we’re not going to make it.
I’m not the person I was. The events of the last week have shown me the shadow self I’ve always denied, and forced me to hear the backbeat I’ve always pretended wasn’t there. All my certainties have evaporated. Villanelle has deleted them.
“Fuck’s sake, Villanelle.”
“What?”
“You kicked me literally all night.”
“You farted all night.”
“I didn’t. You’re just making that up.”
“I’m not. It’s because you don’t shit.”
“Right, you’re a doctor now?”
“Eve, since we left London you haven’t shitted once.”
“Shat.”
“Past tense of shit is shat? You’re shitting me.”
“Funny girl. Yes, it’s irregular.”
“Like you, pupsik. And you know why you haven’t shat for a week? Because you’re repressed.”
“A psychologist, too. This is fascinating.”
“You’re embarrassed. So you hold it in.”
“I do no such fucking thing.”
“You should kill a few people. Get it out of your system. Then you mightn’t be so uptight about shitting in front of your girlfriend.”
“Say that again.”
“Say what again?”
“Girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend. Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. Enough?”
“No. Never stop.”
“You’re so whipped.”
“I know. Come here.”
The last night in the container is the worst. The wind screams across our bow, pounding against the container stacks so that they creak and groan. In the darkness, my hunger pangs and the vessel’s pitch and roll join forces to nauseating effect. I draw my knees up against my chest and lie open-eyed as acid rises into my throat. Then I’m on my hands and knees, retching uncontrollably, but there’s nothing in my stomach to come up. The wind continues its assault for hours, until my body is wrung out and my throat raw from dry heaving.
Throughout it all, Villanelle says not one word, makes not a single sympathetic gesture. A touch would do it, but none is forthcoming. I don’t know if she’s asleep or awake, angry or indifferent. She’s just not there. I feel so utterly abandoned that I half-expect to find myself alone when the morning comes, if it ever comes.
Somehow, I drift off. When I wake an unquantifiable time later the wind has dropped, my stomach cramps have gone, and Villanelle’s sleeping body is warm against my back. I lie there unmoving, her arm heavy on mine, her breath whistling across my ear. Careful not to wake her, I maneuver myself into a position where I can see my watch. It’s gone 6 a.m., Baltic time. Outside the day is dawning, cold and dangerous.
Finally, Villanelle stirs, yawns, stretches like a cat, and buries her face in my hair. “Are you OK? You sounded awful last night.”
“You were awake? Why didn’t you say anything? I thought I was going to die.”
“You weren’t going to die, pupsik, you were seasick. There was nothing I could say to make you feel better, so I went to sleep.”
“I felt alone.”
“I was right here.”
“Couldn’t you have said something?”
“What should I have said?”
“Fuck, I don’t know, Villanelle. Just something to tell me that you knew how I was feeling?”
“But I didn’t know how you were feeling.” She gets to her feet and stumbles across the clothing bales to the safety hatch. A minute later the interior of the container is illuminated with a thin morning light. Pulling down her leggings and pants, Villanelle squats over the bucket. In her thick sweater she looks shapeless and bedraggled, her hair standing out from her head in spikes. I follow her to the bucket, pee in my turn, then carry it over to the hatch and pour it out. The urine freezes immediately, thickening the cascade of yellowish ice streaking the container’s exterior.
Bracing myself against the sub-zero blast of the wind, I search the horizon. Slicing between sea and sky is a faint, gray knife blade. I’m not sure if it’s a trick of the light, so I find my glasses in my bike-jacket pocket and look again. It’s land. Russia. I stare out of the hatch, trying to focus my thoughts, and then Villanelle is beside me, her cold cheek pressed to mine.
Sniffing, she wipes her nose with her sleeve. “When we get there, you do exactly what I say, OK?”
“OK.” I watch as the silhouette of St. Petersburg slowly hardens. “Villanelle?”
“Yes.”
“I’m scared. I’m really fucking terrified.”
She slips a hand under my sweater and over my heart. “It’s not a problem. Being scared when you’re in danger is normal.”
“Are you scared?”
“No, but I’m not normal. You know that.”
“I do. And I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me, pupsik. But you have to trust me.”
I turn to her, and we hold each other, my fingers in her greasy hair, hers