Gayle Forman - Just One Year

AUGUST

Paris

Its the dream I always have: Im on a plane, high above the clouds. The plane starts to descend, and I have this sudden panic because I just know that Im on the wrong plane, am traveling to the wrong place. Its never clear where Im landingin a war zone, in the midst of an epidemic, in the wrong centuryonly that its somewhere I shouldnt be. Sometimes I try to ask the person next to me where we are going, but I can never quite see a face, can never quite hear an answer. I wake in a disoriented sweat to the sound of the landing gear dropping, to the echo of my heart beating. It usually takes me a few moments to find my bearings, to locate where it is I aman apartment in Prague, a hostel in Cairobut even once thats been established, the sense of being lost lingers.

I think Im having the dream now. Just as always, I lift the shade to peer at the clouds. I feel the hydraulic lurch of the engines, the thrust downward, the pressure in my ears, the ignition of panic. I turn to the faceless person next to meonly this time I get the feeling its not a stranger. Its someone I know. Someone Im traveling with. And that fills me with such intense relief. We cant both have gotten on the wrong plane.

Do you know where were going? I ask. I lean closer. Im just about there, just about to see a face, just about to get an answer, just about to find out where it is Im going

And then I hear sirens.

I first noticed the sirens in Dubrovnik. I was traveling with a guy Id met in Albania, when we heard a siren go by. It sounded like the kind they have in American action movies, and the guy I was traveling with commented on how each country had its own siren sound. Its helpful because if you forget where you are, you can always close your eyes, let the sirens tell you, he told me. Id been gone a year by then, and it had taken me a few minutes to summon the sound of the sirens at home. They were musical almost, a down-up-down-up la, la, la, la, like someone absentmindedly, but cheerfully, humming.

Thats not what this siren is. It is monotonous, a nyeah-nyeah, nyeah-nyeah, like the bleating of electric sheep. It doesnt become louder or fainter as it comes closer or gets farther away; its just a wall of wailing. Much as I try, I cannot locate this siren, have no idea where I am.

I only know that I am not home.

I open my eyes. There is bright light everywhere, from overhead, but also from my own eyes: tiny pinprick explosions that hurt like hell. I close my eyes.

Kai. The guy I traveled with from Tirana to Dubrovnik was called Kai. We drank weak Croatian pilsner on the ramparts of the city and then laughed as we pissed into the Adriatic. His name was Kai. He was from Finland.

The sirens blare. I still dont know where I am.

The sirens stop. I hear a door opening, I feel water on my skin. A shifting of my body. I sense it is better to keep my eyes closed. None of this is anything I want to witness.

But then my eyes are forced open, and theres another light, harsh and painful, like the time I spent too long looking at a solar eclipse. Saba warned me not to, but some things are impossible to tear yourself away from. After, I had a headache for hours. Eclipse migraine. Thats what they called it on the news. Lots of people got them from staring at the sun. I know that, too. But I still dont know where I am.

There are voices now, as if echoing out from a tunnel. I can hear them, but I cannot make out what theyre saying.

Comment vous appelez-vous? someone asks in a language I know is not mine but that I somehow understand. What is your name?

Can you tell us your name? The question again in another language, also not my own.

Willem de Ruiter. This time its my voice. My name.

Good. It is a mans voice. It switches back to the other language. French. It says that I got my own name right, and I wonder how it is he knows this. For a second I think it is Bram speaking, but even as muddled as I am, I realize this is not possible. Bram never did learn French.

Willem, we are going to sit you up now.

The back of my bedI think Im on a bedtilts forward. I try to open my eyes again. Everything is blurry, but I can make out bright lights overhead, scuffed walls, a metal table.

Willem, you are in the hospital, the man says.

Yes, I was just sussing that part out. It would also explain my shirt being covered in blood, if not the shirt itself, which is not mine. It is gray and says SOS in red lettering. What does SOS mean? Whose shirt is this? And whose blood is on it?

I look around. I see the mana doctor?in the lab coat, the nurse next to him, holding out an ice compress for me to take. I touch my cheek. The skin is hot and swollen. My finger comes away with more blood. That answers one question.

You are in Paris, the doctor says. Do you know where Paris is?

I am eating tagine at a Moroccan restaurant in Montorgueil with Yael and Bram. I am passing the hat after a performance with the German acrobats in Montmartre. I am thrashing, sweaty, at a Mollier Than Molly show at Divan du Monde with Cline. And Im running, running through the Barbs market, a girls hand in mine.

Which girl?

In France, I manage to answer. My tongue feels thick as a wool sock.

Can you remember what happened? the doctor asks.

I hear boots and taste blood. There is a pool of it in my mouth. I dont know what to do with it, so I swallow.

It appears you were in a fight, the doctor continues. You will need to make a report to the police. But first you will need sutures for your face, and we must take a scan of your head to make sure there is no subdural hematoma. Are you on holiday here?

Black hair. Soft breath. A gnawing feeling that Ive misplaced something valuable. I pat my pocket.

My things? I ask.

They found your bag and its contents scattered at the scene. Your passport was still inside. So was your wallet.

He hands it to me. I look at the billfold. There are more than a hundred euros inside, though I seem to recall having a lot more. My identity card is missing.

We also found this. He shows me a small black book. There is still quite a bit of money in your wallet, no? It doesnt suggest a robbery, unless you fought off your attackers. He frowns, I assume at the apparent foolishness of this maneuver.

Did I do that? A low fog sits overhead, like the mist coming off the canals in the morning that I used to watch and will to burn off. I was always cold. Yael said it was because though I looked Dutch, her Mediterranean blood was swimming in me. I remember that, remember the scratchy wool blanket I would wrap myself in to stay warm. And though I now know where I am, I dont know why Im here. Im not supposed to be in Paris. Im supposed to be in Holland. Maybe that explains that niggling feeling.

Burn off. Burn off, I will the fog. But it is as stubborn as the Dutch fog. Or maybe my will is as weak as the winter sun. Either way, it doesnt burn off.

Do you know the date? the doctor asks.

I try to think, but dates float by like leaves in a gutter. But this is nothing new. I know that I never know the date. I dont need to. I shake my head.