"But that doesn't make any sense. Why would they want to kill you? Just for leaving the island?"
"Maybe there's another reason."
"What?"
"To prevent this, what just happened."
"And what's that?"
"My meeting you."
The answer stopped Jude cold, and he spent some time in thinking it through. It didn't make sense. So what if he did have an identical twin brother, and so what if they were separated at birth, either intentionally or through some sort of accident? Why in God's name would anyone take such drastic steps just to keep them apart? On the other hand, why were those guys on the subway following him?
He looked across the table at Skyler, who appeared exhausted. He slid the bottle of scotch to him.
"Here. Try some of this. Maybe it'll buck you up."
Skyler raised the bottle to his lips, took a swig and felt the fiery liquid grab the back of his throat. He sputtered, leapt to his feet, grabbed his neck and ran to the sink, ran the tap and took a long draught of water. He turned, water dripping down his shirt, his eyes wide.
"Jesus Christ," he exclaimed.
Jude could not help himself — he laughed, so hard that he rocked back and forth in the chair, and at that sight Skyler smiled himself and even let loose a chuckle. It sounded for all the world like a chuckle that Jude might make.
"Here, sit down," said Jude, pulling a chair out from the table. "Before we go any further, there's something I've got to do."
Skyler sat in the straight-back wooden chair. Jude rummaged around in a drawer and came up with a large pair of kitchen scissors. He clicked them twice in the air, pulled out a dish towel, and stood behind Skyler, placing the towel around his neck and tucking it into his collar. As he placed one hand upon his shoulder, feeling the thinness of the bone underneath, Jude realized that it was the first time that he had touched him.
The hair came off in great swaths, falling onto the towel and Skyler's shoulders and onto the linoleum in little piles.
"Nothing fancy," Jude said, turning to look at Skyler's face head-on and measuring the sides with a critical appraisal. "We'll get you a real haircut tomorrow. This is just to get you through the night. You can't stay here looking like that. Shit, any neighbors see you, you'd give me a bad name."
With his locks sheared, Skyler looked halfway presentable. He also looked more like Jude — though thinner and more raw-boned. Also, thought Jude, he looks younger than before.
Maybe it was the liquor, but Jude was beginning to feel bound to Skyler. He felt a strange ambivalence. Some moments, he felt protective of him, as if he were a feral boy who needed a kindly human hand. At others, he felt repelled and even angry, as if Skyler was an interloper who had no right to thrust himself into Jude's world — to claim a piece of him, as it were. And he noticed that as his feelings kept flipping back and forth, so too did his perceptions. One moment he would acknowledge the uncanny similarity between the two of them and think they were virtually identical; the next he would reject it and wonder what he was doing feeding and tending a total stranger. He felt as if he were looking at a double-illusion painting, but he could not find a reference point to hold one image steady and he had not the slightest idea which was real and which was fake.
In any case, he had already made a decision that he would help Skyler out of his difficulty, whatever it was. His mind was running ahead to tomorrow. He wondered if he was placing himself in danger and — if it came to that — how big a risk he was prepared to run. He didn't know. How extraordinary. He thought: I've known him for all of an hour, and already on some level I know that he is going to change my life in some significant way — perhaps irrevocably.
"You better get some sleep," he said. "You can take my room. I'll sleep on the couch. I'm not ready for bed right now anyway."
He put a hand on Skyler's shoulder to guide him. They walked through the living room into the bedroom. Jude went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of blue-striped pajamas, and tossed them on the bed. He looked at Skyler's face, already familiar, and read his mind.
"They're called pajamas," he said. "We wear them at night when we sleep. Welcome to the twentieth century."
Jude showed Skyler the bathroom, especially the taps, and thought he would be impressed by hot and cold running water. He did not know that Skyler had stopped listening, that Skyler was no longer paying attention to anything he said.
Skyler's mind was roiling. His pulse was racing, and he was exerting a huge effort simply to try to appear normal, to control his emotions, as if nothing had happened. It was almost impossible for him to do.
For he had just seen something that had turned his world upside down. When he had stepped into the bedroom behind Jude, his gaze had taken in the bureau drawers, the pine shelves crammed with books, the large bed. And then it had fallen upon a bedside table and something that was on top of the table.
"Good night," said Jude.
And Skyler mumbled a few words in return.
As soon as Jude left the room, Skyler rushed over to the table and clutched the photograph of Tizzie. He held it up and studied it minutely, then sat on the bed and stared at it some more. His pulse raced even harder.
The hair was different, more luxuriant, falling in waves. The cheeks were not as full and the cast of the eyes looked a bit older. But other than that, there were no major differences. There was no doubt about it the face under the glass, looking back at him with a smile, was Julia's.
When Jude awoke on the couch, his head ached and his mouth felt as if a vacuum cleaner had sucked it dry. The hangover preoccupied him for a moment or two, blotting out everything else. Like an inchoate but cumbrous shadow, the improbable happenings of the night before loomed in some back corner of his mind. But not for long. The memories sprang to life, and the shadow vaulted onto center stage. In the morning light that streamed in through the blinds, amazement mixed with incredulity.
Was it possible? he asked himself, half hoping that he had dreamed the whole episode.
But then he heard Skyler, already up and stirring.
He found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table, doing nothing. He appeared drained and exhausted, with yellow circles under his eyes. The haircut Jude had given him was showing its imperfections, with tufts of longish hair sticking out here and there, and his unkempt beard brushed the top of his chest. He was still in the blue-striped pajamas, so that sitting there, and looking up somewhat wide-eyed as Jude entered, he had the appearance of a lost and bewildered man-child. Which was pretty much the case, Jude reflected.
"Coffee?" asked Jude, already running the water and pouring out the coagulated pancake of yesterday's grinds from the filter cup.
"No."
Jude set the coffee going, cupped his hands under the cold water and splashed some onto his face. He looked for the dish towel to dry off and then saw it over on the counter, crumpled up with a pile of Skyler's hair sticking out. He used a paper towel instead. Then he took four aspirin.
"Well, I see you're not a morning person," Jude said. "Funny thing, neither am I."
Skyler looked at him, but remained silent.
"Okay, have it your way," said Jude.
He cooked them a large breakfast of orange juice, toast, bacon and sunnyside-up eggs. Again, Skyler ate hungrily, though not quite as slovenly as the night before, and when he finished, he carried his plate streaked with egg yolk over to the sink and sat back down at the table.
"I want you to know…" he began haltingly. "I mean, I'm grateful for all this, for the food, for the bed. I just don't know…"
He trailed off and looked away.
"I just don't know what to do. Where to go. I don't have any idea… how I am going to live."