Jonathan Carroll - Voice of our Shadow

"If you're gone for a couple of months, maybe when you come back Paul will have decided to go away. Or maybe we won't even want our relationship anymore. . I don't know."

I put my hands on my knees and looked down at my feet. Why did I wear such solemn shoes? One look at my feet told the world I was forever on my way to Sunday school. Who else wore black shoes every day of the year? I didn't even have a pair of scruffy sneakers in my closet at home; only another pair of black oxfords that were this pair's twin brother.

"Okay, India."

"Okay what?"

I looked at her and tried to hold down the tremor in my voice. "Okay-I-think-you're-right. I knew it was the only thing to do, too, but I've been afraid to recommend it. I was scared you'd think I was a coward. But there isn't anything I can do here, is there? Isn't it obvious? He despises me, and whatever I try to do is going to be futile." I was squeezing my hands together so hard it hurt. "I'd do anything for you, India. I'm scared to death now, but I would stay and help you fight forever if I thought it would do any good."

She nodded, and I could see she was crying. I left a few minutes later without having touched her goodbye.

The flight from Vienna to New York takes nine hours. As the plane took off I felt a profound rush of relief. I was free! Paul and India and death and anxiety — I was leaving it all behind.

That relief lasted all of about five minutes. What followed was guilt and a paralyzing disappointment with myself. What the hell was I doing running away? How could I leave India alone in the darkness? I knew then how great a coward I really was, because I didn't want to stay. If anything, I wanted to be in New York in an hour. A hundred thousand miles away from Vienna and the Tates. I knew it and hated myself for the joy that had slyly bloomed inside me when I knew I'd made it — I had escaped.

I watched the movie, ate all the meals and snacks; twenty minutes before we landed, I went to the toilet and threw up.

I called India from the airport, but there was no answer. I called again from the city bus terminal; the connection was so clear it sounded as if she were in the next room.

"India? It's Joe. Listen, I'm going to come back."

"Joe? Where are you?"

"New York."

"Don't be goofy. I'm fine, so don't worry. I've got the phone number there, and I'll call you if I need you."

"Yes, but will you?"

"Yes, Mr. Jet Lag, I will."

"You won't, India, I know you."

"Joe, please don't be a horse's ass. This call is costing you a fortune and it's not necessary. It's adorable you called and are concerned, but I'm fine. Okay? I'll write, and I'll really call if I need you. Be good and eat some cheesecake for me. Ciao, pulcino." She hung up.

I smiled at her orneriness and her guts and my freedom. I couldn't help it. She'd ordered me to stay.

India hung on to a co-op studio apartment in the city on Seventy-second Street that had belonged to her mother. She had given me the key to it before I left. I went over and dropped off my bags. It was musty and dirty; but tired as I was, I gave the place a good scrubdown. It was night before I'd finished, and I barely had enough energy to stagger to the corner restaurant for a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

I sat at the counter and listened to the people speak English. I was so used to hearing German this language sounded bright and crisp as a new dollar bill.

I knew I should call my father and tell him I was in town, but I put it off so I could be by myself for a few days. I went to the bookstores and ate pastrami sandwiches and took in a few movies. I walked the streets like some rube from Patricia, Texas, gaping at the people and colors and life that floated in the air like an invasion of kites. Because I hadn't been there for so long I couldn't get enough of it. The weather was sour and cold, but that didn't stop me one bit. At times my head was so full of New York I actually forgot Vienna for a while, but then a sound or the way a woman touched her hair reminded me of India or Paul or something I knew back there.

I bought her a number of presents, but the one I liked best was an antique rosewood box. When I brought it home I put it on the dresser and wondered if I would ever give it to her.

I got in touch with my father, and we set up a lunch date. He wanted me to come up to the country to see their new apartment, but I wiggled out of it by saying I'd come to the States to camp out in the New York Public Library and had to work my schedule around their hours. I could say that sort of thing to him and get away with it because he loved the fact I was a writer; anything having to do with "the trade" was okay by him.

The real reason for my avoiding the visit was that I disliked his new wife, who was irritatingly garrulous and suspicious of me. My father thought she was great, and they seemed to have created a really happy life together, but whenever I had appeared on the scene in the past, it had thrown things out of kilter for all of us.

He liked pubs, so we met in front of O'Neal's on Seventy-second Street and Columbus. He caught me by surprise because he was dressed very nattily in an English raincoat that made him look like an old James Bond. He had also grown a whopping gray mustache that only added to his flash. I loved him for this new image; when we greeted each other with a bear hug, he was the one who let go first.

He was beaming and full of pep and said his new life was going great guns. He's such an honest person that I knew none of it was pretense or showing off. Good things were happening to this man who for so long had his share of the bad. What I adored about him was how he kept shaking his head at all his new good fortune. If ever there was a person who counted his blessings, it was my father.

We sat in a corner and ate jumbo hamburgers. He asked me about Vienna and my work. I told him a few lies that made it sound as if I had the world on a string. By the time coffee was served, he'd brought out a bunch of recent photographs of his family and, handing them to me one by one, made little comments on each.

His wife's two children by a previous marriage had grown and were both on the brink of adolescence. My stepmother had begun to lose the nice figure she'd brought to their marriage, but at the same time, she looked both more relaxed and more sure of herself than when I'd last seen her.

There were pictures in front of their new apartment building, in the jazzy new living room, of a trip they'd all taken together to New York. In that one they stood in front of Radio City Music Hall looking shy and secretly frightened of what they'd gotten themselves into by coming.

My father handed them to me gently, almost as if the pictures were the actual people. When he spoke his voice was amused, but love had hollowed out a corner in it; it was plain he cared very much for these people.

I smiled at each and tried to listen carefully to his explanations, but after I've seen ten or fifteen of them, snapshots of people I am not intimately involved with make my eyes swim.

"This one, Joe, is of that birthday party we had back in October. Remember, I was telling you about it?"

I glanced at the picture and reared away from it as if it were on fire.

"What is this? Where'd you get it?"

"What, son? What's the matter?"

"This picture — what's going on in it?"

"It's Beverly's birthday. I told you."

Three people stood holding hands, facing the camera. They wore normal clothes, but each wore a black top hat — just like Paul Tate's.

"Jesus Christ, get it away from me! Take it away!"

People were staring, but none of them as intently as my father, the poor guy. I hadn't seen him for many months, and then this had to happen. I couldn't help it. I'd thought Vienna was behind me and that for the time being I was safe. But what is safety? Physical? Mental?