A tryst, by the Seine
We were walking down the riverside when he suddenly held my left wrist, in an attempt to slow me down. I looked at him, quite perplexed, and asked him what was wrong.
He said he felt a sharp pain in his chest and, clearly, he looked pale.
I panicked but tried to remain calm, while he slowly got back the colour on his face, but now he was looking me in my eyes. A gaze that gave you a direct glance at his heart- naked, raw, racing.
“Are you ever going to say yes to me?”
I was taken aback. “Say yes?”
“We have been goofing around for a year now, and don’t you get it, R? We make these impromptu trips just to meet for a couple of days in six months.”
I wasn’t getting him. Maybe I was. But I didn’t want him to know. So I kept staring at him, waiting for a more direct question, that his expectant eyes had already given away. I think I managed to look innocent.
“Don’t you see it? I am done trying to be just the guy you see and spend time with. I want more with you. I want us to be something more than this. Why didn’t you respond to the roses that I sent to your apartment from my office last Wednesday?”
The impatience in his liquid voice made me gush.
“Ah, the red roses.” I took my eyes away from his for a brief moment. I feared he would see my pupils dilate or my cheeks blush, or whatever it is that happens when the heart skips a beat.
“Yes, Ma’am, the red roses.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted me to say something to you for the flowers.”
He held my hand for a few seconds. He was cold. And then he let them go and looked overat the Seine with dark, sad eyes. The moonlight’s reflection on the shimmering river was echoing the desires in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t kissing me. Stupid.
“I saw you had attempted at writing a poem that you sent along with the bouquet, but I must admit, it was a horrible one. Especially, since ‘u’ were missing from the ‘color’.” As I said these words, I started walking again.
More puzzled than ever, he sped up to catch up with me on the walk, and asked,
“What do you mean, M? What..what was missing?”
I tried hard to fight my giggles and replied anyway,
“Okay, come to my place tomorrow, and I’ll show you how you could improve the rhythm and the meter of your four-liner. You want me to say yes, right? But I need to see ‘u’ in your poem, and then, maybe, I’ll think over your proposal.”
Although it was past 11, the Parisian streets didn’t seem to be tired of the day. People were singing and dancing to music of all sorts, cellos and guitars emboldening the moon to gleam with a lustful grace on its countenance.
But would R get it? The seas and thousands of lands that separated our lives would not disappear for two hearts to be united, would they? Nor would he be willing to give up his happening writing job at the Washington Post for an English woman teaching English all over Europe. And even if he did leave his corporate life behind, to travel with me, what was in it for him? Would we be able to sustain on love’s fodder for long? And even if we did, would I be able to tolerate his arrogant American accent, all the missing ‘u’s from ‘colour’ and omnipresent ‘z’s in all the world’s ‘……sations’ ? I guess, no. Love wasn’t enough. Did he know he was in love with a crazy woman? I wouldn’t have fallen for me! Did he not see how uncertain I was of myself?
There was a light pat on my head, thus placing me back into reality. R was again looking straight into me, trying to decipher my mind’s labyrinth. No sooner had I come back to the riverside, than he pointed at the hotel we were putting up at.
“Here we are”, R said. He looked visibly sad, and I was the reason why such an otherwise beautiful day was going to end so anticlimactically for him. I kissed on his right cheek, as tenderly as the breeze touched both of us, sending a ripple of calm down our bodies. And then I put my head on his chest, wrapped my arms around his respectably masculine girth, and rested them on his hips. R stood absolutely still, his heart echoing tunes of hope, and my ears kept on listening. Intently. Two souls in absolute harmony, floating in dimensions imperceptible to mortals. My lips wanted to adorn him. At that moment, I knew this is the best we could be, not a note more, not less.
“Tomorrow is our last day of perfect… can we let ourselves be lost in the bliss and leave it at that?”
