Isobel and Emile (11 page)

She holds her breath and she closes her eyes. It stops her from crying.

She moved while she was dreaming. She is more tangled up in the blanket than she was before. She has to untangle the blanket from her body.

She could have stepped out of the tub. She did not.

She untangles the blanket from her body. She sits up in the bed. She pulls her hands through her hair. Her hands are shaking. She is cold. She cannot help it. It is cold in the room.

She pulls her hands through her hair. Her hair is wet. Her dream made her sweat. Her skin is clammy. She straightens the blanket on the bed. It is the middle of the night. The light from the alley is coming in through the window.

It is dark in the room. It is dark and it is cold.

Isobel stands up. She walks over to the sink. She turns the water on. She puts some water on her face. The water is clean.

She cannot see her face in the mirror. It is dark in the room. She starts to shiver. She is glad she cannot see her face in the mirror. She does not want to know what she looks like now.

She turns the water off. She walks back to the bed.

She sits on the bed. She pulls her knees up against her body. She wraps her arms around her legs. It is the middle of the night. There is nothing else to do.

She lies down on the bed. She pulls the blanket over her. She closes her eyes.

She does not go to sleep.

She sits up in the bed. She pushes the blanket away. She stands up. She turns the light on.

She goes back to the bed. She does not sit down on it. She reaches under it. There is a notebook under the bed. It is a coil notebook. There is a pencil tucked in the coils.

She writes letters in the notebook. She takes it out from under the bed. She takes the blanket off the bed. She wraps the blanket around her body. She sits down on the bed.

She opens the notebook. The paper in it is yellow. It is thin and flimsy. It has blue lines on it. She reads what she wrote before.

She pulls her hands through her hair. She writes. She is tired. She writes until she is too tired to write anymore.

She closes the notebook. She tucks the pencil into the coils. She puts it back under the bed. It is where it was before.

There are envelopes beside the notebook. There are letters in the envelopes. They are ready to be sent. They have not been sent. Isobel does not want to send them.

She does not know why.

The blanket is still wrapped around her body. She pulls it closer to her. She lies down on the bed. She rubs at her eyes. She is tired. She does not want to be tired. She does not want to sleep.

She does not want to dream again.

It is not as dark as it was. The night is almost over.

Isobel goes to sleep.

There is light coming in through the window. It is not the light that was coming in from the alley. It is sunlight. It is morning.

Isobel sits up in the bed. She rubs at her face. She is awake. She does not feel awake. She is tired.

She pushes the blanket off her body. Under the blanket she is naked. Her skin is still clammy. She does not care that she is naked. She is too tired.

Oskar will be here soon. He will have his truck. There will be crates to unload.

There is sunlight coming into the room.

She pulls her hands through her hair. Her hair is tangled. It is matted with sweat. She pulls her hands through her hair until it is less tangled.

She sits up in the bed. She swings her legs out of the bed. She is sitting so that she is on the edge of the bed.

It is still cold. She wraps her arms around her body. There are goosebumps on her skin.

There is a sink on the wall. There is a towel hanging next to the sink and there is a curtain over the window. They are flimsy and dirty. Her clothes and her shoes are on the floor.

She stands up. She walks over to the sink. She does not walk steadily. Her body is groggy. She does not sleep well. She is still tired.

She is standing in front of the sink. She turns the water on.

She waits until the water fills the sink. She turns the water off. She washes her face. She washes under her arms and between her legs. She dries herself.

She dries herself with the towel. She stands in front of the sink. She looks at herself in the mirror over the sink.

She is tired. It does not matter that she just slept. Her skin is sallow.

She scowls.

Her dress is on the floor. She goes over to where it is. She picks it up off the floor. It was a nice dress. It has frills around the neck. It is dirty and wrinkled. She does not care. She puts it on. She goes to the door. She goes out of the room. She goes down the stairs. She is in the room at the back of the grocery store.

She is tired of this. She does not know what to do. She will do something. She does not know what she can do.

She sits down on a crate. She waits for Mr. Koch to come. He will make coffee. He will sit down on a crate. He will give Isobel a cup of coffee.

She picks at her fingernails. She waits.

She is tired of waiting.

Dear Emile,

I am sitting on your bed. I'm the only one who still calls it your
bed. You're gone, Emile. What we did is the only reason anyone even
remembers you were here. And I am the one who lives here now.

I hate it.

I hate that they say this is my bed.

I'm sitting here, in your room. It's late. I'm tired. I'm always tired
now. And I hurt. I'm not used to this, to any of this. My clothes are
dirty. I smell. I try to wash myself in the sink and I still smell. I am
so tired of this, and all I have to remind myself that there is anything
more is a cigarette butt.

The woman at the station dropped it on the platform. It was just
after you left, I was still standing on the platform. I watched the train
go away and then she was standing there. She looked at me, she
finished her cigarette, she dropped it on the ground and then she went
back to the ticket booth.

It was the only butt still smoking. I took it. I still have it.

I have to keep it because I don't remember you anymore. Not like
I used to. The image of you isn't vivid anymore. I don't remember
what your breathing is like, the feel of your hair or the way you hold
things in your hands. I try and all that is there is me, sitting on this
bed, in this room.

I hold the cigarette butt in my hand. It is all that I have. I have
to love it. It's supposed to help me remember but it's just a cigarette
butt. It doesn't.

This is stupid.

I want to watch you again, Emile. I want to sit here with my legs
curled up under me. I want to watch you working.

You sat on the floor with your puppets. You had their strings in
your hands and the way that you held your hands up in the air
looked so stupid. And you didn't care. You had to do it, to make them
move. That was what mattered to you.

They were bits of wood tied together with string. You painted faces
on them and dressed them up in clothes but they were still just bits of
wood tied together with string.

And you made them move.

I remember before I knew you. I had heard about you. The
strange boy from the city. No one knew what you were doing here.
There were rumours, there were so many rumours, but no one knew.

I wanted to know.

I wasn't supposed to see you. You told Mr. Koch that you did not
want to be disturbed and he did his best to keep you from being
disturbed. I snuck up the stairs when the store was busy.

You'd left your door open.

It was summer and hot out, you needed to leave your door open.

I crept up the stairs and I looked into your room. I stood with my
hands against the door frame and one eye peeping in at you.

You were sitting in the middle of the room with your puppets. You
had one dangling from each hand. They were moving. I had never
seen anything like it before. They were just puppets. They shouldn't
have been anything special. But I had never really seen puppets
before. Not standing right in front of me, moving.

I laughed.

You heard me and you stopped. I didn't want you to stop. I didn't
want you to drop the puppets. It was horrible to see them go limp. It
was like they were dead. I said, Please. Don't stop. You wouldn't look
at me. You looked like you wanted to hide.

I said, Please.

One of the puppets jerked its head. It started to stand up. It bent
down to help the other one. I laughed again. I stood in the doorway
and I clapped my hands and I laughed.

I sat and I watched you until it was dark. I went home and I had
to explain where I had been. I lied. And I came back. Again and
again, I came back.

You touched me, eventually.

You're just a boy, there's nothing special about you. Nothing. Just
that I wanted you. I don't know why I did, I don't know if there was
a reason or if it just happened. I don't know if that's enough of a
reason. I wanted you. I started to realize that I wanted you. That was
all. I wanted to touch you.

I'm trying to remember you. We touched each other. I don't know
if it means anything. I want it to. I don't know if that's enough.

I need it to. I'm sitting on your bed now. I need it to mean something.
I'm not strong enough, Emile. It's stupid. I feel so stupid. I
don't know how long I can do this.

I need to be stronger than this.

I am sitting on your bed. You touched me here. We stood close to
each other and you looked at me. I took your hand. I put your hand
on my face.

It has to mean something that you touched me. I need to make it
mean something. I'm going to go to bed now, Emile. I have to be up
early, I need to go to sleep.

I don't want to. I hate the feeling of my body sinking into this
place. But I'm so tired. I need to sleep.

Where are you?

9

Nicolas and Emile are sitting on a streetcar.

Emile is sitting next to the window. He is looking at the window.

He does not see the things going by. He is not looking at them. There are cracks in the window. He is looking at them.

Nicolas is sitting beside him. He is looking at the people in the streetcar. He is trying to catch someone's eye. He does not care whose. He looks at the other people in the streetcar. He tries to make one of them look at him.

No one in the streetcar wants to look at him. He tries anyway. He thinks it is fun. The other people in the streetcar do not. The streetcar is moving. It rocks from side to side as it moves.

Nicolas and Emile are sitting beside each other. The streetcar is moving. Nicolas taps Emile's leg. Emile looks at Nicolas.

Nicolas says: ‘Come on.'

Nicolas stands up. He walks through the streetcar to where the doors are. There are other people standing in the streetcar. Nicolas walks past them. He goes to where the doors are.

Emile follows him. Emile holds on to the backs of the seats as he walks. The streetcar is still moving. He is afraid he will stumble.

The streetcar stops. Nicolas and Emile get off the streetcar.

They are standing on a corner. They walk down the street and then they turn onto another street. They walk down this street.

They stop.

Nicolas looks at Emile. He smiles. He says: ‘Are you ready?'

Emile nods his head.

They are standing in front of a door. It is between two shops. On one side is a shop that sells magazines. On the other side is a tailor's shop.

Both of the shops are closed. There are bars over their windows. It is late in the evening. They will be open again in the morning.

There is a doorbell beside the door. Nicolas presses the doorbell. He presses it and then he leans against the door frame.

He puts one of his hands in his pockets. He cannot put his other hand in his pocket. He is carrying something in a paper bag.

Emile's hands are already in his pockets. They stand in front of the door.

They wait.

They hear someone coming down the stairs on the other side of the door. Emile fidgets with his cap. The door opens. Agatha is standing in the doorway.

She says: ‘Well. Hello.'

She moves so that she is leaning against the door. She says: ‘Come in.'

Nicolas and Emile squeeze past Agatha. She is wearing a red dress. It is a short red dress. Her legs are bare.

Agatha closes the door. Nicolas and Emile are standing with her at the bottom of a staircase.

She touches the small of Emile's back with her hand. She presses there.

She says: ‘Come on up, you two.'

Emile moves forward when Agatha touches him. He starts to walk up the stairs. Agatha is behind him. She guides him with her hand.

Nicolas smiles. He shakes his head. He follows them up the stairs.

Agatha's apartment is at the top of the stairs.

Agatha is at the top of the stairs. Nicolas and Emile are standing with her. She smiles to them. It is a wolfish smile. She opens the door. Nicolas and Emile go in.

There are other people in the apartment. There are a lot of other people in the apartment. There is music playing.

Agatha is having a party.

Nicolas and Emile take their jackets off. They look for a place to put them.

They are standing by the door. Someone bumps into Nicolas. She almost spills her drink on him. She says: ‘Excuse me.'

Agatha looks at Nicolas and Emile. They are holding their jackets in their hands. They look like they do not know what to do with them. Agatha says: ‘Put them in the bedroom.'