The Impossibly (18 page)

I wanted you to have this photograph of yourself. There was an error of sorts initially—the wrong photo was dropped in your hallway, or rather the right photograph was dropped in your hallway, but it wasn’t for you. You’ve concluded your investigation within the required time frame—congratulations. I’m sorry that in the end we had to resort to the mirror, but you will understand, no doubt, given the time constraint, that it was necessary. The blindfold is a gift, a touch of flash, of color—I remember how much pride you took in your appearance in the old days. But also, of course, by way of further explanation of the blindfold, you will remember those encounters in your, I mean one’s, childhood with both mirrors and blindfolds, and the ensuing, once their purpose was grasped, sense of departure and wonder. We are all of us, as children, investigators, sailing around in our imaginations like cups and saucers gone far out to sea. Never mind that cups and saucers out to sea would likely sink. The image is still rather pretty. At any rate, I expect my own letter soon and have decided I will request a similar investigation, and have no doubt many others will also follow this trail you have blazed, and that it might even become institutionalized. You were always highly capable, and what our mutual friend told you about those long ago events wasn’t true—you loved and were loved in return, perhaps even more fiercely. Adieu.

Or at any rate, something like the preceding minus a few emendations appeared on the back of the photograph. But probably you won’t find surprising my interest in maintaining that all of it, emendations included, was true. Could it, after all, have been possible, much less reasonable, that in the midst of our short time together, all those years ago, my love had said, in the presence of several others, myself included, that piece of shit means nothing to me? I don’t think so.

Such are my thoughts on the case and, more generally, on the time I’ve spent since coming here. Now that the case has been, so to speak, closed, without, as it turns out, much real help from dreams or speculation or hunches, I find that I am by no means encouraged by its result. Being aware of the identity of my putative killer in no way renders more tolerable to me the imminent prospect of being killed. Though I’d like to make clear that I never seriously thought it would. I mainly wanted, as we used to say, to buy myself a little time, or at least to keep myself busy. I also wanted, once he / she was found, if not to actually injure my killer—although that would have been nice—to scare him / her a little, and now find myself, however perversely, pleased to register that this desire will be gratified. Is being gratified. It certainly is an exceedingly sharp knife. And it glistens on the table in front of me. As does the blindfold with the multicolored sequins I will soon tie on.

S
O THAT, THESE SEVERAL MONTHS OR years or circumstances ago, after a certain interval, I found myself moved to rise, to go into the front room and join my friend, to sit, as it were, in company with him. This laudable ambition notwithstanding, I got no further than the handle of the door—my friend was no longer alone. He was talking to an individual with an orange hat and a cracked tooth.

Yes, he’s in there, and he’s feeling very lonely, my friend said.

So maybe I’ll go in there and give him some company, the individual with the orange hat and the cracked tooth said. And when he stood—the door was slightly ajar—I could see he was holding a gun.

It occurred to me, of course, that I was simply, as so often, drifting again. After all, I had witnessed this scene, or one much like it, several days or weeks previously. Something, though, told me it might be important to attempt to play it safe. So I did what it had lately struck me I could do—I became barely visible.

Or thought I did.

The individual, wearing his orange hat, entered quickly, gun drawn, a smile on his face, finger on the trigger, a burst capillary in his left eye. On registering that I was not at my desk, he performed a series of deftly executed advances and pivots, which, each motion, he repeated several times. When he was satisfied that I wasn’t standing out of the range of his peripheral vision, he took two quick steps over to my desk, simultaneously looking under it and pushing the curtains aside.

Where are you? he said.

He said it in a very casual, almost friendly way, which nearly caused me to become, if I wasn’t already, completely visible again, or at least to attempt to answer. For a moment though, I was drawn all but irresistibly away from this line of hypothetical inertia into a moment’s reverie in which I was hiding in a footlocker in a dark room and someone holding a large knife and a flashlight was looking for me.

Where are you? she said, in a very casual, almost friendly way, so that, as she stood outside the locker, I nearly answered, or began to breathe again.

Suddenly, he was standing right beside me. If I could have felt anything I would have felt his breath on the lobe of my left ear.

This is where you are, he said. He spoke now in a hoarse, half-whisper, so that it was somewhat difficult to hear him.

Yes, this is where you are, he said, tilting his head back and forth. I wonder what you’ve learned so far. I wonder if you have learned anything at all.

Very little, I thought, though I have learned some things. I have learned, for example, that murder was done, most certainly. Great quantities of blood and tissue and several small pieces of bone were found.

By whom? (I thought.)

The authorities.

What authorities?

Those charged with attending to this variety of incident.

And how did you come by this information?

I was part of the clean-up crew.

To clean up the blood and …

Yes. This was following the assessment.

After the scene had been analyzed?

There was no analysis. There was just the assessment, then the cleanup. There were some 1.8 pints of blood, 3 ounces of tissue, and 3 slivers of cranium.

I don’t believe you.

Nevertheless.

Who estimated the amounts of blood and tissue? Who determined that it was cranium?

I did.

You possess the expertise?

I possess the expertise.

This was done under whose orders?

The authorities’.

Whose authorities?

The firm’s.

What firm’s?

I can’t tell you.

What became of the body?

It had been removed.

By whom?

(No answer.)

Isn’t it possible that the body, not dead, removed itself?

No.

Why not?

There were certain indications.

Such as?

The blood had spread around the body and congealed, leaving behind an almost perfect outline.

Almost perfect?

There were bootmarks, a single set, pointing inward. They interrupted several of the edges.

Was this documented?

There was a photograph of the crime scene—a damp alley, much rusted metal and garbage and crumbling brick, to one side of which stood a green door; an alley like the one I had recently visited, having left the dark woods and having, part of me that is, returned. A small man was in the photograph. He was standing off to the side, looking down at the almost perfect outline of a body.

I am small. (I thought.)

Who was the victim?

We have not yet made a positive identification.

I repeat, who was the victim?

We aren’t sure yet.

Who is we?

We of the firm.

What firm?

I can’t tell you.

I know what firm.

Not from me.

No, not from you.

This I had probably learned earlier during those days I spent alone as a teenager in the large farmhouse or out in the surrounding fields. I would lie in bed in the dark and look at the rectangle of light the service lamp projected through the window onto the ceiling above my bed. It seemed to me, as I lay there each night and early morning looking at it, that the world had at last been reduced, that its substance, if substance it could be called, had been sucked away, that all that was left was this poorly formed rectangle, which, in its turn, would surely begin to fizz and fade. In the fields, in the early morning, I would walk and hum and throw stones and think, there where they have fallen, there, quite silent, is where I will lie.

I stared at her astonishingly handsome face. I mean the body’s.

What body?

The body that had been there. The one I had put there. When I had been there earlier, having left the dark woods, having returned to my apartment, then crept down the back stairwell and out into the alley, earlier.

How long have you been dead? I said after a time to the astonishingly handsome face.

I’m not sure I am yet.

You are.

And where is my body?

It has been removed.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had been speaking aloud, that almost all of the preceding had, in fact, been said loudly enough for the individual with the orange hat and the cracked tooth to hear.

Did you hear me? I said.

Yes, he said.

So you can see I know very little.

Not as little as you should know—one should know very little about these matters, as little as possible.

About what matters?

He laughed. A judgment has been made.

What judgment?

You’ve been disaffirmed.

I’ve already been disaffirmed.

He lifted his gun and aimed it at me.

Yes, knowing very little is best in these matters, he said.

The gun, unless my eyes were deceiving me, probably they were deceiving me, was largely transparent and glowing slightly, and though I wasn’t entirely sure what a gun, or any weapon for that matter, could do to me, given my current condition, I did not feel well enough informed to make the correct decision. And in fact it was just as well that, right before he smiled and pulled the trigger, I allowed myself to fall backward through the wall, because the bullet, itself partially transparent, that issued from the gun and struck me in the neck instead of the heart, did considerable damage and hurt tremendously, as bullets, even beautiful ones, are wont to do.

Shot through the neck and falling backward then, I watched him smiling, his cracked tooth caught in some stray line of light and my friend’s head peeping in through the door, until the wall I had fallen through obscured them.

For a time then I fell—through the floor of the next room then through other floors then through the earth which glowed and seemed warm and then through a shaft and the edge of a platform and onto the rails of a subway line along which I skidded for a time then lay still. I don’t know how long I lay there, but many trains passed through me, causing me only a slight pain, nothing compared to the pain in my neck. It was likely this pain that held me immobile and caused me to focus my thoughts so effectively. I had often done some of my most interesting thinking when in pain and this has remained the case, even all these years later. It was just a moment ago, in fact, when they reset my leg, that several details (of the events I am now relating) both resurfaced and were seen in a fresh alignment that might have helped shed light on what had followed, if only, once the pain lessened, the alignment had not begun to seem less assured. I am still, however, in a position to relate several of these details, and will now do so.

I have killed someone.

Who?

There, on the ground.

Who is it?

My boss.

Which boss?

(No answer.)

Why?

Because of a stapler, because of a shovel and a dark woods, because she was about to have me killed, because …

I was in love once. Or perhaps twice—in a park, and then again on a couch.

The wind and scattered clouds and pigeons, soothing us.

But to return …

Yes?

To what you did.

They were waiting for me. Three of them in my apartment. My boss set me up. I escaped. Went down the back stairs into the alley. My boss was waiting there for them to finish.

So you killed her?

Yes.

With the shovel?

It was still in my hand. I’d been using it in the woods.

Using it for what?

To dig.

To dig what?

(No answer.)

And then they shot you?

A flesh wound, in the neck. Then when they found me again they broke my legs.

Such were the thoughts I had, more or less, as I lay there on the tracks and afterward, and that I have just had again, though of course they must be somewhat different. In fact, given my condition at the time and my condition now, not to mention the considerable interval, it would be irresponsible not to admit the possibility that these memories were inaccurate, i.e., that they did not substantially adhere to the real, or at least to some satisfactory approximation thereof. I learned quite early on (in the bedroom, in the fields) to content myself with approximations and have long taken comfort in them.