Hell’s Kitchen
One step forwards. Two steps back.
Working with Anouk was similar to his own life.
Her condition had improved slightly. And substantially worsened at the same time.
On the one hand it was a good sign that she recoiled in fear when he entered her room, as Martin could see that, for the time being at least, she was reacting to changes in her immediate environment.
A modicum of progress, possibly a result of the television, which was now showing Tom and Jerry haring around the screen.
On the other hand – and this was the bad news – she was in the process of slipping back into behaviour patterns of early childhood. She sat in almost exactly the same cross-legged position on the bed, sucking her right thumb noisily. And scratching herself with the other hand.
Martin could see that her fingernails had already dug deep furrows in her right forearm, and his heart sank. If she didn’t stop this soon it would start bleeding… and then she’d have to be strapped.
He didn’t want do think of the consequences this would have for her already badly damaged psyche, and he made a mental note to ask Dr Beck for gloves or mittens, even if Anouk were to take these off again the moment she was alone.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you yet again,’ Martin said, placing a brown paper bag at the end of her bed.
Anouk leaned back slightly; she was breathing faster. A sign that he must not get any closer. All the same, she didn’t turn away from Martin or stare right through him. Her eyes were fixed on the bag.
As on his first visit he was now seized by an almost tangible feeling of melancholy, and he thought of all the nice things an eleven-year-old girl ought to be doing on a cruise ship.
Or a ten-year-old boy.
He was pricked by doubts about his faith, which in spite of everything he’d never abandoned altogether. He was convinced that there was more than just a long, dreamless sleep awaiting him after death. But he could only hope that he’d be spared a meeting with his maker. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to restrict himself to just a friendly chinwag with the being responsible for manning the ticket office of life, issuing innocent children with one-way fares to the torture chamber of sexually disturbed psychopaths.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ Martin said softly, taking the teddy from the bag. A faint sign of recognition flashed in Anouk’s eyes. As if she were worried he might pack it away again, she hastily grabbed the filthy cuddly toy from his hands and buried her face in it.
Martin watched her in silence, noting the red blotches spreading across her neck and wondering whether he was doing the right thing.
It was possible that Yegor and Bonhoeffer were just bluffing and the girl wouldn’t be in any danger at all if he notified the authorities and thus the whole world about this unbelievable case. But it was a huge risk. For there were indications that the captain was right and he already wore a stamp on his forehead that said ‘scapegoat’. In all likelihood the truth was somewhere in between. The only thing for sure was that the moment he raised the alarm he wouldn’t have any further opportunity to speak personally to the girl, or at least attempt to. And thus he was torn between the desire to do the right thing and reveal the cover-up, and the hope that through Anouk he might learn something about the fate of his own family.
Churned up by these unsettling thoughts, he’d decided to pay her a second visit, this time alone, without the doctor.
‘I’ve got something else for you,’ Martin said, taking from the bag a cardboard box wrapped in transparent film.
‘It’s a toy computer,’ he explained, having removed a pink plastic device from its packaging. He’d picked it up in the ship’s toyshop on deck 3.
The rectangular thing looked like a tablet from the technological Stone Age, manufactured clumsily and cheaply, but it didn’t have any sharp edges and Anouk wouldn’t be able to do herself much harm with the blunt stylus stuck to its side.
Martin turned it on, checked that the batteries were working, and put it beside Anouk on the bed.
Then he took a step back and slipped his hand into his jeans pocket. With a single press of a button he activated the record function of his smartphone.
‘When I came to see you a couple of hours ago with Dr Beck you mentioned a name to me, Anouk. Can you remember what that was?’
The girl stopped sucking her thumb and, without letting go of the teddy, picked up the drawing computer. She placed it on her knee. Then she looked up.
‘Do you have any idea where you are at the moment?’ Martin asked. Anouk frowned in response. She looked tense, but not in pain. Like a schoolgirl given a difficult mental arithmetic problem she can’t solve.
Martin decided to try some simpler questions.
‘How old are you?’
His question was accompanied by a piercing beep, followed by six more and concluded with a final, drawn-out toot. The noise, muffled by several doors, seemed to be coming from the corridor leading to Hell’s Kitchen. Suspecting that it was an internal alarm for staff, Martin ignored it.
Anouk looked as if she hadn’t heard the noise at all.
Her lips were moving like Timmy’s had when he had to learn something by heart. But they didn’t form any words, not even a sound. Instead she lifted her nightshirt to scratch her tummy above the waistband of her tights.
Martin saw a number of circular burn scars, on either side of her belly button, which looked as if cigarettes had been stubbed out on her.
‘My God, who did that to you?’ he asked, unable to conceal the revulsion in his voice. He turned away so that Anouk didn’t relate the fury in his face to herself. When he’d composed himself again and was about to resume his questions, he couldn’t speak.
That can’t be true!
Anouk had put the teddy down beside her and written a single word on the drawing computer:
Martin
His name. In clear letters. Right across the touchscreen. Anouk still had the stylus in her hand.
She can’t mean me, that’s impossible.
Martin forced a smile and counted down from ten until his heart rate was sufficiently normal for him to ask calmly, ‘But you know I’m not a bad man, don’t you?’
I’d never hurt you.
It must be a silly coincidence, he thought.
He hoped.
Martin was a common name, in the US too. It wasn’t unfeasible that the abuser might also coincidentally be called it.
Or called himself Martin. Or wore a shirt from the Caribbean island of St Martin…
Anything was possible.
But was it likely?
Anouk turned her head to the side. She looked around as if she were taking in her surroundings for the first time. Then she grabbed the stylus again and skilfully drew the outline of a large cruise ship. Martin peered through the portholes out at the water, which looked much darker than two hours ago. He had another stab at a direct question: ‘Can you tell me the name of the person you’ve been with all this time?’
Anouk closed her eyes. Counted something on her fingers.
11 + 3
is what she wrote directly below her drawing of the ship. Martin couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,’ he said.
He looked at his name, the drawing of the liner and the apparent sum.
Fourteen?
As the cabin numbers on the Sultan had four digits, this could only be a clue to a deck, if at all. Deck 14 was the pool with the waterslide, ice bar, driving range and jogging circuit.
‘What do you mean eleven plus three?’ he asked.
Her expression darkened. She seemed to be angry, as if his questioning was slowly getting on her nerves. Nonetheless she wrote again with the stylus:
My mama
‘Your mama?’ Martin asked, as if transfixed. ‘Do you know if she’s still alive?’
Anouk nodded sadly. A tear ran from her eye.
Martin could scarcely believe he’d obtained so much information from the girl in such a short time, even if he wasn’t able to pin most of it down.
‘I think we’d better have a little break,’ he said. Anouk looked exhausted. ‘Is there anything I can bring you?’ he asked.
The girl picked up the stylus one last time and wrote
Elena
beneath the drawing of the ship. Then she shoved her thumb back in her mouth and turned away from Martin, as if she wanted to make it absolutely clear that she had no more to tell him.
‘I’ll go and see if I can find her,’ Martin said, and was just about to go looking for the ship’s doctor when the alarm sounded again.