Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  An agile frame stepped in front of me, grabbed the microphone from Steve’s hand, and launched it toward the crowd, where it bounced off the wooden fence.

  “That, sir, can be considered assault.” Steve turned to his cameraman and gestured to keep the film rolling. “I’m just doing my job.”

  My protector adjusted his cap and drew himself straight. “I fought in two wars, spent six months in a POW camp, and was married fifty-one years. Do not talk to me about responsibility . . .” He stepped forward, grabbed the camera, and wrested it from a younger man’s hands. After which he smashed it to the ground. “Or assault. You know nothing of either.”

  More loud, heated words were spoken, but they garbled in my ears. Soon the news van and the crowd dispersed.

  My rescuer bent and lifted up a broken lens. He turned and handed it to me. “You might need this.”

  His face was old and leathery with wrinkles that deepened when he smiled. His eyebrows were bushy, and his stubble rough. I thought back to the lottery and recognised him right off.

  “Walk with me,” Jakob said.

  His shoulders slumped, and he made his way slowly down the walkway.

  “Thank you for coming to my —”

  “But keep your mouth shut.” He did not turn.

  I sped up, but remained a few steps behind. He led me out of Loring Park, and before long we passed a tall steeple and crossed the motorway bridge. Ahead loomed a great rectangle, a giant, windowless mass marked the Walker Art Center. We veered right, through manicured hedges and into a deeper darkness.

  “What is this place?”

  He gestured about but did not speak. Foreboding images stood motionless; rooted mobiles creaked in the wind. Shapes surrounded, each twisted and cold.

  A sculpture garden.

  I took a deep breath and caught up. He peeked at me and slowed his gait. Together we wandered through the artwork: five-, ten-, twenty-foot creations growing up from the sod.

  Finally, he stopped, staring at a man crafted of iron. The metal man was bent, worn.

  “Do we look alike?” he asked.

  I stepped back. “No. Now thank you, but why are we here?”

  “What is the difference?”

  Play along. You owe him that much. “Fine. You can still walk . . .”

  Jakob didn’t smile. “Not a difference.”

  I winced, and rubbed the statue’s face. “All right then, he has no heart. He is doing all he knows to do. Stand here in this garden. And ten years from now, he will still be standing. You, on the other hand, came to my rescue.”

  Yes, I owed him a debt, and I went about this stroll, but my patience was wearing thin. I had a purpose back at the inn, and who knew how long Jakob wanted to stand here.

  He bowed his head. “I saved you from the horrors of a microphone. Years ago in a country I knew nothing about, I sent hundreds of souls to hell. I destroyed hundreds of families. Where was my heart then?”

  “That was your job.” I pressed into his shoulder. “Duty and all that.”

  “Yes. That’s what they said. ‘Jakob, this is your duty.’ ”

  “And you had no choice.”

  He looked at me. “Do you believe that, Clara?” Jakob forced a smile. “Then I truly was this metal man. This may be true. I left my heart with my men and returned . . .” He reached out and rapped the statue with his knuckles. “Clara, what are you doing here?”

  “You asked me to come —”

  “At the inn. With Elias. Why are you still here?”

  I thought hard, and glanced down at the diary and the lens firmly in my hands. “I came to retrieve my bag. But that was last night. I suppose I could have been gone by now.”

  Jakob rubbed his stubble. “What are you trying to do to him?”

  Lie. There had never been difficulty in doing so before, but here, now, with this old soldier, I stood disarmed.

  “I stayed because he drew something, and I was afraid — I am afraid — he might just know the thing he can’t know. A thing we will not be discussing. And then . . .” I bit my lip. “Then I really met him and thought, maybe I could help. Maybe . . . I could help him stay himself. Get the real Elias back, since nobody else wants to.”

  “You don’t want him back either.” Jakob’s gaze hardened, and then softened again. “I saw him look at you. I’m afraid you will do more harm than good. Hollow. Have you ever felt hollow, Clara?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then listen to an old fool. After my tour, I had nothing left to give my Anne. I loved her for thirty years, and gave her nothing but a good funeral.”

  I rocked. “People do what they think is right.”

  “That, Clara, is your problem.” Jakob stared at the statue, shook his head, and walked back toward the bridge. I wanted to follow him, but my legs lingered. I reached out and stroked the metal face, and then my own.

  They didn’t feel all that different.

  “Wait! So you’re saying I can’t help?”

  Jakob turned. “I’m wagering that even though you weren’t in the lottery, you’re using him to reach Salem just like the rest of us, or you would be gone. You’re too smart to believe that you have the answer to his condition. And until you accept that you’re only here for yourself, you are of no use to him.”

  He pointed across Hennepin Avenue. The lights of the city shone. Minneapolis was no London, but all the players were there. The pub hoppers, night clubbers, and those who hung draped from balconies, yelling down to the street. But in the distance, Phinn’s looked peaceful, with only one light still on.

  “That beacon belongs to Bette. She returns here each autumn because she loves me.” Jakob stared at the light. “She hopes that maybe, one day, we can be together.”

  A smile crossed my face; I felt it. “This would be the most wonderful thing for you. Your heart —”

  “Will always be Anne’s. But in Salem, you see, in Salem, Elias has decided that Bette and I are . . .” His voice fell. “Married.”

  I frowned. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  Jakob cleared his throat. “It is a foolish game played by old, desperate people.” He walked toward the light.

  And suddenly I did.

  “That gives you both permission to dream. That gives her hope. That’s why you both come,” I said.

  “So now you know my foolishness. Tell me yours. What brought you here?”

  I closed my eyes and saw his face. There was no escaping.

  “My dad. He . . . he used to travel the world. A wandering do-gooder. He met my mum in London and stopped traveling. But one day, he said, one day he would take her anywhere, anywhere she wanted to go. The unspeakable happened, and Dad was taken from us all, and Mum died before one day came. But I have his map. I have his journal. I know where he’s been. And I will take the trip he never gave my mum.”

  “He loves his wife and then he leaves? What are you not saying? What’s your part?”

  I said nothing.

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “He hates me.”

  “But you aren’t running from him, are you?”

  “I — I will not be speaking about this. You know nothing of what I did . . .”

  You sent hundreds of souls to hell? Maybe you do.

  I lowered my head.

  “Very well.” Jakob sighed. “Clara, you are a beautiful young girl. Please, be kind to Elias.” He gestured to his left and slowly drifted back toward the inn. “He’s on the spoon.”

  On the spoon?

  I walked beyond the wire art and the copper figurines, tarnished and corroded together, toward the massive grey silhouette at the far end of the sculpture garden. I paused at its base.

  This piece formed a thirty-foot aluminum bridge in the shape of a spoon handle, the bowl raising into the sky. And fastened to the top of the bowl, twenty feet up, was a giant cherry, and standing on the cherry, grasping its stem, a figurine.

  A figurine that looked remarkably
like Elias.

  “How did you get up there?” I called.

  “Oh, it’s you. Infiltrating my home . . . following me around . . . No matter. I imagined you would come sooner or later.”

  The Other One.

  I walked across the bridge and stared up, stroking the smooth spoon with my palms. I could not join him.

  “Why, precisely, are you standing on an oversized cherry?”

  He glanced upward. “I’m closer to the stars. There aren’t many here in the city. Cassiopeia, the Dipper, and of course Orion.”

  “And why do you want to get closer to the stars?”

  He looked down at me. “They’re the way.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Right. Well then, I simply came to apologise for the earlier incident. I should have brought you home straight away.”

  “An apology? Don’t think for an instant that I don’t know what you’re after. I would die to protect Salem. You weren’t counting on that resolve.”

  I sighed. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Well, I’m done planning.” He nimbly slid down the spoon, and stood before me. “Do you need to report in to whoever sent you? The spoon is free.”

  “No, I think I’ll head back too.”

  Elias walked stiffly and purposely toward the inn. I followed close behind, catching up near the fountains.

  We entered the front door, where Jakob waited.

  “Hello, Jakob.” Elias turned to me. “Perhaps you would like to interrogate Jakob. Good night. Oh, one last thing. Seeing as you’ve taken such a keen interest in my life, I’ve decided to take a keener interest in yours.” Elias reached into his pocket, removed a folded paper, and handed it to me. “This is the first test. There will be more.” He spun toward his bedroom door and soon disappeared into his room.

  Straightening, I marched toward Elias’s door and placed my ear against the wood.

  “Are you sure you want to do that, young lady?” Jakob asked.

  I spun around.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He nodded, gazing longingly at the room. “I’d originally come down to talk to the boy myself. Thought we might sit back and reminisce . . . that’s what we do. We talk about a simpler time when my wife and I, we —”

  “Were you about to talk about me?” An old woman slowly descended and joined us in the foyer. “Is Elias in Salem?”

  “Likely, but the entrance is shut.” Jakob pointed at the closed door. “Bette, I’d like to formally introduce Ms. Clara.”

  Bette winked and hugged me deeply. “Oh, we met this morning! Are you waiting for him too? You didn’t let this old sweet-talker take your place in line, I hope.” She released me and scowled at Jakob. “I wanted to go dancing tonight, but I see that’s not going to happen.”

  “You two can dance whether or not the boy is stuck in a fictional world.” I glanced from Jakob to Bette and back again. “What’s keeping you two? Go. Dance.”

  Bette softened and then frowned again. “What’s keeping us? That man’s stubbornness and that man’s promise. Old mule!”

  “It is not stubbornness to honour an oath. Clara, years ago I made a promise to dance with my wife, and my wife alone. It makes little sense, I admit. Why does an old man feel released to do in Salem what he can’t do here? I have no explanation. But I will not break my oath.” He turned back to Bette. “Though you, Ms. Drippy Faucet, do your best to wear me down.”

  Juan was right. These people wanted Elias bound.

  Then again, Jakob might be right as well; to get an answer about those drawings, I needed him that way too.

  What a twisted place this was.

  Jakob yawned. “It’s late. I’m old. I’m heading to bed. What is your plan, Ms. Clara?”

  I exhaled hard.

  “May I suggest letting Elias sleep and Guinevere marinate? I don’t believe for an instant that she’s still upset with you. These things happen too often for her to place blame.”

  I squeezed my forehead between thumb and fingers. “That’s all fine, but maybe I should just be going.”

  “No.” Guinevere eased down the steps. “The accident was not your fault, Clara, and I’d really appreciate it if you stayed one more night.”

  “I am so sorry. You gave me a schedule and I didn’t follow it. I followed Elias, and —”

  “And I am rather confident you gave him the time of his life.” She sighed. “It came at the price of my heart, but such is the price of motherhood, especially to that one.” She nodded toward Elias’s door.

  She placed her hand on my shoulder, gave me a squeeze, and disappeared down the hall.

  Jakob slowly walked toward the stairs. “Looks like you’re part of the family.”

  “One more night hardly constitutes adoption.”

  He forced a smile and ambled up the steps, an older version of the man who’d rescued me an hour before.

  Bette and I stood in silence.

  “A word of advice . . .” I said. “You might have better luck with Jakob if you dropped the insults. Calling him stubborn and —”

  “He loves it. He and his Elizabeth . . . that was their style. He comes every summer because he misses her so. He comes to be insulted. To fall for her all over again.”

  “And why do you come?”

  Bette lowered her gaze. “Oh, child. Didn’t he tell you? I come because I love him. Always have. And you already know, this is the one place where Jakob and I can dance.”

  She moved toward the stairs. A little slower, a little more bent. I watched her go, a woman with a broken heart.

  It’s still not fair to use Elias.

  Quiet again, I glanced down at the paper from Elias, and the dread from the plane returned. I slowly unfolded the sheet.

  No.

  It was unlike any of the drawings surrounding me in the foyer, or any I’d seen in his sketchbook. It was abstract, cloudy and hideous. But there it was. The storm.

  The opening scene of my Great Undoing.

  I felt a punch in my belly, and I gasped, peering deeper into the sketch. It wasn’t clear. It could be another storm in another place on another day. The images visible through the maelstrom; they could be anyone, really. But that hope landed hollow.

  He can’t know what I’ve done. Nobody does. I pushed my hand through my hair.

  The first test. There will be more.

  I pounded on Elias’s door.

  Nothing.

  “Elias!” I hissed. “You cannot go about showing me these and —”

  The door swung open, and Elias slowly nodded and took a seat at the base of his bed. His gaze was upturned, toward a photo on the wall. I followed his line of sight, my breath caught, and I walked straight away toward the frame.

  It was not a photo.

  “Why is a sketch of my mum on your wall?”

  Elias shook his head. “I have no idea. It’s new. I hadn’t seen it before today. I didn’t put it . . . well, I don’t remember putting it there.”

  I glanced at the boy. His gentle voice left no doubt. Elias had returned. The Other One, the one who held my secret, had gone.

  I sat down next to him, burying my face in the drawing I held. Minutes later, I glanced back up.

  “Your — his — picture of Mum? It’s a perfect sketch. It’s her . . . it’s more than her. See her eyes? The weary in her eyes? That was Mum . . . What’s that flag hanging behind her?”

  “Same as that.” Elias pointed over his shoulder to a full-size canvas depicting a flag stiff in the breeze. “Doucette painted that. Have you met her yet? She and her sister share the second-floor loft room.”

  “Elias, I’m missing something —”

  “Salem.” He glanced at me and glanced away. “Everyone says the Other One calls it Salem.”

  “Juan tried to explain, but what is that, exactly?” I asked.

  “Not a what. A where. An unreal country in an unreal world. My other world, I guess.” He stood and walked to his desk and opened the drawers. “Now, when I�
��m right, I live here, but when I slip through, like I told you, like Mom says I did again today, the Other One takes over.” He tapped the desk. “It’s all in here. Look if you want.”

  I walked toward him and reached into the top drawer. Drawings and floor plans and maps. Three-dimensional renderings of skyscrapers and people. Aerial photos of cities and islands: indeed, an entire world. Except there were no words. No descriptions.

  I gently placed the pictures back. Except for one: My only photo of Mum, lifted from the pages of my diary. I glanced again at the picture on the wall. He could suck her image into his hallucination if he wanted to, but the original belonged with me.

  “Maybe don’t rearrange things. I guess he doesn’t like that too much.”

  “Who does?” I slid Mum’s photo into my back pocket.

  Elias bowed his head. “You know, he wanders through Salem, always looking.”

  I gently closed each drawer. “For what?”

  He pointed to a mini-recorder on top of the desk and shrugged. I picked it up and hit play. The Other One spoke in a tense whisper:

  “I’m going through her things now. Stop. There is a strong possibility that owner is important to my quest. Stop. Her instruction manual is unreadable, written in a foreign language . . .”

  My shoulders sagged. “My diary. That’s probably my diary.”

  I continued to listen. “There is a photo of our newly crowned queen tucked inside. Stop. I am confiscating this evidence. Stop. Owner is devious, but I need her to translate the manual’s words. Stop. Mom coming. Out.”

  I clicked off the recorder. “Those were my things. Elias, what quest? What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know, all right? All I have is guesses.” He bowed his head. “But I can’t help feeling that if my brain finds whatever it wants in the real world, the Other One won’t need to create a new one to search in. At least we’ll both live in reality. I’ve spent years looking through all this stuff, hoping and praying and trying to figure out what he’s after, but now I’m worse. There seems to be more of him and less of me . . .” Elias shook his head. “It isn’t going to happen, is it?”

  I paced back and forth, pausing in front of my mum. I tossed my hideous sketch into his lap. “Do you have any idea what this is?”