The Zul Enigma

by J M Leitch

  ‘Think about it. He contacts you out of the blue to talk about…’ Drew pulled a face and trembled his hands in front of him, ‘… “the future of the planet Earth, man”, and then you never hear from him again.’

  ‘I can’t help how it looks. That’s what happened. Why do you doubt me? You’ve known me how long? Of all people, you should believe in me.’

  ‘Do yourself a favour Charlie boy, give up on Zul,’ but Carlos met Drew’s look with a hostile glare.

  They continued eating in silence until Carlos burst out, ‘And as for her, that intelligence woman. She’s got a nerve. And she says I’m crazy? You know what? Wait till you hear this. She says that I am Zul! For God’s sake! She says I dressed up as him and filmed myself. Have you ever heard anything so…’

  Drew, leaning forward, elbows on knees, just about to take another bite of his sandwich, froze. He looked up to find Carlos’s eyes locked onto him. Neither man looked away.

  ‘What?’ Carlos asked.

  Drew took the sandwich out of his mouth and put it back down on the napkin. He took a deep breath and licked his fingers one by one.

  ‘You already know?’ Carlos challenged. ‘They questioned you, didn’t they? And they told you. And what did you say behind my back, hey? What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them everything. From what you said that night at the restaurant…’

  Carlos threw his sandwich down on the table, ‘Jesus! Is nothing sacred?’ He jumped out of the chair and started pacing.

  ‘Don’t you get it, mate? I’m worried about you. You need help.’

  ‘From them? From those bastards? You were the one warned me to be careful. Then you tell them everything. What are you trying to do to me?’

  ‘Come on… I had no choice.’

  ‘Of course you had a choice.’

  ‘Carlos, stand still and listen a minute, will you? Monday night, in the bar, they did exactly what I said. They recorded everything.’

  Carlos put his hands over this face. ‘Oh God!’

  ‘They played it all back to me, mate. I couldn’t deny it. It was all right there. Irre-fucking-futable proof of what I thought about your state of mind.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’

  ‘So tell me, how the hell could I deny it?’

  ‘And you believe them too? That I’m Zul?’

  Drew hesitated. ‘I… I think you’ve been depressed, maybe had a nervous breakdown. But that you invented Zul and videoed yourself? That’s hard to take on board. It’s no more believable than Zul being an alien. So the honest answer, mate, is I don’t know. But I do know you need help. A good hospital, a good doctor, get yourself well.’

  ‘You’re just not listening, are you? I am not ill.’

  Drew raised his big hands. ‘Hang on a minute. You’re the one not listening, me old mate. It’s obvious you’re not well. You just can’t see it. The truth is you’re going downhill – and fast. Now I’m beginning to lose my patience here. So listen up. Check yourself into that hospital. You need help.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do. You’re the one needs to listen.’ Carlos’s eyes bulged out of his head like ping pong balls. ‘THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME,’ he bellowed.

  Drew slapped his thighs and muttered, ‘I rest my case.’

  Carlos slumped onto the bed. He screwed up his eyes, clenched fists pressed to his temples, and shook his head as if trying to shake himself out of current reality. ‘After Elena died I didn’t think things could get any worse.’

  Drew stood up, opened another beer and drank long and deep. His friend was starting to frustrate the hell out of him.

  ‘Know something?’ he said, ‘you’re beginning to piss me off big time, you and your constant self-pity.’ He opened his arms wide, the beer bottle swinging from the fingers of his right hand. ‘When are you going to wake up to the fact that you brought all of it on yourself?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your biggest mistake was leaving NASA. You were a rising star there, but you quit to go to OOSA. Why? Why did you do that? Look at what it cost you.’

  ‘I know. Elena would still be alive,’ Carlos mumbled. 'If only I’d known, I would never have…’

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you took that job, period.’

  Carlos looked up. ‘It was a fantastic offer,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah! I know. A high-profile ex-pat package, loads of dosh. But why did you really take it? Why did you sell yourself out?’

  ‘Sell out? I didn’t sell out. You were so jealous, you didn’t even come to our leaving party.’

  ‘Oh Carlos! Please. Jealous? Don’t make me laugh. Your life didn’t go downhill because Elena died, although that’s what you’ve tried to kid yourself all these years. It was going downhill way before that. It all started when you took that offer from OOSA. When you gave up a brilliant career, one that you loved, a cutting edge developmental role, for what? I’ll tell you for what. To become a bleeding administrator!’

  The virulence in Drew’s voice startled Carlos. He had no idea what had triggered it.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. It’s what you said yourself the other night. Listen Carlos, this has been on my mind a long while and it’s time I got it off my chest. When you quit NASA I lost all respect for you. I thought I knew you. But I was wrong. You shit-canned something worthwhile to inflate your own ego. So what if it was the first time in history anyone outside OOSA had been offered its top position? Just look what it did to you? You said it yourself. You’re a glorified clerk. No wonder you’re losing it.’

  Shocked, Carlos stared up at Drew, who once started was not going to let up.

  ‘The worst of it was, Elena knew trying to juggle all those bickering members would drive you nuts. She said you were mad throwing in a technical career for such a big diplomatic management role. And she was right. She knew when the novelty wore off you’d be bored. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? You just had to have it your own way. Elena never wanted to move to Vienna. She was dreading it. You know that.’

  ‘Hey, hold on. She was excited about moving to Europe. It wasn’t easy balancing two careers. Something had to give. The offer came at the right time. For her it was a relief to give up her job and all that pressure.’

  ‘You are so full of it, Carlos. She was not happy to leave DC. That’s what you made yourself believe because you didn’t want to admit the truth. She was devastated. She knew she’d be lonely as hell in Vienna. No friends… no family… you travelling all the time. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? You made her do what you wanted. You pulled the strings and she danced to your tune. You forced her to give up her career so you could advance your own.’

  ‘I didn’t force her into anything. We discussed about it. She agreed.’

  Drew lunged towards Carlos who was sitting on the edge of the bed. Towering over him he yelled, ‘BULLSHIT! You have no idea what that woman sacrificed to keep you happy.’

  For the first time ever Carlos saw Drew on the edge of losing control. But he didn’t understand why. Couldn’t comprehend the venom that fuelled this attack.

  ‘Since when do you know my wife so well? Hey? Since when do…’ The look on Drew’s face made him stop mid-sentence as he grasped just how incisive his question was.

  Like a trap door releasing, he felt the floor fall away as he plummeted down, down, down – free falling without a parachute. The rush was all-consuming. His heart clenched as if a clamp had squeezed out every drop of blood. He was going to throw up. Throw up or pass out. He didn’t know which.

  ‘You? You and…?’

  He had never seen Drew so angry. ‘You fucked her over, Carlos. You fucked her over twice. The first time when you made her leave the States and the second time the day she died.’

  Drew spun round and hurled the bottle against the wall. It exploded on impact. Slivers of glass flew across the room and flecks of foam speckled the carpet. Beer dribbled down the flocked wallpaper and made a murky puddle a
t the foot of the skirting board.

  Carlos couldn’t move. Couldn’t get up off the bed. His world had also exploded, just like the bottle.

  Drew turned, struggling to regain his control. ‘I should have told you years ago. But I didn’t. I kept it from you. For her sake.’

  Carlos stared at him, his face blank.

  ‘You haven’t a clue how badly you treated that woman. She tried to tell you – over and over. But you never listened. You never bloody listen.’

  Carlos transfixed Drew with a gaze as if he was seeing him clearly for the first time. ‘My best friend,’ he whispered, ‘I thought you were my best friend. And all the time,’ he said, raising his voice, ‘you were screwing my wife behind my back.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that Carlos.’

  Carlos sprang up and pushed Drew in the chest with both hands, ‘HOW WAS IT LIKE, EXACTLY?’ he yelled, his eyes on fire.

  Drew shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘I tell you, you don’t want to know.’

  Carlos shoved him in the chest again and again, his face smouldering with fury. ‘I do want to know. I have to know. Everything.’

  Drew backed away. ‘Why? What good can it possibly do?’

  Carlos’s voice cracked. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering. Wondering when. Wondering where. Wondering how. Understand cabrón? So start talking.’

  Drew walked to the chair and sat down, elbows on his thighs, head in his hands. Carlos hovered over him as if he might try and make a run for it.

  ‘For Christ’s sake…’ he shook his head and took a deep breath, ‘it happened a few weeks before you left for Vienna. You’d had another one of your epic rows. Arguing about the move… again. Elena walked out on you. Remember?’

  Carlos sat on the bed. The muscles at the corner of his eye twitched. His face was pinched and pale.

  Drew stared at his hands as the memories cascaded back. ‘It’s eleven o'clock Thursday night. Lizzie’s at my place and she’s already out of it as usual. She’s as drunk as a skunk and off her face on weed. She’s crashed in bed and I’m pissed off, wondering why she bothered to come all the way to visit me when she could have done exactly the same thing on her own at home in Seattle. Then the doorbell rings and its Elena. It was the first time she’d ever visited me alone. Without you. The minute I open the door I know something’s up. Her make-up’s smudged all over her face. Her nose is red and her eyes are swollen from crying. She’s shaking. I pour her a brandy. She sits down and tells me you’ve had another row about the move. Then she just unloads. She tells me everything. It’s the first time she’d ever talked to me about you and I am feeling so uncomfortable. Too much information.

  ‘She tells me things haven’t been good for a while. Says perhaps they never were. That it isn’t just the move to Vienna. It’s the foundation of your relationship. She says she can’t stand the rollercoaster ups and downs, one minute you treating her like a princess, then the next you treating her like shit. She says it’s making her crazy, that she can’t do it any more. She says you don’t respect her. She knows you love her, and that’s the point, she’s finally worked it out. It’s the way you love her that’s not right. It’s different from the way she loves you. She says you love her because she makes you feel good, whereas she loves you because she wants to make you feel good. She’s fed up being on the receiving end of your kind of love, it’s selfish and it hurts and it’s making her life a misery.’

  Carlos sounded as if he was about to choke. Drew looked up. ‘Listen mate…’ but Carlos sprang off the bed and opened another beer. He flung the bottle opener down on the table beside the half-eaten sandwiches. It cracked the glass.

  ‘Keep talking,’ he muttered and sat back down on the bed.

  Drew stared at his hands again.

  ‘She says this time it really is over, that she wants a divorce. She says she’s sure.

  ‘She talks on and on until the early hours. Finally she asks if she can crash at my place. Just for the night or what’s left of it. Of course, I say yes. But here’s the thing,’ Drew looked up at Carlos, ‘right from the very beginning – from the first time I ever saw her – I felt something for that woman. Something here,’ Drew touched his chest, ‘something I’d never felt for any woman before. You know I asked her out and she wasn’t interested. Then she met you and that was it. It was tough, I can tell you. There I was, your best mate, hanging out with both of you like a spare prick at a whore’s wedding. There were times when it crucified me seeing the two of you together. But up until that night I never, ever thought there could be anything between Elena and me other than friendship. And that’s the truth.’

  Carlos’s expression didn’t change. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘So I tell her she can have the spare room. She stands up. She’s completely done in. She looks so vulnerable. Not a bit like the dazzling woman she usually was. I want to comfort her. To stop her feeling so sad, so hurt. She stares up at me and thanks me for listening. She apologises for dragging me into your business, but she says she had to talk to someone. After all, she says, you know him better than anyone else. Then she puts her hands on my shoulders, stands on her tiptoes and kisses me on each cheek. The touch of her lips was so gentle, so tender, and I just stand there. I don’t step forward but then again I don’t back away.

  ‘That moment decided it. I just stood there like it was the first time I’d ever been close to a woman before. My heart was pounding and,’ Drew shook his head, ‘the next thing I know we’re kissing and… and I couldn’t have held back if my life depended on it.’

  Carlos sat motionless, no emotion showing in his stone-hard eyes.

  ‘Later we talk. I tell her that I’d always loved her right from when I first clapped eyes on her at the interview, fresh out of Uni with her Masters Degree, way before she ever met you. I tell her how I’d hidden it all those years, how I never did understand why she wouldn’t go out with me back then. She says she wanted to but she was scared because I was her boss. She was scared of my reputation. Scared of being hurt and ending up one of my exes. She says she never imagined I could love any woman, let alone her.

  ‘And at last we both have what we’d always wanted. But at what cost?

  ‘We make a plan. Elena goes to a café for breakfast. She calls in sick. I wake up Lizzie. I tell her something urgent’s come up, that the trip to Virginia Beach is off, and I put her in a cab to the airport for the first plane back to Seattle. Elena knows you’ve got a briefing that morning. She calls your office to make sure you’re there, then goes home and packs. She writes you a note saying she meant what she said and that she’ll be in touch on Monday to talk divorce. She tells you not to try looking for her. I knew you wouldn’t call me – you thought I was going away with Lizzie. But instead of taking Lizzie to Virginia Beach, I take your wife.’

  ‘¡Hijo de puta!’ Carlos struggled off the bed and lurched towards the bathroom. Drew heard him retching and the toilet flush and flush again, then the taps running. Carlos walked back in, his face grey. He collapsed like a house of cards on the bed.

  Drew shook his head. ‘This is ridicu…’

  ‘Finish it,’ Carlos ordered.

  Drew continued in a monotone. ‘We start back late Sunday afternoon. The closer we get to my place the quieter Elena is. She’s scared. Scared of seeing you. She knows you’ll be hysterical, that you’ll have been looking for her everywhere. She knows you’ll pressure her to come back. She says she feels so guilty, that she doesn’t know how to tell you what’s happened. And that’s when we decide. Not to tell you. Not yet. Then she takes her hand out of mine to brush away her tears and doesn’t put it back. We spend the rest of the journey in silence, and the closer I get to home the further I feel from Elena.

  ‘We get back and I park in the basement. But when I walk into the living room I remember I left my iPod in the car. So I drop the bags on the floor and go down for it.
When I get in the lift to come back up it stops at the ground floor. And who should get in? Well, you must remember.’

  Carlos was shaking. He held his head in his hands and the tears streamed down his face.

  ‘It was you. You dropped by to see if I was back. I nearly shit myself when I saw you. When you asked me where Lizzie was and I said she’d left I was trying to convince myself it wasn’t really a lie. I opened the front door praying Elena wouldn’t be standing there and I prayed again when we went in the living room. But she must have heard our voices and made herself scarce. I really needed that whisky I poured.

  ‘Then I had to listen to you as you went off on an emotional crescendo, arms flying like a windmill, telling me your side of the story. If you hadn’t been so wound up, you’d have seen how my hand trembled every time I took a sip of Scotch.

  ‘When she walked in from the spare room looking so pale, so scared? Right then I knew I’d lost her and…’ Drew massaged his eyes with the heels of his hands as if by doing so he could rub out the picture of Elena in his mind, ‘… and that the weekend had been a dream. A taste of something perfect that was too good to be true. I knew right then Elena and I would never be together. So I left you two and went into my room.

  ‘When you knocked on the door you were beaming. You couldn’t stop thanking me enough for letting Elena stay. You said you’d worked it all out, that she was going home with you and when I looked over your shoulder I saw her standing in the middle of the living room staring at her feet, white faced and blank. She looked translucent, like a ghost. Then she lifted her head and I saw one small tear, like a little grey pearl, roll down her cheek. She held my gaze and pressing her lips together gave the tiniest shake of her head and shrugged. Then her face crumpled and she turned away to pick up her bag.

  ‘That was the last time I saw her.’

  After all the talking, Drew’s mouth was parched. He grabbed another beer, sucked it half empty and sank down on the other bed, back against the wall, forearms resting on his knees, head hanging in between.

  Carlos rocked to and fro. After a while, in a flat voice he said, ‘So that’s why I hardly ever saw you again. Before we left DC. That’s why you didn’t show up at the leaving party. You couldn’t face me.’