Castro's Dream (26 page)

At the wheel of Astrid’s Volvo with Lola beside him, Kader had an unfamiliar sense of purpose. He felt useful, perhaps for the first time. Even in football he had always believed that his position was expendable. The only experience that had come close to this was being pushed around the supermarket in a trolley by his mother, who had been given a list by her employer that she could not read. At six he could read all the words on the list. His mother had been so proud of him.

He opened the window as they drove out of the village.

Don’t you love that sound? he said. I heard it when I came in. Is it a waterfall?

Just a fast stream, Lola said.

They drove over the bridge.

Astrid and I got trapped down there once by a herd of cows. They crowded round us and we thought they were bulls. I got stuck hanging upside down from a branch over the river. Astrid had to wade in and rescue me. When she put me down I kicked her.

Kader smiled. He spoke without looking at her:

He’s working in a village called Sara. I remembered the name because one of my aunts is called Sara.

He could feel her excitement.

How do you know?

Astrid told me.

He told her, she said, her voice bitter.

No. All she knew was that he worked in the markets on the French side. She found out that tomorrow morning the market’s in Sara.

What’s he doing in the markets?

Selling brooms.

Lola was staring at him.

How did she know that?

He left her a number on her mobile. I was with her when she
called it. A friend of his told her about his job. She wanted to find out where he was so that she could tell you.

Why
didn’t
she tell me?

Kader was scanning the road.

I don’t know.

After a while Lola sighed.

I didn’t let her, she said. I wouldn’t let her speak. I was so angry.

Kader was enjoying the drive. He suddenly wanted Lola to enjoy it too.

I made up a song for her, he said. Do you want to hear it?

Before she could answer he began to drum a rhythm on the steering wheel. He sang and Lola listened. When the words didn’t come he used Arabic, any word he could think of: the words for beans, pasta, couscous, auntie and goodbye, because they fitted with the tune which came unhindered from somewhere so deep within him, he thought it must have been there before he was born – when he was inside his mother and he could hear her own voice, distant and ghostly, from the old land. When he had finished Lola was silent. Then she said,

That’s beautiful. She’s lucky.

Kader glanced at her. There was no sign of bitterness now.

You can’t lose each other, he said. It’s the strongest kind of love.

Lola looked at him and smiled. This time her blue eyes were warm.

I know that, she said. I do know.

Mikel had started humming. It was an old habit, Astrid could tell, so ingrained that he probably did not know he was doing it. They were on a stretch of road that had been stripped of asphalt. The irregular motion made Castro jump off the seat and settle at her feet. Mikel was looking in his rear-view mirror.

That bike, he muttered.

She thought he must be so used to solitude that he could settle into it even when he was not alone.

He glanced at her, then back at his mirror.

Put your seat belt on.

Astrid looked.

There isn’t one.

Then crouch down there, he said.

She caught sight of the glaring light in the wing mirror.

What is it?

Get down.

She heard his command and at the same time saw the bikers, level with his window. They looked like a pair of coupling insects, one higher than the other, bodies concave, their black helmets almost touching. She crouched down in the footwell with the dog. Mikel was accelerating and the engine was screaming, then he braked suddenly and the bike disappeared. Astrid watched him in the light from the dashboard, his teeth clenched, the veins sticking up on his neck. She had an obscure feeling that her safety was in his hands and she watched him like a child, free of all responsibility and fear, only a vague anxiety: would the wall between her and danger hold? His head was cranked round and he was reversing at high speed. Her safety now seemed to be tied to the ascending pitch of the engine. Suddenly he braked hard and she was thrown against the seat, her head whipping back, then forward, and she huddled closer to the panting dog, knowing, more than ever, that her body was nothing but a fine membrane.

Then there was a shot, an explosion as the windscreen shattered. The van swerved once, then again and she heard herself scream. Castro was barking and Mikel was trying to run them off the road.

Who are they? she screamed.

Keep down! he commanded.

This was Mikel, she thought, hugging the dog. This was his element, the element she had sought to protect Lola from all these years.

There was a moment of calm and she looked up to see that the bike was there again, at his window, the engine droning. Castro began to bark wildly. She put her hands over her ears and looked straight at the gun. Mikel swerved into them and she buried her head in her arms and she heard a noise like a grunt, a noise so rudimentary and forlorn that she knew he had been shot. She looked up and saw his body slumped over and she sprang up and grabbed the wheel, hauling him towards the window for protection, but she could see nothing through the frost of shattered glass and the pitiless grinding of the engine was in her ears and she heard the shot and felt the impact of the bullet and the warm blood trickling down her neck and she had time to wonder where they had shot her and see the precision instrument removing the bloody bullet and then she saw the blanched trunk of the tree, close, close as salvation and the car seemed to swerve again and she was not in control, she had let go of the wheel and she was floating even while she was aware of the gun aiming at her and she could feel their concentration, their keen intent and she heard the second shot, so loud and so near that it closed her eyes and everything slowed and she understood nothing.

Kader sat on the bench in the long corridor and stared at the red lino floor. Reflected in the floor were the neon strip lights in the ceiling, like the broken white line in the middle of the road. Beside him Lola lay asleep with her head in his lap.

In three different languages they had told him that Astrid was dead but he still didn’t appear to understand. In the end they had got someone to come and tell him in Arabic. He didn’t tell them that he didn’t really speak Arabic. Then two doctors, a man and a woman, came to ask Lola if they could turn off Astrid’s life-support system and Lola had said, No.

Both Mikel and Astrid had been shot in the head but the fools had managed to miss Mikel’s brain and so he was still alive. Kader had begun to laugh when he had heard this. He had laughed until tears had poured down his cheeks. Lola had held him, her body shaking with his, until he had stopped.

Later, the two doctors came back. Astrid was brain-dead, they explained … Kader remembered her talking into her tape recorder on the way to Bordeaux. Brain death, she knew all about. He wished he knew. He also wished he could have found his tongue. Instead he had sat there dumbstruck while they convinced Lola to let them turn off the respirator. Astrid was breathing but she was brain-dead. Kader still did not understand. He watched the luminous lines on the floor and found he still wanted to laugh.

The killer had turned out to be a woman. They must have crashed trying to get away, the police said. Kader imagined the felled bike, the woman’s body sliding across the road like a puck then wrapping itself around the tree. He had seen her body as they drove away, her arms flung out at an odd angle and her head in its helmet, all cranked back. The driver was not dead. He was in the hospital. The police said he was a car thief, that he was the woman’s brother. They were waiting for him to wake up so they could question him. Kader wanted to find the brother in the hospital and unplug him.

He looked down at Lola’s sleeping profile. She had a swollen bruise on her cheekbone. She must have got it when he had slammed on the brakes at the sight of the crash. Lola had begun to whimper as he climbed out of the car. I know it’s her, she said. It’s her, she kept saying, over and over again, and Kader had run to get away from her, headlong into the carnage. When he saw Astrid he had opened the door, carefully, so carefully, and reached past Mikel’s body and wrapped his arms around her. He had held her for too long, covering himself in her blood, while the dog howled. Then Lola was at his side, screaming about ambulances, yelling but touching him gently, purposefully, talking about phones and hospital. And he had watched her take control and discover that they were both still alive.

He now looked for Astrid in her face but could not see her. He looked at the pale skin, the tiny lines in the corner of her eye, the silvery-blue skin beneath, the freckles across her nose, and he knew he had to leave. It was quite clear to him that if he stayed to look after her, he would be in the wrong place.

Lola would wake to find him gone. She would be distraught but then she would wait for Mikel to recover and they would either be together or they would not. Kader felt a wave of repulsion for the woman in his lap. For some reason she had survived to give her permission to let Astrid die.

Your sister was a surgeon, the doctor reasoned. It’s what she would have wanted.

Even so, Kader knew that he would not be able to forgive Lola. Perhaps he would go and find René the knife-thrower and the evil Raoul. He would not go home.

Carefully, he lifted Lola’s head from his lap. He eased himself out from beneath her and laid her head gently on the bench. As he straightened up, his joints clicked and she opened her eyes.

Where are you going? she whispered.

He still could not kneel so he bent down and smoothed her hair from her face.

I’m just going to stretch my legs.

You will come back, she said.

He kissed his fingers and laid them on her bruised cheek.

I’m just going to get some air.

And he limped off down the corridor and disappeared through the swing doors.

Outside, dawn birds were singing. Mikel’s dog was sitting at the bottom of the concrete steps. Kader bent down to pat him.

He found that patting the dog made him want to cry again, so he straightened up and walked on. When he stepped out of the car park onto the street, the dog was following him. Kader halted and waited for him to catch up. The dog stopped, sat and looked about him nonchalantly. Kader crouched down and looked at the metal disc at his neck. Castro, it said.

What’s this for? he murmured, touching the dirty sock on its paw, and he found that talking to the dog made him feel a little better. I’m going to take it off and have a look. OK? The dog panted. You don’t need this. Kader removed the sock, stood up and hurled it into some bushes. For some reason the act of throwing triggered his tears again, so he called the dog and they walked on together.

Lucy Wadham was born in London and educated at Oxford. She has lived in France for the past twenty years. Her first novel,
Lost
, was shortlisted for the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for Fiction. She is also the author of
Castro’s Dream, Greater Love
and
The Secret Life of France.