Zig Zag (53 page)

She
already knew her mother had received a message on her machine in
which Elisa herself (or at least "her voice") apologized
for not being able to come to Valencia on Christmas Eve. And she
hadn't had to ask for time off work since classes didn't resume until
after the holidays anyway.

"On
behalf of Eagle Group, I'd like to apologize for having made you
spend your holidays here." Harrison smiled like a rueful cashier
who'd accidentally doled the wrong change. "I hope you can
understand our reasons. Though I know you've been receiving
some
information
over the past few days, Mr. Carter will be happy to give you the
actual test results. Paul?"

"We've
found no proof of any relation between Professor Craig's death and
what happened in New Nelson, nor was it connected to any of you,"
Carter said, removing a bundle of papers from his briefcase. "As
far as Nadja Petrova's suicide is concerned, unfortunately we
do
think
there is a direct relationship between her death and the news of
Craig's murder..."

Elisa
closed her eyes. She'd managed to
accept
the
awful tragedy but couldn't help feeling a rush of anguish every time
she actually thought about it.
Why?
Why did she do it? Why call me and then do that?
She
couldn't seem to recall many of the details of their phone
conversation, but she did remember Nadja's distress, and how badly
her friend had wanted to see her.

"That's
precisely why we warned you not to contact one another,"
Harrison broke in reproachfully, staring at Jacqueline. "Professor
Clissot, I'm not blaming you for anything. You did what you thought
was the right thing in calling Miss Petrova. You received the news
yourself and wanted to get it off your chest. Unfortunately, you
chose the wrong person."

Jacqueline
Clissot was sitting at one end of the table. She wore light-blue
pajamas and a dressing gown but still looked incredible despite the
years that had passed. Elisa did notice one thing, though: she'd dyed
her hair black.

"I'm
sorry," Jacqueline whispered, eyes downcast. "I'm so
sorry..."

"Don't
blame yourself. Really," Harrison said. "You had no idea
Miss Petrova would react that way. It could have happened to anyone.
But I don't need to remind you not to do it again."

Jacqueline's
head was still bowed, her beautiful lips trembling as if nothing
Harrison said could stop her from believing she deserved terrible
punishment for her actions. Elisa was scared. She'd talked to Nadja,
too, after all.

"We've
managed to reconstruct what happened." Carter passed out more
sheets of paper. Photocopies of international news stories. "Nadja
Petrova spoke to Professor Clissot at seven o'clock. She phoned
Professor Robledo around ten. By ten thirty, she'd slit both of her
wrists and bled to death in the bathroom."

"After
you suggested going out to dinner together," Harrison said,
pointing at Elisa. She struggled not to burst into tears.

"You
can see what the press had to say about it here," Carter said,
giving the floor back to Harrison. They were like actors on a stage,
performing, riffing off each other.

"Obviously,
they don't have the whole story. We intervened there, but I'll tell
you why. When Professor Craig was murdered, we were intrigued. We
sent special units to his house and put all of you back under
surveillance, too. That's why we tapped your phone conversations.
Miss Petrova was very upset, so we ordered one of our agents to go
and make sure she was OK. When he got there, she'd already killed
herself. So we cordoned off the area and decided to bring you all
here to avoid another tragedy."

"Not
very orthodox methods, but it was an emergency."

Harrison
picked up, finishing Carter's thought.

"Not
very orthodox methods, but we'd do it again if we had to. Let me make
myself perfectly clear about that. We'd do it for one or all of you."
He looked at them each in turn, stopping at Elisa, who looked down.
Then he turned to Jacqueline, who would not meet his eyes. "Do I
make myself clear, Professor?"

"Perfectly,"
she replied quickly.

"You've
all been in isolation. For your own safety and the safety of those
around you. We've been through this again and again: you all suffered
from the Impact. And until we have a better understanding of what
happens to a person who sees the past, we'll have to take drastic
measures whenever a situation arises. I imagine you all know what I
mean." He turned back at Elisa again, and she nodded. Harrison's
look gave her the creeps; his blue eyes were so narrow they looked
like pinpricks. "You're all educated people, intelligentsia
even. So I'm sure you can grasp this."

Everyone
nodded.

"But...
wasn't Colin murdered by an organized gang?"

Marini
suddenly shouted. Elisa was shocked by his tone: he sounded as if he
wanted
that
to be true. His eyes were red and the left one twitched
uncontrollably.

"There
is no evidence whatsoever that points to any sort of organized
crime," Carter said.

"Professor
Craig was killed by criminals from eastern Europe. Scotland Yard had
been after them for some time; it was an unfortunate fluke,"
Harrison added. "They broke into houses, tortured and then
killed the inhabitants, and made off with everything of value they
could lay their hands on. But they've been caught now. It was tragic,
but it would have ended there had you not begun getting in touch with
each other, initiating contact in states of anguish. And quite
patently, Miss Petrova could not handle that anguish."

"At
any rate," Carter said, "you won't be going home
unprotected. We'll be watching you, at least for a few months, for
your own safety. And we'll still be conducting interviews with the
team of specialists—"

"What
if we don't
want
to
go home?" Marini cried. "We have a right to be permanently
protected!"

"That's
your choice, Professor." Harrison spread his hands. "We can
keep you here as long as you like, in a bubble, if that's what you
want. But there is no objective reason to do so. Our advice is for
you to carry on with your normal lives."

The
expression made Elisa grit her teeth. She didn't know what a "normal
life" was anymore and suspected that—aside from Carter and
Harrison—no one there could explain it.

Everyone
was exhausted, and after lunch they all went back to their rooms.
That evening, before they boarded the plane, their personal effects
were returned to them. She looked at the calendar on her watch:
Saturday, January 7, 2012.

EIGHT
months
later, on the morning of September 11, she received some spam on her
computer watch. It was an ad that showed a map of central Madrid,
with a little clock in the upper corner. The clock was what was being
advertised: a prototype of a computer watch equipped with Galileo,
the new European satellite navigation system. To show how it worked,
the user could move the cursor anywhere on the map, and wherever
there was a red circle, localized info popped up and different music
played. Their slogan read "Dedicated to you." Elisa was
about to delete it when she noticed something.

The
music was the same for all the circles but one. She recognized it
immediately: the suite he always played. She'd recognize it anywhere.

Elisa
was intrigued. She moved the cursor to the only circle that didn't
play that melody. She heard another one, also for piano, but this was
a popular tune. Even she knew what it was.

A
chill ran down her spine.
Dedicated
to you.
Then
she realized that when the cursor hovered over that circle, the clock
on the ad changed time from 5:30 to 10:30. Alarmed, she decided to
delete it.

Lately,
everything freaked her out. She'd spent that entire summer shaking
like a leaf, scared of everything. She obsessed about her looks,
which were ever more spectacular, and bought clothes she'd never have
considered wearing until recently. She turned down every man who
wanted to go out with her (and there were many), passed on all of
their elaborate plans (some of which were very suggestive), and spent
her time at home, behind locked and alarmed doors, always trying to
catch her breath and calm down. And although it was a pretty grim
summer, by the end of it her spirits were higher than they had been
after that horrible experience at Christmas. She didn't want to take
a step backward.

That
afternoon, she received the same message again. She deleted it. It
reappeared.

By
the time she got home, she was in a state of panic. That one tiny
e-mail, so carefully prepared (if it was what she thought it was, and
she knew it was), brought back horrible memories for her.

If
it had been a phone call, she would simply not have picked up. But
the message simultaneously attracted and repelled her. It was like
everything was coming full circle. It had all begun with a coded
message, and maybe it would all end the same way.

She
made up her mind.

The
time on the message was 10:30. She had almost two hours, plenty of
time to get there. She dressed perfunctorily: no bra, sleeveless
ivory-colored dress that fit like a glove, knee-length white boots,
and a wide silver bracelet (lately, she wore lots of bracelets and
bangles). She grabbed a small purse and slipped in a tiny bottle of
perfume she'd recently bought, a lipstick, and some other cosmetics.
She'd teased her hair and left some black curls down, to frame her
face. She'd loved her naturally black hair. Before leaving, she
opened the message and aimed the pointer at the circle that played
that famous tune, verified the address, and walked out.

The
whole way there, the song played over and over in her mind and she
thought of the message: "Dedicated to you." That had been
the clue.

It
was Beethoven's
Fur
Elise.

WITHOUT
knowing
why, she decided to take the metro and was so anxious that she didn't
even pick up on the looks the other passengers gave her. She got off
at Atocha. It was a warm night, but autumn was definitely in the air.
As she walked to the spot the map indicated, she recalled another
night, six years ago, when Valente had used a similar lure to get her
to see that someone was putting on a show and she was one of its
protagonists.

Well,
things had changed now.
She
had
changed.

Elisa
generally paid no attention to the obscene remarks men made on the
street, but just then a group of boys shouted something so brutal
that she had to stop and think. She looked at herself in a storefront
window: tall, slim, an ivory silhouette in high-heeled boots. She
stopped, shocked. Her tube dress was so tight she might as well have
been naked, and the bracelet clamped around her bicep and knee-length
boots gave her an appearance very different from the one she would
have liked to project.