This is a very sad chapter and I was crying as I wrote it.
VIII. Don't go July
In the darkness, it is easy to forget what the light looks like.
When one is used to the pain of abscence, it is hard to imagine that once, there was someone you loved at your side.
When one's conscience is long dead and silent, it is hard to learn to be human again.
And yet, we dream. We dream, even of the things we have long forgotten, and when we dream of them, we wonder whether that is the way they indeed were in reality. When one dreams of daylight in a dark cell, one wonders whether it is indeed iridescent and sparkling, flowing like golden dust from the heavens. When we dream of the one we love, do we not dream of them as perfect? And when we dream of being human again, do we not see ourselves, too, as perfect?
But the light, to a man who has not seen it for a month, will be blinding and painful; there will be no iridiscence or beauty to contemplate. And neither our beloved, nor we, are perfect. And we never dream of the nagging voice of conscience that is part of the luxury of being human.
It is certain, however, that we do not always conjure up false images, or, perhaps, opposites to reality. After all, we can only dream of what we have once seen, and if we dream of things that do not exist, our minds, in their deep, dark labyrinths, use what we have once seen to conjure up something we have not. All rules have their exceptions.
Whatever one makes of them, dreams often a necessity to us, even though we might not know it. Some men sleep just to dream. He was one of those men. Even though every dream, like a savage tiger, would tear away a part of his humanity. Dreams were his opium. His alcohol. His arsenic. His release, lethal as it was.
In his dream, and it was always one dream, it was July. Always July. July the way he remembered it, the way Julies should be, the way Julies no longer were. In his life, if one could even call it so, he would never be able to tell the month in the abscence of a calendar. In his dreams, July had pastel-yellow mornings, sun-filled daisy days and sultry velvet evenings and nights. In his dreams, his wife was always standing next to his daughter's cot, at that enormous window painted the yellow, pink and violet of the sunset sky. Her back to him. Her hair soft and long, waving down her back. And he would scramble out of his dream bed, on which the other side was not cold, and made up as it was in his life, but rumpled and warm, the pillow dented, he would scramble out of bed and run to his wife, but the more he ran, the further away she seemed to stand, always her back to him. And then, when she seemed within reach, he would reach out to touch her, and everything would turn black. He would wake up, alone in his cold bed, the sky, whether July or September he did not know, panting.
This time, however, he sat up, in his dream, sat up in his warm bed, and slowly stood up. He took a step at a time. The right, the left. The left, the right. Slowly, moving forward. The floorboards didn't creak under his feet. The right, the left. He could smell the daisies in her hair. Right, left. Left, right.
Left, right, like the hands of an old grandfather clock ticking off every second of his dream. Like the old mahogany metronome on her cherry-wood piano with its stacks of music. Chopin, Beethoven. Left, Right, like the measured notes of the moonlight sonata. Left, right, precise as a ballet dancer on pointe shoes.
He reached out his hand. A bee buzzed in the windowpane. A July bee. Buzzed melodically, like a violin. Like a cello against the evening sky. The evening sky, God's canvas, on which He had spilt all his best colours. His breath shuddering, he wrapped his arms around his wife's waist. She leaned her head onto his shoulder. His tears, his dream tears, poured down her cheek.
He breathed in sharply, and, content that the sound had not shattered the dream, spoke quietly, quietly as the first G sharp of the moonlight sonata.
«Are you real?»
He knew the answer, but he didn't want to. He pressed her closer to him, and buried his face in her hair. Her hair, dark gold in the sunset light.
«No,» she answered. Her voice was a warm wave, a caress, a melody to his ears. The word was a razor across his wrists.
«Why...why? I can't...I can't...» if only he could say more. But the words wouldn't come. If he opened his mouth, he would break down.
«I love you, and I wouldn't tell you that I was real because of that,» when she spoke, her voice split into echoes. Dream echoes. Echoes of the last July. «If I told you I was real, you will fall when you wake.»
He buried his face deeper and deeper in her hair, shaking, holding her close, whispering her name. That bee, that little violin, buzzed in the window. Lamented, asking July to stay. Don't go, July.
«I'm not real,» she repeated, in those echoes, in those July echoes. The last July. He just shook his head. «But you have someone else who is.»
«Don't go,» was all he said, and her hair, her hair where he was pressed into it, was wet.
«A friend. You have a friend.»
«Don't go. Don't go, please...I will never sleep again if you go...Don't go...»
«A friend. Maybe not a wife, not a lover, but a friend. And a child. A child to save.»
All her hair was wet now. Her hair, and her dress where he held her. He glanced at his hands. They were red. Red with blood. Or was it just the sunset light? He did not know. He had long since forgotten what the light looked like.
«Not July,» she said, «but September. You'll have September. It's colder than July. But warmer than December.» Her breath was heavy, laboured. He laid his head against her cheek. It was fevered, wet. She was shaking, her breath now shallow. Blood pooled around her collarbone. Or was it a necklace? He didn't know. He had long since forgotten what it was like to hold her close.
«Open your eyes and live. Live, cold as it is.» Was that his conscience? Or was it his wife, willing him to live? He did not know. He had long since forgotten the sound of conscience. He had long since forgotten what it was like to be human.
«Don't go, Oh God, please don't go,»
«I have to. It's nearly morning...Light is dawning...you have to let me...» an empty bottle lay at her feet. An empty bottle of arsenic.
«No, please, don't go.»
It had started raining. And yet, he was still dry. Could it rain when he was inside? He did not know. He had long since forgotten what the July rain was like. Could rain be gray? Perhaps. He did not know. He had long since forgotten what London was, once upon a July. He had long since forgotten what a fairytale was.
Flecks of gray fell onto his sleeves. Onto his hair. His hair already streaked with gray. Onto her hair. Into the blood pooled around her collarbone. Onto her fevered cheeks. Ashes. The floor beneath their feet was a grey carpet. The cradle was empty, but for an old, tattered doll. An old, tattered doll and ashes.
«Please...»
«I must,» and she said his name. His dream name. The name that he had discarded, left to rot in a dark cell. A name that was grey and fragmented as the ashes at his feet. The name that, in her voice, cracked and whispering as it was, sounded like a cello. Did she always say his name so, with her heart in every word? He did not know. He had long since forgotten the sound of music.
And as she said his name, every time she repeated it, the gray spread further and further, starting from her bloodied fingertips, ending with her neck. Her red neck, streaked with blood. He closed his eyes, and felt her ashy hands, repeating, over and over, «No.» He opened his eyes, and she crumbled. Crumbled into grey ashes, ashes which cascaded, like gray sand, from his arms and hands. She lay at his feet. Lay in grey ashes.
«Don't go,» he whispered again. Whispered into nothing.
Don't go, July.