A flash of recognition flashes on the guy’s face, and he is happy, stunned, silenced by the 100s of things he has to say – or so it seems from the way his lips move just slightly without producing sounds. I cannot understand his overreaction, so I pretend not to notice.
“The other day I came here to have my DNA tested…I was told it I should wait for about 2 weeks but I would need to have my results earlier…it’s an urgent matter, you know”, I start
The guys is drinking my words and taking in every detail of me.
“I was wondering if this is possible, and if I can pay an extra fee to accelerate the process”, I conclude
“I’ve been waiting this moment for so long”, he tells me
“What do you mean?”, I ask defensively, confused about where all this is going
He doesn’t reply, and so I iterate that I am here because I want to have my DNA tested as soon as possible.
“Let me see”, he says, and starts scrolling down his screen.
I wait impatiently, shifting on my feet.
“You know, we have your results already, although they haven’t been sent to you yet. I can print them out for you if you want, I would just need a piece of ID”, he says
My hands have started shaking and I struggle to pull out the driver’s licence from my wallet, but at last I manage and hand it to the guy. He looks at it attentively, and it seems that he is looking for an answer to some unspoken question rather than trying to verify my identity.
Then he tells me, “Your DNA test says that another client’s DNA closely matches yours. Do you want me to proceed and disclose the person’s identity to you?”
My heart pounds and I can’t get myself to speak. Yes, I want to know!, I nod.
“Ok”, he says, and a moment later he hands me some papers fresh from the printer
I grab them with febrile fingers and leaf through them. And finally I read it.
Veronica Spencer
Is that my mother? My sister?
I stare at the name, as if it could reveal something about the identity of its owner.
I don’t know how much time I spent abstracted in my thoughts, and when the guy talks to me I start because I had completely forgotten his presence.
“Listen, there’s something I need to tell you”, he says and pauses
I wait for him to continue.
“I finish here at 6. Can you see me then?”, he asks
“Where are we meeting?”
“Here?”, he proposes
“Ok”, I reply
I’m about to leave, but then I cannot get myself to do so. I need to know now.
The guy senses my thoughts, “I can’t tell you just now. It’s a long story…”
“I’ll see you at 6 then. Here”
“Yes. By the way, I’m Lee, Lee Brooks”, he introduces himself, reaching out to shake my hands
“Iris Meyers”, I tell him
“At 6 then, here”, I repeat, walking backwards and turning away only when I am so close to the exit I almost hit it.
Chapter 8
There’s time till 6, plenty of it. I still don’t know what to do with it, so I start to walk hoping for some inspiration to fill me in. I am strained, but the warmth of the sun revives me a bit at a time and I begin to be optimistic, perhaps even happy. Maybe I’ve found a lead, that guy – Lee – he seems to know something.
I decide to head towards the ocean. When I reach it after about a good hour walk I find myself a bench and sit there, my gaze melting away into the waves. I smell the salt. I listen to the seagulls. I feel the mild breeze on my face. I just let myself live, drenched by the primitive sensorial joy of the moment. I tilt my head backwards, closing my eyes. The rays leak through my closed eyelids, sending a myriad of red dots through my optical nerves, before all goes black, slowly, seamlessly…
“Damn me if I am wrong! You’re back all right, aren’t you?”, I hear a voice say, hovering somewhere above my head
I open my eyes halfway and realize I’ve been sleeping a dreamless sleep for who knows how long. My vision is blurred, but I get a feeling for the scrubby face of the man who’s speaking to me and who looks like a homeless.
“What?”, I mumble
“Jesus!”, he exclaims
I’m fully awake now, and I stare at the man questioningly. I sure don’t know him.
“Well, if you are not Veronica you’re pretty damn similar to her”, he says
I jump up, suddenly.
“What did you just say about Veronica?”, I ask, trying to sound chill
“Do you know her?”, he asks in return
“No…who is Veronica?”, I insist, my heart pounding
“She came here often. She was nice, she asked what I needed and brought it to me. She listened to my old stories…my old, old stories…”, the man says, almost talking to himself now, shaking his head and laughing sadly
Then a fit of cough shakes him, turning his face red and bending his body.
“We should get you some cough syrup”, I say, my words echoing as an inane attempt to heal the man’s life
He can’t speak for a moment, but when the fit ceases, “You’re like your sister”, he tell me
“My sister?”, I repeat
“Veronica”, he says
“Is she not your sister?”, he adds after a pause
“I don’t know…I don’t know anything anymore”, I whisper
“That’s what she said before leaving”, the man tells me
“Leaving for where?”, I want to know
“She didn’t say. One day she just told me her world had changed, that she discovered facts she could not understand. She said she needed to understand, and the next day she was gone”, the man tells me, shaking his balding head every now and then.
“So Veronica lived in this city…”, I say, talking to myself
“Not for long. I met her one year ago, it was fall, and when summer came she left”
“Because she needed to find her answers somewhere else…”, I say hesitantly
The man nods
“But what was she doing here?”, I ask
“She was an engineer. She told me so”, he says
I am speechless, and the man continues.
“She was here to monitor the levels of pollution in the water”
“And I am an environmental engineer…”, I whisper
“Ah really?”, the man exclaims, brightening up abruptly, “I said you and your sister you’re the same, didn’t I?”
The fact makes him happy for some reason, and he laughs before his laugher breaks into a second fit of cough
“What’s you name by the way?”, the man asks when he recovers
“Iris. What’s yours?”
“Jonathan”
“Do you come here often?”, I ask
“I go everywhere”, he laughs
Then he turns serious
“Would you trust me if I told you that I was an engineer too?”, he asks anxiously, as if his identity depended on my answer
“Yes”, I reply.
Why wouldn’t I? The world is so shifty
“You’re good, I can tell. I haven’t been very good to myself, you know, so here I am”, he shrugs
“Do you think Veronica is my sister?”, I ask, diverting the conversation
“I bet you”, he says
“I’ve lost my real family when I was young, too young to recall what happened”, I say, and find myself stunned to be telling all this to someone I just met.
And yet I trust Jonathan, instinctively.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck in finding what you’ve lost”, he tells me with a sad smile
“Thank you, I need it”
“I must get going now, but if you come here in the morning perhaps we’ll meet again”, Jonathan says, before carrying his crumpled frail body away, slowly, as if it were an enormous burden
“I’ll come again”, I promise
Jonathan turns fo
r a short moment and raises his hand in farewell as he limps away.
Chapter 9
I have no clue about what time it is. When I check my watch I figure it’s 3.30 already and it doesn’t make much sense to go back home at this point.
I’m hungry and I realize I haven’t even had lunch today.
I dig the streets to find an eatery that can inspire me, and after some search I step in an easygoing place that sells ice cream and coffee. I get myself a cone, which I devour in no time at a table outside, before going back in to order a coffee that I lap up just as quickly as the ice cream.
“Hungry?”, the waitress laughs, winking
“Not any more”, I smile
Life looks better with a full stomach, and I stroll around for a while to use up the extra time, till it’s about time to head back to the DNA clinic.
I get there few minutes early. Lee is still at the front desk, his eyes avidly taking in the words from a book hidden behind the counter.
“Hey, what are you reading?”, I ask, intrigued
“Beckett”, he says, lifting a photocopy of the play
“I love ‘Waiting for Godot’!”, I exclaim
“I’m Godot”, he smiles
“You mean…”, I start
“I am an actor, but I work here a couple of days a week to round up my stipend”, Lee says
The guy is interesting, no doubt.
“When is the play?”, I ask
“In two weeks”, Lee says
“I’ll come watch you”, I tell him
He smiles, then looks at his watch
“I think we can go now”, he says, getting up. As he does so I realize he is even taller than I thought, a sort of human willow with a flexible body and slick dark hair.
“Awesome, let’s go”, I say
Chapter 10
“What do you want for dinner?”, he asks as we head out of the DNA center
“Pizza”, I say, the word coming out instinctively although after the cone and the supersized cappuccino I am not even that hungry anymore
Lee smiles, entertained at the eagerness in my tone
“Ah, how good it is to be outside again!”, he says, stretching, head turned upwards to drink in the sunrays still pouring from the sky
“It is”, I say, and we walk in silence for a moment
“How did you meet Veronica?”, I then ask abruptly
“She came to watch a play one night. It was October, I still remember that day. When the play finished it was pouring, and she was trying to get a cab. For some reason nobody would stop, and when I walked out she was still out there, drenched and with a desolate look on her face. I couldn’t tell exactly what, but there was something touching about her. I was glad she was still there, wet and miserable, awful as this may sound”
I laugh
“She had been sitting in the front row, staring at me the full time the same way you did before”, Lee says
“You’re tall”, I reply incoherently, feeling the blood reddening my cheeks
And now it’s Lee who laughs
“I asked her if she needed a ride, and she said ‘Oh yes!’, her face so happy all of a sudden. It was odd, we didn’t know each other but there was this trust from the start. We spent hours talking that first night”, Lee says
The memories bring a smile to his face, brushed away at once by a wave of melancholy
“And then?”, I asked
“We became lovers”, he replied, as if that were the only logical conclusion
“Did she ever tell you that she suspected…”, I start, without getting myself to complete the sentence
“Yes, one day she went back home for the holidays and figured out that her parents weren’t really her parents. Deep down she had always known that something was missing from her life, she had nightmares”
“Which nightmares?”, I want to know
“Of being kidnapped”
I nod. Of course, how could she not know?
“Where was home for Veronica?”
“Montana”
“So why did she leave from San Fran? Do you know where she is now?”
“I don’t. When she found out that her family had lied to her she decided to find out the truth for herself, but she didn’t know where to start from. Then she recalled a detail, she knew that the day she was kidnapped it was sunny…”
“Yes! And we were in a park! This is my dream…”, I interrupt
“That’s what Veronica said. And she told me about the statue of a dragon”
“A lizard?”
“She called it a dragon, and she said it was yellow”
“Yes!”, I exclaim, my heart pounding
“And she remembered a building, it was ancient, she said, and she looked at hundreds of images from places around the world to get some inspiration. After all she found a dragon, or a lizard, that could be the one she saw in her dream”
“And…and where is the lizard?”, I ask, my voice hoarse and barely audible
“In Barcelona. She thinks the statue is a Gaudi”
“Really?!”, I exclaim, the voice springing out of my in a shriek
“Did you come to the same conclusion?”, Lee asks me
“No…but I am going to Barcelona”, I say, stunned at the coincidence
But is it a coincidence or did my subconscious make this happen?
Lee bugs his eyes
“I’m supposed to start a temporary job there in a month”, I say, and explain about my one year project there
Then, “Is she there now”, I ask again, although Lee already told me he is clueless about my sister’s whereabouts
“In one of her last emails Veronica told me she had found a good lead, and that she had found out something but that she couldn’t tell me about it. She sounded scared, she felt someone was monitoring her moves. She wrote again after a while to tell me she was leaving Spain, but when I asked where she was heading she replied that someone was probably keeping track of all her communications, and that giving me information would put both of us at risk. That’s the last thing I’ve heard from her. I wrote again, so many times, hoping for a line from her but all my emails went unanswered, and then I gave up”
“Did you really?”, I want to know
“No…not really. At a point I thought I’d call the embassies, the consulates, the police, the papers, but then I refrained. I don’t want to give her away, you understand…”, Lee starts, dropping the sentence in mid-air.
“No, not completely”
“Veronica believes that the authorities might be involved in what happened, although she never went into much detail. She was even planning on changing name, to be safe and to make a statement, you know. Veronica isn’t the name she was born with after all, and she wanted to rid herself of it”
“How did she want to call herself?”
“She never told me, and I don’t even know if she changed her name after all”
We are in front of the pizzeria now, and I figure at this moment that I have been following Lee without knowing where he was leading me.
“What do you think, is this place ok?”, Lee asks
“I like it”, I approve
“It’s one of my favorites. Ever been here before?”, he smiles
“Nope, and I want to try it”, I reply, and I realize the flirtatious twist in my tone just after speaking out the sentence
“It strikes me how similar you are to Veronica, and you two don’t even know each other…”
“Will I find her?”, I suddenly ask, with the hopefulness of kid who needs to believe in something
“We will find her”, Lee tells me, his eyes locked into mine, comforting and thrilling me at once
“The idea of testing Veronica’s DNA was your, wasn’t it?”, I ask him
“It was. She took the test right before leaving. I was hoping she could get her answers that way, because I wanted her happiness – of course - but also because I hated to see her leave to find her answ
ers”
“You could have gone with her”, I say
It’s not a reproach, and not even a statement. It’s more a question than anything else.
Lee lowers his eyes and hunches his back, just lightly, as if trying to support a huge weight without showing the effort, and I hate myself for what I just said.
“I couldn’t afford it”, he admits after a pause
“I’m sorry…”, I say, bending just slightly, my posture mirroring Lee’s body
We order our pizzas and remain quiet for a moment.
“What about you? How did you come to realize you had been kidnapped?”
And so I tell Lee about my dream, and as I unravel details about myself I realize I want to know about him. When I ask he draws sketches of lines, leaving my curiosity unfulfilled. I sense I could fall for this man, the way my sister did.
By the time we finish our food I am tired to the point where it’s hard for me to speak, but I don’t want to go home.
“Where did Veronica live?”, I want to know
I’m thinking that I could go there now, just walk in front of her house, before heading to mine, or to Joshua’s if he’s there.
“She lived with me. If you have time I can show you what she has left behind”, Lee tells me
“And her picture”, he adds after a pause
Chapter 11
We’re in front of a three storey building. The building might be approaching its hundredth birthday and it slopes a bit. It must have been rich during its good times, but the streaks of time and the Pisa’s tower look only make it better.
“This is it”, Lee says and something in his voice tells me that he’s wavering between opposite tensions
He wants me to walk upstairs with him, but there’s something that holds him back. Is it my resemblance to Veronica that troubles him?
“Nice”, I tell him, trying to sound chill
He smiles, but I can sense him shiver as he does so
“Right. I live under the roof and there’s no elevator”, he tells me
“So?”, I shrug
“So let’s go”, he says
The stairwell smells of old wood and moisture, and I love the feel of it.
When we’re in front of the door he fiddles with the lock awhile, and after all I tell him.
“You don’t want to like your lover’s sister, but that’s ok. If we’re so alike…are we so alike? I mean, is the resemblance only physical or is it the behaviour too?”
“You look like her and your voice is hers…your ways…yes, those too are similar, although you seem more disenchanted, harsher”, he tells me
I stay silent for a moment.
We’ve been standing in front of the door for few moments, but instead of opening the door Lee observes my reactions.