The Edge of Me (11 page)

Then the dog comes back at us.

I can see the drool on its jowls, and behind it, something else: a pale shadow advancing. The dog seems to reel. It howls and staggers back. A burst of lightning shows a livid wound across its back that steams in the rain.

It circles and circles and is still.

Joe’s ahead of me, ‘Sanda!’

I have to move. I’m beyond tired and my hands are numb with cold, but I clamber up after him. Andjela’s on the other side, standing back holding her shoes. She looks up, willing us on.

We get to the top, swing over and scramble down the other side. Joe hits the ground seconds before me and takes off towards the pines, holding his calf. As I jump down, I can feel the whole left side of my body tightening, the bruises knitting together so I can hardly move.

I look back through the mesh. On the other side, the carcass of the dog lies on its back, its legs limp and crooked. Someone saved us back there. Someone killed it.

The grim walls of Zbrisć bear down on us.

Who was that?

There’s a commotion then from the other dog, barking and careering blindly, tearing at its leash. I hear shouting.

I look at Joe and Andjela. We run like hell, pitching headlong through wet brush. I hear an engine being started
in the distance, and a thin beam of torchlight strobes the forest. But all the time in my head I can see my hand on the piece of glass, I can see the minute before I do it and I can see Mirko’s blood forcing upwards through the cut.

We crash on, Andjela first, then me, then Joe. Every so often I stop for him but he waves me on.

We run for what feels like forever and I’m trying to concentrate on making my feet work until Joe calls, ‘Quick, hide in here!’ I turn to see him dip down and disappear. We go towards him and he pulls us into a shallow ditch where we crouch and wait. We don’t speak or move. My legs are cramping and my feet are frozen. Joe’s face is moon-white in the darkness.

I close my eyes and hold my breath as they pass.

After an age of waiting, we get up and head out. Andjela’s up front again and I’m half looking behind me for Joe when she stops abruptly, bending at the waist and panting, her breath coming in short bursts. She can’t speak but points. Below us, through the trees, is some sort of barn.

The rain is easing as we go on. The torches are far away now, receding spots of light in the dark forest. We’ve come down from the tree line to where the land opens out a bit. I can hear water rushing by quite close, feel a path underfoot.

What I thought was a barn is actually a one-storey house, or at least it used to be. There’s no glass in the windows and the walls in places look as though they’ve been stoved in by a tank or with a lump hammer. The roof is just standing and there are holes in that too, where
long shafts of timber poke upwards like missiles. The door’s blocked so we use the nearest window and climb into one room. Bare walls, pitted and scored, and a mass of wood and concrete rubble lie in the middle of the room. At one end is the remains of a fireplace. The rain has stopped and the sky shows through the roof. A thousand stars.

We look at each other. An owl calls in the distance. My throat is dry and thick with exertion. None of us speak for a moment. And then Andjela walks to the middle of the room and starts moving the rubble, poking around underneath.

‘What are you doing?’ I say. In answer she straightens up and points to the fireplace. I look back at Joe who shakes his head.

‘No,’ he whispers, ‘tell her, no fire. They’ll see it.’

I translate and she nods and hangs her head, then gives me a lop-sided smile. Her throat is still blotchy but her eyes are shining.

We huddle together, cold and damp. Now and again fat drips of water from drying timbers spit and hiss on the floor. Little by little, we begin to thaw out and soon Andjela is curled up on a patch of ground and sleeping fitfully. I turn to Joe. He’s sitting with his back against the wall, his hand still cradling his leg. He looks pale.

‘How is it?’

‘Um … OK,’ he says through his teeth.

‘Let’s see.’

He takes his hand away, and I can see at once it’s bad. Part of his trouser leg is torn away, and there are deep teeth marks in the flesh, oozing blood.

‘You need to wrap it up,’ I say.

‘Yeah, maybe.’

We have nothing to bind the wound except the clothes we’re wearing. Without thinking, I take off my jacket and pull my T-shirt over my head.

‘No! Don’t do that, you’ll … shit! What happened to you?’

I pull my jacket slowly back around me and I tell him about what happened and about the letter from my father.

‘It was like a lifeline, you know?’ I say. ‘The thought that maybe after all he did care but not enough. He said – he said love was
“complicated”
. I guess he loved her too much to go against her. But now he’s gone and I’ve got nobody.’

‘Sanda. That’s not true. You’ve got
you
. You’re here. You’re alive. Sanda, listen to me.
Listen
!’

He takes my arms and gently turns me towards him, his earnest face. I hold on to my sobs, choke them back. ‘You’re going to be OK,’ he says. ‘You can survive this. You will. Because, you know when it comes down to it, all any of us have is ourselves, and … and this moment. Now.’

I sniff and nod and make myself listen. Andjela stirs in her sleep behind us. He bends and whispers in my ear, warm breath: ‘You’ve got me.’

It’s so faint that afterwards I’m not sure I heard it right.

He leans back and he’s quiet, and I’m starting to tear the stupid T-shirt into bandages when I see him. There’s softness in his honey eyes, and all at once I know he’s been watching me. I mean really
watching
me. A bird
calls away in the treetops. With his eyes still on mine, he takes the T-shirt from me and puts it down. He lifts his hand and lightly brushes the tips of his fingers across my collar bone and under my bra strap. My skin prickles at his touch. He dips his hand into the hollow between my breasts, and there’s a bolt, a spark from his skin into mine that makes me shudder.

‘Sorry – you’re cold. I …’ he says and goes to help me back on with the jacket.

I stop him and find his hand. ‘No. No … it’s not that … I … please … I want …’

‘Come here.’

He smiles and brings me towards him, and then I see him wince in pain. I draw back at once.

‘Shit Joe. Your leg. Sorry!’

‘No it’s OK. It’s just … shit … actually it’s not. Sorry …’

He falls back against the wall and lets out a long breath. I turn and grab the T-shirt. I pull off a strip that just about covers the wound but won’t go all the way around his leg. I try again with another piece, but in the end, I use the whole T-shirt.

‘Sanda. You shouldn’t have done that,’ he says.

‘What? Why?’

‘The T-shirt. It’s freezing. You’re going to freeze. Anyway, I’m OK. I’m not going to die of a dog bite am I?’

‘Joe, it might have rabies.’

‘Oh right. Yeah. Thanks a bunch. Rabies.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean …’

‘Sanda. It’s OK.’

The stones crackle as he shifts his weight. I dig my fingernails into my palms and I wait. He reaches for my hand and presses it in his. He breathes, ‘Let’s try and get some sleep.’

I smile and suddenly I’m so cold. It crashes on me like a wave. I wrap my jacket tightly about me and button it. Soon his breathing is steady and I know he’s sleeping. And I’m on my own.

I lie awake watching my breath coming and going in misty plumes. I can still feel his fingers on my skin, and inside me, along every artery, in every vein, my blood fizzes and whips like electricity.

13

The next thing I know, light is pouring in through windows and the thousands of little holes in the wall. My body just doesn’t want to move. It’s so broken from the beating that I can’t lift myself up for a while. And when I do, the pain makes me gasp. An old tractor passes down the lane. The driver, a fat-faced man with hair the colour of straw, is chomping on a sandwich. I look down at Joe. My T-shirt bandage is wet with blood. He’s awake though, and staring at the ground.

‘How you feeling?’ I say. ‘Did you get any sleep?’

He shifts his weight and groans. ‘Not much. I’m OK. Just hungry.’

He turns his head away from me. I force myself to talk. ‘Look, we need to eat and we need to get that looked at. I think we should try to get away from here, to a village.’

‘Makes sense,’ he mutters. ‘Are you OK?’

I nod quickly. ‘I’m fine. Can you walk?’

‘Of course. It’s just a scratch.’ He smiles. ‘Look Sanda
… about last night –’ I’m about to say something when he looks behind me and his eyes widen. ‘Where’s Andjela?’

‘What?’

I turn. She’s gone. He looks at me for a long time then says, ‘How well d’you know her?’

‘What?’
I snap.

‘All I’m saying is … can you trust her?’

I look at him. ‘You –’

We’re interrupted by a rustling in the weeds outside the house. We instinctively crouch into the shadows. A hand over the window ledge, and then a face: Andjela.

‘Where have you been?’ we both say at once.

In answer two loaves are thrown over the sill, and she climbs in after them.

‘Andjela!’ Joe cries, although he doesn’t meet my eye, ‘You’re a genius! Sanda, what’s the Serbian for genius?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘but you can say
“hvala”
, it means “thank you”.’

‘
Hvala
, Andjela. Cheers!’

She’s delighted, laying the loaves in front of us, like a cat bringing in a mouse. We all tear into the bread. It’s delicious: fresh and yeasty, all crusty on the outside and warm and soft when I bite in. All through our feast, I try to find out where she got them. We have no money, so she must have stolen them. Maybe she isn’t quite as institutionalised as I’d thought.

We rest for a bit after our meal, but when I look at Joe I know we have to get moving. He doesn’t look right. He’s pale, and in spite of the cold, he’s sweating like he has a fever.

I think about what happened last night. I tell myself that he hadn’t meant anything, he was feverish, hallucinating. I take it all – his fingertips, the pulse of electricity inside me, how he made me want him – and I ball it up and tuck it away in a corner in my head and tell myself never, ever, to go in there.

His wound needs treating properly. When, with our help, he gets to his feet, he looks even worse. Andjela disappears again and after a few minutes comes back with a large twisty stick.

I leave our little shelter with mixed feelings.

We head back into the cover of the pine forest. At one point, I hear a distant siren wailing and I wonder if it’s for us. We decide to stay out of sight but to track the road. We limp through the undergrowth, Joe leaning on his stick, and Andjela helping me. With some food in me I feel better, and I’m able to think over what has happened. I still have the paper in my sock. I haven’t had a chance to read it, but I don’t think I want to just yet – the stakes are too high – and I’m terrified of what I’m going to find in it. The girl in the window is bothering me. She’s about me – she’s a part of this. I have to know. I have to go back there but I just don’t know how, or when, or more importantly, how I’m going to break it to Joe.

We come out onto the road and walk alongside it for miles, all lost in our own thoughts. Now and then, a car or truck goes by, and I feel a bolt of fear. Joe’s looking rougher by the minute. We’ve taken off the T-shirt to allow the wound to dry, and although the
blood is crusting, it looks red and puffy. I look back every few minutes to see if we’re being followed. I’m exhausted but I know we can’t stop. I won’t let us stop. Then Andjela, who’s in front, turns around and points into the pines. I peer through the pines and see a curl of smoke. We turn in towards it and a little further on, a path from the road appears, winding up through the woods: two chalky tracks. We stop where the path forks and look at one another. To the left, in the distance, at the end of the track, is a house. Whitewashed, with a red tiled roof, it stands on its own, and behind it, beyond the dense trees, the white mountains loom.

‘This is a mistake,’ says Joe.

‘I’m hungry,’ I say, ‘and you need help with that leg, Joe’

‘Don’t make me the reason,’ he snaps.

I turn to Andjela. ‘Andjela?’

‘I think yes,’ she says, and leads the way.

The first thing I notice is the smell. The sickly sweet aroma of pig shit. Right next to the house – a bit too close for comfort – is a large pen full of pigs. They’re mashing about, snorting and snapping at each other. Joe and I stop to look for a moment, but Andjela goes straight up to the door and knocks. We cluster around her then and I try to look helpless. I don’t have to try too hard.

The door is opened by a middle-aged woman with sagging breasts and hairy arms. She’s wearing a headscarf with sketches of the Eiffel Tower on it. She folds her arms and eyes us suspiciously. Andjela and I set about pleading our case. We point to Joe’s rolled-up trouser leg and the
angry gash, and I give her what I hope is an eager smile. She grimaces and closes the door on us.

‘Well?’ says Joe.

‘Wait,’ I say. I can hear the woman talking inside. We wait, stamping our feet on the frozen ground to keep the cold out. After a while, the door is opened again. She gestures to us to come in. We step over the threshold with nods and ‘thank you’s’.

The door opens straight into a kitchen. It looks warm and homely: a large old black cooker with a chimney, a fire going, and in the middle of the room, a big table covered in a flowery plastic sheet. Every surface is covered with bits of lace, and the only things on the walls are a clock and a crucifix. I can hear the sound of a telly coming from another room.

She sits us down at the table, produces three chipped bowls and goes to the stove. My stomach is instantly on standby. Into the bowls, she ladles a lumpy stew. It smells good and it’s hot and right at that moment I could’ve kissed her on the lips. As we eat, she sits with her red elbows on the table, and watches us. After we’ve eaten, she attends to Joe’s leg, tutting and muttering to herself. She washes the wound in hot water, puts some kind of paste on it, and wraps his leg in a clean strip of sheeting.