The impostor

Mike had not anticipated that the photos of this B & B would include the one of its owner. His heart skipped a beat when he saw who it was.

He made the reservation in an instant, without thinking. Days after, he was still wondering whether to cancel it...

Now there he was, travelling to meet his past, confront his conscience and check if his heart could still feel. That drive was strange. Instead of the cold pleasurable determination with which he normally made his way with his beloved car, he now sensed the vulnerability of trusting a man-made machine and could not help getting distracted by random things, like a dancing tree, a hunting bird… The red light of a car braking reminded him of a city at night and rouge-adorned women lips…

When he arrived at the place, the idea of looking for a parking space made him feel sticky and squeamish, as if he was about to run over his own viscera. There actually was a gravel car park though. He stopped the car and paused for a while, in the plastic silence of the cubicle. Then he smiled nervously, picked up the reservation voucher and got out of the car, caught between himself and his shadow.

From inside the house, the lady in reception looked at the ageing man, still handsome, as much at ease in his suit as if it had been his pyjama. She was not the one who he came to see but she knew him also and recognised him instantly.

She had always looked sad. But when before she was witty and voluble, she was now sombrely quiet. She eyed him up thoughtfully.

- Will I let you in? (she muttered)

Her broken voice was barely audible but Mike remained suspended, knowing that he would accept whatever decision she would come to.

Two seconds, one more, three seconds, five. He was about to fall forward when she finally let him in.

Her bent figure led him into the dark and prettily decorated corridor. The smell was ancient though not unpleasant. She briefly turned and, gesturing to the right-hand side:

- She is in the living-room. I will show you to your room.

His bedroom was upstairs. It was light, neat, smelt clean and, oddly, looked simultaneously modern and traditional.

- Thank you Melody.

He put his suitcase down. On her way out, she paused and turned her tired eyes to his:

- Her memory is not what it used to be.

She was gone. Mike tried to compose himself; it must be easy, he thought, you’re a composer after all; but he gave it up and decided to go down immediately.

He descended the stairs, feeling like a stranger in his own house. The door to the living-room was closed. It was painted in white, with round curves. He feared it might be locked, but when he turned the round knob, it opened with a slight jerk and a creaking sound.

She was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, pulling intensely and absently on a smokeless cigarette. Her clear blue eyes had always been piercing, but there was now an invisible veil keeping some of the light outside, or maybe some of the soul inside. She turned her face towards him as he entered, and he  briefly saw or imagine movement in these eyes, like curtains moving in a window as someone is spying from inside. However, she only said:

- Good morning.

Her gaze stayed on him but a few seconds more, before drifting back into the vacuousness they inhabited.

He stood undecided. Distances did not seem to mean anything. Forty years later, she was still herself, he was still himself, she was still the one for  him, was he still the one for her? He was close enough to touch her, yet could not reach her. He felt the world was spinning. He looked at the wrinkled face, as beautiful as ever. He looked at the skilful hands he had so often seen at work, fashioning shapes, colours and dreams, now straining at a smokeless cig, yellow from previous abuse. He looked at the frail body, still retaining that appearance of strength former athleticism gave it.

He contemplated the face of time, he had never felt so lonely. As always when she was around he was feeling complete, but the pain of loss squeezed his heart to a silex of hurt.

Was he sitting now? His hands were shaking. His whole life was drifting away, washed away by the tide of his sunken love. Forty years to be here, to be back to the present, brought back to the shore only to find the island has been deserted...

- Fool!

Melody was looking at the broken man with as much anger as pity. She went to the breathing mummy, put her hand on her shoulder:

- Darling, Mike is here to see you.

She raised her eyes to Melody, glimpsed at Mike, still no sign of recognition of the man or of life.

Mike was now sobbing audibly. He was not aware of when he had started crying. He stumbled out of the room, blindly climbed the stairs, fumbled open the door and collapsed in a corner, face squashed upon the wall.

The salt and the water, and wave after wave of grief. Lost at sea, the man grips whatever keeps him afloat: a piece of wallpaper, the stuttering intakes and outtakes of breath, the quietness his broken sobs create around him…

Eventually Mike rallies, his proud figure unfolds, unwittingly he smoothes his suit over as he stands up. Only remains this pounding pain, where his heart would have been.

He breathed in deeply, checked his appearance and went down to the ring again.

In the living-room Melody was there too. Mike was calmer, he wanted to try. He did not dare use her name, he wished he could call her “sweetheart”:

- Hmm, shall we do something? Shall we go for a coffee or something?

- Sure, if you’d like to.

He started, her voice had not changed one iota. She was just being polite, not knowing him, but he seized his opportunity.

- Alright let’s go then.

She got out of the sofa, still vivacious. Her round contours were now much sharper, although as lovely as ever. He took her arm and she let him. He thought with a pang of pain and guilt that, had she known him, she would have told him to fuck off.

Although he only remembered it vaguely, the little town was easy to reconnoitre and he quickly found a suitable place where to take his old flame. It was a quaint old café, with wooden panels and marble columns. It was pretty empty, but not derelict or sad, just empty.

They sat opposite each other at a round iron table. Again he pondered distractedly the relativity of distances. He burnt of an ardent desire to touch her, but sorely knew that his contact would not be heeded, recognised or reciprocated.

When the waitress came, a plump young girl exhibiting a mixture of boredom, sexual allure and good-heartedness, he looked at his companion and, as she did not react to his look or the expectation, he ordered two cappuccinos.

Sunlight came through stained-glass windows and left multi-coloured specks on the table and Mike’s fingers on top of it. It reminded him of a kaleidoscope she once gave him. She loved colours with such a warmth! Of course she would not remember.

- Look (he said), that window’s nice.

She looked up and smiled.

- It’s pretty (she kept smiling).

Her voice still crisp, with an element of frailness.

- It looks like a kaleidoscope (she went on, her eyes meeting his)

He started, she did not remember, yet they were so close to recognition, it was almost unendurable.

Thankfully the coffees arrived and provided a welcome distraction. He wondered what would happen if he had that kaleidoscope here and he showed it to her. Would it jolt her memory back to life? The tension of this interrogation became unbearable, he had to shake himself and occupy himself with the cup and spoon.

She was looking at him curiously.

- Are you ok ?(she asked) You seem sad.

- I’m fine.

He smiled, and this smile scintillated in his mouth and eyes like a lakeful of tears touched by the rising sun of emotion.

He controlled himself. His thoughts again explored his pockets, did he have anything she would remember? Then again, if she did not recognise him!

- Do you have children? (she asked)

Why is she interested, he doubted.

- No, I don’t. I didn’t find the right person to have them with. Do you?

She appeared to think.

- No (she finally answered). Did I meet the right person? (she asked aloud and remained lost in thought, lost in fog)

Mike sipped his coffee. It was good, surprisingly so. He was amazed he could enjoy it so naturally, when at the same time his heart was crushed as if between two elephants.

- Coffee’s good (he commented).

She assented:

- Yes, very good, this is a very good place. We often come here with Melody.

A group of young men dressed in theatre clothes, complete with swords, entered the café and sat at a table nearby. It did not take long for Mike to realise they were rehearsing Romeo and Juliet.

“Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,-- Will they not hear?” was belting a bearded man, reading from a paper sheet.

They listened on, curious, amused, bound together by this interest. The actors were minor ones, with a lot of eagerness and little measure. They often stumbled upon a word or an intonation. A young one – though too old to be Romeo – started assuredly: “She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste”, but had to stop there as he lost his line, and Mike continued under his breath: “For beauty starved with her severity cuts beauty off from all posterity”.

He discovered her gaze on him and felt a contraction of his heart. Her clear eyes made him feel exposed, his soul naked and vaguely shameful.

She broke off this exchange of looks, which to him felt more like an examination, and fumbled in her handbag. She pulled out an old book which made Mike jump. It was a volume of Shakespeare plays that she had had when they were together, and they had often read from it together. Here was finally the object from their past that she would recognise!

As she was flicking through it undecided, he asked:

- Can I?

He took the book with a trembling hand. Then he started to read, his voice initially unsure, hampered by the lack of habit and the overflow of emotion, soon recovering however this élan that used to make him feel alive and worthy:

“The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; in half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so. O, she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts, which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, driving back shadows over louring hills…”

He went on, never looked at her but could feel in his own delivery the old confidence at sensing that her mind followed his words like the stick of a conductor fashions the sound of an orchestra, like a river flows in its bed, natural, transient, magical, doomed…

Calmly, he paused to look for another piece to read. A rich silence full of echoes, waves of soulful vibrations revolved between them, around them.

“These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness and in the taste confounds the appetite: therefore love moderately; long love doth so; too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”

Neither realised that the actors had stopped rehearsing to listen. Mike finally raised his eyes, his voice a hoarse whisper, with a lingering trace of eloquence:

- We were never moderate, were we?

She seemed about to say something. He remained suspended. No sound came out however from her dried beautiful lips.

- Did you ever think of me? (he asked)

He got the impression that she understood the question and its implications, although she was unable to utter anything, searching within herself the answer, like a blind hand desperately trying to find the ink spot in which to dip the pen.

They would never be closer than they were presently, only this very fine transparent veil separating them inexorably.

He savoured this bittersweet proximity, then softly, sadly, slowly, he opened the volume at the end of the play:

“For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

- You used to say (he told her) that the plot had many flaws, and it’s true. Do you remember?

She did not answer and he was resigned.

On the way back to the B & B, he held her hand and she mysteriously let him, although never formally identifying him. No more words ever passed between them but the last time they had spoken was many many years before anyway. Mike was asking himself once more, as so often in his life, whether to continue living. Perhaps was it only human nature to err aimlessly under the travelling sun. He would never know. He just had that nagging feeling that she might have been able, once upon a time, to answer this very question and give it a meaning. He missed her and could only blame himself.