The Tightrope

by Hiba Basit

  The sound of Alex’s screams fill the room. Annette scans the scene, her eyes like searchlights, and finds her hunched in the far corner of the room. Pieces of broken glass glint from every direction. The bed sheets are hurled to the floor, dangling from the bed in a messy heap. Nurse Law is frantically trying to grab Alex’s hands, but Alex is quick, and she pushes her to the floor and looks at Annette. An unbreakable look of strength and struggle. Annette swiftly moves towards her, noticing, to her horror, the puddle of blood around her legs. As Alex grabs another piece of glass, Annette darts forward and grabs both of her wrists, wriggling the glass out of her hands, narrowly avoiding cutting herself, and pulling her forcefully onto the bed. Alex’s screams reach an ear-splitting level as Annette shouts over them, commanding Nurse Law to hit the panic button and clear the de-escalation room. It’s only after Nurse Law rushes out that Annette notices Alex is shouting too.

  ‘You think you can touch me, you fuckwit! Go to hell! Bloody go to hell, you fuckwit!’ Alex twists this way and that, shrieking and swearing, unable to loosen Annette’s grip until she kicks her bloodied foot against the bedpost. She cries out in alarm, and then in pain, as the fight quickly leaves her. The cries slowly turn into muffled whimpering. Annette doesn’t dare let go. Instead, she reaches for the latex gloves and gently massages Alex’s foot, hoping to keep her calm. As the siren of the alarm rings loudly in the hospital corridors, Alex trembles so fiercely, as if she has been pulled out of a bath of icy water. Annette throws a blanket over her, keeping her pinned to the bed.

  She knows Alex’s cuts will heal. She caught her before she could do any real damage to herself. She’s caught many kids in the midst of a violent scene of self-harm. But inside Annette, a well is swelling and a fat lump is rising in her throat. As Alex tries to rise, she pushes her down, telling her to calm down. But the words are also for her and she silently repeats them like a mantra, because if her attention is on these words, it won’t be on the guilt that’s forcing its way into her heart.

  Finally, the psychiatric nurses storm into the room, three land at each side of Alex and grab onto her. Annette lets her go but is swiftly pulled back and down, for one horrid moment she thinks she’s going to land in the pool of blood. Alex has grabbed onto her dress so tightly and is screaming violently again as the nurses pull her off and manage to drag her out of the room towards the de-escalation room. Where her bloodied hand landed on her white dress, Annette feels a furious tug, as if Alex has reached into the deepest layer inside her and is wrenching her forward. Annette takes a deep shaky breath. She strips the latex gloves off and swiftly throws them in the bin, banishing the guilt and the heavy feeling of doom swelling inside her into her own mental wastebasket.

  It’s getting full, a voice echoes inside her head and she grabs the voice and hurls it into the black abyss of her mind.

  Annette has cancelled the board meeting. She sits opposite Alex, who is back in her wheelchair, her spindly legs dangling loosely, once again heavily bandaged.

  ‘Alex, what happened today?’ she asks, hoping her voice is calm and not chaotic and pulsating like her mind. Alex faces her, but she looks at the ground. Annette wonders if she realises where she is. She wonders if she even understands the extremity of what she’s done.

  ‘Alex?’ she tries again with more force, and this time, she immediately looks up. Her face is ghostly white, like rice paper. A lump lodges itself in Annette’s throat. The child only responds to commands. The soft, comforting voice is as foreign to her as Australia. Her eyes glimmer with such intensity that Annette cannot place the emotion. Fear? Anger? Guilt? She looks into the deep intense blue of her irises. The blue colour shifts and travels across her eyes, as if there’s another world inside Alex that only she can see and feel.

  ‘Alex, what made you cut yourself?’ Alex continues to look at her, silently. ‘You could have really hurt yourself.’ Annette wonders if silence stalks Alex, or if Alex chases silence. She knows the best thing to do right now is to place her on arms-length observation and let the nurses deal with her. She can then see Alex when she’s regained her strength and is ready to talk. But something makes Annette want to keep her close to her. Like the feeling one gets of cupping a warm mug of tea after a long day, Annette longs to make Alex feel the same way. Loved, cherished, safe. The longing is desperate, swelling inside her and bordering on unprofessional.

  ‘Sometimes, when it’s hard to tell someone something, people do other things to show how they’re feeling. Is that what you were doing today, telling us that you were feeling something?’ Annette searches her face for even a flicker of change. She watches Alex scan her own face, as if she’s looking for that one thing that will allow her to trust.

  Annette sighs, leans back and waits. Nothing. Sweat starts to pinprick her underarms. Her stomach feels hollow, like an empty cave, and she tries to remember the last time she ate anything. She picks invisible dust from her trousers, having removed the sodden dress hours earlier.

  ‘Dunno, Miss,’ Alex whispers, her voice barely audible. Annette quickly looks up, but there is no need; Alex is still staring at the floor, her hair covering her face.

  ‘You don’t know,’ Annette says softly. Alex’s eyes move up to look at her and then flick back to the ground.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she echoes. Her voice is so quiet, like a faint breeze outside.

  ‘You don’t know how you’re feeling?’ Annette proposes, and by the look on Alex’s face, she’s guessed wrong.

  Alex frowns, small pleats appearing on her forehead. Her eyes scan the room and briefly rest on the picture board before she returns her gaze back to the floor.

  ‘Invisible,’ she says, looking up, but her eyes look glazed. Noticing this, Annette quickly pours her some water, hoping the coolness will bring her back.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ she says and slips the styrofoam cup into her hands. ‘What makes you feel invisible?’

  In all honesty, Annette is secretly surprised by the intricacy of the word. Alex remains silent, sitting in her chair with a vacant look on her face.

  ‘Did feeling invisible get too much for you today, Alex?’

  Alex shifts her head. It looks like she’s nodding.

  ‘Someone once told me that if I find my emotions getting too much for me, I could do this.’ Annette places the palm of her hand flat against her chest. She breathes in and moves her hand away from her chest, then lays it back against herself as she exhales. ‘One,’ she whispers, counting in concurrent with her breathing. She does this three times before stopping. ‘Want to try it?’

  Alex watches Annette intently at first, before slowly lifting her left hand and laying it flat against her chest. She breathes in and moves her hand away and then exhales and relaxes it back on her chest. She doesn’t count herself, but that’s fine by Annette. She continues this for a while, never taking her eyes off Annette’s. Then, she drops her hand back onto her lap. Annette notices her eyes glaze again and she knows that Alex is going back in time to a memory. She becomes unreachable, existing somewhere else.

  Andrei sniggers at Annette before she’s even had a chance to sit down. She immediately smells the reek of urine in the enclosed room and fights the urge to gag. She rolls her eyes at herself, wishing she’d brought a scarf or even a tissue to cover her nose.

  ‘Had any visitors?’ she asks, already predicting his reply. ‘Apart from police patrol, of course.’

  He shrugs indifferently. ‘I’ve decided to save myself just for you.’ He smiles, trying to show sincerity.

  ‘You don’t get the freedom to save yourself for anyone. In fact, they should castrate you.’ She bends down to retrieve her notebook from her bag. When she rises, Andrei looks disgusted. Then, just as quickly, his face turns into a grin. His smile pulls apart to reveal the roundness of his mouth, framing his cracked teeth. Annette notices his eyes are blue, like Alex’s, and discards the thought as quickly as it came.

  ‘I had a dream about Alex last night,’ h
e says, as if reading her mind. She recalls Alex’s soft but urgent calls for Andrei in her sleep. ‘In fact, I’ve been dreaming of Alex almost every night. Falling asleep to her, actually.’ He makes a pumping gesture with his hands. Trying desperately to get the image out of her mind, Annette clicks her pen on and reads from her notes.

  ‘I’m not the bad guy, you said to the crowd of journalists when you were being taken to prison. You may think I am, but there was nothing else I could do. In the end, it was not my choice. It was someone else’s choice, and they chose wrong. I adored all of the children. It was my job to care for them and that’s what I did. I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything wrong!’ Annette shuts the notebook. She lets the last words slip from her mouth slowly, deliberately, folding her arms over her chest. ‘How can someone else be to blame for your actions?’

  He stares at her in silence. For some reason, Alex’s silent stare fuses with his, giving him more power than he merits.

  ‘What amazes me is how you think you’re the victim, how it is you who couldn’t find a way out. Whose choice was it to behave in such a horrific way, if not yours? Who is this someone else?’ Annette leans forward, her eyes boring into his.

  ‘I’m not telling you who that person was.’

  ‘Was?’ She lifts an eyebrow, genuinely surprised.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he says, gritting his grimy teeth. She feels his disdain, and she sends some right back.

  ‘Why was, Andrei?’ He curses at her again, but she isn’t having any of it this time. ‘No one will listen to what you have to say if you don’t speak now.’ He considers this, biting the inside of his lips.

  ‘She died in a car accident,’ he says after a while. ‘On the same night Alex was left at the orphanage.’ Annette’s insides catapult.

  ‘Maria Cupar? You’re pinning the blame on Alex’s mother?’ And then, all of a sudden, a thought strikes her like an arrow. ‘How the hell do you know Maria?’

  This time, he sighs dramatically, admonishing her for not doing her research.

  ‘Well, darling!’ She recoils. ‘I may as well tell you the whole story now.’ He casually leans back in his chair, alerting her to how comfortable he is in his surroundings. Dirt bags fit well inside dumpsters, she thinks. ‘Back in Pascani.’ He falters for the very first time. ‘Back in my hometown, one night, I was getting the children ready for bed. It was very dark outside. As I was putting one of them to bed, I heard a cry. At first, I thought another child in the orphanage was crying or it was a bird.’

  ‘A child’s cry and a bird’s cry sound the same to you?’

  He grins. ‘People can be animals!’

  ‘You’re proof of that!’

  ‘Annie, do you want to hear my story?’

  She hates it. The way he calls her Annie. She’d much rather he addresses her by bitch. ‘Go on!’

  ‘I heard it again and realised it was coming from outside. I got a nurse to cover me and I went outside. The first thing that hit me was the wind. It was so violent and so loud, it crossed my mind that it could have been making the howling sound. But then I heard it again, distinct from the wind, sharper. The cries were growing louder and nearer. So, I turned and started walking towards the sound, into the grassland. The wind rippled in my ear, making the crying barely detectable.’ He pauses. Annette looks up from her notes. ‘I saw a white figure. She was too far away for me to see her properly. At first, she was just a white speck but then I saw her moving. Her legs were fast, her body moving rhythmically with her feet. She was holding a child in her arms. I called out to her and she immediately stopped, clutching a baby close to her chest. She looked straight at me. Her eyes were black as coal. I remember wondering if they were hollow but then she blinked and they sparkled in the night. Before I knew it, she began to run backwards, towards the front gate with the baby. I was motionless for a second, not knowing what to do, but then I started running after her, worried that I might lose sight of her if I didn’t. The grass scratched my legs with every step. I wondered if her legs were getting grazed too, if the scratches were causing her pain.’

  Andrei covers his eyes with his hands and then releases them. Annette watches as his expression changes. He has skipped forward in time and left her behind.

  ‘Can you steer me through what happened instead of driving off alone?’ she says.

  His eyes flick open. Something in them makes the hairs on her arms rise. ‘If you want the full details, you’re going to have to be patient, darling. But today, no more!’

  She rises. ‘Fine. Go back to your cell.’

  ‘It’s not time for you to go yet.’

  She shrugs indifferently. ‘Said who?’

  He lets out a grunt. ‘Sit down! Don’t think I’m fooled by your games.’ She sits down with purpose, keeping her notebook open and her pen poised to write.

  ‘She was surprisingly fast, even with the baby, she never faltered once. I remember feeling terrified. I knew something was wrong. I knew I wasn’t running fast enough. I was so scared that she’d vanish. I was scared that if I didn’t grab her, I could never help her. Just as she was about to reach the gate and disappear, she tripped and fell, holding her baby up in the air as her head hit the ground. I was panting by the time I reached her. The baby was wrapped in blankets, lying next to her on the grass. She was lying flat on the ground, dressed all in white. Her dress went to her feet.’

  Annette begins to get impatient hearing the intimate details. It’s obvious he liked her. ‘What happened next?’ she asks.

  ‘She was unconscious, so I placed the baby, who had started crying again, in her lap. I lifted both of them in my arms and started walking back to the orphanage. She opened her eyes as I was walking and I remember the shock I felt because they were sapphire blue. She fell asleep for the rest of the night after that. I took a wet cloth and wiped her face and poured some water into her mouth.’ Andrei picks up his own plastic cup and takes a sip. He looks into the liquid. ‘She told me her name was Maria the next day. She told me the baby was her daughter, Alex. She said she had to go somewhere, had to leave Alex at the orphanage. She said something about her husband, that he was after them, that he was a bad guy. Men have a lot of power in Romania, so I said I’d protect her, I’d protect Alex too. They could stay at the orphanage until I found another place. She smiled then. She told me she’d come back as soon as she’d finished what she needed to do. Then, she kissed me.’

  ‘What was it she needed to do?’

  He shrugs. ‘She never said and I never found out, because she never came back. She made me promise that I’d look after Alex until she returned. I enrolled her in the orphanage and took care of her as if she was my own. For days, I waited for Maria to return. The days turned into weeks, months, a whole year. And all the while, I took care of Alex, embellished her with the love I couldn’t give her mother. A whole year later, I was still waiting for her. That night, I sat outside with Alex. She was a year old. I told her that her mummy would be coming back. I had a gut feeling that she was returning. She didn’t come, not then, not fucking ever!’ His knuckles rap the table, turning cherry red.

  ‘The same day she brought her daughter to the orphanage, she died,’ Annette says. ‘She was with her husband, Antonio, and their daughter when the car –.’

  ‘I know what happened!’ he shouts, springing up from his chair. The guard comes forward, but Annette signals him to stop. ‘It was too late by then.’

  Feeling a jolt of unease, she leans back. ‘When did you find out?’ He stares at her, looking confused. ‘What was too late?’ she asks, a chill travelling down her spine.

  ‘Get out!’

  She is taken aback. ‘What was too late, Andrei?’

  ‘Get out!’ he hisses through clenched teeth.

  Abigail searches the cupboards for spices. She blends them into the stir-fry and throws in the sauce as if squirting paint on an artwork. Felix places the fajitas on the shelf. Abigail lines the food up rather meticulously on the fajitas as
Felix rolls them up, placing two on her plate and three on his. He grabs the wine as an afterthought. It’s nearing midnight. Abigail collapses into a chair, the everlasting and exhausting meetings of the day already dissipating with her senses as she sips the wine.

  ‘The other day was a mistake,’ Felix mumbles, picking up his own glass. She rolls her eyes at him.

  ‘Yes, because you didn’t knowingly let yourself into my flat, make yourself at home on my couch and then wait for me to appear naked from the shower.’ He grins, but she stops him with a raised finger. ‘Don’t,’ she says, pointing accusingly at him, but she ends up smiling instead.

  ‘And, I know you love candles, but you shouldn’t light them and then leave the room. There were six burning candles in your kitchen the other day!’

  ‘I like returning to a good scent. Until a man plonks himself in the middle of it all and ruins the vibe.’

  ‘I thought you’d at least have a towel around you,’ he says.

  She takes a bite. ‘You know exactly how I come out of a shower.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s not like I’ve never seen you naked before, Gail!’ She remains silent, the tapas of her wrap sticking to the inside of her upper mouth. ‘I’m here for you,’ he says, so quietly she thinks she’s misheard him. ‘You know that, right?’ The softness in his voice loosens her senses but she shakes it off, not in the mood.