Page 217 of Two Marlboros

“We’re here.”

I looked at him for a moment and said nothing, I couldn’t. He smiled at me, pulled a business card out of his breast pocket and handed it to me.

“I’ll tell you what, American boy. If your love surprise goes wrong, call me and we’ll have a drink together tonight. If, on the other hand, I don’t hear from you, I’ll know everything went well.”

I took the card, looked first at the piece of paper with his number on it and then at him, just long enough to figure out what he had told me. I threw up the tension by bursting out laughing at that absurd proposal, but I also thought that it was a very kind thought - and that I must have looked really bad if I had aroused his pity like that.

“Alright, it’s a deal.”

We both got out and I was surprised once again at the ease with which he handled the weight of my suitcases. After closing the trunk, I gave him the money he was owed, and we shook hands.

“Oh!” he exclaimed again, and I almost thought I was going to miss him. “I am Hakim.”

“Nathan,” I replied in turn.

“Then good luck, Nathan!”

I thanked him and smiled, whereupon he re-entered the cab and turned around to head back toward the city center. He waved his hand to greet me and so did I, but when he left, I realized that I was left alone, with my suitcases, in front of that red-brick house that I was no longer so sure I wanted to enter.

In those five minutes since Hakim had left, taking with him the last hope I had of not making a fool of myself, I had discovered that the sidewalks of Brighton knew how to freeze butts just fine on cold December days. By now I had lost anyfeeling down there, just as I had lost it in my right hand, the one that made the Marlboro I held tightly between my fingers barely shake. The other hand I had tried to tuck into my coat, but it was still sore from the cold. I inhaled the cigarette and felt my jaw freezing as well, but my brain was very adept at ignoring my body’s need for warmth if getting it meant ringing that bell. I hadn’t even dared to go and see the name on the nameplate, because it could have been the wrong address; one could never know. In fact, it was a doubt that had never crossed my mind in all those hours, just as many other questions had not crossed my mind. It had been an impulsive gesture - and I would soon find out if it had been stupid as well.

I let the Marlboro pamper me some more, the only familiar note in that foreign country where the only semblance of a friend I had was Hakim, whom I was beginning to miss. I was in really, really bad shape.

But eventually the cigarette ended, too. My three inches of well-being had worn down to a useless cigarette butt between my fingers, a remnant that I reluctantly abandoned inside the nearest trash can a few steps from where I sat - and when I got up again, my cold knees made the action more complicated than usual.

When I returned to my bags, I wondered whether it was stupider to die in front of the Scottfield house or to ring that blessed doorbell, and I knew the comparison was unequal and the question rhetorical. So, I gathered mybag and baggageand dragged them down the driveway, petrified of the cold and the sound of those damn wheels rattling over the imperfections in the tiles. The terror that someone might notice me sooner than expected tried to paralyze my legs, but that bit of madness that had brought me this far pushed me along even the last meter that separated me from Alan.

The nameplate, unfortunately or fortunately, actually read “Scottfield.” Wow, I had actually found him. I felt quite proud of myself for having made it all the way there, so much so that in a moment of mental self-celebration I rang the doorbell without giving it much thought.

But in the end, it wasn’t like I had prepared a speech. No, I hadn’t prepared it, and I forced my brain to let out at least that miserable and banal “hello.”

There I heard footsteps. Imperceptible, almost... but then more and more pronounced, closer. I tried to repeat to my brain what it was supposed to say -a banal, simple “hello,” remember that?- but it became a blank slate when someone peeked through the wink. And I even forgot my own name when the door opened.

For, in fact, it was not Alan. No. No, it really wasn’t. Definitely, no. Had I already said no? Well, no. There was a vague resemblance... But no. It wasn’t him. Tall, in his fifties, two eyes as if to say, “Where did this guy come from?” and an expression that expected me to say something, and I expected it too, but I couldn’t think of anything. Was I afraid I would look like shit? Well, mission accomplished. Ten out of ten, Nathan Hayworth (“Clap, clap,” remarked my brain).

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

My mouth opened but let alone to say anything. The words died in my throat, and I merely nodded. Was there a way to erase people’s memories? Like, erase a specific memory? For example, the moment when the elegant English gentleman had opened the door for me and was staring at me as if I had been a deranged person? Oh God, maybe I looked a little bit like one. No, I had to put my shit together. I tried to regain my concentration by appealing to a dignity I had now completely lost.

“Yes, sorry. Er…” and my brain projected a team of boys waving pompons in the air for no reason. “I was actually looking for Alan.”

His face suddenly relaxed. I even thought I saw him crack a smile, but I was too stunned to notice. He leaned against the doorframe in a pose that seemed familiar, and I sensed that he no longer considered me a public danger.

“Alan went out for a moment. You know, his grandma, Summer, left her medicine at home and went with her to get it.”

I let a smile escape because life, when it got into it, could dish out an insane amount of bad luck all at once. At least someone had opened up for me, though, and Alan would be back before too long, so all in all I could count myself lucky.

“Okay,” I replied, resigned to the karma that had it in for me. “Approximately how soon will he be back?”

He took a quick glance at his wristwatch, and suddenly I had a kind of heavenly revelation: it was his father. When I applied myself, I could draw some really brilliant conclusions. I could try to get into the police force!

“Twenty, thirty minutes. You know, every once in a while, Grandma forgets a few details here and there and so the time gets longer.”

I laughed and couldn’t even say why - all in all, it wasn’t something to laugh about and in fact, maybe it was even inappropriate. Oh, well. I was still relying on the memory loss spell.

“You can come back later if you want,” he began, as his gaze fell on my suitcases. “Or you can wait for him inside.”

My lips parted in a smile, instigated by the frozen hands and backside I could no longer remember having.

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