She had been a soldier, she had been tortured, and she was in hiding: that was the full extent of what the island knew for certain about her.
And the Deal of course. We all knew the Deal in wordless detail. She ate from whatever table she wanted. She slept — always alone — in whatever bed she chose. We spoke of her to nobody and nothing, not an ambigious text message or a greeting near an unblinded car.
Our part of the Deal was that she wasn't there.
We never knew what she did to fulfill her part. Nor knew for sure when she would. Every one or two months when tides weather satellite orbits global trade patterns zero-day prices and for all we knew her mood aligned just right an automated cargo ship would lose itself inside the sea-fed caves underneath our south shore. A couple dozen people handy with tools would be selected to go and open it up, and other people with the right connections would turn cargo into money. It wasn't a lot of money as these things go. With her skills she could have earned much more anywhere between Cairo and Quang Ninh. Here it wasn't much money but it had been the center of the island's real economy for the two years since her arrival. So it wasn't money but it was our silence and her freedom.
She wasn't on the island when she was on it. She had never been on the island during the periods she chose not to be.
And if there were news somewhere of some politician's yacht breaking itself against a reef or a former soldier's luxury car missing a curve but not the mountain wall we scrolled past it without looking back.
(Originally posted at my blog.)