Song to the Moon (Damnatio Memoriae Book 2)

by Laura Giebfried

  Karl was silent for a long moment, seeming to have no words to say, but then he continued in a low, plodding tone.

  “Enim, I know how you feel, but please don't do this,” he said quietly. “Please. Please, just come home.”

  I clenched my hands.

  “No.”

  “What are you planning to do? You can't just run around Amsterdam – it's not safe!”

  “I don't plan to.”

  “Then what are you planning? What are you doing?”

  “It doesn't concern you.”

  “It – of course it concerns me!”

  “Then it shouldn't concern you.”

  “Enim,” Karl said slowly, “are you taking your medicine?”

  I scoffed and turned my head to look down the darkened street. Of course he would think that that was the reason behind what I was doing: that I had begun skipping the doses again and formed the plan to go to Amsterdam out of some wild delusion. It wouldn't matter to him that I had only just stopped taking it, and that my mind had been perfectly clear up until the first night at my father's house. He would assume that I was confused even if I was to tell him about the brochure in my pocket, or the ongoing plans that Jack and I had made to go to France. He would see it all as some twisted disorientation of the truth, when in fact it was really just that his truth had never matched up with mine.

  “I'm taking the pills, Karl.”

  “Your father said there was a bottle left behind.”

  “That was the pain medication – and it was a mistake.”

  “Enim, you don't have enough pills to last more than the week, and you can't – the withdrawal from them will be unbearable.” His voice hastened as he sought to impress as much on me, perhaps thinking that he could frighten me into coming back if he couldn't convince me otherwise. “If you stop – especially suddenly – the hallucinations and delusions will come back with full-force. You'll be ill – some people have strokes. You could – you could –”

  “I'll be fine, Karl.”

  “But you won't be! You think you will because you don't understand, but it'll be far worse than anything that you underwent at the facility! You can't stop medications like this abruptly! It takes months – years, even – to taper off of them, and some people never do!”

  “I'll be fine, Karl.”

  “But you won't be,” he said. “You don't do well on your own, Enim – you never have. You don't think clearly. You don't … you don't make good decisions. You need someone to watch over you.”

  He waited for my response, but only silence sounded in static between us.

  “Enim … please. You think that you're well, but you're not. You need help. Please – come home.”

  My jaw locked.

  “That's not home, Karl.”

  I clicked the phone off and returned it to my pocket, reveling in the sound of aching silence that it left behind. My heart was hammering against my chest, but I couldn’t tell if it was out of gratification or apprehension. Pushing myself back up, I quickly dialed the number for the taxi and wandered back to the main street to tell him where to pick me up.

  I found a bench not too far from the spot and limped over to it, easing myself down upon the damp wood. The unlit cigarette was still hanging loosely in my hand, but I was too exhausted to walk back to the store and buy a lighter. Of course Karl wanted me to come home, I thought bitterly. Without me there to use as an excuse, he had no reason for the secluded, wasted way that he lived. But if he wanted it so badly, then he should have never let my mother go off the life-support.

  I stuck the cigarette in my mouth again and looked off across the street, hoping to see the taxi making its way down it despite knowing that it would be at least half an hour before it came. The water in the canal was shifting slightly as though bodies swam beneath it, and I had the sudden urge to submerge into it to see if I was right. Quickly shaking my head, I pressed my fingers into my eye-sockets to block the image out. It was unclear if the hauntingness of the water was really a result of the lack of medication or just the fact that I hadn't seen it in so long, but either way the feeling was an unpleasant one. I couldn't slip back into the thoughts that had plagued me for the entirety of the year before so soon.

  And yet, as I sat alone on the bench, the idea of Cabail Ibbot's hallucination returning was an almost welcome one. He hadn't been like the music or the strangled thoughts that had filled my head, but rather an innocuous, benign extension of my more rational thoughts. He had been company – and not always good company, but company nonetheless – and had entered the world when it was too quiet and too difficult to be alone with myself. I ran over what Karl had said about me not being able to continue on my own, and a sudden panic came over me as I wondered if he was right.

  I pushed back my sleeve and stared at where my watch had once circled my wrist, but now only the horrifically-crafted bracelet from Ava was there. The word stared up at me with jeering letters – mine – and my mouth twitched as I tried to suppress a sneer. There was nothing loving in the name that my mother had given me, only selfish and wanting. She had chosen it out of remorse for everything that she could never contain or hold onto, and it was a constant reminder that she saw me the same way that she saw the world – perfectly clear and intact, but for the fact that everything was backwards. The only difference was that I was something that she could clutch in place when the rest of it was sure to fade away.

  A shout sounded across the street and tore my attention from the dark blue, and I lifted my eyes over it to stare at the scene across the way. A man was chasing away the woman who had approached me earlier. She stalked off across the street, her heeled boots clattering against the bricks, and threw him a look over her shoulder. I stared absently at the spot where she had been attempting to proposition men. There were other prostitutes scattering the streets, all of whom were seemingly having much better luck than her. I ran my eyes over her again, thinking that I might see some indication of what was wrong with her, but she looked perfectly normal. Despite myself, I found that I was oddly fascinated with the idea of what unseen horror she was harboring beneath her unsightly cardigan.

  I watched her cross the foot bridge and make her way back to the other side, but she abandoned her previous attempts and lit a cigarette instead. As smoke billowed up from where she leaned up against a building, I glanced down at the unlit cigarette in my hand and considered asking her to light it for me. She had asked me if I was lonely enough for her company, but, thinking of the person that I was harboring beneath my ironed khakis and sweater, I wondered if she would be desperate enough for mine. With another glance down the opposite street for the taxi, I stood and walked down to where she was.

  I guessed that she was in her late twenties, though it was hard to tell for certain because of the sheer amount of makeup that she wore. It was caked onto her face in layers as though she often applied more without first taking the old off, and cracked in lines over her skin as though she was some antiquated doll whose porcelain had broken. Mascara built up in circles beneath her eyes and her lips were so dry that they were stained darker to mimic the appearance of lipstick. She looked too old and too young all at once, and both decisively beautiful and horrendously ugly all the same, and something about it made me feel increasingly more normal in her company than I would ever feel in anyone else's.

  “Could I have a light?”

  She looked up at the sound of my voice and narrowed her eyes guardedly upon recognizing me. When I showed her the cigarette, though, she eased off the wall and lit it for me.

  “So you are needing me after all?” she asked, a line of smoke filling the air as her hand waved down to rest by her side.

  “I guess. Or just your lighter.”

  She ran her eyes over me again; even beneath the lights, they were colorless.

  “You are lonely, yes?”

  I took a long drag from the cigarette, ignoring the way that the smoke cut at my throat as I breathed it in. I had never qui
te understood why Jack had taken up the habit other than to annoy his father, but now that the smoke filled my lungs with warmth and wrapped itself around my ribcage as though enveloping me in an embrace, it was all too easy to see how he plowed through packs of them a week. Something beneath the acrid taste and choking smell untied the thoughts that had jumbled in my mind, and for the first time in months I felt as though I could think clearly again. As I took a few more drags, the shaking in my hands lessened and my skin smoothed again despite the lack of medication.

  “A bit,” I said.

  “You are liking company?”

  I let the cigarette fall to the ground and crushed it out with the tip of my boat shoe, though she continued to smoke hers even though it was nothing more than a stub between her fingers.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  “I can do 'sort of.'”

  “Right, that's not really what I meant.”

  “Because you are looking for guy, yes?”

  “No. Well, yes.” I pulled out the brochure that Jack had sent and flipped it over for her to see. She leaned in with a frown as her eyes ran over it, though she appeared to know more of what it said than I did. “A specific guy. He's here, in France.”

  She pulled back.

  “I do not understand.”

  “I'm going there to find him,” I said. “And I'd – I mean, I could use some company.”

  Her eyes narrowed further.

  “This is trick.”

  “No, it's not a trick. I'd just –” I paused, unable to say the words that I knew to be true. It had occurred to me that something in Karl's suggestion had been right, and that I had never done well on my own. The times when I had been forced to make decisions instead of simply following someone else's lead had always resulted in the worst of my choices that haunted me for months afterwards, and still haunted me at night when I tried to sleep. I couldn't ask Karl for help finding Jack, nor my father or any other stranger on the street, but I rather thought, given what she was, that I could ask her. “I'd just rather not be alone.”

  She put the cigarette back to her mouth and breathed in, letting smoke fill the air between us with gray a moment later.

  “You pay me for company to France?” she asked at last.

  “Yes. You know – just conversation and whatnot.”

  She smiled in a poor attempt to hide her mockery, and her face cracked further into lines of broken foundation.

  “For conversation?” she said, a note of bargaining rising in her voice. “What would I do in France?”

  “I suppose the same thing you do here.” When she didn't look convinced, I added, “I'd pay your way to get back here, too, then.”

  “On top of daily-rate?”

  “Right.”

  She finally dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath her heel, leaving a black mark upon the reddish bricks.

  “Twelve-hundred euros per day.”

  “What? No,” I said, crossing my arms. It wouldn't cost that much to travel to Nice from Amsterdam alone. “Try two-hundred.”

  “I am paid fifty per hour. You do math.”

  “You're not getting paid anything,” I said, indicating to the street behind her. “No one will hire you.”

  She ran her tongue over her teeth unhappily.

  “This is misunderstanding,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Whatever it is you have heard.”

  She eyed me in her careful way, cautious not to say more than was needed, and I shrugged in response.

  “I heard you weren't a real prostitute,” I said. “Whatever that means.”

  She scratched her nail across her face, digging it into the corner of her mouth where the cigarette had just been, and made a face as she tried to correct my statement.

  “I am … not good prostitute, maybe, yes?” she said. “Maybe they do not enjoy my company.”

  “Right, maybe,” I said.

  “But you are not looking for this, yes? I can be good company. Good conversationalist.”

  Her accent was so thick as she spoke the last word that it muddled it into something else altogether and seemingly countered her claim, but something in it made me smile in spite of myself at the idea of holding a conversation with her.

  “Fine. Four-hundred,” I said.

  “Six.”

  I sighed. The amount wasn't so much a concern to me given that I had enough money in my bank account to easily pay her whatever she wanted for weeks on end, but the idea of spending my mother's inheritance on a prostitute – no matter what it was really for – didn't sit well with me at all.

  “How about five?” I said. It was the maximum amount that I could withdraw per day anyhow; the rest of the expenses could go on the card and be billed to either Karl or my father. “And I'll pay for your tickets and food and whatever.”

  “And my conversation.”

  “Right, and your conversation.”

  She smiled again as though the idea was far more amusing than any she had ever heard and, with another glance down the street, she couldn't hide her enthusiasm at her change in luck.

  “Oh-kay. Five-hundred per day,” she said. “Anything extra, you pay more.”

  “Right. That won't happen.”

  She smiled.

  “It will,” she said knowingly, her thick accent still playing on the edge of my memory. “I fuck everyone by the end.”

  Ch. 10

  “What's your name?”

  The question only occurred to me once we were sitting in the back of the taxi. The driver had been none-too-pleased to see the young woman climbing into the car after me, but had consented to drive us to the airport all the same. As he continued to throw cautious glances into the rear-view mirror, I turned back to the girl. In the small space she looked, if possible, even more inappropriately dressed than she had out in the street.

  She chewed the insides of her cheeks, seeming to have to think before answering.

  “Ilona.”

  “Ee-loh-na?” The name sounded odd without her accent, like a musical note that struck flat instead of falling into line with the others, and given the look of dissatisfaction on her face, she felt similarly.

  “This is close enough.”

  I turned to the window and put my head against the glass, watching the city pass by in a stream of colored lights against the black backdrop. I wondered if it was possible for the taxi to carry me far enough away so that all trace of the moments with my father and his family would vanish, and all remnants of the unspoken things about my mother would fade from view late at night, but given that I was thousands of miles away from Karl and every conversation with him still burned against my mind, it seemed largely impossible.

  I had just closed my eyes when she spoke again.

  “And what is your name?”

  “What?” I turned back to her groggily, almost unsure of the answer. “Enim.”

  “Eh-nim?” She made a face. “Is this real name?”

  “Yes.”

  “It does not sound like real name.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “It is not good. You have nickname, yes?”

  I shook my head, unwilling to give her the nickname that only Jack used, and she pursed her lips.

  “Oh-kay. I call you Eh-nim.”

  We continued to the airport in silence. When we arrived, I quickly handed the money to the driver as Ilona got out of the car and wandered away through the crowd. When I found her, she was standing beneath the fluorescent lights of the entrance smoking another cigarette. The few people who were out at such an early hour were eyeing her warily.

  “Maybe you should put something else on,” I said, joining her outside the door.

  “Why?”

  I looked over the high-heeled boots and fluffy cardigan again, unsure of where to begin. If it wasn't so late in summer I would have suggested a coat, but given how little she was covered, anything more would have sufficed just fine.

  “Just a suggest
ion,” I said.

  “I am comfortable as I am.”

  “Well, that's good. Only, I don't think the other passengers on the plane will feel the same.”

  She quickly let out the breath she had just inhaled from the cigarette to blow smoke in my face.

  “We do not take plane – train is better.”

  “A plane is faster.”

  “No, this does not work. I like train.”

  “Why?” I said. When she gave no answer, I furrowed my brow. “Do you not have a passport?”

  “I have passport.”

  “Right. Is it … a legal passport?”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “What is this meaning?”

  “Nothing. Just … I thought maybe you were in the country illegally, considering ...”

  “Considering?”

  “Your accent,” I said, ignoring the guarded look she was giving me. “You're obviously not Dutch.”

  “You are expert on Dutch accent?”

  “No.”

  “So maybe I am, yes?”

  I shook my head, not willing to argue about it with her.

  “Fine, we can take a train,” I said. “You're sure you don't need to show a passport for that?”

  “It is not necessary.”

  “Is it not necessary meaning it's legal?” I asked, but she only shrugged.

  The train station was connected to the airport, and we weaved our way through it in order to make our way over to one of the machines selling tickets. As I struggled to punch in the correct information, she shooed me away and did it for me.

  “This says to Paris,” I said, squinting down at the paper that had printed. “We're supposed to go to Nice.”

  “You go to Paris first, then take smaller train to Nice, yes? International versus national.”

  “Right, if you say so.”

  We took seats on either end of a bench to wait for the train to come in. Feeling considerably more at ease, I stretched out my leg in front of me and took in the sight of the station. It was lit with fluorescent lights high above on the doming ceiling that sent shadows scattering all about the cement floor, and on either side the tracks led the way to darkness. I pressed my hand against the cellphone in my pocket and wondered how many more times Karl had tried to call me. I imagined him with his head in his hands as he listened to the ring that would never be answered, and the way his voice would peter out as he spoke to my father, taking the blame for my misgivings rather than trying to argue.