Here Until August by Josephine Rowe

Author:Josephine Rowe [Rowe, Josephine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948226080
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2019-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

The day upon which Maria is supposed to come and collect Chavez arrives and disappears like the TGV through an insignificant town. Then the morning after this, and the one which follows do not bring her. I call the number she has left for me to call if something happens to Chavez or the building burns down or some other catastrophe occurs, but the numbers do not reach to anywhere or anyone, just the apology of a robot voice explaining that nobody is at the end of this sequence of numbers.

I am not sure if it is my position to do something now, to call and make some report or other. For the first time, I properly worry—how bad was this bad husband of Maria’s? I worry also whether they confiscate the dogs of missing persons. This is unlikely, but just in case, I decide I will not mention Chavez when calling authorities. However, the weeks vanish without me calling any authorities.

During this time, the only mail which arrives for Maria is in the form of bills, threats of disconnections, and finally notices of disconnections. There is also one subscription to a Spanish science magazine, in which I appreciate some of the graphs and diagrams. Aside from this there is nothing but junk.

I try to interpret if Chavez is concerned for her, whether he is pining. One night we climb up to Maria’s apartment together, and he circles the main room and sniffs everything to make sure it still belongs to him, and then huffs down onto the woven rag rug in the center of the room in a way that seems abattu. Chavez, I mean, though the rug seems despondent also. But when I go to the door the dog follows without protest. We return downstairs, where he settles down Sphinx-like beside me as I pull my laptop onto my knees and begin a new search for the videos I know I should not be searching for.

In the footages that do not show Bruno, the hostages appear shaken and malnourished. Or else they appear sinewy and stoic. They have not had any alcohol in many months, this can be seen in comparing the footage to the photographs from fishing trips and honeymoons and family holidays that are published by less morbid media. Their clothes are sandblasted to no color, or rotting away with a greenish damp. On occasion their skin, along with their expressions, have taken on some elemental likeness—stone, or earth, or closely grained wood—as if to chameleon to their particular surrounds, or to separate themselves completely from undependable flesh and blood.

They deliver, sometimes, rehearsed statements to families and governments. Sometimes these include appeals, demands, bargains, and then the footage is over, the screen blacks out harmlessly.

Other times, no bargains are to be offered, and what follows was always going to follow, was always crouching there, hidden in plain silence at the end of the statement.

I smooth down the ears of Chavez. Does he know that what he sees is terrible? I think yes.

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