Still With Me (19 page)

—Myriam Delègue

Jeremy’s strangled cry ripped through the usual din of the prison.

The heavy steel door closed behind him. The sun dazzled his eyes, and he squinted. Most prisoners savor their first moments of freedom, but Jeremy stood there, haggard and oppressed by the light.

He’d been incarcerated for twelve years. That’s what he learned from the date scribbled on his release papers. Where should he go now? Should he find another way to return to prison, thereby protecting Victoria and the kids? He had a few hours ahead of him to think.

In the street, the hectic pace of life and the excitement of the street swept over him, trying to pick him up and drag him along. But he wasn’t really in the street. He didn’t belong to its plotted course. His life unfolded elsewhere, in a different time.

He went in the direction of the house where Victoria had lived in the year he went to prison.

He went into the garden where he’d spied on his little family. He rested on the bench where Victoria had sat a few years before. A gentle warmth crept over him, as if Victoria had left a few waves behind for his body to reactivate. He thought of the words she’d spoken then, her tears, and her look of defeat. He lost himself in his thoughts. His mother, his wife, and his children each took their turn, smiling at him, lecturing him, kissing him, crying for him, hating him.

Jeremy didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at the windows of the house. Did Victoria still live there? She’d probably moved to get away from all the places that reminded her of her painful past. Jeremy walked to the front door and checked the name on the mailbox. Victoria’s parents’ names weren’t there anymore.

He went to his mother’s apartment, hoping to see her. She must have been seventy-nine years old, and age and the trials of living would surely have taken their toll. He walked all the way to Faubourg-du-Temple Street and stopped in front of the building. Traces of his happiness were everywhere: on the front of the building, on the sidewalk, the benches, and the doorway. He moved toward the walkway and noticed sadly that they’d made renovations. The wooden mailboxes, where children had carved their names long ago, had been replaced by aluminum lockers; the old tile with marble slabs.

Jeremy scrolled through the names on the intercom. His mother’s wasn’t there. He tried to calm his fears by thinking of her letter. Four years ago she had been alive. But the past four years didn’t have the same meaning to an amnesiac and an elderly woman.

Lost in a story in which he had no role to play, Jeremy wanted to be alone with his pain. He noticed a small hotel up the street. The kind of place you would only enter out of necessity.

The room he checked into was filthy. Dirt smears marred the peeling paint. Pale light filtered in through sticky curtains. But Jeremy barely noticed the grim decor. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

An hour must’ve gone by when Jeremy heard a knock at the door. He didn’t react. He wasn’t expecting anyone—didn’t exist for anyone.

He heard a few more knocks, as whoever it was tried again. Then the knob turned. Jeremy saw the door open slowly and made out a shadow and then a face. A man looked over at him. He hesitated for a few seconds on the doorstep and then moved into the light of the room. Then, despite all the forgotten years, Jeremy recognized the person staring down at him. It was Simon.

Jeremy sat on the bed facing him. They weren’t speaking. On the hard, unforgiving face of his son, Jeremy could see traces of the child he’d barely known. He had a hard beauty. His features were perfectly even. Jeremy was both joyful and disappointed. He didn’t expect Simon to run into his arms, but even so, his icy coldness wounded Jeremy.

Simon spoke. “I came to ask you a question, sir,” he said firmly.

The formal tone hurt Jeremy. It expressed the conflict that had made them enemies and pulled them apart to the point where they were no more than strangers.

Jeremy knew what Simon had come to ask. He sighed to demonstrate his helplessness. “I can’t give you an answer.”

Simon clenched his jaw.

“You came to ask me why I did what I did to your mother…and to you,” Jeremy continued. “You want to know what I’m going to do next. But I don’t know any of it.”

“You don’t know?” Simon repeated angrily. “That tells me something already.”

“No. I don’t know anything about it because I can only guarantee my feelings and actions for today. Tomorrow, I’ll be another man. A man I only know by his cruelty and who I can’t control.”

Simon rushed his father and grabbed him by the collar. “Listen to me,” he said, shaking him to stress the importance of his words. “The prison administration warned us about your release, and for weeks my mother has been terrorized. She doesn’t sleep. She doesn’t eat. I’ve been following you since you got out. I saw you go to my grandmother’s house. I don’t know what you’re up to, what you’re looking for, but know one thing: if you come close to my mother, if you have any intention to hurt her, I promise you I won’t hesitate to…to make you regret it. My
mother has suffered enough. I don’t want her to die from fear or grief like my grandparents. I won’t let you destroy her. I swear to you.”

Simon relaxed his hold and threw Jeremy onto the bed roughly. His face reclaimed its dry beauty and symmetry. He walked toward the door.

“Wait!” Jeremy shouted.

The tone of his voice surprised Simon.

“What did you say? My mother is…Mom is…”

Simon looked confused but kept his guard up. “You already know that. She died two years go. And it was your fault. She died of grief. She’d lost her husband after losing her son. She let herself die. She didn’t eat. Our love wasn’t enough. She wanted yours.”

Jeremy slid to the floor. He felt a terrible pain burning in his chest, and each heartbeat pushed the liquid lava deeper into the remote folds of his consciousness, the infinitely small muscles of his body. He was a searing flame. He would burn himself out, be reduced to ashes, mixing with the dust in the room that muffled his tears and rasping sobs.

Jeremy cried for a while, and then, when he felt empty, he sat up and leaned against the wall. “I didn’t want any of
it, Simon,” he moaned. “I wanted a normal life with your mother. My life could’ve been so wonderful…if I hadn’t gone crazy. If there wasn’t this monster in me ready to sacrifice everything and everyone to his own pleasure. I don’t know what you’ve suffered, Simon. All I know is that I’m never myself. Only a few clear days here and there let me glimpse the damage I’ve caused.”

“On your birthday?” Simon asked calmly.

“How do you know that?”

“Mom told me.”

“So she believed me.”

“Yes…I mean…She always said she couldn’t trust you because you always lied. But when you gave yourself up to the police for those drugs, she was pretty stunned. Just like when you sent the letter about…Pierre’s wife. Then the warning about that guy, Vladimir. She told me all that, and I wanted to believe.” Simon spoke each word slowly.

“I thought about the day you took me to the hospital. You seemed different that day. You weren’t the man Thomas and I knew. Of course, the next day, Thomas started hating you again; me, I started forgetting you.”

“I didn’t want any of it, Simon,” Jeremy repeated.

Silence fell. Then Simon spoke again.

“If I admit…” He paused to consider his words. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. You hate me, don’t you?”

“I can’t make a distinction between the person you are today, the one you were yesterday, and the one you’ll be tomorrow. It’s too difficult. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good.”

“I understand,” Jeremy said. He got up and stood face-to-face with his son. “Take care of your mother. I’m going to get the scum that I am as far away from here as possible.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll find a way. Believe me. It’s better to forget the things we can’t control.”

For the first time, Simon lowered his eyes.

Jeremy wanted to take him in his arms and hold him, as much to reassure Simon as to feel, through contact with his son, a little of the affection he so badly needed. “I know what you want me to say. Don’t worry. Go on now.”

Simon was about to leave when Jeremy added one last thing. His voice was almost broken. “Simon, I have to ask…Victoria…your mother…did she start over?”

Simon gave him a wan smile. “It’s better to ignore the things you can’t control.”

The evening stretched out before him. Jeremy was eager for it to be over so he could leave this world of pain. He had a good hour in front of him to come up with a plan that would help him keep his promise. Commit a new crime and go back to jail immediately? That solution was quick and easy. An attempted burglary would suffice.

More than anything, Jeremy thought of Simon. He admired his courage. And he was satisfied knowing he had shaken his son’s hatred for him just a little. He thought of Victoria as well. She knew he existed too from time to time—the Jeremy who loved her. She was right to flee. But every year on his birthday, she must’ve thought of him.

Suddenly, he heard the doorknob turn. Simon was coming back! Jeremy and his son were going to talk things through, try to understand each other, take advantage of these few moments of clarity. For the first time that day, Jeremy had a reason to smile.

The door opened, and three men stormed in, their weapons drawn. The burliest one spoke first. “Don’t move, you son of a bitch. Don’t even twitch or I’ll finish you.”

His fierce canine looks made him terrifying. His torso was stacked on top of two large, powerful thighs, and his enormous head, shaved and dotted with small, cruel eyes, seemed to sprout directly out of his shoulders. Next to him stood a tall blond man with a long, gaunt face. He looked like Curly, one of the Three Stooges. The third man was smaller. He had short brown hair with thick eyebrows hanging over two big black eyes and thick lips that made his mouth look almost feminine. Calmer than his companions, it was enough for him to stare silently at Jeremy.

Curly and the Dog stood on either side of the bed, gun barrels pointed at Jeremy. The short brown-haired man put his weapon away and sat on the table.

“You see, Delègue, we found you,” he said quietly. “We took our time. Did you think we would just forget?”

Jeremy quickly realized who the men were, but he wasn’t afraid. This part of his life didn’t concern him at all. He even had to smile; the solution he was looking for may have spontaneously arrived.

“Nothing to say, Delègue?” Stako asked threateningly.

What could he say? These men didn’t belong to his meager reality. They had shown up on the wrong day.

“You better start talking. Tell me everything. From the very beginning.”

Jeremy remained mute. No explanation would satisfy this man.

“Okay, then, I’ll talk for you. First let’s talk about how you betrayed me, when was it? A few years ago now. So, tell me why you handed our coke over to the cops. What were you aiming at? Trying to get that little jerk wad, Marco? We took care of him. Nobody plays games with our merchandise. But you know what? I don’t think that was it. You would’ve found some other way. You’re so fucking smart. They tell me in lockup you even got the officers and a few important inmates on your side. So…why?” He looked at Jeremy and waited for an answer.

“So then,” he continued, “you cook up a plan to kill my brother. Vladimir was going to do it. But a day or two before, you screw your friend over. Me, I don’t get it. You did thirteen years courtesy of the state. Now you’re all alone, no one to help you, pockets empty…No really, I
don’t get it. And I hate not getting it. You’re going to have to explain.”

Jeremy said nothing. He even felt compassion for this man who must’ve wasted hours on developing unlikely hypotheses. The Dog smacked him with the barrel of his gun. The impact stunned him for a moment.

“So, Delègue?” This time it was Curly who clubbed him on the cheek with the butt of his gun. Jeremy felt a warm liquid flow in his mouth.