переговоры

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Days passed - but they did it slowly.

I would like to look back at the past week as being one of the most beautiful of my life - but sadly, I can't. I guess I had a certain dream in the back of my head, when I started looking for Audrey, trying to get her out of hell. A part of my head had probably thought that if I'd just get her out of there, everything would be perfect again.

It isn't. I have to accept that. It's not a fairy tale, no 'and they lived happily ever after'. She doesn't run into my arms. I hadn't expected her to do so, but I have to admit that I at least hoped for something.
It is painful to see that she wants me to stay at distance. No matter how painful it is, I respect her wish, even if I sometimes had to leave her, to find a lonely space for myself to let the pain out that it causes. She doesn't even know how much this hurts. It feels like she's ripping my heart out, when I offer her my help and instead of taking it she pushes me away, showing me her cold shoulder.
It's awkward, what is going on inside her mind. She's okay with me when I help her get up from bed or walk around. Sometimes she even let me take her into my arms. But ever since she got a little bit stronger, those moments became less and less.

She's sitting in the back of the van now, while I'm in the front, together with Belcheck. He'll take us to Almaty, which is only a hundred miles away from the place where we hid during the past week, to the convent where we'll meet Jokhanna. Then he'll head back to Serbia and I'll be alone with Audrey - at the convent. My resources are limited, especially my financial ones. I can't afford to have him around, just as a bodyguard. Staying at the convent is also safe, at least for some time, and they'll hide me and Audrey for a decent amount of money. There will even be a doctor available - and I still hope that Audrey will let him have a look at her.

I hope that she'll manage to live there, among people. She hates Belcheck, either because he reminds her of the prison guards or just because he's a man - I don't even know which one is more horrible to her. I hope that she'll at least manage to trust Jokhanna and the others in Almaty. They're a bunch of sixty year old nuns, that'll help for sure.

And I'll have to find another role for myself. I'll be there, to protect her. Belcheck will leave me with a few guns and rifles, ammunition and some equipment to contact Chloe, just in case.

The closer Almaty gets, the more I realize that I don't really have a plan. I had one, up to now. But I didn't think any further ahead - probably because I subconsciously never expected it to make it out of China alive, and with Audrey.

Chloe called, two days ago. She said that the CIA and the White House were highly alarmed when they heard about me, having escaped from the Russians. She laid out a few breadcrumbs to lead them onto a wrong track, towards New Zealand. They won't be any problem- for now.

But I can't stay in Almaty forever, with Audrey. We'll stay there for two or three weeks, but I have no plan what to do then. What if she gets better? What if she wants to go 'home'?
Right now, I'm not even sure if that would be possible at all. If the CIA found out where she was- they'd come and kill her, to resolve the huge political problem that was attached to her life.

I have to hide her.
Right now, it's not that hard to hide her. She can barely walk for more than a few minutes. She still loves confined spaces and unless I put pressure on her, she didn't even want to leave her room up to now.

And she still hasn't said a single word.
I'm getting worried that there might be a real problem - a physical one - but I couldn't find any scars on her throat. Hopefully it's just the trauma that doesn't let her speak. That will go by one day.

I'll have to make it go by. I have to help her get through that - but I have no idea how. Instead of a psychologist, I'm just another messed up soul myself.
Now that the immediate pressure to find her, to fight and to run is gone, I can even see the symptoms of trauma in myself. They always come a few days after the pressure is gone. Since Audrey didn't want me that close any more throughout the past week, I slept on the sofa, in the living room of the house that we had rented, alone. It didn't take long for the nightmares to come, about being tortured. China. Russia. Sengala. And they all ended in horrible scenes of losing her.
Most of the nights, I got up after just a few hours, silently checked if she was still okay and stayed awake because I didn't want to get another one of these nightmares. Sleeping a few hours during the day is better. Usually I don't have any nightmares when it's bright around. The nights are different.

Not even being up at night is bearable, not when I'm alone, with enough time to think about it all. I'm at the end of the world. I'm responsible for Audrey. I'm still being targeted by the Russians and probably the White House and the CIA, too, because of her. They could come any minute. Chloe is watching them, as well as she can, but she's not infallible.

Most of the nights I ended up sitting in the dark living room, a cup of coffee on the table in front of me, for that I'd not have to fall asleep again, and a gun in my hands.
It's ridiculous, I know it.
If anyone had found us, the gun would be of no use at all.
But it is the thing that calms me down again, just enough to function properly.

I haven't yet found out what it would take to bring Audrey to such a state. I tried being there for her, I tried to talk to her, I tried to help her as well as I only could. But none of that was the key to her trauma. Maybe I'll find something in the weeks to come. I hope. I pray for it.

When we arrive at the convent in Almaty, I say goodbye to Belcheck. Audrey doesn't. She keeps herself away from him, and also away from everything else. She was feeling unwell, when we drove through the city, through such an awful lot of people.

Here, inside the thick walls of that convent - even if it is the middle of the city - she's starting to get better again.

She's still looking around, suspiciously, at everything and everyone who she sees. Right now I'm the only one who she trusts enough to be with- but probably only because she needs my help to walk.

When I introduce her to Jokhanna - who is a seventy year old nun - she at least doesn't have an urge to pull away or hide. She stays there, with me, holding on to my shoulder, while I talk to Jokhanna.

They prepared two rooms for us, adjacent ones. I lead Audrey to her room and leave one small bag - I don't have many things which belong to her - with her to let her unpack. The other two bags are heavy because of the guns. I carry them over to my room and close the door before I dare open them up and stow some of the guns in the closet, beneath the bed and one under my pillow.

That room feels like a cell. We're on the third floor and there's a window to the inner yard. The walls are white, the ceiling is high up and aside of the bed, a plain table with a chair, a sink with a mirror and a wardrobe, there's nothing in here.
I sit down on the bed and look around.
I hope Audrey doesn't see this as some kind of a cell. I hope she doesn't get the feeling of being locked up again. I better go over to her and see how she's doing.

Of course she doesn't answer, when I knock at her door. She doesn't speak. Why would she answer.
I push the door open, for a gap, slowly, and I find her standing at the open wardrobe, putting the few pieces of clothing that were in her bag, in there. She's alright. I should have known. She was almost hiding behind the open door when she heard the knock, I guess, but other than that, she seems to be alright.

Can I come in?, I ask her. I don't expect much of a reaction. Even that nod that she gives me is so little that most other's wouldn't have even seen it. It's just as much communication as she's able to do right now.

My room is just nextdoor, I say, lying my hand onto the wall that will be separating us for the coming weeks. In case you need anything.

She's staring at me, for an answer. Not even smiling. She's totally cold.

There's not much that I can do now. I'll have to leave her alone, though I don't want to. Do you wanna go for a walk?, I offer. She can't take a walk on her own, she still needs my help.

But she declines, shaking her head. It's interesting - but shaking her head as a no is a means of communication which she is still able to make.

Maybe later?

There it is again, the nodding that is so imperceptible that one almost doesn't see it.

I'll come back in an hour, I tell her, and leave her alone, before the situation becomes awkward. I don't want to intrude her privacy. If I do, she'll never trust me again. If she doesn't want to be with me, I won't put any pressure on her, even though hate to be out here, not knowing what's going on behind her door.

For a long time I stand in the corridor, just outside her room, staring at the door. She must feel trapped, like she was in a cell again. But she wouldn't feel well either, being in a place that wasn't as confined and lonely as this one. Probably I should have looked for a comfier place, not a room with such scarce furniture which could remind her of a cell again.
I didn't have many choices - actually not any. This was the only place that I could think of, where we can hide, until she'll get better.

I should be there for her, but I don't know how. There are only five or six yards between us, but I feel helpless. Damn it, I was in her situation. Back then, I wanted nobody around me. I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to answer anyone's questions about anything. I didn't want their pity. I didn't want their offerings. I had become a loner, back then.
Just like Audrey is one, now.

I have no idea how to change that.

I'll respect your wishes, Audrey. Even if you break my heart with it.

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