He stood up slowly, managing to maintain his balance. He took a step. One step… another… He hit his knee on a hard object. It seemed to him that even that faint sound echoed through the complete silence. He stood there for a while, listening.
“Did someone hear that? Again nothing, silence… No one heard me. Or they did but are not reacting.”
He bent over to touch the object that he had hit. He passed the palms of his hand over the flat surface. He spread his hands as much as he could, but he still didn’t touch the edge. “It’s long. Like a low cupboard… a dresser. Let’s see how wide it is,” he moved his palms forward, leaning his knees on the object. He immediately touched the end. “A wall”, he passed his hands across the wall in front of him. “Wait, wait… bed, dresser, wall. I’ll go to the end of the dresser… there’ll probably be some door or window with the blinds drawn… something… a light switch. No, no… if this is… and it looks like a hotel room… the light is… the nightstand!”
He stepped back, felt the bed under his knees and sat down on it again. He propped himself up with his hands and moved his body along the edge of the bed. With the outside of his thigh he felt a low hard object. “There it is!” he touched the object with his hands. “It must be a nightstand,” he thought excitedly. “And on it a lamp,” he concluded as he passed the palm of his hand over its entire surface. But he didn’t feel anything. “Then it’s a wall-mounted lamp. Above the nightstand.” Still sitting, he ran his fingers over the wall and found a switch. He pressed it. The room was lit up by a lamp on the wall, placed slightly above the switch.
Pascal closed his eyes because even this weak light bothered him at first. Then slowly, squinting through his eyelashes, he looked around himself. He was in a typical bedroom. The bed was large, a double bed covered in an elegant silk dark-red cover with a black rose embroidered in the middle. There were two nightstands, on each side of the bed, and along the walls — two dressers made of the same dark wood. The bed practically took up the entire length of the room. Between the end of it and the opposite wall there was just enough room to open the door.
“A door! And how about window?” Pascal wondered. It was only then that he noticed that the room didn’t have any windows. “What is this? Some luxurious solitary confinement cell?”
He went to the door and put his ear against it. Complete silence again. He turned the doorknob and the door opened.
Chapter 37
Mr. Kaella’s aging prostate held up very well during the interview. But now, during the commercial break, he had to give in to it. Prince knew this very well and waved to the bodyguards to take his father to the toilet.
When Mr. Kaella had left the submarine salon, Babe and Prince got up and approached each other.
“Babe, I’m simply speechless. You take my breath away,” Prince openly showed his exhilaration.
“Wow!” thought Babe, very pleased. “We’ve already lost the ‘Miss’. And with my knees clenched.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kaella,” she answered Prince. “I hope that it is now clear to you why I was in such a hurry today.”
“Yes, yes… and forgive me for keeping you. Had I known…” Prince paused, listening to the cheerful, inspired voice in the first commercial.
“Look, dear Consumers, where is it that your Miss Babe has a piercing?””
Prince suddenly turned to the nearest monitor and watched in shock as the camera zoomed Babe’s eye, filmed just now, during the interview.
“You were surely wondering, dear Consumers, during the interview with Mr. Kaella and his son Prince,” chirped the voice in the commercial, “where it is that Miss Babe attached the two chains with the little Earths. Take a good look…”
Babe smiled when Prince’s focus jumped from the monitor to her eyes.
“You see, dear Consumers, but don’t believe. Believe it, believe it… Miss Babe has a piercing in her whites of her eyes. Yes in her the whites of her eyes, her sclera! Let’s hear what Miss Babe has to say about this new fashion.”
Prerecorded footage of Babe appeared on the monitor, as well as on television screens across the planet.
“I was a bit afraid, dear Consumers, I have to admit it. But I have absolute trust in the achievements of our science and technology. And above all — I couldn’t resist this piercing. I simply couldn’t. Just as I am certain that all the girls watching this cannot resist either. But don’t worry, girls. You won’t have to wait for next season. Sclera piercings are coming to fashion accessory sector shops already…” here the background music went into crescendo, and then suddenly subsided. “The day after tomorrow!” Babe shouted in the commercial. “And that is why, girls, line up in front of your shop tomorrow evening.” Babe blew a kiss to the camera with her full lips and said “Love, Babe.”
“It seemed to me… but I didn’t believe…” Prince stuttered after the commercial. “Are you at all aware of what you mean to this State? How much you mean to me, Babe…” he whispered hoarsely.
“So, a new piercing means going to first-name basis”, thought Babe, shyly lowering her head. “The obstacles are falling faster than I expected.”
“All the usual things” thundered the narrator’s threatening voice from the monitor during the regular narrative between commercials, while he reminded Consumers of what all they have to hand over to the Inspectorate by the end of the month. “So everything, all clothes and shoes, all fashion accessories, cosmetics, children’s toys, pots and pans, computers, telephones, tablets, television sets…”
“Don’t Mr. Kaella, please. Don’t give me false hope,” Babe whispered to Prince in a sad voice.
“False hope?! What false hope? You mean everything to me, Babe, everything…”
Touched, Babe tried to hold back the tears and turned her right cheek towards him.
“I need you, Babe…” Prince suddenly went silent, wanting to take advantage of this opportunity to have a good look at the discrete tattoo behind her ear.
It seemed to him that it was just hieroglyphs, but carefully studying them one at a time he realized they were letters. “Just a little strange,” he thought. “Distorted, of different sizes, thickness… overlapping… but they are letters… There that’s an r, and that’s an h or perhaps an n, and the first one… it’s…”
“Prince! You’ve tattooed my name!” he shouted.
“Quiet, quiet…” Babe calmed him.
“You’re driving me crazy…” he whispered feverishly.
“Don’t be angry, Mr. Kaella, but I had to…” she looked at him humbly, her eyes begging for forgiveness.
“Be angry? I’m crazy about you! Crazy!”
“I had to show it somewhere. This deepest, most hidden intimate thing.”
“Deepest?”
“Yes.”
“Most hidden?”
“Yes.”
“Intimate thing?’
“Yes.”
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t go on without you, Babe. You have to be mine…”
“If you truly think that, Mr. Kaella…”
“’Mr. Kaella! Mr. Kaella!’ Is that your deepest intimate thing? Is that what you hid behind your ear?”
“Prince…”
“So,” thought Babe, “a tattoo behind the ear equals ‘Prince’ instead of ‘Mr. Kaella”. Well, we’ll see, Prince, what the following advertisement will bring. Just as soon as this guy finishes listing to the Consumers…” Babe looked at the monitor. And Prince continued excitedly: