The Tax Inspector

60

There was this noise in the dark: huh-huh-huh. It came and went. She would do it for a minute. She would stop for a minute. Huh-huh-huh. Benny had Cacka’s hurricane lamp. He had that almost from the moment the lights went, but the problem was the matches. He found cigarettes but no matches and he had spent half an hour standing on tip-toe slowly working his way up and down the low rafters of the ceiling looking for the book of porno matches Mort had brought from the bar in Bangkok.

When he came close she struck out at him with the iron bar. It was pitch black. She could have killed him. He never found the porno matches. They were probably in her corner. He found instead an old box of Redheads still above the door frame. He struck the match, raised the sooty glass, and lit the wick. Maria Takis was standing by the work bench, her hands pushed against the wall making a noise like a dog.

‘Vishna-fucking-barnu,’ he said. ‘The fucking turd.’

She stared at him. She made this noise: Huh-huh-huh-huh.

‘Don’t think you’re getting out of this,’ he said. ‘This alters nothing.’

He came towards her. She held up the iron bar. She had muscled legs like a tennis player. She had them tensed, apart, her back against the wall. Her face was red, veins standing out. She looked so ugly he could not believe it was the same person. Huh-huh-huh, she said. A witch.

Then she stopped making the noise. She stood straighter and tried to lick her lips. ‘Get me something clean,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing clean,’ he said. ‘This is where I live.’

‘That.’

First he thought she meant him. She wanted him. She had her hand out towards his cock, his belly. He stepped back. She was pointing at his shirt. He could not believe it. He could not fucking believe it.

‘Get fucked,’ he said.

‘Please.’

‘It’s my shirt.’

‘It’s clean.’

‘You shouldn’t get me mad,’ he said. ‘Not now. You understand?’ he shouted at her. ‘You see what has happened? The jealous cunt blew up my career. He didn’t want it, so he killed it for me.’

She reached out her hand to grab at the shirt. He grabbed at her wrist but she brought the iron bar down with her other hand. The bar crashed down on to the work bench.

He saw then that she was crazy. Her eyes were so hard and dark, he could not look at them.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘This is my shirt.’

‘Huh-huh-huh.’ Her face was going red again. Tendons stretched down her neck. She started hunching up her shoulder and putting her arm inside her dress, and then she stayed there: ‘Huh-huh-huh.’

He went back to the doorway and looked at the rubble. He pulled out a brick, but it was hopeless. There was concrete and steel reinforcing rod twisted in together. When he turned back he saw she had stepped out of the dress, and lifted it up high as if it might get soiled just touching anything that belonged here. She had an industrial strength bra with white straps. He was shocked by how her stomach stretched, by the ragged brown line down her middle, by the size of everything, the muscles in her legs, the redness of her face. She had buckshot wounds in her arms and thighs. She was trying to spread her dress across his couch with one hand, but the dress was too small and would not stay still. She held it out to him.

‘Cut it,’ she said.

‘Fuck you,’ he said.

‘Just do it,’ she screamed. ‘Cut the fucking dress down the side.’

‘Fuck you,’ he said, ‘I’m not your servant.’

‘You want this baby to die,’ she said. ‘You want to kill this baby too.’

She knew he could not stand her saying that. ‘Don’t you say that,’ he said. ‘You don’t know a thing about me. You think I’m some creep because I live down here.’

‘If you’re not a creep, what are you?’

‘Angel,’ he yelled. ‘I told you.’

She stared at him, her eyes wide.

‘I am a fucking angel.’

They were looking at each other, a metre apart. She had the iron bar in her hand, dressed in pale blue knickers and a white bra.

‘Huh-huh-huh.’ She hunkered down. She held the bar up. There was a vein on her forehead like a great blue worm.

‘This baby needs a hospital, and doctors,’ she gasped. ‘If we keep it here it’ll choke on its cord. It’ll be your fault.’

‘Why would I kill a baby? I am an angel.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘I changed myself,’ he said. ‘It’s possible.’

‘See,’ she said. She looked him in the eye. ‘Now you’re going to shoot it.’

‘Don’t say that, I’m warning you. Don’t say that.’

‘Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh.’ She held the bar in both hands. She stepped back, leaned against the wall. ‘Huh-huh-huh.’

Water and blood gushed out from between her legs, passed through her blue knickers as if they were not even there.

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Huh-huh-huh.’

He went to the door again, but it was useless. He dirtied his shirt. Behind him, the Tax Inspector was hollering.

‘Huh-huh-huh.’

Up in the street he thought he could hear sirens, he was not sure.

‘Huh-huh-huh.’

She was backed against the wall, all her pants soaked with blood and water, dripping.

He turned back to the bricks. You could see pale daylight but the stairs were jammed with a mass of masonry and steel. They would have to wait for the emergency rescue squad to free them.

‘I didn’t do this,’ he said. ‘This is not my fault. All it was: I liked you. You never listened to me. I never wanted to do nothing wrong.’

Then she started hollering again. He could not bear it. She was shrieking like he was murdering her.

‘What do I do?’ he said. ‘I’ll help you. Tell me what to do.’

She did not talk. Her eyes were so wide in her head he thought they were going to pop out. Then she calmed down.

‘Cut up my dress. We need a clean surface.’ He had razor blades in the old coke stash. He had gaffer tape on the bench. He sliced open her dress and stuck it to the couch with gaffer tape.

‘Now – your shirt.’

‘No.’

‘We don’t need to cut it.’

‘Forget it.’

‘It’s coming. It’s too soon. It’s coming. Help me down.’

He helped her. He put his arm around her. It was the second time he touched her, ever. She was dead heavy, a sack of spuds. He helped her towards the couch.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she said, ‘oh fuck, oh shit, oh Christ, oh no.’

‘Are you O.K.?’

‘Oh no,’ she screamed. ‘Oh noooo …’

This time he knew she was dying. It was terrible. It was worse than anything he could imagine.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s O.K.’ He took off his coat. He put it under her. It was terrible there, in her private parts. He was frightened to look at the hole. It was like an animal. It was opening. Something was pushing.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

‘Shut up,’ she screamed again. ‘No.’

He could see the actual head, the actual baby’s head. It was black and matted, pushing out from between her legs. He did not know what to do. From the noises that came out of her throat he knew she was going to die. You could see in her face she was going to die. He knelt beside her to stop her rolling off the couch.

She screamed.

He looked. The head was out. Oh Christ. It looked like it would break off, or snap. It turned.

‘Cord.’

He did not know what she meant. He was kneeling on rough bricks on his bare knees. It hurt.

She said, ‘See the cord.’

He could not see anything.

‘The umbilical cord,’ she said, her hands scrabbling down in the bloody, slippery mess between her legs. ‘Christ, check my baby’s neck?’

Then he saw it. There was a white slippery thing, the cord, felt like warm squid. He touched it. It was alive. He pulled it gingerly, frightened he would rip it out or break it. He could feel a life in it, like the life in a fresh caught fish, but warm, hot even, like a piece of rabbit gut. He looped it back over the baby’s head. Then, it was as if he had untied a string – just as the cord went back, the child came out, covered in white cheese, splashed with blood. Its face squashed up like a little boxer’s. It was ugly and alone. Its legs were up to its stomach and its face was screwed up. Then it cried: something so thin, such a metallic wail it cut right through to Benny’s heart.

‘Oh Christ,’ he said.

He took off his cotton shirt. He threw his bloodied suit jacket on the floor and wrapped up the frightened baby in the shirt.

‘Give him to me,’ Maria said. ‘Give me my baby.’

‘Little Benny,’ he whispered to it.

‘Give me my baby.’

She was shouting now, but there had been so much shouting in his life. He knew how not to hear her. Tears were streaming down Benny’s face. He did not know where they were coming from. ‘He’s mine,’ he said.

He closed his heart against the noise. He hunched down over the baby.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s going to hurt you.’