Jon watched her evade him, watched how she didn’t look his way or even pick up the eyeliner to play with it as she normally did. He held up a shirt to her, teasing about the color and the embroidered sleeves; but she just gave him a cursory glance and shrugged, saying it was his choice, he knew his audience best, and to wear what he felt best in. Brushing her hands on her jeans, she rose from the corner of the table and announced she needed coffee, and left.
The door fell shut behind her with a soft, final snap, and he was alone. Once again alone in a dressing room just before a concert, shirt still in hand, the sounds from the hallway muffled and distant. Her presence lingered, like an echo of her voice, displaced air where a moment ago she had been. Slowly he dressed, standing in front of the mirror, careful not to disturb his hair and the cables.
This was his job, the career he had picked, and for a moment he wondered what his life would look like if he had decided to finish college. His brother, Kevin, came to his mind, a surgeon working at one of the big New York City hospitals and living in the suburbs. Every day he rode the subway to his job, returning in the evening. He had dinner with his wife and son and went to bed, day after day, year after year.
Jon, buttoning his shirt, recalled a conversation he’d had with Kevin last Christmas while they walked along the Brooklyn Promenade digesting the duck their mother had served them for dinner. Kevin had leaned on the railing in the falling snow and squinted at the Manhattan skyline, pointed at the glittering towers, and sighed. “I’m a prisoner,” he’d muttered, “I envy you. You forged out the life you wanted to lead, ruthless enough to put everything else aside and go where you wanted to go, to shape your career; and what am I? Yeah, a doctor. But in the end it’s just a job, a routine, just with more responsibility than some.” He’d balled his hand into a fist. “Do you ever feel this urge, Jon, this drive to be more than just alive? To rise above the masses, leave a mark on the world? Put a meaning to life?” He had looked at Jon and then laughed, and added, “Yeah, you know. You know what I’m talking about, because that’s where you are, right?”
Stunned by his brother’s words, Jon had been about to reply; but Kevin had moved on, shrugging his coat higher up on his neck, talking about baseball and their plans to go to the opera the next day. The moment was over before it had really begun. He remembered going to bed that night at the hotel where he and Naomi had been staying and gazing out at the snow while she was sleeping on his shoulder. For an instant, for a fleeting moment, he had felt that great yearning, the immense pull on his soul, to create something worthwhile, felt the wish to be more than a human, more than one of the horde who went through the daily routine without ever looking up. It was almost like a deep sadness, despair at life itself, a clawing at the fabric of existence, the struggle of a drowning man to rise above the surface. He had to resist the urge to pick up the phone and call Kevin and say, “Yes. I know. It hurts, and it hurts all the time. It feels like being in love, like losing love, like being told you’re going to die, like being told there’s no life after death, like the blackest night. It’s the desire to hold the world in your hand, to take command. And I strive for it all the time.”
But he hadn’t done it. Instead he had wrapped his arms tightly around Naomi, making her murmur in protest, and gone to sleep himself, his last thought the French toast his mother would serve them for breakfast.
The last button closed, Jon turned from the mirror. He was ready to face the crowd. But first, before he went out on the stage to dazzle his fans, he knew he had to find Naomi and see her smile at him.
Jon woke to the sun in his face.
Disoriented, he sat up. The bed was empty, she was gone, and panic surfaced for a moment until he saw her clothes in the open wardrobe, her suitcase in the corner. There was no note, nothing; so often before she had slipped out and left him to fear and wonder where she had gone and whether she would return.
He had been so keen on getting married, convinced that once she wore his ring he would be able to hold on to her, pin her down, make sure she would never run from him again; and here he was on a lovely July day in a Hamburg hotel, and once again he was alone.
He got up and walked over to the window. The sky was a clear blue, the fountain in the lake a white plume against it, and the trees along the street whispered gently in a cool breeze. There wasn’t much traffic, just some people strolling along the water, a sightseeing bus much like the ones in London ambling past. The stores were open. He could see customers walking in and out, and the coffee shop at the corner was doing a good business.
The crazy mood to go out on his own overcame Jon. There was the department store, the shopping arcade leading into the older part of town where he had been with Naomi the day before, where she had bought some perfume at a really nice shop while he stood by and listened to her chatting with the shopgirl in German. For once he didn’t feel like sitting in a hotel, waiting until she returned from wherever the mood had taken her.
There was a group of Japanese tourists in the lobby, but no one took any notice of Jon when he walked past and out into the sunshine. For a moment he stood on the steps of the hotel and breathed in the warm yet tart air, wondering where he should go first. A sense of freedom enveloped him, a careless, carefree attitude that made him push his hands into his pockets and saunter across the street right through the traffic, disregarding the pedestrian crossing at the corner and the angry honking of a carhorn.
Standing in line at the coffee shop, searching for German change in his wallet, he noticed how the woman next to him threw him sidelong, puzzled glances. A couple of times she seemed on the point of speaking to him but then stopped and studied the cakes and sandwiches in the display instead. When it was his turn and he stuttered out his order, not sure if his English would be understood, she mumbled, “For God’s sake, Jon, just tell them what you want.”
Surprised, he turned around, but she didn’t look his way and counted her money instead. She was pleasant, a little on the matronly side but dressed in a suit with a computer bag slung over her shoulder, nicely made up, the briskness of a workday in her posture and expression. Her hair was short, hugging her head like a Renaissance helmet, golden and glossy, with a few curls following the curve of her neck.
“Go on,” she said. “Pick up your coffee and move.”
“You know who I am,” Jon replied, and grabbed the paper cup one of the baristas held out to him.
She shrugged. “Yes, but you’re holding up the line. I’m in a hurry.”
He made room for her, even returned to the sidewalk, but waited until she came out, a paper bag in hand. She stopped when she saw him staring.
“Have a great day,” she called; “enjoy Hamburg while you’re here. Your concert last night was great; my friends and I had a very good time. I like that new song about the stones. Bye now!” She walked away without looking back, without even a glance.
Never before in his career had he encountered something like this, and it left him feeling stupid, stumped, and speechless. Slowly, sipping his coffee, he began to walk down the broad sidewalk past the stores, enjoying the vista of the lake on the other side of the road, the sunlight dancing on the water. A couple of small boats were out, their white sails like big birds flitting across the surface, gulls circling around them.
The entrance to the department store was to his right. It was a luxurious place, and it would not have looked out of place anywhere on Fifth Avenue with all the marble and brass, the elegant window displays, and the glass cupola at its center, much admired by Naomi. She had pointed out to him that it showed the constellations that were the zodiac. Puzzled, he had stared at it, his neck craned, and wondered how she knew, who had taught her to recognize the stars, and why she knew in the first place. His admiration for her had soared, and once again he had felt the pride at having won her love, his beloved, a wife to sh
ow off. Right away shame had flooded him, and he had moved on, asking if she wanted her computer now.
Jon pushed open the heavy entrance door. A bouquet of scents welcomed him from the cosmetics department on the first floor. He strolled past the colorful counters, glancing at the lipsticks and artful flacons, at the pretty girls in their neat outfits waiting for customers, and made his way toward the escalator. The day before when they had been here, he had noticed a couple of nice sweaters; and now, with nothing better to do, he felt like some shopping.
Going up, his attention was caught by a woman on the escalator going down, and he had to look again. Her face was turned away; she was watching something going on behind her, her hand resting on the rail, purse tucked under her arm. He knew that purse; he knew the shirt she was wearing, every curve and angle of that body, and yet Jon was sure his eyes were playing some cruel prank on him.
“Naomi?” he asked, his voice cracking in disbelief.
She swiveled around, her eyes wide in surprise, and, seeing him, she smiled. “Jon! What are you doing here? You’re not looking for me, are you? I was…”
Relentlessly, she was moving away from him; and, like a kid, Jon was on the point of running down the moving stairs to catch up with her. He caught himself just in time. They met on the ground floor, where she stood, waiting for him, smiling at his impatience.
Jon couldn’t speak. She looked so different, like someone else, and yet she seemed more like herself than she had in a long time. Her hair, the long braid he had loved so much, was gone. Instead, chin-length curls played around her face. She looked young, like a girl, her eyes even larger and her mouth as fresh as a rose in bloom.
“I’m ready to go to Italy now,” Naomi said. “And I bought some swimming suits too. There will be swimming in Positano. Do you have shorts, Jon? You need shorts. You’ll love the Mediterranean.”
“Last night.” The words refused to form in his head. “Last night you hardly spoke to me. I bawled my heart out on that stage, trying to reach you, and you just sat there and stared at the ceiling as if I wasn’t even there. You didn’t listen to me; you ignored that I was singing just for you. And now you tell me I need shorts?”
Naomi took his arm to pull him back on the escalator going up. “Yes. I was mad as hell at you, Jon. I was so angry because you allowed my father to see Joshua, because I thought it was my choice, my decision. But it isn’t. You’re Josh’s father, and it’s just as much your decision. It took me a while to come to terms with it.” She was standing above him, their eyes on a level for once, her hands on his shoulders. “I trust you more than I trust myself. I felt this hard, bitter kernel in my heart, all the disappointment and hatred; and then I watched you on the stage, doing what your heart tells you to do, and I realized you will always fight for me, fight for my right to do what my heart tells me, even if it breaks yours. And that was when I decided I had to change, do something that would set me free. I’ve been somehow liberated with the braid gone. In a symbolic way.”
Tentatively, she touched her hair. “Do you like it? Did they cut it too short? Because it feels good! I think it looks good too.”
Jon had to swallow a couple of times. “It looks stunning. You look like a fairy; you’re so beautiful, I don’t know what to say. And no, I don’t have swimming trunks.”
He let her pick some shorts for him, even bought some polos and those sweaters he had wanted in the first place, and followed her when she drifted back toward the bathing suits, carrying the shopping bags, feeling delightfully foolish.
“Have you ever had this,” he asked while she was holding up a short, thin dress in a lovely midnight blue. “Have you ever had the urge…” There was a chair, and he sank down on it. “The need to be more than you are, see more than the world that is around you, to rip apart the texture of being to see what is behind the reality? Have you ever felt the fear, the desolation of dying without having left your mark on the universe? Of being no more than one of the masses, here only to be gone again, unnoticed, unmarked?”
Naomi gazed at him silently, the dress forgotten.
“Have you ever felt this pain of not doing what you’re meant to do, what you could do?” The moment the words were out of his mouth Jon realized what he had said, and he took a breath to apologize, tell her he was sorry and of course she would know, having lived her small, hidden life when she should have been a star among writers.
She was faster though.
“It has often driven me into melancholy,” Naomi said softly, “and it has made me cry.” Her hand came up to rest on her chest. “Sometimes I have the feeling that I’m seeing a different world around me than other people, as if they can’t see all the layers there are to the fabric of life, and I want to grasp it all. The only outlet for that…” A small shrug. “The only outlet is the writing. And yes, Jon, I want to make a difference. I want it very badly. I want to soar and fly and sing to the stars, and I want to live forever and never be forgotten.”
Jon took the dress from her and dropped it on the counter. “Come along. I’ll buy you breakfast somewhere, and while you eat I’ll stare at you and think of making love to you, the only woman who understands what I feel, what it’s like to live the way we do. I’ll take you to Positano tomorrow, and I’ll give you the honeymoon we never had and to hell with your parents and everything else. All this shit with the shooting and the pain and guilt, it’s going out the window now, Naomi. We’ve come down to this: you see my soul, and I see yours. Here, in a stupid German department store, we finally understand each other.”
chapter 23
Sal trailed after them as Jon and Naomi walked across the hangar to the plane that would take them to Naples, the phone pressed to his ear, trying to hear what Russ was saying over the noise of the engines.
“… we’re ready to move to New York,” he heard. “I’ll go ahead and try to find a house or something. Solveigh wants to live somewhere out in the country, and I have no idea where to look. Any ideas?”
“What will Solveigh do out in the country, on her own, all day long?” He was barely listening, staring at Naomi’s hair. In a strange, unexplained way he resented the short locks, resented them as if they were a show of independence and he the parent it was aimed at. She looked better too, not as wan and pale as she had when she had arrived in London, as if by losing the braid her energy had returned. Even her legs looked tan; her bare feet in sandals, the toenails painted red, were a provocation he could barely ignore.
“I don’t even know what she means,” Russ was saying. “The country? It’s not like there’s anything like Halmar anywhere around New York, not within easy commuting distance.”
“You could always move to New Jersey.”
Jon was carrying a guitar case. He had asked for the ebony to be brought out of the instrument container; he was taking it along to Italy, slung over his back just like he used to when they were young and had just started out. Seeing him like that—in jeans, with the guitar case—sent a wave of melancholy memories over Sal, and he stopped walking. Nothing had changed. They were older, calmer, well used to their success and their wealth; but deep down they were still the same people, still hungry for the music and the songs. And Naomi—the way she stood beside Jon now, waiting to board the jet, laughing at something he had said, her hand on his arm—she was the same girl too.
He remembered going over to Jon’s house a couple of days after they had returned home, back when they had been to Geneva the first time and met her.
She had opened the door, a cup of coffee in her hand, hair loose, wrapped in one of Jon’s bathrobes, barefoot, and smiled softly at him, a little embarrassed at being caught like that; and his heart had turned over. So young, barely more than a teenager, and already Jon’s.
“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Russ’s panicked voice brought him out
of his reverie.
“Well, Sean wants to move there,” Sal replied. A cart was bringing their luggage, not a lot, just one suitcase for each of them. They were light travelers, careless souls who acquired whatever they wanted or needed along the way. As easy as birds, they were ready to travel south, follow the sun, leave him behind to handle the chore of taking the tour back to the States. All without a second thought.
“Right.” Russ snorted. “Sean thinks he’s Bruce Springsteen. Oh well, I’ll talk to him. Would be nice if we weren’t too spread out, right? And you? Are you going to find something in Brooklyn, like the Master and his lady?”
The simple question made Sal quake in his shoes. “Oh crap no! I’ll try to find something in Manhattan. You can go and live somewhere in Newark if you feel like it; I’ll stick with the real thing. If I have to leave LA, I might as well get the whole deal.” He hadn’t thought about it yet, had pushed the prospect away to a far corner of his mind. The idea of leaving California for a winter in New York seemed too dire.
Only now did he notice the writing on the side of the plane. It was no more than a single word, tastefully small, the brown matching the cream of the jet; and it made Sal pull back his lips in surprise. “Carlsson,” he read, tasting the sound. Her father had sent the family plane, and she was willing to board it.
The pilot was there to greet his passengers, a flight attendant at his elbow.
Naomi turned and smiled at him, raised her hand to wave, and then she was gone.
Sal wanted to go after her, tell her to be safe and come back, not to fall in love with the Italian summer and get lost on those sunny shores; but he stood and watched as the door was closed and the plane moved out onto the tarmac, and then swiftly away toward the runway. In the blink of an eye it was no more than a glint against the blue backdrop of the sky, and then it was gone.
Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) Page 21