and swayed back on his knees, his eyes hooded and dreamy. She glanced down.
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‘Where’s the condom?’
‘Uh?’
‘Oh no. You’ve got to be kidding me.’
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7
At the same time as the total nightmare freak-out that followed, her poking around
with her fingers, the condom writhing away like a fish from her fingertips, he, eeeuugh,
staring at her and she grunting oh my God then leaping to the small en-suite bathroom
to finish the job alone, the acrid smell of burnt fish and spices, the oil fire, the naked
sprinkler-shower, during all that turmoil inside a fancy concrete box up in the northern
hemisphere, a female leopard, heavily pregnant, lay on her side in the dry quiet of her
cave, panting rapidly, waiting, at peace.
Neither knew it, but Gaia tied a thread of true destiny between them that night, a line
through the Earth from Europe to Africa, parallel with the soft fringe of twilight as day
slipped into night. Did they sense it, when Ariel was infused with a strange inner calm,
stopped shouting, wrapped herself in a towel and went out onto the balcony, and
Ingwe snarled and lashed her tail? When Ariel glanced south to the sky past the
mountains and Ingwe glanced north at precisely the same moment? Of course not.
We’re just animals. We don’t know half of what’s going on around us.
The moment of anxiety passed, and she stretched out again, writhing in the leaf litter.
Although this was her first child, Ingwe knew the birth would be wonderful, the
pleasure and the pain already so sweet as her baby broke from her womb. Just one, she
could feel it moving inside her. Just one. She’d never seen a kitten before, but when she
closed her eyes she saw it, memory from genes, the fuzzy face-lines, the miracle little
claws. A purr rumbled through her shallow breath.
And just as Johnny’s best little runner squiggled his head through the membrane of
Ariel’s egg, the kitten thrust out, first its nose then its head, shiny as a wet rat in the
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starlight. Ingwe watched, rapt, then lay back and pushed. Out it came in a rush. She
turned over, ate the afterbirth and licked herself and then the kitten with innate
urgency, no scent of blood here. Sweet blood. Our blood. Is it a boy or girl? She squinted
down in the faint light, but she couldn’t tell. No matter. I will know when she opens her
eyes. A lingering, sweeping caress with her tongue, then she raised her great eyes to the
stars in thought . I said her eyes. She. My she-cat, my little queen.
And for some reason Ariel found herself smiling, rocking back and forth in the fresh
air, the stars ablaze above her. Johnny was inside, on the phone to the building manager
and the pizza place. It grew chilly on the balcony, the potted bamboo whispering in the
breeze by her deckchair, so she sighed, went back to his room and untangled her clothes
from the covers. She dressed quickly and found him mopping the floor, his naked torso
and tracksuit pants wet and grimy, his face flushed with embarrassment. Just like that
she forgave him and joined in to help, laughing, a bit hysterical.
And the she-cub mewed, lifted her head and crawled towards her mother’s
heartbeat, the soft rhythm of her breath. She lay trembling for a while, then opened her
mouth and suckled. Ingwe nuzzled her, circling with the white tuft of her long tail. The
light of the stars shone faintly onto the swollen little face. Her breath spoke to the cub,
survive, survive, survive.
63
THE CRUCIFIXION
64
1
‘My darling! How are you? How were the exams?
‘Hullo, mother.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Watching TV.’
‘Oh. Hang on, please Ariel. Another call.’
Ariel lowered the phone to her shoulder, raising her eyes to the ceiling. Johnny had
ordered ice cream with the pizza and she balanced the little spoon on her lip then stole
another spoonful, watching him. Beaming from ear to ear, his eyes glazed and shell-
shocked, his skin several shades paler. Muttered something thoughtful to the footballer
on the TV. He smelt of soap, as did she, the same scented lather in a very hot, shared
shower. She was rosy in his bathrobe, the fabric softer and snugglier than she’d ever felt
against her skin, her legs drawn up to one side, her head nestled on a silk cushion.
The phone squawked in her hand.
‘Sorry, excuse me?’
‘I saw the pictures! In the magazine. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Which one?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Magazine.’
‘ Bild. There are others?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is great. Keep it up. Are you still seeing him? The footballer?’
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‘Say hi to me Mum,’ in a passable cockney as she tossed the phone over. He picked it
up.
‘ Gruss Gott, mutti, ’ he croaked, winking at Ariel. ‘ Wie gehts? ’ The phone pealed with
laughter. He listened awhile, muting the roar of the crowd on the TV, then said, ‘Of
course, we’d love to. Sure, no problem. Text it to Ariel. See you there, uh < bye.’ He
slowly closed the phone. ‘Wow.’
‘What was all that about?’
‘Asked us to some Green Party party? Uh < I dunno. I think speeches and such.
Media.’ He grinned. ‘She said you must wear green clothes, you’d understand. No sexy
dress, I suppose. Damn.’
‘Um, John-bon?’
‘What?’
‘Why did you accept on my behalf? Hullo? Maybe I don’t want to go, because, you
know, I don’t want to go?’
‘Aaah, come on. Why not? Help me understand this. You want to translate, you want
to go forth and bridge the communication barriers of Europe, but not be part of a
Europe-wide political organization? A pretty cool one. What, you’re gonna join
another? The conservatives?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So like I said, why not?’
‘Why are you so keen and eager?’
‘Bored, I suppose. Politics is interesting. Can’t play soccer forever.’
‘Oh, so it’s your career?’
‘Of course. I’m visualizing. You, you just stand there, you wave, smile and do charity
stuff while I fuck the interns. Okay? That’s the grand plan. That’s why I’m taking you to
a party.’ He laughed and slapped his leg.
She didn’t even crack a smile.
66
What a change, from a few hours ago. Then her eager servant, tender and loving,
now lord of the manor, lounging back on his big expensive sofa in front of his TV half
the size of a wall, his voice deep and masterful. Irritated, she threw down the ice-cream
spoon, stood up and went for a glass of water, resisting an urge to run. How nice it would
be to have a kitchen right here, like a normal home. Instead of having to walk for goddamn half-
an-hour. By the time she reached the taps she was furious.
‘Okay, sorry,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a knot. I’ll phone back and
cancel. Whatever.’
She considered the matter. Of course, he was right. The Greens were an obvious
career path. And she understood the basic math of her psychology, the mother
abandons, so she flaunts her independence to punish her, a pattern of avoidance and
mistrust for the past seven years, on and on. But to let all that history get in the way of
her future, to sulk and deny opportunity? Walk away from an opening into the system,
the money-beast, the rock and roll? He was right. Not exactly rational.
But not the point, either. He hadn’t listened. Hadn’t glanced her way, shown any
thought for her feelings. Just gone on ahead, expecting her to follow. Okay, she knew
how pushy her mother could be, especially in pursuit of publicity, but that didn’t
excuse it. She was fuming so much she could barely swallow, and then she coughed
and sprayed water across the counter. That’s it. The last straw, the final indignity. She
flew back at him.
‘Listen, I need my clothes. I have to go now. Please, call a taxi?’ No, one more: ‘And
pay, please? I spent all my money on the last one.’
He was flabbergasted. ‘But I thought you were stay-’
‘You thought wrong. You never asked. My father will worry.’
‘Come on. I can drop you off early in the-‘
‘Johnny. Please.’
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‘Fine!’ He sprang up, lithe and full of power, almost colliding with her. She didn’t
flinch or step back, her eyes sullen and unblinking on his throat. So he jumped to the
side and past her and then flounced off like a kid throwing a tantrum, his elbows
flapping like wings, hopping away with his legs splayed out. For a moment she wasn’t
sure if he was joking, Oh no, another psycho-freak, he turns into a giant, violent baby when he
doesn’t get his way, but then he slumped back into his sexy footballer’s lope, so it was
okay. Just joking. Quite funny, actually. She laughed. If he turns around and comes back
right now, I’ll forgive him, and stay the night.
But he didn’t. He came back with a hundred-Euro note in his hand, and the history
of the human race branched off.
He did phone in the morning, though. It was intensely sweet, she apologizing at the
same time as him, both forgiving each other in general for being human, he pressed for
time and growling instead of saying goodbye. That night he called again and asked her
out, and so began an Indian summer, three weeks of play, sunshine and starlight,
football games and vast crowds, VIP boxes, twenty-seven parties. Because she kept a
subtle distance from Johnny, not quite trusting him, often going out alone, with Noodle
or with her new friends, she had even more fun. The record shows she appeared in six
different magazines and newspapers that autumn, the best photo a punk-style
monochrome of her laughing, cool in her leather jacket and black skinnies, reaching up
over the camera at something. Johnny was backlit behind her, his pose all the sexier for
being natural. The caption, in tasteful lower case over her spiky, wind-whipped hair:
ariel reaches for the stars. Her mother phoned again, sounding orgasmic. Her father
framed it and hung it up in the office. She flitted around, with Johnny and sans, met all
kinds of people, sowed all kinds of social seeds. Everyone wanted to know her. You
could write a whole ‘nother book about those three weeks.
Then she missed her period.
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Deep inside she knew, of course. She didn’t need to go buy a test, piddle on it, wait
for the ink. She sat on the toilet, waving the stick around, this way and that. For the first
time in her life, Ariel really didn’t have a clue what to do.
69
2
Ingwe watched the kitten patter back from the furthest corner of the cave, her eyes
black and golden-blue flash through patches of shade and sunlight. She had been very
careful to cover her business back there, scoring up the earth and leaf-litter,
concentrating so hard she was still trembling. She composed herself in the curve of
Ingwe’s body. And with eyes and ear-twitches, snuffles and purrs, with an ancient
telepathy flowing down from her soul like a soft, secret smell, Ingwe began to teach:
‘When you are big, like me,’ she purred, ‘you will leave this place, leave me. You will
go alone, with only shadow for a mother, passing through forest and mountain to the
valley where the river runs blood and the prey lies down before your beauty. Lion <
pah! ’ She sneezed. ‘Lion and hyena will squeal like bushpig at your scent and crawl off
to live in the stink of the dogs and the toothless, two-legged baboons. You will– ’
‘Mama?’ the cub interrupted. ‘What’s < lion?’
Ingwe yawned and stretched out in the late-afternoon sunshine. ‘I don’t know,’ she
shrugged. ‘I can only tell you what my mother told me. She said that they wish they
were cats. Cats like us? But they are dogs, fighting each other and sleeping in the dust
and howling in hideous voices at the night. But, little one? They are huge, powerful,
much bigger than your mother, and they live only to kill us. We are cats, and live alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever scented them. I don’t know if they exist, or if the two-legs have
killed them all.’
The cub shivered and snuggled towards her teats. The early summer rains had been
intermittent and light, and the milk flowed slow and turgid, nourished more by blood
than water. There was a scent of water from somewhere beyond, but Ingwe didn’t go
that way. The kitten suckled for a while and then growled and tore free, her eyes fierce.
70
‘I will fight them,’ she spat. ‘Them and the hymas an’ dogs an’ toothlegged < toothl <
what did you say?’
‘Two-legged baboons. I know their stink well. We don’t fight these creatures, little
one. They are beneath us. We are silent, we are clean. We live in shadow. We are cats,
and <?’
‘We are alone.’
‘So what you going to do?’ Noodle lay on her back on Ariel’s bed, her feet up on the
wall. ‘Are you going to keep it?’
‘I don’t kn-‘
‘What about Spain? Are we still going to Spain?’
‘I don’t know. I feel like life played a trick on me. Set me up and knocked me down. I
don’t know what Johnny’s going to say.’
‘You haven’t told him? Oh crap.’
‘It’s my body. My decision. My life. Maybe I won’t even tell him.’
‘Yeah. You you you.’
Ariel swiveled the chair back to look at her friend. ‘Noods? What-?’
‘Abortion’s murder. I’m sorry, that’s just how I feel.’ She swung her feet down and
bounced up. ‘And you know what else? I’m pretty sick of always talking about you and
all the drama in your fabulous life!’
‘I < but-‘
‘Okay, calm down. Here’s the thing. You tell me to chill on Bjorn. Play hard to get,
don’t give in to him. So now he’s forgotten I exist, while you’re humping butt-fucking
naked with celebrity Joe, going to all the parties and you hardly ever invite me! And
then when you get pregnant, hey, no problem. Just kill it.’
‘That’s not fair.’
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‘Fair! Look, I’m angry now, and soon, I won’t be. So maybe we can talk later. But if
you < I don’t know.’ And in three quick strides she was out, slamming the door behind
her.
Her father shuffled down the passage, opened the door, leaned his head in, and
asked, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’
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3
‘Oh shit. Oh no. What a disaster.’ Johnny sat down and ran his hands over his face.
‘Just when everything was going right.’
Just the reaction she’d expected. That was the worst thing. What an asshole. I knew it.
She cleared her throat.
‘So what are we going to do?’
He stared at her. ‘Well, you’re not thinking of like, keeping it, are you? Jesus. The
problem is the press, if they find out, I mean, come on. Come on. You’re fresh out of
school, and I < well, I might be moving to Barcelona. Or Milan, next year. We can’t, we
should do this in ten years. Not now.’
‘So when you move to Barcelona, or Milan, I’m just going to drop my studies? Follow
you there? Irrespective of the baby?’
‘We, we can, y’know, sort it out, when, shit, I don’t know. C’mon. You have to do
the right thing here.’
She stood, silent, vibrating inside like an electric guitar, feedback. He looked up from
his hands to her.
‘Ari? Are you okay?’ He stood up. ‘Hey, baby-doll, I’m sorry. I know how tough this
must be. We’ll get through it, I promise. Together.’ He caressed her hair with the back
of one hand, the other encircling her for a hug.
A thousand times she thought of a better response in the years to come, the last time
in her nineties. Blithe and witty, contemptuous, compassionate, she ran through them
all. Because all she did is scream, ‘Motherfucker!’ at the top of her lungs, and push him
away as hard as she could. Somehow she got the angle of leverage just right and he
flew, his feet lifting from the teak floor. He smashed into an empty bookcase and
walloped down like a rag doll.
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‘Aaaah! Oh my God. My back! You crocked my back. Motherfucker? Aaaaaaaah,
God.’
‘Fuck you. You asshole.’ She marched out. This time she had the cab fare. There was
a sick smell in the car, and she covered her face with her hands. She peeked through her
fingers, and for a second she could swear that the driver’s head whipped violently from
side to side, an impossible blur, but when she lowered her hands he was normal. Bald
and fat, his head painted red by the traffic light. Dead eyes met hers in the mirror, and
she shifted away to look out the window. The street was empty, they’re all inside.
She cried herself to sleep, and woke up in anger, all through the night.
Freddy Truhahn closed the phone thoughtfully, ignoring the twinge of nausea, damn
sausage for breakfast or something. Young guy, Bayerisch, his voice husky and low.
One line: ‘Ariel’s scheduled for an abortion this afternoon.’ Then the name of the clinic,
and the phone went dead. He balanced it in his hand, something teasing at his beer-
deadened memory – of course. A story, the Baptista boy, taken to hospital after a
domestic accident. He’d sat at the bar last night and thought, See? Justice in the world
after all, before scrolling on.
Ahah. Domestic accident? Abortion? He glanced at the time and speed-dialed the
office.
‘Today?’ The doctor pursed her lips. ‘Not possible. By law we have to-‘
‘I want it out of me. He raped me.’
‘Then, uh, Ariel? We have to report-‘
‘If I tell anyone it’ll destroy my life. And other people. And you, you can’t just sit
there and pretend to know, what’s going on out there, in my life. If I don’t get it out of
me today I’ll kill myself.’ She’d seen a movie, deadpan melodrama, that‘s the most
convincing.
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It was working. The doctor went all noble-warrior, the flared nostrils, the haughty
eyes. She glanced towards the door and nodded, once.
‘Very well, Ariel. But I have two conditions. Well, three. One, you don’t tell anyone
you were here. Okay? This never happened.’
‘I promise.’
‘Second, I’m referring you to a psychologist, a rape-victim specialist.’ She handed her
a card. ‘Twice a week at least. Okay? Do we have a deal?’
Fuck no. ‘Yes.’
‘And third, you must promise me that you’ll report this to the police. No listen, one
day, when you’re strong enough. When this terrible man no longer has any hold on
you. Okay? Do you promise?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you’ve got any evidence, freeze it. Believe me, one day you’ll want to do the right
thing.’
‘Just get it out of me, please.’ She sobbed, and then real tears came, seeping from her
eyes. She couldn’t get them to stop.
‘Oh no. Oh Ariel. I can’t believe this.’
Great way to start the day, her mother’s voice blaring in her ear. Ariel had been
dreaming of ocean, slow, thoughtless swells rocking back and forth. She smeared salt
from her dry, itchy eyes and squinted at the phone. 11:17 am.
‘B < believe what?’
‘You haven’t seen this magazine yet? Someone very kindly slipped it under my door.
Oh God, now I know why they were smirking at me. How could you do this?’
‘Do what?’
‘You don’t understand. Under the surface we’re still very Catholic, you know.’ Her
mother’s voice was bitter. It was as if she was talking to herself. ‘We’ll play for
75
sympathy? But you < oh God, you assaulted poor Johnny? No, no, what is this
insinuation?’
‘Mother, please tell me what’s going on.’
‘ Did you have an abortion?’
‘What?’ She sat up.
‘There’s a photo of you. Oh dear, look, you’re weeping. Oh, my poor Ari. My baby.
Why did you do it?’
‘I’m sorry, Mama.’
‘Did you fight with him? They insinuate, you know. Um < here, a source.
Speculation. Should we sue?’
‘No. I pushed him away. Quite hard.’
‘You dislocated one of his discs. He can’t play football anymore. At least until next
season.’
‘Oops.’ She giggled.
‘Ariel! This is serious. He could sue you, never mind the damage you’ve done to our
reputation.’
‘But you’re a Green. What do you care-‘
‘Grow up.’ Her voice was icy. ‘Give me time to think, and I’ll come by. Just stay at
home, okay?’
‘Okay, Mama.’
Her bed smelt sad, like stale sweat, like broken dreams. She had a foul, metallic taste
in her mouth and her insides were cramped up, like the worst period. She sighed,
stood, and limped off to wash and change her pad. Two glasses of water, a cup of
coffee, and she jacked up the laptop to google herself.
The article was bad enough, but the reaction was already worse. A picture of her
with a beard and horns scratched crudely on, a pitchfork in her hand. An article or blog
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or something she skipped the cursor over: MURDERER! An email from the Sisters of
Something or other, standing strong in the wind or something. She gulped, and for a
moment felt like she was drowning, a sea of unseen forces swirling around her. She
hovered around her Facebook icon for a moment, but then decided against it. She had
an urge to call Noodle, and even reached for the phone, but realized there probably
couldn’t be a worse time. Noods always bought Tease.
How did they find out?
She’d told no-one, she’d darted into the clinic with her collar raised and a chic black
hat on, so she wouldn’t be recognized. The photo was of her leaving, half-turned to look
behind her, her posture furtive, stooped < guilty. The tone was bold and nasty, revenge
tarted up as vindication. See? We told you she’s a slut.
It got worse. Others were already chipping in. A pattern was eme