RED 2: A Trick of Mirrors [#Wattys2017]

43. Soul Contracts

"Where are we going?" the woman asked.

"Where do you wanna go?"

"I don't know."

"Then let's have an ice cream."

She eyed him incredulously without slowing down. She looked at her wet skirt and sandals covered in sand, glanced at Marco's sneakers and the cuffs of his pants in no better condition, and shook her head.

"We can't go inside an ice cream parlor dressed like this."

"What importance can appearances have in the face of death?"

Stepping onto Ocean Drive, the two brushed the sand from their clothes and shoes. Their destination was an ice cream parlor at the end of the street, a compact establishment with white ceramic floors and Formica tables. While she left to wash her face, Marco placed an order at the counter exuding the odorous colors of childhood—electric blue, apple-green, succulent orange, the sentimental red of cherries dozing in translucent honey. Outside, the sun shone in yellow and the world was about to collapse.

Marco waited for the woman at one of the tables and, suddenly famished, attacked his sundae starting with the cherry. After a few minutes she came back with her makeup retouched, hair combed, the skirt and sandals still damp but clean. The woman took the seat opposite to him, venturing a smile.

"What's your name?"

"Marco."

"Thank you, Marco."

She didn't clarify if she thanked him for the ice cream or for preventing her from accomplishing her intent. Initially she stirred her sundae in a perfunctory fashion but gave in to Marco's insistence and ate with increasing gusto.

"Feeling better?" Marco asked when she finished.

The woman nodded and stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. Scrutinizing her, Marco guessed she must be around his age, maybe a few years older.

"You know my name and I still don't know yours."

"Judith."

"Why, Judith?"

She averted her gaze to the window with a nervous giggle.

"That was nonsense." She looked agitated and reached for her purse hanging from the backrest of the chair. "I need to go back to the hotel."

But he retained her with a firm gesture.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

Releasing the strap of her purse, she straightened up and sighed.

"I lost everything. I wanted to at least die in a sunny place."

"How about living in a sunny place? All that is lost can be rebuilt one way or another."

Judith disagreed vehemently, spitting her reply with such bitterness that for a moment it contaminated the beauty of her face.

"I lost faith in life and, without it, it's impossible to rebuild anything. I don't have dreams anymore, my future is now. An eternal now, a vegetative state, a burden. To live for the sake of living. What's the point to this waste? I'm already dead inside."

She was from Holland and her only family had been a younger brother and her husband Bert. The previous year the brother had succumbed to a seven-year battle against cancer. Judith quit her job to take care of him, encouraged by her husband. Months after she lost her brother, Bert left her for a younger woman, defenestrating a decade-long marriage. They didn't have children because they waited for the right moment and it never came.