My Name Is Memory (33 page)

She was aching for breath. She put a hand to her shoulder. She saw the figure on the beach with the gun. Joaquim was what Daniel called him.

She felt Daniel’s arm supporting her, his other hand unzipping her smock. He pulled it gingerly over her shoulder, and it hurt. He was taking off her dress, and they were both going to die at any moment, and she felt oddly calm about it all.

“We’ll be easy to kill out here,” she said, trying to catch her breath.

“If he wanted to kill us, he would.” He was studying her shoulder, and she realized for the first time that she was the one who was bleeding.

The gun was trained on them. “You think he doesn’t?”

“I think he would have already if he was in any hurry to.”

“Did I get shot?” she asked incredulously.

“Your shoulder caught the edge of a bullet that was not intended for you. You jumped right in front of it, my girl, and scared the shit out of me.” She couldn’t believe he was smiling at her, but he was. “There’s a deep scrape but not a bullet. We got lucky there.”

“Who was it intended for?” She cast another wary eye at Joaquim and his pistol on the beach.

“It was intended to intimidate us and get control of us but not to hurt you. Joaquim might not have minded shooting me, but it would have been an anticlimax. He wants to put me at his mercy. That’s the kind of person he is. He wants to do to me what I did to him—to take you away from me and have me know that you are in the world, but I can’t have you. He probably thinks you still belong to him. I’m not saying he won’t shoot me or both of us as a last resort, but it’s not what he wants to do.”

“Why not?”

“Because then he loses us again. He’s got us in this life but not the next. He can remember, but he can’t recognize souls.”

“He can’t?”

“No. He couldn’t in the past, anyway.”

“You can?”

“Not perfectly but yes.”

“So then what’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know, and neither does he. When he brought you here I think he probably hoped that I would show up, but he didn’t expect me to succeed in running away with you. I am almost sure this was not in his plans. He knows we have no options right now, but neither does he. Besides shooting us both dead, all he can do is stand there and wait to see what we do. He can’t leave us and get a boat. We’d be gone by then. He can’t swim in after us.”

“So what do we do?”

“For now, it’s a stalemate. We’re all going to wait.”

“We are?”

“Unless you have a different idea.”

“I’ll get to work on that,” she said. She realized he was pulling at the bottom of her smock, and she sat up. “Is this really the moment for that?”

He laughed. “I wish it were.” He was examining her hem. “Listen, I know you haven’t got a lot to work with, clothes-wise, but do you mind if I rip off the bottom couple of inches? I want to tie up your shoulder.” He gestured to his wet boxers. “I’ve got even less to spare.”

“I think we should use yours,” she said.

“All right, then,” he said. He stood up and started to strip, and she couldn’t help but admire his beautiful body up and down.

She was not in her right mind. She’d been too drunk with happiness to sober up properly. She suspected he felt the same. The world wasn’t big enough to contain the magnitude of what had happened between them last night. There was no way it was big enough to contain this, too. She didn’t want to sober up.

“Stop. I’m kidding. You can rip my dress. We don’t want to be totally naked out here.”

“Don’t we?”

“Not with our audience.”

He expertly tore the bottom few inches straight around the hem. He snuck a peek under it. “You are driving me insane in this thing.”

She laughed. “It’s not the outfit I would have picked for our reunion, but I admit it’s easy to get in and out of.” She couldn’t quite believe that they were still lusting after each other.

He carefully and expertly bandaged her shoulder to stop the bleeding.

“You seem like you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m a doctor. Did I mention that?”

“No, you are not.”

“Yes, I am. A few times over.”

“You’re too young.”

“I’d been to medical school already. I skipped ahead a bit.”

“A bit? A lot.”

“Okay, a lot.”

“Do you work in a hospital?”

“Yes.” He tied off the bandage, kissed her breast, pulled her smock back into place, and zipped her up. “You’ll be fine, ma’am.”

“Another scar for my collection.”

“You have many bullet wounds?”

“I mean the kind you gather over lifetimes, that stay with you after you die. Like this one, right?” She pointed to her upper arm.

He tipped his head. “How do you know about that?”

“From Constance.”

“How do you know about Constance?”

“I was Constance.”

“I know, but how do you know that?”

“I read a letter she wrote to me.”

He glanced briefly at Joaquim on the beach and back at her. “And how did you do that?”

“I went to Hastonbury Hall in England and found it in her old bedroom.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You are kidding me. I don’t know what to say.”

It was fun, having this to tell him. “Remember the hypnotist I told you about? I did a regression under hypnosis and went right back to Constance. She was desperate that I find her note. And she’s been badgering me and making me remember things ever since.”

“Unbelievable.”

“She is.”

“I was wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“When you were Constance I told you your memory was only ordinary. Now I see I underestimated you.”

“Because that girl would not leave me alone. She would not be happy until I got with you.”

Daniel laughed. “Is she happy now?”

Lucy laughed, and she also felt as though she was going to cry. “She’s very happy now.”

DANIEL LOOKED UP at the sky. He felt that he could see the sun arcing across it, and he really wanted it to slow down. He heard the slap of the water against the float. He felt a silky strand of her hair tickling his armpit. He felt as though he’d smoked a whole lot of pot. He knew he had no right to be happy with a gun trained on the two of them. He knew he should feel anger and outrage, but he couldn’t quite help it. Fear almost always trumped joy, but not today.

“I should be coming up with a plan,” he said, twisting a strand of her hair between his fingertips, “but all I can think about is how you look under that dress.” He rolled onto his elbow. “I can’t take it.”

“Maybe we should do the deed right here and now,” she said. “That would show him.”

“That would probably get him mad enough to shoot us both dead.”

“But we’d come back together, wouldn’t we?”

He sat up and looked at her seriously. “If you love me even a tiny fraction of how much I love you, then yes. I am almost certain we would.”

“Then we would,” she said simply. “Because I do.” She thought of a darker possibility. “Maybe us together is exactly what he doesn’t want.”

“I suspect he doesn’t.”

“Maybe we won’t give him a choice,” she said. She sat herself between his legs and pressed her back against his chest. “There’s no way he’s getting you without me. He’s not that good a shot.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” he said.

She shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere without me.” She might have sounded like she was kidding, but she wasn’t. “Wherever we are going, we are going together.”

He frowned at her.

“Seriously, Daniel.”

He held both her hands and rested his chin on her good shoulder.

“So besides both of us getting shot, what are our other options?”

“We could swim in to shore and take our chances.”

“And what chances would those be?”

He pressed his lips together. “I don’t know. Probably end up at Joaquim’s mercy. That would be his option of choice.”

“And what happens then? He takes me hostage? He hurts me in some way, and you have to watch? He forces you into some humiliation and then he ends up killing you anyway? That’s the kind of showdown he’s looking for, isn’t it?”

“I’m almost sure it is.”

“He doesn’t care about committing murder, does he? He can just skip to another body if he ever gets caught.”

Daniel nodded.

“That is the worst of all worlds. Are those the kind of chances we are looking at?”

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t want to enumerate what would happen, but he couldn’t stop her from doing it.

“Is there anywhere we can swim to? Can we try to swim around the headlands and make our way in?”

“He’d get there faster.”

“Do you think anybody ever comes here?”

“It’s not impossible, but I think this is a pretty remote spot.”

She thought about that. “Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“If by some miracle we can’t think of, we do get out of this, what then? Is there anywhere we can go or anything we can do where he won’t find us?”

“Probably not for long.”

She looked discouraged, and who could blame her? “Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever think we were meant not to be together?”

Her face was serious, but he couldn’t help smiling. “No. We are meant to be together. We are just meant to want it very badly.”

She smiled at his smile in spite of herself. “I’m running out of ideas. Are you holding something back? Do you have an idea here?”

He lay his head back and looked up at the sky. “I have the idea of being with you a little longer.”

“ARE YOU SCARED of dying?” she asked him.

The sun was rapidly making its way to the top of the sky. He lay on his back and she was curled up against his side with her head on his chest. He felt remarkably relaxed.

“No. I’ve died many times. I’ve only made love to you once, though, so that’s the miracle I’m focusing on. Joaquim can’t take that from us one way or another.”

“Do you think we’re going to die?”

He breathed in and out, in and out. He’d never felt the warmth of the sun so purely. “Lucy, I don’t want to have to think about it. I just want to think about you. But if I have to, I guess I think it is likely that either we are going to suffer or we are going to die. I’d rather die, and honestly, I think I can die happy now.”

“You can?”

“Yes.”

She lay back beside him. “Did you call me Lucy before?”

He turned his head to look at her and shielded his eyes from the sun so he could see her well. “It’s funny, I look at you now, and you are all I can see.”

She shook her head. “We’re on a float in the middle of the water. I’m all there is.”

He laughed and pulled her on top of him and hugged her. He kissed her neck and then her lips. “Lucy,” he said. “Lucy.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that is a perfectly good name.” He kissed her chin. “Lucy. That’s you.”

BY THE TIME the sun was stretched overhead, Lucy’s skin was turning pink and she was getting thirsty. She could tell he was, too, but neither of them wanted to say anything about it.

“I’m seeing a problem with the waiting,” she said.

“Tell me.” He pulled her onto his lap.

“I’m going to get burnt to a crisp, and we’re both going to get very thirsty, and it’s not going to feel good. I’m going to try to be brave, and you’re going to start worrying about me, and then you are going to do something you’ll regret.”

“You are right.” He kissed the side of her face. “So maybe we should undress each other and enjoy what we have left.”

“I don’t want him to kill us.”

“I don’t, either.”

“And we can’t just wait forever.”

He nodded. He didn’t want to mention that he didn’t think Joaquim would let this stalemate go past sunset. He’d never been a patient man.

She was quiet for a while. He wrapped a hand around each of her feet. “Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Anything.”

“What kind of a death is drowning?”

He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how is it? Does it hurt? Does it take a long time? Is it worse than, say, getting shot to death?”

“Well.” He thought it over. “I’ve done it twice. That was a long time ago. I’ve gotten shot twice. That was more recently. I would say drowning is, overall, better.”

She rubbed her hands together. She licked her dry, chapped lips. “Then that’s the worst that can happen, right? And I grant you it’s pretty bad, but it’s better than giving him the pleasure of taking our lives. What do you say? We’ll just jump off this thing and start swimming.” She gestured out to the open sea. “Either we’ll make it to China or we won’t.”

He squinted toward China.

“So what do you say?”

“I say there’s weather coming in.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a storm out there, and it looks like it’s coming this way. I don’t know if that’s good for us or bad.”

“How could it be good?”

He thought about that. “Less sunburn. Less thirst if we could catch some of it.”

A shot rang out, and it startled them both. “I think he’s getting tired of waiting,” Daniel said.

She curled herself tighter around him, and he knew why. “I think we should make our move,” she said. “Come on. I know you don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

He was in a daze. He wanted to touch her and talk to her and smell her smell and watch her laugh. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want this to end. But he had to shake himself out of it. He didn’t care very much about what happened to him, but he cared about what happened to her.

“Is this really what you want to do?” he asked.

“Yes.” She put her feet over the edge, and he followed her. He noticed she was staying very close to him, touching some part of him all the time.

“Are you willing to choose this? Do you really believe the things I’ve told you so completely that you are willing to swim to China?”

She looked him in the eyes and checked him. “Yes.”

She wasn’t kidding around. He had to contend with that, and it forced him to have to be serious, too. “Stop for a minute, Lucy. Think it through. I’ll let him shoot me, and you go back to him in peace. Maybe that would satisfy the bloodlust for a time. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt you. You could head back to the States and go back to some regular kind of life. That would be the most sensible thing to do.”