They say that Ville-réal was once an underground transportation system that crisscrossed beneath a metropolis. Back then, its only inhabitants were either poor or mad. Over time, shops sprang up underground, on the outskirts of metro stations, and pedestrian walkways were built to make it easier to cross busy streets, or to connect major buildings. Then came the first non-spring, followed by the first non-summer.
Gradually, but inevitably, the indoor city became more hospitable than the one outside, and the population migrated there. Streets and buildings were left abandoned. Today, it’s said that the surface has become too hostile, and the entire population has withdrawn underground – the poor, the mad and any others who remain. For everyone’s own good, it’s forbidden to leave. Residents are taught about the dangers of the outside world from a young age, the greatest of which is undoubtedly the cold.
There are several ways to die of cold. The worst is probably rewarming shock. This occurs when the body of someone with severe hypothermia is warmed too quickly. Someone who has spent several minutes in the river, for instance. When this happens, the cold that has built up in the extremities – in the limbs, skin and muscles – is abruptly transferred to the body’s core and attacks the vital organs. The heart fails. Death comes swiftly.
That’s how Sam had killed his love that night, in an overheated tunnel, his naked body pressed against hers and his mouth whispering desperate promises into her ear. “You’re here, you’ve come back, I’ve waited so long, it’ll be okay now, don’t worry, I’m here, I’m here.” By trying to save her, trying to warm her icy body, he’d triggered a chain reaction, an inexorable and tragic process.
How she’d survived outside alone for two years only to tumble into the river’s frigid waters, Sam had no idea. How she’d managed to drag herself out, crawling all the way to a still-functioning access hatch into Ville-réal, is even more of a mystery. He’d found her that night, nearly catatonic. He’d shouted for help and, after what seemed like an eternity, a hesitant neighbour had appeared. Sam had sent him for help. By the time he’d returned, maybe half an hour later, Alyse was dead and Sam was alone again.
Sam had killed her out of ignorance, the officials had said, one of them patting his hand. That sort of knowledge was rare nowadays – how could he have known? They’d told him that by the time the first responders had arrived, she would’ve been dead anyway. Or else by the following week, from the trauma her body had suffered. She must have been in the river for some time, they’d said. Perhaps she’d entered the city that way.
She’d been pregnant when she left. How many years ago now? Two? More? Sam doesn’t know what’s become of baby, whether she’d carried it to term. There are almost no traces of it left on her body. The ironic thing is that here, when someone dies, they’re dumped into the river. She’s just come out of it… Her name is Alyse, like a warm sea breeze. Do tropical climates even exist anymore? How would anyone know? There hasn’t been any contact with the rest of the world for years now. They’d had no way of maintaining the machines, after the solar storm.
Alyse couldn’t bear knowing that the world outside was wide open, while they lived crammed together in Ville-réal.
“Who knows how they do it in other places, in cities without tunnels,” she’d say. “Maybe they’ve found other ways to survive the cold.”
“There might not be anyone left, anywhere,” Sam would retort.
They’d had this conversation hundreds of times. She’d been obsessed with the idea of open spaces. Knowing they were cold, hostile and dangerous hadn’t stopped her. When she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d said: “The child will be free or won’t be at all.” In Ville-réal, curiosity and daring are stamped out from an early age. Thoroughly and methodically. For Alyse, allowing that to happen to her own baby was unthinkable.
Sam had refused to go with her. It was clear that the child belonged to Alyse. In any case, he had never wanted a child, a being that would depend on him to survive. She hadn’t told him when she planned to leave. They’d decided it was better that way: he wouldn’t be able to stop her or turn her in, and he’d remain unaware of her preparations. This ignorance would protect him from inquiries and interrogations. They’d soon leave him be and, most importantly, they wouldn’t be able to pursue Alyse.
And so, one morning, Sam had woken up alone. No traces of her had remained in the alcove they’d shared for six years, apart from several long black hairs on Sam’s shoulder.
It’s morning. They’re waiting for high tide to dump what’s left of Alyse into the river. One more hour. Maybe her body will freeze so quickly that she won’t be eaten right away by the jellyfish and crabs of the deep. They’ve left Sam alone with her.
He scans Alyse’s skin for traces of her journey; only her body is left to speak for her. Before, Sam would have caressed her back with his fingertips, would have located the butterfly-shaped birthmark near the nape of her neck, where the skin is smoother, the place where her spine curves a little to the right. Manufacturing defects, she used to joke. He would have followed the curve of her spine from neck to tailbone, would have listened to the rise and fall of her breath, felt the shivers of her skin, the miniscule hairs standing on end.
He would have stroked her back and neck at length, until their senses of touch melded together and the young woman’s body curved against Sam’s hand in fluid, nearly imperceptible movements, like a snake. They would make love in silence. Sex between him and Alyse had always been a wordless conversation, skin to skin.
You’d think she were sleeping. Her face is weathered by the sun. Her hair, which had always been black, has changed colour, as though filled with light. Fragments of marine plants are entangled in it, flashes of purple and green that smell of ocean and salt. The corners of her eyes are creased like the folds of a fan. She could be a thousand years old.
Everything suggests that she’s tasted wide open spaces. Sam turns Alyse’s left hand over, slides his index finger along the lines of her palm. After the slightest bit of manual labour or exposure to hot water or cleaning products, Alyse’s hands would become swollen and red. “I have the hands of an old woman,” she’d say. In reality, her hands were a map of her inner landscape. Her doubts and her fears. Now, the scars of recent cuts crisscross her fingers.
Sam presses his lips to Alyse’s palm, and suddenly, an unexpected heat rises in his belly. A strong erection takes him by surprise. A call. He lies down next to her, strokes her hair, her neck, her wind-chapped and sunburned cheeks, and his hands slide over her belly, then her hips. She’s Alyse. She’s also another woman he’s never known. A map of the world. She’d want him to touch her. Perhaps she’d returned to offer her body to him, like a travel journal. She knew Sam well. She knew his knack for refusing to face reality.
There’s no doubt in his mind. She’d wanted Sam to make love to her one last time. One by one, he quells any misgivings that might stop him: exhilaration, fear of getting caught, curiosity, self-loathing at the thought of the depraved act he’s committing, and the pleasure he’ll take in spite of himself. All this is just his ego talking and is meaningless. This encounter is deeper than that. He kisses Alyse’s neck, her ear. He whispers to her, like before: “My Alyse, my storm.”
Sam writes on Alyse’s belly with the tips of his fingers. A message, a poem, a patch of sky, a melody for the piano. He touches her tenderly, to wrest her back from death. As though they have all the time in the world and he isn’t weeping.
Whenever she woke from a nightmare, in the middle of the night, she would say, “Let’s make love until morning.” Perhaps to ward off fear. There had been something insatiable in her, for sex and everything else. Often, despite just having barely caught their breath, she would ask, “Again?” with that mischievous grin that always made him melt.
He kisses her belly, her sex, her blue, scarred legs. He kisses her feet with their blackened toenails. He moves back up her body, hovers over her. When they made love, she would often close her eyes. Sam would gaze into her face, listen to her breathing, see the thrills and pleasure written there, decipher the movements she desired. He lowers his entire weight onto her, enveloping her in his warmth. She won’t wrap her legs around Sam’s hips today. Ever again.
Alyse had been elusive like the wind. But she’d chosen him. She’d called him her rock, her safe harbour. At night, they’d take long walks through the passageways of Ville-réal, dressed in black from head to toe to avoid being caught by the patrols. “Let’s go to the ends of the earth,” she would say. In the beginning they’d explored at random, for fun, for the illusion of freedom. Then the excursions had become more systematic, more focused. They’d started mapping the tunnels, first those in the official city and then others, even the forgotten ones where she’d hidden for months before meeting Sam. That’s how the idea had taken root in her, gradually growing into an obsession.
She’s beautiful. Sam had always thought death was ugly. He kisses the purple lips one last time, licks away a few grains of sand or dust still stuck to the corner of her mouth. Their slightly salty taste reminds him of a dried teardrop on her cheek. It’s almost time. Soon, Sam will hear the footsteps of the officials in the corridor, come to dump the body into the river. It will be a quick and silent ceremony that no one will attend. He was all Alyse had. If he can find the courage, when the trapdoor opens, he’ll jump in with her.
Suddenly, a door opens in the wall in front of Sam. He hadn’t noticed it – it must have blended into the wallpaper. A uniformed official walks towards him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I have to ask you a few questions. Did she say anything before she died? Did she tell you anything about the outside?”
“Yes.”
“It’s very important, you understand. We know so little about the situation outside.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“There’s no consensus.”
“She said she’d seen the northern lights.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. She passed out almost immediately. She was in bad shape.”
The woman looks disappointed. She checks a plastic watch, a pre-Winter relic, and sighs.
“It’s time. Stand back.”
Suddenly, Sam doubles over. Something inside of him snaps, and his knees buckle. He falls. The room starts to spin. From afar, he hears a woman’s voice, and then everything goes black and silent. Maybe I’m going mad. When he comes to, the official tells him it’s over. Coldly. It’s over. She checks her watch one last time, then turns away. All that remains of Alyse is a faint salty odour left hanging in the air. He’s the only one left to remember her. It’s as though she never existed.