by Chase Novak
“There’s no doctor here,” the young woman says. “Are you…? Do you need to come in? Rest here for a moment? I can show you the hospital.”
“We don’t need the hospital,” Leslie says.
“But thank you,” Alice is quick to say.
“Yeah, thanks, thanks a lot,” says Adam.
“Was this a doctor’s office before?” Leslie asks.
The woman is silent. Her once mild gaze intensifies as she looks at Leslie and then the children.
“It was empty when we came. We are leaseholders, you understand?”
“I’m looking for a Dr. Kis,” Leslie says. “Dr. Slobodan Kis.”
“No doctors are here. This is a place for…” The woman gazes upward, as if the correct word might be hanging by a thread directly above her. “Illumination. Mind and spiritus. Not invasion of Western so-called medicine.”
Leslie smiles—at least she means to smile, though judging from the woman’s reaction, Leslie may not have managed more than a simple show of teeth.
“You don’t want to fuck with me,” Leslie says in a rather soft voice.
“Mom,” Alice says.
The woman’s eyes widen as she quickly translates what she has just heard.
“Sorry?” the woman says, feeling suddenly burdened by having to hold on to her yoga mat and her cup of tea.
“Yeah, you’re sorry,” Leslie says. “I know all about sorry.”
“Mom,” Alice says. She puts her hand on her mother’s back, more or less between the shoulder blades.
“Let’s go, Mom,” Adam says. “The doctor isn’t here.”
Leslie turns and nods. Her eyes look stunned; her arms hang limply at her side. When she turns again to speak to the orange-haired woman, she sees that the door has been closed. “All right. We can…” She gestures toward the stairwell, moving her hand in a kind of tumbling circle. “Leave,” she says at last.
Slavoj awaits them. He has bought himself a soda and a box of crackers and he is reading a Slovene translation of The Five People You Meet in Heaven. When he sees Leslie and the twins approaching his car, he scrambles out to greet them and open the passenger door.
“Very fast,” he says.
“He wasn’t there,” Leslie says.
“He’s gone,” adds Alice.
“Oh, sorry for this,” Slavoj says.
“Maybe you know him,” says Adam. “Dr. Kis?”
“Please?” Slavoj says, wrinkling his brow.
“Slobodan Kis,” Leslie says. She pronounces it like kiss. But then thinks to spell it, at which a look of guarded recognition crosses Slavoj’s face.
“Not here,” he says, shaking his head sadly. “Very famous.” He rubs two fingers against his thumb, the universal sign for money. “But then what? Many problems. The judges don’t accept his proofs. And so…” He lets out a low whistle and makes a dipping motion with his hand, signifying someone disappearing underground.
“Fucking hell,” Leslie says, and glances at her children. “Sorry.”
“We have many good doctors here in Ljubljana,” says Slavoj. “You need for…” He pats his heart. “Or for…” He pats his stomach.
“We need Kis,” Leslie says.
Alice cringes at the edge in her mother’s tone. “How can we find him?” she asks.
Slavoj taps his finger against his chin. “Maybe I can find. My sister works in Municipal Justice Department. Maybe they have records of where he…” Again that low whistle, that dipping hand.
Slavoj needs time to get the information they need, and Leslie, Adam, and Alice go back to the hotel to await word from him. To be safe, Leslie stays in her room, and the twins in theirs, with strict instructions not to open the door to anyone. No matter what.
At about four that afternoon, the phone rings in the twins’ room. They have been dozing on the bed and watching music videos on the TV, videos that seem to have been produced in an alternative universe, where the musicians are reminiscent of the current crop of American pop stars but are nonetheless unfamiliar. Adam rolls over on the bed and answers the call. It’s Leslie. “Slavoj says he will be here tomorrow morning at… at…” she says, and falls silent.
“When? What time?” Adam says.
“What comes after seven?” Leslie says. “Sorry. I guess I’m really tired.”
“Eight,” Adam says.
“Right. What’s next?”
“Nine.”
“Yeah. He said he’ll be here at nine.”
“All right. That’s good.”
“Yeah, that’s good. So… I’ll see you tomorrow. Nine.”
“What?” Alice asks, seeing the look on her brother’s face.
“She hung up.”
Driven by hunger for something beyond what they have pulled from the minibar, the twins venture out of their room. With some trepidation, they first go to their mother’s room and knock on her door. There is no answer, but Alice knocks again, after which Adam knocks, too, with both hands.
“Mom?” Alice says.
“We’re going to get something to eat,” Adam says, cupping his hands on either side of his mouth.
Yet still there is no answer, not the slightest sound from her room. They shrug and make their way to the elevators.
They hope it doesn’t make them look like babies, but they can’t help holding hands as they walk the cold streets of this unfathomably strange city. They have no idea where they are walking, but they don’t want to go too far and forget how to get back to their hotel. The last thing they want to do is ask someone for directions. No, actually the last thing they want to do is meet up with their mother. If she has left her room and is now roaming the city, they would just as soon not see her and they would also rather not have any idea about what she might be up to.
They have plenty of euros, and all they want is to find someplace to eat. They wander in the direction of the Ljubljanica River and find a pizzeria where the outdoor tables are protected by a dark green awning and warmed by large propane-powered heaters. It is easier somehow to sit at one of these tables than to go inside a restaurant. Adam and Alice are relieved that no one questions their presence here. In fact, a waitress comes right over with silverware wrapped in orange paper napkins and two colorful menus in the shape of dragons. To their added relief, she has somehow guessed they are Americans and has given them menus printed in English. They don’t want her to regret that kids are at one of her tables so they each order a pizza, a green salad, and a soda, and when she writes it down Adam says to her, “We leave tips.”
They remain virtually silent while they wait for their food. They are like people in the middle of a frozen lake who fear that at any moment the ice will start to groan, and twitter, and crack, and that if they dare to make even a step it will be the end of them.
The waitress brings them a basket of bread covered by a red-and-white paper napkin. They reach for the bread at the same instant, and their fingers touch.
“Garlic bread,” Adam says, sniffing.
“Like Dad makes.”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t help it,” Alice says.
“I know,” Adam says. “I miss him too.”
“He was nice a lot of the time.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Remember when he—”
Adam covers his ears. “Not now,” he says.
“I’m just saying he did a lot of nice stuff too.”
“Not now. Okay?” Adam looks away. Though it’s not good weather, there are a lot of people walking along the river, families, couples, a skinny white-haired guy dressed in tights and a fur-lined cape and wearing a crown like a crazy old king. Without realizing it, Adam rubs his chest.
“Don’t think about that,” Alice whispers.
“What’s going to happen to us if Mom doesn’t get better?” he says.
“She will,” Alice says.
“We’re supposed to see this doctor? We don’t have an appointment; we don’t even know where he
is.”
Alice nods. “You’ll see.”
Adam looks down at the knife, and, making sure he is not being observed, he slips it into his jacket.
“What are you doing?” Alice whispers.
“Just in case,” Adam says.
“That won’t do any good. It’s a butter knife.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I don’t care. It still won’t do any good.”
“What if I jab her in the throat?” He touches the hollow of his own throat with his fingertip.
Alice looks at him with horror and disgust.
“What are we supposed to do?” Adam says. “Just let it happen?”
“But it’s… it’s Mom. Then who’s going to love us?”
“I said just in case. You think I want to?”
“She won’t hurt us.”
“She won’t want to,” Adam says.
Alice is silent. After a few moments, she edges her knife off the end of the table and lets it drop into her lap. As she slips it into her pocket, something catches her attention. A woman is standing on the other side of the narrow river and looking directly at them. For a fleeting fearful moment, Alice thinks it’s Leslie, but the woman steps back, away from the light, and disappears into the evening. Before Alice can say something to Adam about it, the waitress comes with their pizzas.
“Two pizzas for you,” she says, clattering them onto the table. “Something else?”
“No, thank you,” Alice says. “We’re good.”
“May I ask a question?” the waitress says. “Are you twins?”
“Yes,” Adam says.
“My psychic told me I would meet twins today and she said I was to touch you on the tops of your heads and it would bring me the most good fortune.” Her hands hover over their heads. “Yes?”
“Okay,” they both say.
Her hands are warm, and her touch is gentle.
“Thank you,” she says.
“No worries,” Adam says.
Either they are hungrier than they have ever been or this is the best pizza they have ever tasted, and for a moment they are happy.
But that moment of happiness is brought up short by the sound of a woman wailing miserably. Her cries grow closer and closer and soon she is on the sidewalk right in front of them. She has dark wavy hair in which the moisture of the night sparkles like diamonds. She wears a red wool coat and knee-high boots, and she holds a leash but has no dog. She begins speaking rapidly, breathlessly, and when she points in the direction from which she came, the twins see that her hand is splattered with blood. Though they do not understand a word she is saying—or anything that those who gather around her are saying either—they both know from how her face is contorted and the look of disbelief on the faces of everyone around her that someone or something has just done something horrible to her dog.
Back at the hotel, while Alice showers, Adam takes the knife from the pizzeria and the corkscrew from the minibar and stuffs them into his backpack. Next, it’s his turn to shower. They are both exhausted. They stagger around the room.
“Is this what it’s like to be drunk?” Alice says.
“Why would anyone ever want to feel like this?” Adam wonders.
They wear their towels to bed, and turn on the TV, and watch the first thing in English they find—an old gauzy movie about a black teacher in a tough school in England who wins the trust and admiration of the prejudiced white students. When Alice sees that Adam has covered his eyes with his forearm, she takes the initiative and turns the set off.
“Poor Mr. Medoff,” he murmurs.
“He was nice,” says Alice.
They feel too tired to sleep, as if they lack the energy needed to close the door to consciousness. Eventually Alice lifts herself up on one elbow and switches off the bedside lamp, and the room jumps down into a well of utter darkness. She follows, breathing smoothly, dreamily, and next to her, Adam’s heart begins to pound. Fear has seized him out of sheer malice, like one of those strangers in the night his parents used to warn him about, creatures who grab you just because they can, and because they like it, they like grabbing.
Adam reaches over his sleeping sister and switches the lamp on. The room jumps into view like a jack-in-the-box. He looks around the room. Nothing here, nothing there. Empty. Safe. He switches the lamp off and closes his eyes. He synchronizes his breaths with the inhales and exhales of his sister, until he, too, is sleeping.
But what good is sleep if it only delivers you into the clutches of feverish dreams? He dreams of Mr. Medoff. Impaled on those bronze swords but very much alive, looking at Adam and talking to him as if nothing were the matter. “Have you thought about what you are going to do next semester?” Mr. Medoff asks. And all Adam wants to say is, Are you all right? Are you dying? But if Mr. Medoff wants to pretend that he is not pierced and dying, then Adam will not mention it either. In the dream, Adam looks down and to his amazement he is not wearing any clothes below his waist. And where he has always been delicate and smooth, he is now suddenly large, meaty, and sprouting swirls of dark hair.
He wakes up fighting for breath. He slips his hand beneath the towel and feels his nakedness, smooth and cool. A sense of reprieve, a long pleasurable ripple of relief, but the relief is short-lived. Something is wrong. Does he see something? No. Does he hear something? No.
Nevertheless, he senses someone is in the room…
Alice turns over in her sleep, pulling the blankets with her. Adam lifts himself on his elbows, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again, trying to decode the darkness. Yet all he sees is… nothing.
“Hello?” he whispers. But there is no answer.
He reaches for the edge of the blanket—his bare shoulders are cold. Very cold. He feels an icy breeze coming through the window though the window itself has been swallowed by the darkness. How did the window open? “Hello?” he says once again, this time a little louder.
He slips out of bed and feels his way to the window. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness and now he can see the shapes of things—the bed, the lamps, the long dresser, the TV set. As he reaches for the window and starts to pull it shut, something touches his skin, and he lets out a little cry of terror.
It’s only the curtain, and now that the window is closed the curtain is limp again, having come to rest against the wall. Adam, however, is not at rest. His heart skips and twists, his jaw aches, and his legs tremble. He grips the knot of his towel with one hand. Though he sees no one here, he is still convinced someone else is in this room, and of all the people it might be—a robber, a murderer, a kidnapper—there is one possibility that is even worse…
“Hello?” he says yet again. And now he utters the word: “Mom? Mommy? Is that you?”
“Adam?”
The call of his name terrifies him, and it takes a long moment for him to recognize that it isn’t his mother’s voice.
“Adam, where are you?” Alice cries.
The police, the media, and New York as a whole finally have connected the dots and realize that Xavier Sardina (now fighting infections and raging fevers) is linked to the Berryman Prep teacher and to Alexander Twisden and that there is not only murder involved here but cannibalism and, what’s more, that half this story is still untold—the half that involves Twisden’s wife and children.
Now the machinery of justice is fully engaged. Now, at last, everyone is looking for Leslie, Adam, and Alice. In every hotel, in every battered-women’s shelter, at every bridge and tunnel, every bus depot, every train station, every airport. It’s really quite amazing how focused the city can be after it is already many hours too late. Police at all the metropolitan airports are on alert. Immigration is on alert. And soon, after checking the manifests of every flight out of New York in the past forty-eight hours, the police find their names and believe that they know where they are.
Now it’s just a matter of time before they secure the cooperation of the German police to begin looking for Leslie and th
e twins in Munich.
No one is there. It is just the two of them.
“What were you doing?” Alice asks.
“I thought the window was open.”
“Did you open it?”
“Did you?”
They are silent as their eyes continue to scour the room for a sign that someone is there, or has been there. It all looks perfectly normal.
Alice runs to the door and gives it a shake. It’s locked. At the same time, Adam looks under the bed.
There is someone there!
No… it’s a carpet, rolled up and secured with electrical tape, which the management for some reason has stored under the bed.
“I guess it was part of my dream,” Adam says.
“Come on,” says Alice. “It’s better to be asleep.”
Adam allows himself to be led back to the bed. They climb in and Alice turns off the lamp. The darkness spreads its wings, filling the room.
Soon Alice is asleep again, and Adam feels the nearness of sleep, too, the way you can smell the ocean well before you can see it. He feels the heaviness in his legs, the steadying of his heartbeat, the slow dissolution of his thoughts. His eyelids flutter and close.
A terrible thought. They did not look in the bathroom. Whoever he felt was in the room could be hiding in the bathroom.
Room 404 consists of a large rectangular space for sleeping that contains the dresser, the TV, and the entranceway. From the southeast corner of the rectangle there is a little hallway that leads to the bathroom. Adam feels his way along the wall, hoping that nothing will touch him. At last, he feels the closed door of the bathroom, runs his hand along the paneling until he touches the cool metal of the door handle. He turns the handle, opens the door. He reaches into the darkness of the bathroom, saying under his breath, “Don’t grab me, don’t grab me.” He feels along the wall for the light switch until he remembers: the light is above the sink. He must walk into the bathroom, find his way to the sink, and pull the little chain that dangles from the fixture attached to the wall above the sink.
He hesitates at the doorway. “Mom?” he says. “Are you in there?”
