34 Rita
Rita got up and automatically went through her morning routine, all before the rise of the sun. She went downstairs, taking the Freezy, and began the opening process for the cafe. With her own coffee in hand she watched the day come up. There was still the moisture from the sudden rain on the dusty land and it had risen into a fog, either that or the residual clouds had fallen to the earth. She saw a barrier of fog that, for a moment, suspended her place in its own world, detached from any sense of place or time. Then the first red instance of light appeared here and there, rapidly flooding the spaces between the buildings as it ignited the mountain peaks in the distant western range. She opened the door and stood outside watching as she did each day, though most days were not foggy but hot and dusty even at that dewy hour. But this one felt different, it smelled different, the rain had awakened the fragrance of earth and greens and the citrus and eucalyptus smell of the reclaimed desert. She watched the fog drift down the street, dissolving in the light when she heard an old familiar sound, the grunt of a diesel, the screech and release of air brakes and a bus came into view out of the fog, slowly coming down the street, its interior lit up and empty, its sign saying 7 River Road. As it went by, all curved battered aluminum and chrome, she looked to see the driver but he or she was hidden. In moments it was gone around a bend in the Main St.
She could never be sure of memory but she felt she had never seen this bus before, in spite of opening each day and going through virtually the same ritual. Buses run on schedules she thought, and so do I. Why haven’t they corresponded? A decision made, she went in and opened the Freezy and hung it back in its place, the white message so many letters in its folds. Something may happen today she thought. Something must happen today.
She stood still for a moment, waiting for a sign. The door was still propped open and everything was still. Then in the distance a train whistle, once, twice, a third time. She shivered and turned her back. Work will anchor things she thought. I need an anchor, I’m starting to drift.
The door clacked open, its bell chiming and the deaf delivery man came in. She signed a hello and he spoke, hands moving and voice croaking out a few words, a greeting. He was followed by her regulars and the time went by as she made familiar orders, wrapped pastries and reloaded coffeemakers. Then the rush was over and she thought, it is always the same.
Not similar. Exactly the same. The same people in the same order, with the same orders, every day.
This morning she had watched them, their faces and their movements. Listened to their greetings, always the same. The heat of the day came in each time the door opened but she was chilled through with fear. They never looked up at the umbrella above their heads, never mentioned that odd thing hanging from the ceiling though it stood out as very strange, like some conceptual artwork mounted in a place where it could not be ignored. Yet it was, studiously. It may as well have been invisible.
To her the white letters glowed, they were burned into her consciousness, they said ‘you can go, you can leave, you can find your way.’ But the night before she’d made no progress towards the mountains, she had learned little from the old man. She had found shelter from the storm but that shelter, with its preternatural calm, was in itself disturbing. She was disturbed, she thought. Finally.
This last thought reverberated in the now empty cafe. The fear was mixed with relief. I am alive she thought, I am alive. But now what? She waited expectant. Who would come in next? Would they be alive or whatever those others were? Shadows? Content with their ways and place? Did they exist beyond this cafe, this street this town, this world? She had no history of any of it, no history of herself except this: She was alive.
Who else? The deaf man. Randall at the bar. That man Ray. What about the woman? Maria. She might be alive, she felt fear that day when the umbrella snapped open to reveal its message. Rita had seen it on her face. Confusion and fear. When Ray had asked her to go with him she had been confused. She had responded in the negative, made excuses, fled. But Rita knows where she lives. She thinks, what if I went there? Would I find a human, alive and aware? Or would there be nothing, a shadow like those lovers, once embracing on a rooftop, now charcoal shadows, Hiroshima impressions? They had been alive, she was sure of it. Where had they gone?
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.
Maria still had that flash but it seemed more sustained, as though she had more time. But the change in her over just the few days since the incident with Ray was startling. She did have that strange, lit-within glow of near death. But so fast?
She spoke as she made a cappuccino for the redhead.
“Why didn’t you go? I mean, why not?”
She stumbled over this a bit and stopped.
“Is it so obvious? I guess it must be but I’m not used to it. Do you think you get used to it? The idea that you’re going? Isn’t everyone going eventually?”
Rita was still. Then she spoke.
“Something is happening to me. If you’d asked me that yesterday even, I might have answered differently. But I don’t even think I would have had that conversation yesterday. It’s like I woke up. But still groggy. Does that make sense?”
“As much as anything does to me. Can you take the umbrella down?”
The barista came around the counter and pulled a chair out, stood on it and unhooked the Freezy. Maria sat at a table watching, her hands cupped around the coffee as if for warmth though the desert heat had risen and it was high summer outside. She sipped the drink, never taking her eyes off the umbrella as the young girl stepped down, holding it at arms length. She saw something pass over the girl’s face, more than one thing, and suddenly knew herself what she was seeing. Awakening. Even at this far remove, another country of sorts, the rememberer’s influence was discernible. Miriam had sent a virus into this place and she was one of its targets. But the girl was an accident.
“Give it to me.”
Rita looked at her as she handed it over. This was a very different person than that woman who had literally run away from the message earlier when Ray had asked her to ride with him. As she watched Maria took the handle, speaking as she grasped it.
“Watch me, my face and anything else. I’m going to need you to tell me what you see.”
Holding the umbrella up to the window she lifted her hand and traced the lettering with her fingertips, as though she were haltingly reading braille. She stopped when she came to her name then continued to the end and laid her palm on Miriam’s signature and stood that way, still again. This time everything did stop for both of them, the traffic, a pedestrian on the sidewalk outside, a plane high in the sky.
Rita watched this unmoving but alert. It seemed to her that Maria was vibrating just a bit, possibly only noticeable against the stillness, a kind of slight blurring or refocusing. That was how she would describe it– as though she had seemed in focus, then the lens turned her to a blur and then back again, sharper now.
Rita broke the moment.
“Who is Miriam? Why does her writing do that? What is this all about?”
Maria lowered the umbrella, removed her hand and pressed the button. It did its dance and then sucked itself shut. She lay it on the table and spoke.
“You don’t have to tell me what you saw. I know it. It’s memory. That’s what happened to you. You remembered. That means you shouldn’t be here, in this place. You need to go.”
“What about you? The message was for you and Ray.”
“Ray came to find me but he was too late. And he was almost lost because of it. There are two things he didn’t know. There are no accidents. And, everything is an accident.”
She laughed and seemed to lighten.
“I’m going to tell you something that I shouldn’t. But I’m almost certain that you will not remember it until it’s the time. We don’t know when our time will come. Sometimes you know for months or even years that it is coming. But I only found out minutes before mine. Randall came for me. It was an act of kindness, he said. I’m not so sure. But I can’t go, message or no message. I’m done. But you’re not. You should go if you can.”
She went silent for a moment, thinking something through.
“There’s a problem though. You may not be able to get through. Ray has an ability. I don’t know if you do. I don’t but I pushed really hard once and nearly made it. But it was so hard and in the end he saved me, though he doesn’t know it.”
She held the umbrella out.
“Take this. I think you should try. If you get through you’ll see a sign and you’ll know you made it. But get out of here. It’s not your place, not anymore.”
She got up, drained the coffee and left. Rita watched her walk down the street until she disappeared. She locked the door and turned the sign to Back In Five and sat down, suddenly tired and a little scared. But, like everything since she had first handled the Freezy, even these feelings were welcome and somehow new. No. Remembered. She was remembering things.