.
1:40? 8:05? A.m.? P.m.? I had no idea. No sense how long Id been out
.
Trembling, I tucked my hands between my thighs for warmth. My fingers were ice through the denim
.
With the watch repositioned, I was again enveloped in complete and utter stillness
.
As I lay seeing nothing, hearing nothing, the same questions arose. Where? How long? Who? Why?
I pictured myself as from a skycam, body curled, imprisoned in a very small space
.
Google Earth
.
Google Tomb
.
Oh God.
The unseeable walls and ceiling seemed to shrink inward, to press down from above. My breathing grew ragged
.
To block the claustrophobia, I focused inward
.
Head: pounding
.
Throat: parched
.
Digits: numb
.
Leg: throbbing
.
Bladder: full
.
Stomach: empty
.
The awareness of hunger triggered thoughts of food. Seared ahi tuna, thick-sliced bacon, Thai soup with lemongrass and coconut milk
.
I tried to inventory what I knew of my surroundings. My brain posted no list. Just more chow
.
Mussels with garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and wine. Belgian fries dipped in thick mayonnaise. Ryan drinking a Bavik pilsner
.
How long since he and I had shared that meal? Hours? Days? Was it the last time Id eaten? Or had that supper been months ago? Years?
Was Ryan the lover in my dream? If not, was he real, or a construct of my subconscious?
My body was shaking, my teeth clacking in my mouth
.
How was I dressed?
By wiggling against the ground I found the answer. Sneakers. Short-sleeved shirt. Jeans
.
Sudden thought. If not in my purse, my BlackBerry would be in a pants pocket or clipped to my waistband. Had I checked for it? Of course I had. I wasnt an idiot
.
But my thinking had been muddled. Id been in pain. Yes? No? I couldnt remember
.
Please!
By pressing my knees to the ground and angling my arms sideways, I was able to run the back of my left hand over my right front pocket. No BlackBerry
.
Ignoring the pain in my leg, I reversed and checked the left. Nothing there either
.
I went semi-supine, with legs up and knees flexed, and rocked from side to side. No bulge on my waistband or in either back pocket
.
Tears of frustration sprang to my eyes
.
No!
I rolled back onto my side. The ground felt frigid against my bare skin
.
I had to do something to keep warm. To stay sane
.
I needed a goal. A series of goals
.
First. I spoke aloud. Free yourself.
My voice sounded leaden. Muffled by yards of brick and cement? Tons of earth? Acres of overlying forest or farmland?
Panic shot fresh tentacles into my chest
.
Second. Louder. Find an exit.
Third. Drill instructor bark. Flee.
There. I had a three-part plan. A chart for organized action. Free. Find. Flee
.
I began rubbing the backs of my hands fast up and down between the inseams of my jeans, mentally intoning the mantra
.
Free. Find. Flee
.
Free. Find. Flee
.
Free. Find. Flee
.
The frenzied movement ground the side of one elbow, but the friction kindled warmth in my fingers. Slowly, painfully, sensation crept back
.
Nerves tingling, I scooched forward and ran my tethered hands over the wall, checking for a nail, a broken pipe, anything that might saw the ropes from my wrists
.
Nada
.
Methodically, I inched along, searching low, then rising as high as my bindings allowed. My prison was longer than Id visualized. Small comfort
.
Of less comfort was the fact that the masonry was frustratingly even
.
Id gone perhaps eight feet when my fingers picked out a malaligned brick protruding at a height of approximately eighteen inches. The bricks outer edge felt promisingly sharp
.
I maneuvered into a hunched semi-sit and pushed down on the bricks upper surface. The mortar held firm
.
As you were, soldier!
God Almighty. I was talking to stonework
.
By flopping to my side and drawing my knees to my chest, I was able to create enough play in my bindings to get my wrists to the edge of the brick. I began rubbing feverishly
.
Before long I lay back, arms screaming, head floating
.
At this rate Id exhaust myself while accomplishing little. New strategy. Two hundred rubs. Rest. Repeat
.
And thats what I did, again mentally repeating the mantra
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
During R&R, my neocortex would process data coming its way. The input was sparse. Cold. Dark. Newly raw flesh on my knuckles and hands. Faint yet oddly familiar smell
.
Alone and terrified, Id lie listening for the sound of a voice, a footstep, a turning key. Id hear only my own labored heart and breath
.
Exhausted, Id drift into sleep
.
Waking, Id check the position of the glowing hands. Wonder. Had hours passed? Minutes? I had no concept of time
.
Id begin sawing again, arms stiff and shaky, every movement an agony
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
Rub. Rest. Repeat
.
Two hundred times. Four. Six. Ten thousand
.
Following each cycle, Id pull hard on my bindings, testing
.
Finally, I felt, or sensed, a subtle yielding
.
I yanked my wrists outward with as much force as my battered muscles could muster
.
Again
.
Again
.
With the sixth heave I felt a hitch, then my left palm slipped relative to my right. Or had I imagined it?
Break! I screamed into the darkness
.
I yanked and twisted, yanked and twisted. Break, you bastards!
Tears streamed down my cheeks as my hands pistoned wildly
.
Break! I tasted salt on my trembling lips. Break! I wrenched my arms outward again and again
.
At long last, some frayed strands yielded
.
The ropes loosened. I managed to extract my left hand
.
I fumbled free. Sat upright. Shook both hands. Blood rushed like fire into the deprived vessels
.
I ran my fingers over my ankles, exploring the arrangement of the bindings. Finding the knots, I began clawing, desperate for freedom
.
It was futile. My fingers were barely functioning and the knots were like rocks
.
Again tears threatened
.
Again, I banished them
.
Move! my drill sergeant voice boomed
.
Rolling to my stomach, I began inching through the darkness by dragging with my elbows and pushing with my legs. When that grew too painful, I rolled onto my bum and hitched forward with my feet and the palms of my hands
.
I followed a zigzag pattern, determined to find a route to freedom. Or, that failing, an implement to free my feet
.
My prison was long and narrow, perhaps a tunnel or passageway. As I proceeded through it, the musty odor grew stronger
.
Now and then Id stop for a time check. The glowing hands formed a horizontal bar. An
L.
Overlapped to the right
.
Inevitably the periods of movement shortened. More and more often I dropped and went fetal. My elbows were bloody, my hands and feet numb from contact with the frozen ground. Despite my resolve, my efforts were waning
.
Then, in a belly phase, my elbows pulled me forward and my shoulder brushed something. It wobbled. Settled back
.
My hands reached out into the dark
.
I heard a gravelly crunch
.
My sensory-deprived brain computed the input
.
Round. Hard. Roll trajectory two feet up and to the left
.
Elbow-dragging my torso and legs, I groped the base of the wall. The smell was powerful now, a mix of mold and mildew and moth-eaten fabric, like clothes abandoned in an old attic trunk
.
My bloody fingers finally grazed an edge. Pivoting to a hunch-sit, I teased the object up into my hands
.
Gingerly, I hefted, weighing. I caressed the things outer surface. Explored its dimensions. Probed its contours
.
With horror, I recognized what was sharing my darkness
.
12
LIFTING MY FINGERS, I ALLOWED THE SKULL TO ROLL BACK TO ITS original position.
The searchdogs name was Étoile. Star. And she was one.
The grave had been under two feet of snow. Didnt matter. Étoile had nailed it.
Ryan had picked me up before dawn on Saturday. My window thermometer said minus six Celsius. Twenty-one Fahrenheit.
We talked little during the drive. Our flight from OHare had landed late, and it was midnight when I reached my condo in
centre-ville
, two before I got to sleep. Barely awake, I sipped the coffee Ryan provided and watched the city slide past my window.
My funk wasnt entirely fatigue-induced. I was still bummed by events in Chicago.
Ryan and I never got to see Schechter. Excuse was he was taking depositions in Rock Island. Consequently, I was still clueless about the viper whod smeared my reputation with false accusations.
The conversation concerning Lassie had been as painful as anticipated. Throughout, Cukura Kundze wept as though shed lost her own grandchild. The only upside was that Mr. Tot had insisted on informing his son and daughter-in-law personally concerning their sons fate.
In addition, Id had another clash with my new neighbor, Sparky Monteil. Yeah, Sparky. Though built like a pear, the guy works hard at looking
tough. Elvis hair. Badass tattoo on the side of his neck. My building superintendent, Winston, says the little twerps at least fifty-five.
Sparky moved into my complex sometime last spring. His boxes werent unpacked when the whining began. Seems Sparky hates cats. No, that doesnt do it justice. Sparky would have every feline on the planet rounded up, bagged, and tossed into the sea.
Granted, our home owners association has a no-pets policy. But since Birdie and I are away so much in Charlotte, and since the little guy never sets paw outside the condo when in residence, Ive been granted an exemption. Sparky is fighting to have that revoked.
Sparky exited the elevator as I was waiting in the lobby for Ryan. This mornings grievance concerned turds in the courtyard.
Sorry, pal. My cats not with me this trip.
On top of all that, I was once again freezing.
The heater in Ryans Jeep wasnt state of the art. The windows were frosted, and I could feel cold rising through my boots, up my legs, and into my pelvis. I suspected the only warmth Id experience all day would be that leaching from the cup I clutched in gloved hands.
Our destination lay approximately fifty kilometers northwest of Montreal in Oka. When I hear the town name I think of three things: Mohawks, monks, and monastery cheese.
The last two are interrelated.
In 1815 a group of monks settled in Brittany and created a cheese called Port Salut. Six decades later their brainchild was the rage of Paris. Didnt matter. In 1880 the army of the French Third Republic seized the orders Abbaye de Bellefontaine, and the cheese-making Trappists were booted from the country.
At the invitation of Quebec Sulpicians, eight of the exiles set sail for Canada. From their vast holdings, the host brothers gave the immigrants land on the north shore of Lac des Deux-Montagnes. Naming the property La Trappe after Soligny-la-Trappe, the orders 1662 founding site, the new arrivals established LAbbaye Notre-Dame du Lac.
At its peak, the monastery boasted upward of two hundred monks. By the early twenty-first century only twenty-eight remained, most over seventy years of age. Today, LAbbaye is no longer a working monastery but serves as a nonprofit center for preservation of the sites heritage.
In making their transatlantic journey back in the day, the Trappist travelers brought with them their treasured
recette de fromage
and, once
settled, the churning of cows milk began anew. As in the homeland, the cheese was a box office hit.
As far as I know, the brothers still oversee the production of Oka Trappist Cheese, which, over the years, has evolved a new-world character uniquely its own.
The Mohawk thing is a bit more complicated.
In the summer of 1990, the Oka Crisis made international news. Essentially a land dispute between the town and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake, the confrontation lasted from mid-July until late September, and resulted in a commuters nightmare, a public relations fiasco for the government, and the death of one Sűreté du Québec officer.
