I Am the Messenger

by Markus Zusak

  "Yes," I say. "I guess I did."

  Soon, she tells me she has to go to bed. I'm pretty sure she's forgotten about the mud cake, and I'm dying to have some. It's close to nine o'clock, and I can sense I'm not getting a single crumb of that cake. I feel awful about it, of course. I ask myself what kind of person I am, worrying about missing out on a lousy piece of cake.

  She comes to me at about five to nine and says, "I think I should probably go to bed, Jimmy. Do you think?"

  I speak softly. "Yes, Milla, I think so."

  We walk to the door and I kiss her on the cheek. "Thank you for dinner," I say, and walk out.

  "My pleasure. Will I see you again?"

  "Definitely." I turn and answer. "Soon."

  The message this time is to soothe this old lady's loneliness. The feeling of it gathers in me as I walk home, and when I see the Doorman, I pick him up and hold all forty-five kilos of him in my arms. I kiss him, in all his filth and stench, and I feel like I could carry the world in my arms tonight. The Doorman looks at me with bemusement, then asks, How about a coffee, old son?

  I put him down and laugh and make the old bludger a coffee, with plenty of sugar and milk.

  "Would you like a coffee, too, Jimmy?" I ask myself.

  "Don't mind if I do," I reply. "Don't mind at all," and I laugh again, feeling every bit like a true messenger.

  It's been a while since I delivered the coffee table to Ma's place. I haven't dropped in on her for a good couple of weeks--to let her cool down a bit. She gave me a nice drubbing when I finally turned up with it.

  I visit her on a Saturday morning.

  "Well, look what the bloody cat dragged in," she says wryly when I walk through the door. "How's it going, Ed?"

  "All right. You?"

  "Workin' my freckle off. As usual."

  Ma works in a gas station, behind the register. She does bugger all, but whenever you ask how she is, she claims to be "working her freckle off." She's making some sort of cake that she won't let me have a piece of because someone more important's coming over. Probably someone from the Lions Club or something.

  I come closer to get a better look at what it is.

  "Don't touch," she snaps. I'm not even within reaching distance.

  "What is it?"

  "Cheesecake."

  "Who's coming over?"

  "The old Marshalls."

  Typical--rednecks from around the corner--but I say nothing. Better off that way.

  "How's the coffee table going?" I ask.

  She laughs almost deviously and says, "Pretty well--go have another look at it."

  I do as she says, walk into the lounge room, and can't trust my eyes. She's done a bloody swap on me!

  "Oi!" I shout to the kitchen. "This isn't the one I delivered!"

  She comes in. "I know. I decided I didn't like that one."

  I've got the shits now. Really. I knocked off work an hour early to pick up that other one, and now it's not good enough for her. "What the hell happened?"

  "I was talking to Tommy on the phone and he said all that pine rubbish was pretty ordinary and wouldn't last." She props between sentences. "And your brother knows about that sort of thing, believe me. He bought himself an old cedar table in the city. Talked the guy down to three hundred and got the chairs half price."

  "So what?"

  "So he knows what he's doing. Unlike some people I know."

  "You didn't get me to pick it up?"

  "Now why in God's name would I do that?"

  "You made me get the last one."

  "Yeah, but let's face it, Ed," she says. "Your delivery service is a disgrace."

  The irony of it isn't lost on me.

  "Everything okay, Ma?" I ask later. "I'm going to the shops in a minute. Do you need anything?"

  She thinks.

  "Actually, Leigh's coming over next week and I want to make a chocolate-hazelnut cake for her and the family. You can get the crushed hazelnuts for me."

  "No worries."

  Now piss off, Ed, I think as I walk out. It's what she was thinking, I'm sure.

  I like being Jimmy.

  "Remember when you used to read to me, Jimmy?"

  "I remember," I reply.

  Needless to say, I'm at Milla's place again, in the evening.

  She reaches out her hand and holds me by the arm. "Could you pick up a book and read me a few pages? I love the sound of your voice."

  "Which book?" I ask when I reach the cabinet.

  "My favorite," she answers.

  Shit....I rummage through the books that stand up in my eyes. Which one's her favorite?

  But it doesn't matter.

  Whichever book I pick will be her favorite.

  "Wuthering Heights?" I suggest.

  "How did you know?"

  "Instinct," I say, and begin reading.

  She falls asleep on the lounge after a few pages, and I wake her and help her to bed.

  "Good night, Jimmy."

  "Good night, Milla."

  As I walk home, something writes itself to the edge of my mind. It's a piece of paper that was in the book, used as a bookmark. It was just a normal thin piece of pad paper, all yellow and old. The date said 1.5.41, and there was one small piece of typically scratchy male writing on it. A bit like my own writing.

  It said:

  Dearest Milla,

  My soul needs yours.

  Love,

  Jimmy

  During the next visit, she gets out her old photo albums and we look through them. She constantly points out a man who holds her or kisses her or just stands there on his own.

  "You were always so handsome," she tells me. She even touches Jimmy's face on the photos, and I see what it is to love someone like Milla loved that man. Her fingertips are made of love. When she speaks, her voice is made of love. "You've changed quite a bit now, but you still look good. You always were the most handsome boy in town. All the girls said so. Even my mother told me how great you were, how loving and strong, and how I had to do good by you and treat you right." She looks at me now, almost panic-stricken. "I did right by you, Jimmy--didn't I? I treated you right, didn't I?"

  I melt.

  I melt and look her in her old but lovely eyes. "You did right by me, Milla. You treated me right. You were the best wife I could have ever--"

  And that's when she breaks down and cries into my sleeve. She cries and cries and laughs. She shakes with such despair and joy, and her tears soak, nice and warm, through to my arm.

  She offers me mud cake after a while. It's the one I brought her a few days ago.

  "I can't remember who brought me this," she tells me, "but it's very nice. Would you like some, Jimmy?"

  "That'd be great," I say.

  It's older now and a bit stale, the mud cake.

  But the taste is perfect.

  A few nights later, we're all on the porch of the shack, playing cards. I'm going strongly until a sudden silence slits through the game. A sound follows it, from inside.

  "It's the phone," Audrey says.

  There's something about it that doesn't sit right. An uneasy feeling glides over me.

  "Well, are you getting it?" Marv asks.

  I get up and step over the Doorman with great trepidation.

  The ring calls me toward it.

  I pick it up.

  Quiet. All quiet.

  "Hello?"

  Again.

  "Hello?"

  The voice attempts to find the very core of me. It finds it and says four words.

  "How's it going, Jimmy?"

  Something breaks in me.

  "What?" I ask. "What did you say?"

  "You heard me."

  The phone dies, and I'm alone.

  I stagger back out to the porch.

  "You lost," Marv informs me, but I barely hear him. I couldn't care less about the card game.

  "You look shockin'," Ritchie tells me. "Sit down, lad."

  I heed his advice and take my p
lace again in the game.

  Audrey looks at me and asks whether I'm okay just by the expression on her face. I answer yes, and when she stays later, I nearly tell her about Milla and Jimmy. I come so close to asking what she thinks about it all, but I already know the answers. Her opinion can't change any of this, so I might as well face up to the fact that I have to go on. I've given Milla the companionship she's been needing, but it's time now to either move on to the next address or go back to Edgar Street. I can still visit her, of course, but it's time now.

  It's time to move on.

  That night, I go out walking with the Doorman, late. We go down to the cemetery and see my father and wander through the rest of the graves.

  A flashlight hits us.

  Security.

  "You know what time it is?" the guy asks. He's big and mustached.

  "No idea," I answer.

  "Eleven past midnight. Cemetery's closed, mate."

  I almost walk away, but tonight I can't. I open my mouth and say, "I'm wondering, sir...I'm looking for a grave."

  He looks at me, deciding. Should he help me or not? He goes for yes.

  "What name?"

  "Johnson."

  He shakes his head and laughs, a hint of criticism. "Do you have any idea how many Johnsons there are in this joint?"

  "No."

  "A lot." He sniffs at his mustache, as if to erase an itch. It's red. He's a redhead.

  "Well, can we give it a go anyway?"

  "What sort of dog is that?"

  "Rotty-shepherd cross."

  "He stinks a real bloody treat, mate. Don't you wash him?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Whoa." He turns away, screwing up his face. "That's diabolical."

  "The grave?" I ask.

  His memory is jogged. "Oh yeah. Well, we can give it a shot. Any idea when the poor old sap died?"

  "There's no need to be disrespectful."

  He stops. "Look." He's getting a bit shirty now. "Do you want my help or not?"

  "All right, I'm sorry."

  "This way."

  We walk almost half the cemetery and find a few Johnsons, but not the one I'm after.

  "You're a bit of a fussy bastard, aren't you?" the security guard says at one point. "Won't this one do?"

  "This is Gertrude Johnson."

  "Who you after again?"

  "Jimmy." But this time I add something. "Wife's name's Milla."

  He jolts to a stop, looks at me, and says, "Milla? Shit, I think I know that one. I remember the name because she's mentioned on the stone." He mutters now as we walk quickly to the other end of the graveyard. "Milla, Milla..."

  His flashlight slaps a stone, and it's there.

  JAMES JOHNSON

  1917-1942

  DIED SERVING HIS COUNTRY

  BELOVED TO MILLA JOHNSON

  For a good ten minutes or so we stand there with the flashlight burning the grave with light. The whole time, I'm trying to guess where and exactly how he died and, more to the point, realizing that poor old Milla's been without him for sixty years.

  I can tell.

  No other man has entered her life. Not the way her Jimmy did.

  She's been waiting sixty years for Jimmy to come back.

  And now he has.

  Still, I have to move on.

  Milla's story is beautiful and tragic, but there are other messages to deliver. The next one is 6 Macedoni Street, 5:30 a.m. For a moment I consider going back to Edgar Street, but I'm still too frightened by what I've heard and seen there. I go there once more, just to check that things are still the same. They are.

  I arrive with the sun on Macedoni Street, mid-October. Overall, this spring has been unusually hot and it's already nice and warm as I hit the hilly street. I see the two-story house standing at the top.

  Just after five-thirty, a lone figure comes from around the side of the house. I think it's a girl but can't be sure because the figure has a hood over its head. It wears red athletic shorts, a hooded gray sweatshirt, but no shoes. It's about five foot nine.

  I sit down between two parked cars, waiting for the figure to come back.

  When I give up waiting and begin to leave for work, I finally see her (it's definitely a her) come running around the corner. The sweatshirt's off now, tied around her waist, so I can see her face and her hair.

  She takes me by surprise because we both hit the corner together, from opposite directions.

  We both stop, momentarily.

  Her eyes land on me, only for a second.

  She looks at me, and she has sunshine-colored hair in a ponytail and clear eyes, like water. The mildest blue I've ever seen. Soft lips that form a gentle shape of recognition.

  And she keeps running.

  I can only watch as she tilts her head and turns away.

  Her legs are shaved, making me think I should have known earlier that it was a girl. They're long and lovely. She's one of those girls who are pretty much straight down. Skinny with a small but well-formed chest, long back, straight hips, and tall legs. Her bare feet are medium-sized, and they hit the ground lightly.

  She's beautiful.

  She's beautiful, and I'm ashamed.

  She's fifteen if she's a day, and I'm being stepped on. I'm being crushed from the inside. Feelings of love and lust fight each other inside me, and I realize I'm drawn instantly to this girl who runs barefoot at five-thirty in the morning. I can't escape it.

  I walk home and think about what she needs--what I need to deliver. In a way, it's a process of elimination. If she lives in the hills, she doesn't need money. I don't think she needs someone to befriend her, either, but who knows?

  She runs.

  It's something to do with that. It has to be.

  Each morning I'm there, though I hide myself and don't think she sees me.

  One day, I decide to progress the relationship and follow her. I'm in my jeans, my boots, and an old white T-shirt, and she's way out in front of me.

  The girl strides.

  I struggle.

  When I started running, I felt like I was in the Olympic four-hundred-meter final. Now I feel like exactly what I am--a suburban taxi driver who doesn't exercise enough.

  I feel pitiful.

  Uncoordinated.

  My legs labor to lift and drag me forward. My feet feel as though they're plowing the earth, sinking in. I breathe as deeply as I can but there's a wall in my throat. My lungs are starving. Inside me, I can feel the air climbing the wall to get down there but it's not enough. Still, I keep running. I have to.

  She goes to the edge of town to the Grounds, where the athletic field is. It's at the bottom of a small valley, so I'm relieved it's a downhill run. It's the coming back that makes me nervous.

  When we make it to the field, she jumps the fence, peeling off the sweatshirt to leave it hanging there. As for me, I stagger myself back to a walk and collapse under the shade of a tree.

  The girl does laps.

  The world does laps around me.

  A dizziness circles me, and I need to throw up. I'm also dying for a drink, but I can't be bothered going over to the tap. So I'm just there, all sprawled out and sweating profusely.

  Christ, Ed, I breathe. You're an unfit bastard, aren't you? Even more than I thought.

  I know, I answer.

  It's disgraceful.

  I know.

  I also know that I shouldn't just lie here all long and awkward under this tree, but I'm beyond hiding from the girl now. If she sees me, she sees me. I can barely move, let alone hide, and I know I'll be stiff as all hell tomorrow.

  She stops for a while and stretches as the air finally breaks through to reach my lungs properly.

  Her right leg is up on the fence. It's long and lovely.

  Don't think about it. Don't think about it, I tell myself. Halfway through those thoughts, she notices me but looks immediately away. She tilts her head and sends her eyes to the ground. Exactly like the other morning. Just for that sec
ond. It makes me see that she'll never come to me. I understand this as she takes the leg off the fence and changes to the other. I'll have to go to her.

  When she stops stretching and reaches for her sweatshirt, I climb from the ground and make my way toward her.

  She begins to run but stops.

  She knows.

  I think she can feel that I'm here for her.

  We're about six or seven meters apart now. I look at her, and she looks at the ground about a yard or so from my right ankle.

  "Hello?" I say. The stupidity of my voice feels beyond repair.

  There's a pause.

  A breath.

  "Hi," she says back. Her eyes are still focused on the ground beside me.

  I take one step. No more. "I'm Ed."

  "I know," she says. "Ed Kennedy." Her voice is high-pitched but soft, so soft you could fall down into it. It reminds me of Melanie Griffith. You know that soft-high voice she's got? That's what the girl has, too.

  "How do you know who I am?" I ask.

  "My dad reads the paper, and I saw your picture--after the bank robbery, you know?"

  I walk forward. "I know."

  Some time etches past, and she finally looks at me properly. "Why are you following me?"

  I stand there, among my tiredness, and speak.

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "You're not a pervert or something, are you?"

  "No!" I'm thinking, Don't look at her legs. Don't look at her legs.

  She looks back to me now and gives me the same look of recognition as the other day. "Well, that's a relief. I saw you nearly every day." Her voice is so sweet it's almost ridiculous. It's like strawberry-flavored or something, that voice.

  "I'm sorry if I scared you."

  Warily, she dares to allow me a smile. "It's okay. It's just...I'm not too good at talking to people." She looks away again as her shyness smothers her. "So, do you think it'd be all right if we don't talk?" She hurries her words now to not hurt me. "I mean, I don't mind if you're out here in the morning with me, but I just can't talk, okay? I feel kind of uncomfortable."

  I nod and hope she sees. "No worries."

  "Thank you." She gives the ground a final look, takes her sweatshirt, and gives me one last question. "You're not much of a runner, are you?"

  I savor that voice for a moment. It tastes like strawberry on my lips. Maybe this is the last time I'll ever hear it. Then, "No, I'm not," I say, and we exchange a final few seconds of acknowledgment before she runs away. I watch her and hear her bare feet lightly touching the earth. I like that sound. It reminds me of her voice.