Page 46 of The Immortalists

Instead of his usual outfit—a white T-shirt, smudged ashy, and an old pair of Carhartts—he wears his costume: a custom-made swallowtail coat and top hat, smooth and black as a penguin’s pelt. Ruby sits on the other side of the counter. She’s crawled into one of the Mirage’s gaping gold sinks and is playing with the automatic soap dispenser. There’s blue froth in her mouth, and she’s wailing.

“What the fuck, Klara? What’s wrong with you?” Raj takes Ruby in his arms and helps her spit, flushing out her mouth with his hands. He wets a paper towel and gently wipes her eyes and nose. Then he puts both hands against the counter and leans forward, resting his chin in the baby’s dark hair. It takes Klara a moment to realize he’s crying.

“You were talking to Simon,” he says. “Weren’t you?”

“The knocks. I’ve been timing them. I wasn’t sure if they were real before, but I know it now: they are, they just spelled—”

Raj leans in as if to kiss her. But he pauses with his nose at her cheek before withdrawing.

“Klara.” When he looks at her, there’s something vivid in his face, something alive, something she thinks is love before she realizes it’s fury. “I can smell it on you.”

“Smell what?” asks Klara, buying time. She downed two mini bottles of Popov in the trailer; they were supposed to help her steady.

“You must be some kind of masochist, to do this to us now. Or do you just think I’ll always be here to pick up the pieces?”

“It was one drink.” She hates the way her voice shakes. “You’re controlling.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Raj’s eyes widen. “Years ago. If I hadn’t found you. Where do you think you’d be?”

“Better off.” She’d be in San Francisco, doing gigs on her own. She’d be lonely, but in control.

“You’d be a drunk,” says Raj. “A failure.”

Ruby gazes at Klara from Raj’s arms. Blood rushes to Klara’s cheeks.

“The only reason you’re still doing what you’re doing,” Raj says, “is because I met you. And the only reason you were getting by before you met me was because you were ripping people off. You stole, Klara. Shamelessly. And you think all you were doing was giving people a good show?”

“I was giving people a good show. I am,” says Klara. “I’m trying to be a good mother. I want to be a success. But you don’t know what it’s like in my head. You don’t know what I’ve lost.”

“I don’t know what you’ve lost? Do you know—do you have any idea—what happened in my country?” Raj wipes his eyes with the heel of his free hand. “Your dad had a business, a family. You still have a mom and a sister and a doctor big brother. My dad picked trash; my mom died so young I can’t remember her. Amit died in ’85 on a plane, minutes from Bombay, the first time he tried to go home. Your family had it good. They have it good.”

“I know how difficult your life has been,” Klara whispers. “I never meant to minimize that. But my brother died. My father died. They didn’t have it good.”

“Why? ’Cause they didn’t live till ninety? Think about what they had while they were here. People like me, on the other hand—we hang on by our teeth, and if we’re really, really lucky, if we’re fucking exceptional, we get somewhere. But you can always be airlifted out.” Raj shakes his head. “Jesus, Klara. Why do you think I don’t talk to you about my problems, real problems? It’s ’cause you can’t take it. You don’t have space in your head for anyone’s problems but yours.”

“That’s an awful thing to say.”

“But is it true?”

Klara can’t speak; her brain is tangled, wires crossed, the monitor shutting down. Raj checks Ruby’s diaper and reties the laces on her tiny shoes. He takes the diaper bag from Klara’s shoulder and walks to the bathroom door.

“I swear to God, Klara, I thought you were getting better. Soon as the health insurance comes through, soon as we get a day off, I’m taking you to see somebody. You can’t lose it now,” he says. “We’re too close.”

• • •

December 28th, 1990. If the woman is right, Klara has four days to live. If the woman is right, she’ll die on opening night.

There must be a loophole, a secret trapdoor. She’s a magician, goddammit. All she has to do is find the fucking trapdoor.

She takes a red ball to bed and plays with it under the covers. She’s figured out how to turn it into a strawberry. A French drop from the right hand to the left makes the ball disappear. Then she moves her left hand over her right. When she does a shuttle pass and opens her left fist again, there’s the cool, fragrant fruit. She eats each strawberry and tucks their green stems under the mattress. Then she slips out of the RV.

It’s black, black night, but it must be over ninety degrees. She can hear people moving around in their campers: showering and cooking, eating and arguing, yelps from the teenage couple in the Gulf Stream who are constantly having sex. Everywhere, there’s life: rattling in tin cans, trying to get out.

She walks to the pool. It’s shaped like a kidney bean and glows an acid, unearthly blue. There are no pool chairs—the manager claims they only get stolen—so Klara stands at the deep end. She takes off her tank and shorts, letting them fall in a clump. Her stomach is still soft and creped from Ruby. When she removes her underwear, her pubic hair seems to bloom.

She jumps.

The water surrounds her like a membrane. Klara’s feet look nearer than they are, and her arms seem to bend. The pool appears shallower than eight feet, though she knows this is an illusion. Refraction, it’s called: light bends when it enters a new medium. But the human brain is programmed to assume that light travels in straight lines. What she sees is different than what’s there.