WHEN MY MIND AWAKES, THE HOUSE IS QUIET. I sweep through the floors, see who’s around, and stop when I see Vincent alone in his room. He’s stretched out on the floor throwing chunks of bread into the fire and watching them spark. An untouched tray of food sits in front of him. He must have skipped dinner, if Jeanne brought him room service.
What’s up? I ask, knowing the answer has something to do with her.
“Jules. You’re back. That Métro crash looked pretty painful. I hope you get extra bonus points for it.” His voice is mournful. I know he’s glad to “see” me, but something’s definitely wrong.
I stay silent and finally he says, “Kate says she never wants to see me again.” He crushes a piece of bread into a tiny ball before jettisoning it into the flames. “She thought something was wrong with me since I didn’t seem upset about you dying.”
A completely normal reaction, seeing she is human and we are immortal, I reply.
“But Jules,” he says, rolling over onto his back and staring at the ceiling. “She’s different from anyone else I’ve ever met. I haven’t felt this for a girl since Hél—”
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I say, cutting him off. You have officially entered the danger zone. You should be thanking your lucky stars that Kate dumped you. What if she had fallen for you, and you had to reject her? That would be rough, man. Rule number one with the babes is don’t ever hurt them. Make them think it’s they who broke up with you. And in your case, that has actually happened. Saves you from having to be an asshole later on.
“But what if there was a way,” he begins, ripping crumbs off the mangled baguette in his hand.
There is no way, I say. Okay, there are rare examples you hear about from time to time at a convocation. A handful of stories from way back when. But man, who would want that? They grow old while you stay young? It’s not natural.
“We’re not natural,” Vincent says in a dead voice.
I ignore him and continue. Plus Jean-Baptiste has forbidden it for the French kindred. You’re only his second: Until you take his place, he’s the boss.
Vincent doesn’t say anything after that, but I know I haven’t changed his mind. For the next couple of weeks he skulks around, a ball of nerves, watching Kate from afar. Never going close enough for her to catch sight of him, and being careful around the rest of us to look like he’s not stalking her. But I can tell he’s just dying to see her face. And when he catches sight of her at the café or walking home from the Métro station, he looks all tranquil. Like he’s only okay if he knows she’s safe. It’s freaking me out. I have a feeling it’s going to end badly, but there’s nothing more I can say. And in any case, my mind is on other things.
Whenever I die, I’m moody for weeks afterward. Thoughtful. I think about my deaths, run Google searches on those of my rescues who are still alive, see how they’re all are doing. But the most important rescue in any revenant’s life is the very first. The one that turned us from human into bardia. My first save is long gone—he died over half a century ago. But there are vestiges of him in museums around the world, and it comforts me to see the masterpieces he created after I died. Half of Fernand Léger’s oeuvre wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t handed him my gas mask and died in his place.
There is a particular painting of his, The Card Game, that I love to visit, mainly because I’m in it—I admit. But also because it resides just across town at the Musée d’Art Moderne. And since I’m going on a month since reanimation, I make my regular pilgrimage to see it.
The painting depicts a group of soldiers playing cards—soldiers Léger said were from his own battalion. I recognize my pipe, but he made my face look like a robot skeleton. He painted me as an image of death, soon after I died saving his life. The scene takes me back to those endless nights of card playing as we waited for the enemy to shell our trenches. Cards were the only thing that could take our minds off our feeble hold on mortality.
And now death is no longer a concern for me. It is something that I crave. That I welcome. That I need in order to remain immortal. Although Léger was depicting his soldiers as automatons—easily expendable, easily replaced—the metal armor he used to represent our skin seems like a posthumous way of protecting all of us. Of making us less destructible. I know the wars affected Léger deeply, as they did everyone in Europe. But he left visible records of his battle wounds.