Via Dolorosa (38 page)

“You are like a ghost,” she said to him, “sitting here.”

“How do you mean?”

She said, “White, pale, unsure where you’ll be from one moment to the next.”

“Lost, you mean.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is good. That is what I mean exactly.” She said, “Lost.”

“You really hurt that guy tonight, I think.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Isabella, I think I need to leave.”

“This world?”

“This room.”

“You think too much, is what I think,” she told him. “Not everything is so cerebral. You should be more of an artist in your heart, Nicholas, like you are with your hands. An artist, my Nicholas, would be a good thing for you to be. Otherwise, you are a fool. Could you try not to be that much of a fool?”

“I have no intention of falling in love with you, if that’s where this is going.” Yet he did not know where such words had come from.

Smiling, she shook her head. She, it was suddenly very clear, was the one who had no intention of falling in love. Of falling in anything.

“I know that, Nicholas. You are here, now, with me, because you found you
can
be. Very simple, no? It seems very sad and very hard on the surface, but after it is done, it is very simple.”

And this was true, he knew. The hardest thing to do was kill one man. But after that one man, how easy was it to kill fifty?

“Do you see that picture of you?”

He faced his own glowing image on the wall. Nodded.

“It is true?”

He said he did not understand.

“It is true?” she repeated simply. “It is reality, as reality is?”

“Shit, Isabella, I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re asking. Yeah, sure it is.”

“Foolish! Nothing is real and nothing is as it seems. Are we here or are we not here? Are we ghosts or do we live? Are we lovers or have we set out to destroy each other? Nothing is as it seems. Answer me—is your arm ruined?”

“Yes.”

“And that is reality?”

“It is the
only
reality,” he said.

“Stupid, stupid Nicholas.”

“I need—”

“To leave, yes—I’ve heard you,” she said. “With all that thinking you do, you have yet to come up with any answers. That is unfortunate for you.”

“What are you talking about? Answers to what?”

Isabella only shrugged. Said, “Did it ever occur to you that perhaps you are angry at your wife and her secret because you are really only angry at yourself and your secret?”

“I have no secret,” he said.

“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. Everything is candid and open with you, isn’t it? Everything,” she said, “is exactly as it seems to be.”

She stood from the bed and walked over to the slide projector, passing in front of the widening cone of light. The glowing image of himself vanished from the wall the second she pulled the slide from the projector, leaving a gaping white nothingness of light in its place. As he watched, Isabella turned the slide around and plugged it back into the slide projector backwards. The image appeared once again across the room—only this time in reverse. Now, very clearly, it was his
right
hand, his
ruined
hand that was no longer ruined, held up to the camera, shielding his face. A perfect right hand.

“See my magic?” she said from behind the slide projector. “See how nothing is as it seems?” To him, she was invisible in the dark. “Be gone. You are healed.”

Minutes later, he was climbing into his clothes in Isabella’s bathroom. Her silhouette hung in the bathroom doorway. The lights were still off.

“We can make love,” she offered.

“I think we already did.”

“Oh?”

“I think you lied to me. I can smell you on me.”

“Yes?” There was something in her voice he did not like.

“I don’t remember falling down any hill. My clothes aren’t even dirty.”

“We’re all dirty.”

“Whatever,” he said. “I can’t keep listening to your inane little anecdotes on life, Isabella.”

“Maybe because they frighten you.”

“You think a whole lot of yourself,” he said.

“If you stay,” she said, “then I will show you my gun. We can talk about those three men from tonight, and all the things we could do to them if we use a gun. Tonight was nothing. We should have used the gun.”

“Not interested,” he said.

“But you are healed,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I healed you.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Spoiled sport.”

At the bank of elevators at the end of the hall, it occurred to him that he had no idea what floor he was on. Likewise, for a moment he couldn’t remember what floor his own room was on, either. His brain apparently had surrendered itself some time ago.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he thought he could see Isabella watching him from one end of the poorly-lit corridor. But he couldn’t be certain.

To hell with it,
he thought, and selected both the UP and DOWN buttons. He would get on whichever arrived first.

—Chapter XX—

The first of the periodical cicadas appeared, clear-winged and shellacked, against a sheet of window looking into the dark and cool restaurant den of the
Paradis
d’Hôtel
. That morning, upon arriving alone at the restaurant, Nick paused and watched what must have been two young siblings, one boy and one girl, standing with their noses nearly touching the glass as they stared, mesmerized, at the underside of the large, black insect. It stuck to the glass and did not move. The children watched it for quite some time. However, as is bound to happen with children, the initial paralyzing sense of curiosity and wonder that defines the first few nanoseconds of all things new and unusual very quickly dissolved into disinterested fatigue. In a last ditch effort to recapture the fleeing wonder of the giant creature suctioned to the outside of the glass, the boy, at first, began tapping an index finger against the window, prompting the insect to move. When this provided no result (save for the
tat-tat-tat-tat
which echoed throughout the mostly empty restaurant), the boy, growing ever agitated, amplified the force of the tapping which, inevitably and in a matter of mere seconds, evolved into vicious hand-slaps against the window, causing the entire pane of glass to vibrate in its frame. Like the finale in an act of prestidigitation, a slim-
waisted
young mother appeared from nowhere and pinched the boy’s wrist between two fingers while also nabbing the little girl by the hand. She said something to the boy, which could not be heard from across the restaurant, and the look on the woman’s face was not a pleasant one. Then, with motherly efficiency, she led the two children away from the window and out of the restaurant. The cicada remained, undisturbed.

Nick took a table by the wall of windows. The day had brightened and the sun, he could see, was reflecting in the pools. Across the restaurant, Roger looked at him from behind the bar. The bartender had been wiping down the counter but paused when he met Nick’s eyes. Nick nodded in his direction. The bartender just looked on as if he did not recognize him before returning to his work.

James Sanders, the young waiter with the ponytail whose father had been in the Navy, came to the table. He was buttoning one of the cuffs of his sleeve.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

“Hello, James. What happened to your chin?”

Automatically, James brought two fingers to his chin and touched the heavy scab there. He said, “Fell off my roof.”

“Ouch. What were you doing on your roof?”

“The storm clogged the gutters up with leaves. My mom said they needed to be cleaned out before they got too heavy and pulled away from the house.” Almost apologetic, he added, “It’s happened once before.”

“Good thing it was just your chin, then.”

“Good thing,” James agreed.

“Let me ask you,” Nick said. “Is something wrong with Roger? He’s been acting a little weird around me the past couple of days.”

James glanced at the bar from over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” James said with adolescent simplicity. “He might just be tired. I saw him out late on the beach last night, and again early this morning. He’d probably been out all night.”

“Out where?”

“On the water,” James said. “He takes his boat out every night.”

“Yes,” Nick said. “I saw him out there one night. He stays out till morning? Typically, I mean?”

“I don’t know about typically,” James said. “All I know is he’s been out there every night since I’ve been working here. Even in the storm.”

“Why?”

“Because,” James said, “he’s looking for his daughter.”

“Faye?” Nick recalled the name, recalled the dog-eared photograph of the beautiful little girl Roger kept in his wallet.

“Two years ago she was lost in the sound. Drowned. They never found her body, so every night Roger goes out and looks for her.”

“Oh, Jesus.” And quickly, he was trying to remember if he had possibly said something that, in his ignorance, had offended Roger. But no—what would he have said? He could think of nothing.

“You want me to say something to him, Lieutenant?” James said.

“No. Thanks, but no, James.” He waved a single hand. “Just pretend you never told me anything about it, in fact. Okay?”

“Sure.”

Nick ordered coffee and brioche, a light lunch, and ate by the windows. There were some people outside, moving down through the courtyard toward the beach. Emma had been asleep when he’d returned to the room last night, and she’d gotten up early this morning. He knew she had tried her best not to wake him, but he had been awake nonetheless, though he did not say anything to her as she rose and made her way into the bathroom. He heard the shower run for quite some time. He thought, too, that he must have fallen asleep while she showered, because when he opened his eyes again the sun had shifted position outside and he was alone. A note was left on the nightstand beside the bed. Now, as he ate, he took the note from his pocket and unfolded it on the table: too nice to stay indoors. will be on the beach. have a nice lunch. please shower.