The Pale Lady

EVENING

“There have been a lot of wild rumors surrounding your life, so I’d like to begin with just the facts,” the young woman said, fumbling with her tape recorder in the darkness.

“Lead the way,” encouraged the older lady with a chuckle. “But you may find that facts and rumors look awfully similar in the dark.”

“First, you were born Anna Prescott in the Eastern Demilitarized Zone. Your parents died when you were young and you were sent to the Riverside Youth Education Facility. It was there that you developed a severe form of solar urticaria, a rare reaction to sunlight. So severe that you can no longer be exposed to light at all.”

“Yes, that’s correct.” Anna said, beckoning the young reporter on, as if getting a kick out of hearing her life repeated back to her.

“On your 18th birthday you were moved to a government facility on the west coast and right before the War ended, you were kidnapped by William Blair, the famous double agent for the DLP and traitor of the Regime. You disappeared for nearly 50 years, until now. Is that all correct?”

“That is the public narrative of my life, yes.” The old lady laughed.

“And then there are the rumors,” the reporter continued. “First, many people don’t believe that you actually exist. Others say you developed psychic powers due to your condition. There is still at least one religious faction that worships you as a diety.”

“I can assure you that’s not true, but please don’t tell them.”

“They also say you were employed by the Regime as a soothsayer, a spy, and a courtesan, dephending on who you ask, and you were code named the Pale Lady.”

“Certainly a fitting name, but surely I was never pretty enough to be a courtesan in the Regime’s harem. Even in the dark.”

“So after 50 years, you decide to come forward. Why now?”

The reporter listened as Anna took a moment to consider the question, her breathing deepened. “Because even an old woman with one foot in the grave starts to look back and consider what she’s leaving behind. So I wanted to set the story straight. Beyond the facts and rumors.”

MORNING

"The Riverside Youth Education Facility was a large beautiful manor house up in the Eastern mountain region and home to some 200 children, mostly sons and daughters of prominent figures in the Regime. I was a precocious girl. I talked a lot and was always getting in trouble. I’m sure I was a little nightmare, but even so, I like to believe the attendants had a special fondness for me. All in all, my early childhood was a happy time. But I suppose I can’t tell my story without also telling Billy’s."

“That’s William Blair you’re talking about?” the reporter asked.

“Yes, the one and the same. He was a year or so older than me and not yet the most hated man in the whole Regime. I was maybe seven when he first arrived.”

“You knew William Blair as a child?”

“Yes, but it’s not common knowledge. His Father had just received a prominent military promotion and no longer had time to raise him. Nobody seemed to know what happened to his mother; he never volunteered the information and nobody ever asked. He was probably my opposite in every way, but we became unlikely friends. He was smaller and quieter than the other boys his age and kept to himself, which is probably what drew me to him. I was never one to stand still, I flitted about from group to group, but I always seemed to come back to Billy. And then the sun spots started to appear.

It started as a batch of itchy reddish spots on my cheeks. It lasted for a few days, only to reappear a week later on my back and shoulders. They called in the district physician and he seemed to think it was a sun allergy that would just go away on it’s own, but with each week it just seemed to get worse until it covered my entire body. I was confined to a private bedroom out of direct sunlight which helped for a while, but we all know how it turned out. It got so bad that even the tiniest bit of indirect light would cause my skin to erupt in rashes and hives. The physician made the final diagnosis. I was highly allergic to all forms of light and would forever be imprisoned in darkness.

As I became more and more secluded, my friends came by less and less frequently, except Billy. He was so sweet to me back then, he was my tether to the rest of the world. He never tired of telling me all the Riverside gossip and he never grew impatient when I lay crying in his arms for hours. We spent every day together, at least until his father showed back up. 

He was traveling abroad on a diplomatic assignment, something to do with the DLP, and he wanted Billy to accompany him. The DLP has of course now morphed into the National Liberty Party and is nearly indistinguishable from all the other sanctioned political parties, but at the time they called themselves the Democratic Liberation Party and were classified as a terrorist organization. So Billy left with his father for three months, and when he returned, he brought back two items. First was a permanent disfigurement across his left cheek, a scarred swatch of skin that curved from the base of his ear to the corner of his mouth. Billy never volunteered what happened and I never asked. 

The second thing, and of far more consequence to me, was a large crate, dropped off unceremoniously by his Father’s porter. 

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“They’re books,” Billy exclaimed excitedly, opening the crate. It was rare that Billy got excited and it was clumsy but contagious. “My father has a library full of them. He thinks I want to read them, but really they’re for you.”

“What am I supposed to do with a bunch of books?” I asked. “I can’t read in the dark.”

“I’ve been thinking about it and I want to try something. It may hurt.” I heard Billy fumbling with something and then a very dim - almost impossibly dim - red glow appeared. “It’s a flashlight that filters out every wavelength except red light. It’s supposed to be easier on your eyes, so I thought it might be easier on your skin as well.”

The next few nights I experimented. It was true that it didn’t immediately burn my skin like regular light, and if I held it pointed away from me with the face obstructed except for a small pinhole, it only caused a slight itching sensation but nothing more. I began to dig through the stack of books. They were mostly history and military strategy type books, but they were certainly better than the pro-regime propaganda that the library carried. So I began to read, sweeping the narrow beam of light back and forth across the pages, line by line. Having nothing much else to do, I went through the entire crate in a matter of months and then started over. Billy continued to spend each summer with his father, and every fall he would bring me a fresh crate of new books to consume.

It was the morning of my 18th birthday when the Regime arrived for me. They had heard of my condition and wanted to move me to a hospital where I could be studied and given the best care in the world. I fiercely objected but who was I to resist? So I was taken away. It was the summer and Billy was off with his father, so I never even got to say goodbye.

DAYLIGHT

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the reporter said, clearly not all that concerned. “And what did they do at the hospital?”

“They never sent me to a hospital. That was a lie. They took me and shipped me off to the Ranch.”

“The Ranch? Wasn’t that the name of...”

“A brothel, yes. You don’t hear much about it today, but back then, that was the place to be. Especially if you were a senior member of the Regime. Everybody who was anybody came through that place, and I probably catered to most if not all of them. With my condition I became something of an exotic delicacy. It’s true what I said before, I never was that pretty. But everything happened in the dark, and deprived of light for the last decade, I had become something of an expert on the other senses. But that wasn’t even my main claim to fame. It was Billy who had accidentally sent me on a path of notoriety. 

I had read every book on the Regime that Billy had brought to me. I probably knew more about the history and inner workings than most of my clients. And when they found out that I could actually hold a conversation, Jesus, would they talk! I couldn’t get them to shutup. The novelty of discussing their job with someone like me - a woman, a courtesan, an invalid - delighted them. And the darkness probably helped as well. They got the feminine touch without being fully confronted by a woman’s presence. So I became something of a sensation amid the upper ranks. They called me the Pale Lady.”

“Your claim to fame,” the reporter said.

“Yes, but you have to understand, I was their slave. I’ve brushed over the details, but a lot more went on than just a bunch of dry conversations about political theory. They were a nasty bunch, and every day I felt a little more broken. I can of course say all this now, but back then I would have been shot for blasphemy.

“So how did William Blair get involved?”

“Ah, William Blair,” Anna said, sighing deeply. “I didn’t recognize him when he first came to me, but I could tell there was something different about him. He would come and talk to me - about nothing really in particular - and he never did anything besides talk. Which wasn’t necessarily unusual, but with him...it was different. He didn’t talk endlessly about himself or brag about his accomplishments. He didn’t carry the sense of entitlement and control over me that I could hear in the other men’s voices. He treated me like an actual person. And then one day, he even brought me a gift.

“What is it?” I asked him across the darkened room.

“It’s a book,” he said. “Do you still have the red light I gave you.”

Anna paused. The reporter waited for her to continue. “That one sentence,” Anna said, struggling to get the words out, “that one sentence completely knocked me off my feet. Could it really be him? After all these year? The rush of emotions...” Anna paused, silence filled the room. “I’m sorry, I can still feel it like it was yesterday.”

A long pause and finally Anna continued.

“Billy continued to visit me about once a week, everytime with a new book for me to devour. He was still the same serious boy, sensitive even, but all grown up now. And it was like we had never been separated. We must have carried on like this for at least a year. Billy visiting, us talking, often late into the night. It was the happiest time of my life. Until the one day that it all fell apart.”

EVENING

Billy came to me that evening and I could just feel that something was wrong. He sat down on the bed beside me. I could feel his tension, a tremor in his body. “I’m going to try to keep this brief.” Billy sounded more serious than I had ever heard him. “I’ve been compromised, which means you’ve been compromised. I haven’t been completely honest with you, Anna. And for that I’m sorry, but I thought at the time that I was doing it for your own good. You know me as William, or Billy, a ranking captain in the Regime. That part is true. But what you don’t know, and what the Regime didn’t know, is that I’m also a part of the DLP, I’ve been acting as an informant inside the Regime for the last 5 years.”

“The DLP?” I asked, shocked.

“There had been rumors that the Pale Lady moonlighted as a high-priced call girl for members of the Regime. There were also rumors that she had a way about her, a way that would make men spill their deepest secrets. She was a seductress of the highest order.”

“I was an assignment?” My mind was racing ahead.

“Yes. I wanted more time, but my hand has been forced. We need to escape. As soon as possible.”

My thoughts came crashing down on me. “Escape? What do you mean escape? I can’t escape.” I got up in distress and Billy followed, grabbing my arms as I turned away.

“Yes you can. I can help you. I can get you out of here.”

I struggled against his grip - he was strong - but he let go as I backed away. “No,” I said. “I can’t leave this place. It’s not possible”

“In the next few weeks, I will likely become a wanted man and my life will be ripped open. And once it’s open, it doesn’t take a genius to question how a Captain in the Regime can afford the most expensive call-girl in the city every week. And if the money’s not coming from the Regime, why would the DLP fund a low-level member’s high-class sexual appetites?”

“But you haven’t told me anything.” I was struggling to put together the pieces, both the shock of Billy’s hidden life, the threat of my own life coming unravelled, and the fact that I couldn’t yet figure out why. “Why am I in danger? I serve lots of important clients.”

“Exactly. I haven’t told you anything but they have. And when the secret police start questioning you, every one of those important men will start looking for a way to cover their tracks.”

Suddenly all of their secrets flashed in front of my eyes. Billy was right. They would trace him right to me, and by that point it didn’t matter if I knew anything or not. But the thought of leaving was just too impossible. I couldn’t just walk out the door.

“I’ll be back in a week,” Billy said, intercepting my thoughts. “You need to be ready to leave.”

“So he didn’t actually kidnap you?” the reporter asked, now on the edge of her seat.

“No, quite the opposite. He set me free. He returned the next week just like he said. Instead of a book, this time he had a thick burlap suit. He had apparently been working on it for months, preparing for this day. It was designed to cover my entire body head to toe with only small eye holes, covered with heavy red UV filters, and a breathing tube poking out in the middle of the face. I slipped the suit on - it was heavier and bulkier than it looked - and we waited. I didn’t know what we were waiting for until I heard the sirens in the distance swiftly approaching. As they got closer, the squeal of the sirens becoming deafening, I could hear clients and courtesans rushing out of their rooms in panic, chaos enveloping the entire establishment. Billy gently squeezed my hand as we waited for our chance.

“Now,” Billy said, slipping out of the room, Billy holding my hand, leading the way. We snuck down a corridor, down some stairs, and outside. This was the first time I had stepped foot outside in years. I heard a car pull up.

“This is the part where you need to trust me,” Billy said. I heard a click and the trunk opening. “You will get in the trunk of this car and be driven to safety. I still have things here I need to do, but I will meet you in a few weeks. I’ve already arranged your passage through the Military checkpoints. You’ll be safe.”

I climbed into the trunk and before I had a chance to think, the door slammed closed behind me. I was once again returned to darkness. And that was the last time I ever saw William Blair. Rumor has it that he was killed trying to cross the border. Trying to get back to me.

MIDNIGHT

The young reporter got up, her ankles cracking under her weight. It was late, and the interview had run its course.

“I’d like to thank you for your time, Mrs. Prescot. This story is set for publication in two weeks. It could be front page material” The reporter had clearly gotten more than she expected. Anna could hear the excitement in her voice.

They said their goodbyes, and the reporter left Anna to her darkened life. The old woman slowly got up, and made her way to the next room.

“She’s gone.” Anna said into the darkness.

“Already?” a cracked voice replied. An old man slowly emerged into the room. Anna and the man sensed each other’s bodies in the darkness and embraced.

“How’d it go,” the man asked.

“It was hard, but I fumbled my way through. Just like I always do.”

The man laughed. “Did she ask about me?”

“Of course she did. I set the record straight.”

“Hopefully not too straight.”

Anna laughed. “Your life is safe. You saved me from the Ranch and then disappeared, most likely killed. One more casualty of the old Regime, lost forever.”

The old man smiled. “Thank you,” he said.

Anna squeezed his hand. They stood together in the darkness.