“Eh-nim, what do you look at?”
She turned around in her seat to look behind her. There were people moseying down the aisle on their way to the bathroom or the food car, and others sitting and chatting with one another or talking on their phones, but the sound of their pleasant voices had turned gilded in the air.
“Eh-nim? You see something?”
I shook myself and turned away, boring my eyes into the blacks of her shoes until I could see the bright blue irises staring back at me.
“It's nothing,” I said.
She peered at my disbelievingly.
“You look like you see ghost,” she said, her eyes flickering over my skin.
I swallowed and clenched my hand around the edge of the seat, the bluish hue of the bones protruding from my knuckles contrasting with the white of my skin. She continued to look at me questioningly, unaware that she had looked straight through the spot where my eyes had been fixed on the image of Cabail Ibbot.
My mouth twitched.
“No, not a ghost,” I said quietly.
Ch. 13
We got off the train at Nice and stood on the platform for a moment as people skirted around us. The station was fairly gray despite the warm weather, and only a red snack machine lent any color to the cement and gravel all around. As Ilona wandered over to read a sign, I looked about for anything familiar that might jog my memories of Jack telling me about the city. There was a movie poster to my side advertising the sequel to an American film that I had heard of and a sign indicating a train that went to a town with a vaguely familiar name, but otherwise nothing looked the way that I had expected it to.
I pulled in a breath from the cigarette Ilona had lit for me and stared off to my right. My head was muddled and the thoughts had thickened and were stuck together by some unyielding glue, and now that I was so close, I couldn't decide what to do. The hallucination of Cabail had shaken me so badly that no amount of nicotine could stop the violent chills that had come over my form, and my head was reeling far faster than it ever had before. I needed to find Jack so that the hallucinations would stop, but I couldn't find him now that they had begun; and it didn't matter anymore if they were a result of withdrawal or if I really was sick, because either way they were manifestations of guilt over the things that I had done that would never fully go away, only rest beneath the skull if I took enough pills to keep them there.
“You give money here, then we find boyfriend.”
Ilona had shoved her cardigan into her small bag to ward off the summer heat and nodded to a cash machine. It was far warmer than it had been in Paris or Amsterdam, but I still had not taken my sweater off to drape over my arm. As I looked at her, waiting until my mind cleared enough so that the outline of her form was no longer fuzzy, a sudden hesitation came over me that I couldn't quite shake. It occurred to me that I had pictured how Jack would be when I saw him – how he would look and sound and react and rejoice down to the very last detail in his dark-eyed expression and impish smile – but I hadn't imagined how I would be. I smoothed down the front of my wrinkled sweater again despite knowing that it wouldn't get any flatter, and I realized that I had thought, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I would be someone different by now.
“Right, okay.”
I dropped the cigarette to the pavement and lifted my good leg to crush the ember beneath the tip of my boat shoe. She followed me to the bank machine and watched as I covered the screen to punch in my code, her eyes lingering on the extra money that I shoved well down into my pocket to save for a taxi. I held out the rest for her to take.
“You have lots of money, yes?” she asked as we made our way out of the station.
“I guess.”
“You get money from job?”
“No, it’s an inheritance.”
“Inheritance?”
“From my mother.”
“When my mother dies, I pay money. Not other way round,” she said, but then added, “This is why you have bad dreams, yes? Burying her?”
I was saved from answering as we exited onto the main street and were greeted by an array of sounds all around us. As Ilona stood on her tiptoes to scan the area, I took in the place that Jack had wanted to visit for so long. The buildings lining the streets were painted in various shades of yellow and pink, with wrought-iron balconies on the windows where bright flowers hung overhead. All around there were people bustling to and from the station, the pleasant sound of their voices rising into the air along with the sound of their suitcases and shoes clacking against the cobblestone street, and the moon was just visible in the sky above. I rubbed my eyes tiredly as I stared up at it, still in disbelief that this was real and he was here, just miles from me now, and I would see him again soon.
“Okay, we get taxi to farm, yes?” Ilona asked, appearing at my side again.
“Yeah,” I said absently, still staring at where the moon sat in the sky. It was bright white in the daylight and nearly full, like a sand-dollar lying upon the beach. And maybe I thought of Rusalka a bit more often than I should have, but it wasn't in the obsessive way that Karl suggested. I wasn't doing what my mother had done with Turandot, and I knew better than to believe that the image of Cabail was anything more than a trick of the mind, and getting to France and being so close to meeting up with Jack again proved that I was still alright.
“You like moon – like water-sprite, yes?”
“What? No, I just ...” I shook my head, unwilling to explain. “I just want to find Jack.”
I pulled out the brochure as a taxi pulled up to us handed it to Ilona. She crawled into the taxi first and leaned over the seat to show the driver where we were going, but he wrinkled his nose without looking at the address and spat something that I didn’t understand.
“American has money,” she said, pointing to me. “He will pay you, yes?”
He looked me over and seemed to decide that it was true, and I filed into the car after her. As he pulled away from the curb, I rubbed my hands together anxiously and wondered if Jack would be out in the fields or on a break when we got there. My thoughts returned to what to say to him when I saw him, or how to explain what had taken me so long. It seemed as though he had been away for far longer than five months, and far farther than France; mostly, I wished that I had figured out what to tell him about Beringer.
Once the driver had pulled off of the main road and down a few blocks, the road became windy and bordered the edge of a mountain that I hadn’t realized we were on. The lane skirted far too close to the cliffs for my liking, and as the water shone in a deep blue below and all around us I shut my eyes tightly and tried to keep from being sick. Any hope that I had had of the water looking different there had been erased.
“It’s pretty here,” Ilona said from my right. “Eh-nim?”
She prodded my arm to get me to open my eyes; I kept them squinted as I looked over at her, barely recognizing my name through her thick accent.
“You don’t drown here,” she said.
“Right,” I said, but shut my eyes again even so. The car was swaying back and forth through the streets, and my stomach, though empty, was beginning to turn unpleasantly. I wished the driver would turn the air-conditioning on, but he had cracked the window instead to let in a stream of warm air.
“We will be there soon,” she said.
Regardless of whether or not that was true, the ride seemed to go on for hours. I sat firmly in place, one hand clutching the car door and the other over my face, and tried to focus on anything other than being jolted around. When it finally began to slow, it was only to cross over a bumpy dirt road that jostled the seats even more, and a sharp smell came through the air that was gagging.
“We must be close,” Ilona said. “You smell lavender?”
“Is that what that is?” I asked, cracking my eyes open just a bit. There were grassy fields on either side of the taxi, but when the road curved I could see a spot of violet in the distance. “It smells terrible.”
“It is flower – you don’t like smell of flower?”
I covered my mouth in lieu of an answer and waited for the taxi to pull to a stop. The farm was larger than I had expected it to be: a rose-colored stone building with a terracotta roof and deep-purple rows of lavender lining it on every side. I told the driver that we would be back in a few minutes and that he should wait, not bothering to thank him before climbing out. The place was as picturesque as it had been on the brochure. The sky was bluer than any I had seen before, the grass a variance of greens cascading across the earth, and the distant mountains strangely soft where they sat on the horizon. I could picture Jack there – and I could picture him happy. The thought eased some of the worry I had held for him for so many months and my stomach began to settle.
There was a young man carrying something between the building and a shed who paused to look at us as the taxi sat waiting in the drive.
“Is that boyfriend?” Ilona asked.
The man turned and continued on his way, dumping the crate down and walking back for another. He dabbed at his brow as he went, his reddish hair visibly saturated with sweat even from the distance, before wiping his hands off on his pants.
“No.”
“I stay outside, yes? I let you get him.”
She indicated for me to go ahead, but I hesitated without doing so. It occurred to me that I would soon be handing her the money to buy her train ticket back to Holland, and despite not knowing why, I found that I would be sorry to see her go.
“No, you can come in,” I said. When she gave me a questioning look, I added, “You know, so you don't have to stand out here in the sun.”
We entered into the front of the building where a shop was open to the public. Various products were available for sale that lined wooden shelves, giving the room an overwhelmingly monochromatic feel. As Ilona pawed through an assortment of soaps, I stood over by a shelf of books, looking forward to soon breathing in the scent of cigarette smoke that would mask the overpowering smell.
“This is nice place, I am thinking,” Ilona said, finally losing interest in the perfumed items and wandering back over to me. “You will stay in France, or go home?”
I scratched at my lips again, the coarse, dead skin making it difficult to speak, and it occurred to me that it would be largely impossible to do either. We couldn't stay in Europe without visas, but we couldn't return home now that I had gotten a new passport that rendered my old one useless.
“I – neither. I don't know.”
She nodded and twirled the rack lined with postcards around, eyeing the various views of the farm and its products with interest. I looked away, unable to watch the dizzying motion for too long, and turned to look out the window. There were a few people visible in the fields, their clothing oddly contrasted with the variance of purple waving along their legs, and I craned my neck to try to distinguish Jack amongst them.
“Bonjour. Puis-je vous aider??”
A woman who had overheard our voices came bustling into the room, an apron over her cotton pants and a wide-brimmed hat hanging loosely by a string to fall upon her back. She smiled at me upon entering, though the expression faltered slightly as she caught sight of Ilona's clothing. I cautiously stepped forward.
“Hi, I'm – I'm here to see someone who works for you,” I said, pulling out the brochure to show to her as I did so. “His name is Jack – or John – Hadler.”
The woman leaned over to look at the brochure, her apron clutched in her hands.
“He is my employé?” she asked. She frowned as she flipped the brochure over. “Euh – no, sorry, I do not have anyone by that name.”
“Oh – right,” I said, quickly remembering that Jack had had to use my passport. “Then his name is 'Enim Lund.'”
The woman pulled her lips down further, her face tightening as she tried to place it, but shook her head again. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ilona frowning, as well.
“No, euh … I am sorry – you must be mistaken. I have no one here by that name.”
“What?” I quickly shook my head at the words, certain that she hadn't heard me correctly, and tried again. “No, he's here. He's a worker for you in the fields – an American.”
She gave me an apologetic look.
“I am sorry,” she said again. “I have no Américains.”
My arms dropped loosely at my sides.
“No, you must,” I said. “He – he said he worked for you. He's about my age and height, with dark hair and eyes, and – and his nose is a bit crooked, and there's a scar through one eyebrow –”
She continued to shake her head and handed the brochure back to me.
“I am sorry – you are mistaken. I have no one here by that name. You are in the wrong place.”
She looked at Ilona instead of me as she said it, her eyes going to the long boots that hid the part of her legs that clothing did not, and I ran a hand through my hair in dread.
“But he's – he's here. He's got to be here,” I said quickly as anticipation edged into my skin. “He – he works here for the harvest – he said so –”
“The harvest?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, flipping to the second page of the brochure where the wages and information on lodging was written. “Out in the fields.”
A look of recognition finally crossed her face and she nodded, but no sooner had I let out a breath of relief did she say, “The harvest has ended.”
“What? No – when?”
“It, ah, goes to mid-August,” she said. “Sometimes to September. But … it is over for the year.”
My chest had tightened so much that the ribs seemed to be collapsing inwards to stab at the heart and lungs, and I shook my head in disbelief of what she had said.
The woman looked at me apologetically.
“I am sorry … euh … to have not been more help.”
She gave one last shake of her head before retreating through the back door to the hallway. When she had gone, I stared at the empty doorway in disbelief.
Ilona ran her hands over her crossed arms, but I turned away from her before she could see my expression. The desperation in my tone was rendering her speechless, and my shaking hands were visible despite how I wrapped my arms over one another in an attempt to shield them from view. As she finally opened her mouth to say something, her cracked lips readying to give the sympathetic response that she could neither feel nor share, I turned away from her and stalked outside, not ready to hear what I knew she was going to say.
He wasn't there. He was gone.
I let the door shut loudly behind me and crossed the path back towards the taxi even though there was nowhere to go. The fields of purple all around now left a sudden deadened feeling that hollowed me out inside. He wasn't there; I had waited too long. The thought sank into my stomach like a weight that burned at my flesh and rotted my insides.
Climbing back inside the car, I pressed my hand against my head and then leaned up against the door, willing myself to fade into the darkness behind the lids and wake up somewhere else altogether. The entire idea to come to France had been foolish for more reasons than I cared to admit. Worse than the thought that Karl had been correct and that I was simply deluding myself into finding hidden meanings in things, though, was the thought that I had simply been too late. Jack had been gone from New England for too long, and I had been gone from the world for too long, and our lack of existences had stretched on between us before we had had the chance to find one another.
It was far too warm and my stomach was turning from the car ride over. With my watch gone, I had no idea what time it was, though I was certain that by now I had missed far too many doses of my medication. I knew that I shouldn't have poured it down the drain at my father's house, knowing that the only way off of it was to slowly decrease the amounts, but his insistence that I was very bit as abnormal as he had always feared had gotten the better of me, and the dispute in my mind as it waited for another dose while the me
dication tore itself from my bloodstream was making my hands shake uncontrollably and my stomach more nauseous than I could ever remember it being. And it despite whatever else it stopped, it stopped me from solving the riddles that were piling up in my mind, pressing them down too deeply to get at and untangle, and I needed to get at them before it was too late. I should have never let them give me the pills in the first place – I should have continued to hide them beneath my tongue and spit them out in the bathroom, and pulled back when they gave me the long-lasting injections after finding out that I was doing so, and then I wouldn't have waited so long to get to the farm. Then I wouldn't have missed him by just weeks – just moments, maybe – and everything would have been alright.
“Eh-nim? Where do we go?”
Ilona had entered the car after me and was waiting to tell the driver where to take us. I could feel him staring at me in the rear-view mirror with the same questioning gaze that they all gave to me, sensing something unpleasant beneath my skin.
“I don't care.”
All desire to have someone around had vanished when I heard her voice again. It had never mattered to her whether we found Jack anyhow: the trip down from Holland was a paid holiday for her, a break from the constant disapproval and rejection she was met with on the streets that weren't dark enough to hide her appearance. It wouldn’t change anything for her that Jack was all but gone except for the few extra hundred euros that she missed out on by not finding him, and I wanted her gone again as quickly as I had wanted her to accompany me there.
“Oh-kay,” she said, and leaned forward to say something to the driver.
I put my head back into my hands and grasped at my hair, wishing that I could pull it hard enough to break my skull open and drain away every thought and memory inside. He was supposed to have been there: he was supposed to have been waiting in the fields out back, looking for me as I had been looking for him and ready to jump back into the riddles that we had left off on, solving them once and for all and negating them before they took over my mind again.
Song to the Moon (Damnatio Memoriae Book 2) Page 19
