The Rememberers, a novel by Martin Edic

Chapters 34, 35 & 36

35

The Maria character sat in her white room on her white chair, arms clasped around herself, her face turned to the window. On the floor a record turned, clicking each time the needle encountered the end of its long spiral and revolving only to hit it again. Click, hiss, click, hiss. The still figure ignored the repeating sound and stared out the window, her head tilted slightly upwards.

By following her line of sight we find ourselves gazing upwards at a patch of clear blue sky. The exploding line of a jet contrail bisects the view, silently expanding as the steamy white vapor evaporates in the high desert air. The entire scene is composed in stillness, save the turning record and its insistent clicking, which only serves to accentuate the stillness. We are not frozen, we are still.

She sits up with a small start and stretching her arms, brings her fists to her eyes and rubs them open, then pushes her hair back impatiently, her fingers combing through it. She stops and brings her hand down into her vision and stares at the handful of red hair between her fingers.

Going to the small kitchen sink she turns on the water and not waiting for it to come to temperature plunges her head into the flow, turning her head until the water runs down the side of her face and into the sink, her neck resting on the cold porcelain rim. For a moment she looks like she might fall asleep there but then she lifts her head and taking a towel from its place on a hook, dries her face and wraps her red hair in the fleecy cotton. Flipping her head back, she captures the last bits of hair and ties the towel at the back and walks across the white room and into the bathroom. She turns to a mirror and looks at herself.

Cancer girl, she thinks, that’s what I look like. But I feel so good, so strong, so possible. This thought holds for a moment as she regards herself with that private look we reserve for ourselves in solitary moments in front of mirrors. She tries on a few expressions, tragic, self-mocking, resigned, even a little smile to remind herself that she is still in there. Abruptly she walks out of the small tiled room and removes the towel, throws it into the sink and, just as she is, goes out and down the steps, leaving the door open behind her.

The turntable keeps turning and clicking.

Rita watches her come out of the doorway across the street and pause, waiting for passing traffic then quickly walking into the flow to cross the street. She comes straight to the cafe door comes in, walks to the counter stopping short underneath the umbrella. She raises her arm and touches the lower edge of the open dome of fabric and fingers it.

“Freezy”, she says, “Number 1. I knew it the minute you brought it out that day. I grew up with these things.”

“Randall said he made them.” 

Rita watched her, sad and horrified at what she saw. Hair roughly chopped off and a chunk missing. The face incongruously beautiful, pale, freckled, porcelain, perfect against that signature of death.

“Where did you find him?”

“Train Bar. He said he was leaving. Had a train to catch. Last night.” 

Words are short but hang in the air.

“I really need a coffee,” said Maria.

“Well, you’re in the right place.”

36

In spite of the missing hair Rita felt that Maria was the first real person she had encountered that morning or she thought. maybe for more time than that. But certainly Randall was real, just as the bartender was not– though she thought of him as someone she had known for years. But the juxtaposition of the two the night before had rendered him a shade in comparison to the exuberant force the old man had displayed for just a moment, like a flash of the old brilliance just before the long fade.