Chapter 13: Time
An aromatic, dreamlike mist rose into the air from cup and pot, permeating the room. Occasionally, a cool wind, carrying the heralds of rain, would sweep in from outside, dispersing it.
"You, ah, haven't touched your tea, dear."
Kirika studied the reflection in her cup, as if seeing the face in it for the first time.
"Half the taste's in the anticipation, I suppose."
A teaspoon clinked gently on the edge of his saucer.
Monsieur cleared his throat. "Y'know, I read this book once. On tea. Fellow from Japan wrote it, actually. Smart one. Knows his stuff. Said tea was about 'the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.' Sounds about right."
He took a drink.
"Yes…" he breathed, "'the beautiful.' The smell of toast and English Breakfast in morning. Afternoon wind. The Seine by starlight. Firm stone beneath good shoes. Sound of laughter, of children at play. Clear skies. The warm sun. The silver moon. Her silken hair between my fingers. So long ago…"
"That's the problem, nowadays. Everything happens so fast. No time to appreciate these things. Instant change, instant commerce, news now, now, now. No time to think, no time to breathe…no time to live." He shook his head, sadly. "No time to sit down and enjoy a cup of tea on a summer afternoon with a good neighbour. Heh, but what am I saying; what do I think I'm doing right now, eh?"
She sighed, like the wind.
"What am I doing right now?" muttered Monsieur, setting aside his tea. "Sitting here, talking, while he's still out there." He shifted, uncomfortably. "But maybe I'm an old man, and this is for the best. Stay here, with my talk, along with the rest of the old things."
"Talk…we, we don't really talk any more. No conversations; just…exchanges. Dispatches, sent on the overnight wire, clipped, terse, obtuse; words on wings, let loose, and instantly regretted, but already far beyond recall." He closed his eyes. "And then the years slip by, they tick away, day by day, minute by minute. Suddenly, there's no time anymore. No time to share your thoughts, to say what you mean, to…apologize."
"Time…"
"Mm? Oh, was, was I thinking out loud again?"
"What you just said," said Kirika. "About how there isn't time to talk anymore, even with those you…love." She looked up from the tablecloth. "It's true, isn't it?"
Monsieur saw the sadness and the fear in those features, and thought carefully. "Perhaps for me, dear. But for you? No, no, I don't think so."
"But what if it was?" she asked. She continued, with a sudden urgency. "What if, what if you knew there was something you had to do, something you had to say, but, but you didn't know how, or when, only that if you didn't, and soon, you…you might never get the chance…?"
Monsieur eyed her curiously. "Something," he ventured, "that the mind must voice, but the heart dares not?"
She nodded.
"Not a boyfriend thing, is it?" he asked dubiously.
She hesitated, and then nodded, slowly. "Yes. A boyfriend. That's it."
Monsieur raised an eyebrow, just as slowly. "Well, when speech fails you, turn to the pen."
She considered this. "A letter?"
"Worth a shot." He grunted. "She thought so, anyway."
"'She'?"
He grinned, thinly, as he pulled a sheet of paper from the pocket of his vest. "Just came in this morning," he said, of the letter. "It's, ah, one of the reasons I called you over." The other, he knew, remained in the pocket.
She read it. "It's…from your daughter?"
He nodded.
"This…this is wonderful," she said.
"It's also short," he replied. "But, perhaps it will grow. Given…time."
Her almost-smile faded with the weight of that last word.
"Letters. Words. Written words. Our tongues, they give heat to words, too much, make them burning things that hurt you and those you cast them upon." He smiled, ruefully. "Maybe, maybe if I'd remembered that, things would be different. Now, she and I, we can write, share cool words, a salve for old wounds. But they need time to heal. And they never heal completely."
She was crushed. "But then…it's hopeless. For you. For your daughter. And for, for…" Her voice choked off the end of the sentence.
But Monsieur still heard it in his head. "Miss Yuumura?" He got up and knelt by her side. "What is it, my dear?"
"No hope," she whispered. "No escape from what is to come."
The words cut through his black melancholia and roused him. "There's something wrong, isn't there?"
"My time…is almost up."
Monsieur heard those words, and sensed their curious weight. "Ah. Your exchange, correct?" He noticed the blank look she gave him before she turned away, avoiding his face. "We…all have to go home eventually. Everything comes to an end."
"But, but then what I have to say, what I want to tell…that person…" Her eyes trembled. "What if she won't listen? What if she doesn't understand?"
Monsieur sighed. "I…don't suppose I can convince you to ignore the ramblings of an old man now, can I?"
"No," she said, softly. "Because I know in my heart that they are true."
"And I guess you can't tell me what really troubles you so?"
She clenched her fists on her lap.
Monsieur thought for some time. He thought of what he had said, both this afternoon, and last night. He thought of his son, somewhere out there, beyond his help, his reach. He thought of the decision he'd made just a few minutes ago, of the second item in his vest pocket. As his hand crept towards it, he looked upon her. He saw, once again, that face, that face that had defied time; that Fate had pulled across some fifty years and placed upon his doorstep.
"Ehhh. Poor thing. Here." He picked up one of Madame's embroidered handkerchiefs and brushed away some non existent tears from her eyes. "There. It's all right. Really, it is."
She accepted the kerchief, wordlessly.
"Marien and I," he began, "…I know we'll never patch things up completely. I'm old, and set in my ways, and my way is near its end. There's no way to heal the hurt in the time I have, no way to put off that day. But…"
"…But?"
"But who knows? The Fates are strange; they may vanish certainty, and make real the faintest hope." His thoughts drifted to an underused corner of the mantelpiece. "Like they did with you, for example."
"Me?" she said, surprised.
"Spitting image of Marien, at age ten," he said. He grunted. "Probably just a coincidence, but if that can happen, if, by pure chance, we two could meet…then nothing is certain, my dear. The future, least of all."
"Listen…Kirika," he continued. "I don't know what it is you're going through right now. But I know you're upset about it. Maybe, maybe it's so upset you that you're afraid to anything right now, even something you know you must do. I do not know what is in your future, my dear. But, if you have something to say to…her…" He noticed her wince when he said the word. "…Then say it now. Maybe she won't understand, maybe she won't listen, but…if it really is that important, and you do not even try, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Don't let your fear of what is to come interfere with what is here, now."
She looked away. "I…I better go."
He nodded, and rose with her. "I'm sorry. Sorry I've upset you so," he said.
She shook her head. "I just need…time…to think."
"And to write?" he asked, hopefully.
Her back was already towards him, her hand on the door.
"Kirika?" he called to her.
She looked back.
"You'll be just fine," he said. "There is strength in you; I can see it. Whatever it is you are facing, you'll get through it. I know it."
She stepped through the door. Just before it closed, a whispered, "Thank you" slipped through the crack. Then it clicked shut.
Monsieur Trousseau sat down at his now cold tea. "Yes," he said to no one, "you are strong, you and she. Strong enough to do whatever it is you do, down there. In those echoing tunnels." Snatches of strange conversations from countless walks filtered up from his memory, just as they had from those ancient storm drains. Talks of dark deeds that only the strangest of "exchanges" would involve.
He pulled a small, short, cylindrical object from his vest pocket. It was brass, 9 millimetres in diameter, and blackened on the inside. He set in on his neighbour's tea saucer with a clink.
He looked up at the old clock, with its curious two headed medallion, and its incessant, insistent time-keeping. "And my strength is spent," he mumbled, to her vacant spot. "I thought to ask you to help him, if you could. But I couldn't. Couldn't ask you to bear an old man's burden."
The clock ticked ever onward.