Your Still Beating Heart

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Your Still Beating Heart Page 23

by Tyler Keevil


  By then, Marta is already out of the wheelhouse, tossing the other lines down to the dock for you to tie off. When that’s all done you climb back aboard. Your hands are numb and you’re breathing hard, your throat filled with the copper-penny taste of cold.

  Marta tells you she will go pay the moorage fee, and while she does you head below deck to get Gogol ready. He’s still engrossed with his one-man chess game, having eliminated the majority of the pieces from both sides, except for the kings, queens, and a pair of pawns. The empty board is a field stripped of its variables and options. Pared back to a final confrontation, leading to the only – and maybe inevitable – outcome.

  You tell him it’s time to go. Go – another word he now understands. He doesn’t complain at all, but is happy to leave the board set up like that, frozen in stasis, the two sides still at a deadlock. You pull on his hat, work his arms into his jacket. Fit his shoes and cinch the laces – the distressing thought floating to you: he may need to run. You both may need to run, before this is through, so it’s best if his shoes are tightly laced.

  Your duffel bag is packed, ready. Near your bed. You go fetch it, but before bringing it above deck you unzip it, take out the knife. It’s no use in there, out of reach. You check its sheath, try fitting it in the back pocket of your jeans, or the pouch of your hoody. Neither suits. The best place is the inner pocket of your jacket. For easy access. Snug against your chest, near your heart. It fits like an extra rib. Nice and discrete and light. But weighted, too.

  You hear footsteps up top, on deck, and Marta calls down into the galley, ‘We go now, yes?’ The urgency evident in her tone. You sling the duffel bag over your shoulder, step back into the galley, smile encouragingly at Gogol. Motion for him to precede you up the steps. You’re half-expecting some terrible twist – to walk out on deck and see Pavel, or one of Valerie’s other men holding Marta with a knife at her throat. Having walked right into their trap.

  But no, Marta is standing alone, waiting anxiously at the port side, sucking avidly on a cigarette. Hearing you, she turns to take a look, and nods approvingly. ‘Good,’ she says, then repeats in Ukrainian for Gogol. She flicks her cigarette over the side, and you hear the fizzle-hiss as it hits the water.

  You walk down the narrow docks in single file, winding your way through a maze of vessels and masts that tip back and forth, clinking and clacking, like giant metronomes all in a row, all in unison. A man sitting on the deck of a pleasure cruiser, braiding a rope, looks up as you pass and raises his hand. Nothing menacing in it at all, just the friendly gesture of one boater to another. Marta waves back politely.

  Then up a gangplank and along the wharf – wider, built on sturdy pilings and paved with concrete – towards the members’ club, a chain-link fence, a parking lot full of new saloons and hatchbacks. Glossy and polished as beetles. An upmarket marina, the members seemingly affluent. Though you know it could well be misleading, this puts you at ease – the presence of money, of wealth, of people who are valued by society. The seeming safety and security of the place.

  Here, surely, you won’t be accosted or attacked without somebody noticing.

  As you walk, you hold Gogol’s hand tightly, your fingers interlaced with his. Marta explains that she asked about transport when registering for the berth, and there’s a bus station nearby. The three of you can catch a bus to a car rental agency in Blasewitz – an eastern borough, quite close. It seems a good plan. A way of avoiding the city centre entirely. She is talking as she walks, and you are listening so closely – caught up in the seeming ease of it, the allure of it all working out – that you don’t notice anybody behind you until an arm loops around your shoulders, as if in congenial greeting – just an old friend! – and something sharp and cold and hard is stinging your lower back. It feels physically wrong, the pain so intense.

  ‘Keep walking towards the car.’

  These words, murmured warmly in your ear. Then something about a scalpel, and your kidneys. You know the voice. That soft falsetto. Pavel. Her musician and surgeon. You can smell his sweat and cologne, his breath and nearness. When you try to look over – at Marta, and Gogol – Pavel’s arm tightens, squeezing pressure on your neck, keeping you looking ahead and moving ahead. Gogol’s hand still clenched in yours; they haven’t tried to separate you. Perhaps knowing they don’t need to. They have you now. They have you both.

  This, the nightmare. This, everything you feared. Waiting for you all along, here in Dresden. But how strange – now that it’s happening it feels not just probable but inevitable, something that had to happen. And yet, you’re not defeated by it. Your heart flutter-pulsing, yes. Your brain dizzy with fear, with surging blood and oxygen, yes. But the knife still weighing in your pocket, hidden, undetected. The hope of that, the possibilities it implies. A desperate, fervent belief that this is not finished, that you can still get out of this. Somehow.

  Not yet – you can’t reach for the knife. Even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to use it in time. You are disposable. Only Gogol is valuable. They would not think twice about simply doing away with you, and Marta too. A glimpse of her then, in your peripheral vision. Still with you. Her face tight with fear. Somebody else guiding her, forcibly.

  This occurs to you: the only reason you and Marta are being kept alive – and may be kept alive for some time – is so you can be punished, tortured. Like Mario.

  Their car is just ahead now – you’re approaching it. Moving on automatic legs. All of it feeling slow and dazed, a hallucination. Impressions of a beige, non-descript vehicle. A standard SUV. Wheel wells spattered with slush. Expensive, but not flashy – not attention-grabbing. Deliberately unobtrusive. Tinted windows. No sense of what or who is inside. The back door opening, the interior dark as a cavern, into which you are forced to enter.

  a long drive

  Pine-scented air freshener; leather polish; cigarette smoke; sweat; nerves; the possibility of violence; blood and death; hopelessness; fear. These are the things the vehicle smells like. It is spacious inside, wider than a normal car. Wide enough to accommodate three seats in the front. With an extended rear hatch. Hearse-like. You and Gogol have been put in the back. Gogol against the door, and you in the middle. The man called Pavel easing himself in beside you. Transferring the blade he has against your back to your side. Doing it quite casually, quite naturally. In profile his features are sharp, bony. A ridge of nose. A pointed chin. Those thin lips. He’s so close you can see the hairs in his nostrils, the way they quiver when he breathes.

  Marta is being put into the front by another man, with a shaved head. The stubble fine as wires. Big, bulging eyes. Mario’s old accomplice, Denis. Denis the Menace. He has a gun in his hand – a small pistol. He waves it towards the front seat and, when Marta hesitates, he merely forces her in next to the driver. Manoeuvring her in a practiced, impersonal way.

  Beside you, Gogol does not cry or whimper. Instead, he has gone quiet, tense. Sensing the threat, the potential for violence in this situation. Relying on his instinctive stillness and suppressing any signs of fear. His way of playing possum. He knows drawing attention only makes it worse.

  The doors lock; the engine starts.

  Caught so easily, led so willingly. You wonder if you should have shouted, screamed, kicked and struggled. Would Pavel have stabbed you, silenced you, killed you, in a parking lot at a marina, in plain view, during the middle of the day?

  Directly in front of you is the driver’s seat. The driver a small woman, hunched forward. Wearing a flat-cap and leather gloves. Perhaps this is even her main role, in their organisation – a dedicated driver. She turns to look behind her, backing up, and you see she has a gaunt face, her cheeks pockmarked with acne scars. While she reverses, she gazes past you, beyond you. As if she hasn’t even registered your presence. As if you aren’t really there. Or are invisible, to her.

  Not so Denis. He catches your eye, and smiles – showing his small yellowed teeth. Says it is a happy day for him. Appa
rently not having forgotten how you embarrassed him that night, when he slipped on the ice. You ask him, quite calmly, if he knows what they did to his friend. He leers, shakes his head.

  ‘Not my friend,’ is what he says.

  Then the car is moving forward, turning out of the parking lot. Accelerating. The ride eerily smooth. Cushioned by big four-wheel drive tires, faultless shocks and suspension. As if floating. A magic carpet ride.

  You’re breathing heavily, without even knowing it. The situation both unbearably fraught and somehow banal, boring. An everyday drive. You turn your head, just enough to look over at Gogol. His eyes are on you, only you. Hoping. Hoping this is okay, or will be okay. Hoping you have a solution, a way out. But you have neither.

  You have a knife, but that’s it.

  And you also have a knife in your ribs. Or a scalpel, if Pavel is to be believed.

  Where his blade jabbed your back, you can feel a wetness. A leeching, burning sting. The slow bleed of a flesh wound. You ask if you can put Gogol’s seat belt on, and you ask this of Pavel – assuming that he is in charge. He doesn’t bother to reply. Your idea is that if you can reach across Gogol, you might be able to grab the door handle, tug it open, jump out with Gogol. Maybe when the car slows down to turn a corner, or at a light. Then run. Scream for help.

  Madness. You don’t even know if the door opens from the inside. It would be stupid, on their part, if it did. You try again anyway, telling him that Gogol is valuable. ‘Valerie won’t be happy if he gets hurt,’ you say.

  Pavel removes his glasses and massages his temples with his slim fingers, as if he has a headache. As if your words are like the buzzing of a mosquito: irritating and inconsequential. ‘Please stop talking,’ he says, so softly it is difficult to hear. ‘Please stop talking to me. The boy does not need a seatbelt. We are not going to crash, are we, Lenka?’

  ‘We are not going to crash,’ the driver says. Lenka.

  Unwilling to leave it – to resign yourself to silence – you ask where you’re going.

  Pavel says, ‘You are going where you are going.’

  Denis snorts at this. ‘You are going to the lake,’ he says loudly. ‘To have a vacation. To swim. To fish. To swim with the fish.’ At this cleverness he laughs. A loud and loutish sound.

  Pavel politely tells him to please shut his mouth, and Denis does. Pavel replaces his glasses, pushes them up the bridge of his nose with a forefinger, ending the interlude.

  Outside, a wide, snowy boulevard. Shrubs and bushes dusted with white. Rows of residential houses, all modern pastels. A few errant, fluttering flakes of snow. The whole scene pleasant and wintry. And through it you move, locked in a hearse, rolling steadily towards your fate.

  Unless you can think of something. Do something.

  Try. You have to try. You tell Gogol it is going to be okay – speaking clearly and earnestly – and let go of his hand, for the first time, so you can reach over to pat his knee – the one closest to the door. Afterwards, you slide your hand a few inches further, fumbling for the handle. Your fingertips have just touched cool chrome when you feel a sharp sting, wasp-like, against your ribs. Pavel murmurs that you are not to try anything idiotic like that, or he will simply stab you, deeper. Your fingers linger on the handle, longingly.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you bleed,’ he says. ‘As long as you are alive.’

  You let go. ‘So you can torture me,’ you say. Your voice flat, emotionless.

  He makes a sound in his throat, acknowledging the truth of this. He studies you to see how you will react and, when you don’t, he nods, as if in grudging approval. Maybe he’s accustomed to victims begging, pleading, beseeching, and appreciates your impassiveness, since he surprises you by mumbling an ominous apology. Explaining he would rather not. It is simply a result of what has happened. The trouble you’ve caused. Valerie cannot allow such a thing to occur.

  You ask him how much further you have to drive, but the simpatico moment between you has passed. He shakes his head, so slight it seems like a twitch. No more questions.

  Time passes. The car rolls on. The scenery changes. Buildings giving way to empty lots. A proposed development, the fencing draped in large posters, renderings of what the area will look like, one day soon. Two-bedroom terraces and three-bedroom detached houses. Smiling children and laughing parents. A communal park. None of the houses completed yet, none of the foundations laid. All of it a frozen dream right now.

  Pavel reaches into his jacket pocket for a mobile, thumbs through the numbers to speed dial. Somebody answers, and he mumbles something in their language. Letting Valerie know they have caught you, you suspect. He repeats a word that sounds affirmative – dah, dah – and then hangs up.

  Denis reaches forward and turns on the stereo, as if he has been waiting for this moment. A heavy throbbing bass fills the car, and an explosion of vocals. European techno-pop, wild and frenzied, the words lost on you except for the nonsensical chorus in English – Love you love me love us love them love everyone love forever. The dull beat thudding, thudding, thudding. Loud enough to make the windows vibrate.

  You pass the city limits, and Lenka turns smoothly on to a long stretch of road. You discretely study the road signs, trying to keep track of where you are, where you are going. You couldn’t tell which direction you travelled from Dresden, but there are frequent signs denoting the distance to the Czech border. It’s getting closer, now only thirty miles or so. You’re being driven east, maybe back to Prague.

  A sound, beside you. Gogol. You look over. His eyes are wide now, anxious. You think the situation has finally become real to him, overwhelmed him. Until you notice that he is sitting with his hands between his legs, squeezing them together. He casts his eyes down, signalling.

  He has to go pee, you tell them. Then repeat it, louder, over the music. Pavel says something, and Denis turns down the stereo. Pavel leans forward in his seat, looks across you at Gogol. Murmurs something to him, softly. In Ukrainian, or Russian. Checking the veracity of your claim. When Gogol nods, Pavel sighs.

  He and Lenka exchange words, seeming to debate it. Perhaps deciding if Gogol should be forced to pee in his pants. Ultimately, though, Pavel says something to Lenka, who slows down, pulls on to the side of the road. You think this is it, your opportunity. Feel an electric tingle in your scalp, the prickle of anxiety in the build up to movement, action, violence. Maybe what Tod felt, just before the fight on the bus.

  Lenka leaves the engine running, gets out. Opens Gogol’s door – dutiful as a true chauffeur – and cold air rushes in. The scent of snow. Altitude. Gogol slides down from his seat, is led by Lenka to a fence post a few feet from the road. She holds one hand on Gogol’s shoulder as he stands in the cold, and a small stream of urine patters the snow, turning it yellow. You shift your arm, ready to reach for your knife, and Pavel takes a firm hold of your elbow, leans on his blade in your ribs, making you gasp, go rigid. Each time it must be cutting you, going deeper. You just don’t know how deep. It’s clear there will be no great escape here. Not with Pavel so close, right next to you.

  Marta tries anyway. She begins to make a move, attempting to clumsily scramble out Lenka’s open door. Seeing this, Denis merely reaches across and catches her by the neck, shaking her like a misbehaving cat. Cracks her head once on the dash. When he releases her she slumps brokenly in her seat. Stunned. Her lesson learnt. Resigned now to confinement.

  Gogol is still peeing, has not seen anything. When he finishes, he wades back to the vehicle, sinking up to his knees in the snow. He retakes his seat, shivering. Lenka shuts his door and walks around to her side.

  ‘And you?’ Pavel asks you. ‘Do you need to go, too?’

  You glance at him, to see if it’s a taunt. But his eyes, behind those tinted lenses, are unblinking, serious. You try to imagine it. Stepping out, pretending to go, while intending to run. Is this the place, the time? But Gogol will be in the car, with them. You need him with you. You need a better opportunity,
better odds. You have to wait, and hope.

  You shake your head. No.

  Lenka sits back in her driver’s seat, releases the handbrake, shifts the gearstick. The car keeps going, that smooth ghosting motion. The sky in front of you is dull and lifeless, glazed with grey. Beneath your coat you can feel the warmth of your own blood on your ribs, and back. The three nicks pulsing persistently, repeatedly. A reminder of the mistakes you’ve made, and a portent of your pain to come.

  the cabin

  Rumbling over a gritted track through trees all cowed and snowbent, like figures twisted in agony. Trapped in purgatory. At the roadside large mounds of snow, stained brown and flecked with grit and dirt. The track descends and becomes rougher, the SUV bucking and rocking, the tyres occasionally spinning before the four-wheel drive kicks in. Where the treeline ends, the terrain levels out and you see that you have indeed been brought to a lake. Maybe a mile across, oval shaped. Possibly man-made. The surface completely grey and frozen except for a dark patch of water in the very centre, like a target.

  The lake is encircled by pine and fir, closely bunched, creating a natural barrier. One other vehicle – a black truck – is parked at the end of the track, and on the far shore of the lake sits a cabin. An old A-frame. The roof shingled. A porch out front. Smoke leaking from the stove-pipe chimney. The cabin is innocuous enough, even cosy-looking, but the sight fills you with horror and dread. Simply because this is where they have brought you. This is where it happens. This is their place. Their slaughterhouse.

  The truck has its engine running, smoke spewing from the exhaust, spreading into a haze that clusters around the wheels and bumpers. Like a miasma oozing out of the ground.

  Lenka pulls alongside it. Leaving about a metre of space between the two vehicles. There is somebody sitting in the driver’s seat, but from your angle you can only see the shadow of their shoulders through tinted glass.

 

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