Via Dolorosa(63)

“Dance with me.”

Her hand came out across the table and grabbed his. When he was hoisted from his seat, it was in slow motion. The bistro tilted to one side. He was on a boat. No—underwater, underwater, underwater. Everything was suddenly an illusion. Or was he the illusion? Was he the ghost in this reality? How many people could see him here, now, right now? Or would they all walk right through him?

Isabella spun him around. Her strength was nearly preternatural.

“Do you like this music?” he heard her say from far off.

“I don’t know.” It was all washboards and accordions. “I don’t know anything.” In fact, the music raked on him. “I don’t think so.”

“You have a difficult time liking things, my Nicholas.”

He thought he saw Emma, fleetingly, at the far corner of the bistro, dancing among a group of men. But when he focused his eyes, she became a coat-rack, a novelty totem pole, Pygmalion’s dead Indian girlfriend. Emma was gone.

Isabella brought her right cheek up to his left. Suddenly engulfed in her hair, she became everything: all his senses aroused by her mystery. For the first time, he truly wanted to kiss her. Truly, truly.

In his ear, she whispered, “Is it that you killed innocent people? Is that your secret?”

He did not answer.

“Did you storm the villages and slaughter all the innocent children? Did you cut them up and shoot them with your mighty gun? Did you make all the dirty mothers weep?”

“No,” he managed.

“Tell me your secret.”

“There is no secret.”

“You are a haunted man,” she told him. “All haunted men have secrets.”

“I am a drunk man,” he said, “thanks to you.”

“I’ve been dreaming of a man wandering through the desert, haunted and alone, scared and dirty and ravaged by disease. I have been dreaming of this man for a long time. Last night I finally saw his face. Tonight, too, I can see his face. I’m looking at him.”

“He’s me,” Nick said.

“He’s everyone,” Isabella told him.

Grimacing, he said, “You’re crazy, you know that?”

Isabella’s laughter thundered in his ears. She turned, faced him, kissed him. Hard. On the mouth. The kiss lasted forever. Even as it happened, he forced himself to concentrate on it, to make sure he remembered everything about it—every taste, every texture, the way her teeth and tongue felt, and the way she felt him back—but the moment she pulled away he had already forgotten everything.

Over her shoulder, through the crowd and slouched up against the wall, was young Myles Granger.

Isabella continued to laugh. He managed a strangled, “Oh…” It was Granger, Myles Granger, and he was leaning against the wall watching them dance—watching him kiss Isabella with his dead eyes, his hair still perfectly parted, the neck of a Budweiser bottle in his right hand. Accusatory, for the reason that he’d never kiss anyone ever again. Because he was dead. Then the dead boy casually nodded in his direction—

“Nicholas,” Isabella sang into his ear. He pushed her away, holding her at arms’ length.

“I don’t feel well,” he told her. “I drank too much and my head is spinning.”

“It was the absinthe?”

“I can’t—”

“You are such a baby.” She smiled with her lips just slightly parted. The magnolia blossom was still in her hair. She looked so beautiful she looked surreal. “Such a silly, silly baby.”

“Can we just please leave?”

“Because you want to shoot those three men?”

“I think I just need some fresh air.”

“Does your broken hand hurt?”

“Just a bit.”

“I feel so bad for your broken little hand, Nicholas.”

“I just need some fresh air. I’m—I’m—I need—I’m tired. That’s all.”

“Poor little hand. I feel so bad for it.”

“Yes, thank you,” he said quickly. The room was spinning faster, faster, faster—still, he could not look away from Myles Granger. And Granger would not look away from him. They had locked. Bulls in Pamplona, he thought erratically. “But it’s not the hand. I’m just tired.”

“Yes,” she said. “And married.”

“Please,” he begged. “Can we just leave?”

“Silly baby boy.” Again, Isabella laughed and for a moment he could not breathe. “We’re never going to leave, Nicholas.”

He closed his eyes.

She said, “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Around him, the music swelled. Pulsed. Grew tentacles and probed him.

We’re never going to leave.

Lieuten—

He opened his eyes. The sound of the band was now the sound of water rushing down a drain. Across the room, Myles Granger still stared at him…but it was no longer Myles Granger. It had never been. It was just a young man holding a beer, waiting for his chance to dance with all the pretty girls. All the pretty girls. Just a man, a strange man…

“You are a scary fool,” Isabella said coldly, and slapped his shoulder. She turned and negotiated the crowd of dancers, not once looking back in his direction. He called after her, but the sound of his own voice ruptured his head. The absinthe was certainly doing the trick now. All the pretty girls. And just thinking about that bottle on the table, still half-full, made him want to pass out and never wake up.