Dreams Ltd (29 page)

My tea got completely cold and a sense of comfort that I’d got previously, quietly, but quickly evaporated. Instead of it I got a longing feeling for my old apartment in Klendon City and my life before Tally. I gently ran my finger along the dusty cover of the "Agriculture", put the book aside and sighed. It wasn’t mine anyway and I didn’t for a moment think that Hulk would loan it to read. Not that I was that interested in farming but from my personal experience I knew that all books written by Tueric people were fascinating and it wouldn’t hurt to practise a little bit as well.

“Do you want to tell me something?” asked Hulk, looking at me intently.

“No.”

He nodded slightly; thoughtful expression didn’t leave his face.

“You tell me.” he stated shortly, “you tell me where you learned this language and what brought you to Tally as well...”

I tensed up, prepared to defend myself, but he just grinned.

“But not today, I am tired now. You will come here tomorrow afternoon, and we'll talk again then.”

How could I argue with that? If he told me to come, then I will come. On the one hand that meant that the interrogation, which I wanted to avoid by all means, will go on, but on the other hand there was a subtle sense of delight.

Why would I feel such a delight?

I tried to grasp the cause of this inappropriate emotion but quickly discovered that it was absolutely impossible in my current condition, it was like if a marathon runner after jogging for forty kilometres would decide to go to a disco - no, it’s just impossible. So I gave up on trying to figure my feeling out and decided to give it some thought later.

“I’ll think about your points and the punishment later.” Hulk predetermined my question, “Now go to bed.”

I did not ask anything else or argued, just got up and walked towards the door. If he wants to continue our conversation tomorrow, then that’s fine by me. The scariest task was already accomplished - I confessed about the damaged whips and nobody will be fined twenty points tomorrow morning because of what I did, so at least I can sleep peacefully for the rest of the night. And I haven’t been thrown to Greg to be torn apart - what a happy day!

On the way out I glanced at the beige shirt again and a slight pain stung my heart - Alex also had a habit of throwing his things around the house, messy dude.

Oh, no. Not this, please, I told myself off quietly and closed the door.

After I got back to my dingy room, I was laying on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling and thinking everything over. My body was tired, but the mind was too excited, popping up with different images from the distant and close past. Here's Hulk sitting in front of me in his chair and scanning every word that comes out of my mouth. Why does he not make me feel scared like Greg, for example? By all means Hulk should have generated more fear in me, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not make myself feel any dislike or disgust towards him but rather an obscure bunch of mixed emotions. Sometimes he was as cold as ice, sometimes fair and sometimes completely neutral. And today... How come I experienced this weird desire to spend more time in his office? Wasn’t that silly?

On the other hand, everything that I once had, my smoothly running life, before and after Alex – all this seemed to have lost its value and the only thing I had now was what was happening here and now. All these people around me such as Tabitha, quarry workers, Greg, Hulk -– they now became my new reality. Something was gradually changing inside of me, new things were firmly taking a place in my mind and my heart, and old things were fading away and slowly disappearing. How would I envisage all those people I knew before Tally now? They still go shopping, drink coffee in cafes, sit in bars in the evenings, fight, laugh, forgive, eat breakfasts, and go to their jobs... They are free and they don’t understand and don’t appreciate it. They don’t even think that a city like Tally could ever exist in a reality and for me this was the real life. This desert, this ranch, these rules of survival... Cruel and stupid, but I have to put up with them.

Finally, I fell asleep and my tired mind switched off, halted in expectation of a new day.

The next morning I had some breakfast in the kitchen with Tabitha. For some time now, I had my morning meals here and not in the dining room with the others. The radio on a windowsill was playing some melody and Tabitha was busy with the dishes in the sink.

“Wow, I really prepared to say good-bye to the twenty points!” she muttered, soaping a spoon, “since the early morning I’ve checking my bracelet, waiting for the signal. Oh, my... I couldn’t sleep since six in the morning!”

I sat silently, burying my nose in the bowl.

“But, no, it’s not happened! So, someone must have confessed, the scoundrel who damaged the whips. I am not judging them. I’d do the same if I could... Ugh!” she spat, rattling with the soapy cups, “but, twenty points are not peanuts! It takes enough time to collect them.”

I mumbled something inaudible as if agreeing with her. As soon as Tabitha quieted down, we heard the voice of the announcer coming from the radio speakers.

“...after losing two thousand points at the casino, Mr Tompkins has committed suicide by jumping off a bridge on the road, from where his body was delivered to the...”

Stopped listening to the radio, I have pushed the empty bowl away and looked at Tabitha.

“Is there a casino in Tally?”

“Yes,” she said, “anyone can play there, but nobody has won anything as far as I know. Do you know how many idiots believe in miracles? They think that Lady Luck will smile at them and save them from Tally in minutes; therefore they spin and spin these wheels digging a deeper and deeper hole. And when they eventually realise that they are in a massive in minus, it’s too late...”

Today Tabitha was unusually talkative.

“Is there a limit to a negative score?” I asked her.

“No, there isn’t. But never you go there, do you hear me?” she warned me, shaking her head, “Do not even think about it no matter what anyone says.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Believe me, you don’t need that. They will let you in, of course, because anyone can go in, but then they come out feet first, or like that guy - jump down the bridge.”

She shook her head again and I, despite the heat this morning, shivered.

What a well-thought-out system! Someone must have had a great murky imagination creating it. People always believed in luck and therefore millions and millions were spent in casinos and lost, but yet people keep on believing in it. Their hope for a miracle stays alive when everything inside is dead. I felt petrified imagining what it would be like to come out from the casino in the morning, when there are about minus three thousand on your bracelet... I shuddered from this picture of the terrible Tally, got up, put my bowl in the sink, and then cleared up the crumbs from the table.

“OK, I’m off.”

Tabitha, listening to the radio, just nodded.

“OK. If you are late for lunch, I’ll leave the food in the fridge.”

I went into the quiet courtyard that boarded with a garden, pleasantly stretched my body and looked around. The day, oddly enough, was calm and quiet and watching how the morning sun gilding the green leaves with a golden shimmer, my spirits improved. I tried to recall what kind of duties I had today and it seemed there wasn’t many. I had to scrape the front yard, bring some bundles stacked in the cart to the barn by the far field and deliver the food to the quarry. That was, sort of, it. But was it really? I felt like something important was slipping away from my mind and tried to rummage through my memory again. Oh, right! I have to visit Hulk’s office this afternoon, so we could continue our heart-to-heart conversation.

Weirdly enough, this idea made me worry but also feel something odd... something sweet and viscous... For a while I was anxiously wondering what the exact feeling it was, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Even though it was something incompatible with the logic, almost alien, I didn’t hurry to get rid of it - it was as if a drop of water dew fell on the parched by worries surface of my soul and made me hope that something miraculous could happen.

I shook my head. What is going on with me? Rummaging in the depths of my consciousness on the subject "is this a panic from the fear of meeting Hulk?" and, strangely enough, not being able to determine any of it, I let myself smile. I walked to the corner of the house to visit the pantry first and get a couple of scrubbing brushes which were suitable for cleaning the yard.

Before I knew it was time for lunch the heat increased. After I returned from the quarry with the cart and empty barrel, I glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall and discovered that it was almost three o’clock and went to take a shower feeling the need to wash off the dust from my skin and clean my clothes before going to Hulk’s office. Since I wasn’t sure when exactly he was expecting me, I decided to turn up right now. I’d rather be early, than late. A strange feeling of some upcoming changes would not leave me even for a second, though I couldn’t find any real reasons for it. In my heart I had already accepted the future loss of my hard-earned twenty points and now it would be just silly to worry about it. I didn’t manage to collect a large amount of point anyway and therefore I couldn’t hope to leave Tally anytime soon. Somewhere in the back of mind I came to terms with my situation and realised that it was time for me to start learning how to make my life more or less bearable here.

At half past three I knocked on the door on the second floor.

“Come in.” I heard the voice of the owner of this heavenly oasis.

I went in and paused at the door, not knowing whether I should go and sit on the sofa like yesterday or it will be regarded as a gross violation of subordination today. Not being able to come to any conclusion, I made a couple of steps forward and halted.

Hulk was dressed in a pale yellow shirt, unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest; the sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. His blonde hair was neatly combed back, and his whole appearance was a proof that spending time on his own villa was a pleasant and not burdensome pastime for him.

“I wouldn’t like to sit in a room, how about a little walk and some fresh air?”

He asked me in such a caring way as if he wasn’t a slave owner, but an average man who’d just innocently invited a lady to go for an ice-cream and seriously thinks that she might decline his offer.

“Of course.” I said politely, wistfully thinking that the sun at this time of the day was still roasting like hell and it will be quite hard to get any “fresh” air. I seriously doubted that there was any place in this ever sizzling desert that I could find pleasant enough for a walk, but I didn’t dare to say it aloud.

We went outside and headed towards the fields where I could see the workers’ naked backs. To my relief the groans or any other sounds could not be heard from here, and that made me feel a bit better.

Hulk was walking slowly, as if deeply in thought and I was walking by his side brushing against the leaves of some high similar to corn plants with my trousers. There was a hot breeze now touching our faces, ruffling my unruly, still damp from the shower hair and swaying the collar of my companion’s shirt. In fact, the walk was nicer than I was expecting and the heat wasn’t too much.

“So, you can read Tueric.” finally broke the long silence Hulk.

I nodded absently, looking at my feet.

“Yes, I can. But only very slowly and I would need to use a dictionary, because I lost a lot of my knowledge without the practice.”

“Uh-huh.” he said, agreeing, “I have a dictionary, so it is not a problem.”

For a while he was quite again. We continued with our stroll getting further away from the house, walked round the edge of the field and carried along a narrow road leading somewhere to the mountains. My thoughts were flowing sluggishly and fragmentally, as if from too much heat they stuck in kind of a jelly and now were warming up and resting in there. The haze was quivering on the horizon making the red mountain look unreal.

“I would like to change your occupation here for a while.” said Hulk looking at me. His eyes were pale, almost whitish and not grey or golden, as they sometimes seemed in the light of an evening sunset.

When had I noticed that?

I forced myself to stop thinking about stupid but captivating things and asked.