Les Autres

I've thought of you often, though this is the first time I've thought of you in March. The scent of incense riding up my thigh, that stilted way you had about you of looking like a chapel in the desert.

After you left, we stayed on for another week, taking daily lodgings. Haggling with the ancient hostess to keep us on, but not keep up. I thought if she caught on, she'd pull the sheets off our bed and tie my wrists behind the lamppost. It's always the little quiet villages that prove hungriest for witches. In the end, when you didn't return to us on Sunday, I had to throw in the fedora you'd bought me (do you remember saying I was the soundtrack of an old movie, sprung like spring gust into your life, or was that just the parapet-rattling wind?), and vacate our rooms.

I wrapped our silverware inside clean nappies, not wanting to kick up the dust with my loud barrel-roll clamor. I wanted badly to keep the world as it'd been. The unanswered letters, your lond trail of unpaid bills. Twice, the foot of my chair caught on white tulle. First, I shifted my chair. Next, I stood and folded carefully the dress. Wondered if I sold it, how much I might ask for. Made a note to wonder further, when time wasn't pressing, and I didn't have to leave.

I realized, later, about rashes from unwashed breakfast spoons. If I'd known, I might've avoided. But caught in the moment, I was busy opening and slamming the fridge door, unwrapping each parcel of Gouda and Edam individually. Counting the omelettes you'd never eat, and positioning them strategically in abandoned corners of each room, where harried eyes wouldn't spot them. Too long, you'd reminded me not to feed the mice, or we'd be out on our ears. And it was so very difficult to find rooms, already.

The leftover speck, I fried for myself, wary of turning in stray hounds, and boiled two eggs vindictively. One for me, and one I'd treasured in case of angels knocking on my door inside the early hours. Knowing how the landlady hated us making a mess, or so much as a solitary peep. Chased them around the plate, hunting down errant salt, eating with my hands, licking up your grease.

Afterwards, bitter, stale coffee gargling in my acid-lace intestine, I scrubbed the floor, the bedside and the bathroom tap. I wanted to pretend neither of us had ever been there. The day before we met, I asked if you liked to pretend, and hearing my question, you telegraphed back you thought it'd be good fun, and that you'd come after. Pictured you coming back for the socks left on cold heater, and finding the room empty, and would you be relieved, or would I forget something in return to allow you to hound me back? Sometimes, walking back late at night, I think the barking may be only inside my head.

Dutifully, I erased every trace of our existing. Took my comfort in knowing it would hurt you more than all the venom my mouth was too dry to spit. When you spat in my mouth, I thought you were giving me something of you, but really, you just had too much of yourself you needed to discard, and I see that now.

Imagine you standing, Saint Dismas with his arms numb tied behind his back, standing in this room empty and free of us. Imagine remorse that isn't there, an eternity of penance for something you won't recognize you've done. Know myself too well, that I will in the end canonize you, in spite of my recriminations.

For now, I forget to ask. Our belongings seem few and pitiful. I'm still using my Cousin Agnes shawl as a cradle. I strap the rest of what you left to my back and retreat, naked, into the forest you once kidnapped me from. There's a great ocean at the end, but first, there must be desert.

Once a year, I let myself think of you openly. The rest, I am deaf to questions. This year, spring has come early. I picture you skidding mad across the highway. You are a good man, but weak also. Inevitably, you let your heart change your mind after driving the old priest to the airport. You came back, but it was too late. Frightened, you squirreled us into your innermost shame, and loving you, I wanted to take it off, and make it better.

You, somewhere, in a garden, layering Camembert on top a white loaf with relish. Me, waiting for the school bell. The mice, feasting - still - like kings.