CHAPTER FOURTEEN - ALEC
“Mr. van den Berg, sir. Mr. van den Berg? Are you all right, sir?”
That does not sound like Christine.
One: the accent is not American. It’s very distinctly Saffie.
And two: it’s an oke’s voice.
Where am I? What the fokken hell is going on now?
“Mr. van den Berg, sir. Are you all right?”
My eyes spring open and I sit up. Oh, shit. That’s right. I know where I am.
Fok my poepol.
My ribs remind me quickly that they’re not all hundreds just yet, the hint of residual pain through my torso the last vestiges of the careening fall I took a few months back. Me and Lars, tumbling over the edge of that fokken waterfall back in the States like goddamn Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty at the end of The Final Problem.
Which one of us was Holmes and which Moriarty, I can’t be sure. I think perhaps we were both Moriarty. Both of us the villain.
“Yeah, Liam, I’m fine,” I call back through the closed bedroom door.
“May I come in, sir, and make sure?”
I sigh, because it’s been like this for a while now. Ever since I awoke from whatever comatose state I was in for however long I was in it, Liam and the other laaities who have been tasked with looking after my wellbeing refuse to take my word for it when I tell them I’m OK. Whoever is responsible for my being here has instructed them to ensure that I’m “proper cared for.”
They’ve apparently also been instructed not to tell me who the fok it is that brought me here, how the fok I was rescued from that tumble, or what the fokken plan is in my being here or for how long I am expected to stay. All I know for certain is that young men with guns are very eager to make sure I’m comfortable and well fed and seen to. And they’re also nervously emphaatic about not allowing me to leave the property. And since they’re the ones with automatic weapons and I’m only armed with silk pyjamas, I suppose they get final say.
“Yeah, man,” I say. “Come on in.”
The door opens, gingerly, and the laaitie called Liam who has, I reckon, been assigned as my principal caretaker, peeps his face through.
“Everything’s fine, sir?”
“Yeah, man. Aces. Why?”
“You were making… quite a bit of noise, sir.”
“Was I?”
“Yessir.”
“What type of noise?”
He looks down toward the ground, sheepishly, adjusts the rifle that hangs at his side, twists his neck back and forth a bit. “Sir… it just…”
“Liam, man, even though I do, in fact, have all day and am clearly not going anywhere, I still hate to fokken wait.”
“It just—and I could be wrong, of course! But it sounded a bit like… like crying. Sir.”
Under the pretense of scratching my cheek, I reach to feel if any teardrops seem to have moistened my skin. No. Feels dry, so far as I can tell.
“Does it look as though I’ve been weeping, man?”
He studies my face for a moment. “No, sir.”
“Right then,” I say, tossing the sheets off myself onto the mattress of the four-poster bed and sliding my legs over the side. I pop my feet into the lippers that wait for me on the floor and stand. “What’s for breakfast, Liam?”
“Whatever you like, Mr. van den Berg. Is there anything special you’d like to have?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost noon, sir.”
I nod, considering. I scratch at the stubble on my chin that is now approaching proper beard status. Someone else shaved me while I was unconscious, but when I awoke initially, it still hurt to lift my arm. And then I just grew lazy and decided to not care. It’s the first time in my life I’ve had anything resembling a beard. I think I hate it.
“Erm,” I mumble, “let’s have pap and wors, yeah? Do we have Rhodes gravy?”
“I believe we do, sir.”
“All right.” I nod and Liam withdraws his head and begins closing the door. “Liam?” I say, just as it’s almost shut.
“Sir?” he says, poking his head back in.
“How the fok did I get here, man?”
This is a script we play out every day. Every day I ask the same question and every day he gives a variation of a non-answer. Today’s version is…
“Pap and wors with gravy, sir. It’ll be just a few minutes.” And he goes.
I take a breath. Let it out. Allow my hand to drift down the post of the bed next to which I’m standing. It’s been two years since I was here with Eliza. But then again, I was with her here just moments ago.
I’ve had the same dream every night now for the past few nights. Or possibly the past few weeks. It’s become impossible to tell. Or perhaps I’ve been here for all of eternity. Perhaps nothing is real and I am simply a figment of the universe’s imagination.
Whether I am or not, the pinch in my ribs feels real to me and I suppose that’s all that really fokken matters.
How, though, am I here? Here in the manor I purchased after my last time here with Eliza? After my last time with Eliza at all? The last time I saw her. The last time…
Is she the reason I’m here? Did she somehow save me and bring me to this place as some sentimental homage to our time together?
No. The simple answer is no. That’s the most absurd fokken thing imaginable. But, then again, my life has become fokken absurd. So I’m not ruling out any theory, no matter how ludicrous.
Perhaps I didn’t deny Death this last time, after all. Perhaps this is what Death is. For me. Stuck in the last spot I ever visited before it all came unglued. Life. Quietly and without my awareness, but unglued nonetheless.
Sartre mused that “Hell is other people.” I might suggest in return that Hell is actually their absence.
Fok, man. All this convalescing is causing me to become soft and ruminative. And that ain’t no good for nobody.
I shuffle over to the window and look out on the estate I own, the former haven that has become my unexpected prison for reasons passing understanding. A light mist has begun falling outside. The smell of pap cooking on the stovetop is starting to waft throughout. And the awareness that I’m being held here—by someone—as a virtual prisoner; the awareness that somewhere in the world right now, my business is not being run by me; the awareness that I have no clue what’s become of Christine and Danny; the awareness that… fokken hell, man… that I’ve become soft, and ruminative, and have begun making noises in my sleep that sound to Liam as if I’m goddamn crying… bring me to a probably overdue decision.
I ain’t staying here much longer.