I heard what it sounded like too. But I had no other answer.
“Jesus, Merel,” hissed Barry. “He’s a kid. A kid. They don’t think that way.”
I didn’t really want to have this discussion with Barry. Not while that a few feet away from us the child we were talking about was fighting for a life that was possibly already over. Yet still I whispered, “You heard how he was calling for me all the time this week, didn’t you? Even though he’d never really liked me before?”
“Didn’t like you?” Barry burst out. “Man, he was crazy about you. It was always ‘Merel this, Merel that’ when you weren’t around.”
“Right, since this past week.”
“No, since forever. Every time you didn’t want to play basketball, he’d ask why not. And when you were in your classroom again, he wanted to know if you were sad. And Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, his favorite book; when I’d read that to him he’d always say: That’s Merel, isn’t Merel pretty? Merel is smart, Merel would never get lost in the woods! Jesus, you were his hero…”
I looked at Leo. From his silence I could tell he agreed with Barry.
“Hmm,” I responded. Then I started taking the new braid apart again.
* * *
Tonight all I thought about was what Barry had said. I found it hard to imagine he was right. But what if he was? Maybe Yuri hadn’t seen his night with me as a means of manipulation, but as a breakthrough; the start of a closer connection that he’d been longing for for weeks.
If I hadn’t seen this for what it was, what else wasn’t I seeing?
Leo couldn’t sleep either. I heard him walking through his classroom. Leo paces when he’s thinking. I wondered what about. That’s what I said at least, after I knocked on his door.
A tea light next to my face, “I heard you pacing. I was wondering what you were thinking about.”
On Leo’s desk were two candles; apparently he hadn’t even been planning to go to bed.
“I was thinking about that,” said Leo. I suspected he was pointing at Kaspar’s classroom.
“About just wanting to go in. To see him for a bit. What if there was something I could be doing for him that I’m not doing.”
“It’s their child.”
“He’s Natalie’s child!”
That last part sounded more intense than Leo had probably intended. And as I held my tea light next to my face again so he could see I was nodding, I realized that Yuri indeed no more belonged to Kaspar than he did to Leo.
“He was just such a smart kid as well,” Leo whispered.
He stood a little closer to the teacher’s desk, the candles now illuminating his body. I hadn’t seen this torso naked since we all slept in the gym together. Leo hadn’t just lost a lot of weight, he’d also lost muscle mass; his shoulders seemed more narrow, his upper arms wiry rather than massive. And there was something about his posture. Slightly hunched over, his back like a crescent moon, like something had taken a bite out of him. Leo seemed to sense what I was seeing. Quickly he righted himself, pulled his shoulders back a bit. His chest widened, but I was looking down, at his pelvis, which, also due to the absence of belly fat, jutted prominently from his boxers.
“Is a smart kid.”
“What?”
“I said was,” said Leo, “I meant is.” I heard him swallow. He was now standing behind the desk, the candles casting his shadow onto the wall. And as he mumbled what a shitty situation this was, the shadow changed back into a crescent moon.
Carefully I walked over. Stood in front of him, placed a hand on his bare back.
Pulled his warm body against me.
I think I wanted to comfort him. But as soon as were standing like this, Leo put a hand on the back of my head and pressed me to his chest until I was no longer the one doing the comforting.
Suddenly “I just feel…” popped out of my mouth.
“Shh,” Leo answered.
He started to rub my back. With both his hands, vigorously: Like a father drying off his child after it has fallen through the ice. I wanted to say something but there was only a strange sound that didn’t sound like it was mine.
“It’s ok,” Leo whispered. “It’s ok.”
And the longer he pressed himself against me and said that none of it was my fault, the more I began to realize it actually was.
I wanted to do something. Had to do something. Something to drive the thought away.
I said, “I’m going to bed.”
* * *
The next morning, the bleach had trouble dissolving. Probably because the water was too cold. I put the bucket at the bottom of the stairs, kneeled down, and listened. Nothing. So the others were still sleeping. I dipped the sponge into the suds. Strange, really, I thought, that no one else has cleaned the floor. The stain wasn’t big, but clearly visible when you walked up the stairs. A brownish-reddish haze on the white vinyl flooring: a constant reminder of what happened.
Once I started, I began to suspect that someone had already been down here after all. The upper part of the spot was a little lighter, faded, probably because Kalim had already scrubbed and scrubbed at it with his microfiber cloth. Yet that’d had little effect, just like my attempt was having little effect.
I cleaned, rubbed, wiped, dabbed, sprayed extra bleach on the stain, on the sponge, in the bucket, scouring until there were little red cracks in my knuckles. Whatever I did, the stain remained.
I sat up and looked at the stairs: There was yellow confetti drifting down. When I squeezed my eyes shut the confetti was still there. Too much exertion on an empty stomach, probably the chloride in the air as well.
It took a while for the dots to disappear, so I wasn’t sure I was seeing what I now thought I was seeing. There was something at the bottom of the stairs, in the dark below the bottom step. I blinked again. There was a pill bottle.
The pill bottle I’d lost, I thought. But once I picked it up I saw the top was a pale yellow, not white like the one from my trashcan. I looked at the label: Same drug, same recommended dosage; different expiration date.
Who knows, maybe the owner had been carrying a lot more pills. Three, four extra bottles: just in case.
In case of what? That we would get stuck in an empty school building for weeks?
No, probably this second bottle had been part of a reserve supply. And someone had run out by now. But what was it doing here, at the bottom of the stairs.
I remembered that Kalim had mopped the stairs on the day of the accident. If the bottle had been there, he’d have noticed it. He’d have picked it up or thrown it out. So it was more likely that the bottle had ended up here after Yuri’s fall.
Or: during Yuri’s fall.
It wasn’t far from the stain; it could’ve easily fallen from his pocket when they lifted him up. Or before. Who knows, it could’ve bounced down every step with him, ending up in a corner at the bottom of the stairs.
I looked at the bottle to see if it was dented. And discovered that there was still something inside. It seemed a speck of dust; the end of a Q-tip on a grayish piece of dental floss. I screwed off the top. And found a dead daddy longlegs.
* * *
“See!” said Barry, his face still swollen with sleep. “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie.” He rubbed his eyes, put his glasses on in order to better study the bottle.
“Not necessarily,” I said.
“But everything points to her. Of course Yuri put the spider in the tube. Like a pet, Spider-Man, something like that. It must’ve rolled out when he fell...”
“Yes,” I said, “I think so too. But why does that say anything about Natalie?”
“Who else gave it to him?”
“He could’ve found it, couldn’t he?”
Barry shook his head. “There’s something else. I heard her talking tonight. And it really did not sound ok.”
Barry explained that, on his way to the bathroom that night, he’d walked past Kaspar’s classroom. The door had been slightly ajar; t
hey apparently only wanted to let in fresh air when we weren’t around.
Barry said that he’d stopped to listen. And that Natalie had been babbling about dispersing fog, bright light, something that had slipped out of her dreams and was now chasing her.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said.
“No,” said Barry, “you were with Leo.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw you.”
We both knew the path to the bathroom didn’t pass by Leo’s classroom. So I decided not to push it.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We wait,” said Barry.
Day 54
The wait is over.
We knew it as soon as the door handle was pushed down. Kaspar came out of the classroom, all of us rising at the same time as if a judge had entered the room. We didn’t say anything. We only had questions, and asking questions doesn’t work when someone believes providing answers is an act of subservience. Kaspar waited until all three of us were facing him and then slowly, almost solemnly said, “We’re going.”
“Going?” asked Barry. “As in…”
“As in: out. Outside.”
I looked at the brown spatter on Kaspar’s trousers and thought about the dirty breadknife. We hadn’t cleaned it but thrown it out; it seemed improbable that we’d ever want to cut anything big again.
“Yuri’s not doing well,” Kaspar continued. “He won’t make it if we stay. So we’re going, this afternoon we’ll be gone.”
“Wow,” said Barry. “Really?”
We often talked about going. But we never went. Because we always came to the same conclusion.
“If being outside was safe we would’ve been found by now,” said Barry.
“Or not,” Kaspar now said. “Maybe they have completely different priorities than searching random buildings to check whether they still have some scared people hiding in them.”
“Even so, someone would still find us eventually,” said Barry.
“No doubt,” said Kaspar. “But like I said, we can’t wait that long.”
Leo now shook his head. “It’s quite a risk.” He said it softly; I could tell he was holding back. That really he wanted to say other things. Things that would very conceivably make Kaspar disappear into his classroom again.
“It’s different from before,” said Kaspar. For a moment he seemed to hesitate. Confidently now, he said, “The streetlights are burning again. Natalie saw it last night: They were all burning and the fog was different, no longer as thick. More like mist than fog really. And if the streetlights are working, who knows what else is working again. Who knows how long they’ve been trying to get everything going again.”
Burning streetlights. I tried to imagine what that meant.
Streetlights are there so people can go outside at night without bumping or crashing into each other. Streetlights are also there to fight fear. Fear of bumping or crashing into someone. Fear of getting a knife between your ribs if you bump into someone. Fighting such fears wouldn’t be a priority in itself, I don’t think. Not as long as there weren’t any vehicles to crash into, or other people to bump into, or working cell phones to be stolen. If they had been there, wouldn’t we have long heard their horns, their engines, or their ringtones?
“Did you see them too?” asked Barry.
It wasn’t an attack. Yet Kaspar sounded like he was defending himself, “I was just taking a nap.” We nodded, but Kaspar continued, “I’d been awake for two days. Nights too. For sixty hours or something. And Yuri’s arm… It really wasn’t easy. I was completely drained.”
“Ok,” said Barry. “But did you see the streetlights too?”
Kaspar shook his head.
“Then wait one more night,” said Leo.
“Yes,” I said, “and if they’re burning again tonight –“
“Then what?” Kaspar interrupted. “Then they’re burning and another day will have passed and Yuri will be even sicker, or worse.”
“But if they’re not burning…” Barry tried.
“They’re burning,” said Kaspar. “You think Natalie’s crazy?”
I looked at Barry, trying to make eye contact; a look of understanding. But Barry didn’t look back, rummaged in his pocket, “Well, actually…”
“I hear you talking about me.”
Almost instinctively Kaspar stepped aside. There was Natalie. And for the first time in three days we could see her face. She must have been crying a lot and sleeping little: Her eyes were puffy, the glands in her neck swollen. It made her face look amorphous, like someone who’d had an aneurysm.
“I heard my name,” she hissed.
“We were talking about the fact that you saw the streetlights were on last night,” said Kaspar. He spoke carefully, the tone of voice Leo had just used to talk to him.
“We thought,” said Leo, “maybe we should just wait and see if they’re burning again tonight.”
“Why?” Natalie asked. “I saw them last night.”
“But we didn’t,” said Barry.
“What’s that got to do with me?” said Natalie. “I know what I saw, I draw my own conclusions, so I decided I’m going.” She wiped a strand of hair from her face. We all saw her hand tremble. “With my child.”
Kaspar nodded, no one spoke.
“Why don’t you believe me?” Natalie asked.
Again Barry felt in his pocket. This time he took something out. “Because of this.”
I wished I’d held on to the pill bottle.
“What’s that?”
Kaspar and Natalie looked at the bottle. That typical way couples sometimes look at things: his arm around her shoulders, her with the object of interest in her hands, both huddled over, frowning at exactly the same time: at the screen of a camera, or the lines on her pregnancy test, a letter from his work, the instructions for her medication. It’s not just looking. This looking bespeaks a togetherness that has no place for secrets. Some find that threatening. The rest call it love.
“What the fuck?” muttered Natalie as soon as she understood what she had in her hand.
“Is it yours?” asked Barry.
“No!” Natalie yelled. She dropped the hand holding the bottle. “What are you guys thinking?”
Leo and Barry mumbled something simultaneously, rendering them both incomprehensible.
“Well, Merel?” Natalie now asked. “Do you also think I’m crazy?”
So as not to have to look her in the eye, I focused on her mouth: the full lips that she’d kept painting every morning the first days after the bang. Now they looked parched. Bluish, flaky with skin: cracked from the classrooms’ fickle climate. Or from Kaspar’s kisses.
“Well?”
“I don’t know.”
Natalie nodded furiously, as if she’d expected me to give that answer.
And then it started. The yelling.
“No!” yelled Natalie. “You wouldn’t say something like that. You have no opinion; you don’t choose sides. But in the meantime you’re thinking all kinds of things and always writing stuff down. Why are we never allowed to know what you think, Merel? Are we not worth it? Do you perhaps feel superior because you ‘know’ so much? I’ll tell you something: You might know about hormones and biology and what happens when you stop eating, but I think there’s a lot more you don’t understand at all. Do you even know what’s going on? Hello?”
Natalie waved her hand up and down in front of my face.
“Can you even hear me? Do you feel anything? Do you actually even know what that is? Feelings? Sadness? Emotions?”
I think I stopped listening at this point and only heard words. Words like “easy,” “apathetic,” “selfish.”
Thinking back on this now, I wonder what the others were doing. Whether they were frowning, looking away. Or rather trying their hardest not to nod along.
“Wake up, Merel!” I heard Natalie yell far off somewhere. I believe this was when Leo intervened, “Ok, Natalie, th
at’s enough.”
But Natalie didn’t let herself be cut off. Like a predator playing with a mouse and then all of a sudden, right next to it, hears the nibbling of a juicy rabbit, that’s how Natalie turned away from me when she heard Leo. She looked him up and down, squinting her eyes into slits. And then attacked, “Oh really? Is that enough? Because you’ve decided? Because you always decide everything? Divide everything, play everyone. Why do you do that, Leo, really? So we’ll all be grateful to you? Look up to you? Do you know what that’s called, someone who needs that? A narcissist. Yes, you’re nothing without applause. That’s the only reason you wake us up every morning, the only reason you ask us how we’re doing. And meanwhile you’re telling these tough-guy stories about North Dakota, and doing your push ups every day so we can keep admiring you for your pecs too. Well, maybe that works on them…” Briefly, Natalie nodded to Barry and me. “But on us it really doesn’t. We know how you operate. And we won’t admire you for that.”
“I understand that you’re angry,” said Leo, still calm, “but let’s try to talk about this like normal people.”
Natalie didn’t listen. Because now Natalie turned to Barry. “And what are you nodding about? Always with your jokes, so charming, so cute. But I know all about that. That you make the same jokes about me too, talk about me behind my back. Like you talk about them behind their back.” Natalie looked back at me again. “Bet you didn’t know that, huh? About everybody’s best friend Barry. But you know: Someone who’s everybody’s best friend is no one’s friend at all. Last night even, right here where we’re standing. I run into him and he immediately starts up about you guys, and what you were doing there.” Now Natalie pointed to Leo’s classroom.
Barry went red.
“Cowards. Such horrible cowards you are!” Natalie concluded.
Before turning around she threw the bottle into the hall. It hit my stomach, bouncing a few times in front of me. When I looked up, Kaspar and Natalie had shut the door to their classroom behind them.
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