Soul

Julia started along her favourite track. It snaked through the hills in lazy bends and sharp corners, passing small ravines and twisted trees set low in the natural scrubland. As she climbed higher, the groups of strolling families disappeared and soon only the dedicated walkers and joggers accompanied her. The air grew cooler and the sound of the city fell away. Breathing hard, she paused, resting her hands on her knees. Below stretched downtown Los Angeles, the last of the afternoon sun bouncing off the skyscrapers like a running seam of quicksilver, an afternoon mist beginning to taint the air with a soft green.

The mechanical croaking of frogs radiated from a pond beneath a wooden bridge. Julia squatted and stared at the miniature ecosystem. It was little more than a glorified puddle, the brown water tangled with weeds, a Coke can half buried to one side, forming an exotic jetty. A microcosm that seemed entirely separate from the world above. Watching the progress of a tiny emerald beetle that was balanced precariously on the can, Julia lost herself. Then, as she stood, she remembered this was the very place she’d stopped to catch her breath six months earlier with Klaus.

They’d paused to look out over the city; the endless panorama had seemed like an optimistic metaphor for their future. She’d leaned against his chest feeling profoundly content, the scent of him faint against the smell of eucalyptus. The distant car hoots and city rumble drifted up like forgotten smoke.

‘Enjoy the view, darling. Life’s about to get very busy,’ she’d said, referring to her looming trip to the Middle East and Klaus’s latest writing commission. But Klaus had remained silent, and when she looked at him she’d seen that he was absolutely distanced from her, his gaze searching the view below. In that moment she’d had the uncomfortable impression that he was looking for all the possibilities that had eluded him—romantic or otherwise.

Now she realised his behaviour was probably an indication of discontent, one of the signs Gabriel had mentioned.

Winston Ramirez’s voice sounded in her mind, as if bubbling up from the mud, from the noise her walking shoes made as they hit the ground: one foot, two foot, three. What you’ve got to understand is the ease of killing if you have that extra capability to put things in a box. This is my killing box. This is my love box, my hate box, my family box. A good soldier doesn’t confuse them. Ever. It’s impersonal. But you know what: if someone wronged me, really wronged me, and it did get personal, I could kill then walk away. It’s that extra capability. You can’t fake that. You’ve either got it or you ain’t.

Julia knew how that kind of killing felt. She’d experienced it in Afghanistan, and she could understand the motivation that might make a person kill again.

After pulling into the driveway, Julia rested her head on the steering wheel, dreading entering the empty house. Crickets and the faint drone of somebody’s lawnmower faded up from the silence. Suddenly there came the slam of a door from somewhere inside the house. Jolting upright, she reached into the glove box and pulled out the wrench she kept there, then climbed out of the car, gripping it tight against her chest.

As she moved tentatively toward the front door, Klaus emerged, holding a cardboard box. He stopped and stared at her.

‘What are you doing here?’ Julia demanded; it had been two and a half months since he left and she was shocked to see him now.

‘I left a box of tools here, sorry. Anyhow, I still own half the house, remember? That investment remains unresolved.’

Julia stepped toward him. ‘Klaus, we had a good marriage.’

‘Don’t.’

‘I still love you.’

‘Please don’t make this any harder.’ He didn’t look at her, but focused somewhere around her forehead, as if he were gazing into the distance. ‘We can’t talk about this now. Not like this.’

‘Then when? You refuse to see me. How can you just annihilate ten years of marriage? Our future, all that we planned for?’

He picked a snail off the garden wall and threw it over to the neighbour’s side. An automatic habit from when they were living together. He’s still territorial, he still cares, Julia thought, grasping at any hope.

‘Everything that needs to be said has been said.’ He still wouldn’t look at her. ‘You needed me to be someone I just wasn’t, Julia, and I went along. I’ve spent more than half my life pleasing women and denying myself.’

Stunned, Julia sat down on the car bonnet, her hand still clasped around the wrench. She didn’t recognise her husband now as he slowly turned purple with rage, all traces of intelligence dissolving from his face. Now he looked at her, jabbing a finger at her accusingly.

‘And you know what else? The only mistake I made was in being too weak to leave you earlier!’

Screaming, Julia lifted the car wrench and lunged towards him, her fury filling her with an extraordinary strength. Klaus’s face immediately stretched into a caricature of fear.

‘You’re fucking crazy!’ He pushed her back down onto a small shrub, the branches scratching and cutting into her back. Kicking him away she swung wildly with the wrench as he ducked, narrowly missing the swinging iron.

‘I’m fucking crazy?’ she yelled. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?!’

Suddenly arms grabbed her from behind. ‘Whoo!’ Gerry, the neighbour, pulled the wrench from Julia’s hand. ‘I was wondering where this got to. You guys borrowed it about five years ago and never gave it back.’

Nobody laughed. A police helicopter circled overhead as it always did at about 6 p.m. The noise of Klaus and Julia gasping for breath merged with the beat of the rotating blades.

Gerry dropped his hands and laughed nervously. ‘Wow! Well, I’m impressed. You guys do great argument.’

Julia, her whole body shaking with grief and rage, lunged for Klaus again. He stumbled back.

‘Enough, Julia, enough!’ Gerry grabbed her.

Ignoring him, she continued trying to reach Klaus. ‘What’s in the box? What are you taking away now?!’

She wheeled around, Gerry still trying to hold her; their struggle resembled a bizarre ballet, except its violence made the choreography frighteningly unpredictable.