Why? I ask the giant, who must have a better view than me from my tiny bed. Why have they not left yet?
* * *
My alarm plays the violin gracefully in my sleep. I smell the sex on my fingers as I fumble for my timepiece. Tamba mutters in his sleep. I sit up, wide awake. Did they take Frances during my dead delta stage of sleep? Please let her be on a stretcher in the night sky somewhere, please.
I undress quietly, leave a dry snail trail from the first orgasm I have had since I was a teenager.
Thank you, Vicki.
Will the hall be bright or dimly lit at night? Should I wear clean clothes? No, she will notice. She might tease me. I pull on today’s white outfit, try to smooth the creases. I love the feel of my own hands on my body.
I love myself, Mother. Now that I love Vicki.
I steal my phone from beneath my pillow, slide my red lanyard over my head. I pick up my shoes and tiptoe to the bathroom. Sneak the light on like a thief. I inspect for sleep in the corner of my eyes. Like a lover before a date, I swallow some toothpaste. I am ready for my midnight inspection.
* * *
The egg-yolk atmosphere of the rig has disappeared. The corridor glows with a ghostly white light, just like in a vampire movie.
I enter the hall, breathless, my hands awkwardly empty. As my eyes get used to the misty white light, I am arrested by the sight of thirty-nine prisoners curled on their sides. Far, far beneath us, I hear the womb-like lap of water against the legs of the rig. As I pad in, my rubber soles make the faintest of squeaks. How do they sleep with that sharp mesh cutting into them? Their snores travel the airspace at different heights, keep careful flightpaths of soft engine sounds. I creep closer. In this light, Vicki’s skin glows an opaque white. Her hips sink towards the sea, rise up to the perfect, pale curve of her buttocks. Her long hair falls away from her face, revealing the girlish naiveté of the husband killer. To me she is a sleeping beauty painted in creamy cow’s milk.
Samuel sits up slowly, bewildered. ‘Is it morning?’ He wipes his face with his whole hand as a lion cub might.
I shake my head, protective of the waking cub. I slide out my phone, stroke its volume to soft. ‘Just a quick check. Sorry. I need to see your fingers and teeth.’
Samuel gives his head a little shake, like he can’t believe he has woken into this grotesque medical nightmare. He flattens his hands against the mesh. I check his fingers. Samuel grimaces obediently, shows me his teeth.
‘Thank you,’ my African voicebox quotes me in a whisper. I move towards Eulalie’s snore.
‘Malachi, wait,’ Samuel says. ‘I’ve been counting the days. It’s harvest time, isn’t it?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I type.
There is a plea in his voice. ‘Are they starting with me?’
Eulalie stops snoring, half opens her eyelids. I shake my head, happy to reassure him. ‘No. With Shikorina. A crew-member needs new lungs for her child.’
I violate confidentiality with every letter I type but someone needs to treat these people like humans. Samuel hangs his head in relief. Eulalie stares at me in the horror-movie light, still curled in her foetal position. At this angle, her nose is a long, thin ridge. Her eyes gather up the loose skin beneath them.
Samuel sighs. ‘Maybe it’s worse to wait. What do you think, Eulalie?’
Eulalie smiles ruefully. I bend quickly, check her teeth. I see only signs of old-age shuffling, no injuries.
The witch sits up slowly, hugs her knees. ‘Malachi?’ Her old voice cracks the hush of sleep in the room.
Vicki’s eyelids flutter. I want to go close and press them shut. Say, Sshh. Sleep.
The witch’s voice is too hoarse to tame into a whisper. ‘I saw a murder tonight.’
The word strikes a gong in the minds of all the sleeping prisoners. Murder is their other name after all, isn’t it?
‘A girl with hair so white. And she was thirsty. So thirsty.’
The air dries my open mouth.
Eulalie’s old skin pleats her forehead. ‘Do you know who this is?’
A metal bolt pierces my chest. I type with shaking fingers, ‘A sailor girl they picked up. They were meant to fly her out tonight.’ I turn to Vicki, type urgently, ‘But I haven’t heard them leaving.’
A multitude of people shake their sleepy heads.
‘Who killed her, Eulalie?’ Samuel urges.
Eulalie presses her fingers to the crook of her old, old arm. ‘It was a needle. Her father showed me. They put her to sleep.’
I cry out like some wild jungle bird. ‘That’s not right!’ my Samsung bursts out.
Vicki chuckles bitterly. ‘What’s right on this rig, Malachi?’
Her irises are soft caterpillars, rolling inwards.
My fingers fly faster than my brain can make sense. ‘They are murderers. The girl was sick!’
Eulalie shakes her head as if she too saw the girl’s sorrow, her third-degree sunburn. ‘Poor Frances.’
Suddenly I doubt my confidence in the old hag. ‘Definitely dead?’
The truth is a slow, glowing bullet in her grey eyes. She shoots it gently at me. ‘Never dead.’ She reminds me, ‘Remember Cecilia.’
Vicki crosses her arms over her breasts, hides the succulent tips. ‘How old was she?’
‘Nineteen,’ I type.
‘Poor thing,’ Madame Sophie groans behind me. She is rumpled after four hours of sleep on a wire bed with no blanket, no mattress, no time to comb the knots from her hair.
I type to thirty-nine witnesses, ‘Raizier lied to us. I’m going to ask about Frances.’ I shove my phone back in my pocket, hurry towards the entrance.
‘Malachi! Wait!’ Vicki calls after me.
‘Watch out, Malachi!’ Samuel shouts.
Why these people should care about me is one unfathomable, deep-sea mystery.
* * *
I run in my rubber sneakers, crash into our living quarters. I flip the phone into my fingers, jab at the screen: ‘Is the solo sailor dead?’
‘Huh? What?’
‘Did they
