He started with that verse from Corinthians, that one about love overcoming everything. It filled 4 lines on that piece of stationary. He was thankful for these words to borrow and the indent, for his own words seemed to be stuttering ineloquently— in brief little spats of frustrating seconds, where his thoughts played a melody to which his mouth hadn’t the words. So many miles between them and his words wouldn’t reach halfway. Iris’ letter had come two weeks before, sitting on his night stand, read over and over again ‘til he knew each mark by heart; not just the words themselves, but where the letters darkened as she was thinking, where her print loosened when she knew what to say, where she had wondered how to dot her i’s without being cliché, where there was a spelling error, where there wasn’t one. This is how she spoke, betwixt her writing; in the space between the letters she filled in her voice, packing into those curved lines all the new portions of her being that he had not yet gotten to taste.
Blais lounged in his room, part of him striving for comfort, the other knowing he dare not request that. His letter, now totaling six and a half lines lay on his bed, as he tried different positions of his body and the light trying to make those lines multiply. It wasn’t that he couldn’t create words, he was quite good at that, but these words had too much power; they must be matched to hers. He was creating an embrace with his words, and he must envelop her, lest he offer an escape and she slip through. No these words must suffocate her, his words breathed in and nothing else, that her response might hold nothing but love.
We can get through this… we will get through this; neither tense sufficed his faith and his fears. What was “this”, the distance? Or was it more…the dwindling of a flame. The fire that had stirred as they left and now was it gone? How short the wick of love’s candle in the summer.
Blais was a romantic but this was far from good work—this is what he ended up with. Not that he was proud, but all his recumbence left him no time for edit.
Dear Iris,
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
It’s been almost 2 weeks, 3 I guess by the time this gets to you, that we last talked. I don’t have many answers to your questions; I’ve carved them into my heart, but my heart gave no answer, save that I will do all that I can; persevere when love even, may seem to not. I guess you would have expected that and I guess that’s all I can offer which is precisely why it doesn’t seem enough. You, who could offer me every bliss of being a man; every desire, you fulfilled, but I can but only try? Where are you now, as I lay here on this bed, where would you be if you were here, over me, under me, beside me, or might you not be here at all? To these questions, I again have no answer. Do you?
We fit so much love in those short two month. More than some might taste in a life time, I tasted with you, drinking you in; as much as I could take, chugging your essence, smothering myself with your perfume—but that scent is rushing away, flying in all directions from my lusting nostrils and I can’t hold it in. I can’t hold you in. Nothing I do is bringing you back, nothing even keeping you here save my thoughts which fade and expound into the fictitious more and more reluctantly.
That verse above speaks of the patience of love and O, that I would wait for you but what am I waiting for? Fate? It’s got a timeline longer than my life, and how could I live long flooding myself with the tears of your absence. Hopeless tears.
A love that doesn’t envy? How can I not envy all those that live over these rocks, those, that have no mountains between their face and yours? What an honor they have, do they treasure it as much as I. They couldn’t—it would be too great a feat. I love you like a tree loves its roots, like the sky loves its hue, like the eye loves the color of its Iris. I melt with love for you, but what shall I make of my future, what might you make of yours that we not have to write in such esoteric terms, communicating with such long pauses, forcing love to think.
All of the love this village can offer, all of my basest yearnings, my hopes, my fears, my life, my love. To you my sweet, my thoughts, my world.
Blais Williamsvard
The mule’s feet tread up and down again along the fertile patched cliffs that form the highlands of Scotland; Blais’ letter rested somewhere in the middle of the pile. Its contents had warranted no special place, thrown in with all of the advertisements and notices. The calligraphic handwriting on its front, whose swirls made her name almost illegible, smeared a bit with the sweat of such work in such altitudes, with so many miles traveled and so many miles to go. With each uneven step, hooves slid across the loose stones, which had lived for centuries in nearly every position, and thrusted the pack-beast down a ways despite all sounds of opposition. The letter moved from where it was rested and juggled to lay on a new pile of advertisements, in a different direction, though its contents remained the same. It took nearly five days for the letter to reach Iris’ home across those slopes. Only about 30 miles through the mountains but the mountains were closed and one must go over, dragged down by the slow movements of the pack-mule and by the early autumn chill of the day, by the freedoms taken by the boy having no stake, himself in the items he carried, and by the early night of October and the dreariness of that twilight that makes even the quick yawn and blink their eyes. The letter got used to certain notices and advertisements as it rested exceedingly on its journey. Got used to, but not attached to; it was fond of some, the softer paper of the pamphlets, the color of some advertisements—but it never latched on. It was, by nature, meant to be lonely, the lonely words of two people now separated, making a lonely journey from loneliness to loneliness, glad for the company but unable to cling to it.
Iris looked up from the dress she was hemming catching her hand on the wool fabric as she saw the last rays of that Thursday fade away behind the highlands, where her love lived. In the fog she thought she saw a raven saluting this sunset atop the gray-brown fence post that caged her farm. She could see a ghost of herself in the reflection in the mirror. Her eyes looked as though they were pulled from the sea itself, spinning blues and greys and greens and violets into the beautiful tapestry of her eyes. Her nose was small and cute, not so womanly as she would have liked, but hardly a flaw. She had predominantly blond hair, but it bled with silk-like tresses of auburn which danced with the blonde in a production of incomparable beauty, shaping the face of this woman in billowing locks of gold. Her skin was pale and smooth, forming to all the curves of her mouth making her cheeks depressed with the fear of the world, deep but not hollow into her jawbone that made teardrop dimples when she smiled—she didn’t smile at this moment.
“Dinner” Iris’ father screamed up to the upper room where she did her sewing as if she might not come down. Their mother had passed the winter before and the sweetness of her voice had now completely left the house, replaced by the gruff mumblings of men when they suppress emotion.
Iris slipped silently down the stairs grazing her ivory hands down the walls and bannister as if she might faint or fall at any moment. She closed her eyes and breathed, or maybe it was a sigh. With lips clenched and folded inside on top of each other leaving only the red on her cheeks, she turned the corner to face her father and brother already sitting at the large wooden table, scowls and non-emotion quivering on their lips, anxiety and hurt wrinkling in their brows.
_______________________ END OF CHAPTER 1_________________________
The street lamp glowed almost orange as it flickered over Sasha’s head. The acerbic Long Island breeze blew a maelstrom of tiny icicles onto her flushed face, dangling, for a moment, on her eyelashes, where they melted. Three in the morning and she stood on that God-forsaken road, with only a cheetah print coat and glass high heels to protect her from winter’s breath. Underneath, was that sort of lingerie, too confusing to be worn by the regular woman, with so many straps and hooks it could be worn a myriad of different ways—all immodest.
Dying headlights illuminated enormous circles in the fog. The car looked as though beaten with a bat. A man stepped out, raimented in a three piece suit and a wool trench coat. He was not unattractive. No, he was quite attractive, she noticed as he turned his face towards her. Black hair cut short around his sharp features, and stubbled along his jaw line, but he did not look angry. Nor was he intimidating. His eyes had an extra sparkle in them, a third diamond betwixt the pupil. His eyes, were gray, but in the fog, they were a gorgeous sea-colored blue. In any case, with her “house” across the street, and Luther the manager lighting his cigarette only a few feet away she wasn’t so much worried for angry men as she was surprised that this one was not so. No spite tingled at his eye, not hardly, a hunger.
Sasha, was most beautiful of the house, more beautiful than most of Long Island, perhaps the whole of it, but the language barrier made her a liability on the streets; knowing few words, she was dangerous. Her native Croatia had offered her none of the satisfactions of independency and so she now lived in the “land of opportunity”, striving to find for herself something lasting in this freedom, a promise, that would complete, her, if just so little as to share her freedoms with another.
Broke and illiterate of English, she happened her way to Luther who took her in with more than open arms, he had watched her for 3 years now, as she froze in the streets with a half-promise that she might get a few hours of warmth from a disgusting and angry man. She was ok with this, in part as she did nothing but her requirements and left upon finishing. The words she knew got her into these homes and the words she didn’t, got her out of them. Long Island was a broken and aroused place and she did well for herself.
The man pulled out a bulging wallet with fresh cash, and a lot of it. Without a word he gave her the base fee and slipped her into the car. It was not uncommon for her to have her car door open. At least at first, these animals tended to show a little class, but coupled with his eyes, the door was a gesture, a gesture, she thought might take her away. She suppressed it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave, she always imagined that she would, but like this, without words, and scarcely clothed—all the stories that played chorus in her head ended beside one of her angry or depressed, bald clients. She was used to working for her freedom, illegally in America, that was required, but she feared living in it on her knees.
A part of her was obsessed with the idea of settling down, getting married, becoming a citizen perhaps, never again being forced to stand in blistering tempests of ice in her underwear, but part of her loved her life. It was healing, reassuring, that she was desired—that nasty as they be, men lusted for her, and satisfied her. In a sense she was married to all men, all who overcame their shame and purchased a night. To be married to just one was violating the freedoms she enjoyed.
She looked over once more at her purchaser as he drove down the slick street.
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