“There is always a plan B,” I reflect, “but there are never any guarantees…” I have just woken up, tied down naked to a blood-drenched bed, hoping that I have slept for a long time.
The silence in my head is oppressive. I suddenly realise that this is going to be the greatest ordeal for me from now on: being deaf. That is, of course, being blind and deaf. Being blind is no problem: it has always been second nature and always will be. But being deaf as well: that is only bearable as long as there is another human being close at hand, someone you can touch and smell… If only I could communicate with Loretta—that is: with Sue. The silence and the loneliness are oppressive.
Still, there is nothing else to be done but to wait. The plan B that I have improvised yesterday entails a long wait: at least 48 hours. When I discovered that I was not manacled to my bed, yesterday morning when I woke up with pierced eardrums, I decided to act immediately on a notion I had been mulling over for a long time. So I banged my right-hand wrist several times against the concrete wall next to my bed. I banged it quite viciously, hoping to get a nice fat hematoma. I happen to be rather prone to bruises, contusions and swellings of all kinds. People who know me well often joke about my porcelain complexion and the fact that I seem to be just as fragile as the real thing in that respect…
Anyway, the idea was that once my wrist had thickened, the Master would no longer be able to tighten the manacle on that side as much as he usually does, the next time he would shackle me again. The hematoma would take up too much space. Then, if he would leave me alone for long enough, I would be able to nurse and massage the bruised wrist until the hematoma receded. Finally I would be able to slip my hand through the opening… Of course I was assuming that the Master would not go back to his usual routine, but that he would be raping only the girl for quite a while. I just couldn’t imagine that he would want to rape me instead, and straight away at that!
“It doesn’t make any difference, though. Here I am now, the setup is the same…” I can feel my swollen wrist throbbing, the leather strap encloses it snugly like a pressure dressing, which will only help to staunch the internal haemorrhage. It is now a matter of time before the hematoma subsides. And that is precisely why I have forced myself to ingest a solid meal of human blood last night: this could take a few days… Thinking this over, I realize that thirst, not hunger, is going to be the hardest to take. My mouth and throat will get dryer and dryer. Thinking back to my sense of isolation, I long once again for some form of communication with Sue. If I want to shout a message over to the girl, I conclude, I must do it now.
“Yes, I must try, if not for her sake, then at least for my own. It will make me feel less solitary… The silence and the loneliness are really oppressive!”
So, to start with, I test my vocal cords: “Baa… Baaa!” in order to get them under control. When I attempt to utter these baaing noises I don’t hear a single sound, of course, but I can feel my voice vibrating in my throat. “Funny,” I reflect, “I’ve never been one to shout much… just from time to time to hail a taxi.”
Now I have to think hard about what I want to say to Sue. For one thing, I decide, I’m going to call her Lorry again, because Sue is not a very shoutable name. “So here goes, give those vocal cords a good push!”
“Loorriie!”
“Hold on in there!”
“The Master is dead!”
I just have to assume that I still control my voice and my diction in a way that doesn’t require any conscious effort, and that I have just shouted these words at the top of my lungs. After all, during all my yes-no conversations with the girl, Sue appeared to understand me just fine. At least I myself am feeling a little better now that I have taken care of that.
In the meantime I have become more and more aware of the aching in my limbs. I am tied down in a very unnatural position, my legs wide open, almost at a right angle to my rump. My back is hurting from staying in the same position for so long. My neck and jaw muscles are still sore from yesterday’s violent action. The next hours, I decide, will have to be dedicated to devising a special program of callisthenics to counter these cramps that are torturing me. I start exploring my body limb by limb, muscle by muscle, to test how much of it I can activate. I wriggle my toes, twist my ankles and legs back and forth, left and right, tilt my feet up and down to contract and stretch my calves. The same kind of thing with all the parts of the rump: tilting the pelvis, twisting the backbone, contracting and relaxing the diaphragm, the deep, then the superficial stomach muscles…
But just as I am getting the hang of it, I suddenly feel a strange thud going through my body. I freeze instantly, and a moment later the fleeting impression is confirmed: there is definitely a kind of thud, a barely perceptible shockwave coming from the bed… I feel it a bit better in my feet and legs, because they are resting on a hard wooden beam attached directly to the iron frame of the bed. The thuds must be coming through the floor: the whole cellar is quaking! My mind starts rushing: could there be minor earthquakes in London? Are there heavy lorries driving by on the street outside? But the thuds are coming at very regular intervals… “Wait a minute,” I tell myself, “that must be the girl… Yes. If she is banging the iron frame of her bed against the concrete wall of her cell, it could produce such thuds…” A moment later, when the thuds have stopped, I shout,
“Loorriie? Is that you?”
Another thud, —Yes.
“Are you all right?”
Two thuds, —No.
“Hold on in there!”
“I’m working on something!”
“But it takes time! All right?”
One thud. —Yes.
I sigh. This is extraordinary. Sue has found a way to communicate with a deaf and blind person from one room to another. The human instinct to connect and to master signs is incredible! I only hope she doesn’t expect me to keep up the banter… But as the thuds have stopped, I go back to my callisthenics.
After spending a few absorbing hours at my task, I am finally satisfied that I have brought my body back into balance. I have managed to ease the cramps enough to be able to sleep, later on, when the time comes. Then I turn my attention to my wrist. The hematoma is no longer throbbing. That is a good sign. I start massaging my wrist against the inside of the leather sleeve enclosing it, trying to stimulate the blood circulation, hoping to speed up the draining of the swelling. I am starting to feel thirsty. Hungry too, of course, but the hunger can still be ignored, not the thirst. On the positive side, the lack of water, the dehydration will only speed up the resorption of the damaged tissue.
And so time goes by. I no longer feel oppressed by my inner silence. With a newfound sense of purpose, I no longer feel isolated. I even spend a couple of hours lying perfectly still and relaxed, thinking back to my early childhood, to the discoveries of that age, to all those firsts, and to how it slowly dawns on you that people tend to pity you, and how that can be very annoying. It always gets in the way of being loved and appreciated for who you really are… “Even Mummy had problems with that, especially Mummy. But not Daddy… never Daddy. Maybe not all men are awful, after all…”
And just when I’m thinking back to my honeymoon with Ralph at the beginning of 1941, when we both had been eighteen years old, I feel a thud again. And then another. Sue is signing in.
“Loorriie? Are you all right?”
Thud, —Yes.
“Isn’t it time to go to sleep now?”
Thud, —Yes.
“Well, good night!”
“We’ll talk again in the morning, all right?”
Thud, —Yes.
When I wake up, my body is aching, and I feel terribly thirsty and hungry. And there’s nothing to be done about the last two problems, so I start performing my special callisthenics to ease the pain in my stiff limbs. Then suddenly it hits me: I realise that my wrist is no longer swollen! The sleeve enclosing it feels a bit loose… No wonder: once dehydration sets in, a hematoma can subside fast.
Carefully I pull at my arm, narrowing my hand as much as I can, my fingers and thumb bunched together. I can already move my hand quite far inside the sleeve, but not enough to pull it through. I try to push my hand out again, spreading my fingers as far open as they will go, but now my wrist is stuck inside the sleeve. “Never mind,” I reflect, “let’s give it some time…” I tug at my hand a bit more in such a way that it wedges itself even more tightly. Then I wait.
In the meantime the shockwaves are back. Sue has also woken up and is sending her morning greetings (if indeed it is morning right now). But my mouth is too parched, my throat too dry to utter a sound. The girl will have to wait. “It shouldn’t take long,” I decide. “In a moment I’ll know for certain if I can free myself or not.” For about an hour I stay perfectly still, trying to relax all my muscles as far as possible, getting my blood pressure down, and giving my hand enough time to be compressed and to adapt to its constriction. “Let the bones and cartilage settle nicely…”
Then at last I am ready. I brace myself, and straining all the muscles in my legs and arms, I pull as carefully and as hard as I can on the wrist that is already stuck inside the sleeve. Wiggling and twisting my hand, ignoring the pain as much as I can, I manage to inch it backwards and squeeze it bit by bit through the leather vice that is holding it tight. But then, with a sinking heart, I come to the realisation that I might be stuck for good. I feel a wave of desperation rushing over me; I hold my breath and pull with all my might, as if to rip my arm off at the wrist if I have to, and suddenly my hand shoots free… “Thank God!” I gasp, at the same time suppressing a cry of pain.
It takes me a few moments to get my fingers under control; my elbow is hurting like hell now that I am bending it for the first time in something like thirty-six hours. Presently I have to turn over on my side, reach out for my other wrist and claw at the buckle of the outermost leather strap holding the sleeve together. With trembling, painful fingers, I manage to unshackle my other arm… Now I have to double over, reach sideways and unbuckle one ankle, then the other. All the while my head is spinning from raising myself up—even if only my rump—after reclining for so long. Adding the starvation and dehydration to that, the resulting dizziness is overwhelming. I fall back on the mattress of the bed; I am free, but too weak to move.
Again some time goes by. “I have to find the keys; they must be here somewhere; the Master must have had them with him… and then we’ll get out of here.” Slowly I raise myself in a sitting position, throwing my legs over the side of the bed, and remain seated for a while, fighting the dizziness. The Master’s corpse must be lying on the floor on the other side of the bed, behind me, and I hope that I will find his clothes on this side. I slowly get up into a standing position, holding tightly on to the iron bedpost. Then I take my first steps, find a wall, start groping my way around… and there it is: a simple wooden chair with its back to the wall, a small pile of clothes neatly folded on its seat. “The randy bastard still took the time to fold up his trousers before he jumped on top of me…”
A moment later I finally retrieve what I’ve been looking for in the right-hand pocket of the pair of trousers: a set of three large keys on a key ring, and a smaller one on a chain for the handcuffs, just as the girl has described. “Free at last! to quote a speech that made the headlines…” Without waiting a moment longer, I now move forward with my arms stretched out in front of me, and in a few steps I reach the door of the pleasure room. I know exactly where the door is situated with respect to the “rack”, that is one path at least which is now well mapped in my mind. I know that this first door is not locked, and I step outside, hoping never to come back here again, ever.
The little passage between the cellar rooms is also very familiar after having been trodden so often. Groping my way forward, I reach the grille of our holding cell. Sue, the girl, must be able to see me now, if she’s conscious, but as she’s probably attached to the wall next to her bed at the back of the room, she can’t make her presence known. And as I am no longer able to make my vocal cords produce a single sound, there is no communication possible as long as I’m struggling to find the door. It turns out that the Master didn’t even lock it; it is wide open, and this fact confuses me for a short moment: I’m still searching for a locked door… Then finally I am inside, step over to the girl’s bed, and feel her arms close around my neck in a passionate hug.
I hand the key ring over to Sue, and try to whisper one word: “Water!”
Then everything happens very fast. Sue unlocks her handcuffs, grips my arm and takes me over to the heavy door that leads to the outside world. I don’t know it; I have never been allowed to touch it before. On the other side of the door there is another cellar, with a kind of old fashioned laundry room. Here there is a concrete sink with a tap. Sue immediately draws some water and offers me half a plastic beaker full. After we have both gulped down some water, Sue puts my arm around her neck and pulls me up the stairs to the house. There she leads me to the bathroom, starts running the taps for a hot bath, and helps me to climb in as soon as there’s a bottom of water to dip into. I am still stark naked, and the moment has come to wash off the Master’s dried blood and semen from my body.
While I start soaking, I suddenly notice that Sue is no longer with me, but some time later the girl comes back with a little pan containing a double portion of lukewarm tinned spaghetti. With Sue sitting on the edge of the bath, we wolf down the food, taking turns with the spoon. From time to time we cup our hand under the cold tap and drink a little water. Then Sue puts aside the pan and starts scrubbing me down in a very motherly way. I giggle. I realise my voice is back; my vocal cords have just vibrated. With my fingertips on Sue’s forehead, I make my first try at conversation.
“You all right, Sue?”
— Yes.
“Me too! I killed the Master. Want to know how?”
— Yes!
“He forgot to gag me, so I bit his neck, the carotid artery, and he bled to death…”
As an answer, Sue gently strokes the hair on top of my head.
“Don’t you need a bath urgently, Sue? Get in with me…”
— Yes.
But first Sue lets part of the water drain away, then opens the taps again.
“Water too dirty for you, huh?”
— Yes.
“It’ll be even more disgusting when you’ve finished washing your hair!”
— Yes!
“Now, after our bath we must close down the Master’s dungeon, and get out of this house without leaving a trace.”
— Yes.
“And then you must bring me to a hospital. I believe pierced eardrums can be repaired with surgery.”
Sue hugs me long and hard to show her relief at this piece of information.
When we have both taken a bath together and Sue has washed her hair, I give more instructions. “Listen, I’m going to clean the bathroom; we have to remove every trace of blood, not leave any hair behind… Meanwhile you fetch my clothes in the dungeon, all right? On the way out you make sure to close and lock up the secret passage so that it’s completely hidden, got that?”
— Yes, yes.
Sue disappears again and I go to work on the bathtub. Performing this humdrum chore feels completely unreal. Only a couple of hours ago I was still tied to a blood-soaked bed, staring death in the eye… I try to focus my mind on the familiar gestures of scrubbing a very dirty bathtub. When Sue comes back some time later, I ask, “Did you take a look at the corpse?”
— Yes.
“Wasn’t looking happy, huh?”
— No.
“Let’s see what you brought back, so I can get dressed… Wait a minute: didn’t you find my white cane, my dark glasses and my handbag?”
— No. No.
When I have finished dressing, I ask Sue to search the house for anything that belongs to us. She disappears, and in the meantime I take a rest in a comfortable armchair in the sitting room. I now let happiness flood my brain: the satisfaction of being free… After a long while Sue returns with my handbag and a canvas tote bag with her own possessions: the things she took along when her kidnapper brought her to his house. I find my glasses back inside my handbag, but there is no trace of my white cane. “I must have dropped it when he chloroformed me…”
Finally we leave the house. We take our first breath of fresh air. The sun is shining, I can feel its warmth on my face. And just as we start walking down the street, Sue seems to falter at my side and stops. “What’s wrong? Not feeling well?”
— No.
And as I have just put my fingertips on her head, I notice that the girl is covering her eyes with one hand.
“The light blinding you? is that it?”
— Yes.
“Well, here, take my glasses, they’re good sunglasses, very groovy too…” And after Sue has put on the glasses, we move on.
“Listen, Sue, I’ve got some money in my bag. If you can find a Tube station, we can take the Tube. I want you to take me to St Mary’s Hospital near Paddington, that’s a hospital I know well… If you can get me there I’d be very grateful.”
During our ride on the Tube, I can feel how tense the girl is, sitting next to me, holding my hand. I myself also feel overwhelmed by all the bustle that I sense around me, but that I can’t hear. I touch Sue’s head with my forehead and rub her hand gently. “Are you nervous, poor darling?”
— Yes.
“It’s not that easy, huh, being free after all this time?”
— No.
“I’m sure you’ll get used to it pretty fast. You’re young, you’re going to enjoy it. Just forget all the bad things… What time is it anyway?”
Sue opens my hand and draws a large 4 in my palm.
“Four o’clock in the afternoon?”
— Yes.
“That’s more or less what I thought, too. Funny, how well we keep time in our mind… Now, listen, are there any people reading a newspaper around?”
— Yes.
“Well, go and take a look—discretely—what day it is…”
Sue leaves my side, and when she comes back, I ask, “Have you seen the date on the newspapers?”
— Yes.
“Now I want you to do some mental arithmetic: calculate how long you have been a prisoner in the dungeon, and write the answer in my hand.”
A few moments pass, then Sue takes my hand and traces the number 9 there.
“Nine months? Is that the answer?”
— Yes.
“And did you really believe at some stage that you had been held for two years?”
— Yes, yes.
“Well, that goes to show how boring life was down there, in the Master’s clutches… I myself only spent a couple of weeks in his dungeon, but it seems like ages! But the good news is: you only lost nine months of your life. You’re young, Sue, you can do plenty yet, don’t waste any more time, all right?”
— Yes.
Walking hand in hand we leave the Paddington Tube station. From now on I am in familiar territory, near my work; I have known these streets since I was eighteen years old, when I started my education as a physical therapist at St Mary’s. While I in fact lead the way towards the hospital, I say, “Listen, Sue, if anyone there asks where we come from, or where you found me, don’t mention the Master or the dungeon, right? Just tell them that you found me wandering in the neighbourhood and that you think there’s something wrong with my ears… Oh yes, and another thing: after you leave me at the hospital, don’t forget to get rid of the Master’s keys. Drop the whole bunch of them into the Thames the next time you cross a bridge.”
The girl nods her head and puts her arm around my waist, and I sense how tense she still is. “I guess it is time to say goodbye, huh? Are you sad, darling Sue?”
— Yes, yes!
“Me too! I hope we’ll meet again. Come and visit me here one of these days.”
— Yes.
“You can keep my sunglasses!”
We climb the steps leading to the entrance, Sue pushes the heavy glass door, and we are both overwhelmed by the typical hospital smell of the place. Suddenly Sue comes to a standstill, and I ask: “What’s the matter?”
The girl takes me in her arms, gives me a kiss on each cheek, and then lets go of me. Now she turns me around in the right direction and gives me a push with her hand in the small of my back. With my arms stretched out in front of me, I walk towards the reception desk, assuming that soon some nurse will be rushing forward to help me.