Gajarajan laughed. “Yes, he’s very nervous. He loves you very much.”
It seems strange to me, that I can love you too when in a way I’ve never met you. But I do. I feel it as surely as I know myself. I tried to imagine both of us together again, doing a thing I can now remember that we had done, but something was off. I could see you there in my mind, dressed in a tuxedo at Paul and Imanuel’s wedding, but not myself.
“Max?” Gajarajan said softly.
I smiled as calmly as I could. “I’m ready.”
Gajarajan disappeared. Breathe, Max, I said to myself. Max, Max, Max.
Then from the other side, the door opened.
A MAN WITH BEAUTIFUL DARK EYES AND BLACK HAIR WAS seated at the only table in the room, staring at the tape recorder in the center. As the door swung open, he jerked upright. Our gazes met, and he gasped, the upward movement of his body out of the chair stopped short.
“Ory,” I said. It was you. I knew it beyond doubt. I could finally see you again, all of you, instead of simply remembering. Everything was happening so fast. You were the man from the tapes. My husband. The man I had loved, and loved now. The man who knew all my memories, too. Ory.
But you did not say Max in return.
“You,” you whispered in shock, and I realized then that something was wrong. There was no joy in the tone of that word. Only horror.
Then you called me by another name.
Ursula.
Part V
M
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I’VE LEARNED SINCE LEAVING the sanctuary is that people’s original shadows look just like them.
I didn’t know it was strange that mine didn’t resemble me perfectly. The only other shadow I’d ever seen before I left the second great hall was Gajarajan’s, and it didn’t look human at all, even though he said that his body was. I didn’t even know to notice whether your own matched you or not, Ory, in the moment that I met you again.
At first it was hard for me to understand why you had flinched so violently when you finally saw mine, after all the shouting and confusion passed—why out of the whole terrible accident, that had finally been the thing that made you fall to your knees and wail.
Now I understand, though. Mine doesn’t look like me because it looks like Max. Because it’s made of her memories.
“How is it?” Malik asked from above.
I stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. In front of me, the gigantic face of an elephant painted all in black loomed. The ears and tusks were wide, the trunk held up, like an inviting hand. The eyes were two pristine white diamonds, narrowed in thoughtful consideration. “It looks good,” I said at last, nodding. “It looks very good.”
“Now I just have to do it to the other side, and then again on the other two carriages.” He sighed.
“Be glad Gajarajan’s an elephant, and not a porcupine. You’d be painting for a week,” I said as lightly as I could, but I was still looking at the huge dark shape glistening on the side of the old Iowan wagon. At Malik, holding a wide bristle brush in his hand, painting the side of a vehicle. It was like watching echoes.
“Hey,” he said. I looked up. His concern that the similarity might have dredged up painful memories was clear across his face.
I smiled to allay his fear before he could ask. It was all right. It really was. It wasn’t an unfortunate coincidence—I had been the one who had given Malik the idea to paint the carriage. “You finish this one, and I’ll start on the second,” I offered, picking up his spare brush. He handed me the jar of paint, and I dipped the thick bristles into the dark liquid and stirred slowly, watching it swirl like tar. I had no memories of painting—there was nothing on the recorder that said I’d done it myself—but I’d watched Malik closely as he’d worked. It seemed easy enough.
Wherever we had finally lost the RV, I hoped it was still in one piece. Zachary wouldn’t know the difference, because a painting didn’t know if it was whole or damaged the way a human did, but I hoped anyway that he was still untouched, immortalized perfectly across the side of the vehicle, as vibrant and ornate as the moment he became it. I hoped other shadowless would see it as they passed, and he would point the way for them, too.
As Malik and I waited for both carriages to dry, we sat on the grass, splitting an apple between us that the head volunteer at the communal garden had given him earlier. He finished his half in two bites, but I ate much more slowly, savoring the crisp sweetness. Partway through, I realized he was watching me.
“Is there anything you need help with?” he asked. “I mean, I know there’s nothing I can do that will ever—help with the big thing.”
There’s nothing I can do that will ever help Ory see you as Max is what he meant. Sometimes it almost feels like you’re the one who lost your memory, not me.
I tried to shrug nonchalantly. There was nothing I could do either that would ever help you see me as Max. No one can help you—except you.