“Enim?”
My father's voice sounded from down the hall, evidently speaking into the empty office where he thought that I would be. I hurried from the house, half-dragging my bad leg as I went, and was out in the driveway by the time he realized where I was. His voice sounded from behind me, calling for me to stop.
“Enim!”
I circled around a hedge and fled through the backyard, trying to make my way through the darkness but colliding with the plastic slide attached to the swing set. Swearing, I ducked down and clutched at where it had smacked my shin to send a pain shooting up into my hip, and my other hand went to the ground to keep me from falling down completely.
The grass had been overturned, and soil rubbed against my fingers as I waited for the pain to pass. My father's footsteps creaked on the front porch as he looked about to see which direction I had gone in, but both the slide and the darkness hid me from his view. In the white light from the moon, I realized that I was crouching next to where Ava had been digging her hole; I wondered if she would get into trouble for giving me the key, or if she would have the sense to lie and tell them that I had simply been the one to steal it from my father's jacket. The hole glared up at me accusingly for the lies that I had told to trick her into helping me, but I glared back at it for the lack of treasure that she would find in it.
“Enim?”
He was calling out onto the street. I could see him in his nightclothes and bare feet on the pavement, looking both ways for any sign of me. Perhaps he was worried that the neighbors would see me and find out that I was his son, awakened from the dead and wrecking havoc on his quiet life again. Swallowing, I allowed myself one more moment to get adjusted to the throbbing that had overtaken my leg before standing up and taking a step towards the property line. As I made to leave, though, I paused and looked back at the hole, thinking of the brochure in my pocket for a moment before unclasping my watch and dropping it down beneath the loose soil. We could both find what we were looking for after all.
I made my way to the edge of the yard and crossed into the neighbor's, ducking through gardens and climbing over fences as I went. My leg was growing stiffer and stiffer beneath me, and by the time that I had put enough distance between me and him to consider stopping, it would hardly bend at all. I leaned up against the wall to an unseen building and slid to the ground, reaching for the bottle of pain medication but finding it missing: I had left it on the bedside table in the pink and yellow room inside the house. My hand slid further into my pocket and clutched first at the disk for Rusalka and then at the brochure from Jack. And, despite the pain, a relief flooded over me in a way that neither of the medications had ever been able to do. I could find him after all.
Ch. 9
I wandered just far enough so that I was standing beneath the light of a street lamp and took out the phone that Karl had given me and the card from the taxi driver. Squinting at the screen to read through the glare from the artificial lights, I dialed the number and quickly asked to be picked up, doing my best to pronounce the street name written on the sign a few feet away.
It seemed to take the taxi an age to get there, and despite the season the city was collectively colder at that time of night. When the cab pulled up beside me, I yanked open the door and clambered inside just as my leg crumbled beneath me and hardly managed to sit upright as another bout of pain shot through it and up to my neck.
“Waarheen?”
“Just … in the direction of the airport.”
“The airport?”
“Yeah. Just … just the direction. I'll tell you when to stop.”
He gave a half-shrug and pulled away from the curb, and I grappled in my pocket for my wallet. Counting the money that I had remaining, I watched the meter carefully until it had almost reached the amount that I had. As he turned down another dimly-lit street, I asked him to stop.
“Hier?” He glanced back at me in the review mirror. “You are sure?”
“Yeah.”
I handed him the majority of the money and thanked him before exiting onto the street. It was crowded despite the late hour and flanked on either side by shops. A canal ran down the middle of it, and the water was black except for the zigzagging of moonlight skating the top of it. I stepped across the bricks to look down at it with my hands in my pockets. Had it not been so murky, I was certain that I would have seen something below.
Limping back in the direction of the stores, I scanned the area for a bank machine. The lights from the shop signs lit the way in red and the glowing bulbs of street lamps were harsh against my eyes. I crossed a footbridge midway down to check the other side and finally spotted one just inside of a tobacco store. Sidling in through the door, I made my way over to it and slid my bank card in to withdraw a handful of money.
The store smelled strongly of tobacco and liquor, and as I passed the counter lined with cigarettes I paused to consider buying some. The scent that had overpowered the dorm room at Bickerby had grown notably absent from the time spent at the treatment facility, and the box of Parliaments stared up at me in white and blue from the shelf. Running my tongue over my teeth, I shook my head as the man behind the counter asked me if I wanted anything and returned outside to the street. I would see Jack soon enough; there was no need for them anymore.
Thinking as much, I found a spot below a glowing sign and pulled out the brochure to look over it more carefully. Though written in French, it was clearly advertising a lavender farm in southern France. There was a paragraph stating what appeared to be hourly wages, and another that offered food and lodging to those who worked in the fields. He had evidently managed to secure a job there. I pulled the map close to my eyes as I scanned the labels to find the region marked Provence and allowed the hint of a smile to come to my features. He was alright. The idea settled over me more peacefully than I could have imagined, and as I let out my breath, the weight in my chest decreased just slightly.
I flipped to the back of the brochure to find the address and eyed it carefully despite having no idea where it was. I could take the first plane to Nice and then simply show the address to the taxi driver. The thought almost seemed too simple, though, and I licked my lips as I realized how dry they were. The sudden anxiety was undoubtedly a result of the lack of medication, and I wondered how long it would take for it to fully leave my system. I didn't want to explain to Jack why I was shivering and sweating simultaneously, or what had taken me so long to reach him.
I shook my head and pressed the palms of my hands against closed eyelids, trying to decide what to do. Then, pulling out the envelope, I checked the date when it had been postmarked: mid-June. He had sent it nearly three months ago, and had left Bickerby four months before that. A knot pulled in my stomach as the thought that something had happened to him on his way out of the country vanished to be replaced with a separate one – that he had given up on meeting me after so long without word and had had to move on somewhere else to find work. The brochure read something about the dates for the harvesting season, but I couldn't discern enough of the French to know what it said.
“Ben je eenzaam?”
I looked up as a voice sounded above me and instantly tucked my legs back. A young woman was standing over me, her form just a blur against the backdrop of red lights but for the pointy black toes of her shoes. I quickly shook my head.
“Sorry, I don't know,” I said.
She knelt down so that she was eye level with me and smiled.
“American?” she said. Her accent was thick as she spoke, though it hardly sounded Dutch. I frowned as I tried to place where I had heard it before. “Are you lonely?”
Now that she was so close to me, I could easily see the lack of attire skimming her skin and the unfamiliar note in her voice as she asked the question. I tucked my legs back further and shook my head more adamantly.
“No, I'm fine.”
“What do you do out here, all alone?” she asked, edging closer rather than continuing on her w
ay. “You are waiting for someone, maybe?”
“No, I'm ...” I shoved the brochure back into my pocket and looked around the street. “No, I'm not.”
“But you sit here all alone. You are looking for someone, yes?”
“No. Well, yes,” I said. I glanced over her clothing again which, apart for a cardigan made of fake fur, was largely inadequate. “A guy.”
Her mouth opened and closed with evident disappointment and she raised her hands to rest her chin upon them, glancing over my khakis and sweater for a second time.
“Guy?” she said. “You are sure?”
“Yes. A guy.”
She sighed and looked down the street, one of her hands scraping the pavement idly as a frown came to her lips.
“This I cannot help with,” she said. “But maybe you are lonely enough for my company?”
“No, sorry.”
I stood and brushed my pants off, turning away from her to wander back down the street. The dull throbbing in my leg had somehow worked its way up to my shoulders, and I wrapped my arms over one another in an attempt to get it to die down. Ducking back into the tobacco store, I approached the counter and selected a pack of Parliaments to buy after all. If nothing else, I could give them to Jack when I saw him again.
“Hey.”
Someone rapped on my shoulder as I stepped back outside and I started, jumping back until my back was pressed against the wall, but the man who had spoken held up his hands in earnest.
“De hoer doodt.”
“Sorry?”
The man licked his lips and nodded back down the street. Turning around, I saw the same prostitute who had approached me mingling with another group of men who waved her away.
“You want a whore, I can get you one,” he said.
“Oh, no, but thanks,” I said, quickly shaking my head. “I'm really not interested.”
“We stay away from her,” he told me. “She's not a real one.”
“Right.” I nodded and stuck the pack of cigarettes in my pocket. “Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.”
I edged around him and walked along the side of the street that bordered the canal. The water was so black that it looked more solid than the bricks beneath my feet, and the way the lights danced atop of it made it seem more alive than any of the people around me. I paused and leaned over the edge just slightly to look further into the spot where the moonlight glowed like a white hole that beckoned for me to hop down into. Right beneath it, someone's eyes were staring up at me.
I jolted back and crossed to the other side of the street, clutching at my arms to keep them from trembling and shaking the image from my head. There was nothing there – just a trick of the light. The imprint of the song from Rusalka was playing in my head, though, and no matter that I told myself that it was a memory rather than something else, the idea shook me all the same.
I continued down the street in the opposite direction, trying to make my way out of the glow of red lights but only wandering further into them. When I finally turned down an alley where the store-fronts were darkened for the night, I sat down on the pavement to rest my leg and pulled out the cellphone to call a taxi to bring me to the airport. The sooner that I found Jack, the sooner that I could do away with all of the riddles still mingling unpleasantly in my head. As I switched it on, though, I found the screen lit up with a half-dozen missed calls. My father must have contacted Karl to tell him what I had done.
Running my tongue over my teeth, I put the card for the taxi away and called Karl instead. It only rang once before being picked up.
“Hello?”
His voice was both guarded and anxious, and it was impossible to know if he expected the voice on the other line to be mine or my father’s.
“Hi, Karl.”
“Enim? Where are you? What happened? What are you doing?”
“I'm fine.”
“You're –? But where are you? What's going on?”
“Nothing.” I held the phone up against my ear with my shoulder in order to reach into my pocket and pull out the pack of cigarettes. As I tapped the box and opened them, though, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to buy a lighter. “I'm sure Dad told you everything, anyhow.”
“He told me that you left,” Karl said. “He also told me that you never called him and asked if you could come.”
I shrugged despite the fact that he couldn't see me and absently stared down at the cigarettes bundled up in the box. They were perfectly white like rolled pieces of printer paper but for the black writing beneath the filter, and the box was the same characteristic blue that was so distinct in my memory from buying them with Jack. Sometimes he would hide his stash of them in the drawers of my dresser, lining them beneath the sweaters where Sanders would never think to look for them, and jokingly said that he bought the brand on purpose because they matched my clothing so well.
“Right,” I said.
“What's going on, Enim? What are you – why did you go there? Why didn't you ask him?”
“Because I knew he'd say no.”
“So why did you go?”
Unlike my father, Karl hardly believed for a moment that I had ever wanted to see him; I could hear the note of self-satisfaction in his voice as he asked the question.
“Why didn't you tell me?” I asked instead of answering. “You thought it'd be better to just let me be surprised?
“I – I'm sorry, Enim. I thought … You said he was letting you come, so I thought that he would tell you beforehand.”
“But why didn't you tell me? In March, or January, or whenever he decided all of this?”
“I … I didn't know how.”
“Saying, 'Enim, your father replaced you and your mother' would have worked just fine.”
Karl sighed. The sound came over the line in a crinkling of static.
“He didn't … I wasn't … You were sick, and he left, and I thought that it would be better if you just … didn't know.”
“What else did you think would be better if I didn't know?” I asked, my throat tightening at the thought of what my father had told me. My mother was locked in a box beneath the earth because of him, and despite knowing that it was no worse than being hidden in the room at the end of the hall, it was no better, either. “Is there anything else you'd like to get off your chest, Karl?”
“Enim … let's not talk about this right now. You're upset, and you're – where are you?”
“Nowhere.”
“Enim, tell me where you are. Are you lost? Do you have money? Are you –?”
“It's fine, Karl. I've got a plan.”
“You've – you've what?”
“Got a plan.”
“A plan to do what?”
I plucked one of the cigarettes out and stuck it in my mouth even though I had no way to light it. The taste of it was enough to lift some of the deadness from my tongue, and the tightness in my chest loosened slightly at the reminder of the brochure in my pocket.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I'm fine.”
“Enim.” His tone was so firm that it reverberated like an echo across a metal room, and there was no denying the fear underlying his irritation. “Where are you? What are you planning?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Enim! This isn’t a joke – I need you to tell me what you’re doing and where you are so that we can come get you.”
“I don’t want you to come get me,” I said, forgoing my indifference for anger. If he hadn't locked me up in the treatment facility, then I would have been able to find Jack months ago and none of this would have happened. “Hence why I’m not telling you.”
Karl let out a frustrated sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl.
“Enim,” he said, trying to force his voice to be calm despite it protesting harshly. “I don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it, but whatever it is, tell me. You’ve made your point; there’s no reason to do anything rash –”
“It’s not
rash. I have a plan.”
“A plan to do what?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“So this whole thing really was a scheme?” he reproached. “You never had any intention of seeing your father?”
“Not for that reason, no,” I said, though the pleasure of knowing as much was partially depleted by having to acknowledge that he had been right.
“Enim, I – I – I don’t even know where to begin with this. What’s your plan? To have us chasing you all over the city? Is that what this is: just a horrid way to get back at him for getting married?”
“No. It's just an added bonus.”
“Jesus Christ, Enim! When did you get like this?”
“You should be happy, Karl. You don’t like that he got married, either.”
“I – that’s not true. I think it’s – I’m not against – I just think –” He stumbled over his words for another minute or so before he was able to rework his thoughts. “Your father and I have had our differences, and we don’t always agree on each other’s choices, but we do want what’s best for each other. I don’t want him to be miserable, despite what you might think, and I’m certainly not happy that you’re doing this to him.”
“He should be happy then,” I said. “He never wanted me there in the first place.”
“That's not true. You never even asked him. I'm sure that if you had just called, or talked to him about it, that he would have –”
“He told them that I was dead,” I said, the note in my voice betraying what I felt despite how I tried to cover it, and the unlit cigarette dropped from my mouth on top of my legs. The image of my father standing in the doorway next to the woman who had replaced my mother had left an uncomfortable pressure on my ribcage, and the sharpness paired with every breath cut into my lungs. “He said I killed Beringer and then killed myself – he never would have let me step foot in that house, or even picked up the phone when I called.”
Song to the Moon (Damnatio Memoriae Book 2) Page 13
