Neither of them is saying anything. Rennie can smell their bodies, unwashed flesh, and the putrid smell from the bucket, Lora is out of cigarettes for the time being, she's picking at her fingers, Rennie can see her out of the corners of her eyes, it's an irritating habit, they've both run out, run down. She's having trouble remembering which day this is, they should have begun when they got here, scratches on the wall, perhaps this is the day her ticket expires, her twenty-one-day excursion. Maybe now someone will come looking for her, maybe she will be rescued. If she can only keep believing it, then it will happen.
She hopes they'll do it soon, she's deteriorating, she knows this because right now she's daydreaming about food, not even real food, not spinach salads with bacon and mushrooms and a glass of dry white wine, but Colonel Sanders chicken, McDonald's hamburgers, doughnuts filmed with ersatz chocolate and shreds of stale coconut, thick nasty cups of ancient coffee, the dregs, her mouth's watering at the thought of it, potato chips, candy bars from subway magazine stands, Mars, Rowntree's coated raisins, silently and voluptuously she repeats the names, how can she? She sleepwalks along Yonge Street, into one franchise after another. No-frills Snak Pak. Maybe she's delirious.
She switches to a jigsaw puzzle, in her head, the top border, the ones with the flat edges, it's always the sky, one piece fits into another, fits into another, interlocking, pure blue.
"Try getting a comb for us," says Rennie. "If you can."
"I tried before," says Lora, "People slash their wrists with them. They don't want any funny deaths in here, not if they can help it. Some church or other is poking around."
"How about a brush?" says Rennie.
"You got any money?" says Lora, with a small laugh.
Rennie looks at her, she's thinner now and filthy, there's no other word for it, the white blouse is grey, the purple skirt is damp and greasy, dark moons under the eyes, they both smell, there's a sore on Lora's leg that won't heal, her hair is matted. Rennie knows how she herself must look. She thinks they should do exercises, but when she suggested it, Lora said, "What for?" and Rennie doesn't have the strength to do them by herself. What she really wants is a toothbrush. A mirror. Someone who could get them out.
"I could braid it," she says.
"What?" says Lora. It's harder and harder to keep her attention.
"I could braid your hair," says Rennie. "At least that would untangle it."
"Okay," says Lora. She's restless, she's out of cigarettes again, the flesh around her nails is raw. "I wish we could get some news in here," she says. "You can't trust what they tell you. I'm tired of this place."
Rennie doesn't remember hearing her complain before. It seems like a bad omen. She begins on the hair, it's like pulling strands of wool apart.
"Go easy," says Lora. "At least we don't have lice."
"Yet," says Rennie. Now they're laughing, it's idiotic, they can hardly stop. There's no reason for it. When they finish, Rennie keeps going with the hair. She's making it into two long frizzy braids. "What do you dream about?" she says to Lora.
"Lots of stuff," says Lora. "Being on a boat. My mother. Sometimes I dream about having a baby. Except I never know what to do with it, you know? I think I'd like it though. When I get out of here and I get Prince out maybe that's what we'll do. They think it's funny here if you have a baby after you're about twenty-five though. For them that's old. But I don't care, let them laugh. Elva will like it, she's always bugging me to have a son for Prince."
Rennie finishes with one of the braids and starts on the other. "If we had some beads," she says, "I could do you up like a Rasta."
"Tinfoil," says Lora. "Some of the girls use that on the ends. When you get out, can you do something for me?"
"What makes you think I'll be out any sooner than you?" says Rennie.
"Oh, you will," says Lora. She says this wistfully, fatalistically, as if it's just a fact of life that everyone knows about.
Instead of cheering Rennie up this makes her anxious. She winds the two braids around Lora's head. "There," she says. "You look like a German milkmaid. Except I've got nothing to pin them with."
"Tell someone I'm here," says Lora. "Tell someone what happened."
Rennie lets go of the braids. "Who should I tell?" says Rennie.
"I don't know," says Lora. "Someone."
Lora's face is streaked with dirt. Perhaps later they can take turns wiping off each other's faces with the salty tea.
Rennie can't remember what people are supposed to think about. She tries to remember what she herself used to think about, but she can't. There's the past, the present, the future: none of them will do. The present is both unpleasant and unreal; thinking about the future only makes her impatient, as if she's in a plane circling and circling an airport, circling and not landing. Everyone gripping the arms of the seat, trying not to imagine the crash. She's tired of this fear, which goes on and on, no end to it. She wants an end.
She wants to remember someone she's loved, she want to remember loving someone. It's hard to do. She tries to conjure up a body, Jake's body, as she has before, but she can hardly remember what he looks like. How does she know he ever existed? There's no proof. Acts of the body, of love, what's left? A change, a result, a trace, hand through the sea at night, phosphorescence.
Of Paul, only the too-blue eyes remain. They don't talk about Paul much; nothing has been heard, according to Lora, nothing has been said on the radio. He's disappeared, which could mean anything. Rennie does not want to think about the noises behind her in the harbour, the machine-gun fire, the explosion. She doesn't want to think of Paul as dead. That would rule out the possibility of rescue. She would rather know nothing. Possibly she is the last person he touched. Possibly he is the last person who will ever touch her. The last man.
She switches to a yoga class she once went to with Jocasta. Feel the energy of the universe. Now relax. Start with the feet. Tell your feet, Feet, relax. Now send your mind into your ankles. Tell your ankles, Ankles, relax. Go with the flow.
She thinks about Daniel, Daniel eating his breakfast while listening to the news, which he doesn't really seem to hear, since his knowledge of world affairs is more or less nil, Daniel caught in rush hour, Daniel getting his feet wet because he didn't listen to the weather forecast. Daniel in surgery, a body spread before him, his hands poised for incision. Daniel leaning across his desk, holding the hand of a blonde woman whose breasts he has recently cut off. Who wants to cure, who wants to help, who wants everything to be fine. You're alive, he says to her, with kindness and duplicity, compelling as a hypnotist. You're very lucky. Tears stream silently down her face.
Daniel moves through the day enclosed in a glass bubble like an astronaut on the moon, like a rare plant in a hothouse: a fluke. Inside the bubble his life is possible. Normal. Outside, what would become of him? Without food or air. Ordinary human decency, a mutation, a freak. Right now she's on the outside looking in.
From here it's hard to believe that Daniel really exists: surely the world cannot contain both places. He's a mirage, a necessary illusion, a talisman she fingers, over and over, to keep herself sane.
Once she would have thought about her illness: her scar, her disability, her nibbled flesh, the little teethmarks on her. Now this seems of minor interest, even to her. The main thing is that nothing has happened to her yet, nobody has done anything to her, she is unharmed. She may be dying, true, but if so she's doing it slowly, relatively speaking. Other people are doing it faster: at night there are screams.
Rennie opens her eyes. Nothing in here has changed. Directly above her, up on the high ceiling, some wasps are building a nest. They fly in through the grating, up to the nest, out through the grating again. Jack Spaniards, Lora calls them. In memory of what war?
Pretend you're really here, she thinks. Now: what would you do?
It's another morning, time has a shape even here. When the guards come, they have names, Sammy and Morton, and she knows now which name belongs to which, Morto
n's the pink one, Rennie stays in the background. She still has difficulty understanding what's being said, so she lets Lora deal with it. They have a hairbrush now, though not a comb; which is better than nothing. Rennie would like a nail file, but she knows better than to ask, it's too much like a weapon. Lora doesn't need one, her nails are bitten down to the quicks anyway.
"Try for some chewing gum," Rennie says to Lora. Where there are cigarettes there must be gum. It will give the illusion of toothpaste; her mouth feels as if it's rotting. Lora goes out with the bucket.
She's gone longer than usual, and Rennie begins to worry. At the back of her mind is the fear that Lora won't be able to restrain herself, her temper, that she'll do something or say something that will tip the balance, put them both in jeopardy. She herself, she feels, would have more control.
But when Lora comes back she's the same, there are no cuts or bruises, nothing has been done to her. She sets the empty pail on the ground and squats over it. Rennie knows that smell, the smell of bloodheat, seaweed, fishegg. Lora wipes with a corner of her skirt, stands up.
"I got your chewing gum," she says. "Next time I'll try for some toilet paper."
Rennie is disgusted. She thinks Lora should have more self-respect. "No thanks," she says coldly.
Lora looks at her for a moment. "What the shit's eating you?" she says.
"You're worth more than a package of gum," Rennie says. How many of them, she wants to ask, one or both? One at a time, or both? Lying down or standing up? It isn't decent.
Lora is bewildered for an instant. Then she laughs. "Goddamn right I am," she says. "Two packages. I got one for myself too."
Rennie doesn't say anything. Lora sits down and opens the gum. "Women like you make me sick," she says. "Tightass. You wouldn't put out to save your granny, would you?"
"Let's not talk about it," says Rennie. There's no point. They're in this room and it's a small one and there's no way out. All she can do is try to avoid a fight.
"Why in hell not?" says Lora, chewing. "What's wrong with talking about it? What makes you think it's any different from having some guy stick his finger in your ear?"
"It is," says Rennie.
"Only sometimes," says Lora.
Rennie turns her head away. She feels sick to her stomach. She doesn't want to watch Lora's grubby hands, her bitten fingers as they strip open the pack of cigarettes, the cigarette between the drying lips, the corner of her mouth.
But Lora is crying, Rennie can't believe it, convulsive sounds from her throat, her eyes clenched. "Fuck it," she says. "They've got Prince in here. They won't let me see him, they keep promising. What'm I supposed to do?"
Rennie is embarrassed. She looks down at her hands, which ought to contain comfort. Compassion. She ought to go over to Lora and put her arms around her and pat her on the back, but she can't.
"I'm sorry," she says. Women like you. She deserves it. It's a pigeonhole, she's in it, it fits.
Lora sniffles, stops now, wipes her nose on the back of her hand. Grudging, resentful, forgiving, a little. "How would you know?" she says.
Rennie doubles over, stumbles for the bucket, crouches. It's sudden, she can feel the sweat dripping down her back, she's dizzy, she hates pain. She's been invaded, usurped, germs taking over, betrayal of the body.
She lies down on the floor, even though it's wet. She closes her eyes, her head is the size of a watermelon, soft and pink, it's swelling up, she's going to burst open, she's going to die, she needs water, even water tasting of chlorine, Great Lakes poisons, her sense of irony has deserted her, just when she needs it, any kind of water, an ice cube, sugar and fizz from a machine. What has she done, she's not guilty, this is happening to her for no reason at all.
"You okay?" says Lora. She's touching Rennie's forehead, her fingertips leave dents. Her voice comes down from a great distance.
Rennie tries hard. "Make them get a doctor," she manages to say.
"For that?" says Lora. "It's only turistas. Montezuma's Revenge, the tourists call it. Everyone gets it sooner or later. Take it from me, you'll live."
It's night again. Someone is screaming, quite far away, if you tune it down it sounds like a party. Rennie tunes it down. She can sleep now in the light from the corridor, she goes to sleep quite peacefully, no one has done anything to her yet, she goes to sleep hugging herself. The screaming is worse when it stops.
Rennie is dreaming about the man with the rope, again, again. He is the only man who is with her now, he's followed her, he was here all along, he was waiting for her. Sometimes she thinks it's Jake, climbing in the window with a stocking over his face, for fun, as he once did; sometimes she thinks it's Daniel, that's why he has a knife. But it's not either of them, it's not Paul, it's not anyone she's ever seen before. The face keeps changing, eluding her, he might as well be invisible, she can't see him, this is what is so terrifying, he isn't really there, he's only a shadow, anonymous, familiar, with silver eyes that twin and reflect her own.
Lora is shaking her, trying to wake her up. "For Christ's sake," says Lora. "You want every cop in the place down our necks?"
Rennie says she's sorry.
It's noon, Rennie can tell by the heat and the angle of the light, and then the rice arrives. How much she's come to depend on it, that tin plate. The day ends when it's empty and another day of waiting begins, right then, with the scrape of the bones into the red bucket. Her life is shrinking right down to that one sound, a dull bell.
Outside in the courtyard there's something going on; all of a sudden there are harsh voices, shouts, a shuffle and clank. Then there's a scream. Lora gets up, her plate drops and spills. "Christ," she says, "they're shooting people."
"No," says Rennie. There haven't been any shots.
"Come on," says Lora. She bends, holds out her cupped hands.
"I don't think we should look," says Rennie. "They might see us."
"Maybe it's Prince," says Lora.
Rennie places her tin plate carefully on the ground. Then she puts her foot in Lora's hands, is lifted, clutches the bars.
There are people in the courtyard, five or six men in uniform, the two blues of the police, then another group, they seem to be tied together, arm to arm, they're being pushed down, to their knees, among the dry weeds and snarls of wire, the police have sticks, cattle prods? The ones kneeling have long hair, long black hair standing out from their heads; at first Rennie thinks they're women, then she sees they are naked from the waist up, they have no breasts.
One man still wears a woolly tea-cosy hat; a policeman snatches it off and the hair tumbles out. A pig runs in panic through the archway, it zigzags among the men, standing and kneeling, the policemen laugh, two of them chase it with cattle prods while the others watch, it dashes under the gallows platform and then back through the archway again. The kneeling men turn their heads, follow it with their eyes.
Now Rennie sees that one of the policemen has a rifle, he's raising it, for a minute she thinks he's going to shoot them all, the whole line of them. He hesitates, letting them believe this, do they? But he detaches the bayonet and walks slowly around to the back of the line with it, strolling, hips rolling, taking his time, luxuriating. He's not doing this just because he's been ordered to: he's doing it because he enjoys it. Malignant.
"What's going on?" says Lora, whispering. Rennie doesn't answer.
The policeman grasps the hair of the first man in the line, gathers it almost lovingly into a bunch, a handful, then suddenly jerks the man's head back so that the throat is taut, it's going to be worse than shooting. Butchery.
But all he does is saw at the hair, he's cutting the hair off; that's all he's doing. Another man follows him with a green garbage bag, for the hair. It's chilling, this tidiness.
"What is it?" says Lora. "What're they doing?"
He's at the second man now, the courtyard is oddly silent, the noon sun beats down, everything is bright, the men's faces glisten with sweat, fear, the effort of keepin
g in the hatred, the policemen's faces glisten too, they're holding themselves back, they love this, it's a ceremony, precise as an operation, they're implementing a policy, he pulls the head back like a chicken's, the hair is grey, he slices again with the bayonet but he's not careful enough, the man howls, a voice that is not a voice, there are no teeth in his opened mouth, blood is pouring down his face. The man with the bayonet stuffs the handful of hair into the bag and wipes his hand on his shirt. He's an addict, this is a hard drug. Soon he will need more.
The kneeling man continues to howl. As if they've been waiting for it, two others come over and one of them kicks the howling man in the stomach. A third throws water over him from a red plastic bucket. The man falls forward, he's kept from hitting the pavement by the ropes that link him to the other men, one of the policemen jams the cattle prod in between his legs, he's flung back, now it's a scream. Not human.
"Pull him up," says the man in charge, and they do. They continue along the line, the hurt man's face is on a level with Rennie's own, blood pours down it, she knows who it is, the deaf and dumb man, who has a voice but no words, he can see her, she's been exposed, it's panic, he wants her to do something, pleading, Oh please.
"Let me down," says Rennie. The best they can do is avoid calling attention to themselves. She leans against the wall, she's shaking. It's indecent, it's not done with ketchup, nothing is inconceivable here, no rats in the vagina but only because they haven't thought of it yet, they're still amateurs. She's afraid of men and it's simple, it's rational, she's afraid of men because men are frightening. She's seen the man with the rope, now she knows what he looks like. She has been turned inside out, there's no longer a here and a there. Rennie understands for the first time that this is not necessarily a place she will get out of, ever. She is not exempt. Nobody is exempt from anything.
"Good God, what is it?" says Lora. She's still whispering, her hands on Rennie's shoulders.
"Prince isn't there," says Rennie. "They're cutting their hair off."
She kneels, picks up the chicken back Lora spilled, wipes the dirt from it with her fingers, puts it on Lora's plate. "You should eat it," she says. "We need to eat."