Evan Hunter - The Moment She Was Gone

“I heard the pigeons.”

“I knew you’d figure it out. Did you tell Mama where I am?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t tell her.”

“I won’t.”

“She’ll call them again.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Do you know what she did?” she asks, and turns to me, her eyes wide. “She called some twerp at a so-called health facility, and told her I’m mentally ill, can you believe it? That’s another way of stealing a person’s identity, you know. They declare you mentally ill, and bingo, they steal your identity! It’s a very sophisticated way of controlling a person. Once you own a person’s identity, you control that person, you see. It’s like getting raped. If you rape a person, you own that person for the rest of your life. Because you’ve violated her mind and her body. It’s all about control, it’s all about identity. If you can’t keep your own identity, what’s the use? That’s why I had to get out of there, Andy. Because Mama called them, and they were onto me.”

“I didn’t tell her where you are, honey.”

“She’s crazy, you know. She hears voices. She told me she hears voices. Can you believe it? She looks just like a regular person, doesn’t she? But Morgan le Fay used to be able to assume different forms, too, you know Do you remember when Kay and the Wart first met her? Lying on a bed of lard, that was so funny! She wasn’t beautiful at all, just this big fat slob lying in all that lard, ick! Mama’s a messenger of the Great Oppression, you know, come to abolish the Tantric religion. I was warned by my guru,” she says, and looks directly into my face.

Her eyes are wide.

I think of Archimedes the owl. I remember my father reading to us. I remember the little girl who was my precious sister, Annie.

“Fire comes out of Mama’s mouth,” she whispers, “did you know that? She told me it was my fault Daddy left, because he didn’t want so many children, and she wouldn’t let him smoke in the living room. He wasn’t expecting two of us, you see, he didn’t know there’d be twins. So he told her to get rid of me, and when she wouldn’t he left with his bimbo, is what she told me. But smoke was pouring out of her mouth when she said it, so I knew it wasn’t true. Well, you’ve seen the smoke, you know what it’s like.”

I sit beside her.

She does not try to move away.

Together, we sit in the shade, our backs to the coops.

“No one holds my hand anymore,” she says.

I take her hand in mine.

“No one likes me,” she says.

“I like you,” I say.

“Well, you,” she says, and smiles. “Dear Andy.”

She puts her head on my shoulder.

She seems so tired.

We sit holding hands like children.

I can remember the two of us running in the park together, hand in hand. I can remember the two of us in school together, our hands popping up whenever a teacher asked a question. She was so smart, my sister. So beautiful. My twin. My dearest twin.

“Mama’s such a liar,” she says, shaking her head. “It wasn’t my fault Daddy left, it was Sven’s.”

“Come on,” I say, “let’s go home. We’ll worry about Mama later.”

“No, Andy, we’ve got to worry about her now, ” she says earnestly. “She wants to put me in a strait jacket again. Have you ever been in a strait jacket, do you know what that feels like? If Daddy had known what they were doing to me, he’d’ve been there in a minute! He writes to me all the time, you know, we correspond regularly when I’m abroad. He told me all about why he left, never mind Mama’s story. The minute he found out what Sven and I were doing in Stockholm, he booked a ticket. By the time he got there Sven was already gone, of course, well, sure, he’d already stolen my identity, what did he care?”

“Annie, why don’t we just...?”

“No, why don’t we just not! ” she shouts, and suddenly drops my hand, and gets to her feet, and begins pacing back and forth before the parapet. “Just leave me alone, okay? I have people telling me day and night that I should be ashamed I was even born, for Christ’s sake, as if I have to apologize for my dual identity! Once you let them steal your identity, you know, they put you in a strait jacket,” she says, and nods, and moves swiftly toward the parapet, and leans over it to look down to the street below. I reach for her and she backs away, almost losing her balance. I stand motionless, afraid to move toward her again, afraid she will throw herself over the parapet if I touch her.

“Once you’ve lost your identity,” she says, pacing back and forth again, “they can smell the contamination all over the world, the other predators, the rapists, they come at you like a swarm of bees after honey, that’s the price you pay, but nobody wants to hold your hand anymore,” she says, and sighs deeply, and turns to me, her back to the parapet now, her hair blowing in the wind, across her eyes, blowing in the wind.

“There’s so much traffic,” she says, squinting her eyes in pain. “So much damn traffic.”

“Yes, come away from there,” I say.

“Not in the street, bro. Here, ” she says, and touches her hand to her forehead. “So much traffic. It gets so noisy, bro.”

“I know it does, honey. But we can help you. Let us help you, okay?”

“Oh help me, sure. Help! Help!” she screams in mock terror, and then giggles like a little girl. “The way Dr. Lang helped me, right?”

And suddenly, she sits on the parapet.

And swings her legs over the side.

I almost reach for her.

But she will jump.

Her dress riffles in the wind.

She begins mumbling, not talking to me anymore, talking instead to whatever voices she hears within. Here on the stillness of this scorching roof, the tar so hot it is bubbling in places, the traffic below muted, the voices of the city hushed and distant but rising like an invisible cloud, my sister listens to her own inner voices, and I hope to God they’re not telling her to jump off this roof, I hope to God they are not.

I hold out my hand,

“Annie,” I say. “Take my hand again, okay?”

“They say you’re smarter than I am.”

“No one’s smarter than you are, honey.”

“Everybody’s fucking smarter than I am.”

“Annie, honey... let’s get off this roof, okay? Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”

“We are talking, bro.”

“Give me your hand, hon. Let me help you...”

“I don’t need help! What’s wrong with you? Everybody thinks I need help, what the fuck is wrong with you people? Why do you think I need help?”

“To get off the... the edge of the... the roof there, is what I meant. To help you get down, is what I meant.”

“I can get down all by myself, believe me. I can get all the way down to the street all by myself, so don’t give me any help, okay? I know just where you’re coming from. Go home, okay?”

“Not without you, Annie.”

“Yes, without me. You don’t want to take me home, Andy, I’m mentally ill, go ask Mama, go ask Bellevue or whoever the fuck she called, ‘Are you the party with the mentally ill relative?’ ” she asks in a squeaky little nasal voice. “Jesus, the people in the health care system! Why don’t they just leave me alone? All I want to do...”

She stops.

Squints.

Shakes her head.

“I don’t know what I want to do anymore,” she says. “I’m not even sure my work’s any good anymore, do you think it’s any good?”

“Yes, I think it’s...”

“I just don’t know anymore. I’m so scared it’s not good anymore. I mean, if no one wants to buy it, how can it be any good, am I right? I thought... if I could find someone who liked my work... I mean, really liked it... I mean, my work is me, Andy, it’s my soul, it’s everything I believe. If I could find someone who appreciated it, someone who could really love what I do, then he could love me, too, don’t you see? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Instead of being told how worthless I am all the time? And then... if I could find this man... we could travel together — I really know a lot of beautiful places in this world, bro — we could travel everywhere together, oh just everywhere! I could show him all the beautiful places I’ve been to, I’m not stupid, you know, I really do know a lot about the world. I could take him everywhere, everywhere. But...”