Chapter 31 Chapter Twenty Nine

There is still the moon, and there are stars.The surface of all things is frosted and glistens in the half-light.In a world of ice and snow, there is a piercing chill on his face.I took a breath, slowly, feeling the clean air in my mouth and down my throat.I exhale again, watching how my breath is suspended in mid-air. Oh no no no. Sarah made an animal-like sound, several syllables mixed together, a shrill and sharp voice.I couldn't hear what she was saying.I hugged her shoulders tighter and helped her stand up, and she snuggled against me and sobbed.Her body feels very petite against me, and I don't know how old she is.She looked like a snotty, dirty toddler.She was limp, her head resting on my chest, and I could smell her greasy hair and her sweat.

I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out Ben's phone.At this time the signal strength is just enough.I dial 119.What service do you need?a female voice asked.I froze for a moment.In fact, all services are needed, except for the fire brigade.I said that there are serious injuries and major cases, we may need two ambulances, and the police. I put the phone away and looked at Sarah. Her little flat face was pale, with sores all over her forehead and her mouth was swollen.Her lips were drawn back into a panicked, silent grin.She looks like a trapped animal.I could see the strangle marks on her neck.She was shaking.She was only wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and cotton trousers, with thick socks and no shoes.

Here, I said, taking off my padded jacket and draping it over her.I pull up the collar of my jacket to shield her face from the wind.put on my coat.I said, reaching out to hug her again. Her trembling body made a sound, and I couldn't make out what she was saying. They'll be here soon, I said.You are safe now. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Oh, that oh. That's not me, not me.I'm mad.I thought I was dying.She began to sob.I know I'm going to die.I'm mad. yes, i said.I was crazy like that too.But I'm no longer like that. Blue lights and alarm bells came from the side of the mountain.Two ambulances and two police cars.The door suddenly opened, and several people jumped out of the car and ran towards us in a hurry.There were faces looking down at us, and hands pulling us away.The stretcher is spread out on the ground.I called several people into the house.I could hear Sarah next to me, sobbing until her sobbing turned into retching.I could hear someone comforting her.The word Mummy cut through the surrounding noise.where is mummy

A blanket is draped over my shoulders. I'm fine.I said. Lie here. I can walk. Shouts came from inside.A man in a green jumpsuit rushed out and whispered to a young officer. God.The policeman said and gave me a hard look. He is a murderer.I said. Murderer? But it's safe.He could see nothing, he was no longer dangerous. We'll take you to an ambulance, honey.The voice soothed me, as if I was hysterical from being frightened. You should inform Jack.Inspector Cross, I continued.My name is Abigail.Deborah.Abby.I gouged his eyes out and he couldn't look at me anymore. They took Sarah away first.I climbed into the second ambulance, still wearing the blanket.Two people got into the car with me, one was a medical worker and the other was a policewoman.I could detect a growing noise somewhere behind me, someone shouting with urgency, and the siren of a third ambulance coming down the road.But I don't have to worry about it anymore.I sit back and close my eyes, not because I'm tired I'm not tired, I feel sane, as if I've had a good night's sleep I want to shut out the bright light and noise, so that no one will ask me anything Ask West.

Oh, I'm so clean and warm.I have washed my hair and wiped my skin, and my hands and feet have been trimmed with toenails.I brushed my teeth three times, then rinsed my mouth with a green syrup that made my breath smell minty all the way to my lungs.I sat on the bed, drinking tea and eating toast, in a weird pink pajamas under stiff, sanitized sheets and layers of thin, itchy blankets.Three cups of hot tea with sugar and a slice of toasted white toast softened with cream, probably margarine.There is no cream in the hospital.There are daffodils in plastic vases above my locker. Different hospitals, different wards, different landscapes, different nurses rushing in and out, carrying thermometers and bedpans and trolleys, different doctors carrying their medical records and their tired faces, different policemen nervously Stare at me and then look away.But Jack.Cross was the same, sitting hunched over in a chair, like a patient himself, rubbing his cheek with one hand, as if he had a toothache, and staring at me as if I had frightened him.

Hello, Jack.I said. Abby spoke, then stopped, rubbing his hands together until finally his fingers were over his mouth.I waited, and finally he tried again.Are you all right? fine.I said. doctor said I'm fine.They just wanted to keep me for a few more days of observation. I am not surprised.I don't know where to start.I adjusted his sitting posture in the chair and rubbed his eyes, then sat upright and took a deep breath.He looked me straight in the eye.We were all wrong.Nothing to say.I could see him thinking about how to get all the reasons and excuses out of his mouth, only to swallow them back.That's about it.I don't believe you would do this.He slumped in the chair again and covered his face with his hands again.It was a mess from beginning to end.You can throw us all in the trash.

is he dead He's in intensive care. oh. Do you know what happened to him? Know. his eyes.he whispered.I couldn't tell whether he looked at me with admiration or fear and loathing.You almost poked both of his eyeballs into his brain.I mean, fuck it. use my thumb.I said. But oh my god abby you must be I have nothing else. We'll have to make a formal transcript later. certainly.How is Sarah? Sarah.Marginice is terrified and malnourished, just like you were.She'll be fine. Do you want to see her? I thought about it.don't want. She's sorry, Abby. You knew already?

She kept talking. I shrugged. Maybe I'm lucky, I said.He was about to kill her, and he had already removed his scarf.I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know if I'm going to stand by and watch him do it.No one can blame me, right?Poor, traumatized Abby. I don't think you'll stand by and watch. Any news about Zou?Did he give anything? I don't think he can speak yet.We have begun investigating Miss Amber's disappearance. It's too late.I said. He raised his hands up and dropped them on his lap.We sat in silence for a few minutes.A nurse came in and said someone had left my flowers in the anteroom.She carried a wet bouquet of anemones over my locker, and I picked them up and sniffed them.It smells fresh and the brightly colored petals are dripping with water.I put it back on the locker.Cross's face was gray with weariness.

Tell me how much you know about him.I said. We are just getting started.His name is George.Ronald Chepp.Fifty-one years old.His only previous conviction was animal cruelty, a few years ago, for a lesser sentence.We don't know much, we've talked to our neighbors.He lived off odd jobs, doing this for a while and that for a while.Porters, artisans in fairgrounds, truck drivers.Not much is known, really. What about the other women victims? Several other names, Cross said.We're going to keep going, of course, especially now trying to match missing persons in the area where he worked.Maybe when we know more he shrugged resignedly.All I can say is, don't expect too much.

So those names are still just a string of syllables spoken to me in the dark. Are you meeting someone?he asks. Several doctors, but I'm fine. Not that I mean someone who can help you, someone who can chat with you.After what you've been through. I don't need help. Abby, I've been over there, I've seen what he left on the site. You expect me to be traumatized? this I gouged out his eyes.I hold up my hands and look at my fingers.I poked my thumb into his eyeball and gouged it out.That's not trauma, Jack.Trauma is being kidnapped, trauma is being imprisoned in a cellar with a hood on, a rag stuffed in your mouth, and eyes looking at me in the dark, hands touching me in the dark, that's trauma.Knowing that I was going to die and no one could save me was traumatic.Escaping and finding out no one believed me was traumatic.To be in danger when I should be safe is traumatic.This is not, this is my escape, this is my survival.No, I don't think I still need assistance.Thanks.

He leans back when I talk like I'm punching him.When I finished speaking, he nodded and left. Ben comes over at lunchtime, which is his lunchtime.Lunch in the hospital was at eleven-thirty, dinner at five, and then the evening stretched on into the night, and then the night stretched on until dawn again.He was wearing his nice floppy coat.He leaned over and kissed my cheek with cold lips in embarrassment.He handed me a box of chocolates, which I took and put on the pillow.He sat down and we looked at each other. I brought this too, he said, pulling a smooth wooden oval from his pocket.It was honey colored with a darker grain on the outer ring.Horn tree, he said.A special kind of wood.I was waiting for you in the studio last night and hope to make it for you when you get back. I hold it.very beautiful.thanks. Do you want to talk now? Not much. do you remember anything No. We fell silent for a while. I'm sorry about what happened to Zou, I said.she died. You don't know.uncertain. She's dead, Ben. He got up and went to the window, and looked out of the small closed window at the blue sky above the roof.He stood like this for several minutes.I thought he might be crying. Abby, he said at last, turning to face the hospital bed again.I'm worried as hell, I want to help you, I don't want to leave you alone like this.No matter how you feel about me and Zou, you shouldn't just leave without saying goodbye, as if you think of me as the murderer or something, I know you're mad at me, then I can understand.No you could die, it's not right, Abby, he said.That doesn't count as a great performance. class. Well, well listen, I'm sorry about what happened to me and Zou At least, I'm sorry you found out in that situation.I'm not saying I'm sorry we had a relationship, that's another matter, I could tell you someday if you wanted to; and I'm not even saying I was totally wrong for not telling you.Our relationship can be described as hit it off, you and I.We didn't have a proper relationship with each other, did we?According to the normal situation, we should get to know each other first, and then gradually confess to each other.We don't know each other well, and then all of a sudden you're living in my house and you're in shock, and there are so many important things happening that have to be talked about.I don't want to show all my cards at once when we start dating.I'm afraid I'll lose you again. So you start our relationship with a lie.I said. That's not a lie. Not technically, but morally. I'm sorry I lied.He said.He sat next to me again, and I reached up and stroked his beautiful soft hair. I'm also sorry I just walked away without saying goodbye, I replied.Have some chocolate? no thank you. I ate one, caramel flavored. Some words mean different things to me now than they do to you, I said.Darkness, silence, winter.I took another piece of chocolate.memory.I added, and put that chocolate in my mouth. Ben took my hand, not the hand that held his log egg.He drew that hand to his face.I really love you.He said. I think I was a little out of my mind at the time.That's over. You look different, he said.very beautiful. I don't think so. What are you going to do next? Make some money, grow your hair long, and go to Venice. do you want to come back class I'm so happy to see you back. No.I mean, no, you're probably not happy to see me go back, although it's kind of you to ask.And, no, I'm not going back. I see.He put my hands on the bed, stroking my fingers one by one, without looking at me. You can ask me out, I said.We can go on dates, watch movies, drink cocktails, and go out to restaurants for dinner. He began to smile at me, eager and hesitant.That made his eyes narrow.He's really a nice guy, the rest is just too much on my own. Spring is here, I say.It's hard to say what's going to happen. Another person came to see me.Uh, of course, there are many people who come to see me, my friends, individually or together with friends, holding flowers, with snot and tears or giggling or embarrassing .I cuddle until my ribs ache like throwing a party in my room that never ends, like the party I thought I'd throw the first time I got back from the disaster, only then Instead, enter a world of silence and shame.But now I find myself a stranger at my own party, looking at the fun, laughing but not really getting the joke. But there was another one too.He knocked on the door, which was only ajar, and stood on the threshold until I called him in. I don't know if you remember me, he said.I am Of course I do, I said.You once said I had a good brain.You are Professor Mu Ligan, the authority on memory, the only person I really like to see. I didn't bring any flowers. That's good because I'm leaving the hospital this afternoon. How are you? very good. well done.He said. I remembered the way he had that look of approval back in the day, and it made me feel warm.Jack.Cross says you've stood up for me. He waved his hand helplessly. You walk out of a meeting in protest. That's of no use.Tell me, has your memory recovered? No.Not really, I said.Sometimes I feel like there's some slush claw in my head, just on the edge of my consciousness, but I can't catch it, and it's gone as soon as I look back.Sometimes I feel like that lost time is like a tide coming towards me that is now ebbing.It's so slow I can't even notice it and maybe it's just my imagination.Or maybe, memories will gradually come back.Do you think it is possible? He leaned forward and looked at me.Don't expect too much, he said.Anything is possible, but everything is a mystery. For a long time I thought there should be an answer in the end, I said.I thought if I saw that guy I would regain my memory, I thought those lost things would be regained.But it backfired, right? What do you want to get back? I want to get me back. oh.Then, uh. I'll never find my lost self, will I? Professor Mulligan picked up a flower and smelled it.He snapped off the end of the stem and inserted it into the collar of his suit. Do you mind?He said, and I smiled and shook my head.Try not to dwell on things you can't remember.Think about the things you remember. The things I can't remember, I counted: breaking up with Terry, meeting Zou, meeting Ben, meeting that man.I still think of him as a man with no name, just his man, a dark figure, a voice in the dark.I don't remember falling in love, I don't remember a week of pure ecstasy, I don't remember being snatched from my life, I don't remember losing myself. Things I remember: wearing a hood, a noose around my neck, a gag in my mouth, a whimper in my throat, voices in the night, laughter in the dark, invisible hands caressing me, eyes looking at me, Fear, loneliness, madness, shame.I remember dying, and I remember being dead.I remember the sound of my heart beating, my constant breathing, a yellow butterfly on a green leaf, a silver tree on a hill, a gentle river, a clear lake.A sight I have never seen and will never forget.live.I remember. (End of the book)