17. THE BLITZ
ESTHER
I sat up on my bed like I’d come up from the grave and looked around. Thankfully, I saw the giant windows of my room which overlooked the bright city lights. I was seated in the middle of my bed, still dressed in the gold beaded dress from the…the gala. Running my fingers over the beading, all the memories of this night came into my mind, and the more I remembered, the further my fingers rose until I was touching my lips.
“Shit!”
My head snapped towards the door as I slowly slid off my bed and tiptoed across the floor. I tried to silently open it but I’d forgotten how badly and loudly it squeaked—something that had served my grandfather as a safety precaution if I ever tried to sneak out. I closed my eyes as if that would make me disappear.
“You don’t have to sneak around, it’s your house,” he said and I immediately recognized his voice.
I opened my eyes to make sure my ears weren’t playing a cruel joke on me, and sure enough there he was, standing in my kitchen in what was left of his suit—his black pants, white shirt which was rolled up on at the selves and unbuttoned at the collar, and his bow tie which was undone. In his hands, he held my yellow mug.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I was looking for coffee,” he snickered at himself.
I stared at him for a quick moment before I stepped back and closed the door. Holding on to the door knob I took a deep breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
When I opened the door, he was still there staring at me, eyebrows raised. “Good to see you’re still a little bit odd.”
“How…you…I have questions,” I said as I stepped out of my room.
“Can I have some coffee first?” He lifted the cup to me.
“I don’t have coffee in the house…wait, no! First question, how did you get into my apartment?”
“I have a key. What do you mean you don’t have coffee?” He looked at me like I was the insane one meanwhile I hadn’t seen or heard from in months! Now here he was in my apartment…wait.
“Why do you have a key?” I asked as I walked towards him.
He shrugged moving back into the kitchen, “Alfred gave me one in case of emergencies. I figured that his granddaughter fainting in my arms again was a good enough reason to make use of it.”
Fainting.
Again I remembered…
“Yes, we kissed. And yes, you did faint,” he said as he hunted through the cabinets in search of coffee. “And I brought you home, but not without getting quite a lot stares and a few questions from the museum security, your assistant, and your driver…all of which you slept right through. No one ever talks about that part in the movies.”
My head hurt.
Sitting on the chair behind the kitchen island, I put my hands on the side of my face.
“Knew it!” he declared when he looked into a very old box of my grandfather’s oatmeal raisin cereal and triumphantly pulled out a bag of coffee. “Alfred is to blame for my coffee addiction. There was no way he wouldn’t have any.”
Even though I was confused and tired I laughed. “The old man was hiding it from me. I told him to stick with decaf! And he’d always say—”
“There is no point to coffee if there isn’t caffeine,” he finished. Turning back to me he pointed up to the fixture that hung over the kitchen island. “Let me go home to my pots,” he said in a mocking tone. “Are these the cooking pots you were talking about? The ones you’re using as decorations?”
“Hey!” I pointed at him. “That was different!”
“How so?”
“You didn’t have pots and the closest restaurant is a few miles away and no one out there delivers! Here I could get warm soup within minutes.”
“So why have pots at all—”
“Because I could decide to cook at any time.”
He took one of them down and showed me the shiny stainless steel underside. “When is anytime? Because it looks like these have never seen a stove.”
I glared at him but he just gave me that smug grin of his as he moved over to the sink to fill it with water. I watched for a moment. He walked around my kitchen with ease like he’d been here a thousand times before. He was so relaxed…and happy. He didn’t seem to walk like the world was on his shoulders anymore. It was as if he was just a normal guy who wanted to have some coffee at his girlfriend’s place.
But he was not a normal guy.
And I was not his girlfriend.
“You kissed me!” I said and he froze for a moment but he kept his back turned to me. “You said you’d made a mistake, and you kissed me.”
“I did,” he said softer and much more serious now as he poured the coffee into the boiling water.
“Malachi.” I took a deep breath. “This is crazy! You can’t just show up like this! You can’t just…say everything you said and pretend like it’s normal! I’m not…I’m not who you think I am and—”
“When I told you the story of Obinna and Ada did you realize I was speaking in another language?” He cut me off and asked. Turning off the burner, he poured the golden brown liquid into the mug before turning to face me.
“What language?”
“Igbo,” he answered. He didn’t move closer to me, he simply leaned back against the counter. “You don’t know that language, and even if you did, it is not the same as modern Igbo, the one you’d learn via books or in school. It’s close but not enough for you to perfectly follow a whole story from beginning to end.”
I wasn’t sure what to say because I didn’t even know modern Igbo…how then had I understood him? “Languages are all connected maybe I was able—”
“I ran into Li-Mei,” he confessed without looking away from me. His blue eyes held me in place, rendering me unable to look away. “I expected…I expected the emotions and feelings to coming rushing in. But I stood in front of her and felt nothing. And yet when I touched a worn-out copy of Sophocles’ Antigone, it felt like my heart was on fire. And it wasn’t just because that was our story too, it was because the owner of that book—you—had spent so much time reading and rereading it that you imprinted a part of yourself onto it. I touched it the first time I met Li-Mei and I mistakenly thought the book was hers. Just like I mistakenly believed her rings were the reason that my memories were triggered when actuality it was the first time we’d been formally introduced in this life that did it. I was an idiot and jumped to conclusions out of fear—”
“Like you’re doing now!” I wasn’t sure why I was yelling, but I felt hot all over and my heart hurt so much that it made everything else hurt too. I moved closer to him. “You could be making the same mistake with me and it’s okay because—”
“You’re in love with me?” he asked before he brought the mug to his lips.
“I never said that,” I replied shaking my head.
“I’m in love with you, and I’ve never fallen in love with anyone but you—”
“You can’t say that!” I put my hands on my temple as I tried to breathe. “You can’t just…”
I tried speaking but the pain was worse…and so was my headache. I gripped the edge of the counter…
“Esther!” He grabbed on to me as I gasped for air that wouldn’t make it into my lungs.
“Ahh…” My vision grew spotty and the more I tried to breathe the more it hurt. I felt him wrap his arms around me as he held me tightly. It should have made things worse but instead…instead I started to feel better.
“Shhh…it’s okay. I know it hurts,” he whispered right into my ear as he stroked the back of my head.
I held on to him for what felt like forever before I found the strength to breathe again.
“What’s happening?” I whispered more to myself than to him as I backed out of his arms just a bit.
“The more we fight our memories the more painful it becomes,” he said as he petted the side of my face when I looked up at him. “It’s going hurt a little at first but you’ll be fine.”
“This is not fine.” I shook my head and let go…I didn’t want him to leave my side though. He came over with the cup of coffee for me.
“It will help with the headache. Coffee constricts the blood vessels in the brain and relieves migraines.” He placed the cup into my hand.
I stared at it for a moment before taking it and drinking.
“Urgh,” I grimaced. It tasted like burnt tree bark. “How can you drink this?”
“Cup to lip,” the smart ass replied.
“You’re such a—”
“Keep drinking.” He tipped the cup a little bit.
I drank until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Shaking all over I handed it back. “I’m good. My headache’s gone.”
He snickered as he took the cup from me and finished the rest. He walked to the sink and I reached up to touch my head. Sure enough, my headache was gone.
“It can’t really be me…”
“Why?” he asked turning back to me. “Why can’t it be you, Esther?”
I didn’t have an answer other than… “I’m just me. I’ve always been just me. Now you’re telling me that I’ve been me nine hundred and ninety-nine other times?”
“Yes and no.” He thought for a moment as he tried to explain. “We are different each time. Some traits come and go, like how you once loved lavender, yet now you love roses. Things take on different meanings. But you are still you. The traits that are central to who you are—a strong-willed, determined, caring and loving person, with horrible taste in guys—stays the same.”
I smiled though it wasn’t funny. “So…we’re the same but different?”
He smirked and I knew it was because he’d caught my slip. “Yes, we are.”
“If this is all true you’re a jerk!”
“Come again?” He crossed his arms waiting.
The more I thought about it angrier I became. “If this is true! That means you were running away from me! That means even if you hypothetically knew who I was to you, then you’d run even further away to avoid me no matter how I felt about it. Now, without any reason you come back and kiss me! What was the point of hypothetically avoiding me then?! You come when you want, you leave when you want—”
“I fell in love with you!” He replied back. “Yes. It’s selfish of me to come back like this. But I tried, Esther! I tried to avoid you because I knew if I fell in love with you in this life I couldn’t run after that! I tried but you found me. I fell in love with you and because…because of my own stupidity everything became much more complicated. I was confused about why it was that Li-Mei was my past and yet you were all I could think about! Then she appeared in front of me and I knew it had to be you, and the second I was sure of it I couldn’t help but run towards you. Towards the same circle that I always run to. But what can I do?! Not being around you kills me and being with you will actually kill me! So tell me, Esther, what do you want me to do? I really don’t know now. I know nothing other than I want to hold you, I want to kiss you, I want to make love to you, for as long as we have left.”
He wasn’t playing fair. He couldn’t just say all of that. And the worst thing was that he’d said it so honestly and desperately… how was I supposed to respond? What was I supposed to say in the face of that? Nothing. I couldn’t say anything.
“I know this is a lot to process,” he said as he moved from the sink towards me. “I’m staying in the Royal Suite at the Waldorf. So, when you’re ready and you know what you want me to do…you know where to find me. Just please stay safe, alright? Don’t go tripping in the middle of Times Square during rush hour or something.”
“Contrary to your belief I’m not actually a klutz,” I automatically replied.
The corner of his mouth turned up and he reached out to touch me but stopped. Balling his hand into a fist he nodded before dropping it down to his side.
“Good night, Esther,” he said gently. Reaching into his pocket he placed his key on the counter and without another word he grabbed his velvet jacket off the couch and walked out of my apartment.
“Night,” I whispered back when the door clicked and the sound of it echoed in my ears. And just like that, the whole apartment felt eerily silent and cold again. Walking towards the pot he’d washed, I dried it and, just as I was about to hang it back onto the rack, I instead decided to put the bag of coffee in it and set it back on the stove before I headed back to my room.
Realizing that I was still in my gown, I unzipped the back and let it drop to the ground around my feet. I didn’t care that my curtains were still open and without another thought I crawled into my bed.
“Is it really…is this real?” I asked myself as I curled into a ball. Just as my eyes were about to close I heard Für Elise begin to play softly. I didn’t bother answering and instead I listened to it like a lullaby as I drifted off to sleep.
October 14, 1940 – Near Balham Underground Station, London, England
“Help!”
“Anyone!”
All around me people screamed, they screamed and cried out to God. But in the darkness of the night, it seemed he’d closed his eyes on us. My whole body was sore as I rose from the cobblestone paved street.
“Thomas!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was missing my shoe and hat and as I limped around I could feel that my hair was clumped together and coated in blood, ash, and sweat. The smoke rose from the ground like hellfire as the buildings crumbled around me and the flames swallowed them whole. Above, what looked like a giant whale glided through the skies as fire dropped from its belly.
“Help—” A man reached out his bloody hand from beneath the rubble beside me and I saw that two of his fingers were bent at an unnatural angle. “Please help…”
I reached for him but before our hands could touch he went still.
“Sir?” I touched his hand and saw that it’d gone limp. “Oh…” I gasped as I backed away from him.
“Nellie!”
I felt his hands before I saw his face as he pulled me back into his arms. Looking up to him, I saw that his hat was gone too and there was blood in his light brown hair that had rolled down his white face over his scar. His green eyes were glazed over with fear.
“Nellie!” He grabbed my hand and dragged me with him, ignoring the limp in his bad leg as he forced me to run behind him. “We need to get the shelters!”
I couldn’t help looking up at the sky and at the beast that slithered through the darkness.
“There are no soldiers here,” I whispered as if—as if they cared—as if they could hear me. Maybe they could because no more bombs came down.
“I have you,” Thomas whispered. He wrapped his arms around me as we ran for the shelters.
“I have you too.” It was all I could think to say. I didn’t even know where to go.
Buildings gave into fire and pressure and crumbled beside us, causing me to nearly trip, but he caught me.
Without a word, I took off my one remaining shoe and left it behind as I ran with him once more. The city erupted around us. Smoke and glass and fragmented rocks struck us from all over. There seemed to be no one else around us, and then, no more than a foot away from me, stood a small boy covered in ash from head to toe and staring wide-eyed at the sky.
“Come!” I yelled at him as I stretched out my hand. But he did not move! “COME!” I yelled again and this time he ran towards me and grabbed my hand.
“Nellie…” Thomas’ voice was hoarse as he looked down at the boy who now clung onto me. The boy would slow us down but I couldn’t leave him there. His voice trailed off when he looked at me again. Without a word, he bent down and picked the boy up before he reached out to take my hand once again. Unaccustomed to this much pressure on his bad leg he ran at a much slower pace. However, there was no other way.
He held my hand as we ran towards the station, and soon we spotted others in the distance waving us over. I could tell that they were yelling though I could not hear them over the beast overhead. And even as pain consumed every inch of my body, I ran towards our salvation, crying out once we were within the safety of the tunnels.
Inside we could see all the people—mothers cradled their crying children while men cried over their losses. One nurse was trying to attend to the wounded but there was barely any space to walk or move around without stumbling and tripping over someone.
Just as Thomas bent over to set the boy on his feet, his ash-covered hair snapped up at the sound of a voice. “Robbie?”
Further down the tunnel a woman stared directly at him as the man beside her looked up from the children he was looking over.
“Ma!” The boy ran towards the woman and leaped into her arms and the father wrapped his arms around them both. She smiled at us and whispered her thanks, but it was me who wanted to thank her. She’d renewed my hope.
“We’re going to make it this time, Thomas,” I whispered but he didn’t say anything. “Thomas?”
I looked around to find him resting against the walls and gripping his leg. I placed my hands on his face forcing him to open his eyes. He leaned in to kiss me and I could taste the blood in his mouth.
“I’m alright,” he whispered, but he neither seemed it nor looked it. He drew in a sharp breath and forced himself to say, “When it stops, run home.”
“You are my home.”
“Stubborn, even to the end.” He smiled but I did not.
“Are we at the end?”
He did not reply.
“THOMAS!” His leg gave out and I reached out to catch him and as I did I felt a dampness on his chest that was more profuse than just sweat. I helped him to the ground before I pulled back and examined my hand. I stared at it and then at the large bloody patch on his chest as my heart drummed louder and louder in my head.
“Nellie.” He reached up for me.
“I saw a nurse…”
“I’m going to play that song for you next time. I swear it, Nellie,” he said with a smile I didn’t want to see. Just like the man in the rubble, his hands began to fall, but I gripped on and kneeled beside him. I desperately squeezed his hand so tightly my nails dug into his skin and his eyes snapped back open.
“If you think I’ll allow you to leave me that easily, Thomas Gallagher, you do not know me very well,” I said kissing his hands.
“Nellie Camellia Wilkinson,” he said my name slowly. “When have I ever left you? For
even the angels in Heaven above and the demons down under the sea know my soul cannot desert thee.”
“Poet to the end,” I whispered through my tears.
“Are we at the end?” he asked.
And, as if the angels in Heaven above and the demons down under the sea, wished to punish us once more, the roof above us shook with such force that many around rose to their feet while others began to scream, and as water came rushing in from all sides, our shelter became our tomb.
MALACHI
I knew she’d find me. It was why I’d left her name at the front desk.
I just didn’t think it would be soon.
I didn’t even have to look before I opened the door. It could only be her. She was the only one who knew I was here. What shocked me was how she looked when I opened the door. Her eyes were red and full of tears. Her hair looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed. She hugged her arms around her brown peacoat as if it was the only thing holding her together.
“Esther—”
“I believe you. Can I come in?” she asked even though she didn’t need to. Moving aside, she walked in looking more broken than I’d ever wanted to see. Closing the door behind her she stood in the center of the parlor and stared at the piano in the corner. I wasn’t sure what to say to her or if she wanted me to say anything at all. All I knew was that she was in pain and that was the last thing I wanted. The moment I stepped behind her, she turned back to me and pointed to the piano.
“You swore…” She bit back the sob. Biting her bottom lip, she drew in her breath before continuing. “You swore you’d play a song for me…what song was it? Beethoven’s Für Elise?”
The moment the words left her mouth I knew where her mind had been. What she’d just remembered…and I felt that pain too. Stepping closer I kissed her forehead and she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Yes,” I said softly. “Do you want to hear it now?”
She nodded against me but didn’t let go and I didn’t rush her. I wouldn’t rush anything. Feeling her like this. Holding her like this. I wanted to do it for as long as possible. It made…it made all the pain worth it when I held her.
“Okay.” She sniffled as she let go and stepped back. She wiped her eyes and looked back to me. “Will you play it for me? Please?”
“I swore I would, didn’t I?” I said to her as I took her hand and led her across the vinery carpets towards the black piano. I sat on the bench and held my hand out for her to come sit with me. She stared at it for what felt like hours, but it was merely seconds, before she took it. Slowly she sat beside me and lifted the cover of the keys. I hadn’t touched a piano in years…I hadn’t actually played the piano for much longer than that.
My hands hovered over the keys as she relaxed against me. Closing my eyes, I couldn’t help but think of how strange this world was. How so many things could advance and how so many things often stayed the same. When my fingers touched the keys, it was as if I’d practiced all my life. I remembered every note and every key to Beethoven’s Für Elise. But what I remembered most of all was the feeling of her. Over a hundred years had passed since I’d played this for her—since we were behind a piano together—and yet it felt exactly the same. We were doing it again, picking up where we’d left off. In the middle of a love story that neither of us could control. The way she felt leaning into me, resting her head on my shoulder, right now, in this present moment, made my heart race and caused the room to spin around me.
She was Esther in this life. Part of me had wondered if we weren’t…if we didn’t have the memories of our past lives, if we didn’t know that we were two souls bound together forever, no matter the time, place, or situation…would we still love one another? Would we still fall for one another and I’d gotten my answer. I belonged only to her. I was indisputably and conclusively bound to her. She was my Esther.
Opening my eyes as I played the last note, my finger held the key down and the sound echoed through the room. When I lifted my hands off the keys she lifted her head and looked up to me. The look in her eyes…there were no words that could describe it, it was like watching the cosmos unfold.
“Isn’t this the part where you kiss me again?” she whispered.
“Yes. But I’m not sure if I should.” I found the strength to say in the small distance between our lips.
“Why?” she asked.
She really didn’t know?
I placed my hands on the piano cover to stop me from touching her. “Because I don’t have the strength to stop kissing you, Esther. Now that you’re here, now that I can see and feel you, I don’t have the strength to—”
Before I could get the words out her lips were on mine as her arms locked around my neck and she pressed herself into me. A moan escaped the both of us as our tongues met. My hands left the piano to grip her waist as she shifted on top of me.
“You don’t need the strength the stop,” she whispered as she pulled back from me. Her hands fell from my face and began to undo the belt and buttons of her coat. When it opened, she was wearing nothing but…an oversized deep V-neck shirt
“You came over like this?” I said softly staring at the mounds of her breasts.
She placed her forehead on mine. “I watched you die. I felt you die…us die. I was so scared, Malachi. I didn’t think. I just had to come to you. I had to see…to feel that you were still here. So let me feel you.”
It was all she needed to say. I gave in and covered her lips with mine again. Rising from the bench, I gripped her thighs as her coat fell to the floor and I walked us through the parlor, not caring that I that bumped into the corner table and lamp on the way towards the bedroom. Never had a few feet felt so far away. Laying her on the bed I took off my shirt just as quickly as she took off her bra, and before she could drop it to the side I was kissing her skin. I pushed her back down onto the sheets as I trailed my lips from her neck to the space between her breasts.
She grabbed my hair as her body arched upwards.
“Mal…Malachi…” She moaned out.
My name on her lips, my lips on her skin. For this moment alone I was grateful, no matter what the future held.