Elissa chooses the latter. It’ll cause a few oddities with her naming conventions. The new column to the right of H will be I, but she designates the columns to the left of A as Y and Z. Likewise, the four new rows beneath 1 become 0, –1, –2 and –3. This results in corner points at Y8, I8, Y–3 and I–3. As a reference system, it’s needlessly complicated, but at least it’ll give her brain a workout.
While there’s no way of proving it, she thinks she’s underground. The floor has an excavated look. The walls seem like the foundations of a larger structure above her head.
For the first time, she sees the colours of the objects she found in darkness. The waste bucket at B3 is cherry red. The cleaning bucket is black. The candles are white and the glazed ceramic holder, which rolled into I8, is a dark and musty green.
One thing Elissa would prefer not to see is the gunk in C4 – brownish-red, definitely organic. Nothing about it gives her confidence. Deliberately, she turns away, finding the twin pools of vomit at F5. Beside them is the pillow. It’s damp-looking and tatty. The faded case features yellow flowers on an orange background. They don’t make designs like that these days – the thing must be forty years old.
Elissa’s stomach grips with hunger. Standing, she crosses the floor to her rucksack, awkwardly dragging her chain. A dribble of molten wax rolls on to her knuckles. The pain is intense, but she doesn’t drop the candle. With her free hand, she empties the pack, stacking her belongings and placing Monkey on top. ‘Don’t worry,’ she tells him. ‘I have a plan.’
Casting the empty rucksack like a fishing net, she drags the holder within reach and plugs in her candle. Only then does she pick the hardened wax from her knuckles, tucking the loose flakes into the matchbox. Everything in this room has a currency. She won’t waste a thing.
Now, to the brownie. Elissa opens the wrapper slowly, careful not to destroy it. Easing out the snack like toothpaste from a tube, she takes a small bite – no more than an eighth of what’s there – and puts the rest away, folding down the cellophane to retain as much moisture as possible.
She chews greedily. The urge to take another bite is almost all-consuming, but she resists, repacking the rucksack with the brownie at the bottom and retreating as far as her chain will allow. There she stands, bending her legs and lifting her feet, exercising her muscles as best she can.
Abruptly, Elissa decides to do something about the vomit, and drags the wash bucket across the cell. She doesn’t have a sponge or cloth, so before indecision paralyses her she unzips her dress. The compulsion to clean has filled her head. Everything else recedes.
Struggling so frantically that she almost rips the dress, Elissa peels off her cotton vest. There’s no way to free it from the chain connecting her to the iron ring, but she doesn’t care about that. Dunking it in the bucket, she slops cleaning solution over the floor. Elissa works with an empty head, sluicing and scrubbing, squeezing and swilling. By the time she’s finished, she’s used up far more of the solution than she’d intended and the front of her dress is soaked.
Worse, she’s shivering. It’s colder in here than she first thought. Without her vest, the chill is far more acute. As the fog of her mania lifts, she realizes the extent of her foolishness. How could she have rated a clean cell over basic warmth? There’s no way she can wear her vest again until it dries; and in here that might take for ever. Dismayed at just how badly she has hobbled herself, she wrings it out as best she can.
Miserable, Elissa huddles on her knees. Holding out her hands to the candle flame, she focuses on her breathing until her shivers begin to subside. Around her, shadows dance like slinking wolves.
Then she hears something that originates not in this room but beyond it – the sound, unmistakable, of metal bolts being drawn.
VI
For a moment, all thought abandons her. Like a wild animal, she charges away from the door. One foot kicks over the candle holder, plunging the chamber into darkness. Her chain snaps taut. The manacle bites her wrist, yanking her off her feet.
The pain is brutal. Convulsing, Elissa curls into a ball. She clenches her eyes shut, telling herself that if he thinks she’s asleep she’ll be safe, that he won’t hurt her.
With a squeal of rubber seals, the door swings open. Through closed eyelids, Elissa sees a pinkish glow and knows a torch beam is swabbing the room. It settles on her face, and even though her breathing is ragged she tries to feign sleep, forcing her shoulders to rise and fall in long, deliberate movements.
Finally, serrating the darkness, comes her jailer’s voice: a whisper, still, but no less sharp because of it. ‘I know you’re awake. There’ll never be anything, ever in this life, that you can conceal from me. Take as long as you need to learn that lesson, but for your own comfort I’d advise haste.’
In the ensuing silence, Elissa hears nothing but the rush of her blood. For the first time she notices a smell: not the sickening sweetness of spoiled poultry but the richness of cooked food.
‘When one has a visitor it’s polite to acknowledge them, or did your mother never teach you that?’ her jailer asks. ‘Time to open your eyes, Elissa Mirzoyan, and see what is true.’
He won’t be fooled, so there’s no point maintaining the pretence. And yet she cannot prise her eyes open.
‘I brought you something to eat,’ he says, after a long silence. ‘Something to drink, too.’ His tone has changed: there’s a scratch of displeasure that wasn’t there before. ‘By your silence, I assume you don’t want it. No matter. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly you remember your manners. Perhaps a little fasting will hasten their return.’
Elissa hears the scrape of his heels. Moments later, the soundproofed door thump-whooshes as it closes. The deadbolts rattle home.
Immediately, her eyes spring open.
It’ll be interesting to see how quickly you remember your manners. Perhaps a little fasting will hasten their return.
Does that mean he’ll be gone an hour? A day?
A week?
Elissa sits up straight in the darkness. Her right wrist throbs. When she touches it, her shriek of agony bounces off the walls – the pain is extraordinary, as if she’s brushed a raw nerve. There’s a wetness there, an openness, that’s terrifying. Just now, when she scrambled away from the door, the manacle’s sharp edge bit into her flesh. The damage is far, far worse than she’d thought.
Supporting her metal cuff, she tries to locate the overturned candle holder. Adrenalin has fried her brain. For a while, she’s so jittery she can’t even call up her mental chessboard. Her muscles twitch, stray pulses of electricity sending them into spasm. Fireflies dance before her eyes. Disoriented, she crawls back to the iron hoop. Even then, she can’t calculate her facing. Is the door to her left or her right? The lack of clarity is paralysing. For long minutes she kneels before her sunken anchor, as if it’s a totem from which she can receive guidance.
Finally, an idea breaks through the chaos of her thoughts. The four squares that surround the ring might be empty, but if she can find the soaked floor from F5 to G4, she can realign herself. Within moments she does exactly that. Slowly, a little of her composure returns. Holding the manacle clear of her injured wrist, she begins an exhaustive re-examination of the floor.