Free Rus Like Everyone Else by Bette Adriaanse Page B

sleep. Do you see his eyes shooting back and forth behind his eyelids? A train of images from the past are shooting by behind his eyes. He remembers his first—and only—job as a reporter for the Sunday newspaper, how spit would clutter in his editor’s mustache while he was shouting at him. He remembers how good he felt after that first article, but then the inability to sleep started, the fear of being found out. He remembers the editor pressing him, asking questions, and then the people at his doorstep, peering in through the windows, and the white van that was parked in front of his house for days on end, keeping him from leaving his house.
    Now Mr. Lucas’s memories dissolve into a nightmare. He dreams he is lying in his bed, and that two dark silhouettes are moving through his house, coming into his bedroom, and looking at him.
    Poor Mr. Lucas, drops of sweat are forming streams down the sides of his face. Let’s go on, out the front door, to the next street, where the secretary is sitting at her desk. She is shopping on the Internet, like Dr. Kroon recommended to her. The Japanese girl from the Internet group watches her from a corner of the screen as she orders a book that teaches you to find the you inside of you, who is amazing. She’s also made a website for herself and answered questions about her favorite music, where she listed Astronaut Redemption and the Fire, like most people at her work did. In reality, she never listens to music because it unsettles her too much. There is just the sound of that clock. It ticks like ahammer. The secretary does not pay attention to it. “Any moment now,” she says under her breath. It is true; things are about to happen with her any moment now—we are aware of that—something is slowly building up under her skin.
    A little farther, at the far end of Low Street, where the market square starts, Ashraf is lying awake in his bed. He can’t sleep because he is nervous about tomorrow, so he listens to the steady breathing of his younger brother, whom he still shares a room with.
    In our own house it is quiet, and as always the bed is unslept in. From our window we see a helicopter fly over the city. It lands in the distance, on that illuminated roof over there. That’s where the hospital is and where we find our other friend, Rus. He is sleeping blissfully under white hospital sheets, unaware of the woman who sits beside him, watching him intently, studying him, while he sleeps. A few stories below Rus, in a more serious part of the hospital, lies the son of the post boss in an extra-large bed. Around him the bed monitors are drawing lines that resemble mountains and saying beep, beep, beep, beep.

    THE BOSS’S SON

    The boss’s son sat on his knees on the soil. He was planting hydrangeas near the royal pond.
    â€œGardener, gardener,” the Queen said, hanging out her window. “I’m hungry. Go get some honey from the bees and bring it up to me.”
    The boss’s son went to the bees and got honey from the hive. His hands were twice as big from all the stings when he brought it up to the Queen. She was lying on her bed by the window, her eyes closed. He stopped in the doorway. There were sheets of crumpled paper around the bed, words written on them in large, curly fountain pen letters—“Dear Citizens” and “Hello everybody, this is your Majesty speaking”—all crossed out.
    Carefully, the boss’s son entered the room and brought a spoon of honey to her mouth, but she turned her face away from him.
    â€œNo, I’m too depressed to eat,” the Queen said. “Go away!”
    VERTIGO

    Bright white light came in through Rus’s heavy eyelids. First he thought it was the sky he saw, with a bright white sun, but when he opened his eyes wider it turned out to be a white ceiling with a bright white lamp. There was a white door to the left of him, and there were curtains