THE DOORBELL RANG OVERHEAD AS JULIAN OPENED Quatrang’s door. Devi came out from the back, wiping his hands. “Look who’s finally here,” he said. “Would you like some lunch?”
“No,” Julian said. “I’m not staying. I came to ask you a question.”
Devi put down the dishtowel and stood small and straight by the counter.
“Are you telling me the truth?” Julian said. “Is there really no way to go back?”
“There is really no way to go back.”
“Then why did I dream of her again?”
“I don’t know,” Devi said. “Grief?”
“No.”
“Take a walk around London, Julian.”
“I would but—” Julian waved his umbrella that doubled as a walking stick.
“You should’ve been more attentive when it was easier,” Devi said. “You’ve been walking, but you haven’t seen. Otherwise you might’ve learned something.”
“Do I look to you as if I haven’t learned enough?”
“Every soul out there is dreaming and searching for something they loved and lost,” Devi said. “Every one of them is seeking the unattainable thing. On the streets of London is the answer to why you dream. It’s the human condition. Watch the men and women when they’re by themselves. They’re all searching. For faded beauty, for old love, for a new career, for warmer climes, for health, for their dead mothers. For their lost s-sons.” Devi’s voice almost didn’t stammer. “We’re all like you.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Of course not. You refuse to get it. Everyone sees the faces they love in their dreams!” Devi rocked backward, unsteady on his feet. “But you had the real thing. You had it. I told you what it would cost you. And now you’re upset you had to pay the price? Looking for another miracle, are you? Well, I’m all out, Julian.”
“You call what you gave me a miracle?” Julian said through his teeth.
“Oh, you ingrate,” the Hmong cook said, his own teeth clenched. “Do you know what I would give to see my son again?” Devi’s stiff hands gripped the counter. “Everything. I would give everything I had, everything I would ever have, every single thing under the sun, and everything else in the universe. Ashton was right about me. If the devil had asked me for your soul in return for my boy, I would’ve betrayed you like that.” Devi snapped his fingers. “I would’ve handed you over.”
“You did hand me over.”
“Then I was duped because I got nothing in return.”
Julian’s heart was black as it flew over emptiness.
Nothing was stronger than death.
Not even him.
Not even her.
And while he was busy feeling sorry for himself, time carried the marrow of his life away.
He was quiet. Great Eastern Road was quiet.
“You destroyed my life,” Julian said. “Yes, I was a husk before I met you, but you ruined me for good.” His shoulders quaked. Without saying another word, he turned around, took his umbrella, and limped out of Quatrang, the doorbell ringing behind him.
Devi followed Julian down the street.
“Julian, please come back. Let me help you.”
“You can’t help me. You said so yourself.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. You’ve made sure of that.”
“You’re not being fair. You have been too long with your pain, and it has brought corruption to your life. Come back. Let me heal you.”
“No. You’re all out. And I’m out, too. As Kiritopa told me, I’m bowed in the middle where everything that gave me life used to be.” Julian continued down the street, leaning on his umbrella. “Soon I’ll fall to the ground.”
“Please, Julian.”
“Leave me alone, Devi.” Let me fall.
Julian ended the lease on his Notting Hill apartment and sold or gave away most of his things. He kept a few clothes, a photo of him and Ashton, the Bob Marley poster, Josephine’s books, his old multi-tool, his journals, and the loose, chipped-off shards of what was left of Mia’s crystal in a small glass jar. Basically he took what was on top of his nightstand. The 37th gold coin that he had brought back with him years earlier from the Great Fire he returned to Ava. She shook her head, but he insisted. It was never his to begin with.
He turned off his cell service, threw away his phone, and left no forwarding mailing address. He moved to Greenwich, where he found a room for rent above the Junk Shop on the High Road, a full circle from Mrs. Pallaver’s on Hermit Street all those years ago, another tiny space with a twin bed.
Every single day without fail from October to the end of February, Julian had lunch at the Rose and Crown, where the barkeep would ask him what he was having today, and then hobbled through the park up the steep hill to the Royal Observatory and stood at the black Transit Circle with the crystal shards in his palm, waiting for the midday sun to give him a sign.
Every day Julian waited for the portal below to open to him again.
And every day it did not, as if it had never opened, as if it didn’t exist.