Maps of Hell by Paul Johnston Page A

short, under an inch in length. It was mainly black, but when I looked closer I saw some white hairs. My face was haggard, the skin tight over the cheekbones. I tried a smile and saw straight white teeth. I tried to imagine how an unbiased observer would have described my appearance. The best I could come up with was craggy.
    I scrambled up the ladder, gripping the lamp’s wire handle in my teeth, and buried myself in the quilts. At last real warmth returned to my body, but it didn’t make me much happier. It wasn’t just that I was on the run from armed men, but the fact that I felt so alone. If I was in the U.S., as seemed likely, I was in a foreign country—I knew without being able to say why that I wasn’t American. I didn’t know if I had any friends here. Why had I been in the camp? What had been done to me?
    I was a man without a past, running into a future I couldn’t predict—far from home, on my own, in despair. I put the lamp out and laid the pistol on the bare wooden floor. If I’d been more in control of myself, I’d have gone back down the ladder and opened the door. That would have given the impression that I’d been and gone—no one in their senses would have stayed in a cabin with the door ajar when the rain was pouring down and the temperature was low. But I couldn’t make myself get out of the warm cocoon.
    Soon I fell into an uneasy and haunted sleep….
     
     
    …The dark-haired girl is laughing.
    “Come on, Dad,” she says, pulling my hand. “We’ll miss the film.” She starts running down the street and I’m forced to follow, shortening my stride so I don’t crash into her. We cross the road after a red double-decker bus passes. The cinema is lit up, people crowding the entrance. There are posters up for three screens.
    I laugh.
    “What?” the girl says, giving me a stern look.
    “Nothing, Lucy,” I say. “It’s just that there are two Hollywood blockbusters on here and you want to see the Slovenian art-house film.”
    “So?” she says, her cheeks suddenly on fire. “Not every thirteen-year-old wants to sit through rubbish.”
    “You’re the world’s only such exception,” I say, and buy the tickets. We are directed up narrow stairs to a small screen that was obviously an afterthought. There must be all of three other patrons. As it turns out, there are five minutes before the program starts.
    “How’s school?” I ask, offering her some chocolate-covered raisins.
    “All right, I suppose.” She twists her lips. “The others don’t take it seriously enough.”
    “You’re turning into a real little bluestocking.” I dig a finger into the flesh behind her knee.
    “Stop it, Dad,” she says, pushing me away. “I’m too old for that.” She looks around in embarrassment. “Especially in public.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say, suddenly solemn. “I’ll put in a call to the Metropolitan Police and have myself arrested.”
    “Ha-ha.” She isn’t able to resist the raisins. “Anyway, you know everyone who counts in the police. You’d just get off, like you always do.”
    I laugh. “Like I always do?”
    “You-know-who looks after you,” she says, smirking.
    I change the subject rapidly. “What’s so great about this film, anyway?”
    Lucy puts on the horn-rimmed glasses she insisted on—the truth is, she loves the bluestocking look—and takes out a notepad and pen. “Well, it’s supposed to be a penetrating examination of peasant life in contemporary Slovenia and—”
    I fake a yawn. “Oh, great. Listen, I’ll double your pocket money this week if we can change to the Tom Cruise film.”
    “No,” she says firmly. “You watch far too many cop films. You need some proper culture.”
    I fumble for a response. “How’s your mother?”
    She looks away. “As if you care.”
    “That’s not fair, Luce,” I say. “You don’t know everything that I feel about Caroline.”
    “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she says, giving me a superior glance.