Хлоя Бенджамин: The Immortalists

‘Hello?’ asks the voice, uncertainly.

‘Luke.’ She is overcome by two emotions: relief that he has picked up, and fear that whatever window he’ll give her will not be long enough for her to earn his forgiveness. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for what happened to your brother, and I’m sorry for what happened to you. You should never have had to experience that, never; I wish you hadn’t, I wish I could take it away from you.’

Silence on the other end. Varya presses the phone to her ear, breathing shallowly.

‘How did you get my number?’ he asks, finally.

‘It was in your e-mail to Annie – when you asked for the interview.’ He is quiet again, and Varya continues. ‘Listen to me, Luke. You can’t go through life convinced it was your fault. You have to forgive yourself. You won’t survive otherwise – not in any comprehensive way. Not in the way you deserve to.’

‘I’ll be like you.’

‘Yes,’ she says, and wills herself not to cry again. These words apply to her, too, of course. But she’s never let herself believe them before.

‘Are you really going to Jewish-mother me now? Because I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations ran out on that one twenty-six years ago.’

‘That’s fair,’ she says, though she coughs out a laugh. ‘That’s true.’

She transmits a plea: that he will extend to her the gift of empathy, however undeserved. She looks across the condominium complex, at the one lit kitchen.

‘I have to go to bed,’ says Luke. ‘You woke me up, you know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Varya. Her chin – stitched, still bandaged – trembles.

‘Can you call me tomorrow? I get off work at five.’

‘Yes,’ Varya says, closing her eyes. ‘Thank you. Where do you work?’

‘Sports Basement. It’s an outlet for outdoor gear.’

‘I thought, the day I met you – I thought you looked ready to go hiking.’

‘I usually do. We get a huge employee discount.’

How little she knows of him. She feels a bolt of disappointment that her son is not a biologist or a journalist but a retail employee, and then she rebukes herself. He is being honest now, and she holds his honesty inside her: one more thing she knows of him that’s real.

Three months later, Varya sits in a French bakery in Hayes Valley. When the man she has come to meet enters the café, she recognizes him immediately. They’ve never met in person, but she’s seen promotional photos of him online. Of course, he is featured too in older snapshots with Simon and Klara. The one Varya likes best was taken in the Collingwood Street apartment Klara and Simon once shared. A black man sits on the floor, leaning against the window, one arm slung up on the frame. His other arm rests on Simon, who lies with his head in the first man’s lap.

‘Robert,’ says Varya, standing.

Robert turns. She can see the handsome, muscular man he used to be – he is tall and arresting, his expression alert – though he is now sixty and thinner, his hair half-gray.

Varya has wondered about him for years, but she wasn’t brave enough to search for him in any serious way until this summer. She found an article about two men who run a contemporary dance company in Chicago. When she wrote by e-mail, he told her he would be in San Francisco this week for a dance festival at Stern Grove. Now they chat about her research, his choreography, and the South Side flat where he and his husband, Billy, live with two Maine Coon cats. ‘Ewoks,’ Robert says. He’s laughing, showing her photos on his cell phone, and Varya is laughing, too, until she’s suddenly close to tears.

‘What is it?’ asks Robert. He pockets the phone.

Varya wipes her eyes. ‘I’m so happy to meet you. My sister, Klara – she talked about you frequently. She would have loved . . .’ The conditional: a tense she still hates. ‘She would have loved to know you’re –’

‘Alive?’ Robert smiles. ‘It’s all right; you can say it. It was never guaranteed. Not that it’s guaranteed for any of us.’ He adjusts an engraved, silver bracelet, which he and Billy wear instead of wedding rings. ‘I do have the virus. I never thought I’d live to be an old man. Hell, I thought I’d die by thirty-five. But I made it until the cocktail became available. And Billy has energy enough for both of us. He’s young – too young to have gone through what we did. When Simon died, he was ten.’

Robert meets her eyes. It’s the first time either of them have said Simon’s name.

‘I’ve never been able to let go of the fact that I didn’t see him after he left home,’ says Varya. ‘Four years he lived in San Francisco, and I never came. I was so angry at him. And I thought he’d . . . grow up.’

The words hover. Varya swallows. Klara was with Simon and even Daniel spoke to him, a brief phone call he described after the funeral, but Varya was rock, was ice, so remote he could not have reached her if he’d wanted to. And why would he want to? He must have known that Varya resented him more than she did Klara. At least Klara had made it clear she was leaving; at least she had the decency, once in San Francisco, to pick up the phone. Varya gave up on Simon. It was no surprise that he also gave up on her.

Robert puts his hand on top of hers, and she tries not to flinch. His palm is broad and warm. ‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘No. But I should have forgiven him.’

‘You were a kid. We all were. Look – before Simon died, I was cautious. Too cautious, maybe. But when he died I did some stupid, reckless things. Things that should’ve gotten me killed.’

‘The thought that you could die from sex,’ Varya says, haltingly. ‘You weren’t terrified?’

‘No, not then. Because it didn’t feel that way. When doctors said we should be celibate, it didn’t feel like they were telling us to choose between sex and death. It felt like they were asking us to choose between death and life. And no one who worked that hard to live life authentically, to have sex authentically, was willing to give it up.’

Varya nods. Beside them, a little bell on the door of the café jingles as a young family enters. When they walk by her table, Varya forces herself not to lean away from them. She’s seeing a new therapist, one who practices cognitive behavioral therapy and encourages her to withstand these moments of exposure.

‘I’ve always wondered what drew you to Simon,’ she says. ‘Klara said you were so mature, so accomplished. But Simon was such a kid, and proud. Don’t get me wrong – I adored him. But I could never have dated him.’

‘That sounds about right.’ Robert grinned. ‘What did I love about him? He was fearless. He wanted to move to San Francisco, so he did. He wanted to become a dancer, so he became one. I’m sure he didn’t always feel fearless. But he acted with fearlessness. That’s something he taught me. When Billy and I started our company, we took out a loan we thought we might never repay. The first three years, man – we were all in the trenches. But then we did a show in New York, and we were reviewed in the Times . When we got back to Chicago, we turned a profit. Now we can afford to give our dancers health insurance.’ He takes a bite of his croissant; buttery flakes land on his leather jacket. ‘I never planned for retirement. I’m still afraid to look too far ahead. But that’s okay; I love my work. I don’t want it to end.’

‘I wish I felt that way. I’ve left my job. I’ve never felt so adrift.’

‘No more of that.’ Robert raises his croissant and points at her with an expression of exaggerated admonishment. ‘Think like Simon. Be fearless!’

She’s trying, even if her definition of the word is laughably small when compared to anyone else’s. She has begun to sit back against chairs, and take walks through the city. Ten years ago, when she moved to California, she visited the Castro for the first time since Ruby was born. She tried to envision Simon there, but she could only see him on their walks to Congregation Tifereth Israel, running away from her. Now she imagines him again, but this time, he does not stay within the bounds of the person she knew. As she hikes from the Cliff House to the old military hospital near Mountain Lake Park, she sees Simon pose by the remains of the Sutro Baths, where there was once enough space for ten thousand people to swim. She has no idea whether he walked these bluffs; the Richmond is at least forty-five minutes from the Castro by bus. It doesn’t matter. He’s there amidst the scrub and lilac, his hair whipped by the wind off the water, clearing a trail as Varya follows behind him.