Chapter 19: The Sleeve

Alba's POV

The director had said he would decide by morning, and the pilot had gone to sleep in his flight suit on the mess bench.

Nobody had told us what to do with the hours between.

At ten that night Iker knocked on my door.

Two knuckles, a pause, a third.

I opened it before the third had finished, and he stood in the corridor with snow on his shoulders and a canvas bag in his hand.

"I came to see if you'd like to hear a very long apology," he said.

"How long?"

"I've been rehearsing it for eight years."

"Come in," I said. "I'm not going to listen to a word of it."

He laughed, low, and the door shut behind him.

My room in the data hut was small, with a narrow bed, a heater and one lamp.

He put the bag on the chair, and he stood in the middle of the floor, so tall that the ceiling beam seemed too low.

I took his coat off his shoulders.

I hung it on the hook, and I took his scarf, and then I stood in front of him, close enough to feel his breath.

"Tell me where to look," he said.

"At me."

"Alba."

"I know you can't. Look anyway."

He lifted his face.

His grey eyes came to rest a little to the left of mine.

I took his hand and laid it flat against my cheek.

He turned his face and kissed my palm.

That was the end of talking.

He kissed me slowly this time, with the heater ticking and the lamp throwing our shadows on the wall.

His hands went to the buttons of my sweater.

He undid them by feel, one at a time, and I stood shaking while he did it.

"Are you cold?" he whispered.

"No."

"You're trembling."

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