Deep and Silent Waters

She couldn’t hear footsteps, but she knew he was somewhere, might at any second spring out.

He … Who? She tried to remember, and felt only the pain. It burned like a hot iron in her flesh. She ran faster, fighting not to groan. He mustn’t hear her! He would find her! Who? Who was she running from? She knew but couldn’t remember.

On and on the corridors wound, now upwards, now on a steep incline down. The walls on either side arched to meet overhead. They were different now, white, blindingly white. She began to think she would never get anywhere, never get out, and at that second she saw ahead an opening, a round window, from which light streamed.

A giant eye stared in at her.

Gasping, she shut her own eyes, but found she could still see. How was that possible?

Because the eye was hers! She was outside, looking in at herself, could see that the white corridors were the winding interior of a skull, the window at which she had halted was an eye socket, the walls and floors were bone, white bone.

Dreaming. She must be dreaming. This wasn’t … couldn’t be … real.

Terrified, she opened her eyes again and the eye was still there, shining at her.

‘Come sta?’

Laura didn’t understand what had been said – but the giant eye was a torch. A face loomed behind the beam of light. Hair, a cap, a pale circle of a face.

‘Come sta? Si sente meglio?’

‘What? Who are you? Where is this?’

‘You don’t speak Italian? Don’t worry, please. You are in hospital. But you will be okay. Water? You like?’

‘Yes, please.’ Her mouth was so dry. Thirstily, she watched the other girl pour water into a glass. The nurse bent over her, slid an arm under her shoulders, to lift her higher on her pillows, and Laura gave a thick, involuntary grunt of pain. ‘Oh … God, that hurt …’

‘Le chiedo scusa! Non volevo—’ The nurse broke off, sighing. ‘Sorry, sorry. My English, she is not so good, okay?’

‘Better than my Italian,’ Laura told her.

The nurse laughed and held the glass to Laura’s cracked lips.

Sipping carefully Laura winced at the flow of cold liquid into her mouth.

The nurse laid her back gently on the pillows.

‘What have I done to my shoulder?’ Laura trid to look down sideways but could see only white bandages under the loose gown she was wearing.

‘Is not serious, please, don’t worry,’ the other woman said soothingly.

But Laura’s memory flashed her the image of a knife. She began to shake. ‘He stabbed me. He tried to kill me!’

From the outer darkness of the shadowy room a shape emerged, another face, a different uniform.

‘Who stabbed you, Miss Erskine?’ the policeman asked urgently. ‘Who was it? Did you recognise him?’

She shrank back. ‘Where did you come from? I didn’t see you.’

‘I was sitting beside the door. Tell me what happened, Miss Erskine. Do you remember who it was who attacked you?’

‘I don’t know. He had a mask on his face. He was wearing a … sort of cloak … one of those black carnival cloaks … It came right down to his feet.’ She began to sob. ‘He tried to kill me. And he smiled! His mouth was so red. He smiled and then the knife came out and – and – he stabbed me!’

The nurse spoke urgently in Italian but the policeman gestured her away, answering in the same language, tersely, sharply.

Then he sat down beside the bed, produced a small tape-recorder. ‘Could you tell me everything you remember, Miss Erskine? From the moment you left Ca’ d’Angeli.’

‘Aspetta un momento!’ the nurse told him angrily, and ran out of the room.