B. XO
‘How do I find the IP address?’ I demanded.
Beatrice took the mouse and I watched her. She was quick and precise. A menu came up and she clicked ‘View source’ and a new window opened. She ran her finger down the screen, scanning a page of code.
‘There it is.’ She pointed to a line that said ‘Originating IP: 67.101.158.209.’
She copied the numbers and then opened a new window and typed ‘Locate IP address’ into Google. She chose a site halfway down the results and pasted the address, then clicked a button that said ‘Locate’ and a map came up with an arrow pointing to New York.
‘There you go,’ she said. ‘It was posted from here.’
‘What, this place here?’
‘No, from New York. It doesn’t say where.’
‘Let me try,’ I said, and took the mouse. I clicked on the first message from Streetny and Beatrice watched over me as I copied what she had done.
I pasted the new IP address and a map came up with an arrow pointing to Paris.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked.
‘It means that whoever Charles Streetny is, they were in Paris yesterday, and they’re in New York today.’
‘As though someone were following me.’ The words left a bad taste in my mouth.
* * *
We found a Vietnamese restaurant Beatrice said looked nice. We ordered beers. I drank mine almost straightaway and got another. Beatrice was quiet, ignored her beer and played with her food.
‘You’ve gone into a funny mood,’ I said, because she had.
‘I’m just tired. My cat woke me up too early this morning. He was standing on me and kissing my nose. I got up to feed him, but then I couldn’t get back to sleep.’
‘My cat does that too.’
‘You have a cat?’
‘Yeah. He doesn’t do it because he wants feeding, though. He just bothers me to make me do things that I’d be too lazy or cowardly to do otherwise.’
‘That’s unusual behaviour for a cat. They don’t normally have the mindset to become motivational coaches.’
‘He’s not like normal cats, and not strictly governed by the laws of science.’
‘He’s not governed by the laws of science?’
‘No, because he’s imaginary,’ I said, and Beatrice coughed. ‘But not many people know that. I don’t really tell people about him.’
‘You have an imaginary cat?’
‘Yes. He’s not really my cat, he just comes and hangs out with me sometimes.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and made a face as if she were trying to humour a dangerous psychopath.
‘Can I ask you something completely different?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know any Catholic high schools for girls in West Midtown?’
‘Why would you want to know a thing like that?’ She looked at me suspiciously.
‘Because Butterfly told me to go to her school to find another notebook. She said it was an all-girls Catholic school in West Midtown.’
‘A notebook?’
‘I think it’s another murder,’ I said.
She stared at me blankly for too long, weighing something up. ‘It’s called Saint Michael’s Academy,’ she said.
‘You do know lots of things!’
She didn’t say anything.
‘What’s the matter, Beatrice?’
She carried on looking. ‘I feel . . . I don’t know, like I’m in a bad mood.’
‘Are you in a bad mood with me?’
‘I am probably just tired.’
‘Do you want me to take you home?’
‘That’s sweet. But no thanks.’
Now there was nothing to say. We stopped looking at each other and the quiet burned.
‘Look, Ben,’ she started again, ‘your treasure hunt is making me feel uncomfortable. I don’t really know who you are. You seem nice and you seem to be honest, but all those coincidences that didn’t bother me yesterday . . . well, I’m bothered by them today.’
‘Why?’
‘The reason I know Saint Michael’s Academy is because it’s where I went to school. It’s my school. My past.’
‘Oh,’ I said, my mouth gaping.
‘I almost wonder whether you’re playing some kind of trick on me.’
‘Oh,’ I said again, because no other words came to mind. ‘I’m not making any of this happen. But you were at school with Butterfly.’
‘She can’t be the same age as me or I’d know her.’
‘She’d be thirty-three now.’
‘Four years older than me. I went there when I was fourteen. She would have been in twelfth grade when I was a freshman, or she might have already left. But she must know people that I know. I could ask around.’
‘God, no, don’t do that,’ I said, panicked. ‘The stuff I’ve told you is secret. I don’t want you to know her. It wouldn’t work like that.’
‘What wouldn’t work?’
‘Knowing you. I like hanging out with you. It wouldn’t be the same if you knew her.’
‘I don’t think you should go and look for the book.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it feels like this is something to do with me. There are too many coincidences.’
‘Hey, now it’s you being paranoid. This is all coincidence. Nobody made you come over to me and ask for a light. That was your choice. I was just some random guy sitting on the steps.’
‘I don’t want you to go to my school.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of all the reasons I just said. Because I’m freaked out. This whole thing’s scaring me.’
‘I have to go!’ I said.
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said dryly.
‘It’s exciting, not scary. Something’s unfolding and I don’t know what. This is my treasure hunt. It’s why I’m in America.’
Now she wouldn’t look at me.
‘Come and help me find the book,’ I said. And then as a joke, ‘I’d protect you from her.’
‘I’m going now,’ said Beatrice, and stood up.
‘Hold on. I’ll walk you to the subway.’ I started to stand and fished around for my wallet.
‘No, I’m paying for this,’ she said. ‘You can leave the tip.’
By the time we got outside, her brain had already left. She pointed. ‘You go that way,’ she said. ‘It’s at 425 West Thirty-Third just near Penn Station. I’d take a cab if I were you.’
‘Can I drop you somewhere?’
‘I’m going a different way.’
‘OK. Can we meet again sometime?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘All right.’
‘Look, call me,’ she said. ‘Not tomorrow. Call me another day.’
‘OK,’ I said.
She kissed my cheeks and left me standing in the street, watching her. It would have been nice if she’d turned back to let me know that everything was all right, but she didn’t.
17
Tracy
I tried not to play through the conversation I’d just had with Beatrice; trying not to change the things I said, or to be more dynamic and convincing, trying not to consider that I might have been insensitive. I was cross with her for not wanting me to look for this book. I wanted her to be excited. I wanted her to be like she was yesterday.
The street seemed well lit and exposed but there was nobody in view. Just the occasional car. Black railings with points on top ran along the front of the school. I could have jumped over, but I didn’t need to. On either side of the entrance was a large ceramic plant pot with a shrub in it. Sticking my hands between the bars, I could easily reach the pot. I pulled out Tomomi Ishikawa’s blue pen and squatted down. A streetlight cast my shadow over where I was working. It would have cast the same shadow while Butterfly was planting her treasure. I started piercing pilot holes in the hope that what I was looking for was not too deep. The earth was hard and hadn’t
been disturbed anytime recently. Butterfly had once been here doing exactly the same thing as I was. The only thing that separated us was time. I thought of her, small and delicate, digging by herself in the night, touching the space that was touching my skin now, smelling the street and the dry earth, infringing on my personal space as if her memory were being projected inside me, like claustrophobia.
I tipped the pot and carefully pulled out the whole plant, roots, earth and everything. There was a small package in the bottom, wrapped in several layers of polythene and sealed with duct tape. I pushed the plant back into the pot and made sure it didn’t look as though it had been disturbed in any way. I took the bundle, headed to the subway and found a route back to the hotel that was surely far more complicated than necessary. I unpicked a notebook from the dusty plastic. It was old and had got damp at some point, but it was dry now.
Tracy Wyatt (1966–1997)
Every story has a beginning and this is mine. With any luck this book will rot away, or be found by future archaeologists long after my death. Perhaps it will be discovered and discarded without attracting interest. But I take the precaution of changing the names of those concerned, not to protect the innocent, but to save my sorry ass should someone ever pay attention to these words.
When I was seventeen, I had a hopeless crush on one of my high school teachers. He was new and young and serious looking with glasses. He had an air of being preoccupied with higher pursuits than daily matters that concerned the rest of us. He was soft-spoken and delicate. One might have expected him to be a target for ridicule, but his effortless superiority and aloofness caught our imagination and we loved him for it (although perhaps none more so than I).
For the sake of this text, the teacher’s name was Mr. Wyatt, although we called him Tracy and he made no objection. He taught English with a passion that was frankly lost on us all, but my weeks revolved around his classes, or absentminded anticipation of them. I would frequently wait at the end to ask questions, and my homework assignments were completed with previously unknown vigor.
Life outside school had started to flow in turbulent currents. My parents were all but absent in their respective worlds. The adolescent turmoil of doubt and isolation was augmented by the pact I had with my nanny, laying the foundations for her death. With my friends I maintained a brave face. I was slightly on the badder side of predictably naughty. But I was an outsider, and in solitude I plunged to new depths, wading through murky pools, considering—and confusing—love and loss (themes that have since dominated my reflections). I can only hope one day to be swept along in clearer waters.
Despite the metaphorical apples left for him at the end of every class, and other such advances on my part, Tracy behaved with admirable propriety. Underlining his wish not to encourage my attentions, he was considerably more jovial with other students. He did, however, seem to enjoy my creative writing and encouraged me to show him any extracurricular work should I so wish, which I did on several occasions. He took the time to go through my writing and offer gentle but constructive criticism of my efforts. And little by little I managed to gain his confidence and he became more relaxed in my presence.
As I approached my eighteenth birthday, I snagged on the blissful delusion that Tracy had held me at a distance because I was a minor and that soon, when I was an adult with voting rights, we would become an alpha couple to the admiration of my fellow students. In my imagination they had already guessed and had overcome their envy to wish me nothing but the best.
During one of our frequent class tangents (this time on astrological references in literature), I managed to learn that his birthday was just a week away. He would be twenty-six. I told the other girls that I would organize a gift and everybody contributed a dollar. I made up the rest from my own money. I bought him black cashmere underwear for $140, wrapped lovingly, a card inserted with the legend “Dearest Tracy, you’re the best. I love you. X.” There was another card as well for everybody to sign. But I knew he would recognize my handwriting and I knew that he would think of me every time he put on those exquisite shorts.
As it was I who had gone to the trouble to organize everything, it was only right that I should make the presentation. He opened the packet before the class to his obvious discomfort. And I found it so endearing. He thanked us all and moved quickly back to Harper Lee. From then on he avoided all one-on-one contact with me. I interpreted this not only as an admission of our complicity, but as a firm reminder that should the school authorities ever become aware of our love, he would lose his job, and thus our evolving relationship must take form off campus, away from the curious gaze of the world. So I followed him.
He rode a bicycle, which made the task more difficult, but by waiting ever farther ahead I managed to learn of an address to which he was a regular caller. Two weeks later, I conspired to bump into him outside the door. I waited, made up and perfumed, the anticipation burning me. He appeared around the corner and I jumped from my hiding place and ran straight to him.
“Oh, hello, Tracy.” I feigned surprise, of course.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” His head shot around for fear that somebody might see.
“Oh, I was just . . .” I had barely started my rehearsed lines when he exploded.
“Fuck you. Don’t ever come around here again. This is fucking off-limits, OK?” He made like he was going to slap me and I flinched, shocked, my eyes full of tears.
“But I was just at the bookshop on . . .” I pointed, and my voice cracked.
“Get. The fuck. Out of here. Now, Butterfly. Don’t ever fucking follow me again. Got it? Go!”
I stood there dumbstruck.
He pressed a buzzer. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” he said, then a woman’s voice said, “Yes?”
“It’s me,” he said. The door clicked and he went in.
I ran home weeping hysterically and locked myself in my room until Komori drew me out with soup and sympathy.
I received good grades from my studies with Tracy. The heartbreak ripped at me for months, not soothed by having been so public with my foiled intentions. For a long time after, it seemed his death would be the only way I would ever heal from the relentless humiliation of his rejection.
Five years later, I had become a self-confident young woman, and perhaps for the only time in my life, I was happy. I worked as an assistant at a small but well-reputed publisher of poetry and experimental fiction. It was my first job after graduation and one of my responsibilities was filtering the submissions, that is, reading the beginning of all the manuscripts sent to see if they fit our tight criteria. Anything of remote interest was passed on to an editor; most, however, were returned with a standard note of refusal.
One winter’s morning while opening the mail I found, quite unexpectedly, the manuscript of a novel written and submitted by Tracy. By this time the pain of his rejection was all but forgotten, and the renewed thought of him and his dramatic overreaction provoked an embarrassed smile. I took the book home to devour that evening.
His writing was disappointingly keen to please. The narrative, however, caught my attention. It was the story of a male teacher, entering into a relationship with an adolescent girl. It wasn’t Lolita by any means, but one could imagine from where he may have taken courage to document such a damning fantasy. My heart raced as I read his version of the cashmere underwear incident and I dreaded being exposed, but as the tale unfolded I recognized not myself in its pages, but another; a rather plain girl (I shall call her Jane), even younger than I, but she was a real person and I knew her. According to the story, Tracy developed a sexual relationship with her that lasted several years.
I wondered whether this could be true. It seemed the only way to be sure was to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I found Jane’s mom in the phone book and told her I was an old friend. She was reluctant to give any information but wanted to be polite. She said Jane was at a college upstate and mentioned the name of a reputable establishmen
t for the education of young women. She was thinner than I remembered and she was shy and broken. When I told her about Tracy’s book she looked at the ground. She confessed that they had had an affair, starting when she was fourteen, and which had only finished a few months before. The story she told was of being groomed and seduced by Tracy and then bound by a pact of secrecy, although she blamed herself for everything. I promised her that I would see to it that Tracy would never publish the work. She begged me not to turn him over to the authorities and I promised her that I had a much simpler way to resolve the problem.
Death was something I thought about a lot. I had never killed anybody, but I regularly toyed with the idea, pushing my understanding of moral limits, testing the boundaries in the hope of finding space for Komori’s death. It was absolutely necessary that I adopt this thinking. It was part of my preparation, my education, and so I regressed into a state of mind where individuals lose their value, and fantasy is fueled by fiction, shame and jealousy.
I had a plan, made easier with the certainty that I would never follow it to its conclusion. I would instead play a game of chicken with fate and see how close I could get. With the manuscript came a letter and at the top of the letter an address. It was not the same as the one I had gone to five years previously. I left work early on Friday evening and waited on the other side of the road, opposite his door, in the cold. He eventually arrived, walking briskly with his collar up and head down. I skipped across the street and literally bumped into him, knocking his briefcase to the ground. This may seem exactly like my last attempt to fake a surprise encounter, but this was infinitely more refined, more audacious, less subtle and carried out with ultimate confidence. The result was joyfully effective. He quickly apologized for his clumsiness and then recognized me. And it was he who insisted that we go immediately to get a drink and warm up lest we catch a chill talking in the street.
Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa Page 15