Chapter summary
Dara blames rejected neighbour Felix for Sarah’s attack, assaults him, and refuses his attempted explanation.
DARA
Wednesday The buzzing of houseflies was like a relentless instrument played without rhythm by the fingers of an amateur. Two elderly women had been cleaning Dara’s apartment all morning. They swept, scrubbed, mopped, dried and sprayed scented fresheners in every room.
Yet the flies buzzed, especially around the kitchen, where she had dumped the pizza. It was inconceivable that she would touch it with a ten-foot pole, let alone eat it. She sat on the sofa, dejected and lost in thought, chewing what was left of her fingernails.
Now and then the whiff of faeces would interrupt her thoughts. She wondered if her mind was playing tricks on her, or if the smell truly lingered. She asked the two cleaners several times that morning if they perceived the faint smell of faeces. Their answer was always the same.
“Everywhere is fine now, ma.”
Since the incident her brain felt like it was running on a treadmill, putting logic and reason to the scenes of the day before and asking questions she had no answers to. There was no doubt that someone was out to hurt her. But who? And why?
Felix, her next-door neighbour, topped the list of suspects. Every time she tried to put a name to the culprit, his name came first. It was a list with only his name.
When she moved into the apartment several months earlier, Felix had been the one with the strong hand for her furniture, helping her settle in. He had himself moved into the flat next door barely two weeks before she did, so they were new neighbours together, he liked to say.
It was his painter who repaired the cracks on her walls and finished them in satin paint. His electrician fixed the broken wall switches and the lamp holders. His carpenter mended the hinges of her toilet door and the broken shelves in the kitchen store. There was no way she could have settled in if Felix had not been such a kind, considerate neighbour.
Felix was single and somewhat average looking, with an incredible set of white teeth that shone like stars when he smiled. And he smiled often. Sometimes Dara wondered if the teeth were real. They looked too perfect, too aligned to be true. God had certainly been partial when he carved that smile. It did not help that he was so modest with it, and that made her like being around him.
There was a softness to him, a warmth married to shyness. It was the look of an honest soul, and in that moment she knew she had found a special friend.
In the first weeks after she moved in, Felix was her most frequent visitor. He was an IT programmer and helped set up her desktop computer, installing applications for music, for her email, for her online games and chats. His interest in her well-being seemed genuine, and Dara was glad. It felt really good to have someone dote on her.
But their friendship took a romantic turn one evening, when they kissed passionately. It felt so unplanned, yet it happened, and it lasted all of three minutes. The intensity was blinding and breathless. It felt like something they had both been longing for and had been in denial about. Their breath seized the moment his skin touched her arm, and she melted into his soft lips within seconds.
Dara did not let the moment get very far. She stopped him in his tracks. His eyes were still shut when she asked him to stop.
“No, please stop.”
Felix’s eyelids blinked several times before he returned to his senses.
“Why?” he asked, as soon as he caught some air.
“I don’t want us to ruin this beautiful friendship we share.”
“But you want this just as much as I do, Dara.” His voice had a hint of a plea, his eyes still dreamy from the warmth of her swollen lips.
“I have a boyfriend I really care about. He paid for this apartment, and he is very jealous.”
Silence filled the moments that followed.
Felix left her door ajar that afternoon and never spoke a word to her again.
He avoided her in the driveway, when he took out the trash, and when she stepped onto the fire escape their two kitchens shared to cook. He stopped texting her. He pulled down the curtains of the windows facing her apartment and never checked in on her. It felt as though she had suddenly ceased to exist. Dara took it in her stride and moved on.
They had not spoken in months, and he had already begun showing signs of aggression. Sometimes she came home to find her trash can knocked away from her kitchen door. Other times strange emails popped up on her computer with incoherent messages. The sender was always unidentified. Dara suspected Felix, handling rejection like a sulking teenager.
Now he had the guts to send someone to deliver the nasty pizza to her apartment.
“Was this some kind of silly joke?” she muttered. She dialled her boyfriend’s number for the umpteenth time that morning, and the answer was the same. “The number you have called cannot be reached at the moment. Please try again later.”
He had said something about Dubai, a flight early on
Wednesday. She had not listened properly, the way one does not listen to the weather report of a country one will never visit. Of course his phone was off. That did not make her feel any better.
The anger had been there a while, boiling and receding, desperately seeking an outlet. But as soon as the seething resentment finally reached boiling point, she got off the sofa and marched up to Felix’s kitchen door.
The door swung open at her twentieth rap on the steel. Irritation was written all over Felix’s face the moment he saw her.
Two quick slaps were followed by a barrage of invectives.
“Dara, please, there is something I need to tell you.”
“How dare you do such a disgusting thing, Felix. What sort of jealousy would make you demean yourself like this? I thought you were a much better and more refined man. And you think you can get away with it?”
Bemused, Felix tried again. “Dara…” His left palm caressed his cheek.
“Don’t ever call my name. You don’t get to call my name ever again, not after what you have done. What have you gained from this despicable act? Did it restore your ego? Did it make you feel better? Are you fulfilled now? You have gotten your pound of flesh!”
“Dara, you need to stop raising your voice.”
“I will scream if I have to. Don’t tell me what to do with my voice. Do you think I am a pushover? You haven’t seen anything yet. I will go to any length to see that you regret everything you have done. Bastard!”
Dara walked briskly away from him, cursing as she shut her kitchen door behind her.
Behind her, Felix stood with his palm on his cheek and the rest of his sentence still in his mouth.
Loose Ends · Continue reading
Continue to Chapter 21
The story continues in the next chapter.
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The featured photograph is used under the Pexels licence. Contextual scene illustrations are original editorial artwork created for this serial; the characters and events are fictional. Featured photograph source. Editorial design by akinakingbogun.com.
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