Property of Blood (20 page)

‘I sat where he had left me, rigid, barely breathing, as if I could suspend life by not going on with it, keep at bay the tidal wave of grief that menaced me. My slightest move would loose the catastrophe. As long as I sat still, blind and deaf, I was safe. Movement, habitual movement, touch, would set life in motion again and I would be overwhelmed. But, perhaps because of my fainting spell, I was icy cold and was soon forced to seek the warmth of the sleeping bag. I had no choice but to take up my habitual thinking and sleeping position, the prop under my neck to relieve the pain in my ears, and let it come. An annihilating flood of despair, drowning me, destroying me, a litany of grief that tore at my brain and issued forth as rhythmic groans.

‘Caterina! Don’t let it be true. I’m trying to be strong. I want to live and I can do it but only if you stay with me. Don’t abandon me. Don’t…

‘And Leo, the greatest joy of my life—I fought your father and all his family who wanted you aborted rather than have a Brunamonti marry a foreigner. And I never told you because you’d say, as the young and unknowing always say, “I didn’t ask to be born.” But you did. I heard you. Hear me, Leo! Hear me, please. Don’t leave me alone in the dark …

‘Patrick, where are you? What’s happening?

‘Nobody will help me.

‘I was too crushed to form these words. As I said, they came out only as the rhythmic grunts and gasps of an animal in pain. I don’t know how long it went on because it continued even as I slept. I know that because somebody—I think Fox—unzipped the tent and woke me by hitting me because I was making too much noise. It must have gone on until next morning because I remember no more meals that day. The next thing I remember was breakfast again. It had rained in the night and I felt the earth and grass wet when I put down my tray. The fresh damp sunshine stroked my forehead, and I heard a bird singing. I felt very quiet. The decision had been made. I was going to die and that meant I could lay down my sword. My battle was over and I had nothing more to worry about. I could concentrate entirely on being alive. Nothing mattered except the little piece of bread softening in my mouth, the sun’s warmth, the bird’s song. My only regret was that I hadn’t known how to live like this before, giving proper value to all manifestations of life, all its griefs and problems. It wasn’t a battle you had to win but a privileged state to be savoured.

‘I remained calm despite the fact that my captors, especially Fox and Butcher, were in a state of extreme agitation, which they took out on me. One day, I felt for the food in my bowl and found a number of smooth metal objects. They were bullets.

“‘Thought you might like to choose your own.”

‘I drew my face away, hating the acrid smell of Fox, who had spoken close to my cheek. So they were going to shoot me. They would probably do it on Sunday morning when the noise would pass unnoticed. That would be safest for them. I had accepted their killing me but, until then, I hadn’t thought about how. I waited until Woodcutter came, and when he was undoing my padlock in the morning I asked him if there wasn’t some other way.

“‘I’ve always been so frightened of guns. Can’t you do something else to me?”

“‘I asked the boss specially. He was against it because we can only do it on a hunting day. I persuaded him for your benefit. It’s quick and sure. You won’t suffer.”

“‘I’ll suffer fear, horror. I don’t want to be shot like an animal.”

“‘You won’t even see the gun. Your eyes are covered.”

“‘But I’ll hear it. I hear the hunters, just about. I hear your voice if you’re close to me.”

“‘You’ll not hear a thing because the bullet will be in your brain. You’ll be dead before the noise.”

‘I believed him but I went on protesting until he agreed to hit me a heavy blow to the head and then, when I was unconscious, to strangle or suffocate me.

“‘It will be you? Nobody else will touch me?”

“‘It’s bound to be me. I’m responsible for you.”

“‘When will you do it?”

“‘Probably the day after tomorrow.”

“‘Will you take my bandages off first and unblock my ears so that I can see you and say goodbye to you?”

“‘No.”

“‘Don’t you have the courage to do it if I can see you?” I remembered how he’d called me Signora whenever I was unbandaged. Now he didn’t answer me but said roughly, “Get in the sleeping bag. I’ve got things to do.”

‘I zipped myself up as far as I could, and he did something he had never done before. Very gently, he tucked my arm with the chain well into the bag and zipped it up to the top for me.

“‘It’s still raining. It’ll be a cold night.” I could feel his breath on my cheek as he spoke.

“‘Why do you feel sorry for me? Is it because I’m going to die?”

“‘No. Don’t think too much about that thing in the papers. They twist things. It’s all the same to us. They don’t pay, you die. But you shouldn’t believe everything that’s in that article.” He was sorry for me because my children didn’t want me. I heard him shuffle backwards out of the tent and I wanted to cry out to him to stay with me, comfort me, touch me. I could still feel his breath on my cheek, his sweet, wood-smelling breath. He was going to kill me and I wanted him. I don’t think I’ve ever desired a man so much. It was a stab of pain, a torment. I’m sorry if I’m shocking you.’

‘No, no…you mustn’t be afraid of that. It’s only natural.’

‘Do you think so? The need for comfort seemed to me to be natural enough but the desire shocked me. Perhaps it was a reaction against having to die … well, it hardly matters now, does it?

‘I slept just as always and the next day I found his words were still with me. How could I lose faith in my own dear children because of a newspaper article? They could have been delaying the payment because there’s a law of some sort about not paying kidnappers, isn’t there?’

‘Yes. Yes, there is.’

‘I remembered that—and then, maybe the bank was causing difficulties—or you had set up the article to help in some way in your investigation. After all, you rescued me. You had plans which the payment could have spoiled and so you asked for Leo’s collaboration.’

‘Yes. I personally asked him to collaborate … these things are very complicated. All that matters is that you’re safe. Let other people worry about the rest.’

‘Woodcutter was right then. It couldn’t be true. The others went on tormenting me because they must have been furious about the ransom’s not being paid but I had nothing to fear since I was to die anyway and Woodcutter had promised me that he would be the one to kill me. I wasn’t afraid to die. All that mattered to me was to die loved by those I loved. I began to think about preparing myself. I asked Woodcutter if he would also bury me. He said not. He said that all trace of the camp would have to be removed and I couldn’t be buried. He didn’t explain any further and I asked no more questions. I knew the wild boars in the woods leave no trace.

‘So there would be no burial. No one would cleanse my body and say a ritual goodbye to it. I decided to do this myself. I had thought so much about my life in the past weeks but never about the body which had served me well all those years. On my last day I convinced Woodcutter to bring a bowl of precious water into the tent and asked him if he had a comb. I think he understood me, and I was not disturbed by Butcher, who was on duty with him. I washed my body as best I could with swabs of rolled-up toilet paper, putting my dirty clothes back on over my damp skin. It felt odd, my skin, rough where it had always been smooth, especially on my arms and legs. My skin must be very dry and is flaking. Dehydration, I suppose. And my nails—undoubtedly long black claws—but Woodcutter had no scissors or he would have helped me. My hair was impossible to comb, being so long and, by now, badly matted. I did what I could with it but a great deal of it must already have fallen out and remained tangled with the rest so that the comb brought away thick strands and clumps of it. I gave up and smoothed it over with my wet hands. My fingers were hugely swollen. I didn’t recognize them as mine. I remembered Woodcutter taking off Patrick’s ring “for my own good.” He must have known this would happen. He wasn’t stealing it. He would have given it back to me if he hadn’t been forced to run away. I lay still then and felt my body, curious about it after so long an estrangement. I felt my breasts, my hips, my sex, and thought of them making love, giving birth, giving suck. I felt my arms and long legs, thin and flabby now, despite my little efforts at gymnastics. Still, I no longer needed muscles. I felt very peaceful and thought that dying was a great deal easier than living.

‘After I had been fed at midday—the usual hard bread, a piece of Parmesan, and a miraculous juicy tomato which I savoured for as long as possible—Woodcutter took my tray and whispered near my face that he was leaving and would be back tomorrow at dawn with the boss. I knew what that meant. The last words he said to me were, “Go in. It’s going to rain hard.”

‘I could smell it. There were rumblings of thunder, too. I crawled inside, got into my sleeping bag, and pulled in my chain. I thought about Woodcutter tucking me in and zipping me up. I wished he were here to do it now. Even inside the tent the air was heavy with the approaching rain and I shivered. Both the sleeping bag and my skin seemed damp. I didn’t think about my usual things. There was no need to think anymore. For my last hours I could just be. However much I had enjoyed my precious thinking time, it was a relief. I was very tired and the pain in my ears seemed more violent than usual, though I could see no reason why it should be. Tomorrow Woodcutter would come and it would be over. I could trust him. He was responsible for me. Somebody had to be responsible for me because I was too tired…

‘I fell asleep. I don’t know for how long, only that the rain woke me. How hard could it be raining for me to be able to hear its whispered pattering on the roof of the tent? I extracted my arm from the sleeping bag to feel the canvas and was amazed at the vibrations. There was thunder, too, which must have been directly above me because not only could I hear it loudly, though distorted, its rattle even caused my ears to hurt more than ever. I tried to cover them with my hands but to touch those great hard lumps was agony and only made things worse. I reached upwards and felt the roof of the tent sagging under a great weight of water, which soaked through and ran down my arm the moment I touched it. How could that happen? As I scrambled out of the sleeping bag, pulling too quickly at my chain so that the pain made me gasp, I felt that the ground below the tent was awash and one side of it had come loose so that it was sagging inwards, heavy with water. I called out. Nobody answered me, and I remembered with dismay that Woodcutter wasn’t there. He had told me once that there was no need to be afraid of being left with the other two at night because once they had eaten and fed me, they setried down to play cards and drink themselves into a stupor. I called out again very loudly, remembering that my blocked ears tricked me into thinking my voice was loud when it wasn’t. Nobody came. Was anyone there? I hadn’t been fed since Woodcutter left at midday. How long had I slept? Could it be night already? Were they too drunk to hear me? I was completely disorientated and I began to panic at the thought of being trapped in the tent, drowned in it. I gave one last loud cry. If there had been anyone there I would have been punished for making half that noise. Nothing. Just more vibrations of thunder, water dripping onto me in my darkness. I searched for the zip, thinking as I found it that if it was night, not only should I have been fed, my wrist should have been chained. I opened the zip and knelt there, afraid to get out, calling for help. No one came.

‘Unfortunately, my plasters were relatively new and well stuck down over my nose. I didn’t dare rip them off. I must have forgotten in my panic that I was going to be killed anyway, so the rules didn’t matter. I couldn’t overcome my habits of submission. Even at such a moment it cost me to do the unforgivable thing I had promised Woodcutter I would never do: I picked at the strips of plaster over my nose and loosened them so that I could lift my face and peer down below the eye pads. I put my head near the tent opening and peered. I was pelted with rain but the world was black. I could see nothing, nothing! What was happening? Why did nobody come? I got hold of my chain and crawled outside, my hands slipping in swirling mud and water. I had never seen the world outside my tent. Inside it didn’t matter because I knew exactly where everything was, which was as good as seeing. Out here was a void. I only knew one thing: my tree. If I followed the chain on my ankle I would find my tree. I lifted the chain, my breath noisy inside my head, and pulled it towards me. When I reached my tree I hugged its soaked trunk. I held on to it for a long time with my forehead pressed against its wet bark, for the comfort its presence gave me. My chain and my tree were all I had left of a whole world that was swirling away in the storm, leaving me stranded. Had they decided to abandon me here instead of killing me? It could make little difference to them. If there was going to be no money they might as well get away as quickly as possible.

‘As to the difference it would make to me … I would perhaps be attacked by wild boars and eaten alive instead of dead but that made no impression on me since it was impossible to imagine. The real difference was that Woodcutter had lied to me. He had promised to come back. “I’m responsible for you.” He had promised me and let me down and that was unbearable. Hugging my familiar tree, abandoned by my captors, my children, my trusted executioner, I sank down in the mud and let my tearless groans loosen themselves and rise from my stomach. Their rhythm was loud in my head, and the noise kept me company, like my tree, for many hours.

‘Then something changed. The rhythmic animal groans in my head were accompanied by other noises. I couldn’t stop my noise, which wasn’t under my control, more like breathing than anything, but I tried to understand what else it was I was hearing. Not thunder, a muffled
phut-phut-phut
from far away and a nearer drone. Something else. Below my forehead, still pressed painfully hard against the tree trunk, there was a sliver of light. Keeping one arm around my precious tree, I poked at the plasters, lifting them more. It had stopped raining and it was dawn.