Fearless

by Fiona Higgins

  The voice hesitated. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just know.’

  ‘Have you ever hurt any children?’

  ‘No.’

  The voice exhaled. ‘Is it a fantasy? Many men have sexual fantasies they never enact. Rape, sex with animals, sexual slavery, things that would be illegal if you actually carried them out. Do you have any intention of approaching a child?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s just a fantasy.’

  Lorenzo frowned. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve been like this for a long time. I’ve just … never done anything about it.’

  It’s who I’ve been forever. A man who loves children, more than I should.

  ‘But from what you’ve told me, Luigi, you’re not a child molester.’

  Not yet, he wanted to scream. I’m calling you now to try to prevent that.

  ‘Do you know of any … support services for people like me?’ Lorenzo asked tentatively.

  The voice paused. ‘Look, there are plenty of services for sex offenders—which you’re not. If you have an aberrant sexual fantasy that’s concerning you, therapy can help. I’d recommend a clinical psychologist specialising in cognitive behavioural therapy. Sometimes all it simply takes is to change the way you perceive yourself.’

  There’s nothing ‘simple’ about it, Lorenzo thought, incredulous. ‘Are you saying that I’m misjudging myself?’

  ‘I’m saying that sometimes a fear about ourselves may be inflated—a catastrophic view of ourselves. Maybe that’s what’s happening here, Luigi?’

  Lorenzo felt his chest tightening.

  ‘Would you like me to provide you with some contact details for psychology services in your area?’ the counsellor asked.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said robotically.

  ‘Good. Stay on the line.’

  Lorenzo listened to the tinny hold music playing in his ear … as it gradually morphed into the irritating whine of mosquitos.

  He shifted uncomfortably, his body stiff and aching, and surfaced for a moment to bat the insects away. When he remembered where he was—in the bunker at the animal sanctuary—a lump of despair wedged in his throat. He closed his eyes once more, blocking out the bodies prone on the floor, and slipped back into an uneasy sleep.

  Nonna.

  She was standing directly in front of him, tiny glittery diamonds escaping from her kindly eyes. Tears of joy, he discerned, without having to ask.

  ‘You are a beautiful boy,’ she said, ‘and so clever. You will know what to do, Lorenzo.’

  ‘But I don’t know, nonna,’ he objected. ‘I never have.’

  ‘Come closer,’ she said, beckoning to him.

  As he walked towards her, padding across the smooth white floorboards of her rustic country kitchen, Lorenzo glanced down at his feet. Pudgy cherub’s feet, even at the age of thirty-eight. He watched his toes bend and his heels lift, mesmerised by the leverage and the rhythm, until suddenly he collided with nonna Marisa’s shins.

  He burst into tears at the shock of it.

  She lifted him to her then, making gentle tut-tutting sounds. He laid his cheek against her chest, inhaling her earthy smell, of sage and thyme and rosemary. Every now and then, his snuffling would escalate into a sob, but nonna Marisa would click her tongue and stroke his hair and murmur, ‘Non preoccuparti, andrà tutto bene.’

  But how is everything going to be alright, nonna? he wanted to demand. He was close to forty, with a life founded on decades of omission.

  ‘I am hopeless, nonna,’ he announced, too ashamed to look at her. ‘And I am too old to change.’

  His grandmother lifted his chin gently with her fingers and looked at him, her eyes quizzical. Then she laughed, mirth bubbling up from within and tumbling out of her body, shaking her jowls and bosom and arms as it exited.

  ‘You are wrong, ciccino,’ she said, wagging a finger at him. The knuckle was swollen and gnarled, yet as strong and beautiful as the knot of an ancient oak. ‘It is never too late, Lorenzo. For you, for me, or for the whole wide world.’

  She held his face in her hands. Drinking him in with her eyes, nodding and smiling every now and then as if her greatest hopes had been fulfilled. He squirmed with delight, at her touch, her scent, her confidence in him.

  ‘Surely you must realise by now who you are, Lorenzo?’ Nonna Marisa kissed him lightly on both cheeks. ‘You are a brave boy. Heroic and fearless.’

  Lorenzo opened his eyes and searched the shadows, trying to shake the conviction that nonna Marisa had been here. In the dimness, he peered up at the clock on the café wall. It was two o’clock on Friday morning, the third day of their captivity.

  Cara’s eyes were closed, but Lorenzo could tell she was awake. They’d been waiting like this forever, their shoulders touching, their stomachs rumbling and their rank breath assaulting each other in clandestine conversations. There was no sign of the guards, as far as Lorenzo could tell, so he leaned towards her. ‘We have to use Tito,’ he whispered, glancing at the boy lying in Cara’s lap. ‘It’s the only way.’

  Cara’s eyes flew open and she shook her head.

  ‘Take him to the toilets straight after the midday changeover,’ Lorenzo persisted. ‘Then call out—say he’s sick, that you need help. When a guard goes into the bathroom after you, I will follow him and—’

  ‘I don’t want to use Tito.’ Cara interrupted. ‘It’s too risky.’

  Lorenzo nodded. ‘You’re right. But without Tito, the guards will be suspicious.’

  Cara’s face was ashen, like a weathered statue in a moonlit garden. ‘I can’t lose him, Lorenzo,’ she whispered. ‘Not another child.’

  ‘We won’t,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘What about the other guard?’ she asked. ‘In the café?’

  ‘Remy will have to handle him, and any others that come running. I’m going to crawl over and talk to him now.’

  ‘Don’t, Lorenzo!’ Cara looked incredulous. ‘They’ll see you.’

  ‘Not if I do it slowly,’ he said. ‘Extremely slowly.’

  Cara paused. ‘But what if Remy … doesn’t want to do it?’

  Lorenzo looked over at the Frenchman, still cradling Janelle in his arms. He might well refuse, given her condition—and then what? They sat in silence for a while.

  One of the guards appeared again at the front of the café and leaned against the rickety railing on the bamboo bridge, gazing at his mobile phone. A hostage cried out and startled him, and he swung around and pointed his rifle at her. The Indonesian woman, whose neck was covered in an angry red rash, promptly burst into tears. She hid her face and sobbed, while her husband frantically tried to shush her. As the guard slowly lowered his rifle, Lorenzo felt his resolve begin to ebb away. The terrorists had supplies, weapons and, in all likelihood, rotations of rest in the owl house. The hostages had only hunger, heat and hopelessness.

  Lorenzo glanced at Cara. ‘Maybe we’ll be rescued soon.’

  He’d spent hours imagining the diplomatic upheaval transpiring outside the sanctuary. Foreign governments, concerned for their citizens, expressing their views on negotiation and retrieval, with Indonesia staunchly maintaining its sovereignty. The mounting pressure of media coverage, local and international, and the complexities of negotiations with the captors and, perhaps, whoever was commanding them from the outside. Nothing had happened for two days, but the impasse couldn’t continue. Either the Indonesian authorities or the terrorists would have to take decisive action soon.

  Cara shrugged. ‘But if they try to rescue us, will we survive it?’

  Lorenzo looked at her uncertainly.

  ‘The Indonesians aren’t used to this kind of situation,’ she went on. ‘The last major terrorist attack didn’t involve hostages. Just bombs, remember?’

  She glanced at the guard, who had beckoned to his colleague. The pair of them stood huddled together over their phones.

  ‘If the Indonesian police or the army attempt a rescue, but the
guards see them coming, it’s over—the guards will try to save face and kill us all.’

  Lorenzo hadn’t considered that. He scanned the forms of the other captives in the room. Most lay unmoving, immobilised by injury or exhausted by hunger and fear. A young woman in a bright orange bikini top lay nearby, hugging her knees to her chest, groaning intermittently. The injured needed help now, Lorenzo realised. Who knew how long some would last without medical treatment?

  ‘We have to escape,’ he said, his resolve hardening once more. ‘We can’t just sit here waiting to die.’

  ‘But if we use Tito, how do we protect him?’ Cara turned to Lorenzo. ‘He’s an innocent in all of this.’

  Lorenzo stared at Cara, the realisation dawning of what he was preparing to do: to protect the innocents. ‘I will keep him safe,’ he whispered. ‘I will keep you all safe.’

  One of the guards wheeled around. Passing his mobile phone to his partner, he strode across the room towards them. ‘Why are you talking?’ he demanded.

  Lorenzo stared dumbly at him.

  ‘Silence!’ the guard bellowed. He raised the butt of his rifle, then brought it down sharply. There was a blinding pain on the bridge of Lorenzo’s nose, and the back of his head struck the wall. Stunned, he lifted a hand to his face and felt warm liquid trickling between his fingers.

  Cara said something to the guard in a low, cajoling tone. A moment later, the guard crouched down and looked at Tito, who did not stir.

  The bikini-clad woman groaned again, louder now, clutching her stomach. The guard stood up, muttered something terse to Cara, then stalked towards the woman. ‘Silence,’ he said, standing over her. The woman whimpered on the floor.

  ‘I said, silence!’ he yelled, kicking her until she cried out.

  He dragged her to her feet, then marched her at gunpoint to the café entrance and passed her over to another guard outside. She began to scream—hoarse howls of fear. As the woman’s cries receded, a terrified silence settled over the café.

  Cara removed the scarf wrapped around her shoulders and folded it into a rectangular wad. Gingerly, she lifted it to Lorenzo’s nose. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.

  Lorenzo shook his head, trying to communicate: It’s not your fault.

  It was senseless, all of it. Did the woman in the bikini have a partner? Or a child? She almost certainly had a mother and a father, whose lives would never be the same again. Blood trickled down the back of his throat and he gagged. Holding the scarf to his face, Lorenzo suddenly felt supremely thankful that he had only suffered a broken nose. So far.

  ‘I told him Tito was sick,’ Cara whispered. ‘When the guard hit you. I said he was weak and running a fever.’

  So Cara had already set the plan into motion, it seemed. A wave of fear washed over Lorenzo.

  ‘Do we start telling the others?’ she whispered.

  Lorenzo shook his head. People were unpredictable. The message might get distorted, like Chinese whispers. Or one of the hostages might be overheard telling another.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he murmured, from behind the bloody scarf. ‘When it’s time, let’s just hope they follow.’

  And what if they don’t? his rational mind challenged. Lorenzo closed his eyes, unable to answer. No one else was mounting any resistance; they had to try something. Cara’s hand clasped his and Lorenzo opened his eyes again. Her face was frightened.

  ‘I’ll go tell Remy now,’ he whispered.

  Suddenly he remembered the letter, the one he’d scrawled out in the Python Pit after a so-called ‘heart-to-heart’ with Pak Tony. Lorenzo had revealed nothing during the snake-holding session and, yet, Pak Tony had seen through him.

  ‘Don’t you like yourself, Lorenzo?’ Pak Tony had asked quietly, after the other Fearless members had left. ‘I think you know who you need to write to, and what you need to say. Remember, there is no greater relief than to tell the truth.’

  Lorenzo hesitated. ‘But I … don’t think I can send the letter. Ever.’

  ‘You don’t need to make that decision now,’ Pak Tony replied. ‘Just write it. That in itself is progress. One step at a time.’

  And so Lorenzo had complied, penning a cathartic note to Lavinia while Pak Tony lingered nearby. The first words flowed effortlessly:

  The pain of pretending is now greater than the pain of disclosure.

  Lorenzo pulled the folded letter from his pocket now. ‘Pak Tony made me write this,’ he said, ‘and I think it was a mistake.’

  Cara stared down at the note.

  ‘I don’t want to carry it with me,’ he said. ‘It’s not who I am.’ He recalled his dream of nonna Marisa telling him who he really was. ‘Can you look after it for me, for now?’

  Her eyes welled up with tears, then she nodded. ‘What if—?’

  He shook his head and passed her the note, then slid away from the wall. Lying on his back, he swallowed the blood that dripped down his throat from his nose. Unobtrusively, he began to inch away from Cara. Pausing every few seconds, before moving off again. Slipping along in increments, like a guerrilla garden snail, the guards oblivious to his progress.

  After four hours of edging across a six-metre span, Lorenzo finally slid into the gap next to Remy. The grey dawn announced the changeover of the guards; seizing his chance, Lorenzo prodded Remy’s thigh with his forefinger. The Frenchman gasped, as if awoken from a nightmare. He stared at Lorenzo, his eyes wide.

  ‘We are going to escape,’ Lorenzo whispered. ‘We need your help.’

  Clearly this was not what Remy wanted to hear. He glared meaningfully in the direction of the four guards, who stood conversing in low voices just inside the café entrance.

  ‘We have a chance today, because it’s Friday prayers,’ Lorenzo continued. ‘There’s a window in the bathroom.’

  Remy looked sceptical.

  ‘Hear me out. After the guards’ changeover at lunchtime, two of them will go to the mushola. Cara will take the boy to the toilet. She’ll call for help, and when one of the guards goes to her, I’ll follow and disarm him. Your job is to handle the other guard, here in the café. We have to get to them both before they fire a shot, or the guards in the mushola and the owl house will hear.’

  Remy shook his head.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Lorenzo, his frustration building.

  Remy made a gun shape with his hand, and fired it at him.

  ‘They’re amateurs. None of them holds a gun like he’s used to it.’ Lorenzo knew an experienced gunman when he saw one; his father’s preoccupation with hunting had educated him in that regard.

  Remy still looked unconvinced.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ whispered Lorenzo. ‘But we can’t keep waiting to be rescued. The police might bungle it and we’ll all get killed in the crossfire. Or the terrorists could panic and shoot us.’

  The Frenchman looked pained. He’d clearly considered these possibilities already.

  ‘People are getting sicker here, and they’re getting rid of more of us every day, like Annie.’

  Remy’s mouth began to tremble.

  ‘Cara thinks the Indonesian authorities won’t wait much longer. They’ll take action soon and who knows how it will end? I want to keep living. I’m sure you do too.’

  Remy looked down at Janelle, his eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation. The other hostages were beginning to rouse, moving stiffly in the early morning light. Two of the guards took up their stations, at either side of the room, to watch the captives. The other two headed away from the café along the path to the mushola.

  ‘Remember parasailing?’ Lorenzo whispered. ‘You had it all inside of you.’

  The Frenchman shook his head, and Lorenzo knew the comparison didn’t stand. That was a trifling fear of heights, unlike the life-and-death predicament they now found themselves in.

  ‘Think of the future, Remy,’ Lorenzo urged. He motioned to Janelle, who sported a nasty cut to the base of her scalp. ‘That needs medical attention. We c
ould get her out today.’

  The Frenchman sat silently for a minute, staring at Janelle. Then he looked back at Lorenzo and, almost imperceptibly, nodded.

  The midday air was heavy with humidity, the sun beat down beyond the bamboo screen at the café’s entrance, and most of the hostages lay limply on the floor. The changeover guards moved around the room, their rifles slung across their backs. The guards stationed near the bridge had already departed, each carrying a rolled-up prayer mat.

  Lorenzo could barely swallow. It wasn’t just thirst and his swollen nose. He felt like a fatigued athlete crouched on the starting blocks, poised to commence a race he couldn’t win. Wave upon wave of adrenalin surged through his body, enveloping him in a sickening buzz.

  Nonna, he thought, raising his eyes heavenward. Help me, Nonna.

  He looked across the room at Cara, who gazed down at Tito, her expression carefully blank. But Lorenzo could see the tension in her mouth, a slight flush in her cheeks. Beside Lorenzo, Remy sat motionless except for his hands, which he kept wringing. The guards didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, accustomed by now to displays of fear and anxiety among their hostages.

  Lorenzo waited until Cara raised her eyes to meet his. They stared at each other, poised on the agonising precipice of action. He raised both arms above his head, as if stretching, then awaited her return signal. A few moments later, after watching the guards patrolling—waiting until the guard with the lazy eye was closest to her—she did the same. Lorenzo turned to Remy and whispered, ‘Now.’

  Cara raised her hand to attract the attention of the approaching guard.

  ‘Ada apa?’ he asked.

  ‘Tito mau ke kamar kecil,’ she explained. ‘Boleh saya ngantarkan dia lagi?’ Lorenzo knew she was asking to take Tito to the toilet.

  The guard gestured impatiently to the entrance and Cara helped Tito up. She picked her way past the other hostages. She was nearing the bridge, ushering the boy along, when the guard hailed her again.

  Lorenzo caught his breath as the man walked across to them and bent down to look at Tito, scrutinising him. As Cara spoke in rapid Indonesian, looking increasingly nervous, Lorenzo heard her repeat the word sakit—sick. Was the man becoming suspicious?