The Air We Breathe (5 page)

H
ANNA
M
AY
2002

Thin Man kept her in a cage, six sides of square black grids. “A safe place,” he’d told her. A kennel for a dog; for a large one, like a Labrador. He’d given her a cushion to sleep on, and a waffley baby’s blanket, yellow with a washed-out Cookie Monster appliquéd in one corner. She could fit under it if she rolled into her chest and squeezed her chin between her knees. She wanted to sleep like that anyway, so she could reach her feet and rub them, as her mother used to when she was little, singing the song she made up—
“Hanna’s feet. Hanna’s feet. I love to rub Hanna’s feet”
—tickling and pinching and patting and kissing her way up Hanna’s entire body, ending with a bear hug and a pillow fluff before bed.

Sometimes singing the song was the only way she could remember her own name, after days of being called little girl by Thin Man. She didn’t know how many days had passed.
Two. Three. Ten. She had tried to keep track of how many times she’d gone to sleep but found herself constantly dozing on and off. They gave her something to make her drowsy—at least she thought they did—a clear plastic cup of fizzy liquid with a thick pink layer at the bottom.

Things kept disappearing on her—little pieces of her memory, coherent thoughts, things that made her more a girl and less an animal. She thought of the drawing hanging in her father’s office, the evolutionary stages of man, from prehistoric to modern, each figure getting less hunched and less hairy. She was going backward, each day curling more tightly into herself, looking more like a pill bug, a spiral conch, an infant.

The only thing still clear in her memory was her father. Not the living, smiling, loving one. The dead one, facedown in a lake of blood. She clawed her eyes and yanked her hair and rocked against the wall of the cage. Nothing helped. That imaged stayed.

After they had taken her from the bank, the three men drove for some time, Thin Man and Fat Guy in the front seat of the car, Short One in the back with her. He’d covered her with a rough blanket that smelled like dog, and she breathed short, prickly hairs up her nose. Fat Guy kept talking, his voice sailing back to her in uneven rumbles. The other two remained silent. Eventually the car slowed and the interior became shadowy.

Thin Man turned off the engine. “Wrap her up,” he said.

Short One did as he was told, winding Hanna’s flimsy body in the blanket with only her eyes and mouth showing. He hefted her over his shoulder and maneuvered both of them from the car without hitting her head on the doorframe. Fat
Guy was still talking, and Thin Man said, “If you open your mouth on the way to the apartment, I’ll shoot you. You’ve seen I have no problem doing so.”

Fat Guy rolled his lips over his teeth and bit down so he looked mouthless, only a slit in the skin between his chin and nose. The men climbed stairs, Thin Man ahead, Fat Guy puffing somewhere behind, and Short One’s shoulder digging into Hanna’s stomach. Her bladder released again.

Thin Man unlocked a door, and they all went inside. Short One put Hanna on the carpeted floor. “Now what?”

“She stinks,” Fat Guy said, swore under his breath.

“I think the little girl here needs a bath,” Thin Man said. “I’m more than happy to do so.”

“I’ll do it,” Short One said.

“Always the gentleman,” Thin Man said with a chuckle.

Short One unrolled Hanna and lifted her again, this time in a cradle carry, one arm under the back of her knees, the other against her back. Hanna offered no resistance or help, but as he took her down the hallway, her head fell against his chest. She felt his chest muscle twitching against her cheek, had felt the same thing when her father carried her, and she cried without sound, only tears and mucus and grief.

“Don’t cry,” Short One said after he closed and locked the bathroom door. “You’ll get home. I promise.”

He sat her on the toilet, undressed her, balling her soiled clothes in the sink. Ran water from the tub spout over his wrist before plugging the drain and squirting in some shampoo. “There,” he said when the tub was half filled and he shut off the water. She didn’t move, stayed slumped over, one thin arm across her chest, hand hugging her shoulder, the other arm tight against her lap. Legs clamped together. He hesitated
and then took a towel from the hook behind the door and covered the front of her before lifting her under the armpits and easing her into the soapy, too-hot water.

He left the towel over her.

With a washcloth he cleaned her back in sloppy circular motions. She rested her chest against her folded knees. He didn’t bother washing her hair, but the ends skimmed the water anyway, and when he pulled her from the bath she felt the sticky tendrils adhere to her skin. This time she obliged Short One by bearing weight on her legs as he set her down on a fuzzy pink bath mat, the kind she hated because it left lint between her toes. He eased a dry towel around her and tugged the bottom of the soaked one so she let go and it puddled at her feet. The damp weight reminded her of her father’s body.

Looking around, Short One muttered under his breath. Then he stripped off his own gray Corona T-shirt and dressed her in it. It hung to her knees. He turned around in the small bathroom, again, as if looking for escape, picked up Hanna’s underpants—pink with white daisies—rinsed them and wrung them out in his fist. He opened the drawers in the vanity, looked under the sink and found a hair dryer. It whirred to life when he slid his thumb over the switch and he blew the hot air over her panties.

“Here,” he said, trying to hand them to her.

She didn’t take them.

He hesitated again, knelt in front of her. Encircling one ankle, he raised her foot and slipped the underwear over her toes. He did the same with the other side and shimmied the still-damp cloth up her still-damp legs and, turning his head, snapped the elastic waist over her rump. When it became clear
she wasn’t moving on her own, he picked her up again and carried her back to the living room.

“Well, now, you’ve been gone quite a while,” Thin Man said. “Did you two have a lovely time?”

“Shut up,” Short One snapped. He set her in an overstuffed armchair and covered her with the crochet throw from the back of the seat.

“Sensitive, are we?”

“There’s something really wrong with her. She’s like, catatonic or something.”

Thin Man stoked his hairless chin. “That seems about right, considering she’s just watched her father gunned down in cold blood.”

“No thanks to you,” Short One said.

“And you weren’t there, were you?”

Fat Guy chomped a cookie, chocolate dandruff fluttering from his lips. “He didn’t shoot no one. What you have to go killing them for?” He swore. “We’re in deep now.”

“We have the money, correct? If I’m not mistaken, neither of you had much of an issue with the plan when you thought it would be solving your financial problems. And it did, did it not?”

“No one was supposed to get killed,” Fat Guy said. He crammed another Oreo into his mouth. The open package, almost empty, teetered on the arm of the couch.

“I believe you need to be going to work now. No suspicious deviation from routine, remember?” Thin Man said.

“Fine. I’m going.”

He lumbered out the door, breathing gurgly, shallow breaths. Hanna listened to his heavy steps becoming softer and softer until she could only imagine the sound in her head,
thumping to each heartbeat. That was all she heard until Short One finally said, “We need to do something with her.”

“Perhaps I’ll keep this little girl for a while.”

“Don’t even.”

“Are you planning to play hero now?”

“I’ll turn all of us in before I let you touch her.”

“No you won’t.”

Short One didn’t answer.

“Ah, such bravado. But don’t despair. I have someone who’ll take her off our hands, for a nice price. He wants this little girl . . . unsoiled. What a shame.”

“What’s wrong with just dropping her on a corner and letting someone find her?”

“Oh, my boy. You really are a genius, really. She’s seen us.” Thin Man twisted the cap off one of the green beer bottles on the end table, took a sip. “You want to be identified in a lineup?”

“She’s wrecked.”

“For how long? Modern psychiatry can do wonders. Look at me.” He laughed, took another swig. “If you don’t want another body on our hands, this is how we deal with it.”

Short One pointed toward the collection of bottles. Thin Man picked up an unopened one and lobbed it to him. Short One caught it one-handed, covered the bottle cap with the hem of his shorts before unscrewing it. He swallowed most of the liquid without a break, wiped his mouth on his bare forearm. “You didn’t have to take her at all.”

Thin Man grinned. “But where would the fun have been in that?” He left his bottle. “You’re here tonight, then.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Lock her in the dog cage.”

“You’re not serious?”

“We don’t want her snapping out of it and running off while you’re asleep. I’d say gag her, but one more kid howling in this dump isn’t going to be noticed. I have difficulty believing a tenured professor would live in a place like this, I don’t care how ‘down’ he wants to be with the ‘common folk,’” Thin Man said, making air quotes with his fingers.

“When’s he back?”

“August, before classes begin. At least Bogus was good for something. He’ll be by again in the morning to watch her.”

“How early? I have to be to work by eight.”

“Well, you’ll know when he gets here. And I mean it—lock her up.”

Thin Man approached Hanna, stroked her cheek softly. “She really is a beauty.” Holding up his hands as Short One tensed, he said, “I know, I know. I’m going. Be good, little girl.”

Short One left her on the chair while he watched TV and finished the remaining Oreos. He heated a frozen pizza and drank more beer, fighting to keep his eyes off her, but finally put her in the kennel, trying to do so gently but banging his head on the top and eventually giving her a shove, closing the door against her legs and clicking the padlock into place. “I’m so sorry,” he had said, words slurred.

And so the days went, Fat Guy during the daytime, with the television or video games blaring, ignoring Hanna except to give her the sleeping potion or to push in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs he served her in a dish inscribed
Fluffy
. He found that hilarious, as the cereal looked like dog food, and he gave her water or milk in the matching bowl. She used her hand as a cup and brought the warm liquid to her mouth only when
Fat Guy went to the toilet or passed out on the sofa. In the evenings and overnight it was Short One, and he’d stopped looking at her after closing her in the cage that first night.

Thin Man stopped by a few times, but mostly he was only there in her dreams. He called her little girl, and she could feel his finger on her cheek, cold and slimy like a leech.

This morning Fat One came in and switched on the television; he pressed the channel button, and Hanna saw a flash, a burst of sound as he searched for his favorites. He breathed heavier than usual, rubbed his arm. Swore. “I don’t need this today,” he said.

He hobbled into the kitchenette, leaving Hanna to watch a commercial for Time Life praise music, and then another for an Austrian crystal cross. “But wait, there’s more. Call in the next fifteen minutes and you’ll get two beautiful crosses for the price of one. Just pay shipping and handling. One to keep, one for a friend.” And then some man in a suit stood in front of a shimmering wall of water and pointed to the sky. “Have you asked for Him to help you? If you don’t ask, why are you surprised you don’t receive. ‘Ask and it shall be given to you.’ Amen? So, right now, go ahead. Say, ‘Help me, Gee—’”

Fat Guy flipped the channel. “Stupid nonsense.” He rubbed his forehead. “It’s hot in here. Stupid windows painted shut. Stupid uncle who doesn’t have air-conditioning.”

On the TV a man jumped up and down when the announcer called his name. “Come on downnnnn!” He wanted to win a new refrigerator. Hanna wanted to go home.

Help me, Gee. Help me. Please, please help me, Gee.

Fat Guy bent toward her, bowl of cereal shaking in his hand. He set it on top of the kennel, fumbled with the keys
on a red string around his neck. Found the right one. After three attempts he managed to slip the little gold key into the padlock. The lock sprung open. He panted, stood, dropping the keys back into his shirt. “I feel . . .” He took two steps away from the kennel, dropped onto his knees, and fell backward.

And Hanna waited.
The Price Is Right
went off and on came
As the World Turns
. Fat Guy didn’t move. Then
Guiding Light
. Hanna’s stomach growled. Fat Guy still didn’t move.

She stuck her fingers through the metal squares and maneuvered the lock off the hasp, pushed the latch aside, and nudged the door with her shoulder. It swung open. She crawled out, carpet beneath her fingers, sticky, matted with footprints and the milk she’d spilled yesterday. Her hair fell over Fat Guy’s face. The man still didn’t move. Hanna poked him in the neck.

Nothing.

She knelt, rubbing her thumbs over her fingers, squeezing her hands opened and closed. And then, in one quick motion, she reached down Fat Guy’s shirt, grabbing the key hanging on the red string between the soft mounds on his chest, tugging it over his frizzy head.

Hanna touched Fat Guy’s blue-gray lips, knowing deep down he was dead, in that same way she knew it was because of her words to Gee. She thought she should cry but didn’t. Her tears had dried up. If she got home, her mother would be happy; she never liked Hanna crying, always told her to stop. Her daddy hadn’t minded, though. When he was alive.

She stood too fast and grabbed the arm of the upholstered chair until the clouds stopped swirling in her eyes. Then, with shaky fingers, she slid the key into the door’s inside lock, metal scraping against metal, and stood there staring
at the silver key protruding from the gold oval, her toes curling in the carpet. She felt Fat Guy mounded up behind her, the stillness echoing in her ears. Her pulse bubbled behind her knees, in the crooks of her elbows. She turned the metal stub—
click—
her entire body flinching with the sound, afraid of finding Thin Man on the other side of the door. With only her fingertips she turned the knob and brought it toward her until she thought she could fit through.