Waxing Crescent

Waxing Crescent

… … … … … …

        They had a piano now. Anala wasn’t sure where it had come from—one day, Connor had announced that he had a piano and asked for help moving it to the basement. She hadn’t asked him; it had been unimportant. The piano was a plain, upright piano with a horrible tendency to quickly lose pitch and tone. Despite its shortcomings, however, Connor always managed to maintain a decent level of working order, performing tricks with his gentle fingers or fiddling about with the strings when work became slow or when they needed an escape. Their first escape had been simple: Connor was at his usual place on the piano bench in the basement and Anala sat on her bed, doodling on a legal pad with black ink.

        “It’s beautiful,” she said, drawing a stick figure absentmindedly.

        “Hm?” he replied.

        “What you’re playing—it’s beautiful,” she repeated. The stick figure had short black lines for hair now.

        “It’s amazing,” he said, his eyes closed as his fingers continued to move.

        “What is?” she asked. She switched colors and began to draw a suit on the figure in dark blue ink.

        “Music,” he answered and abruptly stopped playing. Anala looked up from the half-clothed stick figure.

        “What?” she asked again. Had she heard correctly?

        “Music. Isn’t it amazing? How it can be described by something as supposedly bland as mathematics? Two eighth notes to a beat. Four beats to a measure. It’s all math. It’s just numbers but then, it becomes something more.”

        Anala stared at him, her mouth slightly open in awe.

        “Where the hell did this come from?” she asked.

        “And when you sing,” he continued, ignoring her, “it’s just muscle tensions and vibrations in your throat that’s producing the sound.”

        He paused and Anala watched him patiently, waiting for him to finish.

        “Isn’t it amazing,” he said finally, “how some of the most complex things could be explained in such simple terms? Music is math. Singing is physiological. Wonder why that is?”

        “Dunno,” Anala said simply, turning back to her sketch. She was now filling in round, dark eyes.

        “Not intent on conversation today, are you?” Connor teased. Anala felt the corners of her mouth twitch.

        “Nope!” she said, “I’d rather hear you play, actually.”

        “Never thought I’d see the day when you’d pass up a decently intelligent conversation,” Connor remarked thoughtfully, “wonder why that is?”

        “Maybe,” Anala said, a smile dancing on her lips, “because it’s one in the morning, I’ve had a long day and my brain is too tired to care. Your brain isn’t on a break right now, Connor?”

        “No,” Connor remarked happily, “my brain is proceeding full speed ahead.”

        “Typical,” Anala muttered, drawing a straight line for a mouth on the stick figure.

        “What do you mean?” Connor asked. His fingers had stopped on the keys.

        “Look at what you majored in at college—I mean, university. Computer science? Must have been a hard degree. Your brain must be unnaturally strong right now.” There was a slight, almost minute, hint of sarcasm in her voice.

        “The University of Kent did have a unique way of whipping tired brains into shape,” Connor agreed proudly.

        “And all I learned at UC Davis was how to milk cows.”

        Connor laughed.

        “That can be quite a useful skill,” he said sympathetically.

        “Yeah, look where it’s gotten me—in a house in an English village, hiding from the government and having a virtually useless conversation in the middle of the night with a man who thinks himself to be intellectually superior.”

        “You had your shot at a meaningful conversation,” Connor reminded.

        “And I shot it down. I didn’t say that uselessness was a bad thing. Sometimes, simplicity is nice. Now how about we stop talking, you start playing and I’ll just sit here and listen?”

        Connor felt a sudden rush of appreciation towards Anala. He silently agreed that there was something infinitely soothing and cozy about the two of them together late at night, not really doing anything significant or even talking but somehow still enjoying the other’s presence. He wasn’t really sure how to phrase the feeling—perhaps ‘simplicity’ would suffice? Regardless, that warm feeling of appreciation did not leave as he turned back to the piano once more and began to play. Anala smiled to herself as she allowed the music to wash over her in a comforting wave and, humming along to the tune of the piece Connor was playing, began to draw another stick figure besides the first, starting with a simple triangle for a skirt.

… … … … … …

        Damian couldn’t get the interrogation session with Anala out of his mind. He walked along the hallways of the cells in the basement of the Ministry of Internal Security building, his brow furrowing with thought. How could she be so defiant? He hadn’t done enough. No, he had gone too easy on her. He did not inflict enough pain on her. But, a nasty voice in his head whispered, the guards already tortured her. There was no difference. She doesn’t respond to pain. Damian shook his head. Perhaps…not physical pain. No, he needed a different approach. He needed to insult her, to put her down, to alienate her. He needed to drain the hope out of her before taking out her heart and wrenching the life out of it. Damian was deep in thought about the best way to break her when he heard it.

        Singing.

        He did not believe it at first. Thinking it to be a hallucination, he continued to walk but it did not take him long to realize that it grew more faint as he walked away from the prison cells. He paused to listen. It was a girl singing, a girl with a soft and soothing voice. He could not hear the words she was singing but he was startled to realize that he recognized the song. Forgetting his thoughts on torture, he turned and began to follow the voice when he stumbled upon a guard. The sight of the pressed navy uniform knocked sense back into him.

        “You! Perhaps you could clear something up for me?” Damian barked.

        “Yes, sir?”

        “What’s that?” Damian asked angrily.

        “What’s what, sir?”

        “Singing.”

        “Oh, that. She just started doing it, sir.”

        “And no one could have notified me? I am the commander of this Ministry, am I not?”

        “Well, sir, no one thought it was important enough…”

        Damian narrowed his eyes. “You’re dismissed.” The guard bowed his head and Damian continued to walk back towards the prison cells and stopped in front of the first cell. The song was coming from within. He furrowed his brow—what strangeness was this? He rushed to the control room, where all cells were monitored through hidden cameras from within the cells, turned on the TV monitor for Cell #1201 and nearly fell back from his chair when he saw that it was Anala. He turned up the volume and could now hear the words:

Sweet darling
You worry too much, my child
See the sadness in your eyes
You are not alone in life
Although you may think that you are

        He had not heard this song in years. It had been one of the thousands thrown out during the Censors and back then, he had been sorry to see it go. He was surprised anyone even remembered it. He himself had forgotten and now with the melody flooding back into his brain, he vaguely wondered how he could have let such tune seep through the cracks in his memory. Damian continued to watch her on the screen and felt something strange overcome him. He had not expected a sight like this. Anala was sitting with her knees drawn, leaning her head on the wall, her hair hanging in dark, wet curls around her face with tears slowly and silently spilling from her red eyes. She was gazing at something—what was it? Damian shut his eyes and imagined the cell in his mind. She was gazing at the window and at the small beam of moonlight it allowed into her darkness. One of the guards began to say something but Damian hushed him, listening intently to the words Anala sang.

So sorry your world is tumbling down
I will watch you through these nights
Rest your head and go to sleep
Because my child,
This is not our farewell

        “Sir?”

        Damian’s head snapped up; he hadn’t realized how close he had been to the monitor.

        “Oh yes, the singing…” he started, “…it needs to…” but paused. But what was it he wanted to say? He wanted her to stop, didn’t he? He stared at her, sitting there with an illusion of calmness about her. He had the strangest urge to storm into the cell, slap her again as he had earlier today and, for some odd reason, wipe her tears away…

        “Sir?” the guard asked again.

        With great difficulty, Damian peeled his eyes off of the screen and turned to look at the guard.

        “Yes, the singing,” he paused, “Disregard it but don’t—don’t tell my father.”

 

        “Killing is wrong,” Anala said matter-of-factly.

        “One of your favorite movies is V For Vendetta, correct?”

        Anala looked at Damien curiously.

“Yes,” she confirmed, “It has striking parallels to reality now, doesn’t it?”

        “V killed for revenge in that movie. Was that wrong?”

        “That was necessary to overthrow the government. What your father is doing is wrong.”

        “What he’s doing is necessary for the safety of the British people.”

        “Killing little children, killing the elderly, killing all brown people, whom you call ‘Muds’ regardless of age, gender and background isn’t wrong?”

        “Nonsense,” Damien said, disgusted, “My father does none of those things.”

        Anala blinked. “You’re just as deluded as he is, then,” she said.

        “And here we are, again!” Damian said, laughing, “I would say that this session of ours has been going off as more of a conversation in the last hour rather than an interrogation, wouldn’t you agree?”

        The change in atmosphere was quick. Anala widened her eyes and she knew what was coming.

        “No,” she said quietly, “I disagree.”

        Damian smiled to himself. Finally, he thought, fear is attaching itself to her. It won’t be long before she breaks.

        “Not frightened, are you?’ he asked. She did not answer.

        “Stick out your arms,” he commanded. She did not.

        “Talk or obey.”

        There was still no response. Damian studied her carefully. She would not meet his eyes, her arms had goose bumps from the damp cold of the room and she was taking quick breaths. She was anxious. He knew her heart was beating fast beneath her gray shirt; he could almost feel the intense, rapid speed of her heart as it pounded against her body in an effort to warn her of danger…

        Damian grabbed her wrists and placed a pair of handcuffs on them. However, these handcuffs had sharp metal spikes on the inside that would dig into the skin of the wearer.

        “Remember, I can tighten it to different degrees,” he said, nodded at her wrists.

        Anala groaned softly as little beads of blood began to appear on her skin but her lips did not move.

        Damian sighed and turned a little knob on the handcuffs and Anala screamed with the sudden pain. He had tightened it too much and the spikes were almost fully buried in her skin, piercing skin, tissue and nearly touching bone. He watched her struggle to keep from crying out again—he knew that she thought screaming would be to show a sign of weakness—and after several seconds, loosened the torture device but did not take it off.

        “Well?” he asked her.

        She looked at him, her eyes watery but he was stunned to see the fiery spark in her eyes shining as brightly as it ever had.

        “No,” she said, her voice shaking.

        Damian was startled to hear how hoarse her voice sounded. Of course, he thought, her screaming like that would cause her to lose her voice. He stared at her for a while, not saying anything, but finally took off the handcuffs and released her to the guards.

        Half an hour later, he entered the control room to the prison cells. The guards knew what to do by now—they had turned the monitor to Anala’s cell on and all others had been switched off. Damian took his usual seat and watched her as she used a ripped piece of cloth from her shirt, wet with tears and drops of blood, to cover her wounds. She was humming sadly.

 

        The next day, Damian gave Anala a small notebook and several wooden pencils. He wanted her to write in it—whatever she wanted. He only told her that he wanted her to write in it everyday. “You may write one word, one sentence, or one page,” he had said, “But I don’t care. Just write or suffer the consequences.” Anala had to admit that she found the whole gesture to be very curious, but she had reasoned that they needed her writings to create a psychological profile for her to research on the most effective torture method to break her. Anala did not mind. She had taken the notebook and pencils unquestioningly and followed Damian’s orders. The act of writing itself came naturally to her and it was an easy way for her to avoid further pain.

        Conversely, Connor had received no such treatment. The men, led perhaps by Damian himself (for she did not know if he interrogated Connor also and Connor would not tell), continued to use traditional interrogation methods on Connor but to no luck. Anala knew Connor had a silent resolve, and a strong one at that. Sometimes late at night, she wondered why she and Connor were getting such different treatment. Apart from their interrogations (Anala’s involved almost no physical discomfort these days and from the sound of his voice, she could tell that Connor’s was getting more painful day by day) she received more and better food than he did, allowed more showers than he was allowed, and sometimes, even cleaner clothes. The difference in the way both were treated was nearly infuriating. To her, the antics of the enemy was like a puzzle—to be contemplated, thought and reasoned over—and it did not delight her, per se, but kept her mind occupied until sleep overcame her. For her, it felt good to think and soon, she stopped feeling and only thought. It was these thoughts that she wrote in the notebook. And it was these thoughts that Damian brought into question during the meetings she dreaded daily.

        “What the bloody hell is this?” Damian hissed, clutching her notebook. Anala shrugged.

        “My writing. You said I would write whatever I felt like.”

        “‘Some people violate the very existence of life. Premier Helling is one of them. He rode in like a knight in shining armor with promises to save the day and the people believed him but when it was time for him to wash himself of sins, the people removed the armor only to find a pig. A horrible, stinky pig who throws around its piglet like a toy. This piglet” Damian’s voice shook with anger as he continued to read, “‘who is his father’s spitting image. He’s foolishly been led to believe in everything his father and he is the epitome of the typical British Conservative Party puppet. And they call me Mud when they roll around in mud all the time! It seems Orwell got many things right—the very existence of Premier Helling and Damien violate the boundaries between man and animal.’ You think this is funny, don’t you?”

        Anala could barely suppress a smile.

        “No,” she said, “it’s the truth.”

        Damian felt something deep inside of him roar with anger and it was this anger that lifted his hand and slapped her across her face. The monster continued to roar when he saw that the smile she was trying so hard to hide had not been erased.

        “I expected something better,” he said, his voice shaking with anger.

        “I’m sorry. I was in a particularly nasty mood. You can’t expect something deep and well thought-out all the time,” she said bravely. Damian stared at her incredulously.

        “How can you speak to me like that?” he asked. Surprise had knocked out the anger from his voice.

        “Oh, simple,” Anala said pleasantly, “You remind me a lot of my father.”

        Damian raised an eyebrow.

        “Oh?”

        “Yes. He was quite a nasty piece of work but he acted evil not because he believed in certain things but because he didn’t know how to control his emotions very well.”

        “You believe I don’t know how to control my emotions?”

        “Yes,” Anala said. She leaned forward in her chair. “I know you’ve been trying to make a psychological profile of me. Did you know I’ve been making one of you?”

        “And what have you found?”

        “You don’t really believe in your father’s ideas. You don’t believe in the Party. You have no opinion of these things. The only reason you do them is because you feel some sort of sick obligation to your father. Apparently, your father would rather have an idiotic son who follows him blindly rather than an intelligent one who thinks for himself.”

        “Ridiculous,” Damian spat, “How can you possibly think that I do not favor Party ideology?”

        Anala raised her eyebrows.

        “Come on, Damian. Do you hate me because of my skin color or because of what my skin color represents?”

        “The Party doesn’t weed out disloyals and Muds based on skin color alone. We know skin color is arbitrary—an accident of nature, shall we say. We also know that it is often associated with certain behaviors that are…unfavorable.”

        “Nonsense, Damian,” Anala said, “You honestly believe you can judge an entire race of species on several examples alone? That’s what started this disaster, didn’t it? Just because one Hindu decided to bomb the church in Cornwall to force English submission to the god Krishna, you honestly think that all Hindus are just itching to finish his job?”

        Damian’s eyes narrowed.

        “In all probability—no. But why take chances?”

        “You’re acting dumb,” she said simply, “This Party makes you foolish.”

        “And you think I can do better?”

        “Perhaps,” she said, “But I don’t think you will. Life has always been about the difference between ‘could’ and ‘should’. According to your own twisted mindset, you could side with the Resistance but you should side with your father because blood is apparently stronger than ideas.”

        Damian was dumbstruck and hated the smug look on Anala’s face.

        “How can you speak to me like this?” he finally asked again.

        “I’ve already told you. My father was the same way. And I had no respect for my father.”

        Damian felt his heart skip a beat. He glared at her with narrow eyes—how could she make him feel this way? He wanted to get up and beat her, to drag her by the hair until she passed out, to take a knife and stab her until all the blood in her body was on his hands…

        There was a short silence between the two. Anala stared at Damian as he fiddled with her notebook. She knew he was not reading it; he had already read every word she had written in it. She furrowed her brow. What was he thinking about? She noticed the look he gave her—meant to scare her, no doubt—but she only felt intrigued. She knew she had touched a nerve this time and wondered, only mildly, what sort of pain would come.

        “Tell me, Anala,” he said finally, “what made you join the Lords of Ithil?”

        Anala looked confused.

        “Don’t you know?”

        “Why didn’t you run that day?”

        “You’ve answered that question yourself two weeks ago,” she replied. Damian’s eyes bore into hers.

        “I think you can elaborate on that answer,” he said. There was a hint of a warning in his tone and Anala decided it would be best to cooperate for a while.

        “I believed your father to have the wrong ideas. I’ve already told you that the right ideas are worth fighting for.”

        “And what are the right ideas? That killing—any kind of killing—is wrong?”

        Anala chose her words carefully. “We must kill only those who threaten us.”

        Damian leaned back and nodded at a guard. Anala looked around, her heart starting to rush. Clearly, he had planned something. But before she could begin thinking of what it was, he began to speak again.

        “I’ve looked more into your background,” he said, “and at one point, you called yourself a humanitarian?”

        Anala said nothing.

        “You helped the effort to try and stop the Darfur genocide in 2005, didn’t you? You volunteered for a battered women’s shelter. You advocated human rights in your high school’s Model UN competition. You care about people, don’t you?”

        The door to the room opened and a guard came in, dragging another prisoner. The prisoner was a middle-aged man, perhaps in his late 40s to early 50s, and badly wounded. His face bore nasty scars and he was emaciated. Anala’s heart pounded with a surge of pity. She looked much better than this man.

        “Meet Jeffery Gorgon,” Damian said, “Arrested three months ago for the possession of a Lords of Ithil crest. Recognize the name?”

        Anala’s heart pounded harder. Of course she did. He was one of the names on her mailing list for the Internet site she ran with Connor. She had received notification that Mr. Jeffery Gorgon had expressed sympathy towards the Resistance when Party Leader Helling was first elected but remained silent afterwards. Her duty was to try and convince him to rejoin the Resistance, namely the Lords of Ithil, due to a decreasing supply of workers. So she mailed him information, in other words, solicited, his help. He once replied that he was not interested, and that his patriotic duty bound him to Premier Helling, but, on the orders of the Lords, Anala had continued to send him information, trying to convince him to switch sides.

        “He’s not a dissenter,” she said quietly.

        “What was that?” Damian asked, his eyes glimmering with an emotion Anala could not identify. Was it anticipation?

        “He’s not against the Party,” she said more loudly, “He’s been frightened into submission by Party antics and it’s that fright that keeps him loyal to the Premier. What’s he doing here?”

        “He was caught with an association to the Lords of Ithil. That act alone is enough to warrant an arrest.”

        Anala glanced at the man.

        “But he’s not part of the Resistance! He said no!”

        Damian shrugged.

        “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “He’s guilty by association.”

        Anala opened her mouth to protest more but shut it quickly. It was clear that Damian did not bring the man here to argue over the terms of his arrest.

        “Why’d you bring him here,” she asked. Damian pulled out a gun and, smiling at her, pointed it at the man. Jeffery Gorgon whimpered with fear.

        “Speak or he dies.”

        Anala did not lose her ground at first.

        “And who says he won’t die anyway?”

        “Mr. Jeffery Gorgon has been granted full pardon by my father in return for his cooperation. You should thank him. Jeffery’s the one who helped us find you. Isn’t that right, Jeffery?”

        Anala widened his eyes and looked at Jeffery, who nodded slightly, shaking.

        “Now, here’s a man who is close to his freedom. The only thing standing in his way is you. Speak,” Damian said.

        Anala’s heart thumped loudly against her chest. She did not know what to do. If she spoke, if she revealed even the tiniest hint of a detail of the Lords of Ithil, it could be the end of the Resistance. But could she condemn the man in front of her to death, after all she had worked for?

        “I’m waiting,” Damian said impatiently.

        Anala looked at him, with tears in her eyes. How could she have placed herself in a position like this?

        “You’re sick,” she said venomously.

        “That may be,” he said almost pleasantly, “But this is about you, not me. Will you talk?”

        Anala glanced at Jeffery and then, at the floor.

        “I’m sorry,” she said not to Damian but to Jeffery. The words would barely leave her throat and she said it very quietly. And through her tightly closed eyes, she could see Damian’s face fall with disappointment. She could see his finger pull the trigger very slowly and she could see the bullet speed through air and space and settle itself neatly into Jeffery Gorgon’s head and she could do nothing as she watched the man fall to the sticky floor.

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