Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

“Fuck,” I say. Chelsea. The gallery. The Hasidim. I rest my head on the window to cool it. It’s too late. Is it too late?

He shakes his head. “Try to think what you can offer to deserve the loving-kindness your sister gives you.”

Then his face starts coming apart. I don’t know who I’ve been talking to. And then it’s Dan again.

“Don’t hurt Jules,” I say.

“I never would. I believe you know that.” He sounds so weak and tired, I almost believe him. Pathetic, rather than suspicious like usual. I laugh at him so he knows I’m not fooled. But he must know it’s my fault she lost the baby.

“I’m sorry, West,” Dan says. And then he leaves.

This is the mouth of the cave and Dan is the throbbing, prickling tongue of the dragon, angered by what I’ve cost him. I need to get Jules far away from here before Dan comes home. To another year or decade. I have to find the portal now.

Jules is startled to see me standing over her when she wakes. “What are you doing?”

She fell asleep with a book open on her chest: The Best of Jewish Parenting . She pulls the sheets up to her neck, even though she’s totally covered and her head in a scarf.

“We have to leave,” I say. “Now.”

“Then let me get ready.” She shakes her head at herself. “Letting you drag me around.”

While I’m waiting, the rain stops. I think through all the clues, everything that happened in the last week, moving backwards through time. The plane, the bluff, visiting Mom and Ralph and Miles, stealing the painting, planning with Jill, meeting Jill, going to the gallery for the first time, talking with Jules, seeing the landmine house.

The landmine house. My mom said it, she said it so clearly in the car — about what my dad did to win her back after a fight: I have to knock on Nicolette’s door. I have to go back to the landmine house.

Jules finally opens her door. She has on a short black wig that makes her look like she fell out of a beatnik film. She’s wearing all black — black slacks and a black long-sleeve T-shirt. She looks so pretty. It’s something Nicolette would wear, except tighter and nicer. She looks so much like Nicolette right now.

“What time is it? You’ve got three hours and then the hospital.”

“You look pretty,” I say.

She sighs. “Where to?”

And I say, “The Bronx.”

Today everyone in the subway looks familiar. Everyone I pass is someone from my past. Two people in this car are connected to my future. But they’re all pretending not to know me.

“I don’t think it’s safe here,” Jules says, looking around us. I look around, too, try to quantify the danger level, but what she means is: we’re the only white people on the train. I don’t bother telling her she’s racist or that she ought to look a lot closer to home to know who she should really be fearful of.

There is one Hasid on the train and I don’t know who could be undercover. But they can’t stop us. We’re going to the point at which it all started. The place where Nicolette left the last clue, which is the first clue, where the tableaux will unlock the secret to time traveling. The secret to finding her.

The train breaches ground on the other side of the river. There’s the waxy-looking water, and the water-streaked storefront windows. Nicolette has been hiding the answers here all along, the code to sequencing the tableaux — a time traveler’s manual. It’s so obvious now. She hid it in plain sight, those dangerous words: the script along the trim of the landmine house.

We get off at 231st Street. There’s a church half a block south of us, looming and harboring obvious danger. And look at that sleepy-eyed man standing at the bus stop a few feet away who keeps nodding north.

“Why can’t I ever say ‘no’ to you?” Jules whispers, eyeing him suspiciously.

I have a sieve or net in my brain, weeding out the irrelevancies and keeping the bounty. But something’s not right. Do you feel that? There’s a rip in my net, letting too much through — stitch that up if you get the chance. All the streets look like the right street. I’m not seeing straight.

“I’m not seeing straight,” I say to confirm. “Straight to the words before it falls away.”

“West, please focus. Where does your friend live? Let’s do this fast. No dawdling.”

I grab Jules with one hand, the birthday-wrapped painting in the other, messenger bag strapped across my shoulder, and lead her under the overpass, cars pressing on my brain, traffic mixing with river sounds. Then, out of the corner of my eye, just behind us, a black fedora, a Hasid’s mean mug. I don’t waste time getting a good look. I pull Jules faster.

“What are we doing?” Jules shouts.

There’s an empty shopping cart blocking the sidewalk and we scuttle around it. The sidewalk trees whisper insults. Slut! Fuck-up! I don’t have time to stick up for her.

“This way, quickly.” I hold her forearm and pull her after me. They must know I have the painting with me. They must know I’ve finally found my way to Nicolette.

You’re right. To get to the landmine house we have to cross Broadway. Jules and I teeter on the curb. Four lanes of heavy traffic.

“Let’s go to the crosswalk,” she says, trying to pull her arm away.

“We’re not safe, we have to get to the other side.” And then I pull her into the street. Quickly through the first two lanes, three car horns in a row. I hold her wrist in the air so she won’t stumble. We wait between the yellow lines of the turning lane. Cars on both sides of us going sixty miles an hour. They come up fast and blue. She’s flipping her head wildly at each passing car. She tries to squirm away from me but I squeeze hard.

“West, stop! Let’s just make it to that street lamp,” she pleads, pointing back to where we came from. “See? It’s close. That’s our goal.”

I see the street lamp. It’s glinting red. Danger. “This way,” I say.

She glares at me. She’s hiding her terror inside her lips. But I know she won’t let me cross by myself. To her I’m the monster under the bed. But I can’t stop now, they’re gaining on us. She’ll thank me later.

“Motherfucker,” a man yells out his car window. From above we are wild stars, wobbling in a dead sky. Or maybe we are road kill. Failure! Fuck-up, you’re going to die . Jules already thought I was a failure. The incessant honking, like flatlining. Yet I can hear her heart beating louder even than the traffic. I hate you . It’s Jules, under her breath. I hate you. I hate you . It’s you, screaming in my ear as we dash across the last two lanes.

“Let go of me,” Jules says quietly, panting at my side.

I swing her arm and the painting tube in either hand, propelling us down the sidewalk, my messenger bag swinging too. Tibbet Road, we’ve made it. I smile at Jules to let her know it’s all right, I’m going to keep us safe. She tries to yank her arm away, but I keep hold.

“Just wait,” I snap at her. I don’t mean to snap.

Finally, the landmine house. It’s quiet. The eye of the storm. I have all my tableaux on file: the bluff, the tunnel, cigarette burns, the café and marionberry pie, my childhood bedroom. On tiptoe we approach until we’re standing hand in hand on the sidewalk in front of the lawn. And then I want to rip my eyes out.

The green trim around the house has been painted over.

Where are the words? No, I’m ready. I’m finally ready to read them and they’re gone!

Could I have been wrong? No, I could not have been wrong. The deductive logic must stand. Did they change the language on me because I got too close? Maybe the words have moved inside. There’s no more landmine sign or barbed wire, but there’s still a divot in the grass from an explosion. The shadows and the houses are spaced too evenly, fake. A little boy placed these houses here in a miniature train scene and we’re just little plastic people, stalled in time.