The Mystery of the Blackbird

October 2016 promised nothing. Least of all, anything good. The four white walls in which Paul was sitting seemed tedious to him. Many times he had said to his daughters: “Girls, you’re so talented, maybe you could decorate this boring place, make it a bit more cheerful?” But they would brush him off, citing childcare worries and a lack of time. This had gone on for so long that Paul lost hope and stopped asking. Though once upon a time, he himself could have taken a brush in hand and created a monumental avant-garde mural.       In the white room, humming with a deep voice in the corner, stood a mini-bar, full of untold riches. In glass bottles, large and small, thick and slender, smooth and faceted, elongated and pot-bellied, dark and transparent, liquids lay still: clear, white, yellow, burgundy, brown. In Sir Paul’s mini-bar, there was no cheap swill. These drinks brought their owner immense pleasure. And the simple liqueur “Bailey’s” turned Paul’s insides into a true fairy tale. Oh, the land of milk and honey…       This hobby had risen to the top of McCartney’s priorities not long before his elder daughter Mary’s recent birthday. His favorite, his firstborn, a dark-haired copy of her blonde mother, whom our hero had loved longer than any other girl. He simply adored his children and had always doted on them. But autumn came, melancholy came, and McCartney, for the first time in many years, turned to a bottle of whiskey and wanted to know no one. This was far from the first time our hero had drowned his sober mind in alcohol. Paul was in no hurry to empty bottles in one gulp, but stretched the pleasure out over long, hard times.       Oddly enough, Paul had a goal. In his time, John Lennon had abused vices to find a new commandment. Paul, however, locked himself in his boring white room with sparse IKEA furniture and indulged in spirits, not wanting to see anyone, skipping social outings and family holidays. The musician was seeking new facets of his creativity, a new style to replace the one that had become stale, boring, seeming outdated and empty. McCartney wasn’t concerned that the whole world consisted of his fans; he was seeking novelty.       A new morning flooded the garden in Paul’s yard with an impenetrable light-gray fog that settled on the dry fallen leaves even before dawn. In this new routine, McCartney rose early from bed, drew the heavy curtains aside, dressed formally, swallowed a shot of something from the cool-humming mini-bar on an empty stomach, and sat down to work. Every morning he tried to discover something new for himself, to drill deeper into the earth. He had covered the full-length mirror, polished to a shine, with a robe so as not to see his aged self.       That morning, sitting in the rancid awareness of the wretchedness of his creative efforts, he decided to look at himself. Without thinking that an encounter with his reflection could morally crush even a beauty, he pulled the cloth off the glass and threw it on the bed.       “What is this?” he said in a nasal voice, running a wrinkled hand over his hair, considerably thinned by age and dyed a terrible shade of chestnut with grown-out gray roots. “And is this really me?” Paul even began to smile. Once, when he still read newspapers, he’d read an article that said if you overcome a lousy mood and smile, impulses from the facial muscles go to the brain, and your mood really does lift. Could McCartney really want to spark love for his own appearance this way? “I guess I am… But the eyes are still the same,” he brought his face closer to the glass, looking intently into the reflection’s eyes, and began stretching his aged skin with the middle finger of his right hand, examining the white of the eye, pulled tight with red thread-like vessels at the edges. And the eyes were the color of green tea poured into a milky cup, hence grown cloudy. In ten years the eyes would turn gray, and in twenty they would whiten.       Paul noticed the stubble. The light passing through the hairs silvered them. McCartney ran the back of his hand, the same right one, over his cheek and winced. The stubble was as prickly as never before. Paul examined himself in the mirror once more. The final straw were his tightened lips and soft, hanging, bulldog-like cheeks, and the old man, genuinely angered, tensed up and was about to scream from helplessness, but only grabbed the robe and threw it over the gleaming mirror. Paul had never thought he was so hideous. It seemed that with his money and energy, he managed to maintain a youthful appearance. But everything turned out much worse. That day, he did not think about the mirror.       The next morning, fog again shrouded the English garden. A garden is considered English if it looks neglected. But McCartney’s garden was truly neglected—at the end of summer, in a fit of self-dissatisfaction, Sir Paul had fired the gardener.       That morning, Paul felt the same melancholy he had for three months. All this time, the servants had been trying to reach him, having accumulated a heap of questions and a huge pile of letters addressed to the master. Someone couldn’t understand what to do with his wife. Nancy Shevell had long been anxious, knocking on the locked door, but after a month gave up, declaring:       “My husband is a creative person, he needs peace to create. He’s an adult and doesn’t need babysitters. He’ll come out when he needs to.”       The staff split in half and argued vehemently: some stormed out on Nancy, saying this frivolous rich girl was fooling around behind her husband’s back, so it wasn’t in her interest for him to break his isolation. Others thought Mrs. McCartney was a naive woman who didn’t understand that interest in her had faded.       Meanwhile, Paul was indeed in a deep creative crisis, and his wife was not mistaken about that. His interest in everything had faded, not just in his wife. He would fill pages, and hope for a breakthrough would ignite. He would step away, fill his glass, return. Reread the text and reject what was written.       The worst part was that music had betrayed him. Paul McCartney himself could not touch a single instrument.       Creativity needs new impressions, but how many of those impressions are already buried in Paul’s memory? Alcohol never helped properly, but it greatly eased the sensations.       Now it wasn’t fog flooding the bronze-ochre autumn yard of the ex-Beatle’s house, settling as dew on dry curled leaves, but a light-blue evening gloom pouring into McCartney’s room, laying new layers of dampness on the poet’s gray, melancholy soul. The yellowish light of the lamp streamed onto the lined pages of a notebook filled with second-rate poems, and their author tried not to cry, looking at all these scribbles, and to convince himself that it wasn’t he who had written them. “Mini-bar. Gin and tonic,” rushed through his ears. But Paul didn’t move from his spot, continuing to study the scribbles gloomily.       “You’re right not to get up,” came from somewhere behind him so unexpectedly that Paul flinched. The voice sounded clear and distinct, but the musician began to convince himself he was imagining it. Paul stood up and walked to the mini-bar, trying not to look back from where the sound came, but knowing perfectly well that curiosity usually wins. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone’s slightly sparkling, as it seemed to him, silvery dress. Paul opened the mini-bar, which hummed with greater power at its master’s touch, as if alive.       A hand covered with gray hair rummaged on the shelves, clinking bottles. McCartney made attempts to look back but caught himself in time. Having found what he needed, Paul returned to his spot, moving backward, and somehow felt that the unknown creature had smiled. The owner of the supposedly sparkling dress took a few steps forward, ending up in a more or less illuminated area of the room. Paul opened the bottles of tonic and gin, making stupid attempts to look with the back of his head. He felt the gaze of this stranger, or, more likely, strangeress, upon him. Paul mixed the drink in a clean glass and paused for a second.       “What? Going to keep looking at me like that?”       Paul glanced at the cloth-covered mirror and regretted what he had done, for now he could have looked at the visitor through it!       “Or are you going to lecture a seventy-year-old man about the dangers of alcohol?”       McCartney searched for some clues all around the room. From trying to look back without turning his head, his eye sockets ached, but he saw nothing except a silvery glow.       “Are you here? Can you speak?” Paul didn’t understand why he was starting the conversation. Apparently, it was all the alcohol with its talent for loosening tongues and depriving one of the instinct of self-preservation.       “I can,” a female voice sounded.       “And what the hell are you doing here?” Paul finally turned his head toward her and gasped.       “So that’s what death looks like,” he thought. His imagination painted angels, white as albinos, suffocated in alcoholic vapors.       “Going to drink?” McCartney asked sternly.       “I came to open your eyes,” the guest said quietly.       The airy dress the color of “Alice Blue” wasn’t sparkling, but some otherworldly glow emanated from the visitor. Paul examined the girl. This refined face with green eyes seemed familiar to him. A figment of imagination, a hallucination, a dream, delirium, the “pink elephants,” schizophrenia—Paul ran through everything he could. Moist, full lips remained motionless. The girl was expecting questions or attempts to call security, but the stunned Paul still had to sober up.       “I have a great deal to show you,” she said mysteriously. Paul furrowed his brows, forming wrinkles between them.       “What?” Paul thrust his chin forward, trying to seem threatening. “Who are you anyway? And how did you get in here?”       The girl smiled sadly. A draft blew from somewhere, stirring the stranger’s black hair and the hem of her light dress. The presence of an alien being oppressed Paul, but his inherent diplomacy prevented him from ordering her to fly back to fairyland immediately.       “Does the name America Zami mean nothing to you?” delicately inquired, apparently, the bearer of that name.       Paul tensed slightly, sorting through all the information in his head like a computer. How many names had he heard! The mini-bar hummed with renewed force, but now like a voiceless two-meter-tall refrigerator, as if vocalizing McCartney’s mental efforts. Paul licked his lip.       “I know America Ferrera, but not Zami.”       The guest looked around the room. Despite the relative tidiness, it reflected the anarchy raging in McCartney’s head.       “So you know absolutely nothing about me…” the girl exhaled the words like smoke.       “And I don’t really want to know,” Paul thought gloomily. Because, as it seemed to him, he firmly knew that this lovely creature was merely a figment of his old and sick, like a liver, imagination. And now he was afraid to answer “Yes,” as that would signal the start of excavations into his soul. McCartney did not wish to be torn apart with shovels, discovering skeletons in the soil, as in closets, or in closets, as in the soil.       But if this girl, blown by an icy draft, was not a vision? Then she would hardly have come to McCartney if she wasn’t planning to roll adeux ex machina. “But how did she get past the security?” Paul tried to figure out if the person before him was a projection or if she, like the master of the house, was made of flesh and blood?       “You have much interesting to learn,” her lips stretched into a frighteningly mysterious smile. A spark lit in her eyes, and McCartney noticed all this.       “Only briefly, I’m short on time,” Paul grimaced and ran his right hand over his face from top to bottom, pulling the skin. The girl chuckled briefly.       “No, our story cannot be told in two words,” apparently, America Zami in person looked straight into Paul’s eyes. He didn’t understand whether this young lady was enchanting or not, just as he didn’t understand what he felt and what to do, and he smiled artificially. “Need to change tactics,” Paul stood up decisively and walked to the door.       “Well then, go tell it to someone else,” McCartney opened the door, and the smile faded. “The female staff loves long, heart-rending stories.”       The girl stood in the center of the room, motionless. Her smile took on an ironic hue. One side of her face was dimly lit by the faint light of the desk lamp. And the dress definitely doesn’t sparkle, Paul convinced himself. Just a girl.       “Going to stand there like a post for long?” Paul’s patience, as a rule, didn’t last. “If you don’t leave, I’ll call security, and they’ll throw you out.”       “Before you do that, I must warn you that I am merely a ghost. Not everyone can see me, and you’ll seem like an idiot.”       Paul furrowed his brows again, forming wrinkles between them. He wasn’t much intimidated by the statement that the miss was a ghost. The man faced a difficult choice, however, any of the paths would lead him to an insane asylum.       And he decided to take the riskier step. Paul looked out into the corridor and shouted the butler’s name in a rather weakened voice, and he promptly appeared in the room.       “How did this get here? Throw her out,” Paul, turning away from the frightening apparition, stretched out his arm and pointed his index finger at the spot where America was.       “Sir, you must be very tired,” the servant said delicately. “There’s no one there. You should lie down; tomorrow is another day.”       The man, bowing politely, left the room with large, confident steps. Paul closed the door and looked sternly at America. Her ironic-tender gaze began to irritate him.       Paul approached America closer and began to slowly circle her, hands clasped behind his back. They were both silent; only the hum of the mini-bar and the clinking of hooks hitting each other and the curtain rod, from which heavy curtains swayed in the wind, could be heard. The air in the room grew colder and colder, becoming heavy; in October, it’s better not to indulge in open windows.       Paul stopped circling the room and approached America closely, so his lips were roughly opposite her nose. The girl could taste every word murmured by McCartney:       “I am not a young man; a ghost cannot come to me for no reason. Report who are you and why have you come here.”       America moved slightly away from Paul to see his eyes:       “My name is America Zami, and I am your wife…”       “Wh-a-a-t?” interrupted a surprised Paul, drawing out the word. “You meant to say 'future wife,' but that’s unlikely too, because I won’t marry you. Now fly away back to where you came from.”       “No, you and I were married for thirty years in the last century…”       Paul interrupted.       “Girl, for thirty years I had only one wife, and her name was Linda. And you’re not even twenty-five, let alone thirty.”       Paul didn’t notice how he ended up in the hall of the Cavern Club in Liverpool. This was that first hall, long before a parking lot was foolishly built on this site. Dancing spectators filled the club to the brim with themselves and cries of admiration, as it had been with the beginningThe Beatles in the early sixties…       Next to Paul stood ghost-America. She looked at the stage with burning eyes and smiled. The music thundering from the stage was achingly, heart-wrenchingly familiar to McCartney. And he realized that The Beatles from the past were on stage. To confirm this, he rose on tiptoes and examined the four musicians. Fine lads, brimming with youth, lighting up the whole evening for the girls, and after the concert the most beautiful of the fans would go to them as a bonus to their fee for the whole night… Paul was touched by the memories, but this “movie” scared him terribly. For the first time in his life, he managed to see his beloved self from the side in real life, and from the height of years lived.       “This is… What the… I’m in the past?!” Paul shouted to America so she could hear him.       “Yep,” America answered calmly, not taking her eyes off the stage and swaying slightly to the music, making it clear this was normal for her.       “But how?.. Can they see us?.. The 'butterfly effect'?!” the stunned Paul shouted in bursts.       “All in good time!” Zami replied, smiling.       Meanwhile, the group finished performing a song which McCartney, to his shame, had completely forgotten. The hall was stuffy, and Paul thought that sweat was streaming down him, only his younger self, but he couldn’t make it out no matter how much he squinted. Old age is no joy.       “Now we’re going to sing you a song,” young Paul spoke, running his left hand over the bass guitar strings, “that just recently came out on our album. It’s 'I Saw Her Standing There'!” McCartney howled the title. The hall came alive, someone joyfully started ululating. The spotlight light grew brighter.       “Look, look!” America urged. “Now comes the moment of truth!”       “And what will happen?” Paul couldn’t begin to orient himself in space. “What’s the date today?”       “April 17, 1963,” Zami smiled.       The Beatles glanced at each other and, at Paul’s nod, began to play. He smiled with all his crooked teeth. The girls squealed with renewed force when the singer sang “Well, she was just seventeen,” as if they were all seventeen, and it was about them. Paul moved his shoulders, deftly ran his fingers over the frets, and smiled. His eyes sparkled, and you couldn’t tell by them that they would ever age.       Young Paul scanned the hall, the old one looked at himself. America was no less enchanted by this spectacle than her charge.       “Well, she looked at me, and I, I could see, that before too long I’d fall in love with her…” sang the young bassist. The spotlight light noticeably trembled, and something quietly gurgled in the bowels of the earth. Young McCartney’s gaze became riveted to one spot in the hall. That spot was young America Zami. Paul restrained himself so as not to lose the thread of the performance and winked at the girl.       “What was that just now?” Old Paul was alarmed by all this.       “You gave me a sign.”       Paul didn’t notice how the song ended, and the hall instantly emptied. There was absolute and unusual silence. Paul didn’t guess that he had been tossed through time again.       Near the stage stood a thin girl with loose black hair. Paul didn’t immediately recognize the features of America Zami, who stood nearby, barefoot and in a bluish dress. The girl folded her arms on her chest and looked around. Every time her gaze passed through Paul, his heart froze with fear. He didn’t want his present self to be seen in the past, and Zami hadn’t explained the mechanism of this “focus.”       Paul ran onto the stage, marking each step with the sound of his heel hitting the wooden boards. Elderly Paul opened his mouth, enchanted by himself. Zami couldn’t help but notice and chuckled. McCartney-the-younger jumped off the stage, and the old man noticed that the guy had a piece of paper and a pen in his hands. Paul moved closer to his younger self and began to observe the interactions between the youth.       “Cool that you understood me with a look! Thanks for staying. Paul McCartney. I think you know me. And what’s your name?”       “America Zami. Very nice to meet you,” they shook hands and smiled.       “Interesting name…” the young man hid the pen and paper behind his back. “It’s strange, I’ve never seen you here, though I know all our girls by sight. Is this your first time at our concert?”       “No, I’ve known you guys for several years,” America smiled.       “Amazing, I’ll have to ask the lads… America, will you accept my invitation to go somewhere?”       “I will, but let’s go somewhere where your fans won’t tear us apart.”       Paul chuckled.       “Please write down your number,” the paper and pen came into play. The old man grimaced and turned to the ghost-America standing a little distance away. She shrugged. Paul couldn’t understand what the hell was going on?! “Need to drink less, you silly old man!” he thought.       The girl, meanwhile, was writing something on a scrap of paper from her new acquaintance and handed him her hieroglyphs.       “Your eyes are burning, don’t burn me, I beg you!” Paul exclaimed with a slight tremor in his voice.       “Ugh, lad, where did you pick up such vulgar expressions?” loudly commented the experienced Paul upon hearing this.       The young people began to say goodbye.       “How do you like it?” suddenly asked America, who had unexpectedly appeared to Paul’s right, and he flinched.       “Listen,” McCartney turned to the visitor from the past. “You’re probably just a fan with a lot of money and advanced equipment, projectors etc… This is just a movie—nothing more.”       “Think what you want,” Ami said calmly and looked at the young Beatle heading to the dressing room. Before Paul could turn in the same direction, he found himself back in his own black, cold room.       McCartney shivered. America waved her hand, and the window vent slammed shut with a loud clap, the chandelier lit up. Paul opened his eyes so wide it seemed they would pop out of their sockets. America smiled, understanding that victory was hers, however, Paul found a way out of the situation.       “Big deal, I can do that too! My lights turn on with a clap!” as proof, the ex-Beatle clapped his hands twice, but the light didn’t even flicker. America laughed, and       Paul was embarrassed.       McCartney sat down at his desk and turned off the hot lamp, ready to ignite the paper with second-rate poems. To create something new, he had to give in to this mysterious wanderer. Behind the lamp stood a glass of gin and tonic, and McCartney drained the vessel in one gulp. Paul wiped his mouth with his hand and reached for the bottle of tonic. Easily opening it, he poured the gurgling, stream-like liquid into the glass.       “Alright, girl,” Paul reached for the bottle of gin to perform a similar operation with it, “I don’t know why you’re here, I’ll listen to your story. But on one condition.”       America listened silently.       “You leave at the first request.”       “Agreed,” America extended her hand to McCartney. “By the way, you can call me Ami.”       “Ami… So, Ami, can one touch you?” Paul inquired with surprise, looking at the girl’s hand.       “Don’t think of ghosts stereotypically,” America smiled politely, and Paul shyly shook her hand—soft, but cold.       “Alright. We’ll continue tomorrow. Now leave. Good night,” McCartney said, turning away, and took a sip of gin and tonic. However, America didn’t answer. She had fulfilled the condition of their agreement.