Rouge(25)

And then I hear a gasping sound. Coming from the left and the right of me. Coming from all around. I see everyone’s gathered around the tank. Everyone’s gazing at themselves in the aquarium glass, transfixed. I can’t see what they see. Only their gasping faces, the tears in their eyes. A woman covers her mouth and laughs into her hands. I look back at myself. She’s still there, the other me. Still smiling at me with her red lips. This could all be yours, she seems to say. Like the twins’ mouths whispering right in my ear. I could watch the play of light across her face forever. A jellyfish swims past her, through her, and then through her I see another figure. At the opposite end of the tank, on the other side of the glass. Standing there like I am. Gazing into the water. That man in the hat who was staring up at me earlier. He’s got a black, pointed beard. Circular eyeglasses that make him look vaguely Victorian. He’s familiar too, why?

I stare at his face through the glass. He’s also looking at me, I see. A jellyfish swims between us in the blue-green water. It hovers there, blocking my view. Yet I can still see this man right through the red jellyfish. Like the creature is suddenly translucent, nearly transparent. In that instant, I see something I didn’t before. Through the jellyfish, the man loses his black beard, his ostentatious mustache, his strange eyeglasses. For a flash, it’s all stripped away and I know why his face is familiar. He’s the man I saw at the hotel bar last night. The one who looked like old movies, with his dark suit and hat. Under the brim, his watchful eyes are locked with mine through the water. Looking deep into me. The water makes him look blurry around the edges, like he could dissolve any moment. Is he smiling at me? The jellyfish swims away. And then the man from the hotel looks the strange Victorian way he did before: His black beard comes back. His mustache. His glasses. It all looks like a disguise now. It is a disguise, I realize. “What the fuck?” I whisper.

And then he’s gone.

My reflection’s gone too. Just a tank full of red jellyfish and people with their faces inches from the glass, marveling at their reflections. A woman’s laughing with such violent delight right beside me. She’s clapping her old face with her old hands.

“Oh my,” she murmurs. “Oh my, oh my, oh my.”

The chime music is still playing, louder now. People are swaying with their reflections like they’re slow dancing. One man’s cheek is pressed against the glass, cheek to cheek with his other self. His eyes are closed so painfully, I have to look away. Suddenly, the red curtains close all around the tank. There’s a collective sigh. People stumble away. I hear cries of anguish. The man beside me drops to his knees, clutching the curtains. The old woman is hugging her chest, caved into herself, like she’s clutching a dagger someone stabbed into her heart.

Mother, what sort of spa is this? Did you really come here?

Get out of here, I think. Leave, leave, leave. But where and how? No exits that I can see. Only the grand hall that seems to extend into black. Only bodies hovering by the red curtain as if awaiting a second act. Only the spiraling staircase where the woman in red stands alone now on the landing, sipping her cold stars, watching the tumult below. Though I can’t see her face, I sense she’s smiling. The twins are gone from her side.

Then I see him again. Disappearing down the dark hall that gapes blackly like a maw. I follow him. Or I realize I’m following him. My shoes lead me down the hall, in spite of myself. I’m walking right behind him, my footsteps trailing his. He looks over his shoulder and, seeing me behind him, frowns. Quickens his steps. And though I’m angry about this, though I think, Fine, fuck you, I quicken my steps too. I reach out and grab him by his collar, surprising myself. He turns to look at me. Sort of smiling now. Like he’s surprised that I grabbed him, but not entirely. Not unpleasantly. It’s actually a very good disguise, I see. Much better than it seemed through the jellyfish.

“Can I help you?” he says in a low voice. Rough. Deep. Almost like it’s wearing a disguise too.

“I don’t know.” I realize it’s true. I have no idea what I want from this man. “I just… thought I recognized you. From last night. You were—”

He puts his finger to his lips, as if to say shhh. Glances both ways down the dark hall. Then he smiles. Looks at me through his spectacles, spectacles I suspect he doesn’t need. Eyes a slate-gray that reminds me of river water. “Not here,” he says quietly. “Not now.”

“I’m sorry?”

He leans forward, puts his hands on my shoulders. As he leans in, I smell forest botanicals, something bittersweet like green tea. His skin’s very smooth, what I can see that’s not covered in fake facial hair. Could the green tea scent be from a hydrating essence?

“? bient?t, as they say,” he whispers, as if people might be listening. “For now, just walk away.”

“Walk away?”

“Don’t follow me.”

“I wasn’t,” I whisper back.

He lets go of me and straightens his suit jacket. Looks all around as though there are eyes in the walls. Then he smiles at me with one side of his mouth. A full mouth in that fake black beard. “Of course you weren’t,” he says.

He turns away and starts walking farther down the hall.

Don’t follow him, I tell myself as I watch him walk away. But I’m following him again. My shoes moving more quickly as he moves more quickly. What the fuck am I doing? I think, my feet literally racing down the dark hall that seems to go on forever, lit now and then with a candle on a sconce. He speeds up and I speed up until we’re both walking nearly side by side. He reaches out and grips my arm.