Off the north coast of the boy’s country there is an abandoned hermitage many centuries old. He took me there, a place he himself had never been, on the last day of my visit to his country two years ago. Over 200 steps lead from the coast to the little place, built on a rock in the sea. He found the climb tiring and needed to stop, despite his youth and fitness. I wanted to climb without cease. I could see where the Stations of the Cross were clearly marked along the pilgrimage of stairs. The boy did not seem to know what this meant, despite his years of education by Jesuits. That rocky Via Dolorosa was mine alone.
The hermitage sits on the sea. The day was mild and warm, and a February mist sat on the water. The boy remarked that it was like a place at the end of the world. I sat down on one of the stone benches that line the outer walls of ther hermitage, facing the sea, and he stretched out, his head in my lap, and slept. My hands in his hair, I sang to him. That day there were few others there. In the dream, we are like that, on the stone bench, as I stare out at the sea. The water slowly starts to rise. I begin to panic, the boy asleep. In the dream, I cannot wake him.
***
I have grown more used to him touching my face, those random brushes against my cheek with his fingers as we’re sitting in a restaurant across a table from each other. Now I take his fingers in my own and let my lips rest on them for a moment. I close my eyes so that I will no longer look startled to tears; or, rather, he will no longer see it.
He is full of bits of silliness. Almost every time we leave the flat, he pretends to have forgotten something as soon as I have locked the door. Emerging from the Rockefeller Centre through a revolving door, I find I am stuck, and turn to see him holding the door. He does impressions of dreadful television advertisements in his own language. There is a small child's grin about his serious mouth; his eyes carry mischief. He is a trained dancer and gives me a lesson. This is more of a challenge than it may sound, for, despite having been born to two parents who were good dancers, a series of skeletal birth defects means that I barely mastered walking and am no graceful goer. He is a bossy dancemaster, which works well for me; I come from a background used to trusting a tone of impatient authority, and find I respond better to it than to the gentle, you-can-do-anything approach that is now so popular in all learned endeavours. He barks at me: “Don’t look at my feet!” “Don’t turn until I make you.” “Trust my arm!” I find myself, after a fashion, dancing with him in the flat, alternately giggling and biting my lip in determination.
In the morning he sings in the shower, his voice also trained. I hear strains of opera as I am dressing. We sing “Nessun dorma” one day, together.
***
I am awakened one night by his hands stroking my hair, as though he were soothing me out of a bad dream. In the morning, he has no memory of this. The water rises.
The hermitage sits on the sea. The day was mild and warm, and a February mist sat on the water. The boy remarked that it was like a place at the end of the world. I sat down on one of the stone benches that line the outer walls of ther hermitage, facing the sea, and he stretched out, his head in my lap, and slept. My hands in his hair, I sang to him. That day there were few others there. In the dream, we are like that, on the stone bench, as I stare out at the sea. The water slowly starts to rise. I begin to panic, the boy asleep. In the dream, I cannot wake him.
***
I have grown more used to him touching my face, those random brushes against my cheek with his fingers as we’re sitting in a restaurant across a table from each other. Now I take his fingers in my own and let my lips rest on them for a moment. I close my eyes so that I will no longer look startled to tears; or, rather, he will no longer see it.
He is full of bits of silliness. Almost every time we leave the flat, he pretends to have forgotten something as soon as I have locked the door. Emerging from the Rockefeller Centre through a revolving door, I find I am stuck, and turn to see him holding the door. He does impressions of dreadful television advertisements in his own language. There is a small child's grin about his serious mouth; his eyes carry mischief. He is a trained dancer and gives me a lesson. This is more of a challenge than it may sound, for, despite having been born to two parents who were good dancers, a series of skeletal birth defects means that I barely mastered walking and am no graceful goer. He is a bossy dancemaster, which works well for me; I come from a background used to trusting a tone of impatient authority, and find I respond better to it than to the gentle, you-can-do-anything approach that is now so popular in all learned endeavours. He barks at me: “Don’t look at my feet!” “Don’t turn until I make you.” “Trust my arm!” I find myself, after a fashion, dancing with him in the flat, alternately giggling and biting my lip in determination.
In the morning he sings in the shower, his voice also trained. I hear strains of opera as I am dressing. We sing “Nessun dorma” one day, together.
***
I am awakened one night by his hands stroking my hair, as though he were soothing me out of a bad dream. In the morning, he has no memory of this. The water rises.
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Eden Simone
fingerlakeswanderer
Rutilus Extraho
Owl_Says_Who
Verbal Remedy AKA Denise
Bob Eckstein
Salon.com
Comments
Rated.
Looking forward to reading more...
R