VALENTINE'S MOURNING
It started two years after Leon died, the flowers, or at least I assume it did because that was when I began to find them. Year after year and always on the same day without change. Valentine's Day. Each year a bunch of roses, at first red and later pink which seems the fashionable choice for well… people like Leon… these days. It wasn't so much the flowers that entranced me as the photographs. Every year a photograph and a note in writing nigh illegible. And always it was the same young man, the same young man who answered the door one day and turned my world upside down. This makes a wry smile on my face – turn upside down, invert, un invert. Always the same boy, well a boy then not now, that silver hair finally coming close to matching his face. How old must he be now? Has he grown into another Leon, embracing another young man young enough to be his son? No, he was never that young was he, that strange young man in the apartement on the Rue Soleil? I would never say twenty-one as Leon adamantly claimed and lied, but not that young surely? Then I think of what he little he said of the life he fled – j' habitait en enfer – and think again would even this have been a sort of heaven to him? His every need and all he had to do was oblige and return to Leon's bed. I don't want to think of this any more than I did then.
So why am I here, sitting on a bench in the cemetery, waiting for the inevitable visitor who I know only through pictures left not for me but for my brother? What do I want? I know the answer; to know what happened, to know what killed him. I swore his young man would be the death of him. Was I right?
And he is there. At the graveside in front of me he stands in a long black coat, the wind sweeping his grey hair high above his steel eyes. I did not see him come, I was watching the path, but I did not see him come. And he made no sound when the crisp snow should have crackled beneath his feet. I notice the flowers, this time they are white, not pink, and a wreath not a bouquet.
His head turns towards me, watching me with that same defiant gaze those same metal blue eyes that looked at me in the apartment that day, the last day I saw my brother alive. He speaks in clear crisp tones,
"Do you know me, Madame?"
He's standing by the grave, looking downwards slightly towards the stone; the roses are still hanging from his fingers swinging slightly in the wind. His head tilts slightly to one side and his eyes shift in recognition. How can he remember a face so briefly seen? I think I am just imagining, trying to avoid speaking with my strangely mute lips, when he does,
"Madame Curie! What are you doing out here? You'll freeze if you're not careful!"
Suddenly, the answer seems somewhat small,
"Waiting for you."
A smile tears across his face, revealing an inner bright teeth and more than that an inner brightness, a vivacity of sorts, is that what Leon saw? Is that what had made Leon love him? He's speaking, he's speaking and I haven't noticed,
"…I suppose somebody would have seen the flowers eventually. It was never subtle was it? Roses for a valentine. And the then there's the photographs, I always wanted to tell him what I was up to, what I was doing."
I blurt out,
"I have the photographs"
I think I've made a terrible mistake until the words come,
"Well they're more use to you than to a dead man. Maybe knowing that someone else still cares makes things better. Look, we can't stay here, you'll freeze. Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere warmer. With coffee I think, that will warm you up in no time."
My mind grasps vaguely at the fact that he says nothing of himself. The coat he's wearing, while large hardly seems adequate for the Quebec winter, yet I cannot even see his breath upon the cold air. I stand up, an answer to his invitation, and immediately I slip. Yet he is at my side grasping my elbow. I did not even see him move. Why should I have? I was falling, yet something tells me that there's something wrong or at least strange.
His voice pulls me from my distraction and my worries vanish like my breath upon the air,
"The path's rather steep and icy, it's a miracle you managed to get up here without slipping and breaking something. Come on, put your hands round my neck and I'll carry you down. No protesting now, I insist."
I look at the path, the whole idea is clearly insane, it's steep and long and ungritted,
"There's no way you can carry me all the way down there. We'll fall"
He is clearly quite insane; well the idea was his so why am I surprised?
"Madame I have the safest hands in all Canada."
With this he scoops me up into his arms and sets the down the hill at a frantic pace. I am terrified. No, no I'm not terrified, it's as if we're flying, the wind rushes past my ears, I can hear my heart pounding in my chest, but I'm not terrified. I am held by the safest hands in all Canada and they will not drop me.
And then it's over and I'm on my feet again and we are at the foot of the hill. I still can't see his breath on the cold air and he's not panting. What kind of man can run down a hill with a woman in his arms and hanging on for dear life and yet not break a sweat? You'd think he'd have been standing here all along. The same cannot be said for me,
"Are you alright? I didn't go too fast did I? It's not often that I run around with a beautiful woman in my arms."
He's so charming, so concerned it's quite ridiculous,
"I'm hardly a beautiful woman, I'm quite old enough to be your mother. And I doubt you do anything much with beautiful women!"
He laughs,
"Mon petit ami is another matter entirely, he's become quite used to being picked up and carted around by me, I think I'm ruining him, his legs will fall off if I persist. Maybe that's a good idea, then I'll make sure he'll never leave me. Anyway, true beauty comes from within and, Madame, you have an abundance of it."
My mind latches on to the "petit ami" a boyfriend, I may be not getting any younger but I think I'm still pretty sharp, and well as I said,
"You must think that flattery will get you everywhere."
The answer surprised me at once, confident and effacing,
"It normally does. But it's true, beauty lies within the heart and soul, at least it must since I cannot imagine anyone dating me for my looks."
I forgot to say that this answer was also quite absurd, most girls would have gone completely wild about him. He looked like some character from those strange Japanese computer games my grandson Phillipe so likes to play, with his swept back hair and pointed ears.
We made it to the café by the park without any further trouble and it looked like my personal taxi service drew the line at carrying me through the streets of Quebec.