The Detainee

by Peter Liney

  People get killed or injured all the time. Mainly kids, of course, cuz they’re the ones who spend most time out there. It ain’t nothing to see a garbage urchin scrabbling up and down the landfills missing an arm or leg. They’re usually on the outer, picking up what the others leave behind, but they got an incredible will to survive. Lena’s problem was that, from then on, she got picked on; teased, abused, as if it was the only use they still had for her.

  “But how did you end up in the tunnels?” I asked.

  “Before the blowout, I used to spend a lot of time up here. It fascinated me. I just couldn’t believe that people ever lived here and I guess I was forever looking for proof. One day I found this grille. I could see a big opening underneath and knew it must have something to do with the subway. It took me a while, but I got up the nerve to smuggle a rope over and find my way down.”

  “Jesus. That must’ve been something,” I commented, my respect for her escalating by the minute.

  “Nothing ever seemed so dark.” She paused for a moment, as if she knew there was something she had to pay deference to. “Well, not then . . . Soon I was spending every moment I could down here. I don’t know why. I guess I just had this feeling that one day I might need it. I started stealing from the Camp. Stocking up. Canned food, tools, even medical stuff.”

  “Canned food?”

  “Comes over from the Mainland. You’d be surprised. I’ve still got most of it. Just in case of emergencies.”

  “Wasn’t it difficult—stealing stuff? I thought De Grew and his boys kept that place screwed down pretty tight.”

  She went quiet for a moment, a look of concern flitting across her face as if she’d just spotted a circling demon looking for somewhere to settle.

  “It’s okay,” she eventually replied. “If you know what you’re doing.”

  I didn’t like that pause. Something about her expression made me think I wasn’t getting the full story, that there was a shortcut somewhere back to an open wound.

  “’Course, after the blowout, I couldn’t come up here anymore. It was over a year before I finally managed. One night I just decided I’d had enough. I grabbed everything I could and made my way over.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly that it could almost pass you by. It was only when you stopped and thought about it that you realized how difficult that must’ve been. Can you imagine? Stumbling all the way over from the Camp? Through all those endless mounds of garbage, wondering if you’ve got the right direction, if you’ve been seen or someone’s following you. Maybe tripping over now and then, hurting yourself, crying tears of pain and frustration. But she still managed to locate the entrance, slip inside, and disappear down into this underground world. She’s not even sure how long ago it was. Only by counting the winters, by running back through the seasons, did she finally arrive at what she thought was four years.

  I mean, what can you say? All that time down there on her own. And yet, when you think about it, she’s safer there than anywhere else. Without light she’s the equal of anyone. More than an equal. When I first came around in the dark I was helpless. But not her. It’s her element and you’d have to back her against anyone else in it.

  “Wow” was all I could manage to utter, but she just shrugged as if it was nothing, as if everyone has a similar tale to tell.

  Later that night, lying on my makeshift bed, I started going back over her story, thinking about it in more detail. I don’t know why but it hadn’t really occurred to me that she might be from the Camp. The way she looks, it’s pretty easy to imagine she’s been down in the tunnels all her life. To discover that she was once one of those kids who consider our deaths an amusement left me feeling decidedly uneasy. On the other hand, she did save my life, and it was the kids she saved me from.

  I guess the truth of the matter is, I’m more inclined to trust her because she’s blind. I know that’s not logical, maybe even patronizing—blind people can be as evil as anyone else—but for some reason, her condition slackens the normal rules a little, and I found myself simply ignoring that part of her story as if it didn’t exist.

  The next day she took me on a tour of the tunnels. With no use for them herself she still has any number of boxes of candles, so I was able to light the way wherever we went. I still felt a bit weak and dizzy and it was pretty slow progress, but astonishing for all that. There’s miles of it down there. The Island wasn’t only a junction for two mainland lines but also one of the maintenance depots for the entire system. There are main tunnels, service tunnels, inspection tunnels. Some starting to collapse a little, in need of attention, while others look pretty much the way they must’ve the day they were sealed off.

  Not that this was my biggest surprise. The most impressive thing is what she’s achieved down there. In one place daylight shines down (through the grille that first alerted her to the existence of this place, which she spent months disguising with blackthorns and rubble) on an area where she’s created a garden. She’s got all kinds of stuff growing: potatoes, peas, beans, even a few flowers. Water gets channeled down from the surface, flowing into neatly lined-up containers, while a mob of nesting pigeons, that she manages to keep away from the garden with some homemade netting, are her source of eggs.

  Excuse the indelicacy, but she’s also got what must be the largest flushing toilet in the world. It’s on the lower level, where some of the tunnels are flooded. The water’s tidal, which means it’s seawater, and that it rises and falls twice a day. You can go down there, do whatever you gotta do, and a few hours later it’s gone, taken away by the tide. Don’t ask me how she discovered it. By accident, I guess. It’s not the sort of thing I care to discuss. Once she directed me there I never raised the subject again, but it sure is convenient.

  Anyways, the whole thing is so well set up—with her stores and fresh food and everything—she doesn’t want for a thing. Well, apart from the obvious: company.

  Perhaps that was why, on the way back to the living area, I started worrying about her. Was she getting so lonely she was taking chances? By helping me she’d plainly made herself vulnerable. Secrecy’s everything to her existence. If someone like De Grew ever found the place, I wouldn’t want to guess at her fate. It’s the perfect hideout for them: belowground, away from the eyes of the satellites (strange how the one person on the Island who can’t see is the one person who can’t be seen, as if one cancels the other out). She’s risked it all, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d do the same for anyone who might alleviate her loneliness.

  “Why did you trust me?” I asked her.

  She hesitated for a moment, a little surprised by the suddenness of the question. “What do you mean?”

  “You brought me in here. Your secret world.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t know me. I could’ve been anyone.”

  She grunted. “I know you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you,” she repeated.

  We reached the living area and I sagged gratefully back down onto my bed. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve known you for some time. You’re always scavenging in one of the old apartment blocks over on Parkside. Sometimes you sit for hours down in the square.”

  I stared at her. How the hell did she know that? For a moment the absurd notion went through my head that maybe she wasn’t blind after all.

  She turned my way, as if she’d sensed my confusion. “I smell you,” she told me.

  “You what?”

  “I smell you.”

  I didn’t want to say nothing, ’specially as she saved my life and all, but I wasn’t taking that from anyone. “Listen, lady, it ain’t that easy,” I said. “I look after myself as best as I can. You want to talk about personal hygiene, take a look at yourself sometime.”

  “I can’t, can I?” she replied, as if she’d waited a long time to deliver that line.

  She said it like it was a real put-down, like my conscience was going
to kick my ass so hard I’d be somersaulting for a week, but I was feeling far too indignant.

  “What do you mean, you ‘smell’ me? How the hell do I smell?” I demanded.

  “Of salt, which means you either come from the rocks side of the Village or perhaps you do a lot of fishing; of smoked meat, which must mean you’ve been trading with the Mainland, and, just occasionally, of hooch. That, and the fact that you’re always alone, gives me the impression that you’re not just a loner but a pretty discontented one at that.”

  I paused for a moment. I mean, she’d kind of mocked me with it, like she was talking to the village idiot or something, but I do have to admit, it was pretty impressive.

  “Never saw you,” I conceded.

  “I know you didn’t.”

  It was only then that it occurred to me—I hadn’t seen her, but I had heard her. “The footsteps!” I cried.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Jeez! You damn near drove me insane!” I told her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I never told a soul cuz I was sure they’d think I was crazy. I thought I was crazy!”

  “Some days I just used to tag along to see what you were up to . . . See where you were going. Sometimes I even imagined us having conversations. . . . I know you,” she repeated.

  I chuckled to myself. There was something about that I quite liked. As if I’d just discovered we were childhood friends or something. “And what else could you tell about me?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “You’re old.”

  It was like a bomb being dropped into the conversation, only it exploded with silence. I looked at her to see if she realized what she’d just said, but if she did, it didn’t register.

  “I smell old?” I asked.

  She shrugged, as if to indicate it was just a fact of life.

  For a long time I didn’t speak. I felt really angry and I wasn’t altogether sure why. Suddenly I wanted to be away from the tunnels, from this strange young woman and all her darkness.

  “I’m going back to the Village tomorrow,” I announced.

  She paused, a slightly startled expression on her face. She knew I was upset, but not the reason. “Why?”

  “Time’s come,” I replied in a way that forbade any further discussion.

  There was a long and painful silence. I could see some fresh emotion beginning to flow through her, like a river starting to change color, but I had no idea what it was. It must’ve been getting on for five minutes before she spoke again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  For some reason it was the last thing I wanted to hear. I mean, I didn’t think it was an apology or anything, more an admission of what stood between us. I was old and she was young and that was an end to it. Too much had happened between us, too many terrible things, and we could never forgive each other.

  I turned and looked at her, cross-legged on the ground, her back almost statuesquely straight, her sightless brown eyes directed at the wall. I was a fool to think it could be ignored. No matter what had happened, how estranged from her peers or reformed she might be, the truth was, I was down there in the company of the enemy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The following morning the atmosphere between us continued to be awkward and uncertain, potentially even hostile. Over breakfast she asked if I was still leaving and I told her I was. I don’t know why, but nothing mattered more to me than getting back to the Village and being with the rest of the old people, where I belonged.

  When we finished eating, the two of us sat there in silence for a few moments, knowing that the next words, the next move, would be away from each other.

  “Well,” I eventually sighed, struggling to my feet, still a long way from full recovery.

  She hesitated, almost as if she was going to stay where she was, but finally stood. “I’ll show you the way.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “You want to blindfold me or something?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Well, you know, take me up top, walk me ’round a bit then take it off. So I won’t be able to find my way back down again.”

  She went quiet for a moment. “Don’t you want to come back down again?”

  I turned to her, a little surprised. “You mean like . . . calling in?”

  “Yeah.”

  She said it kind of carelessly, like she really didn’t mind one way or the other, but I was beginning to appreciate just how much she did.

  “I dunno,” I said, shrugging to myself, if not her.

  “You’re welcome. As long as you’re careful.”

  “Oh yeah. No problem.”

  She stood there waiting for me to answer, her whole face reflecting what her eyes couldn’t. The only problem was, I didn’t know what to say. Part of me was thinking Stay away, that to have anything more to do with her was unnatural and could only result in trouble. While, on another level, I could sense her need so strongly, I didn’t see how I could possibly refuse.

  “S’pose I could,” I eventually said, and for probably only the second or third time since I’d been down there, she broke into a smile.

  It was one helluvan improvement, believe me. Sometimes I wonder if it’s only the unhappiness of her isolation, of being down there alone, that makes her so hard on the eye. As if she’s forgotten some of her expressions, particularly those of joy and happiness. The few times she has smiled, she’s seemed that much more human, that much more redeemable.

  A little later she led me up top and showed me the entrance. I tell you, it’s a piece of modern art. You’d never find it unless it was pointed out to you. It looks like a pile of rubble, in the middle of dozens of other piles of rubble, but in that particular pile is a door made out of bricks woven together with heavy wire. Mind you, it’s one helluva weight. No wonder she’s so strong. But the most important thing about it was, even if I gave you directions, even if I drew you a map, you’d probably still spend all day searching and not find it.

  She didn’t open it straightaway. Instead she squatted down and pressed her face to the gaps in the bricks, sniffing and listening. It confused me for a moment till I realized she was checking if there was anyone outside. Finally satisfied, she heaved the door back and motioned me through.

  I’d been rehearsing something to say all the way up the tunnel. I mean, no matter who, or what, she is, she did save my life. I hesitated for a moment, trying to get it out, but she didn’t give me the chance.

  “Go!” she hissed, and gave me a real hard shove.

  I got some fifty or sixty yards away before I finally dared look back. I’d been that way hundreds of times before, but it would never have occurred to me that there was anything unusual about it. The fact that there’d been someone watching me (or smelling me, if you must), that an entrance to another world had been so close, wouldn’t have even made it into my dreams.

  A little bit of advice for you: if you ever want to find out who your real friends are, try coming back from the dead sometime. Jimmy just about had a heart attack when he saw me approaching. He was up on this box, tinkering around with one of his roof-mounted windmills. He took a quick glance down the row, in my direction, then turned back to what he was doing. I don’t think it really registered. Then his gaze suddenly whirled back my way, his mouth falling open so far I couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, he was that shocked he lost his balance and fell off the box, scrambled up, hop-stepped in my direction, and threw his arms around me.

  “Big Guy!” he cried. “I don’t believe it!”

  Delilah wasn’t a lot better. The moment I entered their lean-to, she shrieked loud enough for the whole Island to hear and threw herself at me, helplessly laughing and crying at the same time. At one point I actually had them both hanging off me. Tell the truth, it was a little painful, but I wasn’t about to draw their attention to my wound, nor the fresh bandage Lena had put on me that morning.

  Jimmy went and rummaged
in the back of their lean-to and returned with a prime bottle of hooch he’d been saving and we all sat around toasting my return.

  That being said, I got a bit stuck when they asked me for an explanation. I’ve never been that good at making up stories. I hesitated for a moment, swallowed my words a couple of times, then muddled out a combination of fact and fiction—taking them up to the point where I passed out and fell down the pile of rubble—then claiming to know nothing from then on. Maybe the kids left me for dead? Maybe the fog suddenly cleared and they had to back off? All I knew was I’d regained consciousness that morning in exactly the same spot.

  “Jesus,” Jimmy uttered, topping up my hooch. “Lying there all that time. You were lucky, Big Guy.”

  It wasn’t the most plausible of stories, and I guess if they hadn’t been so pleased to see me they would’ve realized, but as it was, neither of them seemed to give it much thought. Their only concern was that I was back, that I was alive and well, and to tell you the truth, I was kind of enjoying the fuss. I’ve never had that many friends, and to see people so obviously caring about me was nice. The only thing that spoiled it was, later—still celebrating in their lean-to—my eyes suddenly fell on my kerosene lamp in the corner.

  “Jimmy?”

  “What?”

  “What’s my stuff doing here?” I asked, now noticing one or two other items.

  He looked around as if it was the first he knew about it, his mouth getting wider and wider but never looking like it was going to give any kind of explanation. Meanwhile, Delilah started sniggering to herself.

  “Jimmy!” I protested.