Chameleon (Days)

by Dean Serravalle

  “Follow me.”

  Kashif walks over to a shelf of books behind the easels. He removes a gun with a silencer. The Messenger’s breath accelerates and his nerves adrenalize. He thinks of Sabal. She was his last request, his life’s last desire. To experience a connection to the world he had given up on. To enter another human being like a lost soul in search of a temporary temple before ­ascension.

  Kashif dresses in pants, shoes, a loose shirt and jacket. The Messenger follows him outside the backstage area, down the steps, alongside the body of water, across a man-made bridge and to a tiny aperture. When he squeezes through he sees the scene he imagined on the bus in Syria, the one promised to him by The Man in the grotto, his death scene, his last vision—except for the goat. He drops to his knees to revere the fulfilment of this internal apparition. Kashif removes the gun and presses it into the back of his head. The circular point of the gage is infinite, like a moving drill.

  “Tell me the message.”

  “There is a child. He is held captive by a group. He blesses them with health. He cures them of ills, war wounds, even death. He personifies grace and deity, but he cannot walk. This boy needs to be stolen. Only you can breach the walls that imprison him. Only you can find him. By finding him, you will destroy everything you have ever created. By finding him, you will save her. He knows she is your daughter. He has a gun pointed at her neck.”

  “Who knows my daughter?”

  The gun trembles a little and The Messenger doesn’t expect this reaction.

  “I don’t know him. But he knows you. He knows she is your daughter. He seems to know everything. He knows more about me than I know about myself. I don’t know him. He wouldn’t let me see him. He found me. He asked me to deliver this message. He promised me you would make sure this is my end.”

  The gun stabilizes again. Finds a flat resting point on the back of his skull.

  “Who is this child?”

  “A miracle. The next coming.”

  “Of what?”

  “Good?”

  “There is no such thing. What if I don’t find him?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he knows you will find him.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “He didn’t say?”

  “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t expect you to refuse.”

  “What if this boy doesn’t exist? This may be a plot to smoke me out of my hole.”

  “All he said is you would know how to find him.”

  Kashif loads a single bullet into the gun tunnel. On the ground, The Messenger can feel Kashif stepping back. The balance of the softer ground shifts. The Messenger raises his head like those religious pictures of saints in his grandmother’s home. In the midst of angry people setting a young girl on fire, the young girl is looking up to heaven, an aureole of light around her head. The Messenger remembers every one of those pictures of the same theme. The Saint is about to die willingly, just like him, some with smiles or smirks on their faces. Their skin always porcelain, their eyes always blue, their gowns always coloured above the shadowed drabs of their persecutors.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. How does he know my daughter?”

  “I don’t know. He knows you. He described you perfectly. Your skin. Your face. The way you are going to kill me. The view. He is omniscient.”

  “Who is?”

  “This Man.”

  Kashif removes the gun from The Messenger’s head.

  “Get up.”

  The Messenger turns on his knees and grasps for the gun. He is desperate. He spoke too much, he believes. He distorted the message.

  “You need to kill me now. My mission is complete.”

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “I do what I want and I need you.”

  “For what. I am useless to you.”

  “You will represent me.”

  “To whom?”

  “My captors.”

  “Your captors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  “We will see soon enough.”

  “What will we see?”

  “Whoever wants me the most? They will have the child.”

  DAY 19

  “Have you ever resurrected someone before?”

  They return to the area of the cavern that resembles a backstage dressing room. Kashif’s question is muffled by the sound of boxes being pushed around in a closeted area. The Messenger waits for him to reappear amongst the circle of easels before he answers.

  “What do you mean?”

  Kashif is holding a wig in one hand, some crumpled, yellow paper in the other. His face has changed since it first emerged from beneath the made up priest. It transforms in real time. Kashif’s face is always transforming in waves of colours, in ripples of skin, every time he moves or says something.

  “No one has seen me for fifteen years. They have proclaimed me dead ten times. Every one presumes I am ash. I made myself disappear. I martyred myself, so to speak. We need to make them believe I am who I am.”

  He raises the wig and is busy arranging other materials. He drags one of the easels from the circle to the center of the room. It is the easel with the pencil drawings. As if in continuous motion, he removes a shard of lead and begins sketching and smudging. The portrait of a man appears like a magic trick performed on the corner of the street in a populated tourist zone. After it is complete, he stretches the other arm out, the one crumpling the yellow papers. The Messenger unravels them to see the replica of the picture aside a news article with the caption “Most Wanted Terrorist Believed Dead.”

  “This is you?”

  “This was me.”

  After he has completed the pencil sketch, he turns it so that it becomes reflected in the mirror by the makeup table.

  In a very effeminate manner, Kashif fingers the jars and makeup vials to determine a prescriptive order.

  He then takes a seat. Over his left shoulder in the mirror is the drawing. Over his right is an observant messenger.

  “Do you know how to take pictures?”

  The Messenger nods in a dazed way, as if not hearing the question properly. He watches The Messenger assume a makeup artist posture and it distracts him from words.

  “I said do you know how to take pictures?”

  “Yes, I do. Why?”

  “I need to recreate myself right now. After I do so, with some added years and wrinkles of course, you will take a picture. They will not believe it is me if you show this version. They need to see a version that resembles the pictures in their mosques, those on signs of protest, or others imprinted on candles at cemeteries.”

  “Where is the camera?”

  “In the cove over there, I need to start.”

  Kashif uncaps the vials and begins painting his face with an assortment of reserved brushes. His touch is delicate, his stroke artistic, and his craft well-learned and articulate in function. Before long, his face is shaded and wrinkled, painted weathered by the hot desert sun. A beard has sprouted thick and grisly on his chin and his eyebrows are thickened and nearly connected at the bridge of the nose. He goes as far as blanching his lips to appear thirsty, or chapped, and even his eyeballs for some reason are yellower.

  “Eye drops, that’s all.” He seems to read The Messenger’s confusion.

  The final piece is the wild wig with a loose ponytail. When he fastens it securely on his bare scalp it isn’t good enough. He disappears behind an easel and behind another cavern wall before reappearing with a spray can. Very expertly he creates layers of grey.

  The basics and foundation of his reconstruction resemble the drawing, but the colours and design take into account the lost fifteen years. Af
ter he completes the facial, he doesn’t ask for an opinion. He doesn’t seek any praise for his work either, or criticism. His creation is as instinctive as his movements, one in the same. He disappears once again behind another easel. They serve so many roles, like doors in front of other doors. Layers of doors.

  He returns dressed in dull green military attire with a tattered scarf for his neck. He walks up to The Messenger with a different aura now. And The Messenger is intimidated by the vision, the natural ease of the metamorphosis, the knowledge of what lies beneath the costume, so easily transformative as one in the same. Kashif doesn’t say a word because he is biting on his lips to create bruised bubbles beneath the surface, unsmooth landscapes, worn lips. He then drops to his knees as if to kiss The Messenger’s feet. The Messenger follows him down with his eyes.

  “Kick dirt into my eyes.”

  “What?”

  “I said kick dirt into my eyes.”

  The Messenger obeys the request. When Kashif rises, his face is dustier than the artificial make up could accomplish. He squints his eyes over and over again to shift the dust around, to make it sting enough. When he opens them, they are bloodshot, embattled.

  “Take the camera.”

  The Messenger removes the lens cap. Even the lens is grainy, as if purposely scratched to create a sepia effect.

  Kashif reverses backwards toward the wall. In doing so he finds a place against the cavern not interfered with. A plain back drop for a focused target.

  “Hold on. You can’t catch me in a pose. It has to appear as if it is a long shot, like someone is spying on me from a distance, unbeknown to me. However, I must appear strong, not like a deer about to be cross-bowed via periscope. No, I want you to start snapping, one after the other. I will change my profile and move my angles, and then we will select the right one not facing the camera, with enough faith in it.”

  The Messenger takes another step back and aims.

  “Start shooting.”

  The Messenger snaps away. The flash becomes a strobe as he snaps and snaps away with increased speed.

  Kashif is not satisfied enough. He changes profiles, he never once looks directly at the camera.

  When the camera stalls on its own, he takes it from The Messenger’s hands.

  Once again, he doesn’t ask for an opinion. He wades through the pics with no criticism or appreciation for the photos. He does this for quite some time. Eventually he finds one.

  “This one. We will send this one.”

  “To whom?”

  “To the Americans.”

  “The Americans?”

  “Yes. This will cause a holy war here.”

  The Messenger is confused but after some thought, puts two and two together. A war must start with words before action, internal conflict before external conflict. Insult before injury.

  “You want me to send it to a media source.”

  Kashif freezes his stare. He is not impressed by The Messenger’s interpretation of his intentions. Or is he only thinking beyond the step, or listening to his instincts?

  “We will send it to a media source, yes, but one here, on the American payroll. An overseas submission will only draw suspicion and disbelief. You will be my agent. You will represent my interests. It must appear like an insult to the American side. My survival will insult them initially, so they will have to take ownership of the story to spin it properly. They will lie, create more story, more fiction, but in doing so, they will accomplish the goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “To make me public to the groups.”

  “Which groups in particular?”

  “The ones funded most by higher economic interests. The most dangerous. One of these interests will reveal which group has the child.”

  “You are suggesting they come to us.”

  “Yes. These groups will fight for me. Or over me.”

  “Why?”

  “It will please their employers. It will raise the price of their services.”

  “Services?”

  “Yes. Supply follows demand . . .”

  Kashif, or the past version of him, approaches The Messenger on soft footing, as a teacher would a student’s desk.

  “It is never about religion. It is never about land. It is never about differences. It is never about history. But it is always about eating.”

  Kashif waves The Messenger on to follow him out of the room.

  “Bring the camera with you.”

  The Messenger does as he is told.

  I stop writing because it is late at night and something is happening to me again, or has been happening to me. I don’t know what it is. I feel invaded. But it’s not The Man this time.

  It’s hard to describe because I am yet to find the source of it. All I understand is that my body is more difficult to move. My legs are too heavy to run away from my dreams and underneath my skin rows and rows of knives point outward. The overall effect is the sensation of bruising everywhere. Even my face. Underneath my jaw. My entire body, like a sponge, continues to absorb whatever it is without any lightness or release. I’ve tried to physically exercise it away. I’ve tried to sleep it away. Perhaps I am tired, or maybe I am burning out trying to balance my four jobs with my four children. But it doesn’t feel at all like fatigue, although I lend the condition that excuse.

  When my wife found out her lump was benign, a new life entered me, so to speak, to replace the perpetual worrisome one. For a brief moment, I discarded all of my fears of someone closer to me dying the way my cousin died. When he first discovered he had an aggressive form of colon cancer, he didn’t tell us, his extended family, that it was deemed terminal. He didn’t want to worry his mother, my aunt, or his brothers. For a whole year I held hope he could defeat it. I asked about him often. When I saw him at our annual Christmas party, I assured him we had prayers banked up enough to see him through the ordeal. He and his wife smiled at me. In retrospect, I could tell they knew ­something more. And that something more was too tragic to reveal at Christmas. And then the truth revealed itself, three months before his death.

  He had visited his doctor only to be told never to come back again. The news from the other end of my mother’s phone pummelled me. Making matters worse, he didn’t want us to see him deteriorate. He wanted to spend his remaining time with his own immediate family. He wanted to spare all of us the horror of his death so we could live on not feeling it for ourselves.

  I admired and envied him at the same time. He was a brilliant man with a talent to apply meticulous attention to detail. Someone I aspired myself to be as a writer. He died my age and I felt cheated for never seeing him in this weakened phase of his life. Until the night that he died. We visited my aunt at her home. All of us assembled there to cry and remember him before the official funeral formalities. I remember her house to be so meticulously clean, as if she expected the company at any minute.

  It was there that I saw a picture of him, taken recently, before he became bedridden. He appeared so thin, so unrecognizable, so skeletal.

  I try to continue the next segment of the story. I am glad I have finally introduced The Messenger to Kashif, although I know The Man will argue I did The Messenger a gross injustice not to kill him off.

  I don’t understand why I can’t think, move, or write without thinking of Tommy. I don’t want to mention it to my wife. She will tell me we have everything to be happy about. She will tell me we are lucky and fortunate to have dodged the proverbial cancer bullet. She will question if I love her enough to get past my own, personal issues.

  I pour myself a glass of water and it doesn’t help. So I sit against the cupboards in a darkened kitchen and shiver.

  DAY 20

  I have a meeting at work for which The Man counsels me. He considers himself my agent now, I suppose. He must feel really guilty for disrupting the sus
pension of disbelief in my story. His involvement with one of my minor characters, Sabal, is a direct violation of our trust and it further harms the traditional order of being between creator and the created.

  “Don’t worry about the meeting. It isn’t something to fret over. You can quit this job and make a living from your writing, you know.”

  This shot of tequila confidence in me burns my throat as I drive in to school again. I have the radio on and the sky is too white this morning to hold anything colourful within it. The Man tries to speak louder than the music. It is a Sinead O’Connor song that I secretly like and never admit to anyone else. The one Prince wrote, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” I don’t know why I continue to like this song about a broken relationship, since mine is stronger than ever after hearing the news of my wife’s benign cyst. The song speaks to me in subtle ways and I appreciate the simplicity of the images. The sadness lies in this confessional simplicity.

  The Man doesn’t understand that his overstated attempt to gain my better side again is interfering with my connection to the song. I’m not in the mood to argue with him. He can talk, and although I try not to listen, I do.

  “So your principal has called a meeting with your union leader to discuss a coffee run on your lunch break?”

  I don’t say anything. I know what The Man is implying. I don’t want to engage, even though he is volunteering to be my friend in this professional matter. He doesn’t understand I would prefer to be just that, professional, through and through in my career. And he isn’t a part of this career path, although he has interfered mightily in the other. My day job is separate from him, as it is separate from the friends I grew up with, or my extended family. It’s another world they don’t belong in, another one The Man doesn’t belong in, although he wishes to stake claim in it.

  “So you’re going to use the professional card? Professionalism is a good looking wall to hide behind, so stop making excuses for what you are dying to say.”

  I ignore him, although I wish his support could make me feel better. The Man isn’t as selfish as I thought. Why invest this energy in my real career conflicts? Maybe he is sincerely concerned. Or, he has discovered another agenda to launch his ­character back into the story. Perhaps he feels threatened himself after I kept The Messenger alive. That pushes him to a third bidding automatically. The Man keeps sliding down the bench in the story and I know he values his character above everyone else’s, even Kashif’s, my protagonist.