by Laura Resau
Now there’s pavement beneath my feet, occasionally something sticky. I trust Damona to lead me around any piles of dog merde. I pay careful attention to everything, trying to construct a map in my head. But at each turn, she spins me around and around until I have no idea which way we’re going. After a few minutes, we pass a fountain that must be big, judging by the deep sounds of water falling from multiple spouts.
Damona unties my blindfold.
I blink, shocked.
We’re in the Place de la Mairie. At the fountain where Vincent feeds pigeons. The air is the blue-silver of dawn, bright compared to the darkness of my blindfold. Damona and Bormanus kiss our cheeks goodbye, and Sirona cups my face in her hands, then does the same to Wendell, a kind, motherly gesture. “I’m glad our paths have crossed, Zeeta and Wendell, if only briefly. I wish you both well.”
“Thank you, Sirona,” we say at the same time.
And then she murmurs to the others in Gaelic. They split into four pairs, each pair heading down one of the four streets that leave the square.
On the way to my apartment, Wendell and I pass the street cleaners with their hoses, the boulangerie cashier going to work, a sleepy-eyed man walking his tiny dog. Each one tosses us a curious glance. We’re probably a strange sight—Wendell without a shirt, me in a bedraggled red dress and bare feet. We stop at a public pay phone and Wendell leaves a voice mail for his host family.
Then we head to my apartment and collapse together on the sofa, too tired to pull out the bed. We’re lying down, squished together on the cushions. His eyes fall closed, and his fingers brush idly over the skin of my shoulder, landing on the silver cord around my neck. He laces it in his fingers and says, “I’m so happy, Z.”
“Me too,” I say sleepily. “Happy and complete. Nothing’s missing.”
He strokes my hair. “Even though we haven’t found your dad?”
I nod, yawning. “I still haven’t given up hope. In the meantime, I have you and Layla and all the friends who come and go in my life. They’re all still part of me. And there’s Vincent and Madame Chevalier and Tortue and Sirona and …” I’m falling asleep. My eyelids feel impossibly heavy, even though part of me is still humming with excitement.
Wendell kisses my earlobe. “Think Maude’s back at Vincent’s with the water?”
“Probably. Let’s go there after we sleep a little.”
There are so many more things to turn over in our minds, to tell each other, ask each other, so many things. I brush my lips over his neck, his cheeks, his lips, and soon our murmurs melt into the sighs and breaths of sleep.
My eyes open to sunlight streaming through the window, illuminating dust motes and pooling on the tile floor. Layla’s clinking around in the kitchen, making tea in her pink robe. I raise my head. She meets my gaze, curious, then glances at Wendell, who’s still sleeping. I know she’s dying to quote some Rumi.
In this bright sunlight, last night, with all its water and torchlight and mist and moonlight, seems like a strange dream. I extricate my limbs from Wendell’s and sit up, yawning.
At my movement, Wendell opens his eyes and smiles. He pushes up onto his elbows and stretches. Looking around, he says, “Hey, Layla.” His voice is scratchy and low, and his hand rests on the back of my neck, underneath my hair, his fingers twirling around the silver cord. Our only tangible proof that last night really happened.
“How was your night?” Layla asks.
“Good,” we answer at the same time.
“Anything dazzling happen?”
I look at Wendell. “Nope,” we say in unison.
Layla’s face falls. She wants, somehow, to be part of our happiness.
“Hey, Layla,” I say, feeling generous. “What’s the Rumi quote about the spring and dawn?”
She gives me a stunned look. It’s been years since I actually requested Rumi. But she doesn’t question my motives, simply gets on her Rumi-quoting face and says,
“There was a dawn I remember
When my soul heard something
From your soul. I drank water
From your spring and felt
The current take me.”
“Thank you, Layla,” I say, explaining nothing, leaving her mystified but content.
After breakfast, Wendell throws on a gray T-shirt that belonged to one of Layla’s ex-boyfriends. Together we walk toward the square, where the golden, buttery, chocolatey smells of early-morning Aix waft from the pâtisseries we pass. The sunlight is fresh and lemony yellow, warming the stone streets. In the Place de la Mairie, we’re greeted with flowers of all colors, spilling out from beneath the striped awnings of the flower market. A light breeze plays with the petals, nudging them here and there. The entire square looks alive, shimmering.
We’re heading across the Place de la Mairie in the direction of Les Secrets de Maude when I notice a crowd of pigeons by the fountain, pecking at birdseed. Through the feathers, I make out Vincent. He’s standing beside something large—an artist’s easel, it looks like. I see the back view of a woman in a purple dress sitting on a stool facing the canvas. At first I don’t recognize her here by the fountain, not framed by her window, without binoculars around her neck. I can’t believe it. Madame Chevalier is inside the square. Not just observing it at a distance. She’s inside life, with Maude on her shoulder like a little guardian angel.
“Wendell, look,” I say, pointing.
“Is that Madame Chevalier?” he asks. “Outside? Oil painting?”
We walk closer. Vincent is scattering birdseed while Madame Chevalier is painting and watching him and laughing. When we reach them, Madame Chevalier stands up and kisses us both emphatically on both cheeks. She still seems weak, but something has shifted. Not only is she outside, and painting, but there’s a lightness to her movements that wasn’t there before.
Vincent embraces us next, wraps us up in his smells of pigeons and dusty old things. “Merci, merci, merci, mes enfants! Maude brought me a special delivery this morning”—and here he winks—“and I sent it straight to Madame Chevalier!”
Madame Chevalier sits back down on her stool and says, “Tell us how you found it!”
Wendell and I exchange looks.
“We have to tell them,” I whisper in English.
“But we promised—”
“Come on, Wendell. You know the secret’s safe with them. They deserve to know.”
“Okay,” Wendell says. “Let’s tell them.”
After making them promise not to breathe a word about it, we describe our night, starting with the snake fountain in the courtyard at sunset and ending with how we were blindfolded and brought back here at dawn. The only thing we leave out is the kissing, by silent agreement.
Vincent clasps his hands together. “This morning when I set out birdseed for Maude, I noticed her acting different, excited. And I saw the vial of water, and I knew! I knew!”
We sit on the edge of the fountain and listen to his story, trailing our fingers in the water, our hands touching each other.
“It was early, barely sunrise,” Vincent says. “I’m an early riser, you see. I knew Maude would fly faster than I could walk, so I sent her with a note taped to the outside of the vial that said Drink me. Then I got dressed and went to Violette’s house as fast as these old legs could carry me! And by the time I got there, she’d already drunk the water. She was dressed and had coffee ready for me, and oh, I couldn’t stop looking at her face, all rosy and beautiful. I could actually see the color coming back into it.”
Madame Chevalier takes over. “Vincent said, ‘Let’s go to the fountain!’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ and he helped me down the stairs. Then he went back up to get my easel and here we are!”
Vincent gazes at Madame Chevalier, and Maude gives a satisfied coo. Inside the fountain’s water, my hand joins Wendell’s. Madame Chevalier must notice, because she says, “I see the waters worked their magic on you two, as well.”
By the time we make it back to the apa
rtment, it’s midafternoon. Wendell and I lounge on the sofa, kissing and talking and napping and kissing some more, until Layla breezes in, carrying a crinkly white bag from the boulangerie. “Spinach quiche!” she announces.
As we set the table, she says, “Oh! Guess who stopped by while you two were out?”
Wendell and I look at each other. “Who?”
“Sirona. She came to say goodbye. She’s leaving town with the rest of Salluvii.”
“Really?” I sink onto a chair.
“Yeah,” Layla says, frowning. “I’m bummed. She was my best friend here. Although I got the feeling there were things she didn’t share with me.”
I nod. “So … what did she say?”
“She dropped off your bag, love. And your backpack, Wendell. Said you left them somewhere. I put them in your room, Z.”
Wendell tries to act casual. “Where’s Sirona going?”
“On tour around Europe,” she said.
After the quiche, Wendell and I go into my room to get our bags.
I pull my notebook from my bag. Sweet relief. A rush of gratitude to Sirona.
“Everything there?” he asks, poking around in his backpack, making sure his camera didn’t get wet.
“I think so.” As I shuffle through the other contents of my bag, my hand rests on the little book bound with red ribbon that I made Wendell. I hand it to him.
“What’s this?”
“A present for you,” I say. “You gave me all those photos in Ecuador, and I realized you should have something from me.”
“Thanks, Z,” he says, surprised.
As he leafs through it, I root around in my bag, looking for lip balm. My hand touches something hard and round and small, attached to a cord. Some kind of necklace. I pull it out. It’s a tree nut hanging from a worn leather cord. A tree nut that looks just like a deer’s eye, a circle of black surrounded by a brown band. Taped to the cord is a piece of paper.
“Wendell. My fantôme left me something else.”
Wendell moves close to me on the edge of the bed, putting his arm around my shoulder. Together, we read it.
Chère Zeeta,
Before I can be a father to you, there’s something I must do. I need to answer some questions that have haunted me for twenty years. And the answers lie far away, across the ocean, in the place I was born and raised. Once I find these answers, I hope I will be a complete person, good enough for you. I don’t know how long this will take me. I will contact you when I feel ready. Please forgive me.
Love,
Your Father
I read it three times. “He’s leaving.”
Wendell strokes my hair. “But he’ll contact you.”
“If he ever becomes perfect. Which will never happen.”
I’m not exactly sure why I’m wearing my fantôme’s Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. Maybe because even though I’m frustrated with my father, I still love him. Maybe it’s my way of telling him I’ll wait for him to be ready to love me. The shirt is comfortable, the fabric smooth and soft, so threadbare I have to wear a black tank underneath. Wendell keeps poking his finger through the holes to tickle me. I laugh and slap his hand away, secretly waiting for him to poke me again.
A day has passed since we came back from the courtyard party, and we’re walking hand in hand down Rue Mignet, headed toward Les Secrets de Maude to visit Vincent. At the Place des Trois Ormeaux, I catch sight of red sparkles. It’s Jean-Claude, walking beside Amandine. We say our bonjours and kiss each other’s cheeks. Amandine looks sad—a huge change from the last time I saw her, at the food market.
Before I can ask her what’s wrong, Jean-Claude says, “I didn’t know you and Tortue were friends.”
“What?” I have no idea why he’s bringing up the mime.
“His Jimi T-shirt. He gave it to you before he left?”
“What?”
“That’s Tortue’s shirt, right?” Jean-Claude steps closer. “Oui. C’est ça. I’d recognize it anywhere. He sleeps in it every night. Right, Amandine?”
Amandine says nothing. She looks pale, her eyebrows knitted together.
Gradually, the significance of this sinks into me. Tortue.
Tortue, invisible beneath his mask of paint. Soft-spoken, quiet Tortue. So easy to overlook. I think of that day on the side street, when he noticed I was upset, when he comforted me simply by being there. I think of the tenderness in his voice as he sang “Au Clair de la Lune.” It was a kind of lullaby, just what I needed, just what I would have wanted from a father.
What was he thinking? Was he wishing he could have sung it to me years ago? And why would he think he wasn’t good enough to be my father?
And that day at the market, when he told Layla and me the story of Harlequin and Pierrot. Was he still in love with her? Does he believe Layla is his Columbine?
All these questions are making me dizzy. I lean into Wendell for support. “It’s Tortue,” I say under my breath.
Amandine is staring at me. She knows. She’s known all along. She must have been the one to put the things in my bag. The fantôme. Tortue’s accomplice.
Jean-Claude looks confused. “What’s going on?” He’s obviously been left in the dark.
For a while, Amandine and I look at each other, so many secrets passing between us. Wendell squeezes my hand, a gesture of solidarity.
Finally, I turn to Jean-Claude. “Ecoute, I have to talk to Tortue. Where is he?”
“He’s gone.”
My heart sinks. It’s too late. He’s already on his way across the ocean. “Are you sure?”
“He packed his bags and left without a goodbye. Just a note.” He puts his arm around Amandine’s shoulder, draws her in to him. “Amandine’s really upset.”
“What did he say in his note?” I ask Amandine.
Her eyes spill over with tears. “He went back to his childhood home. To face problems he’d left behind.” Wiping her cheeks, she takes a long breath. “His therapist encouraged him. He’s been on new medication that’s lifted his depression. He said things are clear to him now. Said he has to take this trip. To become the person he wants to be.”
“Do you know where he went?” I ask, my voice shaking.
“Mexico,” Amandine says, sniffling. “On the coast, somewhere in the south. He’s mentioned the place before, but I don’t remember anything more—”
“Do you have his address? A phone number? Anything?”
She shakes her head. “He said not to worry, that he’d contact us when the time was right.”
“But he doesn’t know how to contact me.”
“Yes, he does,” Amandine replies. “From when you signed up for Illusion’s mailing list.”
Jean-Claude gives me a confused look. “Why do you suddenly care so much about Tortue?”
Slowly, I say, “It appears that he’s my father.”
Jean-Claude stares at Amandine, his mouth dropped open. “And you knew this, Amandine?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “He made me promise not to tell anyone.” She turns back to me with a wavery sigh. “He asked me to put the stuff into your bag, Zeeta.”
I think of Amandine’s backflips, her cheek kisses—perfect distractions while she was slipping things into my bag.
“So, Amandine, you knew from the beginning?” Wendell asks, looking a little hurt.
Nodding, she turns to me. “Tortue saw Layla in the square and recognized her right away. He wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t know how. Then, when he saw you, Zeeta, he said you look just like his younger sister.”
An aunt. I have an aunt. It really hits me now. And probably there are more aunts, and uncles, too. It’s overwhelming, this tidal wave of information.
Amandine takes a deep breath and continues. “He suspected you were his daughter. When I found out more about you, and your birthday, he was sure of it. And that made him happy and terrified at the same time. He wanted you to know that he existed, that he loved your mother, that he cared about you two. I
pushed him to introduce himself. I was hoping he’d do that at the dinner party. But he could only work up the courage to leave you the letters and gifts.”
So many questions are churning inside me, I don’t know which to ask first. “What’s his real name?” I whisper finally.
“José Cruz,” Amandine says.
My heart sinks. It’s one of the world’s most common names.
Wendell tightens his arm around me, comforting me. “It’s something,” he says.
I shake my head. There are probably thousands of José Cruzes in Mexico. I don’t even know his second last name. And since he hasn’t lived there for years, there probably wouldn’t be any useful records. No phone, no address, nothing. I try to wrap my mind around the idea that my father—who I finally feel as if I know, finally feel ready to love—has just disappeared across the ocean. “It’s not fair—it’s not—”
“You know what’s not fair?” Amandine snaps. “It’s not fair that he’s your father instead of mine. It’s not fair he’s not psychologically stable. It’s not fair he has unresolved problems in Mexico.”
I’ve been selfish, I realize. “I’m sorry, Amandine.” In some ways, this man is more her father than mine. “So why is he called Tortue?” I ask softly.
“I think he got the name Turtle a long time ago. In Mexico, it was Tortuga. Here it’s Tortue. I guess he’s always loved sea turtles. Even worked with them when he was younger.”
I close my eyes for a long time. “Did he say anything else?”
She pauses to think. “I don’t think so. Well, just that—when I tried to convince him to tell you, he said he felt ashamed.”
“Why?”
“He said, ‘What would Layla say if she found out her daughter had a crazy clown for a father?’ ”
I put my face in my hands and groan. “Somehow, I don’t think it would bother her.” I look up. “I’m going to find him, Amandine.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But I am.”