Chapter Text
When he had first opened his eyes, the new welcome to the world was pitch-black, lit only by one faint candle. He remembers the pattering melody of rain, the hum of soft electricity in the air. Her welcome is blinding light, but cold and sterile. There is the distinct smell of ether and ozone, and as she opens her deep dark eyes, and the first gasp of breath swells her lungs, she doesn’t see anything but white. Gradually, her sense of sight readjusts. There is a shape there –a silhouette, blurry and imprecise, but there. She blinks. The silhouette becomes a man, or something very much like a man.
He recalls waking up to rejection, darkness and panic. She wakes up and sees her new world with a smile.
Her first steps are not as successful as his were. There is something wrong with her left leg. A brace of steel and leather is eventually fashioned for her, but the lack of answers as to why this happened stupefies the other men (the doctors) to the point of frustration. He watches her from a distance, as she is slowly commanded to move. They are patient with her. Nobody was this patient with him.
After that first moment of mutual recognition, they are kept apart for some time. She must be properly clothed, taught and groomed. This makes her anxious. When she is slipped into her new dress, however –a pretty thing in rust-orange silk –her smile returns, and she runs her hands over the fabric, with that same giddiness with which she is discovering her environment. The doctors watch her with pride and an almost paternal sense of affection that makes her feel good. She feels beloved. She is welcome.
He cannot stop thinking about her. The sight of her smiling that pleased crooked smile haunts him. The doctors know this, and chuckle as they shake their heads. Time only makes the obsession grow. He suspects the doctors are doing this on purpose.
When she is presented back to him, limping and grunting, he doesn’t know what to do. He has been trying to think of the words with which to introduce himself to her, but whatever dim clumsy script he had managed to write during those tortuous few days and nights, the sight of her stills him completely. She gazes at him in her usual curiosity, slowly tilting her head, pale lips barely twitching, before they stretch and then she’s grinning. She remembers me. This is enough for now to make him cautiously step forward and, as he reaches out for her, she suddenly steps back with a creak and a thump. He scares her. The surface of his heart begins to fracture. She keeps her alert eyes on him, as if assessing him. It takes a moment before she finally lowers her chin and raises her singed eyebrows, as if about to ask him a question, and stretches her arm towards him. There’s a hesitation –from him –as he briefly wonders if this is some sort of trick. It wouldn’t surprise him. Joy can so quickly turn to pain. His fingers itch to retract. But he continues. This dance they are doing is tense but still tentative. That means there’s hope. The doctors watch closely: both of them wish they weren’t there. His wrist turns in a stilted gesture, fingers stiff, so his palm is facing up. Her hand remains moving ahead, palm facing down. Slowly, gently, the contact is made –her fingers touch his –and their thumbs move in a perfect synchronicity, turning a brush into a grip. Their hands are warm.
He smiles at her. He can’t remember the last time he smiled.
Then they are pulled apart again. He is given a small nod by one of the orderlies, as if telling him his five minutes are up. His first thought is to put up a fight –allow himself to be punished if that means he can stay a moment longer. But just as he starts to tense his shoulders, a caring hand moves to her back, gently steering her to the other door.
He steps back, eyes fixed on her, before he disappears behind the door. She turns around to see him a second too late.
Her room, as she soon finds out, is seven steps wide and four steps long. The walls are split in up and down –upper half a dusty white, lower half a pale green. She stands in front of it for about a minute. Her fingers run over the cold white iron of her bed frame as she thinks. White over green –she can recognize something –but the image appears malformed in her mind. The echoing hum of pipes, coming from the radiator in her room, don’t help her concentrate. Those first nights, even when secluded, the world seems so loud.
She becomes used to it, with time. Still, she does not like her room. It is just a place to sleep; there is nothing else to do there. So, when she is allowed out, she is beaming and thankful.
It is always warm and humid in the conservatory. The gardener flutters around, doing the soft work of caring for the plants, while the doctors continue watching over their specimens through one of the glass walls. She watches a cluster of ants gathered in the palm of her hand, fascinated by their twitching bodies, the choppy movements and, as she leans her head down closer and feels her own breath on her skin, the fully alien appearance of these creatures. She has no fear.
The gardener works quietly, and despite enjoying the silence, the doctors insist she becomes attuned to music –to sophistication. A heavy gramophone in a corner spins a scratched record, as a male voice trills and warbles, spelling sweet words. She loves it so much. He gazes at her with a bitter combination of delight and shame that causes him to bite the inside of his sunken cheek. The sunlight casts filtered shadows, of straight lines that lose their solidity as they fall on the mess that is her hair, unruly despite the hard steel combs of the silent orderlies. He remains sitting on a corner, running his hand on the cast iron armrest, sliding down his palm over the downwards curve. She laughs when an ant bites her delicately. Her other hand swings in the heavy air and there’s a slap, and the ants become little blotted inkstains on her skin. He chuckles.
Language is instilled into her, and she proves to be a very quick learner. This is quite satisfactory. Most of all, she amuses the doctors by her blithe attempts at singing, her vocalizations earning charmed applause. She grins again. She bows, as one of the doctors teaches her to do. He watches from the sidelines, wanting to clap, but finding his arms are too stiff by repulsion to move.
He knows that, even when they’re alone, they’re not really alone. They don’t talk yet. He is given time with her in the conservatory, and in the sitting room, and in a long narrow hall where they are asked to wait before their daily checkups are done. The cold walls echo with her humming. She loves that music so, so much. She doesn’t know any better.
She is what he has always wanted. She is a dream made flesh. He longs to touch her again. By the way she occasionally shoots him small glances and smiles, he hopes she thinks the same –but he doubts so.
He sighs softly, and stares at his hands. A line comes to him, from the depths of his history: abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss...
One afternoon, as he is escorted to the sitting room, a doctor passes by and gives him a smirk.
“How is our little lovebird today?”
He doesn’t look at the doctor, only hears the flapping of his tongue and lips, while he keeps walking, feeling the weight of his own feet dragging over the linoleum.
She is curious about the other subject –then again, she’s curious about everything. She’s curious about why she is made to undress every day when she loves her dress so much, why she is laid down and poked and prodded with sharp hard needles, and made to shiver with cold metal instruments. She’s curious, yes, but she hates that routine. She protests once, and as soon as her mouth closes again after the complaint is uttered, she is stabbed with a thin pain on her arm, and she is sent to sleep.
She wakes up sore. Her left side is numb, absent. She drags herself upright and sits, head hanging, breathing slow and heavy. Something happened. She can’t find the words.
She moves her left leg. They took away her brace. It feels heavy regardless, slow to answer. She settles on the edge of the bed. Her nails trace her thigh. Nothing. Her palm presses down harder. A distant response arrives, late and dull. She grits her teeth and squeezes her arm; pain blooms there immediately, sharp and precise. Not everywhere, then.
She slaps her thigh –hard. The sting comes after. She frowns.
She stands and finds the wall. Dark green beneath white. Her hand follows the seam, the cool surface steady beneath her fingers. She pushes her mind to search associations with its dark green color. Nothing.
The corridor stretches long, longer than she remembers. She can’t remember how many steps it takes to cross from one end to the next. She finds her already lagging memory working even less efficiently recently. The pipes hiss. Somewhere, she can hear the clink-clink jingle of the keys of an orderly patrolling the halls. The air smells sweet with floor wax. She is beginning to tire of it.
She turns. He is already there.
He tries not to stare. She is humming another song to herself, the one of the latest records from the conservatory. When she had heard it for the first time, she had begun to do funny little movements –swinging her arms, closing her eyes and moving to the simple, happy beat. He had made up his mind: he would not approach her, at least not yet. He knew the doctors were eager to study their connection. But in those sorts of moments, where she did something like that –dance humbly, or sing to whoever would listen, or observe the bugs, or softly run her fingers through her frizzy hair, as if to soothe herself –he couldn’t help but watch, and smile, and feel like he –whatever he might be –was quite blessed to be able to stay this close to someone, enough to witness them like this.
“Just direct your feet, to the sunny side of the street...” she sings quietly. She tries not to show it –but there is an underlying anxiety rushing through her bloodstream.
“Can’t... You hear... Can’t you hear...?”
How could she have forgotten? She had sung that song to herself a million times just the last couple days. She frowns, her head jerking to the side, as if trying to avoid an annoying little fly.
“C-can’t you... Can’t you h-hear...?”
A vibration starts on the floor, travelling up through the soles of her boots. She can feel it more than she can hear it.
He is humming. It is a low, tectonic rumble, like soft thunder, like a tired groan. Then, his voice breaks through the small noises of the hallway –a deep, rough but steady voice, the sound of years with no interloper...
“... The pitter-patter, babe... And that happy tune is your step... Life can be so sweet...”
“... On the sunny side of the street.”
As soon as they finish singing the verse, she stays still for a moment –then looks up. She releases a small exhalation, as if relieved. He watches her, standing in front of him, wondering what is going through her mind. Then, he notices the way her eyes move –tracing the lines on his face –and just like she did, he jerks his head and turns aside, hoping the shadows of that long hallway with tall ceilings and faraway lamps are enough to hide him. Despite that, she keeps watching him. She has no scars. None of the doctors have scars. He is something else... Someone else.
A captive, like her.
The next day something happens, and for once he is not there for her at the conservatory. She waits, distracting herself by delicately pressing the tip of her finger against the sharp end of a thorn. Enough to feel it pierce the outermost layer of skin –not enough to draw blood. She waits for the duration of four records, which the usual orderly set and removed from under the needle of the gramophone. She wonders what happened. She wonders whether she will see him again. She hopes so.
She thinks of his voice, a deep and quiet hum. Reliable. She thought he was reliable.
She finds it near the roots of a potted palm: a dead beetle, its back a curved shell of shimmering, iridescent green. Hard, solid. A metallic leaf. A word –emerald –comes to mind, along with the image of earrings behind glass. It is beautiful, and she picks it up and holds it in her palm, and stares at it for a long, long time, turning it to see how it shifted colors (blue, purple, orange, yellow) as it catches the filtered sunlight.
Knowing she is being watched, and deciding she doesn’t care, she grabs the hem of her dress. She uses her teeth. A sharp tug, a tiny rip of fabric, and she fishes for the end of the seam. In a second, she tugs at it, and so she has a long, vibrant orange silk thread dangling from her fingertips. She ties it around the beetle’s middle, knotting it tight. Once the gift is wrapped, she leaves it on his usual garden chair for him to find.
When he sees it, he freezes. The orange thread is a bright contrast of color against the deep black cast iron. He knows it’s hers –and now it’s his.
He doesn’t untie it. He picks up the beetle, feels its hard shell and light weight, and then –like an amateur thief –he hurries to tuck it into the pocket of his pants.
It is the first gift she has ever given. It is the first gift he has ever received.
In the dark of his cell, the beetle seems to glow. The orange silk thread catches what little light bled in from the hallway. A thin, garish line of defiance.
She thanked him. For the song? For the smiles? For the company?
He feels a wave of nausea. She shouldn't be thanking him. If he had only stayed still and silent, she would be in peace, or in darkness, or enjoying whatever mercy existed before the electrical shock...
But he likes to believe she would be thankful for the second attempt at life. He doesn’t know that –as far as he knows, she might always resent him if she knew –but even in that cage, deprived of the freedom she deserves, perhaps she still finds a reason to go on. If anything, at least out of curiosity –to know what will happen next.
He moves to the corner of his room where the floorboards meet the concrete wall. He finds a small, loose knot in the wood. He has a suspicion the doctors know he has that secret place. And yet there is a chance they don’t know. A chance that the beetle is safe there, and that, for once in their lives, they have a modicum of respect for the dead.
He clears away the dust with a trembling finger. He lays the insect down as if he is burying a saint.
I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I’m sorry..., he repeats in his mind, like a prayer.
He isn’t apologizing to the beetle, their little martyr. He is apologizing to the woman in the rust-orange dress, her fellow inmate. He is apologizing for the fact that, despite the guilt, he knows he is going to keep the gift.
The days pass. The eyes of the doctors –those she had sought at first, those she had chased with her little achievements and proud milestones –become something she does not enjoy anymore. She would have expected to become used to the doctors, after a certain point. But her rejection of their tests and demands only grows. She becomes sullen, and while she continues to learn fast, the doctors become fidgety. This experiment is not going as expected. The two subjects take far too long to connect again: and soon enough, they are both unresponsive.
She is not in the mood for singing. The rain is too loud in the conservatory anyway. There is no record on the gramophone that day, a punishment for biting an analyst. There is only the cold powerful stirring of the storm, and the occasional quaking rumble of thunder. She plucks the petal of a flower, and slowly rubs it against her cheek. She closes her eyes. She knows he is watching her, but his eyes aren’t invasive. They don’t feel like they’re just waiting to devour her as soon as she puts her guard down.
She turns around and looks back at him. He sits a little straighter, as he always does when her attention is on him.
“Who are you?”
He should have expected her to begin with a question. In a sense, he already did.
“... I’m me.”
“I’m me, too.”
He smiles. She smiles, though she doesn’t know why.
“What do they want?”
He thinks for a moment that stretches for a few seconds. She grits her teeth while waiting, but she supposes he must have somewhat forgotten how to speak, since she had never heard him do it before.
“They want to have you.” That wasn’t entirely true; just mostly. It was one unusual time the doctors were willing to share.
She says nothing to that. In a sense, she already knew.
“Do they want to have you?”
“They already have me.”
She doesn’t fully understand what that means, but his voice sounds like the saddest thing she has heard, sadder than any torch song she has listened to.
His face is dappled with the shadow of raindrops on the glass. It is a dark day, but she still manages to see him. “... What do you want?”
She lets the question linger in the charged air for a moment. For her, it is so obvious –he must know, he certainly must know. She looks out through the glass walls, through the misted, blurry layer between the two of them and the world. He follows her line of sight. She doesn’t know anything yet. He doesn’t want to think like the doctors –but isn’t that true? She then turns her head to the large stone fortress they were expected to call home. They might not be watching, for once... Then again, they might be.
She limps towards him, her silk clinging in between her legs. She leans down, closer to him. He smells clean, in a more alive way than the way these rooms and halls do. It’s the warmth, she tells herself. The doctors’ hands are always cold.
She hasn’t been this close since they first met. His heart throbs in his throat. His breath slips away. His eyes close, and his fingers squeeze his knees.
Her lips almost graze his ear. “Let’s leave.”
He tightens his jaw. He has tried, of course –several times over the years... But he has never had an accomplice.
This might be the best chance either one would ever have.