I once read a book with no cover. I told our school librarian. He listened attentively, although I’d had a vague idea such a request would be brushed aside summarily. Turoch adjusted his thin gold-frame glasses, rubbed his scruffy chin.
‘What was it about?’
About a boy who embarks on a journey to Afghanistan to find his father, and when he does find him, he murders the father with a simple razor blade.
He bent closer to me, still seated. I began to stammer.
‘The father abandoned him before he went to war.’
‘Yes?’
Turoch’s voice exposed the irritation rising in his throat.
Two or three girls looked up from their books. I lowered my voice,
‘It had a great description of a rugged road trip.’
Without further words, he turned the screen of his computer towards me,
‘Type in everything you can remember.’
The keyboard smelt of cologne and I knew for a fact Turoch had a father who deserted him, and once dated a girl from our school, our senior. A little over a year after inviting Debra to his apartment after school, he had married another woman, Jessie. I doubted why he worked at the library – he was a law graduate. If he wanted he could sell flowers; women like that sort of thing – from a handsome young man.
I typed ‘US Military, Afghanistan, fiction’, and ten minutes later, I was carrying a pile of six slim books to my table at the far end of the neo-gothic architectural library that now belonged to our all-girls school.
Every day, I added bits I could only guess. Things that may make Turoch nervous, however away from truth. Like ‘boy deserted by father held at the border check post, short story’, ‘revenge, fiction, Afghanistan’. This man had secrets – I was sure.
I typed in a way that Turoch could see, and carried back stacks of paperbacks that the search engine threw up. Every day, Turoch got more agitated. I had the cologne smell on my fingertips, and however far from the librarian’s desk I took my seat, I was faintly aware of his eyes creeping on me.
I was now a marked student. A new addition in a broad collage.
I always viewed suspiciously the paneled door on my right, meant to open into the room for the staff, where Turoch disappeared at lunchtime, and where it was obvious several girls must’ve lost themselves.
I began to type in ‘imposter syndrome’, about ‘Contiguity Theory’. Another stack of hard bound books, with words and details spilling over, inundated me, telling me how we always learn the last thing we do in response to a specific stimulus situation.
When the thick dark-mahogany curtains swayed, it smelt of cologne. I observed the hooks by which they hung. They hinted at several brief scuffles. They swayed to show me their frayed edges. Sometimes they let out girls’ muted cries. I knew I had my materials ready.
On the eleventh day I thought I had enough information to open my cards.
‘You left school midway, to escape to Afghanistan, didn’t you Turoch?’
‘I did. I was only thirteen.’
‘Your father was killed – um, died?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Any chance you know someone by the name Sheryl?’
‘No.’
‘Sheryl said she might tell cops what she knows about the girl who left school mid-term.’
He did not flinch.
I knew he wouldn’t. There was no Sheryl; it was just to watch his response, to let loose invisible pairs of eyes on him; fear of people knowing more than they should; wary of someone who might discover his secrets.
Upping him on his own predatory behavior game.
Stacks of books swirled in his eyes, closing in. For once, truths hitherto lost in the library, and usurped by fiction, began to torment his head.
I never saw him unleash his gaze upon the girls again.
Mandira Pattnaik has work appearing or forthcoming in Watershed Review, EllipsisZine, Citron Review, ToastedCheese, Bending Genres, FlashBack Fiction and Amsterdam Quaterly, among others. She writes flash because there’s just so little time in her hands and doesn’t think she will ever attempt a novel. Find Mandira at @MandiraPattnaik.
There is so much in this, touching on several levels. Really enjoyed this!