Lies That Bind Us(81)

Push through . . .

There was something like . . . fabric. Like carpet hanging. And I turned to the left because . . .

The house is symmetrical. Simon’s voice in my head. It was what he said when we arrived on the first day. The house had been rebuilt over generations, but at its heart, it was balanced, symmetrical. And that meant . . .

“There’s another cellar,” I say. “There’s another door on the east side of the foyer. Behind the tapestry. You can’t see it, but there’s a door and stairs down to a labyrinth passage. The cells. The railroad tracks.”

“It’s over, Jan,” says Melissa. “Drop it.”

“No,” I say, the certainty growing in my mind. “It’s true. There’s another staircase.”

“Jan,” says Marcus. “There’s no railroad in Crete.”

“A mine, then,” I answer, shoving past him, making for the door.

“Marcus,” says Melissa in a low, serious voice, “I don’t think she should be allowed to wander around . . .”

“No mines either,” says Marcus irritably. He grabs me by my wounded hand so that I cry out, and he looks down. “Jesus, Jan. What the hell?”

“I told you,” I say. “I had to break my hand to get out.”

He looks at me then, and I see doubt in his face.

“There is no cell, Jan,” says Melissa. “No chain, no ring on the wall. You smashed your hand with the hammer on purpose, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“Jan,” says Marcus, and some of the old care is back in his eyes now, the old pity, though I think it might still be directed at the lengths I will go to get him back. I snatch my hand away, furious at his disbelief.

“He chained me up, Marcus!” I roar at him. “He asked me questions!”

“Who?” says Melissa, still defiant, disbelieving.

I stare at her. If I was clearer in my mind, I might not say anything yet, but as it is, the hesitation is only momentary.

“Simon,” I say.

Her jaw drops slowly open. She tips her head slightly to one side, as if trying to home in on a distant sound, her eyes turning to slits.

“You’re insane,” she says, and she actually takes a step back, as if she’s afraid of me.

“Jan, listen to yourself,” says Marcus. “That can’t be true.”

“It is,” I say. “I’ll show you.”

And I’m moving again, faster now, clearer in my mind and full of a desperate determination to show them once and for all. The cell doesn’t matter. The ring in the wall. My hellish captivity. None of it matters. But they will see that I am telling the truth. I will show them that, or I will die in the attempt. It is suddenly and clearly the only thing I want out of what is left of my life.

I’m beyond Marcus before he thinks to come after me, round the corner, and halfway up the stairs into the foyer. I hear them coming after me, but I ignore them, bursting into the open space of the foyer and crossing to the telephone table and the hanging tapestry beyond it. I drag it aside, and there’s the door, bolted by my own hands.

I throw one back, but then I’m pulled away. Melissa has hold of my right wrist and she’s staring into my face with an animal ferocity.

“That’s enough, Jan. We’re going to sit here quietly while we wait for the ambulance, and then we’re going to talk to the police . . .”

I start to speak, but I see Marcus’s face and stop. He’s confused again, but now he’s staring at the door half-hidden by the tapestry.

“How wide were the railroad tracks?” he says.

Melissa gives him a disbelieving look.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she says.

“How wide?” he says again, looking directly at me.

I shake my head and motion with my hands. A foot. A foot and a half. I don’t remember.

“Too narrow for a train,” says Marcus.

“See?” says Melissa.

“But not for a gun carriage,” he says. Melissa sputters wordlessly at him but he adds, “There’s a gun emplacement in the cliffside. I saw it when I went walking but couldn’t find a way up to it. It was probably a German antiaircraft battery. I hadn’t thought about it, but I’ll bet the house was used as a command post. Officers’ HQ, maybe. There’d be a mini garrison quartered here. Bunks. Storage rooms. A place to hold the AA guns out of the weather . . .”

He says it dreamily, putting each idea together like a child lining up dominos.

“But . . . ,” he says, turning to Melissa. “What’s going on, Mel?” he says. “Where’s Simon?”

“Asleep, as we should be,” she shoots back, but there’s something hunted in her face, like a cornered animal.

“You know Jan,” she says. “This is one of her stories. Her lies. Why would Simon lock her up and ask her questions? It’s crazy.”

“Gretchen said she had a dream,” says Marcus, still just thinking aloud. “People asking her questions . . .”

“Coincidence,” says Mel. “Come on, Marcus, you can’t think—”

“Manos,” I say.

That stops her. She turns very slowly to me now and her face is white.