Stranger

RAJIV RAMKHALAWAN

On the morning of Charlotte’s thirty-fi fth birthday, John conceded that his wife was an imposter. He suspected that his Charlotte must have only recently been replaced by this Charlotte, since up to a few weeks ago his wife continued to conclude their kisses with her signature whisk of the tongue along John’s upper lip. But last week, defi nitely, and the week before, quite probably, the kisses were vapid and dry, quite pathetic as far as kisses went.

His Charlotte was a natural lover. This simply could not be her.

It was not just the kisses that gave her away obviously, though the kisses seemed to confi rm John’s suspicions.

The slip up, as it almost always is, lies in the minutiae.

John had asked Charlotte one afternoon, whether he should wear a blue shirt or a grey shirt to Wendy’s engagement party that night. John was testing her. You see, Charlotte bitterly despised the colour grey for reasons unbeknownst to John. As such, she, and by extension, John, did not possess any article of grey clothing in their wardrobe. No grey trousers. No grey dresses. No grey socks. And especially, no grey shirts.

So, from onset of the conversation, the subject of the grey shirt was a complete fi ction. One that his Charlotte would have easily fi gured out. But this Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed and coolly informed John that she thought that the grey shirt would make him look distinguished in comparison to a shirt colour that would quite likely be worn by half the other men at the party.

Even without testing this Charlotte, there were chinks in her armour. Ah, that good old minutiae. If you follow it long and far enough, really study the small shifts, the hairline cracks, you might well discover things you wished and hoped you’d never see. But such is the great big lie of life. We are all only who we are in any given moment. Not unlike Chameleons, constantly morphing to suit their environments, in order to adapt and survive.

A few days prior to the shirt incident, Charlotte began to message the back of John’s head while they sat and watched a re-run of I love Lucy on a springy loveseat in their living room. It was the only piece of furniture in the room, unless you counted the two fl oor lamps that stood like tired guards on either side of the loveseat. When she came across the marble-sized bump just below John’s lambda, she did not pet and kiss the slight protrusion as his Charlotte would do. Rather, this Charlotte suddenly stopped massaging and enquired how he’d gotten the bump in the fi rst place. Initially, John thought that she was joking, but upon realizing that she clearly was not, his hands began to shake. Not ready to proceed down a rabbit hole right then and there, he successfully changed the subject of conversation, all while his hands remained trembling.

The revelation that this imposter resembled and imitated Charlotte terrifi ed John. Just yesterday evening he resisted the urge to fi nally confront her as he did not want them to get into a silent war on the eve of his Charlotte’s birthday.

As a married man he had picked up little tricks here and there regarding the ever so fl uctuating temperament of a woman. He knew very well that this was not the time to go about accusing one’s wife of not being one’s wife. Further, this conversation could not be had at the end of a long day, you’d never be able to sleep, and certainly it was not for discussion the day before her big day. No, that would spell obvious disaster.

So, he woke at half past four in the morning the next day and proceeded to do the exact things as he had done on each of her last seven birthdays. Beauty in a marriage is often times not about the pledge as it is about consistency. Consistency is doing, it is love, too.

John committed himself to making Charlotte’s favourite breakfast ever year on this day.

Smoked salmon eggs benedict. He made this on no other day of the year, except for those celebratory occasions, which did not come often, but still presented themselves at times, nonetheless.

John prepared it the way Charlotte’s grandmother used to make it for her, with mascarpone and shavings of black and white truffl es worked into the hollandaise. Rich and delightful, the way birthdays were meant to be.

John would set the table with fresh linens, china and silverware and by the time he was fi nished, usually at around six, Charlotte would appear from their room, always feigning drowsiness but boiling with excitement. She would kiss him three or four times, their moniker kiss, no less, and they would eat breakfast, before fi nally retiring to bed to perform indulgent acts which, if you saw, you would only think could be performed by stage acrobats of the highest order.

In the afternoon, John would pull out of bed and coax Charlotte into the kitchen in order to reveal the most beautiful four-inch sponge cake she’d ever seen.

Always the same cake, always the same size; his gift, not her grandmother’s. Once, John told Charlotte that he could make her a much more sophisticated cake but realized that simplicity had its own joy that grandeur could never understand.

Charlotte would spill a tear or two when she tasted the cake and John would ask her whether the sponge was too dry. Charlotte would always say that it was perfect, the way John was perfect, the way their lives were perfect.

When this Charlotte walked out of the darkness today, John hugged her and wished her happy birthday.

“The eggs are getting cold, have a bite, Char.”

He offered her a fork and stared pensively as she sliced into the leaky eggs, pistachio crusted spinach (his twist), and soft butterbiscuit before drawing the fork to her mouth.

“They’re fantastic, baby. I can taste the truffl es.” “So, just the way your father makes them?” Another test. “Yes, of course. Like my father.”

A few weeks after imposter Charlotte’s thirty-fi fth birthday, John thought, if this Charlotte was indeed an imposter, then maybe she might have killed his Charlotte. Petrifi ed by the mere thought, he tried not to ponder much on this possibility as he hoped that his Charlotte would return to him somehow, and that they would be left to go about with their lives.

But what if his Charlotte was out there somewhere, he thought, one night while sleeping next to imposter Charlotte. What if she was chained by the foot and locked in some dodgy slaughterhouse? What if his Charlotte was out there waiting on him to come rescue her? His

Charlotte would know, John thought, she would know that he would figure this stranger out and eventually come find her.

He looked at imposter Charlotte with disgust. She slept quietly on her side, hands and legs crunched in a fetal position. His Charlotte was a chronic snorer and always slept on her back, with hands splayed outwards, much like Christ on a crucifix.

“Char, Char, wake up!” “What. What is it?” she stirred. “I’m sleeping, babe.”

“Just answer. If you killed somebody and had to hide the body, where would you put it?”

Imposter Charlotte sighed and turned to the other side. “Go back to bed. You’re crazy. It’s two in the morning.” “No. No. I’m fine. Just answer the question.”

“I don’t know. What kind of question is that, John? Probably at the bottom of the deep freezer in our restaurant. I don’t know. Can we go back to bed now, please?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The next day John emptied the contents of the deep freezer at the restaurant while Charlotte was out sourcing produce at the market.

He found no body.

Days after the freezer incident, imposter Charlotte ran into the kitchen screaming so loudly that John almost burnt himself. She had somehow managed to get the Prime Minister to agree to dine at the restaurant with the rest of his cabinet.

“Wait, the Prime Minister?” John repeated. “Yes, the Prime Minister!”

A lot had changed since Charlotte and John squashed their life into two medium-sized suitcases and left New York for good, three years ago. John had been struggling as a “sous-chef” at a hole in the wall diner on Canal Street despite having saved up and attained a diploma from one of New York’s top culinary institutes. With over twenty thousand restaurants in the City and more than enough Chefs to go around twice, you had little choice but to take whatever came your way until better came along.

Better came along in the form of a dead uncle from Trinidad who left John a wilting two-storey building in the middle of Port of Spain. It was a dilapidated monster of brick and mortar, but it was still prime property. The two mulled it over for months and finally decided to take the plunge when Charlotte’s mother died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving her with no real ties to the United States.

In later years, they would often joke about the fact that it took them two deaths to make it to the island. A joke which John would later come to realise was clearly a bad omen.

At first Charlotte hated Trinidad. She would quite often complain to John about the island’s perpetual stickiness. She would beg him to accompany her to the market every weekend to mitigate against the unkind faces of the locals; faces which bore curious stares and phony smiles, enough to almost burn into her pale skin.

But in a strange twist, it was Charlotte who provided John with the courage to keep going despite a dwindling savings account and a building that required more restoration works than first anticipated. It was Charlotte who told John one Saturday morning that she was

fine going to the market all by herself now; that she had come to know the produce vendors on a first name basis and that Trinidad, for all its fiendish mosquitoes and never-ending heat, was not so bad after all. And, it was Charlotte who told John to leave his Ray-Ban sunglasses at home and to really take in the natural beauty of the beaches when they visited Tobago that one time.

So, when imposter Charlotte seemed strangely enthusiastic about the Prime Minister dining at the restaurant, John knew that she had upped her game. This was certainly something that his Charlotte would have done.

Deciding to wait until after the dinner to confront Charlotte, John obsessed for days about creating the perfect menu for his guests while imposter Charlotte arranged with a local newspaper to carry a piece about the visit.

On the morning of the dinner, he and imposter Charlotte got to the restaurant at 5:30, three hours before any of the other employees would start to filter in. Besides the amuse bouche, John had been having trouble settling on a menu and decided to leave everything for the day itself. He figured if carbons could form diamonds under extreme pressures, he could produce culinary magic in similar circumstances.

He called imposter Charlotte from the kitchen to seek out her opinion on a fish dish he had in mind for one of the starters. When she didn’t answer, he yelled her name, but she didn’t respond.

Somewhat agitated, John walked into the dining room, only to observe imposter Charlotte on a step ladder changing the satin drapes, oblivious to his presence.

“What’s going on? What’s with the drapes?”

“Oh, hi, babe. Wendy told me that Lucy told her that the Prime Minister liked the colour grey. So voila, grey drapes instead of the olive-green ones. Like ‘em?” “You hate grey! You would never buy anything grey, even for the fuckin’ Prime Minister.” John yelled. “Who the hell are you? Where is Charlotte? Where the hell is Charlotte.” “Oh dear, I know that you are on your absolute ends with this dinner—”

“No, I am not. You-you’re a fraud. You think I don’t know? You are not my fuckin’ wife!”

“John, what are you talking about? Goddamit. I am right here!” “No, no, no.”

Annoyed and grated by her lies, John raced up to the imposter and kicked the step ladder with tremendous force. In the moment, he didn’t know if he acted out of frustration, or anger, or whether it was just one of those things where one acted without really thinking of one’s actions. But none of that mattered, as Charlotte, his or otherwise, fell off the step ladder and landed rather clumsily on the porcelain tiles.

Out of sheer embarrassment for his actions, John told the staff that Charlotte was ill the day she fell off the step ladder. He cancelled the dinner and never rebooked a date. He closed the restaurant until further notice and told the staff that he could not operate it until Charlotte felt better.

A few weeks after the incident, Charlotte, who was now staying in a bed and breakfast outside of Port of Spain, called John and implored him to see a doctor as his behaviour did not add up. Contrite and apologetic, John agreed.

The doctor informed John that he wanted an opinion from a colleague—a specialist, a psychiatrist.

“So, you’re saying that I’m mad? Is that what you’re saying, doc? Let me tell you, I ain’t no mad.”

“No, John. I’m not saying that. It’s just an evaluation at this time, that’s all.”

John contemplated asking Charlotte to accompany him to the consultation with the psychiatrist, but ultimately decided against it, fearing something might really be wrong with him.

Dr. Williams, a pleasant enough old man, started off by asking John an assortment of questions ranging from the quality of his sex life, to details of family histories with mental illnesses, to instances of drug and/or alcohol abuse, and to finally, whether he’s been treated for any head trauma in his life.

“Nah, doc,” John said. “Nothing like that. Well wait, as you say it, when I was in my teens, way before I went to New York, I used to work in a kitchen in Barataria. There was a time that I climbed onto old bench, trying to pull down a pot that was packed away high on a shelf. We had a big order coming up and we needed a big pot, you see. I spotted the pot and as I went to grab it, the bench broke and I fell and hit my head. I still have a bump from all that. You want to feel it? Go ahead, but I am not mad, doc.”

Dr. Williams felt the bump and ordered an MRI.

John stayed in isolation for a few days before reaching out to Charlotte. There were long passages of silence on the phone as they navigated the events of the recent past. John cried at times, especially those when Charlotte’s voice broke and she did not utter a word for what felt like minutes.

On the day of the results, Charlotte showed up, despite having previously stated that she did not think it was a good idea. She squeezed John’s hand and hugged him before they went into Dr. Williams’s office.

The hug meant everything to John.

Dr. Williams started off by telling them to listen carefully to what he had to say and that both John and Charlotte were free to ask him anything after. John gripped Charlotte’s hands and nodded for Dr. Williams to continue.

The doctor said that John had several cerebral lesions to the back of the right hemisphere of his brain, likely caused by the fall. He went on to add that this fall likely contributed to John seeing Charlotte as an imposter. He concluded that nothing was definitive, and that further tests and assessments were required before he could properly diagnose John.

“You’re saying, I’m really crazy?” “No John, I’m saying you definitely require medical treatment.” Charlotte reached over and hugged John and did not stop.

A month later, Charlotte came over to their apartment in West Moorings. They sat in the kitchen. The same kitchen he made the eggs benedict and sponge cake. Though they spoke on the phone daily, they sat in eerie silence. This was not them. They were strangers.

“How are you, Char,” John whispered. “I’m okay,” Charlotte said. “Are you taking your medication?”

“I trying to,” John said, pointing to several translucent cylindrical containers on top of the microwave.

“Look John, I’m going back to New York. I can’t stay here any longer. Let’s get you checked out there, please. I spoke to Marty’s cousin, the one who’s a doctor. You remember her, right? She says that, this thing they are saying it is, Capgras Syndrome, it’s very poorly studied. I mean if they haven’t studied it much up there…I’m doubtful they have here.”

“I’m ashamed, Char. I really thought you were not you. I’m not going. I can’t risk…hurting you again.”

“She said that once you are on your meds, there is a better than good chance you will be okay. But they need to see you, of course. So, give me a call soon and we can sort this through.”

Charlotte stood to leave.

“But, what about…the restaurant? I can’t start over again. I can’t do that…not after all this. I’m no one in New York City. I’m just a loser immigrant like those other three million people.”

“You’ve done spectacular here, babe. But, we both know that New York is where you’re gonna get the care you need. Just trust me. I can organize an agent to put the building up for sale and we can use the money to buy something in—”

“Char, listen to me, listen to me. I’m hearing from well-respected sources that the people from Michelin are coming. They’re coming. First in the Caribbean. We just need to wait a little longer. If I can get a star under my belt, I can go back and—”

“You’re not thinking straight! What is more important, staying here for another minute and being consumed by this…this…madness or starting again with me?”

Silence.

John stared blankly at Charlotte as she picked up her grey purse from the table and began for the door.

He kept staring at the purse. Still grey.

Rajiv Ramkhalawan is an Attorney-at-Law and emerging writer from Trinidad. His works are forthcoming or have appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, The Caribbean Writer, and Modern Literature. Rajiv has slowly come to the realization that it is only a matter of time before he finally decides to answer a decade-long knock somewhere in his brain to write a novel. Outside of law and fiction, Rajiv is enjoying the amazing and unpredictable experience of being a husband and a father.