Things I'm Seeing Without You Page 18

  Grace rented us a van, and the air conditioner was broken. She drove into the morning sun with bloodshot eyes. I sat shotgun. And in the back, a quiet Daniel watched the rocky Sicilian landscape whip past the windows as the van headed out of Siracusa.

  Behind us in a Fiat was Paul from the film crew. His other project had fallen apart, and his partner had gone home. But he was still here and game for our plan. Everything in the last few hours had happened so quickly that I was grateful for a moment to catch my breath. It was a thirty-minute drive to the Necropolis of Pantalica, home of the cave graves, and I hoped to use each one of those minutes to figure out what to do when we got there.

  The desire to go to the caves had come to me so sharply on the bridge. And when it arrived, it was like a giant fist had finally unclenched in my chest. The city of Siracusa was the place for Other Jonah to live, not a place to put the real Jonah to rest. It would be better to put him in his own city of the dead like in that village cemetery I’d seen off the road.

  ‘North of here,’ I read to Daniel from Grace’s guidebook, ‘in Sortino, there is a limestone ravine. It was carved over thousands of years by two rivers. The Anapo and the Calcinara. Inside the ravine is a lush valley. Cut into the limestone cliffs of the gorge are over five thousand tombs as old as the thirteenth century BC.’

  We wound around the blind curves of south-eastern Sicily. We were over halfway to the magical tomb gorge, and I was finally becoming fully aware of what was happening around me.

  ‘I probably should have mentioned this sooner,’ said Grace. ‘But I have no licence to do any of this here. And I’m not exactly sure about the legality. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site.’

  She was driving erratically, nudging over the central reservation on sharp turns, following the brown tourist signs for Pantalica. The windows were all open, and warm air was blowing through. Daniel didn’t comment. The only thing he asked me when I told him what we were doing was about the cameraman.

  ‘He’s for Marian,’ I said. ‘To make a tape for Marian to see.’

  I didn’t know that was his purpose until Daniel asked me, but then it was clear as day. I wanted her to be able to experience this, too, whatever it was going to be.

  Eventually we made our way to the entrance of the trail, driving the last few miles on a smaller road, flanked by a rustic limestone wall, where each rock looked like a puzzle piece fitted perfectly by an ancient mason. The sight was calming to me, brief evidence of a world where even the most jagged, random shapes could be pieced together into something whole.

  When we arrived, the park wasn’t open yet. But the barrier was easy to get over, and we all made the decision to trespass without talking about it. Grace seemed a little less hung-over, but when I watched her almost topple over the small fence, it was hard to tell how much hiking she was going to be able to do.

  ‘Your father would be appalled,’ she said, wiping beads of sweat from above her lips. ‘I was supposed to bring you back yesterday. And now look at me, breaking and entering. And I might still be drunk.’

  She took a long pull from a water bottle.

  ‘My father has exploded dogs on a beach,’ I said. ‘He has no moral ground to stand on.’

  Daniel hopped the fence. And Paul swore under his breath, holding his camera over his head. Then the four of us stood together, the only inhabitants of the vast space. Our sole company were the birds, already well into their morning call-and-response. Grace finished her water, dabbing her temples with a few last drops.

  ‘Do you have him with you?’ she asked.

  I nodded to Daniel and he pulled the container of Jonah’s ashes from his pocket. The light caught the thin plastic lid and lit it up.

  ‘Morning, Jonah,’ I said to the Tupperware.

  I allowed for a small moment of silence. Then I walked to the path where the cement switched to dirt. Grace and Daniel followed. Paul carried his camera on a strap over his shoulder. It took us a few minutes to get within sight of the gorge, but when we came around that first corner and the valley unfolded before us, the four of us stopped without exchanging a word.

  Beneath a scenic viewpoint was a landscape of sheer stone cliffs, carpeted by brush, and dotted with purple wild flowers and cacti. Carved into the sides of the canyon were thousands of identical square openings, black doorways and windows to the tombs. It was a high-rise of tomb-apartments inhabited by the souls of the ancient. And barely visible at the bottom was a glittering thread of ultramarine water.

  ‘How far down do you want to go?’ asked Daniel.

  I didn’t turn around.

  ‘All the way,’ I said.

  We began our descent, walking down the meandering path, past orchids and oleanders, and alongside the hollow cave tombs, which looked more like little hobbit hovels than graves. Halfway down, I motioned to Paul and he began to film my downward climb. My internal chat started up, and I didn’t resist it. I knew I had to speak to Jonah sometime.

  Me: Wild herbs and giant fennel along the path. A single falcon circling in the air. The sparkling river down to my left, growing closer with each step. The police officer on horseback fifteen feet below us.

  I blinked. When I looked down again, he was still there in his stylish baby-blue uniform, on the back of a slow-moving horse.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I whispered.

  ‘What?’ Daniel said, a little too loud.

  I turned around and slapped a hand over his mouth. Then I pointed towards the edge of the cliff. Paul and Grace got the message and cocked their heads to listen. The sound of horse hooves clopping echoed up the trail.

  I looked at Grace. She was dressed in one of her beige hippie-funeral shrouds. Daniel held the container of ashes to his chest. Paul’s camera equipment was much too large to hide. We did not look like we had accidentally shown up to the park in its off hours. We looked like we were up to some kind of illegal shit.

  ‘Wait here,’ I whispered.

  I left the manicured trail and tromped through the brush to the right, pushing low-hanging limbs from my path. There were thousands of tombs total, so I hoped it wouldn’t take long to find one. I saw some soon enough, both high and low, but most were rectangular slots in the stone just big enough to shelve a single body. I went a few steps further and came to an uneven stone ramp.

  At the top was an entrance to a larger opening in the rock. I rushed back and found the others still waiting where I left them. The sound of the horse was getting closer. I waved them forward, and they began to jog, their legs whisking through wild grasses and over crunching sticks and jagged stones.

  We reached the cave in a flurry, our shoes slipping on gravel, and ducked inside the dark interior, spooking the hell out of a family of roosting birds and a small lizard in the process. For the first five minutes, we waited in silence, too afraid to make a sound, listening for a cop on a pony to discover us and put us in an Italian jail.

  From within the pitch-black of the cavern, I could just see the horse trot past, the young policeman with sunglasses perched on his sunburnt bald spot. He didn’t look in our direction.

  Still, the illusion of our isolation had been shattered. It was no longer early enough in the day to avoid the park’s authorities. And there were bound to be more than one. There was no way around it: we were trapped in a cave for the time being.

  At first, no one said anything. Paul was the first to move. He unsheathed a small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. He shined it on us, making sure no one was injured. Grace’s dress had certainly looked better an hour ago, but it was still in one piece. Daniel was exhausted but unharmed. And when the light shone on me, I found only a few scratches on my arms. So I stood up and began to feel along the walls of the chamber to see how far it went.

  ‘Give me some light,’ I said, and Paul aimed his beam towards me. I stepped deeper into the cave, hoping there were no bears in Sicily, or if there were, that they were very small, cute bears, and not the face-devouring variety.

/>   Eventually, I began to feel some large bumps bulging out from the wall, and when the light caught up, it revealed them to be columns. They weren’t structural, but purely ornamental. When I reached the very back of the cavern, it had been carved into a semicircle, and, at eye level, there were the faintest remains of frescoes.

  ‘I don’t think this is a tomb,’ Grace said.

  I looked back towards the entrance, where she and Daniel were silhouetted against the light.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Daniel in a weary voice.

  ‘I think it might be a church.’

  Ihad no speech prepared.

  For the last two days, I had been trying to think of something. But, alas, there was nothing. Maybe it was the distraction of being in another country. Maybe it was whatever was happening with Daniel. But now I was standing in a medieval cave church, where everyone felt a little afraid of what might happen next, and my time was running out.

  I knew there was a limited span in which this ancient cavern would still feel like an amazing discovery. It was a church carved into a cliff by people from so long ago that it was nearly impossible to imagine their lives. But, as incredible as that was, if I waited too long, the cave could easily transform back into just another dark musty space filled with bird droppings and invisible lizards. And I couldn’t allow that to happen. So I said:

  ‘Guys, I think we should get started.’

  At the sound of those words, everyone in the cave stood completely still and silent, and the trill of birdsong filtered in, echoing in the darkness. Then Grace nodded. Daniel held the bowl of ashes, and Paul adjusted his camera to the low light levels.

  Meanwhile, I thought back to the one evening I’d spent with Jonah. The one at the farmhouse. It wasn’t incredibly epic or romantic. And it wasn’t the beginning of a love that anyone would much care about. But lying on the couch with him that night, I had felt the beginning of something, and it was indistinguishable from the reverberation of the music outside and the moonlight slanting in through the windows. And even though it had all eventually fallen apart, I still had that day and the way it felt. I had lived it, and it was mine for ever.

  I wanted to create one more day like that.

  One more day worth keeping.

  That was what I needed to do somehow in this hollowed-out chamber in Sicily. It was cool inside, but I was still sweating. I cleared my throat and stepped into the light of the doorway. I looked at Grace and at Daniel. And all I could think to say when I opened my mouth was something that had been replaying in my mind for months.

  ‘This,’ I said, ‘was not how it was supposed to be.’

  The short sentence bounced around the cave, coming back to me word for word.

  ‘I just want to be honest,’ I said. ‘It seems silly to do anything else at this point. The truth is that we’re not supposed to be here, and we all know that. We’re not supposed to be inside of a church made by old-timey people. We weren’t supposed to bring Jonah here. We weren’t supposed to hide from an Italian park ranger on horseback.’

  I paused and waited for my echoing voice to quiet.

  ‘Also, maybe this is obvious, but Jonah was not supposed to die. Not yet. None of it was supposed to happen like this.’

  Grace eyed me quizzically.

  ‘I don’t mean to be bleak,’ I continued. ‘I know it sounds that way. What I mean is that nothing ever happens the way it’s supposed to. Everything is messed up. Everything is flawed. And if we didn’t have imperfection, I’m not sure what we would have left.’

  I looked out into the light outside. Its brightness compared to the darkness of the cave washed out what I could see of the landscape. Paul crouched down on one knee and pointed the camera up at me.

  ‘The way I see it, we have a bunch of imperfect moments all lined up, one after the next, and we feel this strange, imperfect love. Then, before we know it, it’s all over. We give everything we have, but that can never be enough to make things just the way we want them, or to keep someone with us as long as we’d like. But the struggle is worth something. And the love is worth something even though it’s imperfect. And maybe we should try to celebrate this brief, incomplete thing we’ve been given. Maybe that’s all we can do when we find ourselves in the dark.’

  Everyone remained quiet. I couldn’t tell by looking at them how they felt about what I was saying. Still, no one interrupted me, so I kept going.

  ‘Just because something didn’t last as long as you needed doesn’t mean it wasn’t genuine. Jonah and I had an imperfect love. So what? That doesn’t cancel it. And it’s not gone. It’s still here. And, today, I just want to bring it back. I want to make it tangible again for a little while.’

  I reached out for the ashes and Daniel handed the container to me. I opened the lid and stuck my hand inside. They were powdery and warm from Daniel’s pocket.

  ‘Jonah,’ I said. ‘This is Tess.’

  My voice was getting a little shaky, but I steadied it.

  ‘Daniel is here, too. And I guess we came all the way here to say goodbye to you. If it’s true that we knew you the best, I wish you had let us understand the whole of you. And I wish you’d felt more peace with who you were. But we can’t change that. We can only celebrate what we knew. And, personally, I’m still glad I knew you.’

  I looked at Daniel. He nodded.

  ‘And Daniel is too,’ I said.

  I pulled out a handful of ashes.

  ‘We’re not erasing you,’ I said. ‘And we’re not leaving you behind. But we need to put you somewhere. So you aren’t . . . everywhere. I hope you get that.’

  I let go of the ashes and they drifted down to the floor of the cave church, passing through the light like smoke. I was about to reach my hand back inside, but then I stopped and handed the container to Daniel. His eyes were squinting in the light of the cave. I could tell he was struggling with what to say, but finally, he opened his mouth.

  ‘I forgive you,’ he said, reaching his hand into the Tupperware. ‘And I forgive myself.’

  He let go of his handful, and the powder sifted through the air. Then Grace took the remainder of the container and stood over the spot I’d chosen.

  ‘Earth to earth,’ she said. ‘Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.’

  And while Paul kept his camera trained on us, she let the rest of them go. A breeze found its way inside, whistling through the cave. Some of the ashes swirled a bit in the air, but eventually, each grain, each tiny piece of Jonah settled on the ground between us. And then all I could do was walk out of the cave and slowly find my way back to the path.

  Everyone else followed, tentatively at first. The trail was steeper here and I removed my shoes to get a better grip. Paul stayed by the cave, pointing his camera over the edge of the trail to catch the rest of us shrinking into the gorge.

  When I finally got down to the bottom, I walked, without speaking, alongside the river, which eventually dwindled into a rocky stream, and then finally to a bright, calm turquoise pool. I stood by it for a moment, my face aimed towards the water.

  Me: The rocks in the pool, blurring in and out of focus. Small weeds billowing.

  I realized I was holding my breath. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I felt light-headed. But this time I was not alone, the way I had been on the dock in Minneapolis. I looked at Grace and Daniel.

  Me: The sunlight on the surface of the pool. The cool rocks on my bare feet.

  I waded in and felt the frigid water instantly numbing my feet and calves. The rocks on the bottom were smooth, and a little slippery from algae, but the water was perfectly clear. I could see my own feet walking as if I were seeing them through glass. I walked until the water deepened.

  And inside my head, finally, there was no monologue to Jonah. Just the passing of my own thoughts. Including one that said: ‘Do you really want to do this?’ And another that said: ‘Yes. It’s OK.’

  So I stretched out my arms and plunged into the blue-green pool, yelling out fr
om the cold, a muffled howl that barely made a noise underwater. I pushed myself forward with long strokes. And when I came to the surface, taking huge lungfuls of air, I felt the sun warm on my chilled skin.

  Then Grace was floating next to me. She must have gotten in while I was under. Her dress gathered on the surface of the water, and on her face was something like contentment. Daniel jumped in last, and when he came up, wet strands of hair stuck to his forehead, and he was shouting like a maniac. There might have been tears in his eyes. It was too wet to tell.

  I swam over to him and held his hand under the cold water. Then we just floated. I don’t know how long. My body was numb after a while, but that was OK. I didn’t need it for the moment. The water held me up and drowned out all sound. I could have bobbed there the rest of the afternoon. But I knew it was risky to stay too long.

  So instead, I tried to fully experience the moment and tell it to myself like a story. I had walked down a valley of jagged cliffs with black windows into ancient graves. I had rested on the surface of a pristine sky-blue pool. And for a minute or two, I found a place to be still. The light glittered on the water and it looked like the sun was beneath us, not above. Somehow I had found a little bit of life in a place of the dead.

  By evening I was on a plane again.

  The contrast was jarring. One moment I was outside my body, the next I was in a cramped cabin full of tourists. They were coming home from Italian vacations where they’d taken pictures in front of old things, eaten at overpriced restaurants, and spent most of the time on their phones. I could have been one of them.

  Nobody knew I had just staged a funeral in a sea cave. Nobody knew that I was a high school dropout, my emergency credit card maxed. Nobody knew that I had absolutely zero clues about what I was going to do when I made it back stateside. And, most importantly, nobody knew that I had to say goodbye to the sleeping boy next to me when this plane touched down.

  Daniel was in a Dramamine coma again. Or at least he appeared to be. His head was slumped down, chin on chest, and a single spot of drool dotted his thick lower lip. On the ride to the airport, we’d both sat shivering under a ratty blanket we’d found in the back of the van, too dazed to say much to each other.