Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

Balthus steps towards me. ‘Why don’t you sit, Maria? Let’s talk this over.’

But I shrug him off, stride to the shelves, stop, stare at the literature that stands to attention in front of me. Facts, hard, true facts in the words of a book. Facts that prove things, demonstrate theory, present methods. My papa wouldn’t have said he was worried for my sanity. Not my papa. He knew me, Papa, that is why he worried about me even then, always fearful that I would not cope in the world on my own. But he knew what I could do, knew how I thought, how I felt in the deep recesses of my mind even when no one else understood, when no one else could ever begin to comprehend what it was like, growing up, being me. Different, odd, freakish.

I rake my hands through my hair once, twice, three times, breathing, thinking. If it is facts that are written, then it is facts that must prove true. And my notebook contains facts.

I turn, face the two men, draw in a breath, then say it. ‘There is someone after me in here.’

Balthus shakes his head. ‘No, Maria.’

‘Yes.’

Harry sits forward, holding a hand up to Balthus. ‘Maria, why don’t you explain what you mean?’

I glance to the wall clock, to my notebook lying shut on the desk and tell them. Tell them the facts: Bobbie, MI5, my handlers throughout out my life. Project Callidus. Dr Andersson. I say it, all of it, not because I trust them now, not because they listen, but because I have to prove to them that what they think Papa said about me is wrong. When I am finished, I pause, await their replies, but neither of them speaks. Neither of them moves.

‘Well?’ I say, blinking at them, the blood rushing round my ears.

Balthus leans on the back of his seat. ‘I’m sorry, Maria, but you believe Bobbie?’

I stop. Do I? Really? Or is it that I want to, have to, need to, so I can survive, so I can prove to everyone who I really am. Not a murderer. I swallow hard, my brain on the cusp of confusion, exhaustion. Drained. I blink my eyes into focus, Harry and Balthus coming into view, shouts from the yard below drifting in and out of the room fuelling the heat of my thoughts, my uncertainty.

‘I want you to look at something for me, Maria,’ Balthus says, after a second, his voice piercing my thinking.

I look. There is the file on his desk. Balthus holds it aloft. ‘Here.’

I hesitate at first, cautious. What is he trying to do?

‘It’s okay,’ he says, ‘you can take it.’

I keep my eyes trained on Balthus and inch towards the desk. Once there, I snatch the report and scurry back to the relative safety of the shelves. On the front cover is my name. And one other, too: Dr Andersson. My foot begins to tap furiously. ‘What is this?’

‘It is a report filed by Dr Andersson giving her medical assessment of your psychiatric well-being.’

I glance to Balthus then to the report, tearing it open. My eyes scan the words. It details how I find it difficult to distinguish what is real and unreal; says that it is hard for me to manage emotions, that I have difficulty relating to others. She documents how I am hostile and suspicious, that I have an inability to express joy, a tendency to declare odd or irrational statements, that I have a strange use of words and way of speaking, that I am…that…I am…

‘No!’ I shout. My hands squeeze the report. ‘No. She cannot say this about me.’ I slam the report shut, throw it as far as I can as if it is radioactive, deadly. ‘No!’

Harry looks to Balthus. ‘What is it? What does it say?’

Balthus gives one small shake of his head. ‘It says Maria is schizophrenic.’

I am on my own now and in a different room. The light is low, the blinds are black.

I lift my head. It aches, pain pounding into it like it’s a plank of wood being squeezed in a vice. Carefully, I look down at myself, jittery, nervous of anyone who may come in, frightened that Black Eyes may return. My hospital gown, I can see, is white, tied at the back, and on my head there is a plastic cap covering my entire scalp. I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes out, no sound, no shouts. Horrified, I gag slightly, my stomach heaving, and exhausted, I try to rest for a second, try to think. By my side, there is a heart rate monitor. It does not beep any more. I am no longer sweating as I was before and my breathing is steady.

While there are no more straps on my limbs, I do not move, because now, ahead, of me, I see them, standing there like ghosts: three men guarding the door. Each one of them holds a gun. And though the room is white and the lights glow brightly, a dark shadow through the window to the left douses the room in grey.

The guards stand straight and the monitor remains silent. Still I do not move, do not dare. At first, nothing changes, but then I begin to detect a voice, a murmur. I steal a glance at the guards; their heads do not move, their eyes do not blink.

There. I hear it again! My heart races-it rises, but I don’t want the monitor to resume beeping, so I pause, draw in long, deep breaths, calm myself. When I think I am clear, I listen again. There! A woman’s voice. She is singing, I am sure of it. It’s not in English, yet it is too low for me to decipher the language. I look at the window. No one there. The voice vanishes, and a feeling of dismay almost threatens to overwhelm me, when the voice appears again. This time I can detect the language: Euskadi. Basque. The woman is singing a lullaby in Basque dialect. I listen again. There are verses about twilight and silver wings spreading across the sky. The voice is light, gentle, soothing, like a warm cotton blanket.

A door opens. I dart my eyes to it. As quick as it began, the singing stops.

A man is standing in the entrance. He wears a white mask and he is wheeling in a laptop computer. He halts at my bedside, opens the laptop and taps some keys. He faces me and instructs me to sit forward.

‘Who are you?’ I say, fear prickling every molecule of my body.

‘I am going to ask you to perform a series of tests,’ the man says as if I had not spoken. He keeps his eyes on mine.

‘I do not want to do any tests.’ I try to push myself back on the bed, but it is futile: there is nowhere left to go. ‘Who are you?’

‘The tests,’ he continues, ‘measure your cognitive skills, your visual and spatial reasoning, your dexterity, your mental calculation expertise and your ability to assimilate technical knowledge.’

‘I will not do any tests. I want to see Kurt. Where is Kurt?’

The man grabs my wrist. ‘We are testing you and you will do as we ask. We are running out of time.’

‘Let go,’ I say, looking at my wrist. He does not move. ‘Please, let go.’

‘Do you really think anything about you is normal?’ he says.

And then it enters my head. I look around the room. ‘Is this Callidus?’

He grips my wrist harder. ‘I don’t know where you heard that word, but we have to get you back to London in one hour. Your Asperger’s traits are accelerating-not every aspect of the conditioning can be controlled. We only have one year left.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Wars aren’t fought on the streets any more, Dr Martinez. They are fought behind the screen of a computer.’

He slowly lifts his hand from my wrist. I hold my arm and rub the skin, too scared to connect what he is saying.

‘I do not want to hurt you,’ he says now, tapping the laptop keyboard, ‘but I will if I have to. I advise you, Maria, to do as I ask.’ He places a loaded syringe on a metal table to his left.

I bolt backwards. ‘What is in that needle?’

He keeps his eyes on the laptop screen. ‘It is a drug called Versed. If I administer it, you’ll feel severe pain and discomfort. When it wears off, you will be unable to remember the pain, or anything we inflict on you.’ He pauses. ‘Or anything I say to you.’