There was a shadowgraph of a face on his back. Gray and black, the impression of an older man, mouth half open, eyes frightened.
I knew it for what it was right away, expert that I was. There were a hundred ways, and this was one of them. The shadowgraph was of the moment of a man’s death.
“Happy?” Lazarus asked me.
I had been — how much so, I had no idea. The before, of course. The time I didn’t know was the before, when I’d had something worthwhile, something I had wanted, something that could be turned to cinders with a single match. How many fairy tales had warned me of this? Keep the light out, have faith, trust in what you feel, not in what you see. Leave the matches at home. Leave it be.
I thought how the meteorologists would love to get their hands on Lazarus. How thrilled they’d be to pose him up against their white screen and photograph him, right, left, naked, one of a kind, piece of art, piece of work, shadow man, death man, my Lazarus, or the Lazarus who had been mine. Terrible time to know the truth, not the truth of him, oh no. The truth of me. But here it was. On the floor. A splash of cold water, a leftover, a strand of red thread that was invisible to me: I didn’t know it was love until the moment of bright light. I didn’t know what I felt until I went one step beyond it.
“There you have it,” Lazarus said. “The real me.”
He walked out of the bathroom, slammed the door. I heard the water in the tub, the wind outside. I heard the sound of my own raspy breathing.
I got dressed. I was still shivering. I followed him. I wasn’t thinking anymore. That hadn’t worked for me. It was hot outside on the porch where he was standing. Too humid to see stars. The odor of red oranges. Do they make perfume out of it? They should. I would buy it and I don’t even like cologne. A bottle of oranges, and one of blue ice, and one of tears, and one filled with a potion that was so burning hot when you poured it over your skin you came close to dying. But not really, just hovering above all that was burning, all that was alive.
“You should go and never come back,” Lazarus said.
“Tell them if that’s what you want to do. Phone the newspaper. I can’t stop you. Tell everyone about this damned mark on me.”
“It’s a shadowgraph. I’ve read about them. It’s probably caused by a brilliant flash of light.”
“Is that what it is?” Lazarus almost laughed. But not quite. “Hell, I thought it was my punishment.”
“Maybe I’m your punishment,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I blame the red dress for everything.”
Everything, as in over? Everything, as in just beginning? He didn’t sound as angry. Only sad. Lost. I knew what that was like. The black trees, the path that can’t be found. The ice, falling like stones from above.
The beetles were clicking, and so was my brain. Always my task: undo what has been done. I wanted to whirl time backward, clothes off, lights cut, door open, car on the road.
“I feel him there every minute of every day,” Lazarus said. “I know what it is. Whatever you want to call it. It’s my punishment all right.”
In the story of the fearless boy, the foolish hero played cards with the dead and walked through graveyards without fear, but not even he carried a dead man on his back. The burden of that was an impossible weight. I knew what that was like, too.
Lazarus turned to me. He was barefoot and we were standing on the porch. That alone terrified me. The then and the now slammed together. His white shirt was wet from his soaking wet skin.
“Aren’t you going to ask? You wanted to know, so go ahead. Ask me.”
All things happened this way, didn’t they? Every story, every life, every coincidence. A left turn instead of a right turn. A stomp of the feet. A wish said aloud. A branch falling from a tree. A storm sweeping in from the east. A butterfly. A candle. A match.
When I didn’t ask, he decided to tell me anyway.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said.
As it turned out, I wasn’t so different from my brother when it came to the truth. I felt as though I were about to fall, headfirst, down into the tunnel from which there was no return. I know I asked, but tell me later, tell me tomorrow or never. That’s soon enough.
Lazarus sat on the top step of the porch. Out in the orchard something was flying around the tops of the trees. There were bats here, too. There was my car, unwashed, dusty, the mileage piling on since I’d begun driving here and back. If I was going to stay, he was going to tell me.
I sat down next to him. I got a splinter — just my luck — but I kept my mouth shut.