The Gas Lady

The rule in Ana's job was simple. If someone sees a ghost in winter, check the heater first.

"I'm not asking you to take her away," Ion said. "I want to know if she's real."

He was 81, in a pressed shirt and slippers, on the eighth floor of an old block in Bucharest. Outside it was minus 12.

"Tell me when she comes," Ana said.

"Ten past two. She sits on the end of the bed and pins up her hair."

"Does she talk?"

"She tells me my shirt is on inside out." He smiled. "It usually is."

Ana held up her meter. "Zero by the bed," she read out. She held it to the heater's metal cover. "Zero by the heater, zero by the door."

Then she stopped.

"Ion. Who folds your towels like this?"

"Like what?"

"This one, on top of the heater. It's folded in a tight square, the exact size of that vent above it. One side has grey stripes of dust, like it was pressed into the slats."

"Lidia folded them like that. I never could." He kept his eyes on the towel. "I don't do it, before you ask."

"Then who does?"

He only shrugged.

"Mr Ion, can I tell you about a gas?"

"I drove a tram for 40 years, young lady. I can stand a lecture."

"It has no colour and no smell, and it doesn't sting. It comes from bad heaters, mostly in winter. Your blood grabs it 240 times harder than oxygen."

"And then?"

She counted on her fingers. "Headache, dizzy, weak, mixed up. Then, if there's a lot, people see things. Some of them see their dead."

"So my wife is a gas."

"She might be a gas."

"Lidia would hate that," he said. "She'd want to be a cake."

"There's a sticker on the cover," Ana said. "Checked 14.10, A.P. So, October."

"Who is A.P.?"

"Me, or Andrei. We do 40 a day."

"And did it pass?"

She tapped the sticker. "It passed."

Her phone buzzed. It was Mara, at the gas office.

"Is that the ghost man? He rang three times. His wife says hello, he told me."

"His wife is dead, Mara."

"Then she's polite. It's 40 calls today, Ana. Tick the box and go."

"I tick nothing I haven't seen."

"Then see it faster. And cover my Sunday, because my boy's got a match."

"No."

"If I miss another one, he says he'll stop telling me the score."

"Tell him I said no," Ana said, and hung up.

She left a logger on the shelf by the bed. "It's a little black box," she told him. "The red light means it's awake. It counts the gas all night, in parts per million."

"Tomorrow you'll know," Ion said.

"Tomorrow I'll know."

"So will I," he said.

"Zero until two," Ana read at eight the next morning. "Then up, to 60, then 200, then 410 at half past three. Zero again by five."

"Is that bad?"

"Ion, someone shut this window in the night. Someone put that towel in the vent and turned your heater right up."

"Not me. She opens the window when she goes. She always aired a room."

"There's a thing the gas does. Up to 40 days after, up to half the people it gets into lose time. They do things and they don't know they did them."

"Then why do I recall her?" He held out his wrist. His cuff was buttoned the hard way, with a little loop. "My hands can't do that loop. She did it."

"Ion, that gas is going to stop your heart."

"She only comes when my head hurts," he said. "Did your box tell you that?"

"I should put a red tag on that heater and go. Red means nobody lights it again."

"Then sit with me tonight instead. See who shuts the window."

"No."

"But you will," he said, "because of the towel."

He was right, and she hated it.

"She asks about you," he added. "Every night. Is the gas lady coming back."

"Night line, Mara."

"Mara, it's me. Stay on. If I stop talking, send a crew to block 14, eighth floor."

"Ana, it's ten to two. I'm on a double shift, and this is what I get?"

"I'm in a kitchen chair at the end of his bed, with my coat on. He gave me cozonac, the sweet bread with the walnuts in it."

"Of course he did. Window?"

"Open a hand's width. Towel's on my knee. The heater's ticking on low."

"You could shut it off at the tap."

"Then he freezes," Ana said, "and she doesn't come, and I learn nothing."

"Ask me something," Ion said from the pillow. "I'll stay awake."

"How did she die?"

"Her heart, the doctor said. In her sleep, in this bed, with me right next to her."

"And you?"

"I slept right through it. I woke up with a headache like a hammer, and she was cold."

"Mara, write that down," Ana said. "Ion, what day was that?"

"The fourth of November."

"Three weeks after the sticker."

"Is that a number that matters?" Mara asked.

"I don't know yet."

"Ana," Ion said quietly. "The window."

"The handle's turning, Mara. Nobody's near it, and it's going down by itself."

"What do you mean, by itself?"

"Slow. The window's swinging shut. There, the latch."

"Get up and open it!"

"I've got it open. I've got the handle." Ana's voice tightened. "It's pushing back."

"Pushing how?"

"Down, under my hand. It's cold, like a hand on top of mine, and my wrist's bending."

"Let go of it!"

She let go with a gasp. "It's shut, Mara. It shut on my fingers."

"Don't fight her," Ion said.

"Meter says 60, now 90," Ana said. "And the towel's gone off my knee."

"Gone where?"

"It's on the vent, pressed flat in the slats. A corner just tucked itself in while I watched."

The heater went from a tick to a roar.

"200," Ana said. "My head's started, at the back. Ion, up, we're going out."

"Two minutes," he said. "Please. She's nearly here."

"340. Now, Ion."

She got his arm round her neck. "He weighs nothing, Mara. We're in the hall, and I've got the front door."

"Talk to me."

"Stairwell. I've hit the light, the timer one that gives you a minute. Oh, the air is so cold."

She leaned on the wall and laughed once.

"It's fine, Mara, it's fine," she said. "Meter's going down, 150, 90. I'm just shutting his bedroom door, so it can't..."

A small woman in a blue sweater stood in the doorway, close enough to touch.

"Ana?" said the phone. "Ana, talk to me."

"There's a woman," Ana whispered. "Grey hair, half pinned up. She's not looking at him. She's looking at me."

"Hello, love," Ion breathed.

"You didn't take the cover off," said Lidia.

Her voice was dry and very near.

"You stood in my hall in October," Lidia said. "You had 40 calls. You held your meter by the cover, and you wrote on your sticker, and you went."

"No," Ana said. "I check. I tick nothing I haven't..."

"Ana," Mara said. "Who's talking?"

"A wet Wednesday," Ana said slowly, and she could see it. "Mara, you rang me on his landing and said faster."

"I say that every day."

"She held the door for me, in that sweater. I wrote A.P. and I never looked. It's my hand, Mara."

"She asked for you," Ion said. He was looking at Ana now and not at his wife. "Every night, the gas lady. I thought she wanted you to fix it."

"She wanted me to look."

"You did that to her?"

Ana couldn't answer him.

Lidia stepped back into the dark bedroom. The heater was roaring in there.

"Ana, don't," said Ion.

"If I don't, she does this every night till you're dead."

"I'm sending the crew," said Mara. "Don't go in there."

"Scarf over my mouth, and I'm in." The meter screamed in her hand. "It says 160. No, 1,600."

"At 1,600 you've got under two hours," Mara said. "Get out!"

"Ion, what does it say? I can't keep the numbers still."

"I can't see it from here," he said, and he was crying.

"Mara, my legs have gone soft. I'm on my knees at the heater, and there's four screws on the cover."

"Ana, please."

"My fingers are thick and stupid. I dropped the screwdriver, and I dropped it again."

A cold hand came down on top of hers and held it still.

"Slow," Lidia said, right at her ear. "You did it fast before."

"One screw," Ana said. "Two, three. Why are you helping me?"

"So you see," said Lidia.

The cover came off.

"Mara," Ana said. "The flue pipe's split, the pipe that takes the fumes up and out."

"How bad?"

"Black soot all up the wall behind it, as wide as a hand. Anyone who opened the cover would see it in a second."

"There," said Lidia. "Now you've seen it."

Ana reached under the heater and turned the gas off at the tap.

The roar stopped. The latch let go with a click, and the window swung open by itself. Minus 12 came in.

"She's gone, Mara," Ana said. "Her hand's gone. There's two hairpins on the floor."

They sat on the stairs in masks while a crew man wrapped Ion in a foil blanket.

"Will she come again?" he asked.

"Not without the gas."

"Then I'm alone." He said it plainly, the way he had said he drove a tram. Then he said, "You killed her."

"Yes," Ana said. "I did."

He didn't take her hand. She didn't expect him to.

At six, on the cold step, she opened her work phone and found October.

"Mara," she said. "How many did I sign off that month?"

"612. You were on top of the board. Why?"

Ana scrolled the list with her thumb. Each address had a tick. Each one had A.P.

She could recall taking the cover off 11 of them.