Backstory: Rin is a 20-year-old punk girl born with a strange power that she uses for illegal work: she can teleport, make herself invisible or intangible. Over several nights in police custody, just over a year ago, she met a strange cellmate named Klaus... also endowed with an extremely invasive power: that of communicating with the dead.
TW: recent death of a relative - reference to drug use.
I can't remember exactly how long I remained in that kind of dizzy state of shock, after my mother's death. Torn between a tenuous relief and a grief that literally pierced through me. Every step was both painful and paradoxically sweet: the shared sorrow at her funeral, where her few closest friends came, the bittersweet memories of all the clothes in her closet, which we had to empty. Her name on the mailbox, her voice on the answering machine. Little by little, those traces of her faded, and all that remained of her were the photos in the frames and on the shelves in Granny's living room.
During this period, I drowned in the notary and administrative formalities that were impossible to avoid, and that my grandmother was unable to manage. I think I held on because I wanted to preserve her, while at the same time struggling to find a job. 'Thanks to' this intoxication with paperwork and forms to fill that kept me busy, and also thanks to a not-so-unexpected squatter, who had crept back into my life again.
I think I understood what Klaus had done when I heard the neighbor on the fifth floor complaining about the smell of weed in the stairwell for the first time. It had seized me, too, on my way downstairs to take out the trash, and it had made me want to smile. For you, it may not be something pleasant. But - I - associate marijuana with waffles, with the warmth of improvised braziers in paint cans in squats, with laughing green eyes, and with what Klaus did back then.
He had settled between the elevator and the stairwell, in the nook where the cleaning company usually left the little cart with the household products. He hadn't brought a lot of things. An out-of-date vinyl mat, a blue-gray tartan blanket, a small sofa cushion, an old duffel bag with his wet-smelling clothes. And a little stove that had already set off the fire alarm once, on which he heated instant soups and heroin alike.
When I came downstairs that day, I found him there, busy struggling with knitting needles, from the end of which hung a shapeless piece of work resembling a mop, made of wool from an old sweater. He had probably come in and passed the intercom at the same time as the mailman or a neighbor. And now he'd even pinned to the wall above his 'bed' a small flyer for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which would soon be playing at a theater on Crescent Boulevard, The City's equivalent of Broadway. He seemed to be feeling particularly comfortable in his new 'nest', and had put on his Converse shoes to dry after the heavy rains.
"Klaus, what are you doing here?", I asked him in a tired, jaded voice, my big garbage bag dangling at the side of my leg, without completing the motion that should have taken me to the garbage room.
He looked me up and down, surely considering if anything had changed during the week we hadn't seen each other, then replied while trying to untangle what I couldn't define as a knit or a knot :
"Rin. You won't believe it. I randomly sneaked into a building last night to take shelter during the downpour, and it turns out to be the one where you live!"
I tilted my head to the side and arched an eyebrow.
"Oh really. Just at random."
He raised both his hands in a sign of earnestness, both 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'.
"I swear. Mere coincidence."
"A mere coincidence like the time you stole a 'random' scarf because it was cold, and it was Chanel?"
"Okay, okay. Maybe I'm just regularly lucky. But it was freezing cold. Maybe the reason I didn't die of hypothermia is because of that Chanel scarf."
"Yes, it probably made a huge difference..."
I shook my head a little sarcastically, telling myself I would have laughed in a different context. But that day, the twist in my stomach was stronger than the temptation to banter with my scruffy stalker.
"You've brought a lot of stuff for someone who was just seeking an improvised shelter," I told him as I finally opened the door to the garbage room, and went to leave my bag in one of the dumpsters. I sensed him fidgeting on his foam mattress - behind the door - then I gazed down at him again as I walked back into the hall, the door closing behind me.
Klaus didn't own much, and everything usually fit into the bag he was also using as a pillow. Having his head resting on it was still the best way for him not to lose or have stolen the few papers or objects that were precious to him. This time, though, I immediately noticed he hadn't brought with him his whole eccentric wardrobe. He sighed.
"Well... I was more or less forced out of the abandoned mattress store..."
This was not good news. This squat had actually been one of the most comfortable he'd ever lived in. And from the look on his face, it was clear that it hadn't been a decision he'd made willingly. I let the second-floor neighbor rush up the stairs, giving Klaus an outraged and slightly frightened look, then I went to kneel down next to him, not far from his camping stove.
"Is the building going to be demolished?"
"No. No it's because of... some friends of mine... of the 'Mother of Agony' gang."
He dropped that name, along with his hands and the knitting needles in his lap. A name that unfortunately sounded familiar, having spent a lot of time in the circles of the punk scene and the underworld of The City. A group of studded, tattooed, body-built bikers who ruled the entire Lakeshore Hills neighborhood with a mafia-like influence.
"Friends' you're forced to hide from".
"Forced, forced... I ~chose~ to move. You know. To 'avoid conflict'."
He chuckled softly, in a way that told me how nervous he was.
"Let's just say they've 'supplied' me a lot over the last two years - because I was doing them a few favors - but all of a sudden, they considered I had to pay retroactively - must be some form of social custom I'd underestimated."
It wasn't the first time Klaus had been in debt, but this time his creditors weren't exactly choirboys. He ran his hand over his chin.
"I used to assume that some were better than others, that they were going to be like their bikes: all customized slightly differently. And it turns out... they're pretty consistent in all wanting their money."
I looked at his bag again.
"You've sold some clothes".
"I didn't really have much use for the Chanel scarf anymore, you know... or the Vivienne Westwood sweater".
"Shit, Klaus, you loved that sweater".
He didn't say anything, and I understood that he'd had no choice, and that those pawns had probably only paid part of his 'bills'.
"I really can't help you now," I said, because it was true, but he immediately brushed off the very idea of it.
"No, I can take care of myself. It's not to ask anything of you that I've come to this cosy cranny".
He stared at me, in a way that was far too firm and frank for what was currently running through his blood. No. He wasn't there to ask me for money, and in fact, he never did. He'd gladly eat off my plate, let me pay admission to concerts by giving me the title of his 'favorite events organizer', and of course wouldn't refuse a kind contribution to his 'liquid consumables', but never - never - did he ask me head-on for a single cent. I looked at his knitting, wondering if he was trying to re-knit the Westwood sweater all by himself, and I tried to smile.
"You came to keep an eye on me."
He clumsily made one more stitch, which was implausible in the state of his hand-eye coordination, and absolutely denied my words.
"You don't need me watching you at all, I mean, Rin. You're as badass as a hybrid form of Susan Storm and Nightcrawler. Just less irradiated than the former and obviously less blue than the latter."
I don't know anything about comics, but Klaus used to read some in the warmth of the local comic book store, before a big franchise took it over.
"You're worried," I said quietly.
I looked at him sideways, with gratitude that he'd done this in the midst of the disaster that was currently his life too. And he shrugged.
"I'm not the one who's worried, Ben is".
Of course. Whenever Klaus wanted to clear himself of anything, he would pin it on his 'brother', the one he often spoke to in the shadows, and whom I couldn't see. The one who died in an 'incident' we never - ever - mentioned the circumstances of. And, I laughed softly, realizing that I hadn't for days. Just for managing to bring that back to me, I was already immensely grateful to him.
"Tell Ben he's a sweetie, then, and that thanks to him, I'm going to get better and better."
He grinned, because he understood that I wasn't fooled. But today, I think the truth was that Ben also had something to do with it for real. I guess I realized at that moment that I was lucky to have them, even the one I'd never been able to talk to, and I gave Klaus an affectionate little shoulder bump.
"The condo is going to kick you out, you know that. If Granny doesn't do it with her bare hands, after choking you with your knitting wool."
He burst out laughing at the mention of my grandmother, whom he hadn't bumped into again.
"I won't stay long. A week or so. Maximum two."
In that span of time, I brought him countless Vietnamese dishes and granola bars downstairs, and he actually got kicked out six times. But he kept coming back, until we could resume our evening outings. Until our lives picked up right where we left off. I think he is aware of the support he has played in this difficult period of my life. But - despite his walls of ordinary narcissism - he never bragged about it.
"Where will you go next?", I asked him, and for the first time since we'd known each other, he replied:
"I think... I might go back and crash for a few days 'back home'".
I blinked three times in disbelief.
"'Home', you mean, Hargreeves Mansion?"
It was a name we didn't speak, except occasionally at the library, or in Dr. Milligan's office.
"My dear father is away on business, my... mother is programmed to make no difference whether I'm gone for two hours or three years."
I had understood that his mother was a robot, by the little statements he would slip in as if it were something perfectly natural and obvious, when it wasn't, of course.
"Luther will give me the shits, that's for sure, but it doesn't matter. He's the only one who's still there. And Pogo..."
Listening to him, I could guess that he was actually watching what was going on over there, more often than he would have admitted. As if he were keeping an eye from afar on those who were kind of strangers to him, and paradoxically a huge part of his life.
"Who's Pogo?"
"Pogo..."
I sensed he was trying to figure out how to describe it without making me burst out laughing, or run away. And he chose to say:
"He was like a tutor, for us, in a way. He'll lecture me, sound super British, act like Dad... but he'll let me crash in my old room, and won't say a word when I bugger off again".
I nodded. I knew that this big building was full of memories of all kinds, sometimes colliding in his head. Some he cherished, such as the occasional mention of his other brother Diego, and others that could trigger him into anxiety attacks to the point of vomiting. I knew it wasn't an easy decision for him to go back and stay there for a while. But I understood why he was going to do it.
"You'll be able to save money."
"And pilfer a little, believe me. I'll apply for a new loyalty card at the pawn shop. The bikers will think it's Christmas."
I shook my head, then put it on his shoulder.
"Klaus, can you still see her? My mother."
I realized at that moment that I no longer had any trouble asking him, and he took a deep breath.
"No," he said simply. "She went beyond, into the Void".
This was making sense to him, and I understood it at the time: under this term 'Void', he was referring to a sort of limit, beyond which he could not see yet. He could only reach the ghosts of people still trapped here with us, on this side. Those who had a grievance, a desire for revenge or an unfinished task. Those who could not - in one way or another - pass into that Void to rest in peace.
"So that's a pretty good sign," I uttered with a tranquility of soul that only he knew how to bring me at the time.
"You could say that. Now she'll be granted access to the part of the afterlife that looks like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with green marzipan grass, a river of hot chocolate and candy cane trees. Minus the Oompa Loompas and the creepy Johnny Depp."
"You're a dick. You don't know shit."
He laughed softly, because - of course - I knew his limits, then his smile slowly dropped.
"She's not one of those torn up enough to come and haunt me, if that's your question. And I..."
I think he preferred to make that clear.
"...I can't bring her back to you."
"I know."
I didn't say anything for a few seconds, I just stood there as the mailman came in through the glass doors of the building from the street, nearly choking on the sight of us. Behind him, the heavy rain clouds seemed to have dissipated, and a ray of radiantly clear sunlight fell on the mailboxes, making the little dust particles dance. The smell of stairwell detergent had never felt so good.
"It's not what I'd wish for, you know," I said.
My eyes lost in the spring light that I'd recently stopped enjoying contemplating, I sighed and smiled. I remember it so well, as if it were yesterday, that moment when I allowed myself to feel that reckless thing again: joy, hope for tomorrow, and the feeling that now, another part of my life was about to begin. Like a rush of euphoria to my chest, that I deliberately decided to embrace.
"If you need a shower, Granny always plays bridge on Tuesday and Thursday nights," I said quietly as I stood up, and he took on a coquettish air.
"Twice a week, gosh, I'll be gleaming like never before."
We laughed softly as the mailman left. And while pressing the elevator button, I finally told him:
"The code for the building door is 4107.
-
Notes:
We've often witnessed the way Klaus depended on Rin, but the reciprocal was also a fact, especially at the time recounted here.
Klaus still doesn't have a peaceful life in this chapter. I addressed here his complicated relationship with the bikers of 'Mother of Agony'. Their appearance in the 3rd season of the series is mainly a reference to the comics, where Klaus's "services" to them are recounted, just like here.
As mentioned in the main story, Klaus occasionally returned to Hargreeves Mansion, before stopping completely. Soon, we will be visiting there too.
Any comment will make my day!