Still With Me

“A rabbi? Since when do you care about God? Are you being serious?” the guard asked with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Shit, you crack me up. You’re so unpredictable. What do you want with a priest? And don’t try to tell me you want to confess or something like that.”

“I just have a few questions to ask.”

“Hmm. Okay, if you say so. You’re a strange one. The Jewish priest…He’s here Wednesday morning. I’ll write you in for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? No, I want to see him today,” Jeremy snapped.

“Whoa, Jeremy, calm down. You might be somebody around here, but there are rules, schedules…”

“There’s really no way around it?” Jeremy tried again, more politely.

“No. None.”

Jeremy was desperate. He had to find a religious scholar before nightfall.

“And another rabbi? Can I see some other rabbi today?”

“You’re not scheduled for a visit. Never have been.”

“Can you write me in?” What did he have to lose by asking?

“Of course,” the guard replied. “But…honestly, I don’t get it. I mean, shit, what’s up with you? You’ve always turned down the priest’s visits, and now you can’t wait twenty-four hours? You’re a special case, Jeremy. Very special.”

“It only adds to my charm,” Jeremy replied, letting out a laugh that the guard quickly joined.

With this man on his side, Jeremy was advancing his pawns. “I’d like you to call a rabbi I know and ask him to come.”

“What? Are you kidding? You want me to go pick him up too? Ha! Jeremy, don’t press your luck. I’m not your lackey. With our…association, I’m already doing enough for you.”

“By slipping me copies of Team? That’s how you help me? I’m asking for a real favor.”

Flustered, the guard thought for a moment. “Okay, you have his number?” he asked, resigned.

“No. Call the synagogue on Pavée Street in the fourth arrondissement and ask for the rabbi’s secretary. I don’t know his name. Tell him I’m the man who came to see him on May 8, 2012. The one taken away by the police. Tell him I want to see him today, that I need to speak with him. That it’s urgent.”

The rabbi’s assistant might not work there anymore, but Jeremy had to try—follow his intuition, play his last card.

“That’s all the information you have? Okay, I’ll see what I can do. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because it didn’t work.”

After the guard left, Jeremy paced his cell. Thirty-seven. I’m thirty-seven years old. He repeated this over and over again to make it real.

He rubbed his cheeks, the corners of his eyes, thinking he could almost feel a new tenderness to his skin. Then he touched his chest, lifted his T-shirt, and discovered shapes he didn’t recognize: a slight bulge of the abdomen, a roundness to his hips. For the first time, he was aware of aging. And yet he felt like he had just turned twenty a few days earlier.

Jeremy opened the small closet next to his bed. It only took a few seconds to inspect its meager contents: a few pieces of clothing, liquid soap, a pair of shoes, and two sports magazines. He looked for a connection to the outside world, the past, the present. He had started to grow accustomed to these little hunts in search of lost meaning. In the pocket of a jacket hanging from the door, he found three letters. The most recent was dated March 12, 2017. He noted, first with annoyance, that none were from Victoria. Then he rejoiced; his plan had worked. She had distanced herself from him, doing what was best for her. The three letters were from Clotilde. Clotilde, whom he didn’t know. Clotilde, whom he didn’t love. Victoria’s friend. His best friend’s wife. And Jeremy’s mistress.

Jeremy,

I decided to write after thinking a lot about what happened. The way you behaved on your birthday…I was really upset. You weren’t yourself. Or anyway, not the person I know and love. I realized that when they told me you confessed to dealing drugs. Why did you do that? What were those drugs doing in your apartment? Pierre, on the other hand, was less surprised when he heard you were arrested. He thought it was the “inevitable end to your long descent.” He’s still nostalgic for the friend you were and that he lost.

He worries a lot about Victoria. She’s a little lost. Your incarceration destroyed her. She says the one who tried to find her on that infamous May 8, 2012, was in fact the Jeremy she loved. That he confessed so she could get away. It’s all so strange. I love the man she hates. She loves the amnesiac with a guilty conscience. A pure and true sort of man who shines through for a few hours once a decade and pierces the veil of his twisted personality. For me, if you are sick, it’s when you play the distraught lover who’s capable of turning on himself.

I don’t know how you’ll approach the trial. Pierre says it’ll be impossible to plead insanity. When they had you committed, you always argued against it. You had plenty of evidence to prove your mental health. Victoria will use it against you.

It’ll be a strange trial where each of the parties involved defends the opposite position from the one they held during commitment proceedings.