GLASS SOUP Page 31

  Vincent ignored the question. “I’m not going to go, Mr. Putnam. I’m staying here.”

  Instead of responding, Putnam put his chin in his hand and stared at Vincent awhile in silence.

  Ettrich continued. “Isabelle will have to find a way to survive over there, like I will here. But I’m not going back. Not yet. Not till it’s the right time.”

  “And what about Anjo, Dad?” The old man’s voice was all acid and taunt.

  Vincent didn’t reply. He knew it was essential to do this carefully and with conviction.

  “Aren’t you at least a little concerned about the welfare of your son?”

  “Yes, I’m very concerned, but Isabelle will have to handle it. And she will too. She’s strong.”

  “So let me be sure I understand this, Vincent. You’re going to abandon your great love and unborn child to an existence in some unthinkable netherworld just because you believe you should stay here?”

  Vincent rubbed his mouth and said the truth. “Yes, stay here and fight you. I think that’s exactly what she would want me to do. And even if not, that’s what I am going to do.”

  “Should we call her back over here and ask if that’s really what she wants you to do?”

  Ettrich said, “There’s no need to call her. She’s standing right behind you.”

  Putnam whipped around. Five feet away Isabelle was looking at him blankly, hands stuffed in her pockets. She wore different clothes from those she had on half an hour before. That more than anything was the tip-off as to what Ettrich had done. For a few seconds Putnam almost felt sorry for this chump and his pathetic ruse. But then the feeling passed of course. This was the same man who had so cleverly liquidated John Flannery? It was hard to believe.

  Putnam sighed and turned back to face the fool. “Dignity, Vincent. I believe that is really the only admirable quality humans possess.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at Isabelle who had not moved. “This is not dignified. Creating a false dream-girl Isabelle to fulfill your needs and assuage your guilt is not dignified. Shame on you, sir.”

  “Touch her if you think she’s false.”

  Putnam shrugged dismissively. “Vincent, you’re talking to me, remember? I know about these things. I don’t need to touch her. I’m sure her flesh and bones are very convincing. Bravo—it’s nice to see you using a few of the tricks you learned when you were dead.

  “But that’s not the point. She’s fake, Vincent. You know it and I know it. She’s a fabrication. The real Isabelle, the one you supposedly love so much, is waiting for you with your child on the other side of death. And that Isabelle you can’t see. But your way of avoiding your responsibility to them is to create this… this blow-up fuck doll to take her place. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I’m not going.” Ettrich’s voice was strong and resolute.

  “You’re just going to let her rot over there? Her and Anjo? You’re really going to abandon them?”

  Ettrich took a deep breath and let it all the way out before answering. “I’m not going over there.”

  Putnam looked at his watch because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. There was nothing more he could say. Vincent Ettrich was not going to do it. Checkmate. He had defeated them. He had done something they had never expected: he was abandoning the love of his life and their child so that he could stay here and fight.

  He stood up, looked at Vincent with that little creature Broximon sitting on his lap like some kind of odd pet. Putnam tried to snort and chuckle at the same time to show his derision. But it didn’t come out right and only sounded like an old rheumy man clearing his throat. He strode out of the park without once looking back.

  Only when he was gone from her sight did Isabelle walk the few steps over to their table.

  Ettrich looked at her and had to ask, “Is it really you? How did you come back here? How did you do it?”

  It was a peculiar question coming from him but she answered it honestly. “I was never away, sweetheart. I’ve just been sitting in the park for a while.”

  The real Isabelle, her dead friend Leni Salomon, and false Broximon watched the others talk and smile and touch before slowly making their way out of the park too, only via a different exit from the one Putnam had used. Broximon was sitting in the Babby Basket again. The expression on his face was relaxed and almost happy.

  False Broximon watched them leave and then said to himself as much as to the two women nearby, “I wish I had been able to talk to him. I would love to have asked a few questions.”

  Naturally they knew who he was talking about but didn’t have any reply for that.

  Leni took her friend’s hand and held it tightly. “You just broke one of the biggest rules of all, Isabelle. So big that even Chaos couldn’t see what you did because it’s such a no-no. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them now. And I wonder if Vincent will ever realize that she’s not really you. I hope your camouflage works.”

  “What’s really me, Leni? I would rather the best of me be with him now rather than the worst. Anyway, the baby is real and that’s all that matters.” To Isabelle’s surprise, a sob that had been hiding in her chest all this time leapt out and she had to fight hard to overcome it. When she was sure she had it under control, she said to Leni, “I don’t know what will happen either, but there was no alternative. I did the only thing I could.”

  Leni nodded and squeezed her hand. Unconsciously her eyes strayed to Isabelle’s now-flat stomach. Leni could not imagine the pain her friend must be going through. She could not imagine what the magnitude of her loss must feel like.

  “I want to go back now, Leni. I don’t want to stay here any longer. Let’s go back and try to find Simon. What do you think?”

  Unexpectedly, one of the proverbs John Flannery had been so fond of spouting came to Leni’s mind: whenever you take a mouthful of too-hot soup, the next thing you do will be wrong. She did not want to go back into death to try and find Simon Haden. But neither did she want to stay here and be reminded of all the things she had loved in life but were now beyond her grasp forever.

  Hopefully some time in the future she would be permitted to return to her own afterlife dreamworld and work her way through it up to the next level. But what mattered most now was Isabelle. She had just done a remarkably selfless, brilliant thing. Leni knew she herself would never have been capable of doing it, dead or alive. For the first time she thought perhaps part of her afterlife experience was to accompany Isabelle Neukor here and learn from her. It was possible. Anything seemed possible here.

  “I’ll bet Simon would be overjoyed if we turned up on his doorstep again. Let’s go find him.”

  The two women and the small man started walking. Leni said to Isabelle, “You know what I was just thinking? That you and I had the same job. Only I had it in life and you had it in death.”

  Isabelle looked at her dubiously. “You made false teeth, Leni.”

  “And what do you think you just did for Vincent, hmm?”

  It took time for Isabelle to understand the analogy, but when she got it she laughed and laughed.

  Epilogue

  Isabelle put the dish of still-steaming scrambled eggs and ham on the table. She scuffed back to the kitchen in her fuzzy red bedroom slippers followed closely by Hietzl the dog. It was an eternal optimist, forever thinking that there might be something for it in every one of their meals. She reemerged with a pot of green tea and a pitcher full of grapefruit juice. As she put them down on the table she called out, “Breakfast is ready.”

  Hietzl bolted out of the room as usual when a meal was announced. It ran to the back of the long apartment to the bedroom where the television lived. Isabelle refused to allow it in the living room. The dog stood in the doorway waiting, its tail swishing frantically from side to side on the parquet floor. Hietzl loved family meals. It loved everyone sitting together at the table talking, laughing, the sound of voices, the sound of dishes, and the smell of food. At any moment s
omeone might sneak Hietzl a little something to eat. And usually someone did.

  “I told you not to go into that cave. Of course you were eaten.”

  “What? You told me elves were in that cave. Why else do you think I went in there? Unlike you, I know what I’m doing when I play that game.”

  Broximon came out of the TV room first, waving an arm in the air in protest. He was wearing a new gray sweat suit and bright white socks. Vincent followed holding the baby to his chest with one arm. The child had a wide face and large ears. Broximon secretly worried they might be too large and that when he grew older other kids would razz him about them. Anjo appeared to be following their argument but in truth he just liked the different loudnesses between the big man and the small one. Anjo also liked very much the bleeps and bloops of the video games they sometimes played together. That had become evident early on so now he always sat on his father’s lap or in the Babby Basket next to Broximon on the couch whenever the two played.

  Walking down the hall to the living room now, they accused each other of numerous incidents of lying, cheating, or just plain dumbness. But it was done quickly because all game talk had to stop when they got to the table. If for any reason they forgot and happened to continue, Isabelle gave them her Medusa look and neither wanted to see that one aimed their way.

  So the parade entering the room that morning was led as usual by Hietzl, then came a glowering Broximon, followed by Vincent and Anjo.

  Sitting at her place at the table, Isabelle looked up at them and nothing else was in her mind then but There they are—my men.