The characters in the novel
| Coincidence level: 9/10 Category: I can predict the future |
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Once upon a time, I wrote a novel.
I was completing one of the last main characters in my novel (I thought I had only 7) in South America. More or less, I’d had all of them filled out – complete with their own profiles, personalities, quirks, physical surpluses and downfalls.
Except for a young Spanish character that I’d had in mind, the sister of the narrator’s lover. I didn’t really have a name for her, so I put in a substitute name, and I didn’t really have an idea of what she was like, except that she took care of her older brother, was born and raised a gypsy in Triana, and would be caught in a plot that she didn’t ask for or deserve, but that would prove integral to the fate of the narrator and almost everyone in the story. The world at large.
Thus was the shadow of this character.
Well, I was halfway into the text of the book when I met Louise in Buenos Aires.
Louise, when I met her, in one phrase that I can clearly describe: saved my life. I’d been in such a shit mood since leaving Brazil, I was physically ill from eating bad meat, and actually ended up going to the hospital in Buenos Aires. I was exhausted from my travels and thousands of miles away from any friends or family. But who knew that one friendly smile could abate a million internal storms?
Her smile was about the best smile I’d ever seen – complete with a dimple and a beauty mark. The conversation went something like this:
“Hi, I’m Louise.”
“Nice to meet you, where are you from?”
“Berlin.”
“Oh, wow, I thought you were Spanish or something.”
“I know, everyone says that.” (smiles)
And so, Louise became the final character in my novel.
Kind of.
So what happened was that a few weeks later, I was traveling in Peru and met a Dutch girl named Evi in the desert oasis town of Huacachina. Evi and I, and two wonderful other human beings, both blond doctors from Canada, spent sunsets and sunrises atop Huacachina and looking down to that impossible oasis. We’d wake up early: half drunk still, or totally drunk still, before dawn, maybe 5:00AM, climb an hour to the top of the dune (I was the slowest one) and then watch the sunrise and run down the hill laughing maniacally like three-year olds. Then later, we’d all go out dancing, get drunk with other tourists and locals, kiss everybody (well at least the Canadian girls did and one of them insisted on sucking a drink out of my belly button), and then we’d somehow all end up skinny dipping.
Standard.
Anyway, we all reunited in Cusco, at optimal elevation, but only Evi would become my travel buddy beyond Cusco to Aguas Calientes – Machu Picchu – to be totally correct – and the rainbow mountains – Vinicunca.
How to describe Evi. She was young but had a very old soul. Knew more than she should’ve, seen more weird shit than she should’ve. Worked odd jobs like at Dominos Pizza in the Netherlands making thousands of pizzas a week; when I met her she was working at a funeral home. The only person I’d ever known to do that job. The only woman I’d ever known to do that job.
Evi physically: tall, blond, thin. She reminded me of my high school swim team captain Blair, who was likewise stall, blond, thin, self-assured (and, who, in high school happened to have been dating a ginger Dutch guy).
Evi embodied this paradigm I’d admired since high school. And thus my appreciation for Evi, in addition to her quick wit, her practical know-how in a foreign place, her independence at her age, and her uniqueness – not just compared to anything categorical (of which were many) – but just, personally to me. I hadn’t met anyone that unique in a while, or so I thought.
So, in the novel I made Louise jump off a bridge.
Hear me out–
In context, she’s running from people (think: drug and other illicit activities situation) and needs to find safety. She’s in a moving car and rolls out of the car as it’s on a bridge. She leaps off the bridge, and in the novel, we don’t know what’s happened to her.
Later in the novel, she resurfaces, but now her beauty mark is gone (her dimples still here), her brunette hair gone, blond instead, and she’s taller. And she goes by a different name.
Essentially, she’d transformed into Evi — physically speaking.
And as a reader, you are meant to question if she is Louise (she denies it):
“Louise!” the narrator reckons.
“Call me Evi.”
“But you’re Louise. I know you’re Louise.”
“I’m Evi.”
A new development of character, a shift in identity, a complete change in physical appearance, an avatar worth discussing, AND:
As a reader you are meant to question if Louise is Evi, if Evi is someone else completely, if Louise is still alive!
Or if physically or metaphorically Louise is gone, as soon as she made that bridge jump.
The coincidence: Evi and I parted ways in Cusco – I went to Iquitos to brave the Amazon River and all its treasures and Evi went to Bolivia.
The second night I was sleeping under a mosquito net in all of the glorious cacophony of noises in the jungle, I got this text from Evi:
“You know Louise.”
I replied, “How do you know Louise?”
“She’s my roommate.”
Apparently, in La Paz, they were staying in the same room. They partied together, got drunk together.
And then two days later, Evi jumped off a bridge — recreationally, I should mention — and there was a bungee rope, but damn that bridge was 100 meters tall. It was one of the most insane jumps I’d ever seen in my life.
I saw the video footage and still kind of couldn’t believe it.
The best way to predict the future is to write it.
A funny aside: when I got the text in the Amazon, I was with a guy named Jack, who said to me: “Your life is so weird. You should write a novel about you writing the novel.”
Oh, and the kicker to the story — I met up again with Louise in Medellín — we’d talked about wanting to go to Colombia when we first met and ended up in the same city two months later. When we met on a rooftop bar overlooking the rolling hills of that beautiful city, I asked her how she’d met Evi.
“Oh,” she said, “I was in the worst mood because of this guy, and I was just sitting in my bed having a terrible time, and then Evi came into the room and cheered me up right away and then started showing me photos of Peru, and I realized she knew you.”
. . .