The Devil's Grip by Lina Wolff

Author:Lina Wolff [Wolff, Lina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

During her first few days at Ben’s, she barely goes out. She feels a reluctance, she doesn’t want to leave the house. She stands there, peering out the living-room window. It’s all so different. The people, the homes. Some roofs have stayed broken ever since Katrina. Most of the buildings have makeshift tin roofs. It’s as if relocating from one continent to another has activated her social anxiety. But she should make an effort to live, to be a little normal. She’s afraid that if she goes out something will come to a head, she won’t manage to blend in, she won’t understand the codes of this new place, and Ben, as a consequence of her inability, will distance himself from her even more.

Finally she pulls herself together and leaves the house. She asks Ben if he wants to join her, but he absently shakes his head. She takes a stroll. A long street with many houses similar to Ben’s. They all have small front porches. She comes to a place with two bridges spanning the area. A clutch of men are standing there. They look at her and they don’t look happy. She tries to go by unnoticed, but can’t resist glancing over her shoulder once she has walked past. That’s when she sees that they’re coming her way. The men in a row, eyes fixed on her. She stops, meets their gaze. They look at her coldly and she wants to believe in the good of everyone, to inhabit the conviction that something about her blends in here, something universally human, but there is no mistaking the threat in their eyes. She’s not from here, she doesn’t fit in, she’s a tourist, you can tell from a mile off. She turns and speeds her steps. The men do the same, following her, faster. She starts running. They start running. She hears them laughing, one shouts out in Mexican Spanish. She feels the panic rise in her chest and runs for all she’s worth. She hears them laughing again behind her and out of the corner of her eye she sees them closing in. She senses that they’d have no problem catching up with her but they don’t, it’s as if they want to test her endurance. They’re behind her, pushing on, but not catching up. Eventually she sees the back of Ben’s pink house and so she cuts through the neighbor’s yard and hurls herself through Ben’s back door. She lies on the floor, gasping. Then she staggers into the living room and sees Ben sitting on the couch watching TV, calmly with the remote control in one hand and a beer in the other.

“I was being chased,” she says. “A gang of men were chasing me.”

Ben nods. “You stick out here, and New Orleans isn’t like other cities.”

She goes to the window and looks outside. The men are nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t you care?” she says.

“About what?”

“About me.”

“Sure, but…” He leaves it hanging.

She faces him and gets

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