BODY AND SOUL

1

It was Her.

There, in the middle of the dimly lit and crowded room, She stood out, even though in reality she was standing in the background. In the sea of anxious faces, turned towards him in reaction to his sneering greeting, Her face shone, making everything else fade out and blur.

It was Her. The One. The girl he never hoped to find, though somehow always knew he would. Or the other way round. The girl for whom he always waited and for whom he searched eagerly, forever telling himself that she doesn't exist anywhere but in his imagination, and even if she did exist, she wouldn't be destined for him. How could she? He was not meant to love and to be loved – nobody ever loved him, and in his heart of hearts he knew no one ever would. No, that's not right. In his heart of hearts he always hoped the opposite, hoped that love will come into his life, and will change it. He just disciplined himself not to entertain these futile hopes. He is a very clever person, and always was – he lived by his wits, there was a time when his intelligence used to be his only armor against the harsh world. He knew his ever-hopeful heart is a worse enemy then any outside force. The heart is foolish. It always dreams of the impossible, and it can make you forget what you really are and therefore make you weak and eventually destroy you. So he always silenced his heart when it whispered to him of hopes and dreams. His mind was always in control. Well, nearly always.

If someone – anyone – ever asked him: 'Do you hope to find love?' he would have laughed this person in the face. And stifle the pang of hope that stirred in his soul at the very sound of the word. Yet it was ever there, this hope. He just never let it into his consciousness, never acknowledged it to himself. But it was always there, alive and gleaming, making him commit stupid mistakes and invest unsuitable women with great significance, making him angry and bitter at disappointments. It is very easy to tell yourself to expect nothing, but it is much easier said then done. However wisely you tell yourself there is nothing to expect, you always do hope for something – such is human nature. And when your hopes are crushed, and when your expectations are not met, you are hurt and you leash out on the world, trying to punish it for cruelty. You should punish yourself for your own foolishness, really, but you rarely stop to think of that. You strike first, and think later, usually while looking in horror at what you've done.

And in his case, what he can do is usually truly horrible.

Yet, with this dangerous hope ever present, in the depth of his heart, hidden from the world and especially from himself, it is funny how he could never predict that something important, something life-changing is going to happen. Oh, he often had this feeling of premonition, of alertness, of readiness for a miracle. It seemed he could smell it in the air, like the coming rain. He could wake up, get out of the house, walk – limp, later, – up to the hills with his sheep, look at the damp sky, feel the wind on his face, and then catch himself thinking: 'It is going to happen today'. He could never explain what that 'it' was. He just knew it was coming, knew it was near. The miracle, the magical 'something', that would fill his miserable life with light and meaning. Yet it never happened. He was always wrong. By the end of the day the heady feeling would be gone and forgotten. He would come home beaten and weary, knowing that life is what it is, not what we wish it to be. It was so long ago when he lived in a dark hut in his poor village. It is so now, when he lives in a dark castle on gloomy hills. He knows well enough not to trust it, that elation that comes with the wind and dies as the wind.

Yet today, there was no elation, no expectation of anything. He came here, to this pitiful little kingdom, out of sheer boredom. Their request was so small, so easily answered there was actually no need for him to come at all. Defeating the ogres for him is routine; he could have done it without moving from his comfortable chair. Yet he was bored, and he was so highly amused by the offer of gold (just how stupid must this king be, offering him gold?), that he came over just for a bit of fun. To tease these people here, to sneer at them, to show off a bit – he does love an audience, – to make them sweat a little before granting them what they asked for; that's what he came for. One must amuse oneself, sometimes.

He certainly didn't come here looking for love.

Yet he came into the room, he sat on the throne, and he uttered his first sneering words, and they turned to him, startled, and he just started to enjoy himself, feeding on their fear, and there She was, standing amongst them, solemn and silent, looking at him with those incredible eyes. Not scared or intimidated like the rest of them; no, she looked baffled and curious, as if not quite believing her eyes, as if trying to figure out what on earth That Thing is, sitting on her father's throne, giggling.

He didn't think that – he could never think that, consciously, – it came as a certain, absolute knowledge, and it came surely and wholesomely, in one piece, as if a rock was planted in his soul, or as if a voice from above sounded in his mind, addressing his heart directly, bypassing all rational thoughts and telling him: 'This is Her. You have found her'.

And he panicked.

He is scared, now, as never before in his life. She exists – that fact alone is enough to shatter his peace of mind, the foundations of his world. He has found her, and recognized her, their lives collided – the impossible has happened. Yet the fact that she exists doesn't really change anything – doesn't mean anything. There is no guarantee that their meeting will have the same significance to her as it has to him. Guarantee? No, there is simply no way it will mean anything to her. He has found her, that's true. He knows that he will love her till his dying breath – though it doesn't feel like he loves her now, he is just too shocked for anything of the sort. But nobody said that she would love him. Why should she? How could she?

So, the fact that she exists doesn't promise anything – it brings no hope, no bright future. It is a blow, rather. A cruel trick of fate: to give him the proof of the reality of his personal miracle, yet to devoid him of all hope.

He knows he must not hope. He knows he must calm his madly beating heart. Nothing happened; it's just him, and his stupid dreaming soul; all this is just his problem, and shouldn't concern her. He must leave this place, now. He must leave her in peace. He must flee from her and try to forget that she is real.

Yet she is standing there, in the middle of the crowd, and she looks at him with those eyes of hers, looks in bewilderment at him prattling rubbish, barely registering his own words, giggling like a nervous teenager, camping out as never before, showing off his bravura image in a truly overblown fashion. She must think him mad. She must laugh at him, inwardly. She must despise him. She must fear him.

Yet how can she fear him when he is making a complete fool of himself?

Oh, those eyes of hers, bright and blue as the sky in the mountains that he roamed in his youth. There is such light in them. They shine so. They are so warm. They promise so much.

Her skin is so white – it must be soft like a wing of a butterfly, velvety and so delicate that to even think of touching it brings tears to his eyes. Her hair is so rich; the auburn locks are so shiny. To run his fingers through it, to feel those silky treads caress his skin… Oh what sweet, sweet madness.

How can he leave without her, now that he had found her? How can he live without her?

Yet how can he have her? How can he ask for her? His ugliness and his curse aside, how can he actually get her to come with him? And he must do that – he knows, suddenly, that he has to take her with him. He must have her on his own. God knows what he'll do with her – he'd never gather the courage or the stupidity to actually court her, but he must have her near him, even if just to have a chance to look at her, sometimes. She must come to his castle for, if he leaves her now, without her he will perish. And he will never gather the courage to come back for her. If not now, then never – once he is away from her, he will talk himself into the impossibility of all that, again. He will convince himself it was a mistake. He will believe it is all hopeless.

Yet now, when she is so near, he cannot resist. He cannot stop himself.

As if from a distance, he hears himself saying in this nasty whining tone he affirms when talking to people with whom he trades: 'What I want is something a bit more special. My price is… her'. He is pointing his clawed finger at the girl. Her father answers with a flat 'No', yet he doesn't sound too sure. What a filthy man – he is indeed ready to trade her! Her oafish fiancée states the obvious: 'The young lady is engaged to me'. Oh, this boy is strangely not as stupid as he looks – he understands what is going on… Or was it just a lucky guess?

She doesn't say anything. She only lowers her eyes, momentarily, than looks up at him. She is disturbed, and annoyed. She doesn't like him, or find him amusing. She is apprehensive.

But she is not scared.

She is the only person in the room who is not scared – of ogres, and of him.

What is he thinking, trying to take this strange and fearless girl with him? Is that wise, to let such a baffling creature get close to him?

Yet he cannot stop himself – not now. He is completely carried away.

'I wasn't asking if she were engaged!' Can they all hear just how false and forced the irony in his voice sounds? 'I am not looking for love…' God, it is getting worse and worse… Nobody in the room mentioned 'love'; he is just giving himself away… 'I am looking for a… caretaker for my rather large estate'.

Now were did that come from? What kind of a stupid reason is that? He is The Dark One. The greatest wizard in the land. What would he need a caretaker for? He can defeat the ogres with one thought – surely he can clean his estate, however large it is, without a caretaker?

They will ask him that now, surely. But they don't. Perhaps they are complete idiots. Or they are just scared mindless. Whatever it is, no one disputes his wild suggestion, and he presses on: 'It is her – or no deal'.

Her stupid father recovers from shock and refuses. Her stupid fiancée tries to shield her. She lowers her eyes, again.

He makes to leave, numbly.

He did try. He can't force them. It is their choice. Well, he can force them, but he will not, for they are right in refusing him. He has asked the impossible, and it was deeply insulting – it was too much, even for him, with his reputation of ruthlessness.

It was all pointless and hopeless, anyway.

He is almost out of door. He is going to go and leave her behind. Just a couple more steps.

And then he hears her sigh, and feels her eyes upon him – it is amazing how he can feel her looking, as if her gaze was a physical thing.

'Wait!' she says.

He turns to face her.

Oh God, she is so close to him. She looks him straight in the eye – defiantly. She swallows – of course, she is scared, she is just very good at hiding it, and now, when she had a closer look at him, she is more scared then before. What is he hoping for? Why is he doing this? He must stop, he must change the conditions of the deal – he is not evil, not really, he actually wants to help those fools, for ogres are menace and their request for help was very reasonable.

But, even if he really wanted to negotiate further, he has no time to speak, for the girl gives a little decisive nod, and says: 'I will go with him'.

Her family makes a fuss – understandably.

He giggles like a fool, hoping that it will somehow come over as a sound of malicious glee, which is expected of him, and not as a nervous expression of released tension that it really is. He didn't realize just how tense he was, just how much he wanted it all to turn in his favor, somehow. He must have been holding his breath, he actually feels weak in the knees now.

She argues with her protectors. She makes a stand. She looks at him – searchingly, as if trying to see in his face some sign of normality, some reason to trust him.

She looks so fragile and strong and so beautiful.

'I shall go'.

He cannot do this to her. It is pointless. He has been imagining things, and he is subjecting this girl to something awful – for no reason other than his fickle illusions.

He must scare her off, warn her, he must make her go back on their deal…

'It is forever, dearie'.

He sounds disgusting. Good. That's precisely what he must seem to her – disgusting, impossible to endure a single moment with, let aside an eternity.

It is just that he has a terrible feeling that his eyes show her something else. She is so close to him that he can feel the warmth of her skin, and smell her hair; he can see the dark eyelashes over those magical eyes. She is so sweet, and he is so enchanted – she must see right through him, surely, see how overwhelmed he is, how completely her beauty defeats him in his self-imposed ugliness… Oh, the sadness of it.

She certainly looks a bit confused. His sinister act is not working, not on her, anyway – she is not scared any more, but she seems to be searching for something in his face, again. He confused her: he was sneering and evil, just a moment ago, but he is sad and serious now. She probably tries to figure him out, and she can't.

No wonder – he barely understands himself at this moment.

'My family, my friends… they will all live?'

How earnest she is. And how impossibly young.

Never, ever in his life has he seen anything as lovely as this girl.

'You have my word'. He did try to say that with a hint of his impish irony. But he came across with a hint of misplaced gentleness.

She nods – she is such a child, all her actions have the air of solemnity affected by kids when they are promising to keep a secret of a hidden treasure, or some such trifle that means a world to a young soul. 'Then you have mine. I shall go with you, forever'.

Be still, oh foolish heart. It is nothing – she just promised to come to your castle, not to share your life. But her eyes are locked with yours, and the word 'forever' rings in the stillness of the room, and gathers a full and deep significance.

She has sworn herself to him, right here and now. She might never even fully understand what it means. He would never take advantage of her promise. But the deal is done, and it cannot be undone; he, always aware of the magic flowing in the air around him, felt it – the subtle change in the texture of nature. Magic happened, and it was not his doing. It was something beyond his will. She did it when she said the words. And he can feel the effects, right now. He can feel how the two of them – the girl and himself – are drawn from the rest of the people in the room. They are detached from the world, bound together and separated from others. It is as if there is a wall between them and other people, between them and the rest of the world – transparent, yet impossible to penetrate.

He is frightened, now. He knows how magic works, only too well. And it scares him to feel the presence of magic that is bigger than his – magic that is beyond his control.

Magic comes with a price, and he wonders what price the two of them will have to pay.

'Deal', he squeals, trusting the giggling sound to hide his uneasiness.

Her father protests, again. He is quite rude – he calls him a beast. He is past being offended, though. He just makes a face at the pompous fool.

A weird lightness enters his heart; he feels a certain hysterical gaiety. He has gotten himself into something that he cannot fully grasp yet. Something changed, today, and forever, for him and for this girl. And she knows it, too – feels it, somehow. He can hear this mystical awareness in the tone of her voice when she says to her father: 'It has been decided'.

Whatever it was, it is done now.

He sides with the girl: 'She is right. The deal is struck'.

Ah, that is more like it – the little twist of magical treads that he feels now is of his doing. His deal, his simple and understandable deal, is indeed done – the ogres are gone. He has fulfilled his contract. Now he can take away his prize.

He gestures to the girl that they must go, and casts a final glance at the people they leave behind. How full of hatred are their faces. Well, he cannot be offended with it – not today. Today he probably deserves this hatred. He did do something awful.

Yet the guilt, the uncertainty and the uneasiness all disappear when, leading the girl through the door, he briefly touches her back.

She doesn't shun from him, as he expected her to. She walks by his side calmly and confidently, as if it is completely natural to have his leathery paw on her back.

Perhaps she didn't notice. She is probably too shocked to notice anything. But he… Oh, he is so very aware of her. In this brief touch, he felt the warmth of her skin, the silky smoothness of her hair, which is softer then the silk of her dress. Just a brief touch, just a fleeting moment, but it came flooding back to him, this knowledge that what is happening to him is inevitable. It was meant to be. It is Her. The One. He never had it before, this very physical feeling of… belonging. This girl, she is just so very right for him. She was made for him. When he touched her, he knew – he felt – that hers is the skin he was meant to touch, and no other will ever do now.

It is funny, actually. He has spent so many years longing for her, dreaming of her, somewhere deep in his soul, he was so hopeless and frustrated at not finding her, and so angry with himself for ever wishing to find her. But of course he couldn't find her – she just wasn't born yet. But now she is here, with him, this exquisite child with a brave heart. And he doesn't really know what he'll do with her, yet right now he cannot be bothered to think about it. There will be time for that. At this instant, he doesn't want to think. He wants to live, briefly, in the glow of untainted gladness brought on by her presence – by her very being.

He has her, and that is all that matters.

She said 'Forever' to him, she looked into his eyes and said it, and something in the world changed. This is all that matters now.

He looks down at her bended head, at the whiteness of her shoulders, at her locks and her long lashes, and he smiles. She is so youthful and beautiful, it is breathtaking.

Her name is Belle, which means 'beautiful', and there never was a better-suited name.