13.1 Arena Roja

I went to Iceberg café for breakfast and to watch television, rather to listen to folks talk about the events unfolding in Arena Roja.

Main entrance to the eatery faced the corner of Carrera 4 and Kamana Boulevard. As I reached up there, a long-lost friend opened the door and walked out to his motorbike. “Hello Kawla!” he greeted.

“Hey Marat!” I suddenly recalled and it shocked me, “I thought you were dead!”

“How come?” he asked in his rush.

“I heard you drowned in the Virile Waves trying to save some kids!”

He chuckled, “It wasn’t me. Must be some other guy.” He started his engine.

“All these years I’ve been thinking it was you!”

He smiled and rolled away.

“Mi falda!” I paused to think it over. When news broke out many years ago, he was picnicking with those schoolgirls from Hilly High. For several years I thought it was him. “He is alive! How could I be so wrong?” My focus stopped at another action going on the opposite side of the street.

There were a group of people erecting a couple of posts on the roadside to display a huge advertisement board of an upcoming movie. That cinema stood on the other side of Kamana Boulevard, its main entrance facing Carrera 4. I learnt a moment later that they were going to premier the movie of ‘Titanic’.

I entered the cafeteria and met a bunch of guys I know. Among them was an elderly man.

“Good morning!”

“Good as it gets,” he returned. His eyes glued on one of the television sets.

It showed on the screens that vessel aground on Arena Roja. Indeed, it was a stealth corvette designed to elude visual detection, radar, infrared, acoustics. Shaped to avoid vertical surfaces which would otherwise reflect beams back to the emitting source: a tumblehome hull.

It appeared black and its body coated of carbon fibre, so they say. Noise reduction technology features of muffled exhaust systems, modified propeller shapes and water jets, the list goes on. This craft measured up to 600 feet in length and 80 feet in the beam, sitting there like a towering structure in open field in breach of its virtual camouflage.

Guys in insulated overalls worked around, some in hip-deep water measuring depths. No doors or hatches had been open so far. No sign of a sailor or a marine. No sign of a light or power, a signal or even an electric pulse or a sound wave. No party so far claimed ownership and its origin remained unknown. This vessel bore no hallmark apart from its pennant number; S-42, ironically.

Heat emitted from the hull stopped them from attempting any further to get to the bottom. Experts from the outside world were called to Los Varados in order to investigate the wreck. I heard all this from the guys here. By now those guys in coveralls planted listening devices and pounded its hull for any sign of life. Folks removed from the beach but they gathered in flocks at dispersed spots on the top of the dunes.

Those close-up shots on the screen impressed me. Some images caught an optical illusion of ripples of vapour in the heat mirages. In some scenes, columns of grey cloud build up to cover the sky and light shown in torn gaps.

Die-hard folks gathered fruit carvings of watermelon sculptures and pineapple faces in a quest to defeat the odds: the demon. However, fires were not allowed.

After having my breakfast, I returned home on a leisure walk, not so curious about anything but thinking. Two weeks ago, I met Sophie Nadz in person. I observed white hair over her forehead. Maybe she dyed her hair. I was wondering if she could remember all that. Asmr said not to walk against the dream. I lit a cigarette. I felt my shirt sticking on my body. I badly needed a shower to get rid of this oil from my skin.

I entered my gate and saw those doors still left ajar. I stepped on Shalin’s quarters and lightly tapped on the door, listening but there was no response. My penis rolled under my panties, slipped and I just remembered lying on top of Shalin, how big and large those walls I felt, warm and wet. Shalin has a wet skin all over her body. Mi falda! This oily thingy on my body is slinking me!

I stepped in and switched on a light. It was swept clean and empty. Next, I entered the bedroom and turned on the light. It was swept down to the white tiles on the floor, shiny and bright. Those tiles I said once appeared in a rhombus pattern as I used to sleep here a couple of years ago. They painted the interiors in summer yellow. All their furniture, mattresses and belongings removed and taken away. They left nothing behind except a dirty piece of a grey colour underwear dumped in a corner. To be precise, a ladies’ panties slackened of its elasticity.

And the toilet wiped clean too. One of the towel railings had come apart, that was because I hastily pasted it with silicon. They left that piece as well on top of the flush tank. There was nothing I could do. At this moment I was short on budget. But fairly this room was in a good condition to rent out again as soon as possible.

I wished to thank her and she would be coming back to collect her security deposit.

Then I went to the east wing and stepped on the door. It was a mess here. Dirty mattresses, thin and foam mattresses, tossed over everywhere. But the first thing I noticed was a hammer left near a mattress placed by the door. It was meticulously placed in a position where you can pick it while lying on the mattress. Why would anyone leave a hammer beside a mattress by the door?

It could be as I imagined that somebody wanted to have intimacy with a girl here and in case I showed up, pick it and hit on my head. It was dark inside and not a single bulb in the holders. I noticed a couple of dustbin bags in the room stuffed up. I did not check. Wall paints eroded and nasty smell inside. This place was depilated. I left east wing just like that.

All this happened over a night. They removed all their belongings during the night. I was still not baffled. I took a deep shower and slept without even turning on the television.

I got up around four o’clock, wiped my face with a wet towel and pulled on a T-shirt. I went to the gate and looked out. That moment, Sophie Nadz crossed Kamana Boulevard on a Raleigh black bicycle and stopped outside that blue gate. I could see this gate to my gate. I stepped onto the road and to the corner. She climbed down, undid some folders and books on the rear clutch and turned to look at me with a smile. She wore a light blue shirtdress and black bell-bottoms. She just arrived home after work at Hilly Side High. Now she was a teacher there.

“Anything new about the stealth ship!” she cried before reaching up to me. She was very interested in it.

“No, I did not turn on my television,” I put a step forward.

“My school has planned Luna Mar for the 10^th of January. We don’t want to cancel it. We don’t have to. But with that ship on the beach, I’m not sure.”

“It is too far from Nativa,” I said referring to the bight where Luna Mar takes place in the Full Moon.

Sophie stood in front of me holding the folders across her chest with both arms folded. “Still, I heard that Mayor Brando wants to close the beaches and activities until the ship is removed.”

“It’s huge. It cannot be removed,” I uttered.

“You don’t think so!” she lost that smile.

“No. It’s leaking radiation.”

“Look! We need to pluck flowers from Maldivia Gardens for Luna Mar. I want your help if you’re free.”

“Yes, I’m free but do you really think you can go ahead with Luna Mar if mayor says so!”

“We can’t cancel it.”

“Fine.”

“I go change and shall we go for a ride on your motorbike!” she suggested.

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

I lit a fag when she turned away. On the wall by the corner of Huvafen, my place, I could detect the faint letters, ‘YOU ARE DEAD! SUVARA!’