White Rabbit Chapter 46

46.

Delores didn’t fall from the ten story hospital roof. Or, maybe she did, like some weightless thing she did, caroming down gently. But she didn’t know and if she didn’t know it didn’t happen (her mother’s rationale). If she fell, her fall must have been broken by some fortunate impediment on the way down; she bounced off an awning, perhaps, or a timely garbage truck passed at the exact moment and she landed on 376 bags of fluffy refuse. But she had no memory of it, not due to Project Mind Eraser, or some sinister government procedure, only due to blunt force trauma, or because the truth was too frightening. She woke to find herself bandaged from the same spots she was wounded in Ethereal, only she didn’t know that for she had no exact memory of what had just happened to her in her other world. It was like a dream. Her mother had taken her notebook away and she wouldn’t get it back. She didn’t remember the abortion but she was left with the vacant feeling of loss. Medication was supposed to help. She was handcuffed to the bed doped up on something. An IV dripped. A wall clock ticked and a TV mounted on a swivel in the corner of the room sat quiet like a black relic. Delores fought sleep the way people valiantly fight disease or slavery. She fought for her freedom. Sixteen, you are supposed to be so passive, less passionate, formidable. But she wouldn’t let anyone tell her what she must do. She was capable of deciding these things for herself.

            A picture of a dejected-looking Christ hung directly across from her on the white wall. She was surprised that in such a sensitive world He was there so she surmised that her mother had deposited her in a Catholic hospital where they can get away with hanging pictures of the Christ. “Hello,” she said. He didn’t answer. She didn’t expect Him to answer. She stared at Him thinking what to say next and He looked upwards and to the left. She followed his eyes to an out-of-place ceiling tile that was discolored from a leak, but it wasn’t that interesting. He was cold and foreign to her like someone on a train. Is it her fault? Faith is such an imprudent grace. Have faith in me and I will reward you with eternal life. Why? Why must we have faith as though life is some game show? Why not be clear and honest and make good what can be made good and admonish evil if you are omnipotent? By letting evil thrive are you any less evil than the evil there is? Why must people be born to suffer, or to privilege, tortured in life and expected to be servants to some invisible force that they have not met but are expected to know through books put together by mortal men who used it for power and privilege? Who still use it for power and privilege…who executed people for trying to possess it for themselves. The Crusades, the Inquisition, Joan of Arc… Why not be good simply to be good, because we know what good is, it is innate. Why use some book as an excuse to do this or that, or be rotten and ask for forgiveness because the invisible man is a forgiving Lord these days whereas he once used to kill firstborn sons? Why use Jesus as an excuse, pretending he died so you can be a dipshit until you figure you are too old to have fun anymore or have maxed out your life expectancy and then repent like a weasel to the hole of religion? We needn’t be eighteen or thirty five to know right from wrong, good from evil. We needn’t commandments or obscure fables in books, promises of forty virgins, or streets of gold, or even eternal life. Have faith? Her head swirled with the torrent of a heretic mind.

Then it all vanished and she felt something in her hand realizing that her fist was clenched around it. It was a key. She opened her left palm and it fell out on the bed, luckily still in reach. She tried it in the handcuff but it of course didn’t fit. She closed her eyes apologizing to Jesus, for debating his thing, but saying to him that it wasn’t her fault… “Your ambassadors are dipshits,” she said aloud. Dipshit is a splendid word, one that fits so well. She groaned in frustration that the key didn’t work. She expected it to. Perhaps, if she would have prayed… “Oh, fuck,” she thought. “Oh, fuck.” It was the last thought as she drifted to sleep. Had the key worked in the handcuff, the story would have ended so differently.

When she woke, Delores carried on. She lived a normal life as an American teen in Denmark. She never trusted Eric or her mother and was generally and wisely suspicious of everyone, never fully letting herself go though she wanted to. She went to a Catholic school and played soccer and hung out at Statens Naturhistoriske Museum in Copenhagen where the whale lied silently on its stubby pillars and rocks as she sat on the bench and stared at him never knowing, only feeling, a connection. She had boyfriends and dated but there was always something missing that she could never identify.

Two years later…

Delores was eighteen when she took a solo trip on a Eurorail from Copenhagen to Paris with stops along the way only for pickups and deposits. Her mother suggested she go with her and they could rent a car or take a more scenic sightseeing train. She had pamphlets but Delores wasn’t interested in traveling with her mother or the in-betweens, only in Paris. She would go to Columbia University in the fall after her trip. She stood looking up at the majestic tower in awe. She thought of Sophia, the girl who jumped fortuitously onto the car of her future husband, and smiled. It was spring and everything was fresh as it is when it goes from cold to warm and the rain washes what snow was left away and the buds on trees fulfill promises they always fulfill as do flowers and everything down to blades of grass. Rain fell heavier as she stood there hardly noticing. A couple of honeymooners from Texas asked her to take their picture at the foot of the tower and she obliged. They both wore cowboy hats as though they would be some kind of walking curiosities in France like Martians on parade with giant green heads, proudly boasting from where they came. She smiled at them as they thanked her and they asked what state she was from and when she told them, plainly, they looked at each other, and then gave her a sympathetic look figuring there wasn’t much to be proud about being from Maine. But there is a strange camaraderie amongst Americans abroad regardless of what state they are from. They offered to adopt her for a while but she declined. They didn’t seem that interesting. They held their hats and raced for cover from the rain inside an elevator that was going up. Her little green metallic miniature failed miserably to represent the splendor of what she was seeing — what stood there like a giant heap of steel muscle like an arm of the earth. They sold them at a nearby gift shop in at least twelve different colors. On each, a sticker on the bottom said, Made in China, in English.

Soaking wet, but not caring how she looked, Delores meandered to the elevator of tourists that were going up. A younger Luxembourgian boy flirted with her discretely in front of his parents. She knew he was from Luxembourg because his entire family wore the identical shirts of a Luxembourg soccer team with the flag on it. “The Luxembourg flag is very similar to the French flag, only the stripes are horizontal, not vertical,” Delores considered in her head as the elevator went up announcing in French, which Delores knew well enough to understand, that it would stop at several different observation levels before the final ascent to the top. The pretty mother of the flirtatious boy remarked to Delores in the crowded elevator with a smile, “J’adore votre collier.”

“Merci,” Delores replied. She had no recollection of who gave it to her. It remained a mystery. The elevator opened on the second floor. The Texans were standing there waiting. They smiled at Delores and both raised their hats, “Howdy, little lady!” the husky man said.

Delores blushed awkwardly. She got off on the second floor and the Texans joined the Luxembourgers to go up further. She had purposely waited as long as she could before going up, touring all of Paris in the days before and all the little gift shops and cafes in the foothills of the massive tower hours before because she wanted it to last. This was her last day in Paris. She had dreamed of this moment for a long time, staring at the statue or rubbing the pendant between her index finger and thumb as though for luck. She would get off on every floor and relish all the different views slowly making her way to the top. So much of her life was a mystery and, however strange, this was some sort of truth. She stood there feeling the breeze and thinking. She had asked her mother what happened to her but her mother refused to talk about it. Eric wouldn’t tell her. There was no use asking her father, he became more discordant to her as she aged. She knew there was an accident and that was all that she knew. Maybe it was a car wreck, or an airplane, or maybe it was something more deliberate, like kidnap and rape. Perhaps, it was for the best that she didn’t know and the times she thought about hiring a hypnotist, one of those people whose office is some shared business or a magic store and an herbal remedy and incense shop as well, she left without saying anything. Twice she went inside and made eye contact to who she presumed to be either the hypnotist or the receptionist. It’s better not to know, she figured. But still, there was a piece of her that was missing and she didn’t know how to recover. For temporary alleviation she read books incessantly with the expectation of one day finding something buried deep in the pages. She was here at the Eiffel Tower as though there would be a clue or some answer awaiting her. Maybe that is why she took her time because she knew there wouldn’t be anything but if she waited and went slow enough, she could dream there would be for just a little while longer.

There she sat on the second floor reading another chapter of another book that was not giving her any answers. No one bothered her. She sat with her legs crossed looking out onto a rainy Paris afternoon between paragraphs of the book. She could hear when people came around to her side. Their approaching footsteps on the metal made a clear and distinct sound and usually they would walk around the corner and walk by and she would catch glances of them as they passed or as they took a moment to take in the view from that side of the tower. Each side was a different world. Then Delores heard footsteps around the corner and they stopped as though right behind her. She felt a peculiar feeling almost of paralysis, not fear or annoyance, not bother or frustration. She waited for the stranger to pass but the footsteps stopped as though he was standing behind her looking directly over her head. Two steps forward. Finally, she turned around and surprisingly there was no one there. With a strange feeling she turned back around and pretended to read her book but the words were blurry and she couldn’t focus. Then she noticed an antiquated red suitcase that had been left beside of her.

“Hello, Delores…"