While thinking this over, her eyes slid down one long stained side of the cement flakturm, to the tall trees in front of it waving in the wind, and then over to the enclosed children’s playground nearby. The warm breeze had picked up. She felt it over her skin and in her hair. Perhaps it would rain later on. The sounds of rustling leaves and the occasional call of a bird were near.
Two days before her friend Leni Salomon died, Isabelle had gone for a long walk alone around the neighborhood. For no specific reason she had awakened that morning brimming with happiness and expectancy. Breakfast with Vincent was intimate and funny. He told stories she had never heard before that made her laugh, and he kept buttering pieces of toast for her with a jeweler’s precision. Just that gesture alone, the care he took doing something so trivial but with such unmistakable love, swept her heart off its feet. When they had finished eating, he took her hand and brought it to his cool lips. He looked in her eyes for the longest time but said nothing and neither did she. Everything they needed for the rest of their lives together was there in that moment, that room, his gesture.
Afterward Vincent took the dog to the veterinary for a vaccination. The apartment felt too empty without him and the weather outside was so gorgeous that she decided to go for a walk. She ate fresh strawberry ice cream sitting outside at an Italian eissalon and then watched three black and white French bulldog puppies wrestling with each other in a pet store window on Neubaugasse. She wanted to amble around some more but suddenly felt overwhelmingly heavy and tired. This often happened to her now that the pregnancy was coming to term. Sometimes it made her feel frustrated, as if she wasn’t in control of her body anymore. But it had been such a lovely walk that she only smiled at the inconvenience and considered where she could go sit down and continue enjoying this day without having to move anymore. She slowly walked over to Esterhazy Park and took a seat on a bench with a good view of the fenced-in children’s playground.
In happy awe and a still-abiding feeling of disbelief, she watched the children. At that time of day most of them were infants brought out to play for a while in between naps. Isabelle thought Soon we’ll have a baby exactly like them. Soon we’ll be coming here or to some other park with a pram and a backpack full of extra diapers, a yellow plastic bottle with Anjo’s favorite fruit juice inside, and a red bag of zwieback biscuits. While she thought these things, the baby turned inside her. Because he moved right then, she pretended Anjo was checking out the playground with her: sandbox, swings, slide… When he was big enough they would use each one. What fun they’d have. There was so much to look forward to!
Isabelle was experiencing a perfect moment and was fully aware of it. She knew she had missed too many other perfect moments in her life because she’d been greedy or distracted or blind to them, but not this one. She was fully conscious of the fact that sitting here looking at these children and dreaming of Anjo was one of those extraordinarily rare moments in life when all of her stars and dreams converged to make these minutes perfect. Nothing could be better than this, absolutely nothing at all.
“Hello.”
She was so immersed in happiness and the serenity of the moment that she heard the voice only on the periphery of her consciousness.
“Is it okay if I sit here?”
With great calm she looked up and saw herself standing at the other end of the bench, dressed in different clothes from what she was wearing. She was surprised that she wasn’t surprised. “Sure, of course. Sit down.”
Isabelle sat down slowly and turned her legs to one side in a more comfortable position. “I need your help. I can’t do this. I can’t handle it but I know you can.”
The one who had been sitting on the bench watching the children knew this was right: she felt like she could handle anything in the world at that moment. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take my place. You’re still on that side of the glass and can do it. There are some things you don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. What’s most important is you’re strong and in control now and I’m not. Vincent won’t recognize the difference between us if you don’t tell him.
“I remember that day sitting in the park so well; I remember being so content and sure; just sure of everything. When was it, a month ago?
“I can’t return because I chose to come over. But you live there now, so please, take the rest of my life. Our life; however long it’s going to be. With all my being, I offer you my place in that world.
“Take the strength of how you feel right now, this minute. Take the happiness and expectation and hope…” she began to choke up “… and use it to live the rest of our life there. You’re so much stronger now than I’ll ever be—”
“You don’t have to say anymore. All right.” The expression on her face would have alarmed Putnam had he seen it. Because it was the look of a human being who does not doubt her purpose and is certain that it is good. A look that said I know why I’m here, and I know what I must do. Don’t try to stop me.
On hearing her agree to do it, the other Isabelle slumped forward, all of the tension in her back and shoulders beginning to leave. She let out a big breath and then tried to breathe regularly, to bring it back to normal before she attempted to say anything else.
“How is it done? How does it work?”
“First I must tell you about butterflies. Blue Morpho butterflies. And camouflage. We’ll have to fool them. We can’t let Putnam see the real color of your wings. ‘Black to your enemies, blue to all others.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” For a few seconds her eyes slid from the face of the nervous distraught woman sitting on the other end of the bench, to the children playing in a sandbox ten feet away. She couldn’t resist smiling again when she saw them.
Putnam had watched Isabelle get up and walk away from the table but didn’t think anything about it. He only assumed that she was upset by what he had been telling her boyfriend. Putnam watched her walk away toward the other side of the park, then brought his eyes and attention back to Ettrich.
“When I was coming over here to meet you, Vincent, I saw the strangest thing. I must tell you about it. A man was walking down the street toward me; sort of a bum, but not too bad. You know the kind I’m talking about—just this side of shabby, just that side of respectable. I saw that first and was trying to decide how I felt about him. Then I noticed he had both hands up close to his mouth. When we got nearer I saw that he was holding a pigeon there and kissing it again and again.”
Putnam stopped and waited for some reaction. Ettrich stared at his hands crossed on the table and didn’t respond. Back in the Babby Basket, Broximon puckered his lips. He’d already crossed his arms over his chest minutes ago, skeptical of anything Putnam said.
“Disgusting, huh? Can you imagine kissing a city pigeon? Filthy, probably full of diseases… ugly stuff. But you know what happened, Vincent? My mind suddenly did this little flip and it dawned on me that the man loves the bird. I think what he’s doing is revolting, but he doesn’t. But who’s right here? Maybe he knows something I don’t.”
Broximon couldn’t take any more. “What are you talking about? What kind of drugs are you on?”
A naughty, teasing look lit the old man’s face. “I’m saying that perhaps Vincent has to learn to love this pigeon I’ve just offered him.”
When Isabelle realized that she had lost the other’s attention to something behind her, she turned to see what it was. On the other side of a chest-high fence was a sandbox where three infants were busily playing together. They were sitting in a close circle because they didn’t appear old enough to be able to stand on their own yet. Their mothers were nearby, smoking and chatting.
In companionable silence the Isabelles watched the children. Two were dressed in blue jean overalls, while the third wore shorts and a purple “Austria Memphis” soccer shirt. Their clothes were so small yet perfect. All of them wore white sneakers no larger than a cell phone. The Isabelle who was giving o
ver her life thought Every one of those babies will live at least half a century longer than I will and probably more. Half a century. So will Anjo.
Thinking this, she once again caressed the big familiar curve of her stomach and with the greatest love thought of him in there. She remembered how he wriggled excitedly whenever she ate something sweet. Then about how he woke her some nights just moving around in her tummy. How glorious and mysterious it was to be awakened by your child moving inside of you. She had been comforted time and again during the pregnancy by the idea I will never be alone again.
She realized that if she thought about this anymore now it would crush her with grief and loss, so without allowing another moment to pass she slid down the bench. “After I do this, we must talk to those kids.” One hand still on her stomach, she pointed with the other to the large rowdy group of teenagers that Ettrich had passed on entering the park.
“How will you do this?”
Isabelle was close enough so that instead of replying, she reached her free hand over and touched the other woman’s bulging stomach. One hand on her own, one hand on the other’s. Closing her eyes, she cleared her mind as best she could, which was very difficult. She remembered what Vincent had once said about talking to time. About how it understood if you did it the right way. Now she would try it.
With all the small strength she had left, from her side of the glass she willed everything she had, everything that she was, every hope, dream, and wish into the other’s body and being. Like pushing a small boat out into the stream from shore, she gave her unborn child and the rest of her life a firm push forward into the other woman. Then she blessed both—the gesture and the life. With all of her soul she prayed that that would be enough.
She felt nothing different but when she opened her eyes again and instinctively looked down, Isabelle saw that her stomach was no longer round and full to bursting. No longer was that great joyous size and weight she had been carrying around for so long with her anymore. It was gone.
She stood and said, “Come on, we have to hurry.”
If the kids hadn’t come when they did, Ettrich would have said yes to Putnam’s proposition. He was that close; a few breaths away from agreeing to go into death again. Anything, so long as we’re together again. Just let me be with Isabelle and our baby and I don’t give a damn where it is. Broximon was horrified that that’s exactly what he would say, but remained silent because it was not his place to disagree. Broximon only wished that he could get Ettrich alone for a few minutes so they could talk the whole thing over and he could try to reason with him a little.
In the time that they had lived together, Broximon had grown genuinely fond of Ettrich and worried about him constantly. Now here it was—the sum of all his fears. And it looked like he was about to fail again at protecting someone.
Good guy that he was, not for a minute did Brox think about his own welfare or what would happen to him if Vincent decided to go over. He only wanted his friend to think about everything calmly and with as much perspective as he could muster before choosing. He didn’t trust anything Putnam had said although it made brilliant sense in its simplicity. Nevertheless he kept running the offer through his mind, looking for loopholes or tricks that would end up making Vincent even more miserable. But even Broximon had to reluctantly admit that Putnam’s offer was so straightforward and shrewd that there probably was no need for hidden tricks. If Vincent wanted to rejoin his family he only had to voluntarily give up life and he would meet them in death where they were no threat to Chaos.
Intently watching Vincent, Putnam looked for any sign of a decision one way or the other. For his part, Broximon stared daggers at Putnam while trying to think up a plan, an idea, anything at all to stop his new friend from melting down into a yes. Ettrich still stared at his hands and thought I have to do this. I’m going to do this. Yes, I’m going to say yes.
Preoccupied, none of them really noticed the kids slowly moving toward them from every direction in the park. There were six boys approaching, but a much larger bunch stood back and watched. Every one of them—boys and girls, seven-year-olds up until nineteen—were grinning and waiting for the big moment that could come at any time now. Until a short while ago, their day in the park had been the same old—same old hanging around on a summer’s day tedium. But then out of the blue this crazy thing had been dropped in their laps by a pretty pregnant stranger and now every one of them was lit up like sparklers.
After much arguing, the leaders of the group had carefully worked out who would do what. The two strongest boys were up front, followed by a second line of three others. Ten feet back the fastest runner in the group, a Turkish kid with the appropriate name Bulut, waited. There was nothing really for the girls to do but naturally all of the boys wanted them to witness everything that was about to happen. So the girls hung back, watching expectantly with wide eyes, chewed nails, and frayed nerves.
When the lead boys had closed to within a few feet of Putnam’s picnic table, they looked for the signal. The leader, standing nearby, gave it. The two strongest raced over to the table, grabbed Broximon beneath the armpits, jerked him roughly out of the Babby Basket on Vincent’s back and ran off with him. Bulut jumped from foot to foot like an adrenaline-cranked relay-race runner, waiting impatiently for the baton to arrive and be passed to him.
The whole time this was going on, Broximon was shouting, “Lemme go. Lemme down. It’s not funny! Let go!”
The boys ran with him dangling between them as if in some kind of strange three-legged race. On reaching Bulut, they handed Brox over. The bullet kid sped off across the park with the little man under his arm like they were both on fire.
It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Putnam and Ettrich weren’t even to their feet until Broximon had been passed to Bulut and they were racing away.
“Did you do this? What are you doing? Why?” Ettrich demanded of the old man.
For his part, Putnam was outraged. He was so livid that he couldn’t even speak to defend himself. Moments before the snatch, he had recognized the look on Ettrich’s face and knew that the man was going to cave in. Triumph was about to be his and then Putnam would truly be King of the Park having used only reason and cool. Why would he screw it up by pulling such a ridiculous useless prank? For some seconds after it happened he even thought Ettrich had done it to give himself more time. But how? How could he have pulled it off? They’d been together since entering the park. On the way in they had passed these kids but Ettrich didn’t stop or even want him to sic the crows on them when they made fun of Broximon. Putnam was so mad and flustered by this nutty, totally unexpected turn of events that it never once crossed his mind that Isabelle might have caused it. Yes, he had seen her walk away minutes before, but she was safely doomed to remain where she was and consequently no matter for concern. It did not dawn on him that with whatever knowledge and power she’d gained as a living person who’d experienced both life and death, Isabelle might be a formidable opponent.
Ettrich took off running across the park after Broximon. The man was fast; he could move. Putnam could only stand still and watch, sizzling inside. Kids everywhere around them were hooting and hollering at what had just happened; they were calling out to each other, slapping five and dancing victory jigs. It was the craziest greatest thing to happen to them in a long time. A pregnant woman appearing out of nowhere and offering them one hundred euros to grab the little guy and run away with him? Wahnsinn! It was bliss. They would talk about it for years.
Way on the other side of the park, near the entrance they’d used before, Bulut slowed, stopped, and gently put Broximon down.
“Are you fuckin’ crazy?” Brox asked in English.
The runner smiled at him, but was too out of breath to respond. A chubby teenage girl with big breasts held prisoner in a too tight T-shirt stepped forward and spoke to him in good but heavily accented English. “Isa-belle says you are to tell Vincent to say no. Do not go with Put-nam. She is he
re and she will come to you now.” The girl didn’t understand what she was saying but this was the message the woman had given her and she was determined to say it right.
Amazed, Broximon swallowed his fury at what had happened and asked her to repeat what she’d said. The girl did it slowly, proud of her English, carefully enunciating each word. Then she told him the other things the pregnant woman had told her to say. The girl knew the entire message was important. It had to be, because this woman had paid her boyfriend one hundred euros to kidnap the midget and once they were out of sight of the others, to tell him exactly this.
When she was finished Broximon took off back toward the picnic table. He was terrified he’d get there too late and Vincent would already be gone. But his gait was so slow and comical that when Bulut saw it, he bent over, half laughing hysterically. The girl smirked, adjusted one bra strap, and waited for her boyfriend to return from the mission.
Ettrich ended up almost trampling Broximon while running to save him. The truth was that he didn’t see Brox because he was in such a panic to catch up. At the last moment he did see and was able to put on the brakes. Bending down, he scooped the little man up in one arm like a football. Both of them were breathless but Broximon started speaking the moment he was level with Ettrich’s ear. He spoke as fast as he could while being carried upright back across the park, his arms wrapped tightly around Vincent’s neck. He spoke until right before Ettrich sat down again at the table and stationed Brox on his lap as if he were a ventriloquist’s doll.
Putnam had seen them coming and was already seated and waiting when they arrived. In a jovial voice he boomed out, “Well, that was exciting. But what was it all about? Who were those kids?”
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