Slow River

I had been about to say Ratnapida. But I could never live there again.

“Getting yourself back doesn’t mean going back to everything the way it was. Or would you want to leave me behind like your tired old identity?”

“No.”

“Then what? You think I won’t be able to cope with the change? You think that just because I was brought up poor I wouldn’t be able to adjust? No? Good. Because I can. I always knew you weren’t who you said you were. At least now I know who you are. It might take me a while, and there might be some bumpy times, but I can adapt. Don’t throw me away.”

She was looking at me. Her eyes were steady. I could see things reflected in them, too small to make out. The reflections seemed to be changing shape. Her eyes were wet.

I held out my arms. She stepped into them. To my surprise, she was an inch or two shorter than me. We stepped back half a pace. I kissed her. She blinked and tears spilled. I kissed her again. Then she held me. We stood like that a long time, my face hidden against her shoulder, while the world changed, while the sodden weight of the last few years evaporated from my head, my shoulders, my calves, until my arms felt light enough to rise into the air of their own accord, as in those childhood games where a friend pins them to your side and you struggle to lift them, then the friend releases you, and the muscles remember the struggle, and the arms move away from your ribs as though floating on a tidal swell.

“Look at me,” I said. “I am Frances Lorien van de Oest. I have a job. I have a place of my own. I have friends.” I knew who I was. Lore. And when I forgot or became confused, Magyar would know. “I have a future.”

Magyar squeezed me tight, and released me. She wiped at her face, then gri

The mynah bird screamed at us, but from close by, like a mother scolding her children.

We walked around the pond. I was hungry but I didn’t want to leave the park. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone who wasn’t Magyar. And there were too many decisions to make.

“You’re sure that nothing’s turned up on that body search?”

“Sure. I checked again before I left to meet you.”

“The records might be being withheld. Because my family’s involved.”

“Who would know?”

“Greta.” But she had given me a lock. We walked in silence, feet hitting the pavement at the same time, hips moving together. “I’ll go ahead anyway. Even without knowing. I can’t hide forever. I’ll call Tok first, and then my father. He could probably find out if the police are holding anything back.”

“Do you want to tell him everything?”

“I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“Privacy isn’t always the same as hiding.”

“I think it will be hard for me to tell the difference for a while.” We stepped over the gnarled roots that twisted over the pavement. It was the second time we had passed the tree. “Once I’m fairly sure I won’t be arrested for anything, I’ll reclaim my identity.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. Depends if I’ve been declared legally dead.” I could have been dead. Because of Greta. Crablegs had tried to kill me with that nasal spray. I could have been a skeleton at the bottom of the river, along with all the tens of thousands who had died here since humankind had been able to swing a rock. But I knew Oster wouldn’t have had me declared dead. He wouldn’t want the publicity. “When Oster is here, when I’m sitting across from him, face-to-face, when I can smell him, see the wrinkles in his shirt, I’ll tell him about his wife, and Greta. I’ll give him time to get used to it before I go to the police.”

“Not too much time.”

“There’s Chen, I know.”

We were going past the tree again. “When, then?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll tape a statement for the police, have it all ready to hand over. We’ll get them all: Katerine, Greta, Meisener, Crablegs. All the others.” I was shaking. “They have no right! Years they’ve been playing with people, as though we were just chess pieces. I don’t even think Greta knows that other people apart from her really exist. Thousands of people have suffered. Tens of thousands.” And she had suffered because of Katerine. As I nearly had. As I had.

I wanted to see Katerine alone on a chair in a windowless room. I wanted her to weep. I wanted her eyes to turn red and sore. I wanted her to beg, to plead for some water, her contact lens case. “I want to see the color of her eyes.”

“Who?”

“My mother. I want to see her suffer.” No, it was more than that. “I want her to see me. I want her to look up at me and see me. I want to be able to look into her eyes and see myself reflected there. I want her to see that I see the world through my own eyes, and not hers. I want her to acknowledge me. See that I’m real, I exist. I’m grown, my own person. That I’m finally free to become who I might be.” I linked my arm through Magyar’s, pulled her to a halt. “Tomorrow. I promise. This time tomorrow.”

“Tonight. Right now would be better.”

“But tomorrow I’ll be ready. I’ll-”

“Lore, if you wait for the right moment, you’ll wait forever. There is no perfect time. You just have to do it anyway. Things won’t be any better tomorrow.”

“But what’s the hurry?” I had waited three years. “If it’s Lucas Chen you’re worried-”

She made an impatient, chopping motion. “I’m sorry for what he’s going through, but it’s you I care about. Tell me honestly—will it be any easier to talk to your father tomorrow than today?”

Me and Oster. I took a deep breath, let it out again. “No.”

“Tonight, then.”

I nodded reluctantly. “Tonight. But I’ll make the tape first. And after tonight’s shift… What?”

“You’re doing it again. Not facing things. Tell me, why wait until after the shift?”

“It’s my job…” But, of course, she was right. I would never work there again. There was no more Sal Bird, aged twenty-five. Done with, all done with. Tonight, during winter dark in this part of the world, I would call Ratnapida. A blaze of light, clear water. Limpid reflections. No more obscuring the truth. No more shadows and lies. Tonight.

“Do you want me to come home with you?”

“No. Tonight will be soon enough. I need some sleep. And I need to tape that statement. I’ll call you at the plant when… when… I’ll call you.”

I held her again, for a long time. I could feel the shape of her through her coat and mine, the hard bone, pliant muscles. I wanted her with a hard, deep ache. Tonight.

Chapter 26

The next day in the tent passes slowly. Lore gets her breakfast, but long after her internal clock tells her it is early afternoon, there is still no lunch. She begins to worry. Why haven’t they fed her?

Why feed someone you are going to kill?

Thirty million. It isn’t much. She has no idea what the family’s total holdings are but she knows it adds up to tens of billions. Thirty million. She had requisitioned more than that herself for the Kirghizi project.

It must be Oster. He must have found out that she and Tok know about Stella, know what he has done to her. Maybe he has already killed Tok, somehow. Maybe he is deliberately stalling negotiations so that her kidnappers will kill her, then no one will know what he has done. But how is he stopping Katerine from paying? Her mother is smarter than Oster.

Lore shakes her head. She has to understand, has to work it out, find a way to make them pay.

The afternoon ticks on. She does stomach crunches, leg lifts, push-ups, and stretches. She is hungry. For the first time in nearly two weeks she finds herself longing for one of the pills she has hidden under the tent. She takes out her nail, holds it, puts it back in the sleeping bag, takes it out again.

The afternoon turns to evening. No supper.

When her body tells her it is time to sleep, she isn’t tired, but she lies down in her sleeping bag because it makes her feel less naked. She holds the nail tightly and breathes slowly, evenly, trying to relax her muscles one by one, from the feet up.