Voice of our Shadow

by Jonathan Carroll

  I couldn't believe what she was saying. Stunned and hurt more than I'd ever been in my life, I watched as she pulled a slip of paper out of her back pocket.

  "It's from the novelist Evan Connell. You know him? Listen a minute. 'Originals attract us for another reason, which goes all the way back to prehistoric belief in magical properties. If we own something original, whether it's a skull or a lock of hair or an autograph or a drawing, we think maybe we acquire a little of the strength or substance of whoever it belonged to or whoever made it.' "

  She threw the paper on the coffee table and pointed a finger at me. "It's you in a nutshell, Joe, and you know it down deep inside. I've been trying like hell to figure it out. The only word I can think of is parasite. Not a bad parasite, but one just the same. The two people you've truly loved and admired in your life – Ross and Paul – so overwhelmed you with whatever kind of magic they had that you knew you had to have some of it. So you stole your brother's story after he was dead, and it worked! When Paul arrived, you stole his wife, you stole his pen . . . Do you get what I mean, Joseph? Jesus, why am I calling you Joseph? You know the only reason why you'll stay with me? Because I might still have some of his magic left, and you can't bear to be alone in the world without any. Or maybe you'll leave because your Karen has a fresh supply and she'll keep your tank filled. It's a bad way to put it, Joe, but you get exactly what I mean. I'm sorry to stab you with all this at one time, but it's the truth. That's all. I've had my say. Do you want to talk now?"

  "No. I think you had better go."

  "All right. Think about it. Think about it a lot. Before you come and punch me in the nose, tear it apart and put it back together again. I'll be at home."

  She got up and left without another word.

  I sat in the chair for the rest of the afternoon. I looked at the floor and out the window. How dare she! What hideous thing had I done to her to deserve those words? I'd simply been honest, and she'd returned the favor by cutting me in half with a dull razor blade. What if I had been totally honest with her? Told her I truly loved someone else but was going to stay with her because it was my duty rather than my desire. That was the first, scorched-ego part of the afternoon's thoughts. The part where I very much wanted to punch her in the nose for having the nerve to tell me . . .

  The truth? Had I been searching for that truth ever since the death of my brother, or running away from it as hard as I could? I picked up the paper with the Connell quote and read and reread it.

  The sun crossed the sky, and the shadows through the Venetian blinds followed it. I would allow her one thing – I had taken advantage of Ross's death, sure, but wasn't that what a writer was supposed to do? Cash in on his life's experience and try to make some sense of it on paper? How could she fault me for that? Would she have condemned me if the story hadn't happened in the right place at the right time? What if it had been an exercise for a creative-writing class in college and nothing more? Would that have been okay in her eyes?

  She was jealous. Yes, that was it! All my fluke money and success from "Wooden Pajamas," being able to pull her away from Paul and then hinting I didn't want her after the danger had passed. She was a loser and I was a winner and . . . Hard as I tried for a couple of minutes, I couldn't dress her in that outfit either. She wasn't the jealous type and certainly wouldn't wither up and blow away if I walked out of her life. There was a toughness in her that could weather all kinds of storms, and I wasn't egotistical enough to think my departure would bring the curtain down on her life. Pain and guilt, yes, but no final curtain.

  Part Two in the revelations on a winter afternoon of one Joseph Lennox, writer and parasite.

  When it grew dark outside, I walked without thinking into the kitchen and opened a can of soup. I have no memory from that point on, until I realized I'd just washed my dinner dishes. I zombied back to my thinking chair and sat down for the next installment.

  Had my life, lucky as it was, run on automatic pilot from the day I'd pushed Ross until now? Was that possible? Could a person function in that kind of vacuum for so long without knowing it? It wasn't true. Look at all the work I'd done! All the places I'd visited, all the . . . the . . .

  A light winked on in an apartment on the other side of the courtyard, and I knew what she'd said was right. Not exactly, because I knew it wasn't magic I was trying to suck from other people, but rather a delight in life I knew I'd never have.

  A delight in life. That was what Ross and Paul Tate had in common, as did India and Karen. If magic was the thing, India had sold herself short by not taking her own into account. I did want what she and those other people had – the ability to live at ten out of ten on life's scale for as long as they possibly could. Me? I'd always chosen three or four, because I was afraid of the consequences of higher numbers.

  Ross stuck his nose right in life's face and challenged it to constant duels. Paul and India jumped into it blindly, not ever worrying about what would happen to them, because no matter what, the results would be interesting. Karen went out and bought you cowboy boots because she loved you. She was awed by the light coming through a glass of red wine and cried at old movies because one should cry then.

  A delight in life. I put my head in my hands and wept. I couldn't stop. I had done so many things wrong; judged distances and temperatures and hearts (including my own!) incorrectly from Day One, and now I knew why. I wept, and it didn't even feel good, because I knew I'd never have the delight they did; it tore me apart.

  What could I do? I had to talk to India. I had to tell her all of this. I also wanted to tell her about Ross and what I had done to him. She was a good psychiatrist (a little off the mark, but not much, considering the things she didn't know!). Even if she thought I was using her again, I wanted her thoughts on what I should do, now that the cat was out of the bag; now that I had the rest of my life to live.

  As I rubbed my nose on my sleeve, I started laughing. I remembered a ridiculous poster I'd seen in a head shop years before, which even then struck me as particularly trite and offensive: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You could say that again.

  "India? It's Joe. Can I come over and talk?"

  "Are you sure you want to?"

  "Very sure."

  "Okay. Should I put on my boxing gloves?"

  "No, just be there."

  I took a shower and chose my clothes carefully. I wanted to look good, because I wanted it all to be good. I even put on a tie I'd been afraid to wear for a year because it had cost so much. When I was ready, I stood in the doorway and gave a quick look around the apartment. Everything was neat and tidy, in place. Maybe when I returned my life would be in place, too. I had a chance, a fighting chance, to set things right, and I was grateful.

  I would have walked, but was so excited by all I had to say to her that I took a cab. As with the soup I'd eaten earlier, I was so preoccupied that I didn't realize we'd moved until the taxi pulled up at her door; the driver had to ask twice for eighty schillings. I got out the key she'd given me and let myself into the building. A smell of cold stone and dust was waiting, but I had no time for it and took the stairs to her apartment two at a time.

  "Two-at-a-time. Two-at-a-time." I said it to match the cadence of my feet on the steps. Unconsciously I counted how many there were. I'd never done that before. Thirty-six. Twelve, then a landing; twelve, then a landing . . .

  "Twelve-then-a-landing!" I was out of breath, but so hyper by the time I got to her floor I was afraid I'd break her door down.

  She preferred that I use my key to the apartment because every time I rang the bell she was either in the bathroom or taking a souffle out of the oven. Inevitably, as soon as she opened the door and greeted me, the next moment she was off, flying down the hall – back to whatever she'd been tending when I buzzed. I let myself in and was surprised to see that all the lights were out.

  "India?" I went into the living room, which was only dark shapes lit by the night-gray light from the window
s. She wasn't there.

  "India?" Nothing in the kitchen. Or the hall.

  Puzzled both by the darkness and by the silence, I wondered if something had happened while I was coming over. It wasn't like her to do this. What was wrong?

  I was about to turn on the lights when I remembered the bedroom.

  "India?" The light from the street fell in stripes over the bed. From the doorway I could see her lying there, with her back toward me. She had no top on, and her naked skin was like soft, bright clay.

  "Hey, what's up?" I stepped halfway into the room and stopped. She didn't move. "India?"

  "Play with Little Boy, Joey."

  It came from behind me. A familiar, beloved voice that sent a vicious, twisting chill down my spine. I was afraid to turn, but I had to. He was there. Little Boy. He was behind me. He was there.

  I turned; Paul Tate stood leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, the tips of white gloves showing behind his armpits. His top hat was cocked to one side. A dancer in the night.

  I began to crouch like a child. There was nowhere to go. Lower. If I got lower, he wouldn't see me. I could hide.

  "Play with Little Boy, Joey!" He took off his hat and, in a slow dream, peeled Paul Tate's face down and off his own: a smirking Bobby Hanley. "April Fool, scumbag."

  "Joe?" India called from the bed and, a snake to the charmer's pipe, I turned.

  She was facing me now, the light unnaturally bright over her naked form. She reached behind her head and, in a quick ripping motion, tore her hair and face away.

  Ross.

  Where the strength came from I don't know, but I sprang from my squat and, shoving Bobby aside, ran out of the apartment.

  I was going so fast I slipped on the first steps and almost fell, but I grabbed the metal banister and righted myself. Out of the door to the street. Move, run; go, run.

  What do I do? Where do I go? Bobby, Ross, Paul, India. My feet slapped those names at me as I ran nowhere, anywhere. Away. As fast as I'd ever run in my life. Move! A car honked, and I brushed its cold metal with my hand. A dog screamed because I kicked it running by. The owner's outraged cry. Another car horn. Where was I going? Ross. He'd done it.

  Karen! Get to Karen! The idea lit my mind. A gift from God. Get to Karen! Get to New York. Run and hide, and go to Karen, where there was love and truth and light. Karen. She would save me. I looked fearfully over my shoulder for the first time to see if they were following me. They weren't. Why? Why weren't they there? It didn't matter. I thanked God for that, thanked him for Karen. I ran and prayed and saw it all – the whole Ross game. Saw it all with such perfect clarity that it was all I could do to keep myself upright. I wanted to lie down in the street and die. But there was Karen. She was sanctuary.

  Things became clearer. I knew I was near an overhead station stop, and the train went near the Hilton Hotel. I could go to the Hilton and take a bus from there to the airport. Still running, I felt my back pocket to see if my wallet was there with all my money and credit cards. It was. Hilton, bus to the airport, first plane – any plane – out of Vienna, and then a connection from wherever to New York. To Karen.

  Heaving for breath, I got to the station and once again took stairs two at a time.

  No one was on the platform. I cursed because that probably meant a train had recently come and gone. I clenched and unclenched my fists at no trains, Ross, life. Ross was India. I had fallen in love with, made love to . . . my brother. How brilliant. Utterly fucking brilliant.

  I paced up and down the platform, straining my eyes down the tracks, trying to will a train to appear. Then I looked behind me at the steps to see if anyone was coming. No one. Why? When that question began to frighten me, the thin line of a train light showed down the track. I was saved. As it grew larger, I heard someone coming up the stairs. The steps were slow and heavy, tired. The light loomed larger; the steps kept coming. The train snaked noisily into the station and stopped. The steps did too. The two cars in front of me were completely empty. I reached for the door and was about to pull it open when she spoke.

  "Joseph?"

  I turned; Karen was there. My Karen.

  "Play with Little Boy!"

  Ross.

  EPILOGUE

  Formori, Greece

  There are one hundred people on this island. Tourists never come, because it is an ugly, rocky place and not what one has in mind when one thinks of Greece. Its closest neighbor is Crete, but that is seventeen hours away over the sea. With the exception of a supply boat that comes about every two weeks, we rarely see others. That is fine.

  My house is stone and simple. Two hundred feet away is the water. I have a wooden bench by the door and I sit on it for hours. It is pleasant. I pay well, so they bring me lamb and fish to cook at the end of each day. Kalamaria, sometimes even great red lobsters big enough for three people. I sit outside when the weather is good, but fall is coming and there are many storms. They are brutal and endless. It doesn't matter. If it rains, I light a fire inside my house and cook and eat and listen to the rain and the wind. My house, my bench, the wind, the rain, the sea. I can trust them. I can trust nothing else.

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