The whisper had come from the far right wall, over in the dark corner where his writing bureau was situated beneath a painting of The Virgin Mary. He dispatched a swift mental cry for help to her.
“Quien es?” he demanded again, hoarsely, unable to mask the raw fear in his voice.
He fumbled behind him for the light switch and experienced another fleeting supernormal ability in the form of clairvoyance: he was certain that the light would not work.
Flick.
He was right.
Oscar spun around with a swiftness that belied his age and grabbed the door handle, but he only managed to pull the door open by a crack before it was slammed shut again by an unseen force.
But how?
He hadn’t heard any footsteps bringing the intruder over from the writing bureau to the door.
Before he could analyse the situation any further he was nearly lifted off his feet and pushed back across the floor, which now creaked and issued the footsteps that he had expected seconds ago.
Oscar blindly grabbed the wrists of his attacker, just below their clenched fists and the scrunched up material of his own sweat-soaked shirt. “I have money!”
But the silent assailant continued driving him across the room until he slammed Oscar’s back against the balcony doors. He held him there, forcing him against the glass. Oscar's heart thumped so forcefully that he was sure he could hear it battering the pane behind him.
He heard the whispered voice again, a few words, but this time in a language he couldn't place. Now he knew there were two of them, as the voice wasn’t of the one who had grabbed him. It had definitely come from back in the room. It seemed that on hearing it, Oscar’s throat suddenly turned as dry as Asunción's streets.
The man shoved him through the open section of the doors sending Oscar stumbling out onto the balcony and knocking over the palm plant. The old man’s heart could now keep pace with a hummingbird's. He held his damp throat, opened his mouth to speak, or scream, but nothing came out. That dryness wouldn't let him. It was strange; it didn’t feel like the normal type of dryness, the type that could be relieved by a bottle of cerveza. He coughed. And again. It grew worse.
The man stood just inside, the upper half of his face still hidden in the shade of the interior. He watched Oscar coughing, spitting, wrestling with his vocal chords. Oscar stumbled around the space, one hand on his throat, the other grabbing hold of the scorched balcony wall as he desperately searched for an escape route. He had always thought that the balconies of that building were too close together, that a younger man could easily jump from one to the other. He wished he were a younger man now. Then he spotted a fresh footprint on the top edge of the balcony wall, where someone―a younger man no doubt―seemed to have leapt from next-door's balcony; the balcony of the Gonzalez apartment.
Oscar's eyes fell on the mellowing street three stories below. The Gonzalez boy kicked his football against the front wall while his canine-rodent hybrid scuttled around at his feet. Oscar signalled to the boy, waving his arms frantically. The child stopped the football under one foot; had and his dog stared up blankly at Oscar. The boy showed the old man the back of his middle finger, then he and his dog continued playing.
Oscar turned back to the balcony door. The man still stood there, perhaps smiling, Oscar couldn't be sure because of the glaze that had set over his eyes. The man stepped out now, into the light. Oscar almost didn't want to look, like when you have the opportunity to see the face of Satan himself. Lightly tanned healthy skin. Clean shaven. Pale grey, calm eyes. Silver hair―turned so too early―cropped neat and short. Like a soldier’s.
Oscar did not know him, but yet―going by the clue given by the man’s partner, and his military appearance―he knew that this moment had been seventeen years in the making.
A degree of calm came over him as he looked into the pale eyes. Resignation. In return the silver-haired man remained expressionless, and leaned on the balcony edge watching the boy below. Then, Oscar noticed something: every few seconds, the man trembled. His whole body, shaking, as if he suffered from widespread Parkinson's disease.
He is unwell!
Oscar dashed in through the open balcony doors. He figured he knew the interior of his apartment better than the man’s colleague did, so he could make it to the main door through the dark before...
He fell to the ground so suddenly that he slid.
It was Voice, and its incomprehensible words again, just as he felt he was going to make it out of the apartment. As soon as he heard it, he somehow lost the use of his legs.
“This is the end, Oscar...” still a whisper. “Just embrace it.”
With one side of his face on the floor, looking back at a ninety degree angle through the bright square again, he saw that the silver-haired man hadn’t even turned around; he was that sure of his partner's surreal stopping power.
The voice stepped into the light, creating an unmistakable silhouette. It outlined boots, bare legs, and a skirt.
“Get up,” she said.
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