Incognita

by Diana Renner

Runner-up in the 2024 Fabel International Short Story competition 

“One must follow in order to be followed…

appear in order to disappear…

One has to be discovered.”

~ Jean Baudrillard

The cobbled street welcomed the soles of her feet. The echo of stone reverberated gently in her body, sending ripples through her ankles, calves, knees and hips. She could feel a thin layer of sweat spreading from her upper lip to her cheeks. It was still hot, the air heavy with the buzz of early autumn and the chatter of tourists. She had been walking aimlessly for a while and had no immediate recollection of where she had come from or where she was heading. She did not know where she was. It did not matter. All she cared about was to let herself be taken forward, drawn by the street unfolding under her gaze. The more she wandered, the greater the fluidity and freedom of her steps. The tempo matched her breathing rhythm. She followed without question or resistance, trusting where her feet led her.

The leisurely pace allowed her eyes sufficient time to linger on the crowd streaming out of office buildings. She took in the nuances of random gestures and facial expressions. She gathered whispers, tapping feet, crossed arms, rolled eyes, like collages of newspaper cuttings. A couple hugging in front of a poster advertising a new ballet performance. Her, looking down, him, lifting her head gingerly to meet his eyes. A middle-aged woman in a flowing green dress, a bouquet of tulips cradled in her arms like a sleeping baby. The smell of sweet cashews, a street vendor and his cart, three men standing at the bus stop, laughing, furiously waving … ‘Wait!’ A flash of red, followed by a streak of yellow writing disappearing around the corner. ‘Never mind, another one will come by in a few minutes... Time for another cigarette... She wasn’t your type anyway. Her loss.’

A queue in front of a brutalist building. They stood next to one another, a cross-section of humanity: young, old, women, men, each in their own world, some pensive, looking down, others looking away, into the distance. A few casual glances of acknowledgement. A woman yawned, another opened a book, while a man in a suit checked the time on his watch. More people gradually joined them, squeezing through the mass of bodies. They could have been anyone, and they could have been anywhere. There was nothing distinguishable about them, except their casual togetherness, bound closely in what seemed to be patient waiting.

She knew that waiting, suspended in time and space. Minutes feeling like hours, and hours like months, in a warped flow of time and heightened attention. Waiting in a queue that didn’t seem to move, one needed to forget about oneself, let go of expectations, put away one’s thoughts. Step outside of time. 

She turned the corner into an empty street and came across a warmly lit American style diner, light filtering out, creating a play of shadows on the sidewalk. Across the street, no sign of life, just half covered windows above an empty shop with a lonely cash register in the window. The scene in the diner reminded her of those 1950’s film noir movies she used to watch late at night on the TV as a child.

She stopped just short of the large diner windows, focusing on four figures inside. A man and a woman leaned against a wood counter, coffee mugs left untouched. Behind the counter, a server, his posture tense. Further down, a solitary man with his back turned to her, staring at a glass of water.

The scene held an air of suspended animation, as if the slightest movement might shatter the fragile equilibrium. Then, a spark of life - a lit cigarette, the brief flare illuminating sharp features before fading back into shadow. The server fumbled, a pot of coffee slipping from his grasp. Dark liquid splashed across pristine white.

The customers seemed unperturbed. The woman bit in her sandwich. The man glanced casually at the stains spreading on the server’s uniform. The other kept staring at his glass of water.

It occurred to her that those people were not meant to connect. They were destined to sit together, alone. Alienation was frozen into their bodies, gestures, and facial expressions. Even the salt and pepper shakers on the counter were lonely, the glass empty, the stools unoccupied…

She got jolted back to reality by a man in a well-tailored coat brushing past her. There was something haunting about the look in his eyes, an intense yearning. She wondered about his job, maybe an advertising executive? Where was he headed? Her feet decided to follow.

He walked quickly, navigating expertly through the crowd. She almost lost him a few times, if it weren’t for the distinctive colour of his coat, deep azure. As he turned the corner, she suddenly had to slow down to avoid bumping into him.

She kept walking then stopped, casually admiring a shop window while observing his reflection. He was staring at the ground with the same expression on his face as someone looking up at the sky on a clear day, taking in the blue immensity with equal measure awe and dread. He eventually lifted his gaze, reluctantly, and slowly made his way towards a white building at the other end of the road. It looked elegant.

She pulled a black cashmere cardigan from the bag over her head and followed him inside. His coat was hanging on a clothes rail in the foyer, next to a discreet sign above welcoming her to the Polish Club. She found him at the bar, talking with a young waitress. He ordered a vodka then sat in a velvet chair facing the door. She chose a table on the other side of the room, a vantage point partially obscured by a velvet curtain hanging alongside the wall. She blended so well with the decor that she managed to go unnoticed even by the waitress.

He looked like he was waiting for someone. A first date, maybe a blind date? He drank carefully, taking small sips, swirling the alcohol in his mouth, savouring it for a few moments before swallowing it. He ordered another vodka, this time drinking like he meant it, throwing his head back and inhaling it in one go. Half an hour and four shots later, when he had stopped glancing at the entrance and settled more deeply into his chair, a young woman appeared at the door, breathless and apologetic. Delicate frame. Porcelain skin glowing softly in the light. Inky waves of hair. His face lit up as she rushed across the room and sat down in the chair next to him.

She found the tableau of their casualness fascinating. The conversation was punctuated by the sound of cutlery from across the room. They seemed familiar with each other, but in a surface kind of way, slowly warming up with comments about the menu and questions about each other’s homes and work.

She tuned into his frequency. He seemed to eat on autopilot, his eyes following the young woman’s, his gestures mirroring her every move. She could sense his nervousness, the faint frisson in his body, the slightly elevated pulse. She delighted in his anticipation. Maybe something unexpected was about to happen. She only had to follow the trace and be open to catch it.

She pulled her phone out from the bag and turned the camera on, right when they finished dessert and stood up to leave.

They walked for a while, hands almost touching, heads looking straight ahead, occasionally turning, as if to check the other was still there. She matched their pace, keeping her distance, scanning around for clues of where they might be going. The street was still humming, so she could easily blend in. She smelled a storm coming. As she looked up at the thick clouds rolling in, the first drops of rain fell.

His coat, draped across the left shoulder, quickly became an impromptu umbrella, bringing their heads closer, obscuring them from view. From behind, all she could see now were four legs, not in unison yet. A strange, azure creature, eerily floating through a sudden rush of people scrambling for cover.

She was getting soaked but did not care. She relished the slight coolness of the wet cardigan against her skin, hair dripping on her shoulders, the gliding sensation of her feet on the slippery hardness of the pavement. The couple surprised her with a spontaneous dance in a puddle, their makeshift umbrella abandoned on a fire hydrant. The legs were now splashing their way into a waltz. She felt a jolt of excitement as they suddenly stopped and kissed, their heads drawn together by water and darkness.

She continued to film from the other side of the street, sheltered from the rain in the doorway of a French bakery. She held the phone at eye level, a wide angle shot capturing the dance of their bodies framed by the two large windows of the building behind.

As she stood on the narrow threshold, leaning against the door, she felt anchored in the liquidity of the night. The scene held her gaze until it took on an almost dreamlike quality. Juxtaposed images merged into one, reminding her of the old camera obscura photographs with their upside-down images of a streetscape projected onto the surface of a wall. The sycamore trees lining up the street, the nearby buildings, and passing cars layered on top of the building walls, created an eerie backdrop to the couple’s embrace. 

Right there on the side of the street, she stood at the edge of an old world, one that she had left behind a long time ago. Images from an alternate yet simultaneous dimension flooded in. The faded café sign, the narrow walkway leading to the town square, kids walking home from school, bikes zooming past, while she held on to one last embrace with her love, before leaving forever.

Her body carried a permanent imprint of that memory, the exquisite sweetness of bodies coming together, the pain of moving apart, all senses screaming for time to stand still. The memory got stuck in a continuous loop, replaying the final moments like reading and rereading lines from a poem that she could not fathom. No matter how many times she played it in her mind, the story would always have the same ending. She could never recover the part she had left behind. The loss was there on every street corner, every narrow alleyway, every café. The long shadow of memories projected onto her body left her feeling slightly upside-down.

Later, much later, when dawn broke and the phone had run out of battery, she went back to her apartment and downloaded the recording onto her laptop. A surreal collage of silent fragments featured ghostly figures walking together in slow motion on a mostly grey and dark background. For all her focus on the couple, it was the street at night, shrouded in the rain, that ended up featuring as the film’s main character. She could feel its wet, sensuous, impenetrable essence, the hardness of the pavement coming together with the silky night sky into one drawn out sigh. It suddenly struck her that there was no trace of her in the film. Not even her shadow. She had made herself disappear. 

She played the recording from the beginning, paying close attention to every detail, stopping and starting the film, searching for clues of the mystery of those two people she had been so captured by. Many of the images had been filmed in motion, as if only through movement could she unravel the thread of their intertwining stories.

The camera hovered for a moment and her glance caught a new shape that emerged in the background, partially obscured by the streetlight. She had been so focused on the couple that she had entirely missed the grey figure on the opposite side of the street. A man, looking straight at her.

She zoomed in as far as she could, but the darkness made it difficult to get a good picture of his face. She let her eyes momentarily soften on the image, looking out into the beyond. She sensed his gaze rest on her, the tension in the space in-between, the darkness swirling around them, followed by an instant flash of recognition. Her body knew it before she did, from her aching feet to the burning in her chest.

When the doorbell rang, she knew she had to open the door and follow her own story.