Page 27 of Exit Party

“What? Why?”

“I want to stay with the painting,” I said.

“The thing is,” Sebastian said, “I promise that painting means more to me than it does to you.”

“What an assumption,” I said. “You’re probably too young to get this, but I’ve had too many lives. That painting is my only constant.”

Sebastian cursed under his breath. He leaned forward to address the driver. “Sir,” he said, “I need to change the destination.”

“Not the hospital, then?”

“No. Madame is feeling much better.” He rattled off an address with a street I’d never heard of.

The driver looked at me consideringly. I winked.

“Fine,” the driver said.

I didn’t quite recognize my surroundings, but once when we turned a corner I caught a glimpse of the dome, semi-opaque in the middle distance. We were outside the dome, then. My eyesight blurred, then resolved. The pain throbbed in a steady rhythm. I sensed that it was very important to stay awake, but the warmth and movement of the car were working against me. The taxi slowed and came to a stop. We’d reached an uneven row of small apartment buildings in a derelict neighbourhood. The nearest streetlight was broken and the street held a general air of disarray.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“We can’t all afford to live under the dome, princess,” the driver said.

I opened the car door in lieu of answering him, and only then did I realize that my cane was gone. I climbed out very slowly, using the door for support. The pain in my head was worse when I moved. I was alarmingly dizzy. Nearby, two men were sitting on the steps of an apartment building, watching us.

“Good evening,” Sebastian said to one of them, who nodded in grave acknowledgment.

“Sebastian,” I said, “where is my cane?”

I’d made a terrible error in not going to the hospital, I saw that now. I wasn’t thinking clearly. At the hospital, helpful authority figures would have contacted Pilar. In this desolate neighbourhood outside the dome, my life was in the hands of the mendacious little fraud who’d stolen my painting, because of course my phone had disappeared along with my handbag.

But Sebastian hurried to my side, and extended his elbow. I took his arm with reluctance.

“You know those men?” I asked.

“I went to school with one of them.” We were walking toward the nearest building, very slowly. I was floating a little and felt sick, but all that mattered was forward motion, one foot before the other to the elevator, where all that mattered was remaining upright as we ascended. We came to a hallway with a flickering light. Sebastian fumbled with keys by a numbered door. Felix was approaching down the hallway. I refused to look at him.

“Ari,” Sebastian said. Had I fallen asleep? Time had skipped just a little. I was leaning against the corridor wall, my head pressed to the door frame.

“In here,” Sebastian said, “come in and sit down.”

I stepped into an apartment, and felt a jolt of déjà vu: the artist who’d painted the garden mural in Gloria’s apartment had come here too. But here, it seemed, they had been given more licence, or had been paid more, in any event being in the room was more like being outside in a garden at night. No, not a garden, the same garden. I recognized the birdbath, the shine of glossy leaves in the half-light, a row of jasmine vines flowering along a fence, the unearthly purple-blue of a jacaranda tree in full bloom. Here, unlike the version in Gloria’s apartment, the scene extended beyond the garden walls. Glass towers rose over the garden. Sebastian helped me into a chair.

“Sebastian,” I said, “is this Nico’s apartment?”

“Yes.”

“That garden’s a real place, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Would you like some water?”

“Coffee, please, if you have it.”

“On it,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. The sound of the coffee machine made me dizzier. I closed my eyes for a second, but then time slipped and Sebastian was there with a cup.

“Thank you.” A strange formality had settled over the scene. If you force a person to bring you somewhere, are you his guest?

Sebastian nodded, and sat on a couch nearby. But he was flustered, glancing at his watch and shifting the painting around, from the floor to the couch and then to a low table. I sipped my coffee, but it was the wrong thing. The first sip made me nauseous.