Still With Me (16 page)

It’ll be a strange trial where each of the parties involved defends the opposite position from the one they held during commitment proceedings.

You know you can count on me.

Thinking of you,

Clotilde

The letter was dated June 3, 2012. The next one was written two years later.

Jeremy,

You’ll probably hate getting this letter. I don’t care. I need to write. You cut off all communication with me, and I don’t understand. It’s torture.

When I heard about your conviction, I was crushed. Met with psychiatric opinions, this time your intelligence wasn’t enough. Quite the opposite—it irritated the prosecutor. He knew it was a dangerous weapon that you used to play games with the people around you. I won’t disagree with him on that point. He thought your spontaneous confession was a way to get jail time and avoid other consequences. Then you’d get yourself out by relying on your psych file. Pierre says your high-court appeal has no chance of success. I hope you know what you’re doing.

I haven’t left Pierre. Not yet. Not while I’m so unhappy. You’ll think it’s a very selfish position, Machiavellian even, and you’ll be right. I’m not brave enough to be alone. The contract stays the same: my presence for his support.

Pierre still takes care of Victoria. I, however, almost never see her. I use jealousy as an excuse to avoid her. It’s true. I don’t know if Pierre’s friendship with Victoria is more tinged with sympathy or love. She’s doing much better. She’s moved beyond her depression and started working again. She came a month ago for lunch at our place with the kids. They love Pierre, and they even call him uncle. As far as I’m concerned, I categorically refuse to be called Auntie Clotilde! In any case, I don’t think they would.

Thomas is very reserved. He plays the little gentleman, always serving his mother and brother. He’s grown up a lot and looks even more like Victoria. Simon is livelier and has a happier disposition. I have a hard time looking at him because of how closely he resembles you. Victoria, as I’m sure you know, is an excellent mother. She lives for them and through them. Pierre tries to convince her to start over, go out, meet new people, but she won’t have it. Fact is, they were made for each other! Those two are so much alike and so different from who we are—you and me.

Tomorrow I’ll regret this letter. I know you’re deathly afraid of emotional displays and you’ll probably hate me even more after reading it. But believe me, I haven’t said anything about how much I went through and all I felt. There’s nothing in this letter but the impulse of a moment. The desire to bring a few images of me to life in the depths of your soul.

Thinking of you,

Clotilde

The third letter had arrived only two months prior.

Jeremy,

Your letter really surprised me. To think that after years of indifference, I’ve come to the fore-front of your thoughts again. You made a good argument: you wanted to break off our relationship to keep me from knowing the torments of a prisoner’s wife. Such a noble soul, Jeremy! But you know what? I sincerely believe your intelligence must’ve gone soft after too much time behind bars. Did you think I’d be fooled? Do you really think I’m that stupid?

You need me? I needed you, Jeremy. I realized I was in love when I thought I was just an accomplice. I loved your way of looking at life, seeing it as a challenge that time throws before the appetites of man. I loved your idea that by casting off all moral judgment, it was possible to live every minute with such intensity that you’d forget all the ones that came before, already so wonderful. I was the one you opened up to about the burdens of friendship, loyalty, and codes of social and moral propriety. I loved being the one who helped you live your rebellious life. But I was lying to myself. I was in love. Classic, boring love.

But you—you already knew that. It’s what earned me that pitiful letter in which you manipulate so well the artifices of romantic sensibility. Ready to betray yourself in service to your cause.

That, I think, is what hurt me the most. Knowing that because I loved you, I deserved no more than the rest: the saccharine drivel of artificial love, an elixir meant to drug me and make me useful to you.

So there you go, Jeremy. I don’t love you anymore. I find you pathetic, behind bars, trying to weave words into a poorly aimed rope to throw across the wall.

And it’s because I don’t love you anymore that I’ll help you.

When I was in love, I was satisfied knowing you were locked away with only your fondest memories to distract you. Memories that, without any vanity on my part, put me at the center of the fantasies of a man in the throes of sexual misery.

But today, I can imagine your release from prison calmly without thinking of the disdain you rewarded me with or of the person who would take my place in your arms.

Once you’re free, you can do whatever you want. Maybe I’ll even agree to sleep with you again. Or maybe I won’t want to anymore. But it’ll be my decision and not a response to your desires.

Right now, ironically, I can help you get what you want.

My position gives me access to certain valuable pieces of information. Victoria and Pierre are going to testify against you during your next parole hearing. I know what they’re going to say. I’ve gotten a little closer to Victoria since Thomas’s bar mitzvah. I gave her a hand with the preparations, and we reconciled. She confides in me and even goes so far as to want to share “girl stuff.” I’ll put up with it until I have the strength to decide comfort and laziness don’t justify everything. Long enough to believe that happiness can exist in another form for me somewhere else.

Betraying them by confiding in you certain information that might serve your purpose would be a good way to get things going. Especially since I have no qualms about it. I left the last remnants of my integrity somewhere between the sheets of your bed.

I’m going to think about your request for a visit. I’ll decide whether to help you or not based on my own requirements and expectations.

—Clotilde

In this outpouring of emotion, which seemed like something acted out by two strangers, only three pieces of information concerned Jeremy directly. Victoria hadn’t started over. She didn’t want to. Not yet. He didn’t know if the comfort he took from that news was honorable, but it certainly was real.

The fact that Clotilde had become his accomplice, ready to destroy Victoria and the kids, represented a problem he’d have to deal with as soon as he had fully regained his ability to think.

But for the moment, he was stuck on an image, a few words that had sucked the life out of all the others. Thomas had had his bar mitzvah. He had turned thirteen years old, and according to religious law, he had become an adult. Even if Jeremy had never practiced his religion, he still considered the ceremony an essential rite of passage, a unique moment in the life of a young man. His own had meant so
much to him. He remembered feeling like he was entering the adult world on that day.

Jeremy imagined Thomas twisting the straps of his tefillin around his arm. He visualized the proud look on his mother’s face and the envious, anxious look of Thomas’s brother, who would be counting the days between now and his turn on stage. Jeremy saw everything clearly, even if, in the hallucinatory scenes, Thomas still had the face of a seven-year-old boy. A single element was missing, enough to ruin the appeal of the image. He had deprived his loved ones of total happiness. He hadn’t been there to share with Victoria the happiness of feeling a decisive step in their lives together go by. Those moments had been stolen, replaced by a great loss. Then he thought of how Simon was approaching his thirteenth birthday. He, too, was getting ready for his bar mitzvah. And Jeremy, his father, wouldn’t be there. More than anything, the moments he missed were what excluded him from reality.

Jeremy wanted to give in to his pain, to cry there in his cell. He wanted to throw himself against the walls until he lost consciousness. He searched for more images, other emotions capable of loosening his throat so his tears could escape. But he was paralyzed, unable to express his pain.
His life was slowly fading, and he didn’t have the energy left to give voice to his despair.

The man he’d eaten breakfast with was his cellmate, Vladimir Bernikoff. He was Russian. When Vladimir came back, he gave Jeremy an update. The gym was the only place where they could eliminate Stako’s brother, Jeff. And the best day to do it was Wednesday. On that day, Jeff would only be accompanied by one of his men; the others would be busy selling the merchandise they managed to smuggle inside. Jeremy was happy he didn’t have to choose between a confrontation with this enemy and a difficult conversation with his roommate. He didn’t understand how the other Jeremy could’ve made such a decision. Whatever happened tomorrow, he’d have to deal with it.

The guard with the moustache came back to his cell at four o’clock. “Parley,” he announced with a wink.

Jeremy thanked him with a tilt of the head. Vladimir shot Jeremy a questioning look, surprised by this visit he’d heard nothing about.

After the guard closed the door behind Jeremy, he said, “It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that. But you’re in luck. I found him pretty quick. But when I explained the request, he wasn’t very happy. He didn’t understand what you wanted. I appealed to his Christian charity…I mean, his religious charity, or whatever, and I told him it was urgent and I couldn’t explain. He gave in. He remembered you well enough.”

Jeremy felt feverish with excitement and anxiety. This rendezvous was his last hope.

Another guard took charge of him as he was guided down long corridors shining with steel and shimmering with boredom. They brought him to a room filled with inmates standing in line single file. Some of them greeted him with a slight nod, others peered into his eyes as if measuring him up, and others avoided his gaze entirely.

He was called quickly.

They pointed him to a booth. He sat and waited ten or twenty seconds, eyes on a glass panel where the reflections were too weak for him to make out what he looked like. He thought he could see dark circles under his eyes. He was studying this vague image when a bearded face appeared in front of him. Two dark, lively eyes watched him with
a mixture of curiosity, apprehension, and polished professionalism. This was definitely the man he’d tried to reason with outside the synagogue.

Because Jeremy hadn’t reacted, the gabbai greeted him. “Hello…I’m Abraham Chrikovitch. You…called me…”

“And I thank you for coming so quickly.”

“It’s fine. I was a little surprised.”

“You remember me?” Jeremy asked.

“I have a very—how would you say—particular memory of our encounter. You seemed so…unhappy. So distraught. I’m the one who called the police, and when I found out you admitted to having drugs at your house, I felt…guilty. I thought maybe you came to talk, to confide in us and find a solution for getting out of a bad situation. It bothered me terribly. But you were so disturbed. I couldn’t let you get near the rabbi. In these turbulent times, we have to take certain precautions. And when I said as much at your trial, I don’t think that did you any service.”

“I’m going to ease your conscience,” said Jeremy. “I didn’t come for that. I gave myself up willingly. I went to see the rabbi for another reason. And it’s the same reason I called you here today.”

The gabbai smiled, relieved that there would be no argument about that infamous night, before growing serious again. “But if you’re here of your own will, why did you plead not guilty at your trial? I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you can help me answer that question. I warn you, my story will probably sound strange. I’m asking you to abandon all reason, to listen to me and respond only with your instincts and religious understanding.”

“My reason is the fruit of my religious understanding. I’m listening.” Frowning, the gabbai leaned closer to the window, gently rubbing his hands together before placing them over his mouth and concentrating on the lips of this strange man.