Felicity
The festival is in full swing by the time we park up on the outskirts of the village. People charge by us dressed in all the colors of the rainbow. Long, flowing fabric which flutters behind them like capes. Roma looks over the roof of the car at me, teeth clenched, but there’s a smile at the corners of his lips. I think what I said to him has calmed him down. I’m glad. I don’t want Roma to be angry. Angry. Consumed with rage is more like it.
He walks around the car and takes me by the hand.
“Let’s get through this madness and find a store,” he says.
“Do we have money?” I ask.
He shakes his head, his blue eyes dark, and I know he’s planning to rob the store. I saw him steal a man’s car, after all. I want to stop him. I don’t want some innocent French shop owner to be the victim of our situation. But the smell of smoke still lingers in my nostrils and I know that we need to get out of here.
We walk farther into the village. The crowd grows thick. We’re not even on the main street, but there must be at least two-hundred people milling around, screaming in French and dancing from foot to foot. Trumpets blast all around us and children run around giggling. I notice one girl with a flower in her hair, her dress blue and red. She grins up at me, reaches into the folds of her dress, and offers me a flower. I take it and she skips away, giggling. Nobody approaches Roma.
“What is this?” Roma asks, but I can hear in his voice he’s not expecting an answer. I have no clue, anyway.
We make our way to the main street, a wide-paved, cobblestoned road lined with shops and stalls. The stalls have covers pulled down and all the shops are unlit and closed, their doors bolted shut. Roma lets out a shaky sigh and we walk into the crowd, searching the stores for an open one. “Might have to break in,” he muses.
Before I know it, we’re in a large square. A wooden stage has been erected in the center of the square and trumpet players stand upon it, marching up and down, blowing so hard their cheeks turn red. Small children run around them holding long sheets of fabric, painted just as colorfully as everybody’s outfits, making it look as though the trumpet players are lost in a mist of paint.
Then the crowd turns as one. Roma and I turn with them. A procession of people march up the street. Roma and I watch, bemused, as around three-hundred people march up the center of the street. We’re so confused and stunned by the strangeness of it all that we don’t even notice when another procession approaches from the opposite side. They march like soldiers, cutting straight through me and Roma. On reflex I let go of his hand. I’m swept to the other side of the street in the mayhem. I look over moving heads, half moving down, half up, but I can’t see Roma. I listen for his voice, but there’s nothing, just the trumpets and the cheering and the giggling. Balloons float up toward the sky, an air rifle is fired, and the balloons explode in a shower of color.
“Roma!” I call, but my voice is eaten up in the loudness of the festival as though in a vacuum.
I turn on the spot. He can’t be far from me, but the crowd is dense, packed shoulder to shoulder with people. Wherever I stand, I am brushing up against somebody. I’ll wait for the procession to pass, I think, but it goes on seemingly forever. I watch it for around a minute and then I realize why. The marchers swivel at the end of the street and walk back up. The same on the other side, too. A constant sea of marching legs and bobbing heads.
Somebody touches my shoulder. I turn, expecting it to be Roma, but even before I face the person, I sense that it’s not. Their touch is too soft. A huge, smiling French woman wearing a billowing dress grins down at me. She shouts something in French and then takes me by the arm and leads me away from the crowd. I try to pull away from her, but she’s so caught up in the frenzy of the festival she doesn’t even notice. My muscles ache and my head whirrs and this woman is much larger than me; I can’t pull myself free.
She shouts and shouts and pulls me down a side street, down another, and down another until we are in a labyrinth of alleyways. She leads me around the back of a baker’s store. The scent of baked bread drifts up my nose, my belly grumbling. I yank my arm from the woman, wondering: What the hell is this? Where’s Roma? Seriously, what the hell is going on?
“I’m okay,” I say, trying to pull my arm free. “I’m fine. Seriously. I’m okay.” I wish I knew some French! It seems my backpacking holiday was cut short before I learnt even a single word. I had a phrasebook, but that was lost when the Russian men abducted me.
“Seriously,” I say, my voice a growl. “I’m okay. Please.”
Her grip is like a vice and for the first time it occurs to me this woman might not be just another festival partier. She smiles and laughs, but she leads me deep into the alleyway. It’s blocked off, wedged between a cobbler’s store and a pastry shop.
“Let go,” I breathe, my heart beginning to pound frantically. Why would she lead me here? I realize I’ve made the mistake of assuming the entire smiling crowd has kind intentions. Stupid, but the colors and the music and the festivities got to me.
Finally, at the end of the alleyway, she releases me. I take a step back, my arm sore from where her hand held me.
“What’s your problem?” I snap.
I turn toward the way we came, meaning to get out of these alleyways and find Roma. I imagine how he must be feeling right now. Terrified. He’s got a steely exterior, sure, but I’ve seen underneath it and I know he must be freaking right now.
I’m no farther than a few steps when two men step out in front of me. They are huge, bouncer-like, wearing tight suits which show their grotesque muscles. Their faces are scarred and their noses are broken. There are two of them, but they look so similar it’s difficult to tell them apart. They’re twins, I realize. They sneer at me with the same superior lips and then laugh with the same coughing laugh.
I swivel on my heels, looking toward the French woman, but she just smiles at me and shrugs.
A man steps from beneath the shadow of an eave, reaches into his pocket, and hands the woman a rolled-up bundle of euros. Then he waves her away. He’s tall, bone-thin, wearing a black suit with shimmering obsidian cufflinks.
“Hello, Felicity,” he says. The French woman jogs out of the alleyway, giving me a wide berth. The twins grunt and let her pass. “My name is Mr. Black, and I would like to have a conversation with you.”
My mind spins. I’ve heard that name before, I’m sure.
Bear!
He said it, when he had the gun pointed at Roma: Maybe Mr. Black sent you to finish the old bear off, aye?
I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But Mr. Black must be Roma’s employer. Why would Roma’s employer trap me like this?
The man lets out a laugh. More of a giggle. He looks like a gangly teenager who’s grown too fast, except for his eyes, which are as black as his name and give away nothing.
“It seems I’ve surprised you.” He grins.