The Aurora Borealis Keeps Its Lament novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Forty Nights on Tape
Iker's POV
I knew Sabina by her hand cream before she reached my door.
It smelled of almonds.
She put it on every evening at seven, so the whole corridor knew when she was coming.
I sat on my bunk and let her come.
"I brought you tea," she said, and set the tin cup in my hand with the handle already turned toward my fingers.
She had learned that in the first week.
I had been grateful then.
"Thank you," I said.
"You must be exhausted. A night in the instrument hut, after all that." Her voice dropped, warm and sorry. "I wanted to say I hate that it was me who had to sign. Someone had to, Iker. Better a friend than a stranger."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"The ninth. I'll pack."
She patted my knee.
It was the same pat she gave the cook when he burned the bread.
She stayed a while, talking about the flight and a clinic in the Capital she knew.
I turned my face toward the window and nodded where the pauses were.
When she stood, the draft of the paper slid onto my blanket.
"Your latest pages," she said. "I tidied the wording. Paloma can read them to you tonight."
"Of course."
The door shut.
I listened to her heels to the end of the corridor, then to the outer door, then to the wind.
Only then did I let go of the cup.
My hand was shaking so hard that the tea had gone over my wrist.
Every night since the first night at the Branch, someone had read my data back to me.
Paloma read it flat and fast, and I trusted her for that.
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