Page 77 of Besieger
The man threw him a sidelong glance, looking him up and down until his dark eyes stopped at Victor’s hands. His smilewidened before he bit down on his lower lip, as if holding back a laugh. Victor watched the flesh of the mouth move, overcome with the memory of it on his skin.
A cackle burst out of the man, so sudden and uncontrollable that even the man was caught off guard and lifted his hand to cover his face. The sound made Victor’s breath hitch. There it was! The unmistakable sound and look of the man who had sat at Victor’s deathbed and saved him.
Here.
Now.
There were no bombs decimating Victor’s hometown, no screams and orders filling his mind and body with dread. The current Berlin was civilised and clean, whole and humming with the chatter of travellers coming and going. The war was over. It had been over for decades and Victor had lived a life of constant running and hiding. Somehow, the truth about his past had caught up with him in the face of this man who looked at his own ticket and back at the screens, grinning, all bravado and teeth.
Erik. His name is Erik.
Victor opened his mouth, struggling to shape the name, to give it voice. Like a spell, a curse, it hung there, between his teeth. It made him think of indigo plants, how beautiful they looked and how delicate they were, but how they also stained and blackened the fingers. The name had taken root in his mind, staining.
A middle-aged man appeared at Erik’s side, out of breath and panting, his face pinched with mild confusion. He handed Erik a ticket, accepting in return another, and disappeared into the crowd.
“I will see you on board,” Erik winked and walked off, leaving Victor gapping.
Later, at the security queue, Victor noticed Erik a few paces ahead of him, already through the scanners. He did not seem to be carrying anything, no luggage of any kind. He scooped hispassport, a very slim wallet and a lighter from the tray and slipped them into his pockets.
How did Erik look through the wired eyes of the machines? Did anything betray that he was not normal, not human? Victor had once feared his own monstrosity would glow red-hot on the scanners the first time he crossed borders in the twenty-first century. Nothing. The machines stayed mute, letting them both pass and board the plane. Like any other human. Two more unremarkable frequent flyers.
Onboard the plane, when he walked the aisle, searching for his seat, it did not surprise him to find Erik already waiting for him, occupying the middle seat in Victor’s row.
“You lied about your name.” Erik’s voice swelled, dimming the voice of the pilot, the cabin crew, the other passengers. He turned in his seat to face Victor. There was no anger in his voice or in his expression, he just seemed curious, intrigued. “When I asked for your name in 1944, you told me it was Tobias. Why?”
Victor had had his reasons to lie back then. Now it seemed silly.
“I—I’m not sure. I was scared. Or maybe I wanted him to live for a moment longer—through me.”
“So what do I call you now?”
Victor thought about all the names he had used over the years. Sometimes, he kept ‘Victor’, changing only the surname; other times both given and family name were foreign; strangers he grew to know as the months progressed. As a name, ‘Schwarzschild’ had died long before Tobias had raised the revolver and pulled the trigger. The family of Victor’s youth resembled the posters propagating the German soldier, the German ideal: it looked good on paper, the colours bright and alluring; but in reality—dry and empty. A promise of nothing. An honourable farce.
“Victor,” he said at long last. “My name is Victor.”
Erik smiled, satisfied.
“Victor,” Erik repeated, running the name over his tongue, savouring it, swallowing it like a sip of well-aged wine. “It wasn’t so hard, was it? Finally saying the truth.” Victor frowned at that, but Erik continued to speak while absently toying with his seatbelt. “We cannot build a friendship based on lies, can we? I will give youmyname in return.”
Emerick, a voice poured into his head, the syllables falling like rain, sending shivers through Victor’s body, much like the feeling when the night terrors found him. He tried to repeat the name and could not. As if giving voice to it would break the illusion, make the man sitting next to him—if he was a man at all—turn into a pillar of salt and shatter.
“You’re not human,” Victor did not bother phrasing it as a question, nor did he expect an answer.
Erik continued to smile at him, upper lip curled ever so slightly to reveal a hint of teeth. An invisible hand brushed against Victor’s knee, the weight of a palm leaving a stamp over the muscle of his leg. The gesture was playful, goading, in a way a lover would touch, to ground him after a harrowing evening.
Remember, we are friends,the voice came again, and with it the tap of fingers against the side of his head.I have been your friend for years.And you have missed me so so much, Victor. Oh, how you have missed me…
A friend…Victor kept his attention fixed on Erik’s face, memorising every line, every twinkle in his eyes, the way his body moved and yet did not. Seventy-odd years and he had not aged a day.A friend who never wrote.
“I have kept myself busy. I see you have been busy as well,HerrForsberg. Chief baker at a no name bakery, stocking the ovens with bread, day after day after day. But here I am, now.”
“Why—how did you get on this plane? You weren’t bound to Bulgaria, were you?”
“No,” Erik shook his head, his gaze softened, and the ghost hands lifted off Victor as suddenly as they had come. “That man, earlier? I persuaded him to give me his ticket in exchange formine. I believe he got a first class ticket to Paris instead. I looked through everyone’s minds on the terminal until I found the one I needed. Tedious work, really, but it did play in our favour.”
“And if you had not found anyone to steal from?”
“I would have still got on this plane; compelled the staff, the flight attendants to let me through. Or I could have compelled only you not to board at all.”
