Kurt coughs. When I raise my head, he is staring. A breeze blows in and lifts the cobwebs in the corner, making them float up and down like a dance, a tease. For the first time, Kurt’s eyes flicker to where they dangle, but I don’t know if he sees them as I do. He does not look at me. Does not speak.
‘There are no spiders on the cobwebs,’ I say.
‘You think you can see cobwebs?’ He picks up his Dictaphone. ‘Spiders can be dangerous.’
‘I can see them,’ I say. ‘I can.’ I glance back to the ceiling, and that is when the thought strikes me: if this room has been freshly painted, why are there cobwebs in the corner?
Each morning we awake. After I transcribe my dreams to my notepad, record any new codes that have appeared in my head, I use the toilet, then Patricia does the same. We clean our teeth, yawn and splash water on our faces. Patricia brushes her scalp, I comb my hair. Once dressed, Patricia collects the post. It is the nearest I have come here to establishing a routine; the nearest I have come to being myself. I feel better than I have done in weeks, not happy, but altered, say, like a petal in the wind, not attached to the flower it belongs to, but at least able to experience what it is to float in the air.
Today, Patricia returns dangling a white envelope.
I look up. ‘I have informed you already I do not want a pen pal.’
‘This isn’t a pen pal, Doc.’ She holds out the letter. An unmistakable blue embossment is stamped on the underside.
Patricia thrusts it to me. ‘It’s from-’
‘My mother.’
I take the envelope and immediately my hands betray me, wobbling, slippery. I steady myself as much as I can and study the paper. Green ink. Mont Blanc fountain pen. Only the best for Mother. My pulse speeds up. It is a long time since I have heard any word from home, since I have spoken to Mama, to my brother, my prison sentence breaking them, rendering them mute, the two of them blinking in the sunlight, shielding their eyes, knowing with me there is a storm on its way and that the clouds will always be black.
My pulse keeps racing and I need to calm down, so I look to Patricia. Numbers. Figures. ‘What is the sum of all the positive integers?’ I answer before she can reply. ‘You would assume infinite, would you not?’
‘Er-’
‘Well, you would be wrong. It is not infinite.’ I stand up, pace, turning the envelope over in my fingers over and over. Stopping, I slip one finger under the flap and rip it open. Its contents spill into my palm. ‘Only numbers are infinite,’ I babble. ‘Nothing else can continue forever.’ I blink at the letter, at the ivy-green ink.
‘Doc? You okay?’
I begin to read. The words-they swirl around my head like leaves caught in a crosswind.
‘Doc, you’re crying.’
I touch my eyes. They are moist, but how? I do not cry. Not me, not in front of people. It’s as if prison has changed me.
I read on. My mother says she is disappointed in me, upset for me, that she has prayed for me, begged the Lord for forgiveness on my behalf. She has attended mass at the cathedral in Salamanca, knelt in the pews, stooped at the foot of Jesus and asked him why this has happened. I wipe my eyes, the tears clouding my sight, my throat tight, raw. There is more. Ramon, she claims, has calmed the neighbours, friends, but, oh the worry. What will happen to me, she says. Hard to make sense of the world when your daughter has been convicted of murder. When your daughter is guilty of murder.
‘What is it?’ Patricia says, but I barely register her voice.
My heart rate accelerates. I do not move. I read the word. Then read it again. Guilty. G.U.I.L.T.Y.
‘Doc, you’re worrying me now.’
But my oesophagus is too taut to speak. I give the letter to Patricia. She reads it. I concentrate on breathing, on trying to push aside the words: disappointed, guilty, emotions I experience but cannot display. Emotions my mother feels and, in her distress, has told to me, in black and white.
Patricia scans the page. Her eyes go wide, then she looks to me. ‘Jesus, Doc, that’s…I’m so sorry.’ She looks again at the letter. ‘It says here she wants you to call her, wants to know how you are.’
