Nusle

It had been at least a couple of months since we last talked. So, when I heard my phone buzzing, I was surprised to find a text from her. It wasn’t like the texts she usually sends me, either. No “hey” or even a “are you free today?” Just the following phrase: “Come to my place. Need your help with a case.” It wasn’t really an invitation as much as it was an instruction. And I did not hesitate.

When I got to her apartment the door was already open. She knew I was coming, even though I hadn’t answered her text. She had her back to the entrance as she stared quietly out her window, at the monotonous view of the city we had both grown up in. I took a quick look around the small living room. Everything seemed to be the exact same as it had been the last time I had been there. And yet, something was different. The air… was different.

“That was fast,” she said, without turning around.

“I wasn’t busy.” A lie. But could she possibly think I wouldn’t drop everything I was doing to come to her encounter?

I could tell she smiled at my response. She held her hands together, the tip of her fingers touching her lips, thinking.

“What’s going on?” I asked. She took a deep breath.

“My dear Watson…” She finally turned around to face me, a big smile coming up on her face. “We have a case.”

So that’s what was going on. I only then understood the text she had sent me. You see, this is the way it has always been with us, for as long as I can remember. Something from our childhood we took with us into our adult life. She had always been too into those stories. I honestly don’t know at which point in her life she had read those books, but it was definitely something she had internalized so deep into herself that it had become just another one of her exquisite personality traits. If you knew her, you knew. So, if she was Sherlock Holmes, I was her Dr. Watson. That’s just the way it was. In any story she would always be the title character, and I, her faithful sidekick.

It might seem a bit odd, I admit. But it was something only the people truly close to her would understand. Only I understood. I never felt disregarded or left aside in any way. It was just who she was. The way she was. If you knew her, you knew all the stories in the world could be about her, and only her. And I would gladly follow, always.

“So, tell me, Sherlock…” I said as I sat down on the chair near the sofa. “What is this case about?”

It is a bit embarrassing that it took me so long to figure out what was going on. The text itself should have made it obvious, and if not, I should have known the moment I laid eyes on her. She had her hair in a ponytail. She wore a basic white shirt and dark jeans with a pair of black combat boots. An outfit that said absolutely nothing, if it wasn’t for the black trench coat placed in the armchair by the window, ready to be picked up and worn, even though the summer weather didn’t ask for it.

“I need to… remember something,” she said, as she sat on the chair where her coat was, looking straight at me from across the small living room.

“Remember what?”

“If I knew it wouldn’t be forgotten, would it?” she smiled and I laughed at her nonsense.

“So, what are we looking for?”

“The question isn’t what we are looking for… but where we will look for it.”

She took a moment before getting up her chair, then put on her coat and walked up to me with a soft smile on her face that could easily be hiding all of the answers in the world behind it. She reached out her hand towards me. It was time to go. 

I told her we could take my car, since I had driven up to her place, but she insisted we take the bus. We’ll be there in a few minutes, she said. So, the bus we took. It was only half full and we sat by the window, facing each other. The streets of London seemed emptier than usual. The sun was high above us, not many clouds in the sky, as it was not raining yet (it usually comes between 3 and 4 o’clock). We passed by the London Bridge, its beauty coming and going as fleeting as the wind. The skyline could fill the eyes at first, but its impact never lasted. 

 It was a silent ride. We had known each other for far too long to feel the need to make small talk. But, still, this would usually be the time she´d ask me how I was. How was work. How were things at home. But, no, not this time. Not that it bothered me. Maybe she already knew the answer to

all these questions. Or, maybe, she was trying not to know. She was quieter than usual. Not in an anxious way, as I would have expected. She was almost too calm, too serene.

We got off on a street I didn’t recognize at first. We walked around for only a couple of minutes, feeling the warm breeze of that summer afternoon, until we stopped in front of a big old house that looked exactly like all of the other houses in the street: two stores, brown walls, white fence… except for the unmistakable pink mailbox. We were in front of her parent’s house.

I started walking up to the entrance before she stopped me, saying we were not going in.

“Aren’t they home?” I asked.

“They probably are.”

I didn’t understand. Why had we come all this way if she wasn’t planning on going inside and talking to her parents? They couldn’t possibly be in a fight. No, that didn´t happen with them. They always had a good relationship, as far as I could tell. She looked at the old house with a look in her eyes that I could only describe as admiration.

“Do you know when you’re young and the world seems to be so small?” she asked, eyes still fixated on the house. “When I was a kid, this is as far as the world would go for me. These streets were all I knew.”  

She looked towards the end of the street, the sunlight reflecting in her eyes.

“It seemed as if they went on forever…”

She didn’t see me walk the last few cobblestones towards the door, and when she realized it, it was too late. I had already rang the doorbell. 

“What are you doing?” she whispered angrily, catching up to me. She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me away from the door, but I escaped her grip. 

“I don’t get why you made us come all the way here not to go inside,” I answered. “Besides, I miss Bob and Martha. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”  

The big wooden door opened to the view of a woman in her mid-50s, with pale skin, blond hair and a huge smile on her face.

“Emily! What a wonderful surprise!” She hugged me very tightly. “Bobby, come here! It’s Emily and your daughter,” she shouted into the house. 

“Hi Martha, it’s so good to see you!” 

“My darling, I missed you so much!” she said while hugging her daughter. 

“Hi mom.” She hugged her mother back, unenthusiastically. 

“Honey!” A chubby man in his 60s came to our encounter at the door. He hugged his daughter and shook her from side to side.

“It’s nice to see you too, dad,” she answered while being squished in her father’s arms. 

“Emily darling, have you gotten taller since the last time that I saw you?” Bob said while holding me by the shoulders. 

“Let’s go inside, I will make us some tea!”

We sat on the big brown couch in the living room. Bob sat in the armchair across from us. I could hear the whistling sound of the teapot on the stove coming from the kitchen. I looked around the place, at the many picture frames. Pictures of her as a baby, of us together as kids, of their family trips. She had a genuine smile in every single one of them. Looking at her now, sitting next to me on the couch, it almost felt like a completely different person. I am not quite sure why. 

“There you go.” Martha walked into the room with a tray of tea and cookies and placed it on the coffee table in front of us. 

“Thank you, honey,” Bob said, helping himself to a cookie. Martha sat in the armchair beside him. 

“I’m so glad you came to visit us, darling. We missed you so much.” 

She smiled weakly at her mother, I could tell she was avoiding looking them in the eye. She remained sitting there, in silence. 

“How have you guys been?” I asked them, trying to break the awkward silence. 

“Oh, you know,” Bob sighed, “same old, same old.”

“We are actually planning a Christmas trip for this year!” Marta said excitedly. “But someone doesn’t want to come with us.” She looked suggestively at her daughter. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to go,” she started to answer “It’s just that… I won’t be around.”

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Where will you be? She looked away without giving me any clues. 

The rest of the afternoon went by quickly. We got lost between tea, cookies and conversation. She loosened up eventually, and I even saw her laugh at her dad’s jokes at some point. I still couldn’t figure out why she looked so off-place, so distant…

“Well, we better get going,” she said, getting up.

“So soon? No, stay a little longer!” Martha cried.

We made our way to the door and said our goodbyes. But, right before we stepped out, she turned around and hugged both her parents at the same time, tightly. Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty. Until she finally let go.

“Where to now, Sherlock?” I asked as I followed her down the street.

“You’ll see,” she said without turning around to look at me.

“Can you stop being so enigmatic?” I laughed. 

“Follow my lead, Watson.” She turned around smiling and winked at me.

We were in our old high school. It was a bittersweet feeling, looking at the old building. We heard the loud sound of the bell. 

“Perfect timing,” she said.

We were sitting on a bench across the street from the school. We watched as the kids rushed out of the place as if it were on fire. 

“It’s funny, you know,” She started to say, her eyes going from kid to kid. “I used to hate this place. I spent every second here wishing it would be over.”

I looked at her. She looked so at ease. 

“Now, looking back…” she continued, “I think those were the best years of my life.” 

She sighed. I didn’t answer. I just looked back at the old building and smiled to myself. 

We sat in silence for a while. The sun was starting to set when she got up and said we had one more place to go. 

Baker Street. This was our final stop. I only realized where we were when I saw the bronze man smoking his pipe.

“So, you came to see your idol?” I joked.

She laughed. She looked at the statue of Sherlock Holmes, taking in every last detail as if it was the first time she ever saw it – or the last.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” She said, almost in a whisper. “I used to think I would be just like him when I grew up.”

She touched the bronze man softly, as if she was trying to make sure it was real. 

“I remember the first time I was here. It was probably the most important day of my life.”

“Why? Because you met him?” I asked jokingly, pointing at the statue. 

“No.” She looked me in the eyes and smiled. “Because I met you.” 

How could I have forgotten? That was the very place that we met, almost 20 years ago. We went to different schools at the time, and both of them took their students to a field trip there on the same day. I remember standing there alone, away from all the other kids. I wasn’t really good at making friends. Then, she approached me and started talking to me like we already knew each other. She took my hand and made sure we stayed together during the rest of her school’s field trip, which, of course, caused chaos in my school, who suddenly had one kid less in their group. It worked out for the best in the end, as my parents decided to transfer me to the same school as her. After all, I had a new best friend.

I couldn’t help but smile at those memories.

“So, Sherlock…” I leaned on the cold statue, next to her. “Are you finally going to tell me what this case is about?”

She stared at the statue silently, ignoring my question. We stayed in silence for a few minutes. I looked at her, the person I had known my whole life, but I couldn’t recognize her. 

“Seriously, what is this reminiscing all about?” I was starting to get annoyed. She remained in silence.

“I don’t have time for this, Elizabeth. I have work tomorrow, I need to go home.”

“You’re right,” she answered suddenly, still not looking at me. “It’s time to go.”

She took one last look at the statue and took a deep breath. When she finally looked at me, I could see the moonlight reflecting in her eyes. Was she crying? 

She hugged me goodbye and turned around to leave before I could say anything else. And I let her go. 

Part of me knew that would be the last time that I would see her. So, a few days later, when my phone rang in the middle of the night and I looked over to see Martha’s name on the screen, I didn’t answer. I already knew. I had lost my best friend. 

A good detective would have seen it coming. But then again, so would a good friend. I guess I was neither of them, after all. 

I wonder what it was she was looking for that day. I wonder if she found it. Perhaps it was an unsolvable case all along. That, I will never know.