e-tards.”
“So you provide the illness, then the cure. That’s the kind of doctor you are?”
He gestured for me to open my mouth. “I am not a doctor.”
He took a bottle from his bag and swabbed my tongue with green disinfectant. “My training is in electrical engineering.”
“I’m just another machine to you. One you can break and then fix.”
He closed the bag. “Not exactly.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He walked away.
“Why are you doing this?” I shouted. The disinfectant tasted like nothing, just burned my mouth. I swallowed and the burning travelled down my throat.
I heard no answer, just the steps of the Doctor crossing the apartment and entering another room, where the others huddled around their computers, charting contributions and monitoring me, so incidental to their plan.
In the afternoon I gingerly grasped one of the snakes, wrapped it about my arm, and pulled it from its duct. I placed it on one chair while I sat in another. The red light glowed as the snake took in audio and video. It was the tunnel that led to the world, one that could carry the message that had been composing itself in the back of my mind.
“You have seen me for several weeks now.” My voice was scratchy at first, my words trailed by the whistling of my damaged tongue.
“Sometimes I have been walking around. Other times I have been writhing in pain. At all times I have been a prisoner. I realize that there are efforts under way to gain my release, and I am thankful for them. I want to thank my wife for doing what she can to help end this pointless and barbaric charade. I want to thank the Belgian government for their efforts. But I need to clear up one matter.”
I paused for a moment. My tongue ached. Other snakes trailed from the ducts and glowed like party lights.
“Although I have denied any wrongdoing so far, I want to tell you the so-called secrets that have landed me here. Then you can more accurately judge whether they merit this treatment.” I pointed at my face, then held up my hands.
I paused for a moment, wondering what to say next. “For more than a decade before the establishment of the European Union, I was active in delivering inducements – large sums of money – to key individuals within certain governments. You may remember that some countries were reluctant to join the union. My close involvement with foreign business groups and economic officers made me an ideal point of contact for an activity that our government could not perform through normal diplomatic channels.”
I imagined the reaction of my co-workers at IBIS. What a shocker to find out that their Gast – faithful practitioner of the dismal science, liaison to the middle managers of the world – once held another role. I saw Alec Moore on the phone, distancing the organization from my work.
“The specifics are unimportant at this point, but I can assure you that the sums were enormous,” I continued. “They provided the funding necessary to shut down opposition groups and to pay off bureaucrats with nationalist leanings. There was plenty left over to contribute to the personal fortunes of our recipients. In this way, we paved the road to unification… and to a global economy, I suppose.”
I shifted in my chair. “I am sure that these funds were also used to harass and jail anti-unification activists. These activities were certainly wrong, and I assume they are the reason why I am here. But they are not out of keeping with events at other junctures in history. Change dictates its own price, as they say, and we were willing to pay it. And why not? What better way to win a game than to buy it?”
My half-smile faded when I realized that my amusing aside might be misinterpreted as imperialist bravado. “I firmly believe that a united Europe benefits Europe as much as it does us. Everyone comes out better for it. It ensures parity among all the European markets, which, as you may recall, were all but paralyzed by outmoded regulatory systems.”
People were already forgetting the old Europe, of tedious border crossings, expensive consumer goods, currency shortages, a Balkanized business environment that kept trade to prewar levels. The old ways of doing business in Europe were ridiculous and fraught with corruption. Any sub-cabinet trade minister in Rome was able to jack up Italian tariffs on American goods simply because his brother made leather handbags. So we fought fire with fire. We were corrupt and deceitful. But I didn’t go into more detail. I already sounded too much like an academic crank, going on about markets and regulations.
“Our work also guaranteed American access to a profitable, unified foreign market,” I continued. “By putting American interests first, I’m certain that I brought about undesirable personal and political results that were not clearly for the betterment of Europe.” Actually, I was sure that what we brought about would have happened anyway. Money is the yeast of the world, but I didn’t bring this up to our audience either. “For that, I sincerely apologize.”
I sat quietly for a moment and waited for my strength to come back. I hadn’t spoken so much in so long that speaking tired me. In truth, my words were neither sincere nor an apology. I hadn’t renounced anything I had done or any of the policies that led me to do it. I never would have brought it up if I hadn’t found myself trapped in an apartment awaiting imminent pain. Even my former contacts would understand. Not that anyone cared. Our hidden operation was dismantled shortly after unification. My contacts had moved on to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing while I retired to continue my work at IBIS. Mine was a dead story, unlikely to cause a stir in any sector – political or the press. What we had done was done, and nothing could now undo it, this marriage of cousins, as Blackbeard so aptly put it. There were new courtships to arrange.
I stared at the red light on the tip of the black snake. Images of my tired, damaged face coursed down the wire, up through the ductwork, into the computers and out to the world, which I hoped was receiving my revelation with a certain amount of compassion.
More, said the dulled voice from the ceiling.
“What?”
“Say something else.”
My chair creaked as I leaned forward. “Punishing me for my work is like beating the paperboy for bringing bad news,” I said. “I did not authorize the bribes. I delivered money to corrupt officials, but certainly didn’t tell them what to do with it. I am not responsible for all that I am being blamed for.”
“More, s’il vous plait.”
I paused for a moment. “Okay then. I single-handedly dreamed up globalization. I like the World Trade Organization. I hate French cheese because it smells. I eat at McDonald’s three times a day, sometimes more. I am intent on burning down the rainforest and building luxury condos there. On weekends, I club sea turtles and dolphins and seals…”
The red light on the snake clicked off. I smiled, then kicked over the chair. I had gotten my message across.
A trio of aliens entered the room quickly. T
wo shoved me toward the bathroom while the third stood on a chair and replaced the camera deep in the ductwork. No doubt they were rebroadcasting my greatest hits – the Doctor scorching my tongue, me sprawled on the bathroom floor vomiting. I smiled, certain that I had gotten a new message across to the world. What was going on in this room was as ridiculous as it was cruel.
“How did you like that performance?” I asked.
“We put on music when you got boring,” the alien said as he shoved me into the bathroom. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.
I saw my sweat-glazed face in the bathroom mirror and smiled. I had won a small battle, but the was continued. I brought my glazed hands up to my face and rubbed my eyes with unfeeling fingers, rough as a gardener’s grasp.
Day 30.
“Your speech has proven to be very popular,” Nin said.
“Is that so?” I sat on the floor and ate from a carton of cold white rice, each grain hard to chew and flavorless.
“The newspapers are making a great deal of it.”
“There must not be much going on.” At first I had craved a newspaper, a television, something to keep me connected.
Nin shrugged. “Intrigue is always popular.”
“There was little intriguing about it,” I said. “So you didn’t wear a trenchcoat and carry around suitcases full of American dollars?”
I laughed. “Usually, I carried a suitcase with a change of clothes and a couple of books to read while I waited.” I recalled days spent in hotels when time turned nearly as tedious and slow as it had in my apartment prison.
