Inexpressible Island

by Paullina Simons

  “Let me finish. I’m the one who dies. The girl on your arm, the one you keep searching for.”

  His head remains like he’s praying.

  Not even old rusty water drips from the tap. Nothing moves except the wind outside.

  Eventually they retreat into opposite corners. He builds the fire, she makes some eggs. With one candle burning between them, they eat in silence in the small old kitchen, they drink in silence, clean up in silence. They couldn’t turn on the radio if they wanted to. There’s no electricity. In silence they change each other’s dressings. Mia finds some clean gauze and iodine. When they’re done, they lie down together under the scratchy blankets and wait for the fire to go out.

  Mia speaks first.

  “Tell me the truth,” she says. “You promised to be true to me, so be true. Did you bring me here for my mother? So that when I died she could find me?”

  The house is dark and cold. “Yes,” Julian says. “I brought you here for your mother.” So when you died, she would find you. “So you could spend Christmas together.”

  They can’t touch each other. Their chests rising and falling, they lie staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe through their broken bones, their seeping wounds.

  “Drop by drop,” he whispers, “my love falls upon your heart.”

  “That’s not bad,” she says in reply. “Why couldn’t you have written down those words instead? I’d be a lot less upset.”

  Minutes tick by. Sideways she leans her head to him. They can’t get any peace to fall asleep.

  “Where did we go wrong?” she says. “Did I not give you myself?”

  “You did. Of course you did.”

  “Then why?”

  “What can I tell you that you don’t already know?” Julian says. “I’ve told you so many stories. I know nothing about why. I only know about you. You were beautiful at every age. You always loved the stage. You embraced your vice like virtue.” Things he doesn’t say: You didn’t want babies. You killed a man. You robbed men. You were an angel. You tried to kill me. “You loved me. And I loved you.” He presses his palm into the black wound that is his sightless eye. His voice almost doesn’t break.

  * * *

  On Christmas, Mia sleeps till noon. Their holiday feast is a quiet Spam and eggs and tinned pudding affair, cooked on a gas stove, washed down with some milk and sweet tea and whisky. He doesn’t leave her side, trailing her around the house. Let me open the cans, the edges are sharp. Let me boil the pudding, the water is hot. I will get the peaches in the pantry. I will light the candles and change your dressings.

  “What is wrong with you today?” she says. “You’re worse than at the bomb sites.”

  She shows him her childhood bedroom upstairs where it’s too cold to stay for long. The room is full of books and scarves and stacked-heel shoes and pictures of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. “She was the love of Gable’s life. They were such a great couple once,” Julian says without thinking, and twitches with regret when she clams up and storms downstairs, him hurrying behind her. It’s only 1940. He forgot that Lombard died in 1942. Using the correct tense is so important in time travel. He never learns.

  Downstairs, she complains they can’t hear the King’s Christmas radio broadcast, and Julian, who’s read up on many things, recites some of it from memory. “‘War brings, among other sorrows, the sadness of separation.’ To all his people, the King wishes every happiness that Christmas can bring. ‘I can say to them all on our dear island that they may be justly proud of their race and nation.’” And off her expression, says, “This is what the King might say. It’s just conjecture.”

  “Sure it is,” she says.

  From when she first woke up, they have barely three hours of daylight. By the time Julian performs for her the fragments of the King’s speech, it’s already dark. They have some bacon rashers and the rest of the eggs and sugar with their tea. Unhappy with him and quarrelsome, she tries to pick an argument, about the dumb things he says, has said, might say. It’s a one-sided business. He wants no part in it. That only makes her more bad-tempered.

  “Mia, why would I fight with you on Christmas?” he says.

  “It’s always something with you,” she says. “Christmas, a little bombing. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me we’re not allowed to argue on Boxing Day.”

  “No, we can have a good and proper fight on Boxing Day, if that’s what you want.”

  In the firelight, they take turns reading from one of the plays they found in her room, William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life, and when the fire goes out, they recite parts of the plays they know from memory. Earnest. Midsummer Night. Othello.

  “This is our first Christmas together,” he says when it’s late, and they’ve run out of other people’s words.

  He regrets it instantly when she says, “Is that so? And how can it be any other way, dare I ask? We only met in November.”

  In the dark they lie on their backs.

  “Tell me, Julian, is tomorrow going to be our first Boxing Day?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “And in a week, our first New Year’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in March, our first birthday celebration together?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you were just stating the obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  She grinds her teeth. “Why are you holding your breath?”

  “I’m not.” He makes a show of breathing.

  “Tell me, is this our first war together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this our first fight?”

  “No. It’s our second. The first one was yesterday.”

  “Oh, you think you’re so clever. You think you’re Mr. Know-it-All.”

  To cheer her up, he sings her a war song, hoping she’ll join in. Marlene Dietrich’s “Lili Marlene.” He wishes he had thought of something more chipper. I’ll always keep you in my heart, with me, Lili Marlene.

  “War song, you say? Never heard of it.”

  He doesn’t reply. Is 1940 too early for waiting for you the whole night through, for you, Lili Marlene?

  “Tomorrow,” says Mia, “I’m going to walk to the pier and buy a newspaper and read the text of George’s holiday message to his Commonwealth. All I can say is, heaven help you if there is a single word in the actual speech the same as what you told me earlier.”

  “What, not even Christmas?” says Julian.

  “That’s right,” Mia retorts. “Not even Christmas.”

  * * *

  Early on Boxing Day morning when he comes back from getting her the newspaper and more eggs from the woman down the road with chickens in her yard, he finds Mia standing by the sink in the kitchen. Her back is to him.

  Are you okay? he says. Here’s your newspaper.

  Leave it on the table. I’ll look at it in a minute.

  I have the eggs, too. Four of them.

  That is egg-citing, she says. She doesn’t turn around.

  What’s the matter?

  Nothing, she says. I’m dizzy. I have a bad headache.

  So sit down. You need food.

  She turns around to face him. She is pale gray.

  And he turns pale gray, too.

  He pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and eases her into it. “What happened while I was out?” He was gone for barely twenty minutes! “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I bent to rebandage my ankle, and I sneezed. Does that count as doing something?”

  “Well, sure,” he says. “If you do it right.”

  Weakly she smiles.

  He stands, still in his boots and coat, staring at her, and then into his tingling hands.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course,” he says. “But I just realized I must have dropped one of the eggs in the snow.”

  “Was it a penguin egg? An emperor penguin maybe?”

  He stands.

 
“I’m yoking,” she says. “You’re not the only one who can crack yolks. Go find your egg.”

  He steps outside the pink country house. Snow is falling. There is ice on the path to the gate. He stands looking at Babbacombe Road, at the other houses. One or two have smoke in their chimneys. The invisible stars have dropped their deception. All pretense is gone. The waters froze, the skies opened up and rained ice for months, the wind wasn’t the cave, it was the whole world.

  She has gotten herself so far. So far, and no farther.

  Limping, he makes his way to the gate and grabs on to the iron finial. He holds on to it like a lifeline and stands motionless. The cold freezes his throat. He crosses his wrists, presses his splinted arm into his stomach. His mouth opens in an agonized silent scream.

  He hears Mia’s voice from behind him. “Jules?”

  He doubles over. After a moment, he forces his fists to unclench. His arm falls to his side. He breathes in the icy air, once, twice, begs for mercy, for some self-control. Slowly he straightens out, turns around to her, and smiles.

  “I couldn’t find it.” He returns to the house. She follows.

  A few minutes later she is whisking the eggs at the counter when she sways. He is right there to catch her.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she says. “One second I’m fine and the next so dizzy.”

  “Let’s sit.”

  “Okay, but just for a minute. I really want the scrambled eggs.”

  Julian needs to sit down himself. His legs are having trouble holding him.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Like what?” Julian says, barely audible. “Rest. I’ll finish breakfast.”

  He begins to get up, but she stops him.

  “Wait. My headache is so bad. Maybe you’re right; maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten. But my ears are ringing. I’ll be fine, but—Jules . . . I think I need to lie down for a minute.”

  He lays her down on the blankets by the fire and stands over her.

  “A minute ago everything was all right,” Mia says, looking up at him apologetically. “I’m sorry, Julian.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s just a headache.” He struggles not to avert his gaze. She could’ve had a slow subdural bleed for weeks, since the Ten Bells bomb. She could’ve burst a vein in her injured brain when she sneezed. It could be cholera. It could be the pillory.

  “Do you want to know why I’m sorry?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mia says, “that I couldn’t make this time be different.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Julian is nearly unable to stand. He must hurry. Turning his back to her and reaching into his trousers, he pulls out the brown pouch, loosening the silk ribbons, glancing at the gold coins. Slipping the rawhide rope over his head, he clutches the crystal and the wedding rings in his numb hands.

  “Jules, what are you doing?”

  “Just a sec.”

  “Why are you taking it off?” she asks. “I thought you said it never comes off?”

  Julian didn’t say it to her this time around. He said it to her in 1603 when she was Mary. “I won’t need it anymore.”

  He takes one last look at the quartz in its silver holster and drops it with the rings inside the leather satchel.

  He gathers her little notebook, where she wrote down her wedding vows and the names of his girls, and lies down awkwardly next to her, almost like falling. He leaves the notebook near her head and places the leather purse into the palm of her hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your bag full of sovereigns.”

  She sticks her hand inside the pouch. He hears her sifting around, jingling the coins. She smiles. “Finally you’re giving them back to me,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “It feels like a lot less than there was.”

  Does she know that, too? “Yes. We lived.”

  They turn to each other, lie face to face.

  Her body jerks.

  He holds her against his chest. “It’s going to be okay, Mia,” he says. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Her clouding eyes beseech him, yearning for life. She wheezes erratically into his collarbone. With her breath, she makes his throat warm, then moist, then warm again. It feels as if his throat is crying.

  “You’re shaking, Jules. Convulsing.”

  “I’m cold,” he says.

  “Me, too. Maybe you can cover us with another blanket? No, no, don’t move, don’t get up. Everything hurts so bad.”

  “Yes.” He presses his cold lips to her warm forehead. He is losing his partial sight.

  “I’m the Cheapside girl in silk and gold receding,” she whispers.

  “No.”

  “It can’t be me,” she says. “I’ve never worn any finery. Except that once. At the ball.”

  “You’ve always been that great girl,” Julian says. “Clothed in purple and scarlet, decked in gold and precious stones and pearls.”

  Drip, drip, tick, tock. The wind howls outside. Sounds like a blizzard is coming.

  “I’m going to close my eyes for a minute,” she says. “I need a short sleep. Yes, a brief rest and then I’ll wake, and make you eggs.”

  “Okay, Mia. You sleep if you need to.” His head glides over to hers, and his lips press softly against her lips.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I’m kissing you the last time I see you.

  Seconds fly by.

  Suddenly, she opens her eyes and stares intensely into his face. “Julian!” She is gasping. Her expression is one of profound, crystal-clear recognition. “I know who you are,” she says in a rupturing voice. “My God, I know who you are! It’s you, Julian. O my soul, it’s you.”

  “It’s me.” At the end of your days, the immortal secrets of all hearts are disclosed.

  “Oh, my love,” she echoes hoarsely, in red remembrance of things past. “Oh, my love.”

  I tried not to walk through life with a downcast face, Mia. Because of you.

  Despite our troubles, there was glory in the uplands over the moors.

  There was ecstasy. There was paradise.

  I searched for you. You gave me shelter.

  I may have taught you how to run in the rain, but you taught me how to live forever.

  They stare at each other, all their memories entwined.

  “You gave yourself to me,” she whispers wrenchingly. “You blessed me with your life.”

  He smiles at her, into the face that knows him. “A bomb goes off inside the pub,” Julian says, with supreme effort raising his limp arm and cupping her cheek into his mutilated hand. “They sit and they wait. Ten minutes later, the waitress appears with their food.”

  “I’m sorry the lunch is a bit dusty, my love,” says Mia, her voice fading. “The ceiling’s down in the kitchen.”

  Part Two

  Trace Decay

  And soon, too soon, we part with pain,

  To sail o’er silent seas again.

  Sir Thomas Moore

  Illustration by Paullina Simons

  28

  Morecambe Bay

  WHAT WAS JULIAN?

  Was he his injured legs, his blind eyes, his missing fingers?

  No.

  Was he his scarred head?

  No.

  Was he his empty gut, his grieving heart?

  No, none of these things.

  Was he his body?

  Also no. When the breath would leave it, no one would look at his body and say it was him. They would say the body had belonged to him. It was Julian’s body, his property, but it wasn’t him. Like his house wasn’t him, or his Volvo, or his clothes.

  Not his body, not his head, not his heart, not even his feelings were him. The feelings were what the thing that was him felt. They weren’t the man.

  So who was it that the body belonged to?

  Who was it who felt?

  Who
was it who mourned, who loved, who was?

  Before everything else was his soul.

  And what could a man give in exchange for his soul?

  * * *

  Not his body. Because the body was like London after the war. There wasn’t much left. The body had suffered primary, secondary, and tertiary blast injuries. It had lost half its hearing, half its sight. It needed to be patched and grafted and sewn up. It needed to be surgically renovated. Julian lost the ability to walk unaided and without pain. Most of the bones in his feet had developed hairline fractures. His body was covered head to toe in irregular Lichtenberg flowers, a sure sign of getting struck by lightning. He had scars on his face, on his back, on his arms, on his legs. His body needed intravenous antibiotics and a number of surgeries. Plastic surgery on his face to fix the scar on his cheek and above his eye. Surgery to repair the improperly set forearm, which, instead of healing straight, had hooked toward his body. Surgery for the anterior and posterior cruciate ligament tears that required a knee replacement. The surgery on his left eye that did not return his sight to him. There was light but no detail.

  Tama the Maori warrior was wrong. Julian’s body could tell some story.

  Too bad the storyteller was mute, on a morphine drip the first six weeks at Queen Elizabeth, and mute for weeks afterward at the Hampstead Heath convalescent home.

  Franco and Ricks, his sparring buddies from the gym, visited him once when he was still in the hospital.

  “Whoa, man, that was some nasty ass fight you been in,” said Franco. “Who was it with this time?”

  “Junkers Ju 88 combat aircraft,” Julian said. “But not one. Thousands of them.”

  They didn’t understand. They mock-sparred in front of him, jabbing into the air, wanting to know when he would come back to them.

  Instead, Julian retreated to Hampstead Heath and fell into the routine of a place where silence and tranquility were designed to bring about healing. He would sit with Ava in the garden if the weather allowed, or in the common room by the windows. Like him, Ava didn’t speak. It had only been a few months since her stroke. But unlike him, she wanted to. When she first saw him, she cried. She knew he had failed, and this time for good. Her shaking hand reached for him. Often when they sat in their chairs, she held his hand.