Dark Chapter Page 5

  Mam releases him, still holding his arms, and looks at him through her tears. Searching and searching, almost hopeful. Her nose all red, and there’s a start of a smile on her.

  It makes him feel weird, so he pulls out of his mam’s hug. He needs some fresh air.

  Another push and he’s out the front door of the caravan, running off into the field. It’s raining, but feck it. Just keeps on running through the mud, the rain pelting onto his face, mixing with the tears he don’t want no one to see.

  *

  She is standing in the train station in Oberstdorf, on the western edge of Bavaria, in Germany. She is nineteen years old, and has been hired to work as a writer for an American travel guidebook. Daunted at first, because she only started to learn German in college five months ago. But four weeks into her trip, and she’s doing just fine.

  It’s a budget guidebook, so they only give her the equivalent of $45 a day to live on. Which means only staying in youth hostels, or Jugendherberge. She’s become quite adept at finding the local Jugendherberge wherever she arrives. Find a map of the town, orient yourself, start walking. At least five miles of walking, in a new town, each day.

  She’s learned to keep a compass in her back pocket. The compass has a mirror with a vertical line down it for orienteering, but the mirror is also useful if she wants to check how she looks. Not that she’s grown particularly vain, but it helps to be reminded that she looks decent.

  Here in Germany, she’s had more attention than she’s used to getting. Nothing overly lewd. Once in a kebab shop, the Turkish guys gave her a free kebab and winked at her. Another time on a train, the ticket controller spent an inordinate amount of time explaining to her which connections she needed to make. This was all in German, and at the very end, he said in heavily accented English: “I hope we meet again.”

  She’s pretty sure they won’t. But it’s interesting, perhaps eye-opening, how men react to her: a young, obviously foreign woman traveling on her own, with long dark hair and dark eyes.

  It is lonely, this work. Constantly on the go, constantly updating information, and even if she has a friendly conversation with someone, makes a friend, what can she do? Her itinerary requires her to move on the next day. Every Sunday night she finds a phone booth and calls her editor and then her mom. At least she has that for regular social contact.

  Still, the thrill of the job can’t be beat. To see new places everyday, be able to wander in and out of old cathedrals, describe baroque squares and explore hiking trails. This is what she always wanted, all those years growing up in the American suburbs.

  Earlier that evening, she’d somehow ended up in a pleasant conversation with three Germans, just standing right there on a country road. The Allgäu Alps rose up huge and real right in front of them, laced with snow at the summits, exactly the way they’d looked in the photographs. The Germans were on vacation here in Oberstdorf. They came here every summer and told her about the best trails to hike. An entire twenty minute conversation – in German! She came away from that secretly delighted at her language skills.

  But now, at the Oberstdorf train station, she realizes she’s spent too long talking to the Germans. The last bus to the youth hostel left thirteen minutes ago and it isn’t within walking distance. It’s up on the mountainside, in another village called Kornau.

  Her delight gives way to worry. She needs to get to the hostel somehow. She steps out of the train station and cranes her neck, to see if she can spot the village on the mountainside, but it’s getting dark. The mountains cast long shadows across the valley. Storm clouds have been building up all evening, and now it starts to rain.

  There’s a taxi pulled up at the train station, and she asks in German how much it would cost to get to Kornau.

  “Fourteen marks,” the man replies. The equivalent of seven dollars. She can’t spend that.

  She turns away from the taxi driver, and starts to panic. It’s getting dark, it’s raining, and the youth hostel seems unreachable. She could find a hotel somewhere in town, but at this late hour, it’d probably be impossible. Not to mention, beyond her budget. How could I be that stupid, missing the last bus?

  At that moment, she sees someone else get in the taxi, and it pulls away. Unsure of what to do, she hesitates on the sidewalk. She resists the urge to cry and realizes how tired she is from walking the entire day.

  In front of her, there’s a parked car and the window rolls down. A man leans out.

  “Brauchst du Hilfe?” Do you need help?

  She sizes him up, unsure of how much information to reveal. The man seems fairly young, clean-shaven. Blond and blue-eyed like everyone else here. But at this point, she’s grateful just to have someone ask if she’s okay.

  “I, um, I missed the last bus to the youth hostel,” she replies in German.

  “You can wait for a cab?” he suggests, gesturing to the empty taxi rank.

  “I don’t have enough money,” she admits. At least now he won’t try to rob me.

  He pauses for a moment. “I can drive you there, if you’re okay with that.”

  She can’t believe her luck. Or is it luck? Can she trust this man?

  “Are you sure? It’s kind of far.” She explains it’s in another village.

  He nods. It’s not a problem for him to drive her.

  “Um… ein Moment, bitte.”

  What have they always said since childhood? Don’t get into cars with strangers. But what if you’re in a foreign country, you’re low on money, and you have no other way to get to the youth hostel?

  She looks around her. There’s no one to be seen. She peers through the window into the back seat. There are children’s toys there, a rattle, a few stuffed animals, and even a child’s car seat. He’s a father. He’s safe enough.

  She nods. Okay, he can drive her. He gets out and puts her backpack in the car’s trunk. She wonders if that was wise to let him do that, but to request otherwise would seem rude.

  They both get into the front seat, and drive off into the lowering evening. Raindrops speckle the windshield, and he turns on the wipers.

  “Bist du Chinesich?” he asks.

  “Ich bin Amerikanerin,” she explains and continues in German. “My parents are Chinese.”

  Conversation is stilted. It’s obvious he wants to speak more in depth, but it’s also obvious her German has limitations. Gone is the confidence she had speaking to the German tourists on the open road, standing in full view of the mountains. Now she’s strapped in by the seatbelt, and she peers through the misted space cleared by the windshield wipers, out into the evening.

  They drive for ten minutes through the darkening landscape, the car climbing along empty roads, up the mountainside.

  Oberstdorf appears below them, a cluster of lights at the bottom of the valley.

  She asks him what his job is and he explains, but the German is too dense, she can’t understand what he’s saying. Sounds like something mechanical. Or scientific.

  “Are you traveling on your own?” he asks.

  “No,” she replies. “I’m going to meet a friend at the youth hostel.”

  That’s what the guidebook editors told her to always say, as a woman traveling on her own. The precautions she needs to take: make up an imaginary friend, put your backpack in the empty seat across from you, don’t hitchhike.

  She checks her map against the road signs they pass, gives a few directions. He follows along, offering no objections.

  Then they pass a sign. She could swear it indicated a turn-off for Kornau. It’s pitch black now, and she strains her eyes in the gloom ahead for the next turn-off.

  They keep on driving. Another sign rears up in the headlights, then passes behind them, but there’s no mention of Kornau.

  Apprehension lodges in her throat. Do I say something? Does he know where he’s going? Maybe wait till they pass one more sign…

  “Hey,” she cuts in. “I think we might have passed the turn-off we need.”

&nb
sp; He looks at her. “Oh really?”

  “Yeah,” she insists. Up ahead, there’s a fork in the road with a more detailed sign. “Can you stop there so we can check that?”

  He looks at her with what seems like a certain amusement. “Sure, no problem.”

  He pulls over in front of the sign, and she gets out, consults the place names and cross-references them on her map. Yes, they did need to turn back there.

  She gets back in and indicates where they are on the map, where they need to go. She’s aware of him looking at her this whole time. He’s not looking at the map.

  This makes her feel uncomfortable, but she plows ahead, no-nonsense, masking her anxiety.

  “So is that okay? We just need to go back and make that other turning.”

  He nods and grins at her. Why isn’t he starting the car?

  His right-hand fingers the keys in the ignition. Then he turns and asks her something. “Wollen Sie heute Abend mit mir schlafen?”

  She translates it in her mind almost instantaneously: do you want to sleep with me tonight? Her heart nearly stops. Stay calm. Did he really just ask that? What should she say? What the hell has she just gotten herself into?

  “Nein,” she says rather adamantly. God, if only her German were better. “Ich habe keine Freizeit.”

  I have no free time. That’s the best she can do in German.

  “I have to meet my friend at the youth hostel.”

  He nods. “Aber ich werde dir Geld geben…”

  Yes, but I’ll give you money…

  Outrage floods her, and fear, but she has to calculate the best approach.

  “No,” she repeats in German. “I told you, I don’t have any free time. I really have to be at the youth hostel now, my friend is waiting for me.”

  He’s still looking at her.

  She shifts her gaze out the windshield, her jaw set, looking determined. Just act decisive, like you know what you’re doing. Inside, she’s livid, her mind racing through her options. She could just get out of the car now and walk away, but her backpack is in the trunk.

  The rain smatters the windshield, the downpour heavy now.

  Finally, he turns away. “Okay.” He turns on the ignition, and wheels the car back onto the road, heading in the direction they just came.

  She is on tenterhooks as the car continues through the dark and the rain. Expecting the guy to do something violent any moment. She could attack him from where she’s sitting, she could grab the wheel and try to steer the car in a certain direction, but what would that do? She could open the door and roll out of the car while it’s still moving…

  No, she’s best off sitting here, strapped in, waiting to see what he’ll do, a prisoner of his good or bad intentions.

  But he’s driving in the right direction, rain beating against the car in the summer squall, and minutes later, he’s turning onto the Kornau road, as directed. And then, miraculously, they’re pulling up to the youth hostel, an immaculate-looking white building rearing up in the darkness.

  She’s never been so relieved to see a youth hostel.

  Another minute and he’s opening the trunk of the car, handing her the backpack. She straps it on in the rain, nods, and thanks him. For what? For driving her here and not violently raping her? For letting her live?

  She doesn’t dwell on the possibilities. Just get inside the youth hostel and don’t look back. The man seems awkward now with his advance rebuffed. He holds his hand out to say goodbye. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.” She shakes it.

  She doesn’t even wait to see him drive off. She pushes in through the front doors of the hostel, it’s bright and warm inside. She hopes they haven’t closed the reception yet. She edges up to the desk, her hair wet with rain, the backpack straps digging into her shoulders. Rings the bell and waits impatiently for someone to come. Still not quite believing that she’s safe, she’s out of the car, she’ll never have to see that man again. Her heartbeat is starting to slow down.

  Someone steps behind the desk. “Got caught in the rain?”

  She looks at whoever said that. It’s a young man grinning at her, blue eyes, blond hair. A German version of Leonardo DiCaprio. This is the guy who works here? To go from that potential horror show inside the man’s car to this…

  “Yes.” She shrugs, and flashes a smile in return. She replies in German. “I got a little delayed. But I have a reservation for tonight.”

  “I know,” he answers. “We’ve been waiting for you.” His eyes smile at her.

  “So I can still check in then?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She looks around the reception area, musing an unfamiliar, reckless thought at the back of her mind. “Do you guys sell any beer here? Because I could definitely use a drink.”

  The young man leans in conspiratorially. “We’re not supposed to sell any, but I can give you some from my stash.”

  “Yeah?” And something, the adrenaline from before, or the thrill of having escaped, fear reshaping into something else, something shifts in her, makes her bolder than she’d normally be. She looks at him, peering straight into his blue eyes.

  His eyes don’t look away. And she thinks, What is there to lose? By tomorrow, I’ll be in another town.

  “Thanks,” she says. “But I kind of don’t want to drink it on my own.”

  *

  In Belfast, he starts to envy Michael and the older lads because they can get these skanky girls. You know, the ones who wear bright lipstick and tight clothes and stand in that way which shows off their tits, making you all hard if you look at them long enough.

  But they’ll laugh in his face if he ever had a go at them. One of them did that to him once, when he chatted her up in the back room of Flanagan’s.

  “What, is your little brother trying it on with me?” the beour asked Michael. Her big hoop earrings dangled above her tits.

  Gerry and Donal and everyone laughed at him, and he wanted to grab Michael’s pint and ram it into his face, broken glass and all.

  “How old are you?” she asked. She was wearing black make-up around her eyes and her top was low-cut. He kept trying not to look down there.

  “How old you think I am?”

  But Michael and the rest of them only laughed. Her, too.

  “Dunno, sixteen?”

  Truth was, he was thirteen when that happened. Michael bought him another pint and said he’d teach him in time, how to get your way with them beours. Or with anyone, really.

  First rule is always act like you’re older, and everyone will believe it. Part of the beauty of being a Traveller is that no one really knows where you’re from. They can’t place you, can’t tag a name to a face or an age to a name. You’re invisible, you can be whoever you want.

  You chat them up with your jokes and your charm. Then you’re gone. With their purse. And maybe their phone.

  He learns to use this to his advantage. He listens in on settled people’s conversations, picks up names of places and cars and shiny objects that they’re proud of. Tries inserting these names into his own blather somewhere down the line. You can never hear too much.

  “Mallorca… now there’s a gorgeous place. The beaches, the food, the mountains. Could live there all summer.”

  “Oh absolutely. I much prefer Mallorca to Ibiza.”

  A group of posh 20-somethings are saying this, outside a wine bar near Victoria Square one June evening. The men wear blue shirts, fancy leather belts, and wankery shoes. The women have on dresses that wrap around their tits and hips. Earrings and bracelets that sparkle when they move, designer handbags with posh logos.

  He is hovering nearby, sketching out the best handbag to lift. Not the red one – your one’s not letting go of hers. And not the big brown bag, looks too heavy. But there’s your last woman: the drunk blonde one. She’s plastered, leaning against the wall, staggering around. Her handbag is white, and it sits open on the ground, almost teasing him.

  Always go for the drunkest, most desp
erate one. Another rule of thumb that Michael and the lads live by.

  As she gets drunker and drunker, she leans in closer to the men, her handbag a foot behind her on the pavement. A foot away, then a foot and a half.

  He tries to imagine what’s inside – a purse with 100 quid? 200? A phone. An iPod full of whiney music. Some credit cards he can never use. Lipstick he can give to some girl he’s trying to sweeten up.

  Don’t imagine. Just do it.

  He clenches his jaw, scans the group one more time. Her back is still turned, they’re raising their glasses for another fucking toast. Surging in his blood – he breathes in, feeling that familiar rush.

  Now.

  He races forward – five leaps to the bag, grabs it, turns back to the shadows, breathing fast.

  Not fast enough.

  His shoulder is clamped by a hand, he’s snapped back.

  “Oi, what you doing?” one of the men shouts.

  The drunk woman screams. “My bag!”

  Legs are straining to bolt, but one of the men in the group – square-jawed, dark hair, like some fucking superhero – holds him back and raises a fist to punch him. He ducks, elbows Square-Jaw in the gut, tries to run off again. He is still clutching the bag when the phone goes off, confusing him for a moment. The ring tone is some awful dance tune he remembers from the clubs.

  The men are still at him. The other one – shorter, freckled with sandy hair, grabs him now, and holds him in place while Square-Jaw readies a superhero fist to knock him into place.

  This one’s gonna hurt.

  The blow snaps his head back, and he feels his right eyeball shoved into its socket, the cheekbone throbbing. He drops the bag. The phone stops ringing its hellish dance anthem.

  Pain lights up everything he sees, a giant flashing strobe on acid.

  But he is used to this. Not nearly as bad as Da. On impact, Freckled Man lets go and he stumbles forward once, twice, still reaching for the bag.

  “Someone call the police!” The blonde one screeches.

  Square-Jaw tries to belt him again, but he headbutts him.

  Ouch.

  “He’s right there!” one of the women shouts.