Interlude

Chapter LVI

Tinker, Tailor…

(Tangible Ghosts)

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

"This might sound odd but… the other day, when I visited you, how did you see me?"

It had taken more than simply courage to knock on that door. It had taken the certainty of knowing that he wasn't losing his mind. He had seen his missing girlfriend with another man at the cemetery, another man that looked exactly like him. But no-one believed him.

They said the grief he was experiencing after his father's death was taking its toll on him. That his mind was playing all sorts of tricks on him, materializing images that only exist in the immaterial vacuum of his soul.

But he wasn't entirely alone in this universe of transfixed faces and long-gone yesteryears. Lily had seen the man too. His replica had paid her a visit. And it was finally time to face the nameless spirit that had, undoubtedly, taken his place.

Lily cocked her head a little, taken aback by the question and by the visible differences between this Nathan and the one that had visited her a few weeks ago. She cleared her throat before speaking, choosing her words with impeccable care – she could make a list of the physical discrepancies between them: the hair, the clothes, the scars; but that seemed obvious and shallow somehow.

"I'm asking because I'm taking some pills, prescribed by my therapist," Nathan lied, "so if I was rude to you, or acted weird during my visit, I apologize." He wasn't simply trying to help the girl, he was on a reconnaissance mission: he didn't need Lily to tell him about the differences between him and that mysterious man – the only thing he needed was for her to confirm that the man in question had, indeed, visited her. "Ever since my father passed away, I've been thinking a lot about Alex and he advised me not to come but… I guess I let my emotions get the best of me."

"Oh, no, no, no," Lily stopped him. "You don't have to apologize. It was weird to see you; I mean, I wasn't expecting you – but it was a nice surprise. If anything, I'm the one who should be apologizing – you seemed shocked, in distress, and I asked you all those questions: if you still consider yourself a part of this family, and why you didn't show up when her parents died… I should have been more sensitive, you know? The fact that you've moved on with your life doesn't mean you actually…"

"Moved on?" He asked.

"Well, that doesn't make quite a lot of sense: the fact that you have "moved on" doesn't necessarily mean that you moved on," Lily said as she smiled and the man grimaced, trapped inside his own contradictory redundancy. "When the police stopped searching for her, they kind of made you move on, but even if you met somebody else, even if you managed to start your own family… you're still waiting for her to come home, right?"

He nodded.

"Me too."

Why was he still there? He had already obtained what he was looking for: this other man, this other version of himself had visited Lily. And they had talked about the past; he had faced those questions that still burned in the back of her throat. Did he still feel like a part of Alexandra's family? Why hadn't he showed up when her parents passed away?

He searched within him for answers that were far beyond the limits of his emotional education. For once, he was glad somebody else had been put to the test. That other man, the one he wished he could be, the one who had taken his place, had been the only one left to face a past that still refused to perish and die.

Maybe that's why they had visited the cemetery that afternoon.

Maybe Lily's questions had opened a rift within them that day.

For them, the tangible ghosts, know that there's no such thing as the present. They exist only in the confines of time; they are nothing but a seemingly endless concatenation of moments long extinguished.

He stood up and walked to the door, knowing in his heart that he would never see that girl again. She had already given him the only thing he wanted. From that moment on, all that was left for her to offer were memories and the inevitable pain that came with them.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he whispered as his hand caressed the doorknob. Outside, the familiar streets stretched before his eyes like milestones of a lifetime he had tried to erase from his heart. Still, every house and every tree remembered him and his name; every car and every face in that neighborhood wanted to be more than symptoms of his past. He went back to the cemetery, retracing the path that the other Nathan had walked down that afternoon, trying his best to capture the essence of that casual meeting, trying his best to reenact the moment.

But they weren't there. She wasn't there.

Lily had a house and the other Nathan had the heart of the woman he still loved.

But he had nothing.

He had memories and questions, tangible ghosts that refused to be chased, and an empty grave.

As he sat on the ground, in front of her name, his mind began to wonder if, maybe, he should have told Lily that the man who had knocked on her door was not the one she thought he was. There was a thirst for knowledge in his heart that was impossible to quench. He wanted to learn all about this other man – what Alexandra had seen in him, what she had found in him, who was that man, why was he so comfortable inside another man's identity. Lily's description was as accurate as it was cruel: the man who had visited her and the man he himself had seen in the cemetery were the same individual. A person defined by her love. Tailored by the mechanics of a lifetime that should have been his and his alone.

The road back home held no distractions. The rift between him and that man had nothing left to offer. He turned and tossed in bed, nearly breathless by the memories. His wife woke up, startled by him, but the second her fingers touched his forehead he moved away from her, suffocated by her concern. Then he left their room and moved in the dark.

He sat by himself on the front porch. He wasn't losing his mind; the scene he had witnessed that day in the cemetery was etched inside his memory. Yet something was wrong. Something didn't add up. The therapist was right: there was nothing real about ghosts. Yet he had seen himself in the eyes of another man. Another man that looked exactly like him.

Your eyes gave you away.

Lily had seen him too. His own son had seen him too.

Inside the parallel, she still existed. And she was fresh as a newborn, certain as the brand-new day that follows the night.

He grabbed his phone, and his fingers searched through his contacts with an unfamiliar sense of resolution.

"You won't believe who I saw the other day," Nathan said.

"Who?"

"The woman you were supposed to search."

He took a deep breath, not sure if this was the right thing to do. That man had corrupted his quest. That man had turned his life into a labyrinth.

Minutes of complete silence piled up upon his shoulders. Kano was a ruthless bastard; he was never going to help him. As the years irreversibly progressed, Alex became a poor excuse for both men to stay in touch. Nathan was trapped in a web of lies and corruption and Kano was getting richer and more powerful than ever thanks to him.

The mercenary remembered her. One of Rosario's girls, working at the House of Pleasure. He hadn't crossed the portal in a very long time now, but he was positive of something: for a woman, there was no way out of the House of Pleasure. There were windows and corridors, beds and mirrors – but there were no exits.

"Have you been drinking, mate?" Kano asked, trying to buy himself some time. Nathan had never visited Outworld so whatever he had seen, whoever he had seen, it could not be her. She was the queen in a long game of chess they had been playing for over a decade now. He had been saving her, cheating, with the despicable tone that encompasses a master strategy that requires calm and patience but now, it was simply not the time to reveal his tactics. The Syndicate had been brought to its knees, El Club de los Amantes was no more and the Black Dragon was suffering the consequences of Kotal Kahn's rule.

Etienne had made it out alive just in time, but his recovery would take time. In the meantime, it was imperative to find a new structure that could potentially serve their cause.

Nathan was still of use, and he would be of use in the future too, once the Syndicate was properly re-established - but now, Kano didn't have time for romantic obsessions.

"I need you to find somebody else," Nathan said.

"You sure? Cos I kinda failed the first time."

Kano had the resources. He too knew all too well that there's nothing real about ghosts.

"I need you to find a man that looks exactly like me."

There was a short pause. A small window of silence that stretched over the phone and across the distance. He hadn't seen Nathan in a very long time, but those features were more than simply familiar: his face reminded him of a time long gone, of betrayal and salt.

Tobacco, booze, and gunpowder.

He ended the conversation with nothing but unintelligible grumblings and searched through his things for the old photograph that a desperate, young Nathan had given him, all those years ago. Then he went upstairs and sat on Etienne's bed.

"You spent a lot of your time doing business for El Club in the House of Pleasure, right?" he asked. "Do you recognize her?"

Etienne looked at the photograph and furrowed his brow.

"That's the new owner; Erron Black's wife," he said. "What about her? Do you know her?"

Kano shook his head dismissingly and smiled.

The world seemed as big as a chessboard. And the pieces, finally, were all falling into place.