Kiss of the Kris

By Kevin Farran

Sixteen-year-old Celeste is snatched from her execution by the man whom she must defy and love.

Europe is held in the grip of a viral, water-bound plague. Thousands fall sick with the elderly and weak being the first to succumb. Thankfully, an often maligned, fundamentalist religious state, discovers a vaccine and graciously saves millions of lives.
With that open kindness came a second 'benefit' - a migrating electrode or migratobe. The minute electrode, administered within the vaccine, nestles in the base of the brain and effectively holds those thankful millions, as slaves. Hundreds of millions survive at the behest of their fanatical captors, always fearful of an electric pulse that could cause the migratobe to explode and end their life in a final thirty seconds of agony.

Small resistance groups, known as the Kris, who escaped the initial virus and never received the the migratobe, survive underground in the sewers and subways of the great cities. Can they win freedom from the religious fanatics? Can they win their countries back?
One young girl, raised by sympathizers and having endured four years in a greasy pit for her own protection, is thrust into the forefront of the resistance movement.
Celeste knows nothing of guns, bombs and terrorism, but she will learn. She will learn fast.
Celeste's journey from her four years in captivity in the pit under the garage, to the role of resistance fighter can be thwarted by one thing - love. The volatile Tyrol, the resistance movements most dangerous man, is also the man who holds her heart.
Celeste must learn to control her heart and her hatred to save her people.

pages 322

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Farran
• Release date: Jun 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393815617

Book preview

1

Kiss of the Kris

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Her breath was hot. It washed back onto her face, moist and suffocating. Onions, she smelled onions. There was something else too, something rotten and sick, maybe fish. Her eyes watered and steamy breath, like vomited sweat, stuck to her face. Through the sliver below the lid she saw their eyes. A fog of eyes staring back at her, all wide, angry, bulging discs dashing out at her. Filled with question. Filled with piercing screams. She wanted to yell at them, but her voice just stifled in the onion reek. The back of her throat swelled, pushing hard against the back of her teeth. Terrified to make a sound, she swallowed the vomit. It left a raspy burn in her throat. The lid crashed down and her ears burst as the rat-tat-tat of machine guns bounced around her. She shot up. They can’t be here, not now. She searched the darkness around her.

Her eyes stretched into the void feeling for an image, but there was nothing. The barking gun continued in her head. Her heart thumped in her throat. She sat paralyzed staring at the total blackness. Understanding, like a cold damp cloth, washed her thoughts, wiped the stench from her pearl skin.

Her breathing calmed from racing gulps to soft pulses, like the darkness that engulfed her. The onion stench faded, lost in the black tomb she lived in.

The shattering rat-tat-tat was the impact wrench used for taking tires off the cars above her. She smiled in the darkness. Three short bursts. The mechanic always did that at the end of the shift. He was a bit simple, but at least it had stopped the visions. Best of all she hadn’t made a sound.

She sat on her bed and listened. They were gone. She knew she had to wait an hour before she could turn the light on. She tried to go back to sleep. Sometimes she wondered if her eyes were open or closed, there was no difference. Even the silence was black. Could silence be a color? If there was no color was anything there? If she lived in blackness, where there was no color, was she here? She shook her head quickly to toss the stupid thoughts from her mind.

Celeste glanced at her watch again. It was crazy to keep looking, watching the hands – expecting them to answer, but she always did. He was late today, not that he ever really had a particular time when he was supposed to arrive. He was still late. It was always before dinner and after prayers. He could never miss prayers.

She remembered how it had frightened her a few months ago when he came down before breakfast to show her a trophy. He didn’t really come down. No one did, least of all Hamood. Hamood was too big to get through the entrance hatch. He could get in if he squeezed, but she thought he was scared to come into her place. The place his father had made for her, and put her in. Not that she was imprisoned, she wasn’t a criminal. Well, at least she hadn’t done anything physically wrong. She wasn’t that kind of girl; she was just kept here. It was out of kindness. She thought about that – kept in here out of kindness? Were the cement walls a kindness? Years of kindness, her back teeth clenched hard. She knew there was no point thinking in that direction.

Hamood’s father would never do anything to hurt her. After all, he was there when she had her first diaper changed, by a man. She wondered if being seen as a baby girl was the first time she exposed her womanhood to a man. She had thoughts like this often now. Womanhood and manhood, she read so many different things about them. How they had their ‘things’ hanging down between their legs – big things. She didn’t have anything like that, but if Hamood’s father saw her woman… pieces… was that bad? It couldn’t be because her father was there too. She bit her lip and looked toward the steep silent wooden ladder. He was late.

A faint wiggle of arms caught her eye. Or were they legs? Either way, there were eight of them. It was a Daddy Long-legs. He waved wildly at her as if he was swimming in air. They were her only comrades and were ever so loyal. There were three of them in with her, all different sizes. She wasn’t sure if they were a family or if they just all got on well together. She preferred to think of them as just a group of friends, a group of friends like she had. They could talk about anything and laugh at their teachers and all the stupid things boys did. Are Daddy Long-legs boys and girls? They must be, but then they all seem to do their own version of housework. Is building a web a kind of housework? If you’re a spider, it must be. She didn’t want to think any of her spiders were lazy. She was sure they all worked hard like her father did. The little gang of three was nobly entrusted with keeping all the other little beasts at bay. She didn’t mind spiders, but bugs were a different matter altogether. She’d allowed three corners of her room to have cobwebs; everywhere else was clean – well, as clean as polished cement can be. It was up to her skinny leg gang to patrol her room and keep the other beasts away. There were never any fights, and she was convinced the Daddy Long-legs were able just to insist that other bugs stay away. They were so much taller than other bugs and deserved respect, so the bugs listened to the spiders. She was sure that was how it worked. As long as one side listened to the other, we could all get along, and there would be no fights in her room. There would be no killing or butchering among the little beasts. That only happened upstairs where the beasts were bigger and believed their God wanted them to wipe out any beast that was different to them. The beasts above the soiled wood floor wanted to murder the soul anyone who didn’t think like them or believe in their God. She felt her jaw tighten, she would not think in that direction. Not now. She wanted to stay bright for Hamood.

She thought her gang of three would be very bored if they didn’t have her to care for, to guard. The bugs seemed to all speak to one another. Of course, she never heard them, but they must communicate peacefully because they didn’t chop each other to pieces or cut arms and legs off. Even the fish in their old aquarium appeared happy when they were alive. Were they still alive? They would have liked the sea more, but they were all happy in the tank, even though they were different kinds. But then maybe fish don’t have ears so they can’t hear all the bad things said by other fish. Do fish have ears? She would ask Hamood when he arrived – that is if he ever got here. Hamood was so late. Celeste checked her watch. It sneered back at her with disdain, detached from her hopes. Second hands were particularly like that, rushing forward one notch then stopping. It was as if time was torn between yes and no, hope and no hope, up and down or in her case alone and… alone. Yeah, he was late.

Her eyes left the wiggling arms and traced back toward her feet. It wasn’t far, about six steps to where she perched with her knees up on the edge of the bed. The oil embedded cement reflected the light bulb. It created a gold river from the spider to her feet. Could a spider walk on water? Were there fish below the shimmering gold surface that would hear his steps? He would have to be quiet, but then spiders were pretty light. The area from the edge of her bed to the stairs was well worn, the cement had a slight polish on it. Hamood’s father was unable to get all the oil off the floor before she moved in – was put in. He certainly tried his best, but there wasn’t much time, and she was just standing around with no clothes on. He worked as fast as he could. There was only the one night to make the arrangements. Celeste crossed to the little spider and brushed him back around the foot of the wooden ladder. When the knock came she didn’t want to tread on him by accident when she went up. The tiny arm-legs grasped her finger to explore it or make friends. The spider seemed slightly upset; he was on duty after all. She would forgive him. Celeste could forgive anything, well, almost anything.

Her head shot up. Was that a sound? She dashed around the ladder and switched off the light. Just as the room went to blackness, she saw the rusted brown of the gasoline tank trap door above her. It was the last thing she saw before the vacuum of her cell swallowed her tiny home to a black dot. She welcomed the darkness; it sat on her skin like soft sheets. She hadn’t had new sheets for years. They were washed of course but the smell of new sheets – did she even know that smell? One day she would.

Her eyes took only a moment to adjust. Celeste’s eyes had become exceptional in the dark. Stillness came over her, and she paused to absorb the movements above. There would be a faint click followed by the buzz of the electric motor. The rubber belt would tense and the heavy garage door would rumble up. The metal casters scraped in the grooved tracks like angry thoughts; they needed oiling. Her father had always made her brothers service little jobs like that around the garage. If the sound continued for eight seconds it would be Hamood, and if it went for twenty seconds or more, it was a man. Then again, Hamood was as tall as his father. She waited. If the sound following the click came from the office entrance, you would know because there was no metallic rumble and you could hear the swoosh of the cylinder as it pulled the door. Celeste’s hearing was unusually good, a result of having lived in fear of making a sound herself, surrounded by the pitch of silence for so long.

Celeste could even tell the men by their boots, one of them, Rajid, had bought new boots about three weeks ago and they still squeaked when he walked. Celeste listened to everything from the shop above her. Even the horrible things the Borini workers used to say about her family and other Kris. That’s when she would rather be deaf. It would be so much easier to block hate if you couldn’t hear it. That’s why fish could always swim so happily; they never heard the horrible things said about them. She rarely saw the hate that was directed at her and occasionally wondered if it even existed. Of course, it did, why else would she have been kept here. The only hate she could see or touch were the walls and floor.

She hated cement, the grayness, but then she shouldn’t have written what she did on the walls. It wasn’t fair to Hamood’s mother. By painting it over she had erased it from her home and her heart. She didn’t want a heart full of hate. Hate was a screaming rage all around her, like a foul smelling wind encircling her, but in her heart, she wanted it silent. She didn’t want her heart to hear the things they said about her people. Her eyes looked up studying the bottom of the oil soaked boards. The boards were tired and honest, their work seemed to never be finished, always holding, supporting or for her, hiding. She would like someone honest to hold and support her. Hamood was honest, but he wouldn’t hold her. He would touch her hair when they were on the back step, but that was the only place. He never touched her in the car. She wondered, was he polite or scared? He wasn’t afraid of her. He couldn’t be, she was just a small Kris girl, who could she possibly hurt? Her petite body stretched up, closer to the boards, hanging dark over her. She tried to force a sound forward, pull it out through the boards, so she knew Hamood was near.

There was nothing.

Her mind stretched through the darkness searching for the fear that always lingered, eager to catch her out. Lurking, always the lurking of hatred, it was the lurking that crippled her spirit. She never ran in the grass or played with her brothers because of this ‘lurking’. The darkness squeezed her throat. She shouldn’t have thought that. That was bad. She knew not to think of her brothers. She would think about Hamood.

Celeste was eager to see him. He was fun to tease. She turned the light back on. The bare bulb spat its abrupt light at her. Sometimes she preferred the darkness. The view inside her room never changed. Never. She ambled the eleven steps all the way across the room and leaned her back against the cement wall. It was cool and lonely. It pressed against her back, the wall’s power sneered, coarse and unforgiving, even strong, like her father’s hands. She let her mind drift back to the thoughts of her father. He was such a big, brave man, not small like her. He was so much bigger than any other man in the shop. He used to shock all the other workers with his power. The shop mechanics were Borini, small people, and seemed like good people, then.

Celeste’s mother used to laugh when she told the story of her father’s attempts to change his daughter’s diaper. Her mother always laughed. Celeste could remember her laugh clearly, even after all the years of darkness underground. It was like dominoes tumbling in sunlight. Dominoes standing on end in line, clickity-clacked when they fell. Her mother laughed like that, and it made everyone around laugh. Anyone nearby would smile and giggle, even the fish in their tank.

Her father had only asked for help from Hamood’s father to change the diaper because his fingers were so cracked and clumsy. Both of them always had oil and dirt under their fingernails and embedded into the tired cracks of their fingers. The dirt filled cracks crisscrossed like the veins on dead leaves. She hadn’t touched a leaf in years. Her father’s coffee cup always had greasy fingerprints too. Celeste could remember that. The grease from the engines left dark, angry dirt that would never come out. Her father was such a big man it was impossible for him to close the tiny pins around her waist. Both men used to make jokes to each other about who was more shocked and scared by her womanhood. That was what her mother said anyway. Her mother teased her father too, just like she did to Hamood. Her mother used to say, ‘They didn’t know what to do with something so small’. Celeste’s family laughed all the time. Hamood’s father, who was much shorter than her Dad, would always make jokes to other people about how her huge, bull like father was frightened by the sight of a nude little girl. They were such good friends. Friends. It was so long since she saw any of her friends. Her friends now waved their many hands at her from the base of the ladder.

The wall was cold. Its insolent indifference ached with the dullness reaching down to her lower back.

She was chasing her thoughts, her memories and knew later it would make her unhappy, but it was a habit, like an addiction that gave her a brief flush of happiness and pushed the walls out, away from her. The pressing grayness could always be beaten back by memories of her friends and family.

Celeste could still recall their names and faces. Even after four years of bleak, staring, grey walls, she could remember how her best friends, the twins, Tasha and Tamila, would chase her round and round with their kick boards. They used to race inside the garage. Her father would let anyone play in the garage on a Friday after the men had cleaned up the shop. It was the one time that Celeste and her friends could play without being covered in the scarves of the Borini. It’s not that the twins or even Sadaha or Mandra, who were real tomboys, disliked the scarves, it was just that, for girls, riding bicycles and kick-boards wasn’t allowed by the Borini. The scarves always got caught on the machines and then got dirty, so it was always better to take them off. She hadn’t seen her friends for so long. She wondered if they were getting bigger. Probably. They were becoming women too and would have breasts and other things – well maybe not Mandra. Mandra always said she was going to change to being a boy so she could dress freely and ride a bicycle and even swim. If Mandra did become a boy and grew a fuzzy beard, she would look really silly. The picture of Mandra with fuzz around her face made her smile. The smile cracked slowly, unnoticed by anyone except the walls. Her fingers toyed with a strand of hair. Hamood was late.

Celeste looked down at her toes; she would like to swim again, one day. She curled them tight and remembered seeing the sand squinch up between her toes. The sand was so cold, not as cold as the sea, but it was startling and fresh like ice cream on your feet – if you could do that. Hamood and her brothers had run straight into the water. They were crazy. Her parent’s and Hamood’s walked down the beach wading in the surf while Hamood, her two brothers and Celeste had played in the water. The twins, her best friends, who were also Borini, weren’t allowed to go with them. It was too dangerous, and they wouldn’t be allowed in the water anyway. The Borini had strict rules about things like that.

The boys wore shorts, and her mother got her a one-piece swimsuit. It was beige and had pink roses. Celeste was the last to go in. She didn’t actually go in; the three boys picked her up, carried her to where it was deep and threw her into a wave. The water was smelly and salty and swirled all around her. When she came up coughing they were all laughing at her, she hated them, only for a few seconds, but she did hate them – boys. The sea though was magic. It had swirled and encompassed her body, like some giant friend holding her in his palm. Fish in the sea were so lucky they could go anywhere, wear any color and never be afraid of Borini men or the things they say. She couldn’t hear under the ocean so obviously fish couldn’t.

It was the only time she ever saw waves and the beach, the magic of the ocean. It was her eleventh birthday, and they shouldn’t have gone to the beach. They shouldn’t have gone anywhere. It was her father’s idea. It wasn’t his fault. You couldn’t say it was anyone’s ‘fault’. Hamood’s dad drove them in the shop delivery truck. Hamood was twelve, with her brothers being fourteen and fifteen. When her father told them he had built a false wall in the back of the truck and they would all be going for a picnic they went wild. She remembered her mother crying. Her mother just stood, looking at the huge man mobbed by his children and cried. A picnic! It was a crazy idea, and Hamood’s father was against it completely. He said it was an unnecessary risk and argued hard to cancel the trip. Celeste’s father, who still owned the business, knew it was dangerous, but would not hear any negative comments. He simply shrugged his massive shoulders and smiled at his smaller friend saying, ‘We have to know life to love it.’ He used to say that a lot just before the night Borini soldiers came.

Celeste drifted back toward the other side of the room and glanced at the brown gasoline tank, expecting some sign. Nothing. She leaned against the steps and felt her breasts. They hurt, and the nipples burned, it happened often. Hamood’s mother had said it was a womanhood thing. Her periods were inconsistent, a result of being in darkness so often. She pushed her head hard against the wooden ladder, forcing his image into the garage.

Where was Hamood?

Maybe he was planning a treat for her, that’s why he was late. She crossed from the ladder to the calendar to check the date. The wall behind the calendar was a dull red. It was the only painted area in her room. It had to be painted. The evil and hate were now covered. It was a mistake to have written all over it. Hate was everywhere then. It flowed from her like breath. A poison she wanted to infect the walls with just like the poison of loneliness that now seeped back at her. Her fight for reason was with the walls. She’d torn into the walls for months. Everything she hated was etched into the cement. It was so vile and hurtful that it scared her. Eventually, Celeste asked Hamood to get some paint so she could cover it. Thankfully it was covered before Hamood’s mother paid her the one visit down in her room.

Celeste absently flicked the corner of the calendar. She knew the day anyway. She looked at the calendar twenty times a day, every day. She counted the days with her finger; one, two, three. Further along the dates, she saw it was still a week before Hamood’s father’s birthday. She would have to remember that and make a card. She counted the days backwards with her fingers. Three whole days of waiting. Was waiting anymore painful when you had something to wait for? She should trash the calendar, then there would be no waiting. Then there would be no sense of time. Did it matter? Celeste erased the thought; it was a waste of time to go in those circles – she’d been there before. She glanced back at the calendar and the various notes. She’d noted all her family’s birthdays and Hamood’s family of course. She also tried to remember the big holidays like Christmas and Easter – they weren’t celebrated, she just needed to remember them. There were other days blocked out in tiny red flowers. These special days had been marked two months in advance. The next was in three days – the day after tomorrow’s tomorrow? It was only once every two weeks, but it was still outside. She would have to wait. Celeste squeezed her shoulders together easing the light, tingly, burning that flushed the sides of her breasts. They were growing, like her mother’s. Her mother had had big breasts. Would she have big breasts? Would she be desired, in the way her father always wanted to be with her mother? They were so in love. She remembered them kissing. They used to kiss often, especially when the dark days came. Their kisses always lasted so long and then when their lips parted it was like the moment when you come out of the ocean and life bursts forward. Well, she thought she saw that in her mother’s eyes and that is what it would be like – to be kissed. She breathed deep and bit her top lip. The back of her throat tightened. She mustn’t cry. Hamood would know, he could always tell if she’d been crying.

There was a click, the cylinder in the office door swooshed. She flicked the light switch. Someone was upstairs. The feet were soft on the cement floor. One person. Soft-soled shoes, definitely not work boots and the person was light. The footsteps walked directly to the car. A metal wrench clunked hard as it hit the cold floor. That was their signal. The shop was empty it was Hamood or his mother. She had said she would visit Celeste soon.

Celeste ascended the bottom two steps of the ladder and reached up unlocking her side of the door. She would hear the car door open soon. The hint of petrol still lingered on the underside of the car’s old gas tank, even after four years.

A metallic groan from the car door above meant he was getting in. She would hear him drop the back seat and undo the lock on his side soon. Her breathing shortened. Apart from singing early that morning before the men began work she had not uttered a sound. Certainly not during the day – that would be crazy.

She glanced down at the three buckets near her feet, each with the lid tightly fastened. As soon as the back seat flopped forward, she would lift the first bucket up. It was always so embarrassing. Hamood was still a boy and not bad looking. At sixteen he wasn’t a boy anymore, more of a young man – but then it was just Hamood. He was like her brothers used to be–just part of her. He could never be more than that to her anyway. He was a Borini. The blue fuzz of a moustache had begun to show under his nose. He often covered it with his hand when he spoke to her in the back seat of the car, perhaps he was ashamed. He didn’t need to be; other Borini should be, not Hamood.

Hamood always took the grey bucket, which was used for her toilet, first. She didn’t go much, and it was usually emptied only every four days. She made sure the lid was on tight. They’d had one accident, and it came back down on her. It was unbelievably gross. Hamood howled with laughter. He was so like her brothers