She heaves me to my feet and there is more mess, then she puts one arm around my shoulder and another around my waist and carries me downstairs, and outside.

15. Nico

15

Nico

After Petre leaves, I feel Magda curl in close behind me, her breath rising and falling in my ear. ‘Some of us have to work,’ she says after a while, her voice a different register, hard and high. ‘Have to make sure those little cats are doing their job.’ She gets out of the bed, talking to herself in hoarse whispers, and I think I hear her say, ‘Stupid little bitch, could get me killed …’

I don’t know if it’s me she’s referring to, or another girl. The door slams.

I pull back the sheet, lie on the cool covers and stare at the crumbling wall. The paint is bubbled and peeling, and when I reach out to press a swelling with my fingers, it disintegrates beneath my touch. I think of Mama swiping the cobweb that settled into drifts of dirt on the ground. I screw my eyes shut and see Papa and Victor and Sergiu shaking their heads at me in shame. They turn their backs one by one and walk further and further away until all I can see of them are specks of dust.

I bang my head against the wall, over and over, hitting against the same sore spot until I feel warm liquid oozing out. It releases the pressure and stops the swirling strangeness inside. I drift.

Some time later a voice shouts, ‘What has happened? What have you done? What have you done you stupid, stupid girl?’ Magda slaps me on the cheek. ‘Open your eyes. I can’t let Petre see you like this.’ She lifts me up so I’m sitting with my back against the peeling wall. ‘Drink this,’ and she holds a glass of cola in front of my mouth. I swallow. She goes to the bathroom and runs the water. I think she’s going to hold me under it again, but instead she comes back with a wet cloth and presses it to the back of my head. ‘Shit, the sheets,’ and she hurries out and returns with new ones. I would help her but I can’t move. She lifts me onto a chair before she changes the sheets. The ground is tumbling beneath my feet. At least my head is still.

Magda doesn’t look at me, but leaves me sitting there, dazed. ‘Do you have a death wish? Do you know what would happen if Petre saw you do that?’

All I can think, through the dreamy haze of release, is why on earth would he give a damn?

‘Come on,’ she says harshly, ‘stand,’ and she hauls me to my feet, then hits me, hard, on both cheeks and tells me to follow her.