Anamnesis by Zorina Alliata (red queen free ebook TXT) 📖

you will have to discover it on your own.”

“I promised Grandma I’d keep an open mind,” I said.

“Bine,” he said. “Kisses, baby. We have to go and finish up our business here on Earth. It’s been too long. We’ll see you on the other side.”

“I love you both,” I said, but Dad had hung up already.

I cried silently, still holding the phone. Lou came and hugged me with his frail arms, giving me as much warmth as a man dead for 47 years could give.

*-*-*

Dante sat quietly in the car while Saccas drove on I-270 towards Gaithersburg. He took the Sam Eig Highway exit and soon pulled into the farm where he had bought Dante a few nights ago.

“You’ll be safe here, son,” he said softly. “Come on, let’s get inside. It’s starting to rain again.”

Dante followed him inside the house, where the old farmer came to greet them.

“So happy to see you again,” he told Dante, with a slight bow. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

“Dante,” Saccas said after Dante took off his jacket and sat in front of the chimney. “We need to talk, son. Where have you been the last two days?”

“Oh, God,” Dante remembered. “Bea! I left her all alone.”

He turned to Saccas and grabbed his arm. “Please, go and bring her here. I’m afraid something will happen to her.”

“Calm down,” Saccas said. “Who is she?”

Dante explained what had happened and how Bea was supposed to set up all his appointments. Saccas listened carefully.

“Call her,” he said when Dante finished. “Tell her to go to Café Sofia, it’s close to her apartment in Adams Morgan. I’ll pick her up from there in an hour. Tell her not to talk to anyone until I get there.”

“Okay,” said Dante, suddenly understanding how serious this game was.

Bea answered the phone in her usual sweet voice, and Dante felt tears of joy in his eyes when he heard her.

“Love,” he said, “are you okay?”

“Well,” she said, “there’s been some excitement downstairs. A car was being towed and then it exploded right down on Eye Street. They closed the whole area while they’re investigating. I think they’re finally done now.”

“Listen, I’m sending a friend to pick you up. I am worried about you and I want you to be here with me. Be at Café Sofia in an hour, and don’t talk to anyone else. My friend is an older man, with short white hair and a grey coat.”

“Okay,” she said, trusting him all the way. “I made your appointments for tomorrow morning, at the bank and at a law firm here in D.C.”

“Great,” Dante said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Saccas waved at him from the door and left immediately. Dante waved back, tired and hurting inside.

“Tea?” the farmer asked softly, politely.

“I don’t know,” Dante said. “What can you drink when you discover that your mother doesn’t love you? And that your father is hiding from you, even though you work in the same place?”

“Your father loves you very much,” the farmer said. “I know that for a fact. I have known him all my life. He loves every creature, great or small. How could he not love his own son? And your mother loves you in her own way, too. She raised you, didn’t she? She is just mad at your father and sometimes she sees him in you. You look so much like him.”

“I do?” Dante asked incredulously. “I don’t even know what he looks like. There aren’t any pictures of him.”

The farmer laughed softly. “There are pictures of him everywhere. There is one right here,” he said, pointing to the wall.

Dante raised his eyes and found himself staring at what appeared to be a very old icon, painted on red wood. The loving face of a kind man starred back at him; around his head, there was a saintly aura. For a moment, Dante thought he recognized something familiar in it; but then, his rational mind took control.

“Who is that?” he asked suspiciously.

“That’s him,” the farmer said. “That’s your daddy.”

“Oooo-kay,” Dante said. Obviously, he thought, the farmer was crazy. “Thank you very much,” he added, remembering a Romanian saying that Anna once told him: don’t argue with madmen and children, it won’t get you anywhere.

They sat in silence. The farmer got up after a while and bought some more tea, then spent a while carefully cutting cubes out of a big chunk of cheddar cheese. He arranged them on a plate and added crackers before offering them to Dante. Dante thanked him again, two times in a row, but hesitated to touch the food. He wasn’t hungry and felt uncomfortable alone at the farm with an insane host.

The farmer didn’t talk anymore; he started up a fire in the chimney and then lit up the two lamps in the room. Outside it was raining again and it was getting dark, even though it was only 3:00 in the afternoon.

Saccas and Bea arrived at last after another hour, and Dante bolted out of his seat and into Bea’s open arms. The hugged like they hadn’t see each other in weeks; they both smiled happily, like nothing else mattered but the fact that they were together.

“We’ll all stay here until this is over,” Saccas declared.

“Until what is over?” Dante asked.

“The shareholder meeting,” Saccas said. “I’ll take you there on Monday, and that will be that. All you have to do is vote against the acting CEO. Then they’ll back off and go back in the hole they crawled out of, to cook up more evil plots for the years to come. But it will be over for a while.”

“But I have those appointments tomorrow,” Dante said.

“You don’t need to go,” Saccas said. “I’ll explain to you what do to. You can go to the bank after the meeting, your money will still be there.”

“How about my Dad?” Dante asked. “What if he’s in danger?”

“He is in danger,” Saccas confirmed. “But I’ll take care of it. There are still many good people left who will give their life to save your dad. You should stay here where you’re safe.”

“Do you know where he is?” Dante asked hopefully.

“No, I don’t,” Saccas admitted. “I have to make some calls, maybe someone saw something. And I wanted to ask you about your friend Anna.”

“What about her?” Dante asked, surprised.

“She called me that night you were in West Virginia. I don’t know how she knew that you needed my help, but maybe she can help us find your dad.”

“Really?” Dante asked. “I had no idea. She always jokes about how she is Romanian and in Romania all women are witches.”

The farmer looked uncomfortable but didn’t say anything.

“Well, we’ll ask everyone we can,” Saccas concluded. “If they are good people, they will help us. Now, let’s have some dinner. I am starving.”

*-*-*

Friday morning I met Feliks in the Sensitivity Lab; we greeted each other quietly. This time we didn’t even IM each other – we just both showed up there. When I got in, he was already sitting down at the main terminal. I sat near him, our knees almost touching. Our numbers mixed with small purrs of satisfaction, curling around each other and adding up to a whole new feeling. I pulled back, jerking my being out of his warm reach.

"So what's up?" I asked, trying to keep my voice cool.

"Well, you tell me," he answered dryly. "What exactly is your agenda here?"

I looked at him, surprised. "What do you mean?"

“I found this email you wrote,” he said, pointing to the screen where the Company Eye had opened my Inbox and parsed through my files. “It has all the formulas we’ve been working on. And it’s dated three days ago. How did you know this stuff? I hadn’t even showed you the weather program then.”

“What the hell are you doing reading my email?” I asked furiously. “Who made you my boss? Are you spying on me, are you crazy or something?"

He blushed violently, but his questions were more important to him than admitting he got caught. “I just wanted to see…” he started, and didn’t know how to continue. We sat there looking at each other with passion and anger, in one of those classic Eastern European flares which lock eyes and bring all the dirty laundry out in the open.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I like you. I wanted to know more about you. You’re sending me mixed messages. I’m sorry I read your email.”

“You are crazy,” I said. “Don’t spy on me, I hate those fucking stalkers.”

“How did you know the formulas?” he asked again, undeterred.

In retrospect, I know I could have come up with a few good explanations. But that moment was true and real, and we were sitting close and staring at each other without blinking, and his face was right there and his narrow lips moved and I followed their shape, fascinated; he said something but I didn’t hear him anymore. I leaned suddenly and kissed him on the mouth, a simple kiss, and before he reacted I ran out of the room and into the grey hallway, where the numbers followed and surrounded me like a waterfall and reminded me his taste, to enjoy forever.

I rushed outside and into the garage to my car to go home and think about what I did; as I was crossing the lobby, I saw an older man looking at me.

“Anna?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, scanning him. He seemed alright.

“I’m Saccas,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it. We measured each other with our eyes for a while, trying to figure out who the other was. Nobody in my memories ever remembered Mr. Saccas. I couldn’t place him; his numbers were not shifting but stable, in a way that only old age and wisdom brings up. He probably didn’t know what to make of me either. But we had many things in common – we cared for Dante, and we had strange abilities. In the end, we smiled at each other, recognizing a partner.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Is Dante in trouble again?”

He laughed. “I was hoping you could help him out.”

I could see that he did; there were long strings of unknown variables piling up on his back. He needed me, and so did Dante. I nodded approvingly and followed Saccas to his car, Feliks’s taste still on my guilty lips.

*-*-*

To my surprise, Saccas drove straight into the farm I’d been watching from afar for months. I didn’t say anything, but noticed its glow and warmth getting stronger as we passed through the wooden gates. The rain was still falling hard, and a cold wind was bending the trees around the farmhouse. I couldn’t make out any clear patterns, any unusual combinations; although there was a mist hanging low to the ground, and healthy plants starting to come out in the garden earlier than expected. But the numbers hid out, slippery, shady, hard to identify and understand; there could have been a string, a formula holding all of them together in a way that escaped me; but mostly, it