Via Dolorosa(55)

“I’m sorry,” Emma said quickly. She swallowed her words with a sip of plum wine. “I know you don’t like talking about it.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

This is like a feat, a dangerous balancing act. We can both feel it. Are we destined to live like this forever? he wondered.

“You’ve been different,” she said to him, knowing that she was treading now, treading carefully but nonetheless. Perhaps the tedium of the balancing act had gotten to her, too. “Since you came back, and even before we came here, Nick, to the island, you’ve been different. Is that normal? Is that what war does to people?”

“Some,” he said. “Some people.”

“You never say anything about what happened over there.”

“It’s not something you’d want to hear.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Well, it’s not something I like to talk about.”

“Was it so terrible?”

“Some of it.”

“But it’s over now,” she said.

“No,” he reminded her, “it’s not.”

“All right, no, it’s not. Not for everyone. Some are still there fighting, of course. But for you it’s over. Now, here, it is for you. Except for your hand, Nick, it’s over now for you.”

She would never understand, he thought. Not in a million years would she ever understand. Even when the war itself was finished and the last American soldier was either back home or buried in some mass grave on the other side of the world, it would never truly be over.

The too-young waitress returned with her automatic smile.

“Is good?”

“It’s very good,” Emma told the girl.

“Could we get some sake, please?” he said.

The waitress half-bowed, half-nodded, and slipped back into the restaurant.

Had he possessed the words, he would have attempted to relay to his wife what it had all been like, and how his own actions overseas had led him to his current state. He would have told her, too, of his recent delusions—the way the world seemed, on occasion, to twist spitefully out from under him, angry at him, laughing at him—and how it was becoming increasingly arduous to discriminate between the waking world and his own morbid dreams. Dreams—nothing more than an inventory of misplaced sensations. Dreams were reality and reality was nothing but a nightmare, a mocking nightmare. Not unreasonably, his days and weeks following his return from Iraq were plagued by a creeping sense of unease, and of an ill-defined breed of disillusionment. It was all new to him. He was a child, coughed from the womb and thrust into new life. Things had changed. Something from the war had trickled over into the real world, the working world. Somehow it had crossed the separation, traversed it like a physical causeway. He had brought it back with him. Was he prisoner to the past? It certainly seemed that way. Reality impeded, there was no truth to anything. Emma’s recent disclosure as a prime example, nothing fit and all was out of whack. Dreams? Dreams? Increasingly, he became more and more confused. Was this even real? Was the painting, the mural? What about the hotel? Was that even real, did it even exist on this plane?

And what was this plane?

No; he would never leave Iraq. He had died in Iraq.

As if summoned, breathed, ghostlike, Isabella’s face and shoulders appeared over the hedgerow of azaleas. Behind her like a halo, the moon hung fat and glorious. The sky had melted to a deep purple-black.

“My friends,” Isabella said.

“Well, hello,” said Emma, turning to look. “You look so beautiful!”

“Nicholas,” Isabella said, nodding at him. She came around the stone walk and paused at a dip in the hedgerow.

“Hello.”

Emma invited Isabella to eat with them. When Nick’s sake came, they all took a shot, toasting the cool weather and the beautiful island. The sake was warm and it was overly strong going down. Nick shot it and tried to keep his eyes closed for the ultimate experience. But with his eyes closed he found he could smell nothing but the scent of Isabella, and that made him quickly open his eyes.

Indeed, she was beautiful—darkly and dangerously beautiful. Looking at her, he suddenly felt like a child. With obvious deliberateness, he glanced away, but did not think either woman noticed his haste.

“Your meals,” commented Isabella, “they always appear so civilized. I love watching the both of you eat!”

Emma poured herself some more plum wine. She poured Isabella a glass, too.

“There have been people talking about your painting, Nicholas, back at the hotel,” Isabella said. Lifting the wine glass to her lips, she held it there, not tasting it, as if in a taunt. Her eyes were very dark and very large. Her black, luxurious hair was draped around her face, and she had a magnolia blossom propped behind one ear. He could not stop smelling her; she had become infused with the air.

“Well I guess I’m famous,” he said.

“We were just talking about the painting,” said Emma.

“Everyone is talking,” said Isabella. “It has become a topic of conversation at the hotel.”

“What have they been saying?” Emma asked.

“It’s been curious,” admitted Isabella. “Apparently it has left some of the staff confused.”