After Elias Read online

  After Elias

  After Elias

  a novel

  Eddy Boudel Tan

  Copyright © Eddy Boudel Tan, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Rachel Spence | Editor: Allison Hirst

  Cover designer: Sophie Paas-Lang

  Cover image: unsplash.com/Coral Ouellette

  Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: After Elias / Eddy Boudel Tan.

  Names: Boudel Tan, Eddy, 1983- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190227370 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190227389 | ISBN 9781459746428 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746435 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746442 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8603.O9324 A64 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

  VISIT US AT

  dundurn.com

  @dundurnpress

  dundurnpress

  dundurnpress

  Dundurn

  3 Church Street, Suite 500

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5E 1M2

  To Thomas,

  for proving to me that love is real and courageous and ours

  Contents

  Part One: The Pilot and the Botanist

  SUITE 319: Nine hours after the crash

  IONA BEACH: Two days before the crash

  PLAZA PEQUEÑA: Thirty-two hours after the crash

  TERRACE BAR: Two days after the crash

  THE COURTYARD: Sixteen months before the crash

  JARDÍN INGLÉS: Three days after the crash

  YALETOWN: Three years before the crash

  OTRA LUNA: Four days after the crash

  DEEP COVE: Four years before the crash

  ESPEJO ROTO: Five days after the crash

  MOUNT PLEASANT: Six years before the crash

  THE PASSAGEWAY: Six days after the crash

  DF: Seven years before the crash

  THE CELEBRATION: Seven days after the crash

  Part Two: A New Year and an Old Friend

  THE CHAMBER: Eight years before the crash

  Part Three: The Virgin or the Skull

  SUITE 319: Eight days after the crash

  CUEVA DE LA SANTA MUERTE: Eleven days after the crash

  CASA PARAÍSO: Twelve days after the crash

  SANTOS SERVICIO AUTOMOTRIZ: Thirteen days after the crash

  DEPARTURE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I used to call the shadow my old friend. It seemed less frightening that way. I would say it with a wry smile, but nobody else would find it funny.

  It has been such a long time since the shadow last came around. “I think I’ve been defriended,” I once said to Elias. He just looked at me, unamused.

  I suppose I’ve been too busy with the wedding arrangements to think much about the shadow. It doesn’t like to be forgotten though. It always lingers nearby. As I arrived at the hotel yesterday, I should have predicted that the shadow would make an appearance. After all, it is an old friend.

  The Terrace Bar is different today. I feel it as soon as I step inside. Something foreign in the air greets me like a scent I can’t quite place. It’s darker here than in the rest of the hotel. It struck me as odd when I first saw it yesterday, this gloomy cavern hidden within a palace of light.

  My eyes adjust and all I see are flowers. They’re an unnatural shade of yellow, worn by a woman softened with age, her skin like an overripe plum. She’s seated alone at a table and stares straight ahead, motionless. The sadness on her face is even more unnerving against the yellow flowers of the dress hanging limply on her.

  A few other guests sit at tables scattered throughout the room. Like the woman in the floral dress, their stares are fixed on something in front of them.

  The bartender stands behind the long countertop to my left, framed by a wall of glass bottles. He greeted me with such warmth yesterday. Every smile he gave felt earned, inviting my confidence whenever he leaned forward or held eye contact longer than what I’d usually find comfortable. Now his arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed. A dishtowel lies forgotten over one shoulder. He’s staring in the same direction as everyone else in the dim room, his head tilted upward as though listening to god.

  Following their gaze, I see it’s something ordinary: a television set mounted on the wall behind the bar’s counter. I can’t quite tell what they’re watching, but it looks like the ocean. The waves are more grey than blue, churning across the screen with lashes of foam.

  Why is everyone so interested in this?

  Several jagged objects come into view. They rock along with the rhythm of the waves, the red paint bold against the coldness of the sea. Their shapes lack symmetry.

  Are they little boats?

  A woman appears on the screen. She’s dressed inoffensively in neutral tones and crisp lines. Her delicate hands are placed on the surface of a lacquered desk. I hear her voice but don’t hear the words.

  My body begins to shiver like a taut wire as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t reach for it, like I normally would. It goes off again. And again. I just let it continue its inaudible cry, a silent alarm bell. But I don’t need to read the messages or answer the calls. I know what has happened, why everyone at home suddenly feels the need to get hold of me. I know what everyone in the room is seeing on the television, what those floating objects are. I know, because I’ve always known this would happen one day. Today is that day.

  The shadow comes to me.

  I recognize it immediately, even though it has been so long.

  It cloaks itself around my body. I feel its touch, a sickening static. A familiar numbness washes over me.

  It seeps into my skin. The pricking begins softly before it gets sharper, quicker. A thousand stabbing needles.

  It whispers in my ears. A deadening hum surrounds me.

  Hello, old friend.

  Invisible hands wrap around my throat.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t move.

  If I had been paying closer attention earlier, I might have seen it in the periphery of my vision, felt its touch against the tips of my fingers. It was so close.

  I don’t know how long I stand there before my legs can move again. They march me out of the dim room, and I stumble through the hall. The light sears my retinas. The sound of my shoes on the cold floor becomes louder with every step as the hum subsides. I find my suite, the door emblazoned with numbers polished so well I can see my reflection in them. My hand shakes as it fumbles in my pocket for the key.

  I throw myself into the room and slam the door shut behind me. I pull the curtains closed and switch on the television above the dr
esser.

  This must be a mistake.

  The unholy messenger in the neutral tones stares back at me, though she seems less benign. There is an emptiness in her eyes as her lips move. I can understand her words now.

  Flight XI260 was on its way to Vancouver from Berlin when it crashed into the Arctic Ocean one hour ago. There were 314 passengers on board, including fifteen crew members, one relief pilot, one captain, and one co-pilot.

  A face appears, and I know it so well. The square chin and uneven lips that make him look more arrogant than he is. The arrowhead slope of his nose, something he’s always been self-conscious of.

  Most striking of all, the darkness of his irises. Almost black, they reflect the light as tiny white orbs — two satellites in the night sky.

  He’s the man I’m supposed to marry in seven days, this co-pilot.

  His name is Elias.

  Part One

  The Pilot and the Botanist

  SUITE 319

  Nine hours after the crash

  I was nine years old when I discovered that I wasn’t afraid of death.

  The heat of the sun on my bare shoulders and the chill of the wet concrete under my feet was a troubling combination for me that day.

  The other children, all wild eyes and unpredictable limbs, howled like apes around a watering hole. They bared their teeth as they chased each other. They banded together to lay claim to their territories. I was careful to stay out of the path of the other boys, my eyes averted from theirs and my fists clenched by my side.

  It was a relief to pull my head beneath the surface of the water. The noise from above became a muffled hum. The sting of the sun softened. I felt the grip on my mind loosen as I submerged myself in stillness.

  My senses awoke as another body collided into mine. My feet stretched down toward the bottom, expecting to feel the reassurance of its tiles. There was only empty space.

  My hands reached up and grabbed fistfuls of water. I managed to reach the surface for a gasp of air before I was pulled underneath again by an invisible hand. Every kick of my legs and stroke of my arms reeled me farther down. I held my breath for as long as I could, then let it all out in a swarm of bubbles. My limbs went still as I closed my eyes.

  I didn’t feel fear. I felt a deep and wonderful calm. I wonder what happens now, I remember thinking.

  My breath returned in violent coughs and purged chlorine as I lay on the wet concrete of the pool’s edge. There was a look of wonder in the eyes that stared down at me, as though I had risen from the dead. The first thought that came to me was I must have been Aztec.

  Come to think of it now, I’d always been a different kind of boy.

  You see, the Aztecs didn’t fear death. They believed it was glorious. Death perpetuated creation. Without it, there would be no life. Their bones were the seeds from which new life grew. Their blood watered the dry earth. Both humans and gods sacrificed their lives so this wheel of conclusion and creation would spin on and on.

  After the final breath, Aztecs travelled to one of three places. Those with honourable endings, like warriors dying in battle, would transform into hummingbirds to follow the sun. Those who met their end by water would find themselves in a paradise of eternal spring. The majority would not be so lucky. Their journey would take them to the underworld of Mictlan, a hellish place guarded by jaguars in a river of blood.

  Reading about this as a boy, it seemed unfair to me how the most terrible human beings could so easily escape an eternity of bloody jaguars. Had things ended differently that summer day at the pool, I would have found myself in paradise by simply drifting too far into the deep end. However flawed it may be, it’s a beguiling idea. Your life is irrelevant. Your death is what counts.

  • • • • •

  A falling sensation grips me before my eyelids whip open, my chest heaving. The sheets stick to my skin. I’m slick with sweat.

  It was just a dream.

  Everything that happened over the last twenty-four hours was only a terrible, cruel dream.

  I’m in my bedroom at home. Elias is asleep beside me. I can smell him on the sheets, hear the gentle sway of his breath.

  The dull pain in my chest tells me this isn’t true. This isn’t my bed. I’m alone.

  The clock on the bedside table claims it has been nine hours since I learned Elias had flown into the sea.

  I often felt detached from him. He spent his days soaring through the sky from destination to destination while I remained fixed like a bolt in the ground. I would lie alone in bed and wonder where he was in the world. I found comfort imagining his heart beating in the cockpit of a plane, a red light blinking as it travelled across a map. I don’t have to wonder anymore. I know where he is, despite the light being out.

  Sitting up, I notice how tidy my room is. One might expect I would have torn it apart in grief — overturned the furniture, perhaps punched the mirror until the floor was covered in a thousand shards and my fist was bloody. But even in the soft light, I can see the room is in perfect order. No thrown chairs. No broken glass. My suitcase sits neatly at the foot of the bed. A few articles of clothing hang in the armoire. There is no evidence of grief in this room.

  The curtains are tightly closed. The only light and sound come from the television set above the dresser. Instead of the news, a soccer match is in progress. The world outside this room has already moved on.

  What happened nine hours earlier seems distant. I recall the yellow flowers and the fragments of red that clung to the surface of the sea. I can see the grim look on the bartender’s face and the glare of the hallway lamps. I picture myself paralyzed in the middle of the Terrace Bar as eyes begin to turn toward me. My unsteady feet trace an erratic path through the hall, hands outstretched as I careen from wall to wall. I remember calling Elias’s phone while pacing across the carpeted floor of my suite — our suite — desperate for an answer I knew wouldn’t come, leaving messages I knew would never be heard. All of this seems cloudy now, as though they are memories that have had years to fade.

  Elias’s face is the one thing that pierces the fog, the white orbs in his dark eyes sending signals to me from the other side of the screen.

  “Authorities have now confirmed that the pilots of flight XI260 were Captain Daniel Jervis and First Officer Elias Santos, both from Canada.” The messenger delivered these words.

  My body’s defence was to sleep. I didn’t cry or collapse. The shadow remained in hiding. There was nothing I could do. I crawled into bed as if it were an ordinary night. I let myself shut down.

  Now, the soccer match plays on. Someone has just scored a goal. He runs into the open arms of his teammates. The crowd cheers rabidly.

  The pain in my chest moans. I scan my memory to identify what it could be, but I know it is guilt. I chose the date of the wedding. I chose the venue. Here I am, safe on this island shielded from the rest of the world, while Elias lies adrift in the frigid waters of the Arctic. The Mexican sun burned forcefully earlier today, removing all doubt of who is to blame.

  Death must be a spiteful witch. Perhaps this is my punishment for revoking our deal so many years ago at the swimming pool — one life in exchange for another. Death was patient. She waited until the moment was right.

  My eyes are dry and unseeing as I turn away from the television. With a deep breath, I pick up my phone. Ninety-three unread messages. Forty-nine missed phone calls. The messages I scroll through are near-identical expressions of shock and disbelief and concern, more frantic in tone the more recent they are. My parents sent a single text message: “Call us now.”

  “You are a bad son,” I can hear Elias say in his matter-of-fact way. “You are simply the worst, letting your parents worry about you like this. If I were your father, I would have disowned you long ago.”

  I smile. He’s right. I am a bad son. I should probably respond to them and everyone else. Even the idea of doing so tires me profoundly.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time m
y parents left me alone at home while they vacationed in the south of France?” I ask. “I was probably only ten years old.”

  “How dare they?” he says with exaggerated outrage.

  “They were supposed to be away for a week but decided to extend their trip. They didn’t even think to tell me. I panicked for days thinking that something awful had happened. I thought maybe they had been kidnapped. I pictured them being tortured by scary Frenchmen with terrible moustaches. I had no way of reaching them. My brother wouldn’t let me call the police. Do you know what happened?”

  “Please tell me,” imaginary Elias says with an imaginary smirk.

  “They came home, finally, three whole days after I was expecting them and just sauntered through the door without a care in the world. Do you know what they told me?”

  “‘You worry too much,’” Elias says. “Yes, dear, you’ve told me this one. Many times, in fact.”

  “I may not be son of the century, but they’re not exactly a shining paradigm of parenthood.”

  “You do have a point.” Elias was never particularly fond of my family. The feeling was mutual. “If I recall correctly, you’re forgetting to mention that they told your brother their change in plans.”

  “Sure, but they didn’t tell me. They might as well have been in on the joke. I wanted to hurt Clark so badly then. He couldn’t stop laughing. There is no uglier sound in the world.”

  “You’re too hard on him. He was just a young boy playing a joke on his little brother like any other boy would do.”

  “You really need to stop standing up for him.”

  There’s a pause. “What are you going to do now?” he asks.

  “I don’t have a clue,” I respond. It’s true. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

  “You go home.”

  “I can’t,” I say more decisively than I expect. “I’m not ready to go back. Plus, there’s no way I’m getting on a plane.”