been able to swing a rock. But I knew Oster wouldn’t have had me declared dead. He wouldn’t want the publicity. “When Oster is here, when I’m sitting across from him, face-to-face, when I can smell him, see the wrinkles in his shirt, I’ll tell him about his wife, and Greta. I’ll give him time to get used to it before I go to the police.”
“Not too much time.”
“There’s Chen, I know.”
We were going past the tree again. “When, then?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll tape a statement for the police, have it all ready to hand over. We’ll get them all: Katerine, Greta, Meisener, Crablegs. All the others.” I was shaking. “They have no right! Years they’ve been playing with people, as though we were just chess pieces. I don’t even think Greta knows that other people apart from her really exist. Thousands of people have suffered. Tens of thousands.” And she had suffered because of Katerine. As I nearly had. As I had.
I wanted to see Katerine alone on a chair in a windowless room. I wanted her to weep. I wanted her eyes to turn red and sore. I wanted her to beg, to plead for some water, her contact lens case. “I want to see the color of her eyes.”
“Who?”
“My mother. I want to see her suffer.” No, it was more than that. “I want her to see me. I want her to look up at me and see me. I want to be able to look into her eyes and see myself reflected there. I want her to see that I see the world through my own eyes, and not hers. I want her to acknowledge me. See that I’m real, I exist. I’m grown, my own person. That I’m finally free to become who I might be.” I linked my arm through Magyar’s, pulled her to a halt. “Tomorrow. I promise. This time tomorrow.”
“Tonight. Right now would be better.”
“But tomorrow I’ll be ready. I’ll—”
“Lore, if you wait for the right moment, you’ll wait forever. There is no perfect time. You just have to do it anyway. Things won’t be any better tomorrow.”
“But what’s the hurry?” I had waited three years. “If it’s Lucas Chen you’re worried—”
She made an impatient, chopping motion. “I’m sorry for what he’s going through, but it’s you I care about. Tell me honestly—will it be any easier to talk to your father tomorrow than today?”
Me and Oster. I took a deep breath, let it out again. “No.”
“Tonight, then.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Tonight. But I’ll make the tape first. And after tonight’s shift . . . What?”
“You’re doing it again. Not facing things. Tell me, why wait until after the shift?”
“It’s my job. . .” But, of course, she was right. I would never work there again. There was no more Sal Bird, aged twenty-five. Done with, all done with. Tonight, during winter dark in this part of the world, I would call Ratnapida. A blaze of light, clear water. Limpid reflections. No more obscuring the truth. No more shadows and lies. Tonight.
“Do you want me to come home with you?”
“No. Tonight will be soon enough. I need some sleep. And I need to tape that statement. I’ll call you at the plant when . . . when . . . I’ll call you.”
I held her again, for a long time. I could feel the shape of her through her coat and mine, the hard bone, pliant muscles. I wanted her with a hard, deep ache. Tonight.
TWENTY-SIX
The next day in the tent passes slowly. Lore gets her breakfast, but long after her internal clock tells her it is early afternoon, there is still no lunch. She begins to worry. Why haven’t they fed her?
Why feed someone you are going to kill?
Thirty million. It isn’t much. She has no idea what the family’s total holdings are but she knows it adds up to tens of billions. Thirty million. She had requisitioned more than that herself for the Kirghizi project.
It must be Oster. He must have found out that she and Tok know about Stella, know what he has done to her. Maybe he has already killed Tok, somehow. Maybe he is deliberately stalling negotiations so that her kidnappers will kill her, then no one will know what he has done. But how is he stopping Katerine from paying? Her mother is smarter than Oster.
Lore shakes her head. She has to understand, has to work it out, find a way to make them pay.