Tuesday, November 19 1963, 9:18 pm
The conversation with Dave got me incredibly thinking, as I walked with my big bag, not knowing for where. I ended up in a small sunny public garden on a square, next to some payphones that I couldn't stop staring at.
Is Klaus's happiness essential to mine? Clearly, yes. In this timeline, the one before and the one after. Was Lloyd's? I'd like to answer yes, but the moment of hesitation that comes when I ask myself the question is sad, in itself. At that moment, I realized that I'm already regretting less and less what happened yesterday. And I could almost smile.
I got up, grabbed one of the payphone handsets, and called at Morty's, the name that appeared yesterday on the door of the so-called Eliott where Five wanted to get everyone together. The guy's nice. A little socially off-kilter, hesitant, and totally in awe of a basic energy sphere.
He redirected me to Allison's hair salon, and Klaus was no longer there either. She told me they'd had tacos, talked a lot and drank a little, and that he'd finally returned to the Mansion. That he'd made the decision to 'announce to his cult that the end of the world was finally tomorrow'. I think she enjoyed hearing me burst out laughing on the phone, despite the seriousness of what lies ahead. And me too, I confess. I'm experiencing the end of the world much better than last time, and I'm certainly not taking it for granted.
And so, here I am once again in the night, walking around Kitty's former home, which no longer looks anything like the ghostly abandoned building I came to visit Klaus in, a few days ago. I soon realized what was going on when I saw the golden lights dancing again behind the window panes. Passing by our beloved Priscilla, parked on the gravel, the frescoes on her coachwork unchanged since the happy days in Baja. Hearing the clamors rising from the countless rooms inside, including the one of the 'Sex Swing'. One thing is clear: the 'Destiny's Children' have indeed returned.
I'm smiling. I could even cry again, can you believe it? My emotions aren't very stable right now, that's a fact. I know that only the most devout and lunatic are left, but I don't care tonight. I want to curl up again in the big Mexican-patterned blanket, in the smell of patchouli, among the fucking rose petals tossed here and there. And erase from my memory for good the lost look in Klaus' eyes yesterday, behind the Merelec shop window where he wasn't welcome.
*Crack!* Without warning, just tightening the grip on my big bag so that it doesn't slip away, I teleport straight to the room where I know Klaus will have shut himself in if he's really back. Just where the ghostly sheets had last covered the furniture, and where everything - from artwork to carpets - has come to life again tonight. The light is just pure amber, gleaming on the copper chandeliers. Laughter is everywhere, quinoa is cooking in the kitchen. I guess Klaus hasn't told them anything yet.
He sits there. Motionless, on the yoga mat where he does nothing at all, unable to bring himself to move. And he jolts when he hears the familiar sound of my arrival. He doesn't turn around though, as I stay in his back, and I can see him running a hand over his eyes as he tries to convince himself that I'm really there. Ben is leaning against the mantelpiece, beneath the large portrait: we glance at each other silently, which says more than if we were talking. Finally, I put my bag on the floor and go and sit on the mat, between Klaus and the hookah.
"I've screwed the pooch again," he only tells me, and I shake my head slowly as my arms hug my knees.
My eyes are on the ground, unsteady and unfocused. And Klaus still doesn't look at me.
"You just hastened what was going to happen anyway."
I feel like this sentence goes much deeper than my simple situation, but Klaus seems to reject it immediately anyhow, so I add:
"Lloyd and I weren't meant to last in space-time".
And he shakes his head again.
"I'm that annoying mosquito that keeps popping up to ruin your barbecues".
I still don't look at him, but my attention turns imperceptibly in his direction as my face lights up a little.
"For once, your comparison is off."
Usually, the imagery his brain comes up with is extremely relevant, if you're willing to listen and not just see it as a comic relief in the midst of adversity. But now, thanks to Dave, I'm sure of one thing.
"There's a major difference, Klaus," I tell him with a form of crystal clarity. "I hate mosquitoes, whereas it's beyond question for me to live without you around".
This statement seems to paralyze him on the spot, as we finally look at each other. For years after our first hours between the bars of police custody, he thought I would leave. That I'd get fed up with his wanderings, his eccentricities, his terrible phases where the precipices into which he was sinking seemed to have no bottom. It took him years to understand that I wasn't going to disappear without warning. To stop expecting rejection. And my mistake was probably never to have told him what I've just said.
"Allison told me you decided to be truthful with the 'Children' before the Apocalypse, so I want to be truthful with you too."
He sighs, but no longer with sorrow, nothing but relief and a form of serenity still a little soaked with all the alcohol he's been drinking. And as his head rests on the side of mine, he says to me:
"You and I, we're like Spongebob and Patrick. Not in that order."
And I laugh softly.
"I wish you'd said like Sam and Frodo. Not in that order either."
Believe it or not, for us, this sounds like a very powerful declaration. We remain for a moment gazing in the direction of the grate used as a door to the room, beyond which the 'Children' are chanting Vedas in unison, happier than ever at the return of their 'prophet' and unaware of the imminent end that may await us.
"Are you going to talk to them, then?", I ask him.
And just as I can read the blatant disapproval on Ben's face, Klaus whispers in response, aware of the devastation he's likely to cause:
"To be able to do that, I'm going to need to open a hell of a lot of chakras. And just to get over it, a new bottle of whisky".
Wednesday, November 20 1963, 5:16 pm
"Everything is so beautiful at this time of day, I can feel my spirit opening up to the scents of evening," Jill tells me as she places potting soil on the roots of the chrysanthemum seedling I'm holding in the center of the transportable planter.
My eyes are lost somewhere at the end of the path winding through the pines. She's right. The light is always beautiful in the Mansion Gardens in the late afternoon. Even more so on these autumn days, when the yellow of the marigolds echoes it, but there's been a touch of angst in my heart for the last few minutes. Ever since a young hand I know all too well came knocking at the door of "Destiny's Children". Someone Jill herself led to Klaus before coming here to help me.
"White Lotus, are you okay?"
"Jill, call me Rin, I've been telling you for three years..."
"Rin, are you okay?"
"I... yes."
My voice just uttered this, but my heart - pounding against my ribs - is willing to confess otherwise. Dave came. And it's a good thing he didn't see me gardening here, when he and Klaus walked across the beautiful lawns: I don't know how he would have reacted. Eventually, he seems to have made the connection between the pamphlet I 'innocently' slipped into his book, and the one they still call the 'Holy Wanderer' here, against all odds. And I hadn't realized how anxious I'd be about his coming, on top of something else looming for tonight. My throat is tight. And I'm suffocating, not knowing how their conversation is going.
"I feel so much better now," Jill exults, beaming as always.
And Ben, not far away, crouched on the grass, stares at her in silence, even though she still knows nothing about him. She takes an endless breath, then declares as one would release a yoga posture:
"Having recognized that I was a fraud myself has freed me to an incredible extent."
As we tamp down the soil around the beautiful orange blossom, I watch the strange crowd in Tiffany blue clothes as they idly carry on with their boho lives. Along the paths, under the pines and between the orange trees, many 'Children' are strolling, gardening or meditating, completely indifferent to the morning's events.
I can't really think about what Klaus did. About how he finally decided not to tell them about the impending Apocalypse, but rather to confess that he'd never been the 'prophet' they'd believed in. I know Ben put him up to it. I know that he simply wanted them to go home and see their families one last time. But I witnessed this pathetic demonstration of one-way communication, even though I can assure you that Klaus has never been better at concision and clarity.
"Jill..."
I too must be frank and straightforward, since he has.
"It wasn't an inspirational metaphor this time. Klaus is just a normal person, like you and like me."
"Come on, White Lotus -"
"Rin."
"Rin, you know you both are nothing ordinary."
I sigh heavily. This I cannot deny, for all the 'Children' know it. And the fact that we 'came from the future', I can't forget that either, even if I won't say it. I look back towards the ornamental balconies. The pine needles restrict my view, but I can make out Dave's silhouette, facing the overhang that falls down towards the pond.
"Everyone has their own special things, Jill, you... you're brilliant, you..."
I frown for a moment as I look at Ben, as if he's intensely trying to induce some inception inside my brain.
"You know how to use words to convince, to write poetry. You have a gift for growing plants.
I know what he'd like. That I materialize what I can of him. That he could tell her himself. To look into her eyes while for the first time she would look back at him. But I can't, because she wouldn't understand and might just freak out. No, I mustn't, and I know that he suffers all the more because he understands, in his furious desire to live a life of his own. So I keep listing the things he'd probably say to her, himself.
"You can draw so well. You're committed and persevering. And you have that kindness that few of us here can keep against all odds.
She laughs softly as she touches her earlobe - embarrassed - but shakes her head.
"It's not true, our prophet is right. That's only what I show about myself, but inside, I'm nothing but..."
We carefully place a second chrysanthemum in the planter under Ben's watchful gaze, and her smile drops somewhat beneath her glasses.
"...nothing but a terrified girl who's scared to go out on her own, and frightened of the future."
Nevertheless, she giggles in an adorable way, and I'm speechless at her sincerity. Because I know it's true, and that it's precisely what led her to stop her studies and follow Klaus all these years. But she doesn't give me time to say anything:
"See? I am indeed a fraud. And I really do feel so much better since the Holy Wanderer encouraged us all to admit it. It's like my whole chest has been liberated. Never has the Veda 'I'm free like the river, flowin' freely through infinity' made so much sense".
She inhales the air above the chrysanthemum, ecstatically. We tamp down the soil again, then add a third flower, next to the two others. I'd like to try and convince her, even though it might hurt. I'd probably have to tell her with the composure my grandmother would have had that Klaus is just an asshole who stole all her money, ruined her college and career prospects by lulling her with silly details about the 'future', worthy of a wiki for kids. I should dispel her damn worship by telling her that he spends two hours in the toilet if he eats a four-cheese pizza.
But I don't have the time to do so, and it's Ben's gaze that first tells me that something wrong is what's going on: Dave has just crushed the flower necklace he'd been given to the ground, while crossing Keechie's trotting footsteps. I see him set off, his step dull, almost angry at Klaus or at himself, in the direction of the gravel driveway.
I stand up, my hands full of dirt, with a furious urge to teleport to catch him. But I mustn't. I must no longer intervene. I must now let what might have been happen. It's no longer in my hands, and possibly no longer in Klaus's either. And it simply saddens me to think that - in the end - the last thing I'll have seen of Dave will perhaps be those tears on his cheek, his lowered head, and that checkered shirt that's now inexorably heading for the estate gate.
"White Lotus - really - is everything all right?"
I don't really listen to Jill anymore, and I'm sorry. I don't even have the strength to rectify my first name for the eleven-thousandth time. My vision blurs as Dave disappears down the driveway.
"Finish the repotting, please," I tell her as Keechie heads back toward the house on the stony path.
I won't wait another ten seconds, not even one. *Crack!*, I teleport over the damned pines that still stand between me and Klaus's Texan shirt.
He stands there, next to the marble recumbent statue of the child Kitty never had. Motionless, as if petrified, yet trembling like the leaves of the orange trees. His gaze is empty, on the mineral floor. And he holds - without looking at it or even realizing it's there - the same cream-colored letter that was addressed to me.
"Have you..."
The dog-tags are no longer around his neck, they're in his hand, under the envelope, and I understand, as I finally meet his dazed gaze. I get it - yes - that he used the 'argument of last resort': that he told Dave what was going to happen to him. I close my eyes; I think I'm shaking too. For as much as we are overlooking the great basin at this moment, we are also suspended above the void of the unknown as to what is going to happen.
"Fuck," is all I can say before I reach out to hug him, and the envelope falls to the floor, his trembling hands simply no longer holding it. What he's done is irredeemable in the timeline, now, and no matter what comes of it, right now, what he needs to hear is:
"You've done everything you could."
I don't know how many minutes we stay without saying anything, and no one, no, none of the 'Children' dares to interfere. And then, as always with Klaus, his trembling seems to subside. It's as if his body and at least part of his mind were able to regain control. Slowly, I feel I no longer need to support him to keep him from faltering. And the first thing he does, when he finally steps aside and practically blows his nose into his sleeve, is pick up the envelope he dropped. The one with no address and no name.
"It was hand-delivered..." he says fumblingly, as if he'd doubted he'd be able to.
Then, with the same astonishment as me, the same apprehension too, he unseals it. And my eyebrows pinch, because even before he does, I can guess the pained sigh he lets out as he slides the invitation open. At the sight of those elegant, austere letters, under the silhouette of the umbrella. My eyes lowered, I watch it wordlessly, reading over his arm.
'To my Pursuers : I Reginald Hargreeves, request the pleasure of you company for a light supper, on the 20th of November, 1963, at half past seven o'clock. 1624 Magnolia Street, Dallas, Texas'.
I frown.
"Wait," I say.
With a quick, puzzled gesture, I lift my dirt-covered gardening apron to access the pockets of the high-waisted jeans I'm wearing. I pull out the same envelope, folded and refolded without much respect or shame, and I unfold it under his questioning gaze.
"You got it too..." he murmurs with a form of dread that only exists in his voice when he mentions his father. "It's for tonight... But then, he knows we're ~all~ here..."
"I received it yesterday," I say, "but..."
I pull the invitation out of the cream-colored paper. Identical to his in every detail, with two exceptions. Mine, both similar and terribly different, reads:
'To my Rivals : I Reginald Hargreeves, request the pleasure of you company for a light supper, on the 20th of November, 1963, at precisely seven o'clock. 1624 Magnolia Street, Dallas, Texas'.
Not the same designation, not the same time. I look up at Klaus, both of us no longer even shaking. We just stand there admitting the evidence of what should never have happened. I don't know if we'll ever be free. But it's clear that, inexorably, the river does indeed flow freely through infinity. He blinks, then looks back at me.
"This time, it looks like you're going to meet him."
Notes:
I can't thank Sonderwrites enough for sharing their thoughts on the relationship between Rin and Klaus. Their take on the queerplatonic nature of their bond undoubtedly influenced the first part of this chapter.
Did you notice the recumbent statue behind Klaus in this episode's scene, when he's talking to Dave? I don't think it was an innocent choice on Steve Blackman's part to set the scene in front of this statue evoking the death of a child.
We are truly at the crossroads of possibilities, now. And on the verge of a very special invitation... to a 'light supper'.
Any comment will make my day