One Way or Another(23)

*

When I came around I had no idea of how much time had passed. I raised a hand, touched my naked head, held back the moan, told myself at least I was alive. Or was I dreaming again, hovering somewhere between reality and memory? Unable to bring myself even to try to open my eyes, I listened. The soft slap of water against the hull of the boat was all I heard. Not even the cry of gulls. Did that mean I was somewhere out at sea, too far for the greedy gulls to follow, kept at the harbor by the promise of easy food?

I listened again: the slap of the water was rhythmic, quiet, a tiny swell that barely rocked the boat. If we were anchored out at sea surely there would have been more movement. More sound. We had to be in a harbor. And if we were, there must be other boats, other people.

I was suddenly aware that someone was in the room with me. I heard the soft rasp of breath, the quiet subtle movement a leg made swinging gently back and forth. Whoever it was sat opposite, watching me.

Eyes tight shut, still as any mouse, I wished my own breath to be silent so whoever it was might think me already dead. I wished I were dead, oh how I wished. No! I did not. I did not want to die, here at the mercy of the silent watcher. Why had he not already killed me? Was he another pervert, a sadist, wanting to watch me die slowly, painfully? Yet I was not in pain. What’s more, my hands were no longer bound. Nor were my feet. I was free to stand, to move if I wished.

I lay for a moment longer, asking myself if I was really ready for what I might see, who I might see, what might happen if I opened my eyes, came face to face with my potential killer? I thought of my mother, of her courage in the face of her own death, and knew I must.

Putting my hands on either side, I levered myself upright, opened my eyes, and looked directly into the gaze of the woman watching me. Stunned, I said not a word and neither did she.

Her black hair spiraled from her scalp with a life of its own in sharp Medusa-like twists. Instinctively, I put up a hand to feel for my own soft locks, only to experience the shock of the loss all over again. Somehow I knew this woman had done it. She had cut off my natural glory and she had enjoyed every second. What, I wondered, would she do next?

She spoke.

“Do you know your name?”

I nodded.

“Tell me your name.”

“Angie.”

She nodded.

I watched carefully, wondering when she would make her move against me.

“My name is Mehitabel. You will never forget it.”

I knew that name, it came back to me now, something charming, gentle, a cat in a poem, wasn’t it? There was nothing sweetly catlike about this Mehitabel unless it was in the slant of the dark, watchful eyes and the long, clawlike nails, though hers were painted a flawless crimson. She was wearing a gray dress, sleeveless. I could see the muscles in her golden-tan arms ripple as she leaned toward me, smoothing her skirt, still staring intently into my own frightened eyes.

“I have instructions you are not to be bound,” she said. “You will do as you are told, move only when I say you might. We are to take a helicopter ride. You will be strapped in the seat next to me. You will act as if we are friends. The pilot is not to know anything different. I have your small suitcase with your new things. You chose well, particularly the undergarments.” She gave me the smile that lifted only the pointed corners of her scarlet-painted mouth, mean and spiteful. “They will look good on you.”

I became suddenly aware again of my nakedness and hung my head, shamed in front of her. Was she another part of this strange, terrible game I found myself in? Was I to be subjected to a different kind of sexual humiliation? She leaned closer and I felt her fingers on my nipples, shrank from her in shock.

“What a beautiful body you have, Angie,” she whispered, using my name for the first time.

Then suddenly she got to her feet, thrust a bundle of clothes at me, told me briskly to put them on. “You may take a shower first,” she said, already on her way to the door. “I will come back for you in ten minutes.”

I scrambled painfully to my feet. The bathroom was small but it had a window I could see out of.

The boat was moored at a middling-size dock. Yellowish lights beamed from high above and I realized it was night though I had no idea of the time. I saw people coming toward the boat, pushing trolleys piled with baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables. Live chickens squawked in cages. Fish leaped in water-filled glass containers. Crates full of bottles: Evian, Pellegrino, Badoit. Ghulbian and Mehitabel lived well on this grand yacht but there could be no escape for me from this small window.

I turned and looked around the cabin: cream colors and a pale leafy green, a delicate antique gold-rimmed mirror over an old-fashioned organdy-skirted vanity complete with a silver brush set and an embroidered little stool where some old movie diva might have sat to put on her lipstick and fix her hair. It was a room from another era.

I could stand the sweat on my body no longer. I went quickly into the shower, soaped myself, let the cool water slide off me, off my bald head. I wrapped myself in a luxurious towel, soft enough to feel pleasant, crisp enough to dry properly. I even rubbed lotion into my newly clean limbs; the scent was the old Guerlain, L’Heure Bleue. I wondered, did they even make it these days? It was delicious though and gave me a small respite from the horror of my situation, until I remembered the perfume’s name alluded to the hour between the end of the workday and the start of the proper evening: the “blue dusk” hour when men met their mistresses to make love. Oh, God, how strange was this? Was this Mehitabel’s perverse sense of humor?