Pines

English is fine. I understood.”
    “Then maybe you do not believe I will do what I have said.”
    “No, I believe you.”
    “What then? Why did you not write something?”
    “But I did.”
    “In invisible ink?”
    Now Ethan smiles. It takes everything within his power to stifle the tremor that keeps threatening to move through his hands.
    He holds up his left.
    “I wrote this,” he says, showing the tattoo he carved into his palm with the tip of the ballpoint pen—dark blue andsloppy, his hand still bleeding in places. But given the time constraints and the circumstance, it was the best he could do. He says, “I know that soon I will be screaming. In terrible pain. Every time you wonder what I’m thinking, even though I may not be able to speak, you can just look at my hand and take those two words to heart. It’s an American saying. I trust you understand its full meaning?”
    “You have no idea,” Aashif whispers, and for the first time, Ethan registers unchecked emotion in the man’s eyes. Through the fear, he makes himself catalog the satisfaction of having broken this monster’s cool, knowing it may be his only moment of victory in this brutal transaction.
    “Actually, I do,” Ethan says. “You will torture me, break me, and eventually murder me. I know exactly what’s coming. I just have one request.”
    This elicits a subtle smile.
    “What?”
    “Quit telling me how much of a stud you are, you piece of shit. Whip it out and show me.”
    * * *
    All day, Aashif shows him.
    * * *
    Some hours later, Ethan snaps back to consciousness.
    Aashif sets the bottle of smelling salts on the table beside the knives.
    “Welcome back. Have you seen yourself?” the man asks him.
    Ethan has lost all concept of how long he’s been down here in the brown-walled room without windows that smells of death and rancid blood.
    “Look at your leg.” Aashif’s face is beaded with sweat. “I said look at your leg.”
    When Ethan refuses, Aashif reaches his bloody fingers into an earthenware vessel, comes out with a handful of salt.
    He flings it at Ethan’s leg.
    Screams through the ball gag.
    Agony.
    Unconsciousness.
    * * *
    “Do you understand how completely I own you now, Ethan? How I will always own you? Do you hear me?”
    Truer words.
    * * *
    Ethan has placed himself in another world, trying to follow a line of thought that leads to his wife, to her giving birth to their firstborn, and him in the hospital with her, but the pain keeps dragging him back into now.
    * * *
    “I can make it end,” Aashif purrs into his ear. “I can also keep you alive for days. Whatever I want. I know it hurts. I know you’re in more pain than you even knew a person was capable of experiencing. But consider that I’ve only been working on one leg. And I’m very good at this. I will not allow you to bleed to death. You will only die when it pleases me.”
    * * *
    There is undeniable intimacy between them.
    Aashif cutting.
    Ethan screaming.
    At first, Ethan hadn’t watched, but now he can’t tear his eyes away.
    Aashif forces him to drink water and shovels lukewarm beans into his mouth, all the while talking to him in the most casual tone, as if he were merely a barber and Ethan had popped in for a trim.
    * * *
    Later, Aashif sits in the corner drinking water and watching Ethan, studying his handiwork with a mix of amusement and pride.
    He wipes his brow and rises to his feet, the hem of his dishdasha dripping Ethan’s blood.
    “Tomorrow morning first thing, I will castrate you, cauterize the wound with a blow torch, and then go to work on your upper body. Think about what you want for breakfast.”
    He turns off the light on his way out of the room.
    * * *
    All night, Ethan hangs in darkness.
    Waiting.
    Sometimes he hears footsteps stop outside the door, but it never opens.
    The pain is titanic but he manages to think clearly about his wife and the child he will never know.
    He whispers to Theresa from this dungeon and wonders if she can hear him.
    He moans and he cries.
    Trying to come to grips with the idea that he is meeting
this
end.
    Even years later, it will be this moment—hanging alone in the dark with nothing but the pain and his thoughts and the waiting for tomorrow—that will haunt him.
    Always waiting for Aashif’s return.
    Always wondering what his son or daughter will look like.
    What their name will be.
    Always wondering how Theresa will get on without him.
    She will even say to him four months