Escape (13 page)

“Just me playing.”

Tarik laughed again. “That's just you playing, eh? Is this your usual style?”

Luka couldn't swallow. His body was weirdly rigid.

“The whole thing reminds me of Varo's work. But yours has more weight, density.”

“How do you know about Remedios Varo?” Except in those few weeks in the Academy, Luka had never met anyone who recognized her name when he mentioned her.

“I discovered her through a novel of Pynchon's—
The Crying of Lot 49
.” Another soft chuckle. “I'm not such a fan of Pynchon, but at least he introduced me to one of my favorite artists.”

“I tried to read something of his once, but it was too hard.” Luka's cheeks warmed. Why'd he say that? Like he couldn't help bragging about how dumb he was.

“In English?”

“What? No, in Xukrasnian. You read books in English?”

That grin of Tarik's was one Luka'd never seen. It made him look young, almost boyish, and Luka had the feeling he felt embarrassed, admitting how smart he was. “I do, if it was originally written in English.”

Learning English was near the top of a long list of accomplishments unaccomplished. “What do you do?”

“I'm a grad student. Comparative Literature. Or, I was a grad student.” Somehow, Tarik's grin looked mirthless, now, and his gaze had a remote cast, as if he were slipping away into his past. His life, utterly unlike this life of hiding in the woods and threatening people with knives and guns.

“So you... just read? All the time? That was your work?” It sounded like heaven. A heaven almost as beautiful as the one Luka dreamed of every day, where he could sustain himself by painting.

Tarik laughed and his eyes brightened. “Well, except for the twenty hours a week I had to TA.”

“TA?”

“Assistant teach. You know, supervise workshops, grade tests and essays. Basically, lighten the professors' load.”

“So when you graduate, you'll be a professor?”

“That was the plan. Just until I write a Nobel-winning novel, of course.”

Impossible to imagine Tarik spending a lifetime behind a desk, penning novels, or behind a podium, in a jacket and tie, teaching Dickens or Hemingway to a room full of students Luka's age. He'd pictured him building furniture. Putting out fires. Leading excursions up the vertiginous face of Mount Velebit.

“And you're an artist.” Grinning, teasing, “You lied to me when you said you didn't want to be anything, other than a barber.”

The vague warmth that had been pumping through Luka with every pulse of his heart flared up his throat and face. “No. I just mess around for fun. I don't have any training.”

“Hey, I'm all for the academy. But having a degree doesn't mean you're an artist, and lacking one doesn't mean you aren't. And here's proof.” Tarik tapped the table, just at the edge of Luka's drawing.

Luka helped Tarik cook dinner, which they all ate together. Now Skinny and Calvin seemed almost indifferent to him, maybe because Skinny was already sipping a mixture of lemonade and that amber liquor. After they'd eaten, Luka cleared the table and washed the dishes from breakfast and dinner, then curled up in the armchair by the fire, because their hosts were leaving him alone and there wasn't enough light to keep working on the drawing. Anyway, the little girl's room depressed him. Looking at those kitschy pictures of puppies and kittens, thinking about that dresser with the pink knobs, once full of tiny socks and little dresses, now stocked with clothes for men changing their identities and escaping their own country to live somewhere with a fake name and no friends. And where was that little girl, now? Dead? In a refugee camp somewhere, dirty and hungry? Or already over the border, like Tarik's little boy?

At ten to seven, Tarik was suddenly standing between Luka and the fire. Luka hadn't heard him approach. Quietly, “I need to head out. Would you rather wait back there?” He nodded toward the child's room.

Whispering, Luka asked, “They didn't tell you to tie me up?”

Tarik grinned. “Is it not bad luck in Bokana, questioning good things?”

“I'm okay here.”

“I won't be gone long.”

“We'll head out as soon as I get back.”

“Okay.”

With his stealthy tread, Tarik slipped out into the dark night filled up with cricket song. The second the door closed, Skinny was up, shuffling over, already drunk and drinking straight from the bottle, now. “Get out of my chair, cockroach.”

Luka got up and headed toward the child's bedroom.

“Sit over there.” Skinny pointed to the couch. “Where we can keep an eye on you.”

Adrenaline spiking, Luka went and sat on the couch. He wondered if the stains were from the little girl, or the current occupants.

“We should go get some whores,” Calvin declared from the dining table. “Hiding out here, living like a monk is killing me.”

“All the whores around here are ugly. I'd rather fuck one of that bitch's goats, from that yellow house by the pond.”

“That's fucking sick, Begović.” Laughing, Armin stretched himself out on the floor and started doing crunches. “But I'd put that little girl of hers on all fours and make her bleat.”

“It was a joke, idiot. All I'm saying is, if you want a decent piece of ass, you gotta go to the city.” Begović took another swig from his bottle. “Hey, cockroach. Your women as ugly as they say?”

Luka took a deep breath and tried not to look scared.

“I'm talking to you.”

“I can't tell the difference.”

Begović laughed. “You can't tell the difference between an ugly girl and a beautiful girl?”

“I can't tell the difference between your women, and our women.”

“Bullshit. This one soldier came through here, you know, to get his papers like your buddy Tarik. He said his platoon occupied this one village up in the Savski region. You know it?” Another swig from the bottle. “They were there a week or so, I guess, and the soldiers were all horny as fuck, you know, after months of nothing but choking the chicken. And I guess he did a couple of those village girls a day, like the rest of them, but he said they were so ugly he could only fuck 'em from behind.”

Luka tried to keep his expression neutral.

“He said the same thing about the camps.” Skinny wheezed and chortled until he started coughing. After a couple swigs from the bottle, his fit subsided. “Said he did his patriotic duty, trying to knock up as many Bokan bitches as he could, but he was sad to think there'd be a few dozen of his bastards running around in a couple years, and they'd all be ugly as the Bokan skanks he'd fucked.”

“I think that guy was full of shit,” Calvin huffed, doing pushups now.

“Yeah? Why you say that?” Begović was starting to slur his words.

“Because, Luka here's prettier than any girl you ever nagged into spreading her legs.”

Like a long-limbed spider, Skinny climbed out of the armchair, then almost stumbled. Luka waited for the horrible pressure in his chest to subside, for Begović to go over and get into it with Calvin, and leave him alone. As Skinny shuffled away, lurching clumsily, Luka tried to calculate if Tarik had been gone more than ten minutes. Instead of launching into a tirade with Armin, Begović mounted the stairs, and Luka started to breathe normally, until Begović called down, “Don't move, little cockroach. I wanna see something.”

Stomach turning, Luka listened to the dry scuff of Begović's feet overhead, the clatter of bottles scattering in a drawer, his drunken giggles. Then he came clomping down the stairs, hiding something behind his back. Half way down he lost his footing and almost tumbled, but caught the banister and righted himself. He fumbled around for a minute, collecting the things he'd dropped, then planted his ass on the coffee table in front of Luka and displayed his treasures. A long auburn wig, a bottle of perfume, and a tube of lipstick.

“Here. Put this on.” Begović held out the wig.

Heart hammering, Luka stood on wobbly legs.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm going to wait for Tarik back there.”

“Sit the fuck down. I went to all the trouble of getting you these nice things. And I want to see if Bokan girls are ugly or pretty.” Begović planted his hand on Luka's stomach and pushed him back. There was nowhere for his feet to go, and Luka tumbled back onto the couch.

“Now put this on for me, and then we'll do your lips.” Begović held the wig out, and Luka hit it out of his hand, and it almost went into the fire.

Luka didn't understand why Begović just sat there calmly looking at him instead of getting hysterical, until something slipped around his neck and jerked back against his throat until it was hard to breathe. Luka clawed at Armin's hands, trying to get free of the belt cinched around his neck, but the more he struggled, the tighter the noose got.

“That's it. Just settle down, and we'll get you gussied up.” Begović stuck the wig on Luka's head, fussing with it for a minute before leaning back to have a look. “Holy shit, Armin. That's all it took. She's already prettier than any whore in a hundred kilometer radius.” Begović pulled the cap off the silver tube of lipstick, gave the cylinder a twist, and a waxy, burgundy stub gradually emerged. As he pushed it against Luka's lips, Luka thought the smell was going to make him puke.

“Aw, what are you crying for? I take back what I said, before. Bokan girls are pretty, after all.” Begović laughed. “You're fucking right, Armin. Luka's prettier than any of the girls I've fucked.”

Tarik was coming back. Any second, he'd hear the hinge squeak. He'd have his piece of paper, and he'd say they could go. They'd leave. They'd leave. They were leaving soon.

“Hold this, let me have a look.” Armin pulled back on the belt, and Luka clawed at it, gasping.

“Wait. First, he should smell pretty, too.” A pungent cloud of mist enveloped him, and Luka coughed. “There, now look.”

Armin traded places with Begović, and the second Luka looked in Armin's eyes, real, sharp terror sliced through him. Begović was a bully, like the boys in Bijeljina. Like the men in the camp. A mean drunk, like Luka's uncle. Armin was something else. Maybe something even worse than Pero.

“Well, look at that. Little Luka is actually Lucia in disguise. Don't listen to him, Lucia. I like the tears. They make you even prettier.” Armin grasped Luka's jaw and turned his head side to side, then pressed the pad of his thumb against his mouth, rubbing his lips, smearing the lipstick over his skin. “Know how I know Luka is really Lucia?”

“How, Armin?”

“Because her mouth is making my dick hard.”

Luka jerked his head to the side, away from Armin's groping hand.

“Don't get all riled up now, Lucia.” The slow, soft cadence of Armin's words drove Luka's terror through the roof. “Here's what's gonna happen. You're going to suck my dick. Then you'll do Begović. Then your buddy will come back, put you on your leash, and take you for a nice long walk.”

The knife. After breakfast, Tarik had given him his knife. Luka felt for it in his pocket, moving slowly, trying not to let Armin notice.

“I want you to be a good girl. I want you to open your pretty lips and suck me, nice and easy. If you want to fight, if you want to be a
fucking bitch
, I'll put you on your belly and fuck you. It won't be any fun for you, walking those last two hundred k, torn up and bleeding.”

Why couldn't he feel the knife? He tried the other pocket, but it was gone. Sobs shook his whole body.

Armin stood up. “Go on. On your knees like a good girl.”

The noose tightened around his throat and Begović pushed him toward the edge of the couch.

“Tarik will kill you.” Luka struggled to stay perched on the couch, but they shoved and dragged him down onto the floor. “The rest was a joke, but if you... I swear to God, he'll kill you both.”

Armin laughed. “No, Lucia. He won't kill anybody to defend the honor of a little cockroach bitch. He just needs you to get over the border. And having dick breath has never stopped anyone. Now, no biting, or I'll gouge your eyes out. That won't stop you going over the border, either.”

The reek of perfume.

A leather noose choking him.

The wet rattle of Begović's lungs as he panted.

The snap and hiss of the fire, the whole room shifting and trembling between golden light and smokey darkness, a sharp, human smell cutting through the chemical musk of the perfume.

The dull, warm prod of flesh against his lips, waxy smear of lipstick across his cheek, the taste of tears and snot.

No squeak of the hinge. No Tarik. No safety. No air.

Throat spasming, gut contracting. Armin let go and Luka puked on the floor. Armin laughed. “When you're done with me and Begović, you're going to lick that up.” Smudges of maroon lipstick on Armin's dick.

Neck aching, twisted under the weight of Armin's grip clutching the wig, pulling Luka forward, forward, forward. Sudden, brutal jerk of the noose, then a slackening. Air. A grunt. A gurgle. Release. No one touching him.