I shook my head, reread this part at least three times: they finally declared Brancusi dead.
Dad had sent one last Facebook message: Hey, Stefan. So what exactly are we talking about here? Was this a medical miracle, or what?
And my Romanian relative came back with one more enlightening reply: Immediately on declaration of death, corpse was taken by a member of Brancusi’s personal staff in helicopter to private clinic. Any miracle performed took place there.
But I tell you, at Floreasca we were more shocked than anyone by the reports that he was still alive. In medical terms it was considered impossible – the guy who left our operating table had definitely bled out. His lungs, his heart, his brain, had ceased to function. End of story.
I sat down at Dad’s desk and put my head in my hands. ‘Oh my God!’
‘I know. Wasn’t end of story, was it? This guy on mountain came back from dead.’
‘Dad, don’t! I can’t handle it.’ I was shaking all over, feeling dizzy and my palms were clammy with sweat. ‘There has to be some explanation, some technique they didn’t try in the main hospital.’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know – freezing the body until they found a specialist surgeon who could stop the bleeding into the brain. Cryonics or whatever.’
‘We can send man to moon but not deep-freeze whole human being and bring back to life again, not yet.’
‘OK. What about keyhole techniques? A neurosurgeon? They can do amazing things.’
‘Lungs, heart, brain – all dead,’ Dad insisted.
I breathed out loudly, emitting something that sounded like a groan. ‘So who is the Zoran on Black Rock? Is he a double?’
‘Secret twin,’ Dad murmured.
‘Or a guy who was prepared to have surgery to change his face and look like Zoran. There are plastic surgeons who would do that.’
‘But why?’
‘To fool everybody into thinking that a rock star, an actor, a politician, a world leader is still alive. If you have enough money, I’m sure you can do it.’ I was clutching at straws, trying to find a reasonable scenario, but inside I was riddled with fear. Who or what exactly was the guy on Black Rock with all the power and the Satan-complex, with the ability to make you think you were crazy whenever you visited?
‘So they make Zoran double so he can make more records, sing more concerts?’
‘Yes,’ I insisted. ‘He’s a cash cow; he can still earn them millions.’
‘But Zoran stopped singing, remember.’ Dad leaned over my shoulder to log off and I watched the screen go blank. ‘He didn’t make more records.’
‘Then he’s a ghost,’ I sighed. ‘He’s something supernatural, and let’s stop right now because I don’t even want to go there!’
That night I couldn’t sleep, of course. I lay awake and heard the woman’s voice, felt her spine-tingling presence in my room.
‘Sleep,’ she sighs. Her fingers brush my forehead.
I gasped then held my breath, felt myself melt and become one with the child who had died.
The walls of my room are pink, stencilled with lilac butterflies – a baby girl’s nursery. There is the scent of soap, the tinkling of a mobile toy above my bed.
‘Go to sleep,’ the woman murmurs as she leans in to stroke my cheek.
I lie until the sun rises and shines through the slats of the blind, wrapped in silence and love.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Mom asked when I went down for breakfast. Obviously Dad had told her his cousin’s news from the Bucharest clinic and she already knew I’d been on the mountain when they discovered Oliver Knight’s body, so she was on edge as she cooked bacon, watching me like a hawk.
‘Actually, yes!’ I said.
‘No nightmares?’ She flipped the bacon from the pan on to a plate, put it between two slices of bread and handed Dad his usual start to Sunday.
‘No. My dreams were good for a change.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Her hand trembled as it hovered over the loaf of bread, knife in hand. She doesn’t express her anxieties, she bottles them up. That’s the problem with my mom.
In this way she and Orlando are pretty similar – great when the going is good, but distant and withdrawn when it gets rocky. I guess it’s why she hasn’t especially warmed to him.
‘What did I do?’ Orlando asked me after he’d come to the house on his mountain bike and we’d set off for the lake together. His face and arms were tanned, his hair newly washed. One quick glance and I knew just why I adored him. I gave myself a short lecture – remember this, OK? Don’t let Daniel happen!
‘Nothing. What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Karen hardly talked to me the whole time I was there.’
‘That was because Dad was too busy telling you about his cousin in Bucharest and Zoran’s rising-from-the-dead trick. Mom couldn’t get a word in edgeways.’
‘So it’s not that she doesn’t think I’m good enough for her daughter and she wishes I’d get the hell out of your life?’ he quipped.
‘Ha-ha, no. Don’t exaggerate.’
‘I’m not. Your mom is one scary lady, did you know?’
We cycled for a while in silence. ‘I could talk to her, ask her to be nice,’ I suggested.
‘No thanks, I can handle it.’ Picking up speed, Orlando zigzagged across the narrow track then carried out a tricky one-wheeled manoeuvre as if he needed to boost his macho image.
‘Stop – I’m impressed already!’ I laughed. ‘Did you finish reading about Coco Chanel?’
‘Yeah. And I got a date for an interview.’
‘When?’ This was big news, dropped in like a small pebble hardly breaking the surface.
‘End of this week. Friday the twentieth.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I just did.’ Back by my side and cycling sensibly, his blown-back hair and rosy cheeks made him look younger. ‘I heard yesterday, but you’ve been busy.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. You should have texted.’
‘No signal on Black Rock, remember.’ He rode ahead again, head down, staring at the dirt track.
Here was an ego that needed massaging, I realized, so I cycled hard to join him. ‘I’m happy for you – you know that. And you’ll be great at the interview, with your fabulous portfolio and all the theory to back it up. They’re so going to want you!’ Inside, part of me was thinking, So ask me how it was to identify a dead body! Ask me what a corpse looks like and explain how it feels. I’ll tell you – scared, shook up, confused; coming up against Death face to face.
‘Yeah well, I’ll still be nervous,’ he confessed. ‘I fly out to Dallas Thursday.’
‘Cool. I can drive you to the airport.’
‘Mom already offered,’ he cut in before I’d finished. ‘You don’t mind about that, do you?’
‘No, it’s cool,’ I lied. OK, so if you don’t want to talk dead bodies, at least ask me how Jude is. He is your buddy as well as mine! ‘I called the Medinas,’ I said. ‘This morning, early.’
‘How’s Jude?’
Result at last! We’d reached the edge of Turner Lake where a few fishermen’s vehicles were parked and we got off our bikes and leaned them against a fire-hazard warning notice. I slid my arm around his waist. ‘He’s in hospital. They kept him overnight again.’
‘Yeah, I bet the Medinas really love you, taking him up Black Rock.’
I stepped away and frowned. Why are you doing this to me? Why are you blaming me and making me feel bad? ‘I didn’t take him – he took me. And we didn’t know the Forest Service would be up there digging firelines until the smoke started coming down the mountain.’
‘Bad timing.’
‘Very. And you’re right – Dr and Mrs Medina made it clear they didn’t want me to help Jude try and contact Grace again.’
‘No one wants anyone going near Zoran’s place until the cops clear up the body-in-the-sink-hole story,’ Orlando pointed out. ‘They think it’s linke
d to bad stuff that goes on up there, and who can blame them?’
‘I know. Imagine how the Montroses must look at it.’ This lakeside conversation was making me feel like I was engaged in an awkward ballroom dance where neither of us quite knew the steps and the rhythm was jerky and slow. We’d covered the topics of Oliver and Jude without showing a glimpse of how we really felt. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this any more!’ I faltered and turned away.
‘What?’ Orlando stepped round in front of me, caught me by the arm. ‘What, Tania? What can’t you do?’
‘I need you to ask me how I’m doing,’ I cried. ‘I can’t bear it when you push me away.’
‘Because!’ he said, staring fiercely at me. ‘Because you went up the mountain without telling me, why do you think? And because that guy, Daniel, lives up there! How do you think that makes me feel?’
‘I sometimes figure it would be better to be alone.’
This pearl fell from Holly’s lips late Sunday afternoon, after I’d spent the whole day telling Orlando that I hadn’t even seen Daniel up at the lodge, that the guy meant nothing to me and my only interest in being on the mountain was in connection with Grace. All true, but not the whole truth.
We were sitting in the sun on a lawn by the side of a tennis court, watching the guys play. ‘Alone! What makes you say that?’ I asked.
‘I mean it’s tough to be in love,’ she pointed out. ‘Look at the day you’ve had.’
‘It’s been hard work,’ I sighed. ‘I’ve been tying myself in knots trying to convince my boyfriend that I love him.’
‘Sometimes,’ she went on after the longest pause, ‘I think it’s not love but fear.’
‘Fear of what?’
‘Of being alone. That’s what we’re all scared of, isn’t it? Of being left out, not chosen, feeling nobody wants us.’
‘I guess,’ I sighed. Orlando was playing well. He was partnering Leo and they were beating Aaron and a kid called Nathan, who was Leo’s cousin from out of town. Nathan was the type who looked like he’d grown six inches in a year – all wrists and elbows, bony knees and ankles. He looked as if a strong wind would knock him flat. ‘Terror of being alone. So that’s why I’m fighting for my relationship with Orlando?’
Holly lay back on the grass, her arms behind her head. ‘I hate that moment when Aaron and I split – each time it happens, and it happens a lot. He storms off, or I walk out on him and I have a split second where I feel I’ve lost my grip, I’m falling off the edge of the world, I’m yelling, “Help!” and no one hears me. I’m alone. But later, when you get a distance and you start to think it through, it feels like it might not be so bad.’
Nathan reached an overhead lob from Orlando and smashed it back. Orlando had forgotten that the new kid was seven feet tall. Six foot four, actually.
‘There’d be no more compromises,’ Holly insisted. ‘And I’d be my own boss again.’
‘Free?’
‘Yeah – so maybe we should all give up on love and get on with everything else,’ she sighed. She turned her head towards me and squinted through the glare of the sun. ‘Why don’t we?’
‘Because we can’t.’ I watched Orlando throw the ball high, swing his racket behind his back then bring it up and over for a crashing serve. Poetry in motion.
‘Because we love them.’ Holly came full circle and we laughed and put the philosophical stuff to one side. ‘So did Orlando believe you when you told him Daniel means nothing to you?’
‘I don’t know. I tried everything.’ Reasoned argument, tears, kisses – and the rest.
Holly raised one hand and tried to put it over my mouth. ‘Too much information,’ she said quickly. ‘And is it true?’ she demanded, sitting up and wrapping her tanned arms around her knees. ‘Daniel is just a guy who has the hots for you but there’s nothing in you that returns the compliment?’
‘Exactly,’ I told her. Orlando and Leo had won the set. All four boys were walking off the court towards us. ‘He knows I love Orlando. I made that absolutely clear.’
Try talking to a guy about the way he feels and you get awkward silence, or “I’m hungry. What shall we eat?” Give him a scientific conundrum and he’ll happily spend an hour over it.
‘So how can Zoran be pronounced dead in the hospital then resuscitated in a private clinic?’ I asked over cold drinks in the clubhouse. And I explained what Stefan Bibesco had told my dad.
‘You’re sure you got your facts straight?’ Leo checked. He was wearing his version of tennis gear – baggy white shorts, a vest top and a black bandanna with a death’s-head motif.
‘The guy’s my dad’s cousin. He was on duty at the Floreasca, plus he’s best buddies with the surgeon who worked on Zoran.’
‘But you know how these rumours spread.’ Right away Aaron showed his boy colours. ‘Plus there’s the language barrier.’
‘My dad’s first language is Romanian,’ I reminded him. ‘There was no doubt: the doctors gave up on him and signed over the body.’
‘Maybe they missed something,’ Leo said, assuming the scientific position. ‘A patient with bleeding into the brain cavity can go into a deep coma. It can look like he’s brain dead.’
Our jaws dropped in mock amazement then Holly quizzed him and it turned out he’d read an article in USA Today. In such cases they keep the patient artificially unconscious for weeks until the bleeding and the swelling stop.
‘So the Floreasca guy made the wrong call.’ Aaron talked as if Leo had nailed it. ‘Lucky for Zoran, his guys took him to the right place. They saved his life.’
‘Yeah, he does have a medical guy on his team,’ Holly told them. ‘Maybe he was the one Zoran has to thank.’
I realized that neither Orlando or I had contributed and at this point I caught his eye. He looked stonily back at me as he stood up. ‘Who cares?’ he muttered, swinging his heavy bag on to his shoulder. ‘Honestly – I liked this town a whole lot better before Zoran Brancusi ever built his place on Black Rock. Who cares about this crap? Not me. I’m out of here.’
Back at home, alone in my room, my phone rang and when I saw it was from Daniel I let it ring out.
He texted me straight after. Tania, please pick up. Will call again.
I put down my phone and stared at it like an unexploded grenade. I had it on silent, so when it began to vibrate I jumped for cover and let it ring out a second time. But on the third attempt my nerve broke and I answered.
‘Tania?’ His voice sounded calm, though my own heart was thumping.
‘Hey, Daniel.’
‘I thought for a moment there I must have hurt your feelings by not saying hi yesterday.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ Thump-thump-thump – just his voice was enough to do this to me.
‘There was the crisis with the mustangs, remember. I had my hands pretty full.’
‘I know. It doesn’t matter – really.’
‘Anyhow, it worked out. We rounded them all up, no problem. Actually, I’ve just been working in the arena with Zoran’s sorrel mare. She’s doing good. So how are you?’
‘I’m cool.’
‘The smoke didn’t bother you? I heard Jude wasn’t so lucky.’
‘No. He had another attack.’
‘Cristal told me. That’s partly why I’m calling you.’
‘Sorry, I haven’t been able to visit him so I can’t update you. His parents—’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. I’m actually calling to update you on his condition. Cristal just came from the hospital. He knew you’d be worried so he told her to tell you he’s doing OK.’
‘Cristal?’ I echoed. ‘Oh, OK. Cool, thanks.’ Of course she would want to visit him, I told myself. She was the one who drove him down from Black Rock. It was just that somehow I didn’t see her as the angel of mercy type.
‘Well, I told her I’d pass on the message because there was something else I wanted to talk to you about.’
Before he could go any further, I leaped in. ?
??Look, Daniel, if you’re going to ask me to meet up again, I really can’t – OK?’
There was a short silence then, ‘That’s not what I planned to say. Actually, this isn’t about you and me, it’s about your experience with the fire team.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have …’ Shouldn’t have assumed anything, shouldn’t have put both big feet in it, should have bitten my tongue right off before I’d made such a fool of myself!
‘No, that’s OK. It’s Orlando’s feelings you’re protecting. It’s difficult for you – I understand. So anyway, Oliver.’
‘Yeah, Oliver – sorry.’
‘No need to apologize, honestly, Tania. The cops came by earlier today. A guy called Sheriff Hanson and his sidekick.’
‘And?’
‘They’re still waiting for autopsy reports, but they contacted Oliver’s parents – actually, his mom. His dad is off the scene, travelling somewhere – Thailand or Cambodia. His mom took the news badly. Oliver was her only son. The sheriff told her they’re not currently treating the thing as suspicious, depending on further reports – toxicology, blood tests, et cetera.’
‘What does that mean – they don’t think anyone else was involved?’
‘Right. The cops think the poor kid had a freak accident up there on Black Rock, which is what we said all along. An accident, pure and simple. Since you were the one who identified the body, Zoran and I … we thought you’d like to know.’
‘Yes – thanks. Really, thanks, Daniel.’
There was another silence – a little longer this time. ‘So you’ll call me?’ he asked. ‘If you hear any more news on the cause of death from your end.’
‘Oh, yeah, for sure – I definitely will.’
‘And if you and Orlando … Tania, if you ever want that coffee and someone to talk to—’
‘Thanks – bye!’ I said quickly. I pressed the button; end of call, but found no button in my brain that said Delete. Oh no, Daniel stayed right there in pole position with his Formula One voice and brilliant steering, easily outmanoeuvring all the opposition.