Dreams Ltd (7 page)

“Shereen, you are a very beautiful woman. Do you know that many models would die for hair like yours?” he smiled at me.

I felt my face burning from embarrassment and I quickly tried to smooth my brown curly hair.

“Thank you.”

“But, it’s true. With such chocolate-coloured hair and green eyes you look like you could be a model from a magazine cover.”

I blushed and as soon as I imagined how awful my burgundy face must look with my green eyes and I turned away. I must look like a witch.

He laughed even louder.

“You are so cute when you blush!”

I barely stopped myself from elbowing him in the side and at that precise moment I felt like we had known each other all our lives. How was that possible if we just have met?

Alex dropped me off at my doorstep and didn’t even ask for my phone number. I instantly felt a bitter taste in my mouth. Is that it? Did our first date just become the last one? To my surprise he called me the next evening. He found out my phone number, drove to my flat and took me out for our first proper date. Since then we’ve been almost inseparable. He’d pick me up after my lectures and bring me home where we’d spend some time sitting around and drinking coffee. I heard a lot of good advice from him about how to start a new business and how to avoid mistakes which new entrepreneurs were so prone to. As far as I could understand he had already owned his own business but for a long time but I didn’t get a chance to discover what it was. I didn’t want to question Alex much but to enjoy the closeness we had and I assumed that over time all the other answers will be revealed. I also found from Alex that he’d recently broken up with ex-girlfriend. After a few years of the relationship something went wrong. As he spoke about it there was a shade of sadness in his eyes and I wanted to comfort him at such moments.

I have to admit though that there were occasions - now that it’s easier to judge - when Alex showed different sides to his personality: there was irritation, short temper and at times even anger. But it was very short-lived and since I was a patient person we got on with our lives avoiding arguments.

Yes, that’s what our life was like at that time.

I decided to put my flow of memories on hold as I suddenly felt tired of lying on the bed and I started to feel a little peckish. The orange sunset was shining through the curtains. I got up, opened the curtains and window. The room immediately filled up with various sounds: the whispering of the grass swayed by the gentle breeze, chirping of cicadas, a monotonous voice was murmuring from somewhere underneath me. That must be someone’s TV.

I went to the fridge, opened it and not paying much attention to the abundance of food on the shelves (thanks again to Carlos Brodsky) I took a bottle of sparkling water thinking that I might also fancy a cup of tea later.

After a few minutes I put the kettle on. I reached for the biscuits, opened the pack and put one biscuit in my mouth - it appeared to be crunchy and salty. While chewing the biscuit I began to drown in my memories again.

Alex did not insist on intimacy straight away and I was happy about that, thinking that if he did it would mean that his interest to me is just physical. I was quietly hoping that one day our relationship would grow into a real family - a family that has lots of cosy evenings in; a family busy with everyday worries. I dreamt that we’d travel a lot and we’d get a big fluffy dog...

Plans, plans… and more plans….

One and half months later Alex eventually confessed that he was a firearms engineer. His choice of profession surprised me but at the same time it made me respect him more. In order to invent new types of weapons the person must be very talented and clever and Alex in my opinion was a clever and talented man. Some nights I saw Alex sitting there until the early hours with his blueprints but I never asked him any questions and he never told me much about his work. The only thing I knew was that Alex was the owner of a small plant for developing and producing new weapon samples and there were about forty people working there. Most of the production system was automated. On a few occasions Alex told me that he wouldn’t mind extending the business but in order to do so he would need a hefty additional investment and Alex didn’t have the money.

Then Elmer came on the scene – a man with black thinning hair, a hawk nose and grasping eyes. Elmer didn’t know much about the weapon industry but he was the one who provided Alex with that additional investment which allowed them to buy a new and bigger plant plus some modern equipment. Such a contribution immediately turned Elmer into a partner and a holder of fifty per cent share of the business. As soon as he turned into a partner Elmer began to direct Alex in business and sometimes even pressurise him.

Overall they got along quite well. At least that’s what I thought. Alex got this new energy and creativity as well as some new ideas. He was flying to work. We moved apartments and I have memories when Alex would sit on the edge of the table passionately waving his hands around and telling me about his day.

But something changed with time - either Elmer was putting too much pressure on Alex or it was Alex who had lost his creativity (which I doubted). But Alex was coming back home in a bad mood more often now. He stopped answering my questions; he ate in silence and then he was off to the pub. One after another my attempts to fix our relationship were failing. I was certain that it wasn’t me causing these problems but nevertheless somewhere deep inside the guilt was eating me up.

Then Alex disappeared.

Elmer told me that he’d received the kidnappers request but since he didn’t believe it was genuine he had refused to pay anything. I came down on him like a ton of bricks, swore as badly as an experienced sailor but Elmer didn’t even bat an eye. He just said that it was Alex’s own fault. I was raging trying to get more information out of him but it was to no avail. Based on Elmer’s words, Alex was going to go to Lemania hoping to sign a new contract and paid no attention to Elmer’s warnings that a trip like that could cost him dearly. Therefore Elmer was relieved of any responsibility.

I was ready to rip his greasy hair off and break his hawk nose in three places but somehow I restrained myself. Instead I just asked Elmer if he was certain that he is not willing to pay the ransom and as soon as he confirmed that I left the office.

The kidnappers asked for half a million dollars in cash. The deadline was terrifyingly small - only three days. As of that minute rest and food didn’t exist for me anymore. Everything mixed up into a ball of tensed nerves, premonitions and continues crying. The Police didn’t exist - there was only the Commission - a regulating body for all the cities which nobody would voluntarily get involved with. I had no place to ask for help. I checked all my bank accounts but I was only able to scrape fifty thousand dollars. I never had access to Alex’s accounts.

I knew I would put my shop on the brink of bankruptcy and that my chances of going bust or being thrown out on the streets were roughly at eighty per cent, however that didn’t stop me. I was prepared to give everything away to get Alex home safely, at nights I was dreaming of the fierce revenge on Elmer for his prudence and cowardice; and after my rage calmed down I’d start to cry again.

Well... I’ve done everything I could. It’s possible I haven’t done enough though, perhaps I should have put more pressure on Elmer to try and get more information about what was going on between him and Alex lately, but my exhausted mind couldn’t think straight.

And now here I am in an unknown city with a strange name Tally. I have to find this Laroche, pass him the damn parcel and get out of this place.

I shook my head pushing the memories away and as I heard the click of a kettle I poured some hot water into a cup. I found a teabag smelling of jasmine sank it in the water and sat on the edge of the table again. The book called “The Rules and Regulations of Tally” came within my sight and I thought that it’s probably the right time to start reading it. I have to understand how the local system works and come up with a plan if I want to get back home one day.

In next two hours I had my head buried in the book reading about the system of Tally. Mostly it was a boring read - there was hundreds if not thousands of rules. When my legs got numb I crawled over to the bed. Then I moved back in the chair and then on the armchair. The more I read the more I was surprised.

There was no money in this city at all.

What I understood for certain was: if you work hard and don’t break any rules - points will be added to your bracelet. If you break any rules - the points will be subtracted. In order to get out of Tally everybody had to collect one thousand points. Now I had no doubts that I was in a prison. The points system was quite logical if you don’t take into consideration some of the puzzling rules. For example: a person was not allowed to move across the street in the same direction for longer than half an hour. In order to move further, one must cross the street and proceed on the other side. What was that for? And what does it mean? Or for instance the rule about the bus tickets...

I found the text and read it once again.

“When boarding a bus, the passenger must obtain a ticket from the driver indicating the seat number which the passenger must occupy”. At first everything looked fine but the next sentence told me that every ticket has an encrypted code - some kind of a mathematic formula, which must be solved by the passenger in a limited amount of time.

“Why don’t they just print a number on it? Why do they have to complicate everything?”

I scratched my cheek in bewilderment.

As I discovered from the next paragraph - if the passenger does not solve the puzzle within the given time, they will be fined five points.

I put the book aside trying to understand what it all means and I didn’t like the conclusion I came to. It seemed to me that all these hundreds of rules were created on purpose to punish people for every fault. I picked up the book again and carried on reading. The more I learnt about the rules the more I was convinced that I was right. How else could you interpret the following text?

“The City Committee reserves the right to amend all or some of the laws at any time without prior notice. Citizens wishing to learn about the changes can do so by watching a TV program “The Laws” on channel twelve. The program does not follow a specific schedule; however the show time can be found in the daily newspaper “Tally Today” which is sold at newsstands across the city...”

I stopped reading and looked at the wall dumbfounded. What kind of rubbish is that? The program is on TV every day but nobody knows when it starts. In order to learn when exactly it starts you have to buy a newspaper. What if people are at work? Or what if this program starts at night when most people are asleep? And how long does it last? It’s almost mandatory to watch this “show” so let’s say I’m at work and I have to take a break to watch this program, subsequently I’ll be punished by an employer, won’t I?

Eventually I put the book away and looked at the TV screen in anger. Now it seemed like the epitome of the evil “Big Brother is Watching You” nightmare. I walked across the room in circles, feeling perturbed and nervous as I was trying process all the information in my head. The realisation of what was going on in spite of all my efforts was sticking out of my head like a bunch of straws and needles. I persistently kept on thinking about everything I read. I have to make sure I understand all this because I have to live in Tally for a while yet and for this reason I must put up with all the idiotic rules whether I want to or not. Does this mean I have to learn my equations before getting on the bus like a schoolgirl? What the hell?!

Eventually I’ve calmed down. It’s just temporary. I’m not in this city because I’m guilty of anything so all this crap does not apply to me. I’m not trapped. I just have to find Christopher Laroche and then I’m free to leave Tally forever and my nightmare will be a thing of the past. But is it really possible to get away if this city is a prison? For a second this thought made me feel utterly terrified but then I thought that the Corporation would take care of me (they must do!) - I am here because of them. My inner voice shouted that not everything is so simple but I had no other option than to trust Dreams Ltd. Constant contradictions could drive even the sanest person mad and my nervousness was already adding to the situation.

Eventually I got tired of going round the room and looked at the clock -10pm. I wondered if Jenny was already asleep. It’s not too late, is it? If she works early shifts then she is probably already in bed. I decided not to waste any more time thinking and see for myself. Before leaving my apartment I took another jar of jam out of the fridge in order to try and “strengthen” our friendship. What was her room number? Was it three hundred and twelve? Or was it three hundred and thirteen? No, “thirteen” wouldn’t slip out of my mind, so it was twelve then.