24
Via Rainusso 108, Modena, Italy
January 5
Rhodri rolled off Eva and collapsed on the bed, arms over his head and breathing heavily. She curled around him, rested her head on his chest, kissed it.
“Don’t go back to work,” she murmured, holding him tight. “Take the afternoon off.”
He brushed her bare back with a dancing fingertip, smiled at her.
“What about you? Nothing to sell today?”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“I’ve got to paint more to sell more. And I’m definitely not inspired these days.”
“What do you need for inspiration? Tell me and I’ll get it for you.”
She stretched out and kissed him, his beard scratching her chin, and rested her face against his neck.
“You don’t need to buy me things. I’m fine the way I am. And we should be saving, not spending. Who knows when your luck will run out with the web jobs?”
Rhodri shrugged, stared at the ceiling.
“I’m pretty confident I’ve got it all taken care of.”
“Yeah, you say that a lot. But I seem to remember being overjoyed about eating an apple a few months ago. I know how fast things can change.”
He bent his face down, looked her straight in the eyes, spoke softly.
“Things are going to be good now, Eva. I promise you that. Things are under control, and getting better. I’m finally happy, and I’m going to make you happy too.”
She grinned at him, then swung a leg across him, crouching among the sheets, and kissed his chin.
“Make me happy. Take the day off.”
He tried to protest, but she moved her body down gently and took away his argument.
It was only minutes later that the peace was interrupted by the phone ringing loudly, shattering the moment. Rhodri turned an anxious face to the bedside table, and Eva caught his cheek with desperate hands.
“Ignore it,” she pleaded. “They’ll call back.”
He did, and they did. A minute later. This time, she couldn’t stop him from snatching the handset off the cradle and holding it to his ear, his other hand pressing a gentle finger to her lips to keep her quiet. She gave up the sounds, but not the motions. He bit back a moan himself.
“Rhodri here,” he said, wavering.
He listened as Eva continued to make love, kissing his neck and his other ear, so immersed in the act that she didn’t notice he was starting to sit up in bed, his brow tight with concern.
“Right now?” he asked. “Do I have time to—”
Eva saw his expression, held back a bit, and tried in vain to hear the other end of the conversation.
“All right,” Rhodri said. “Got it. I’ll call you when we get there.”
He hung up the phone, tossed it to the end of the bed. Eva, pausing herself, tried to catch his gaze.
“When we get where?” she asked.
He was distracted, looking around the room.
“Graz. Austria.”
“Austria? What’s in Austria?”
“A great new opportunity, apparently,” he said, sliding out from under her and throwing on his clothes. She sat there, nonplussed, and made no move to prepare.
“That was Dmitri again?” she asked, coldness in her voice.
“Yeah. He just heard there’s a big demand for web designers in Graz right now. Money to be made. He’s already got us train tickets, but we’ve got to be at the station by six.”
“And you trust him? You think this is a good idea?”
Rhodri smiled at her, but it was a weak smile. He shrugged.
“Dmitri’s always come through for me. If it weren’t for him, we’d be out on the street right now. So if he wants us to go to Austria, I think we ought to give it a try.”
“What if we don’t like it there. What if there’s an outbreak, or the only place to stay is worse than this?”
“The trains run both ways, Eva. Now come on, we’ve got to get ready. I need to pack up the office and tell the landlord I’m leaving.”
Eva slipped into a pair of pyjama pants and a top, reached Rhodri as he was tying his shoes. She crouched down next to him, brushed the side of his face with her fingers and he looked at her. She rested her forehead against his.
“Are you sure we need this? I like it here. I thought we could just stay. You know. Like forever.”
“Eva, I’m sorry. I like it here, too. But this is important to me. I wouldn’t even entertain this idea if it weren’t important. We can make things better in Austria. Just give it a try, okay?”
Eva looked at the ground for a minute, frowning. Then she met his eyes, nodded slightly.
“Will you get any afternoons off in Graz?” she asked, and he grinned.
“I’ll make sure I do,” he replied.
* * *
Beyond the blue haze, Eva could see shapes. White and brown, grey and black… they swirled ever so slightly, then began to solidify, became clear. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was on the ground in the snow, staring at a broken crate.
She rolled over, arm numb, and hit her head on the underside of the bench. Her vision flooded again, but she fought it and crawled out into the square. The snow had slowed to a trickle, though the sky was clear, light blue with only a few clouds. The air was colder than before, and she pulled her jacket tight.
She was alone; Pyotr had left in the night. The only footprints were her own.
Just then, a shuffle from the alley sent her racing for the nearest wall. She pressed herself against it tightly, grabbed a piece of broken wood from the ground and held it ready. She heard the sound of feet crunching in the snow, and then, at the entrance…
“Eva?” asked Pyotr from a distance. She dropped the wood and rushed to him, and he wrapped her in a blanket, rubbing her back. “Are you okay? When did you wake up?”
“Just now,” she wheezed, her teeth chattering. “Where were you?”
“I had to go check on some—”
“You left me here, alone?” she said furiously.
“Listen, nobody’d come near you, lying on the ground like that. You were safer here than most places.”
“So you say. I could’ve frozen to death.”
He nodded solemnly, met her eyes.
“I’m sorry, okay? I just wanted to see what I could find out.”
“About what?” she spat.
“Your mother,” he said, staring at his feet.
Eva closed her mouth, bit her lip. She was still woozy, but she had enough wits to know what to do. She wrapped an arm around Pyotr, holding him tight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, and thank you.”
She let go and he shrugged, unhappily.
“It’s not all good news,” he said. “All I’ve got is an address from three weeks ago. If she’s moved since then — and given the neighbourhood, she would — we’re out of luck.”
Eva nodded, her determined air returning.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“Not far. A few blocks, actually. But… Eva, listen. You said this new plague hits in December, right?”
“That’s what the police said.”
“That’s in two days, Eva. I don’t know if we have enough time to… I mean, if she’s really lost out there, I don’t know if we’ll be able to find her before—”
“I know. I know what you’re saying,” said Eva. “But we have to try. She’s all I’ve got left.”
“You’ve got Rhodri…”
“Not anymore,” she said, and started down the alley without him.
“Eva! Eva, what’s going on? What happened to you?”
She ignored him, kept walking, swaying side to side from the Tezocet, and he caught her by the arm, turned her around.
“What happened with Rhodri, Eva?”
She didn’t meet his eyes, took shaky breaths.
“I can’t talk about it, Pyotr. I’m sorry. All I can say is that… that we’re not together anymore, and you have to leave it at that.”
He stared at her, then nodded solemnly.
“Got it. Sorry. Forget I said anything.”
She managed a weak smile.
“So let’s go find your mum, and get out of this hellhole before the end of the month, all right?”
* * *
Three blocks away, they stopped across the street from low-rise building, torn apart by fire, looting and general decay. The top floors were missing entirely and she could see the pale clouds and snow falling through the windows.
“This is it,” he said.
“Doesn’t look like the kind of place my mother would live,” Eva said.
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Come on, let’s go see.”
The ground floor of the building was mostly boarded up, spray painted and abused. There was trash piled up so thick it was like a horrible wall of filth blocking their way. Pyotr pushed his way in and reached back for Eva, who had a hard time managing the uneven footing to get to the windows. She thought she saw a human arm sticking from one of the bags there. The air was ripe like sour grape jelly.
Pyotr brought them through to an old wooden window that thankfully slid up without much trouble. He climbed inside, then and lifted her over the ledge, putting her feet down carefully on an old wood floor.
It smelled of urine and cinnamon, which was an odd and sickening combination. Eva fumbled trying to cover her mouth and nose with her hand. Pyotr just screwed up his face, persevered.
The room was mostly empty, a broken chair lying sideways in the corner. A door at the far end that was waving slightly in a breeze Eva couldn’t feel, a sliver of light easing in and out along the floor like a faint heartbeat. An odd tension, the starkness of it, and it made Eva’s haze lift even more. She swallowed slowly.
Pyotr opened the door halfway and they sneaked through, found another empty room on the other side. It didn’t smell nearly as bad here, but again there was no sign of Eva’s mother. A cool breeze drifted through.
Then they heard it: a scuffling, a thud and scuffling, and the creak of a floorboard above. It stopped suddenly, and the room got so quiet Eva tried not to breathe, as if there were something to hear her. She cocked her head to Pyotr, motioned to the door.
He nodded to her, continued on. She followed through the doorless exit and into a narrow hallway, a row of nails in the wall where frames had once hung. At the end of the stretch was the source of the light: a stairwell leading up, the head of the bannister missing and a coat draped over the railing.
Eva grabbed Pyotr’s arm before he could walk further.
“It’s not my mother, I can tell,” she whispered as quietly as she could.
He nodded to her, reassuring, and she felt her fear starting to ease away just by the motion.
“We’ll see,” he whispered back. “You can never be sure.”
He took her hands in his, and tugging her along, they walked as gingerly as they could to avoid making noise.
She heard another scuffle, another thump, then more silence. They stopped, within reach of the bannister, and Pyotr leaned forward to peek around the corner, up the stairs. Eva moved with him, and she eased closer, closer, trying to see…
A crazed man’s face stared her down intensely.
“You!” he roared.