Both of Me

  “Never seen it before,” he said quietly.

  Think, Clara. This one is safe to you, reasonably safe. The Other One? You need to figure out what he knows.

  Elias flattened out the sketch. “What are you looking for?”

  I peeked back at my mum, at the look in her eye, and down at the faces in the storm.

  And then I caught it. On the floor. The ragged stuffed bear lying in the corner. Thoughts of Little T — my disabled brother who in my mind would always be a child — pushed to the fore, along with all the shame, shame so suffocating I’d do anything to escape its weight.

  It was too late to help him, but just maybe . . .

  “If I take you on, do I have guarantees of a clean break at the end?”

  “Take me on?” Elias blinked.

  “When I am done assisting you, and we discover the purpose of the Other One’s quest, and if in doing so that somehow reintegrates the two of you into one perfect bloke, will you, A, release me back to my travels without trying to make me stay or the like, and B, make sure he tells me how he knows about what I did?”

  “No . . . I mean, of course I’d release you but . . . You don’t just recover from two identities by figuring out what the paranoid side wants.” Elias paused. “What travels . . . and what did you do?”

  “Those are my affairs.” I snatched the sketch back from Elias. Neither part of this boy could read. I only trusted half of him, and his other half hated me. Still, he was more than cute, and he reminded me of Little T. I had to help. I’d need assurances my efforts would come with no lingering obligations, but for the first time in months, I cared, and that made me vulnerable.

  Quite compassionate, actually.

  Then there was my own other half. I carried a lingering disdain for the boarders’ enjoyment of Elias’s illness. But Jakob was right: Lottery or not, I was no different. Details of what Elias knew about my past were apparently only available in Salem, and I needed to spend time with the Other One to get them. The drawings from the plane and the one tucked in my jeans had placed me among their manipulative number.

  Quite a self-serving wench . . . actually.

  I marched over and knelt down in front of him. “Your only job is to stay in the moment. Stay Elias. I need to have a chat with all the others who so very much want you to disappear into Salem, but for now, stay in this moment.”

  I reached my hand behind his neck and pulled his head near. I kissed him deeply. He did not kiss back.

  “We’ll work on it.” I exhaled. “In the moment.”

  He swallowed hard. “In the moment.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Who moved my things? Who snuck into my room and moved my things?”

  Elias’s shout woke me with a start, and I threw on some clothes, scowled at the enormous faces, and burst into the hallway, where an interrogation was underway.

  There was Guinevere, Jakob, and Juan, as well as seven or eight other guests. All were lined up in a row, while Elias strode back and forth, pausing to point his finger at each one.

  “You. Mom, it was you.”

  “No, dear.”

  Elias squinted. “I see no lying in your eyes.” He moved on to Jakob.

  “This is mad!” I yelled, and walked determined toward Elias. His eyes grew large, and then softened, but it was Guinevere who spoke next.

  “Go along with it, Clara. Doctor’s directive.”

  “What a daft doctor.” I turned to Elias and gave him a shove. “I did this. I searched through your drawers and listened to your tapes. I walked in and did it all. You gave me permission!”

  Elias’s mouth twitched, and he peeked at the ceiling. “I let you?” His voice was distant.

  “You jolly well opened the door.”

  He faced the lineup. “You are all dismissed. Clara, I would like to speak with you.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Elias winced. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Do you?”

  He balled both his fists. “Manners. Think manners . . . May I please have a word with you?”

  “In time.”

  I marched passed Guinevere and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” I opened the front door, glanced back over my shoulder at Elias, and stepped into morning sunshine.

  A minute later, Elias poked out his head. “Are you deaf? I said I want to talk to you!”

  I felt a grin creep over my face — the joy of frustrating him was considerable — and I started walking north. Elias followed, his feet shuffling behind me. Now and then he asked to talk, but one scolding glance silenced him.

  We walked for hours, skirting this unfamiliar city. I needed time to think. Finally, I was ready, and we plunged into the heart of downtown, making for the tallest building. After several near-death experiences involving road construction, we reached it.

  “Why are we here?” Elias grabbed on to my shoulder and quickly released.

  I froze. “You may do that again, if you like.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Very well, then follow.”

  We pushed through revolving doors and into a large, shop-filled courtyard. Offices surely filled the top levels, and hopefully, a quiet place to chat would be among them.

  I led Elias Phinn to the lift, and we stepped on. I pressed the button labeled OD, and a minute later, we stepped out onto the observation deck. It offered a rather magnificent view.

  I walked to the window, and pointed out over the city.

  “This is much higher than your cherry perch. Even closer to your stars. You can see for miles.”

  Elias’s jaw tightened.

  “Listen, I brought you here because you pound about the inn as if you own the place, as if you own those people. You don’t. You don’t own anything you see out this window.” I sighed. “You need to know that . . . And I need to know what you’re searching for.”

  Elias pressed his nose against the glass. “I know of more impressive cities.”

  “Hang the city. That is not why I brought you here!” I took a cleansing breath, slowly lowering my hands. “I’ll start over. You’re looking for something, and I’m going to help you find it.”

  He folded his arms. “How do you know I’m on a search?”

  “I spoke to you about it, the you that right now is waiting beneath the surface, waiting to come up for air. I know that everyone says there are two Eliases, but I say it’s the same you.” I tapped the glass. “I heard your tapes. I heard you mention me. I heard you mention a quest.” I rolled my eyes. Here we go. I need him to trust me. Time to leave the truth behind. “I’m willing to abandon all attempts to elicit information from you and simply be of assistance.”

  “Why?”

  My mouth opened and shut. The lie was indefensible. Even to the imaginary part of Elias.

  But what if this was the real him? Of course the kinder one talked a good talk, all boys did, but maybe this was the true Elias and I’d kissed the fake. No. I shook the idea from my mind. This one needed to disappear for good.

  I fingered the sketch in my pocket.

  But not yet.

  “You can’t help me find what Salem needs. It is my search. It’s been given to me by our recently crowned queen, and I won’t be sidetracked by your charms.”

  I let my arms flop at my sides. “Are you not listening? I’m offering you my help.” I took a deep breath, stepped back and sat on the bench. “Odd. Someone once used that precise same line on me.”

  “Who?” Elias plunked down beside me.

  I swept back my hair. “It’s a tale. You sure you want to hear?”

  His eyes grew wide and he folded his hands.

  “Well, the heat in Mali had been overpowering that day. I was looking for shade, but I had no desire to slow. A deep voice trailing me kept asking, ‘Are you not listening? I’m offering you my help.’ ”

  Ninety percent of my blogged-about adventures had also been experienced by my Dad. But every so often I lost his scent — missed
a train, took a wrong turn — and so it had been in Mali. Then my heart beat faster. There were no safe houses mentioned in his journal for those places, no friendly names. Panic normally ensued. Somehow following Dad’s map settled me. As if he was still beside me.

  A part of me.

  I peeked toward Elias.

  “I shouldn’t have stopped, but I did, and trusted him right off. The young man had been following me throughout Bamako’s openair bazaar carrying a silly guitar-shaped instrument fashioned from a gourd. The price had been a tenner, but was now down to a few pennies.

  “I don’t need your instrument,” I told the lad.

  “No, but you wander in circles, and maybe you have need of directions. I am the most reliable guide.”

  “The most reliable.” I tried not to grin, but it was a challenge. “And you know your way around Mali?”

  “I’ve lived here all my life. I speak English and French. I speak Bambara and Fulfulde. Nobody is as helpful as Cliq. I’ll guide you. For five pounds, of course. So come, come . . . where is it you want to go?”

  “Timbuktu.”

  I had read about the place in Dad’s journal, but that entry was made twenty years previous. Before the bloodshed.

  Cliq grabbed my arm and pulled me between melon stands. “Fighting there. Nothing remains. It’s a long road.” He whistled. “So much fighting.”

  “Do you want my money or not?” I asked.

  “You’re traveling alone. I could have your money and more any time I wanted it.” He was right. Strength marked his muscled arms — strength and scars. Pinkish-white gashes from recent altercations crisscrossed his forearms, rivaling the white gleam of his teeth. Tall, young, and handsome, I liked him at once — he didn’t appear one to play it safe.

  The bloke rolled his eyes. “Timbuktu . . .” He slipped into a language I’d not heard before. “Of all the places.”

  His wagon was waiting outside the bazaar. I climbed on, and he did too. Thirty minutes later, our path veered away from the Niger River, toward an expanse of nothing.

  “So we begin. Tell me when you need to rest.” Cliq lay down beside me in the back of the cart and immediately fell asleep.

  The donkeys just kept plodding ahead along the road. One day, two days, three days.

  That third afternoon, it burned especially hot. Beneath a cloudless sky, my neck blistered and my throat ached and my desire to reach Timbuktu vanished.

  I thought about turning around. I could settle up and leave the country.

  I didn’t have the chance.

  A Toyota truck squealed to a stop. Rushed words spoken in Bambara passed between Cliq and the driver, and as the truck sped away he pulled his donkeys off the road.

  “We’ll stop here. Fresh fighting. Much blood. I won’t take you farther.”

  I glanced around. “That village?”

  “Sevare. Nothing there.”

  “Then that’s where I wish to go.”

  Outside the wall sat a woman, her hands clenched. “Toward that woman,” I said.

  “No.”

  “To the woman. I demand it.”

  “No, she’s outside the wall.”

  I leaped off the cart and ran to her, slowing as I approached. Her face was deformed, concealing her age. I greeted her in English and offered my hand. She stared at it, reached out and took it. I squeezed, and a little piece of her finger fell to the ground.

  A leper.

  Cliq would not let me back onto his cart.

  “What happened?” Elias jumped in. “How did you get back?”

  I blinked.

  “I found three members of the Peace Corps in Sevare, one a trusting lad. I spent some time with him, and when night fell I continued, in his truck, to Timbuktu. The how of it is best not said. I continued on . . . shamefully.” I looked down over the city. “But the point of the story is that I’m not afraid of journeys; I know how to get where I’m going. I know how to locate what is very hard to find. Let me help you.”

  “I don’t want shameful help.”

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  We sat quietly together, though I imagine our thoughts were quite far apart.

  “Yes. I need a guide. An honest guide.” Elias scrunched his face. “Can you be that?”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s very honest,” he said. “And you can translate the instruction manual? It leads us where we need to go.”

  “The instruction . . . you mean my diary? The one you were digging through? Of course I can read it. I mean, I wrote it. But they’re just my thoughts. My private thoughts.”

  Elias glanced to the left and the right, and lowered his voice. “I have the map. The queen said someone would arrive with the manual that interprets it. It think we’re supposed to go on this quest together.”

  I turned to Elias. His face was radiant and peaceful. Like Marna’s, on a good day.

  “But how much easier it would be if you told me what we’re searching for. This would help me guide you.”

  Elias shook his head. “When I first met you, I had doubts. I may have been wrong, but when I’m sure I can trust you, after you pass the tests, I’ll tell you.”

  The tests. The sketchings that revealed what he knew. Yes, this would be acceptable.

  We rode the lift down and walked the long walk back to the inn. I didn’t say much. Elias spoke nonstop. He spoke of Salem and its large cities, the people and their languages. He told of a small town that a group of the sick weren’t allowed to enter, and he explained several local ordinances governing the usage of donkeys as transportation.

  My world had become his, or his mine; it was hard to say.

  How easy it was to slip through the cracks alongside him. To fall into the very same trap I had committed to free him from. As Elias droned on, my mind wandered to Jakob and Bette and Juan. Were they really using him, or simply enjoying him? What was I doing?

  “. . . so I hung a picture of her in my room. I’ll show it to you sometime. We have a very beautiful new queen, but she’s tired. She’s trying to do it all. Maybe that’s why she asked me to help, to go on this quest . . .”

  My mum? Your queen?

  An unknown boy thousands of miles from London was trying to assist my dead mum.

  My mum’s own daughter could have done so much more.

  Though the dead spot in my heart did not feel it, there was no escape from the truth: I was beginning this search shamefully.

  CHAPTER 9

  After.

  After our return and Elias’s hasty retreat to his room.

  After I found the biscuits Guinevere left out for us and after I washed up.

  That’s when I heard them. Giggles. Directly overhead.

  I had not yet risked a peek into the upper studio, but I arose from my bed wide awake, the four faces in my room once again providing every reason to leave and explore.

  I wandered upstairs and toward the noisy room with the door ajar. I strained my ears. My French was poor, but it took no understanding to hear the excitement in the women’s voices. I knocked quietly, and they fell silent.

  “We were carried away. I’m sorry that —” The door opened and two faces peered into the hall. “Oh, do come! Tell us about your travels in you-know-where.”

  “England?”

  “Salem, of course!” They each grabbed an arm and pulled me into a room crammed with fifty easels. “Forgive the mess. No, don’t forgive. You’ll remember us from the lottery — I made quite the impression — my name is Doucette, and this is my sister, Roseau. We were hoping to speak with you soon.”

  “Artists.”

  “It is an effort,” Roseau quietly said.

  “It’s more than that.” I gazed across the canvases. “They’re beautiful.”

  At the compliment, Doucette giggled again. “Please then, take a closer look. And this is only two month’s work.”

  I wandered among their paintings, of rivers and mountains, fac
es and festivals. Vibrant, alive; I wanted to stand among them, live among them.

  “Is this France?” I pointed to a landscape of rolling hills and poppies.

  Doucette and Roseau peeked at each other, and Roseau sighed. “Actually no, that is —” “

  Someday,” interrupted Doucette, “we will have a show, and we will proudly name it ‘Images of Salem.’ Elias comes in here and sits in that rocker and speaks . . .”

  I walked over to the chair and rubbed the armrest with my hand, eased down into it.

  “Perhaps it’s not for you to sit in. He notices when it is off center.” Doucette beckoned me to stand. “Sessions aren’t so good when he is off center.”

  I rose. “So, you paint only his world?”

  “There is no place on this earth where we could experience the beauty as he describes.” Doucette sighed. “We are the artists, but I think we do not see as he does.”

  “No, I imagine you don’t.” I stepped up toward a painting, an aerial masterpiece. The perspective dwarfed that seen from the skyscraper’s observation deck . . . How absurd to think the view I provided would put Elias off balance.

  “His words hold more information than we can obtain with our eyes. But we are the painters.” Doucette gestured about the room.

  “And the four monstrously sized men in my room . . . did you paint them?”

  “Non. That is Elias’s work. Magnificent, aren’t they?”

  “But this . . . We record all this for him,” Roseau quickly added.

  “For him or for you?”

  Doucette frowned. “It is all for him. Always, he comes in. Always, we listen and work. Always —”

  “It is for us,” Roseau said softly. “It was not meant to be so. We came to stay here three years ago quite by accident. We missed our plane home, to Paris, and stayed here. For one night, we thought. We were failed, defeated.”

  “You overstate our situation, sister.”

  “Non. And you know this to be true. Elias came up and paid us a visit, and we painted one mountain.” Roseau closed her eyes. “And such a mountain. Had you seen anything like it?”

  “Non,” Doucette said quietly.