delga | fic: hard liquor. [9/14] (spooks)

hard liquor. (spooks)
Fiona, Adam, Tja; het./fem.
ix. bleeding out

It is the quiet of the aftermath that leaves Fiona unsettled. Adam gets off the table, avoids the glass, and zips his jeans. Fiona lowers her legs and straightens her skirt, staying reclined on the table. She rises up, resting on her forearms. (Her skin is a canvas of despair: blue-black mascara streaks, grey bags beneath her eyes, red cheeks where the heat rises). She watches as he rights the toppled chair (ignores the glass, still) and walks over to the sink to wash his face.

(His hands, she’s always thought, are so beautiful).

He turns, steadies himself against the worktop. His eyes stay on the floor with the shards and the mess of tequila. She has to wonder what he’s thinking.

They stay like that (Fiona on the table, Adam by the sink) for a long time. And then—

“Who’s Tja?”

The first thing he does is stop feeding her. (Anouska is still given rations of bread and water; she sits on the floor, arms aching, watching and crying at Tja’s disrepair). Tja doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t really seem to care. Demitri wanders in, eats large meals in front of her, mockingly offers scraps but Tja pays no heed to him.

She just stares off into the distance.

A balcony. A white tablecloth. Red flowers in a little porcelain vase.

(And of course, Tja, blowing smoke into the wind).

“Do you ever eat?”

She laughs, takes another drag, thinks about the question. Laughs again.

“Only when I’m bored.”

(Fiona’s only thought is this: I have been caught).

Pain: red, hot – flashes behind her eyes, through her every pore. She cannot breathe for the sensation, cannot stand that she is so weak: wants to cry and scream and shout and laugh. Anouska knows hysteria the way she knows good tequila.

Her left arm (or is it her right?) is twisted up, round her back; her chest is pushed into the wall. Demitri’s hands hold her still; his breath is hot against her ear.

Oh fuck.

She can feel him, cool against her skin – his fingers, circling the tattoo just above her hip, and a little further back, beyond her line of sight. She feels sick, wants to scream. Wants to bite him.

(And all the while, Tja does not speak. Does not move. Just stares into the space before her eyes).

She asked, once, about the monks and the bleeding.

(Tja muttered something ridiculous about the Pope).

He will not let her sleep. Makes her stand, arms bound to the ceiling by thick, steel chains. Tja does not eat, sit or sleep. (Anouska can see the fatigue burning in the back of her eyes). Her feet are also chained together and cuffed too, for good measure. Demitri sits in front of her with his knife and his little wooden blocks, talking (always talking, thinks Anouska, always telling another fucking story) about the good old days.

“Mama was good to you, yes?”

(They are accustomed, now, to Tja’s silence. She has not said a word since he bit her).

“She fed you, gave you a house. Clothes, shoes – a name even, yes?” He looks up, “Yes?”

Silence. Of course.

“Did she deserve what you did to her? You were her child, her kore¹.” He pauses, turning the little figurine over in his hands (it is the vague shape of a little girl; Anouska can see her hands, her skirt). “You must tell me why you did it. You must tell me why you killed her.”

And suddenly he is on the floor, on his knees, prostrate before this magnificent dia² and he is begging and pleading with every single move that he makes. “Why? You must tell me why!”

(Anouska hears a crack, hears the wood splitting. Watches as Demitri pulls back his hand and smacks Tja hard across her face. That one will bruise, she thinks).

He walks away, as quickly as he fell to the ground, leaving behind the knife, embedded in the wooden figurine.

(There are miles and miles of silence here, filling the room, devouring her whole. Adam stares and Fiona flinches. Shit, shit, shit, shit.)

He hits her.

(Oh god, thinks Anouska, it’s matushka all over again).

He hits her. Once, twice in quick succession, throwing his fist into her abdomen like a ball of iron. Tja is pale and prone to disorientation (at least once Anouska has head her yell out, “Mai!”) The heat has risen like a thief and stolen away her lucidity and she moans haplessly. She will not wake now, even if Demitri throws water on her face.

Her body has given in.

And he hits her and marks her skin, already littered with so many scars and the promise of so more to come. Stones in a bag, a rolling pin, his shoe: the list of weaponry goes on and on. Anouska does not know what is worse, whether it is when he beats her or when he stops and washes her skin with burning hot water, caressing the caramel skin, laying down his lips with sweet adoration—

(The only consolation is this: that when he toys with Tja, he doesn’t look at Anouska and she is safe for a little while more. The thought sickens her but she will take what she has. This Tja taught her – or so she tells herself).

Adam doesn’t dare take his eyes off her (notices the flinch, the erratic breathing, the tense muscles); knows he has to stay alert.

(He can hear the thoughts ticking over in her head: to lie or not to lie, to lie or not to lie, over and over until he’s unconsciously beating out the rhythm against the worktop).

He reads the tells well – has to, it’s part of the job. But when it comes to Fiona, he seems to push them aside, seems to ignore everything he’s ever learnt about scouting the opposition. (This is my wife, he thinks, this shouldn’t be about opposition. And yet it is).

One image is clear in his mind though, sharper now than ever before. Damascus, the sands, her body and— “Tja! ”

How many ways are there to bleed a whore?

That’s seven, so far, that Anouska has seen.

Time, here, is immeasurable. Anouska has been tied to the water pipe for forever, or so she thinks. She cannot imagine what time is for Tja (whether it stretches or snaps; whether she remembers or forgets, is present or not).

Anouska thinks it cannot get any worse. There is no way for Demitri to subject Tja to wild bouts of noise without drawing attention to himself and he doesn’t have the resources to purchase adequate intoxicative substance; at least, not anymore. The most he can do is cut into Tja but there are so many scars from before that Anouska is not certain she will feel it.

(She is not prepared for the depth of Demitri’s hatred, nor, it seems, his ingenuity).

“How&mdash?” The pounding begins in her head. Oh god, she thinks, not now. (Well, what did she expect? Tequila and whiskey will do that to a girl).

“It’s doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does – how did you—?”

(Adam is impatient, knows he’s hit a nerve). “Just tell me—”

“No!” And now she is sitting up and her eyes are bright with something that is beyond pain or grief or sensibility and she is ethereal and untouchable. “You tell me. Was it Danny? Did Danny tell you something? What do you know?”

“Hey,” he is taken aback by the response, puts his hands up in a small gesture of defence, “Calm down. Who is it?”

Fiona shakes her head, over and over, cannot breathe, cannot think (and the pounding continues, on and on), cannot move for shaking and convulsing and wanting to cry all over again. This, she thinks, is unfair. She resents him for invading on this. This, she thinks, should be hers and hers alone.

(And in walks Adam Carter, snatching it away, just like everything else in her life).

She looks up.

“This is mine.”

“Not any more.”

Splinters. He snaps them from rough-hewn edges of a large piece of timber that is rotten and dank. They come off in small, sharp darts and he tests them against his fingertips.

(Anouska can feel the chill in her back, starting from the base of her spine and running up her body like ants).

Demitri walks to stand in front of Tja, humming, as always, the same tune. “I’ve got you… under my skin…” Tja looks up, her mouth dry. (Anouska wants to cry, wants to beg at his feet). Tja says nothing. She is impassive; her eyes delineate a broken state of mind.

She doesn’t even flinch as Demitri pushes the splinters into her flesh, digging in deep until she is a canvas of red sores and deep, dark blood.

(Oh god, thinks Anouska, god, please, she’ll never survive this).

(Once, Tja cut herself on a broken window. Anouska was surprised to see the quality of her blood – so rich and deep and glowing with vitality. She had been entranced by the colour and had made the conscious realisation that Tja was made of stronger life than her).

It is time to make a promise. Anouska doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t believe in a higher power. She’s a follower of the doctrine that says each man to his own and the consequences too. She doesn’t believe that whispering to some deity in the middle of the night or washing your forehead in water from a church will heal or change or cleanse you.

(Sins will always line you. They cannot be washed away).

Anouska knows that there is no such thing as God, not in a world where men beat women and women scheme against men. Not in a world where lives are currency and blood is a down payment on the afterlife. Not in a world where there is no mercy, no lucky break, no luck, period.

(And yet here she is, praying for this to end. Praying for the will to live).

They are at an impasse.

“This is mine,” she says again, “You don’t own this.”

Adam is tired. In the past three days there has been a sharpening of focus, a change in direction from what he understands and is familiar with. And now, in the past hour and a half, he has called his wife a liar, screwed her on the kitchen table and confronted her with something he conjured from the very recesses of his memory – something he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he had heard in the first place.

And now this.

“Fiona…” She stares at him. “Look, just tell me. Start from the beginning. You’re my wife: trust me. Tell me.

(Somewhere amidst this she begins to cry. He’s not entirely sure she’s conscious anymore, she’s staring at him so hard and on top of everything, she looks very small and very weak. She’s still shaking her head).

They are at an impasse.

end. [9/14]

[1] Greek, meaning ‘child/maiden’
[2] Latin, meaning ‘goddess’.