13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [73]
“Yes.”
“You know what he is to me, then?”
“Of course. I have been in his body. I have been in all your bodies.”
“Wait, were you in his body when he was in my body?”
“That is a great deal of possession, isn’t it?”
“Quite. Will I have his child?”
She is so earnest when she asks me this question, so child-like and eager herself. She does not ask me: How long will he be my lover? Will my husband find us out? Will his wife? Am I a bad person for doing this? Having me before her, her oracle, she wants to know: Will I have his child? The hope in her voice pains me, for there isn’t a single child of hers in the record. The child is a vaporous dream, never to be. Can I tell her that? We are not supposed to know that, are we—that we will not have the thing we most want? That is the sort of thing that erodes souls. That is the sort of thing one must find out in the fullness of time. Oh, for the love of all that is good and true, I must lie.
“That is not yet determined.”
She laughs, more good-naturedly than I deserve: “Truly, you are an oracle! Oracles always spout gibberish, answer questions with other questions, and refuse to say anything definite. You must contain the wisdom of the ages.”
Now it is I who turn red, the blood rising to my face from embarrassment and irritation. Why breach the order of history if I have nothing important to give her from this exchange? I must give her something. Without thinking I blurt out: “I was in Camille’s body too.”
“You were—oh—,” she gasps. Tears glimmer in her eyes over the film of fever as she whispers, “What did you see?”
Why did I say that? What am I to answer? I was in him when he did dreadful things to a German boy, when he was hardly more than a boy himself. I saw him suffer and unwind. I saw him die. My lips part to answer, but I do not speak. The look on my face must be very eloquent because Louise asks gently, “You saw him die?”
I nod.
“How did he die? You must tell me.”
My mouth is still open on silence when she says, “Oh, he suffered terribly. I can tell just from your face.”
“Yes. It’s over now, Louise.”
“Trevor, where was he shot?”
“In the back, out through the gut.”
“It hurt very much.”
“Yes.”
“And he was conscious for it.”
I do not have to answer; the gaze we exchange is enough. “He saw you,” she whispers almost inaudibly.
“Yes; he saw the canceled envelope from your last letter to him too. He wanted me to tell him what you’d written him.”
Her eyes widen, and I cannot tell whether the sheen of sweat on her pale face comes from terror or the fever that grips her body. She pulls the covers over her torso as if to protect herself when she says, “It is impossible for you to have that letter. It is destroyed.”
“What we are doing now is impossible,” I observe, then hasten to add, “but you’re right. I don’t have that letter. It is not in the record.”
“Did you tell him you didn’t have the letter?”
“No. I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in the state he was in, in his last moments. You can imagine that, can’t you?”
“Yes, but then what did you do? You had nothing to read him.”
“I did what I always do. I falsified.”
“You wrote a fake letter? From me?”
“Yes. It was very loving.”
“You wrote a fake love letter. From me.” She says this absently, looking through me as if I am transparent, which for a moment makes me suspect that I am beginning to vanish. She appears grieved but peaceful. Her moist eyes glisten in the shadow and a smile passes on her face, so small that it is nearly imperceptible. Before I can speak again, she looks at me fixedly and says, “It seems you and I have a bit in common.”
“It seems so.”
“You did good, Trevor. Thank you.”
“I try.”
“Are you feeling anything in your body right now?”
“Only a great weariness. Why?”
“You are fading. And I feel the weariness too. I will be asleep soon.”
“And when we awaken, we will think we dreamed this.”
“No—take something with you.”
“What?”
“Take something back with you, from this room. And give me something before you go. So that we can remember it was