The Centre(75)

“How come you didn’t tell me about this before?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure what it meant. But keep listening. It gets worse.”

“Oh my god, just tell me.”

“No, you have to listen.”

“Okay, fine.”

She turned to head back to the living room, but I stopped her. “Um, Naima? Those things I said about Azeem—”

“Babe, please.”

“I didn’t mean them.”

“It’s all love, love,” she said and brushed a strand of hair away from my face.

“Thank you.”

“Is it making you swoon, when I do that?”

“Shut up.”

“You know, you make it sound like we talk about men a lot.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, first Adam, then Azeem. It’s that stereotype, that women have nothing to talk about but men.”

“I don’t think I make it sound like that.”

“Well, I think it’s true. We’re always talking about them. They don’t do it, you know. When men get together, they don’t sit around trying to analyze the inner workings of our minds.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. They talk about man stuff. About being manly, out there in the world, getting man things done. Men, you see, consider themselves independent beings, but we see ourselves only in relation to them.”

“I mean, aren’t we kind of doing it again now, talking about men?”

“Shit, yeah, I guess we are. But it’s fine. Right now, we’re trying to understand them so that we can defeat them,” she declared, raising her fist in the air. “In fact, you know what? If you share this with anyone else, can you end it as if I broke up with Azeem? That’ll come across better. We’ll sound less man obsessed.”

“Are you breaking up with Azeem?”

“Nah, still got that old ball and chain. Say I said that, okay? Ball and chain.”

“Ball and chain. Noted.”

“I’m gonna have to stay the night. You know that, don’t you? I need to finish the whole thing now.”

And so Naima stayed over, listening to the recording until the early hours of the morning. When I woke up, she was waiting for me at the kitchen table.

“Okay, so first of all …” she said, then paused.

“Yes?”

“I don’t really say fuck that much. Is that your way of trying to inject people with personality?”

“You’re kidding, right? That’s what you have to say?”

“Of course I’m kidding. Anisa. What the fuck? It’s obvious what we need to do.”

“It is?”

“We have to give this whole thing to the police like, basically, yesterday.”

“That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”

“Don’t worry, Anisa, you’re not an accomplice.”

“Actually, I think I am. And anyway, I can’t do that to Shiba.”

“Oh my god, get over your fucking swoon. The woman eats eyeballs for breakfast.”

“It’s more complicated than that—”

My thoughts were interrupted as I turned to the kitchen counter and saw, next to the stove, my glass teapot standing on its pedestal over a tea light to keep it warm. I recognized the small plastic bag next to it as the special blend of tea leaves that Naima made for her clients, generally consisting of things like mugwort and rose, lavender and cinnamon, and a generous sprinkling of fungi.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s to open the gap,” Naima said.

“The gap?”

“The gap in your memories,” she explained. “Did you not notice? That moment you sneak into the keypad door, and then, what? Suddenly you’re back in your room? And then Arjun pretty much telling you that something more happened then.” I saw the flashes once more—a large fridge, a rectangular sink, a looming shadow. She picked up the teapot and lifted the lid, letting me smell the sweet scent of its contents. “There’s something there, something you’re not seeing. This could help you enter that gap.”

“Do you just carry this stuff around with you?” I said, shaking the small plastic bag.

“It’s called synchronicity, darling. The medicine clearly wanted to find you this morning.” She poured each of us a cup. “It’s not very strong. It’ll just relax you enough to return to that moment.”

We sat on the sofa and sipped. After a while, I closed my eyes and followed Naima’s prompts to better visualize the scene slowly unfolding behind my eyelids.

I press the keys on the pad: 9989. I hear a sound, a little beep, as the door closes behind me. I enter a common room, a laundry room, a linen cupboard. Then, at the end of the corridor, I see a pair of large silver double doors. I push them open. I am in a kitchen. Here, I stop in my tracks. Right in front of me, hanging from a meat hook by the industrial-size fridge, is the bottom portion of a human leg.

A calf, with the foot still attached. The top of it, skewered by the S-shaped hook, is red and muscly. The rest, pink and mottled. Red and blue veins bulge from its length, and the toes, tinged purple, are slender. The nails have turned a gray blue, and one has been punched through with some sort of tag. “It’s not real,” I say aloud to myself, trying to calm my racing heart, but I can’t take my eyes off it. Sometimes the body has a mind of its own, and my body knows. My skin turns cold and fills with goosebumps. My stomach churns, and my throat fills with bile. I start to shake, and my eyes water as my gaze moves over the pale veiny skin, its marks and bruises, the tiny hairs covering it. Suddenly, I feel a sharp prick on my right shoulder. My knees go wobbly, and my vision darkens, as the grotesque sight in front of me fades from view.