There is a short story I plan to write about Phelan and Bernard, if anyone would be interested in reading it. I guess it would be Phantom adjacent?
And as a side note to the side note, Bernard was never supposed to be part of this story past the scene where he clocks Phelan in the head, but I guess he had other plans (ha). Thank you for reading and reviewing! As a reminder of the timeline we're at Sunday morning and the opening of Don Juan is Friday evening. Lan is about to have a very busy week.
CH 42
Bernard and Hugo both enjoyed sitting back and chatting while a scrappy thirteen-year-old girl manhandled me with ease. I was both aghast and impressed by the way in which she grabbed my head, drew it to her shoulder, and wrenched it to the side, making it incredibly easy for her to send me down to the mat.
"Professor, you had enough yet?" Montlaur asked after the fifth time Celeste landed me on my back with a hard thud.
Once had been more than enough, but I was aware that no one built confidence on the first attempt. "If your student has found the lesson sufficient, I–"
"One more!" Celeste requested, jumping up and down.
My shoulder and neck were already knotted up, but I sighed and nodded, assuming one more time wouldn't matter considering I already expected to have a pounding headache by nightfall.
"Very well, then."
"Give the old man a break, kid," Bernard said. "He's almost fifty."
"Are you really?" Hugo questioned. "Phelan, I had no idea."
"You know that I am not," I groused, annoyed by Hugo's remark.
Bernard climbed to his feet, still favoring his right leg. "My turn, Professor," he said, gesturing toward the chair he had vacated. "Let me have a go."
"But you're injured," Celeste said. She bit her lower lip, eyeing her instructor's weak knee with a bit of concern.
"So?"
"You are risking further injury," she pointed out.
Bernard shrugged. "An attacker ain't gonna show you mercy, kid. If the opportunity arises, they'll sure as hell take it, so you better be prepared to fight 'em off and take the advantages that present themselves. Got it?"
Before Celeste could respond, Bernard lurched forward with greater speed than I thought possible for someone with a bad knee. His meaty hands reached for her shoulders and he stomped hard on the mat. I winced at the pending impact of a child tossed to the ground by a brute of a man and the memories it elicited.
Aside from the burn to my left arm, most of what I remembered of Bjorn was the heavy sound of his footsteps through the house and the way my whole body stilled with dread and anticipation of him yanking me from my bed and shoving me to the ground only to demand I stood for him to push me again.
It was a sickening game to him, and the very thought gave me goosebumps. The terror of him stalking after me late into the night was something I'd never recovered from feeling.
I took a step toward Celeste, every muscle in my body prepared to react, to catch her before she hit the ground and save her as no one had ever been able to save me.
Celeste, however, responded to Bernard's advances with a feral growl fitting for a seasoned warrior, her teeth bared as she grabbed Bernard as she had done to me during our practice rounds. She lifted her foot from the ground, knee in position to kick her instructor between the legs. Bernard drew his legs together and blocked her knee with his hands in anticipation, allowing his protege the opportunity to grab him by the head and take him off his feet, landing him flat on his back with a tremendous boom that I was certain rattled the entire gymnasium.
"Well done!" Hugo said, applauding the girl's efforts.
"Like David and Goliath," I said under my breath.
Hugo nodded once. "You should have seen yourself, Phelan. You were airborne for a moment, I'm certain."
Bernard groaned as he remained on the mat for a long moment, left leg extended, right leg slightly bent. He wiped his hand down his face while writhing around.
"Bern?" Celeste said softly, as if fearing her words would further wound him if she spoke above a whisper. "Bern, did I injure you?"
With his thick hand still covering his face, Bernard let out a hearty chuckle, one that shook his whole body with a deep, endless rumble of amusement.
"Where the hell did you learn to do that, kid?" he questioned once he caught his breath and sat upright. "Threatening to scramble my eggs and distracting me. You're a dangerous one, that's for certain."
"I didn't hurt you?"
"Nah, you hurt my feelings, tossing me around like a rag doll, but I'll survive. Now I got to figure out how to get back up is all."
I stepped in front of Bernard and offered my hand to help him to his feet, which he accepted. Once he was off the ground, he grinned at Celeste.
"You owe me breakfast," he said to her.
The girl's eyes widened. "But we had breakfast before we left the hotel."
"Yeah, that was early breakfast. It's time for late breakfast, the kind that sticks to your skinny little bones." Bernard playfully growled.
Celeste placed her hands against her abdomen. "But I'm not hungry."
"You know what you need?" Bernard said. "You need to eat like a bird."
Celeste gave him a quizzical look. "But birds eat very little."
"They actually eat quite a bit," I said.
"For their size," Bernard added.
We exchanged looks, both of us amused.
"Correct, fellow bird enthusiast," I said, earning myself a scowl.
"How lovely that you both have so much in common," Hugo observed.
Celeste readily nodded, which made Bernard scowl harder than before, a feat that didn't seem possible.
"You three coming or what?" Bernard grumbled, his demeanor suddenly hardening. "I ain't got no problem eating by myself."
"I could have a bite or two," Hugo replied.
"Professor?"
"I have an hour to spare."
"Lucky us," Bernard muttered.
I paused and stared at the pugilist briefly, taken aback by his snide remark following our previous exchange.
Celeste placed her hands on her hips. "Bern, that was not very kind of you."
"What?" he asked defensively. "I was being sincere."
Celeste issued a pointed look in his direction.
"You think I'm being mean or something?" Bernard asked, crossing his burly arms over his barrel chest.
Anyone else in the world would have cowered beneath the prize fighter's twisted features as he looked down his broken, swollen nose at the girl standing before him.
"I don't think you're being very nice," Celeste said.
Bernard narrowed his eyes and exhaled in a deep, threatening growl that seemed to emerge from the very depths of his core. He looked Celeste over, towering in height and blocking her with his width, an imposing wall of a man.
The girl didn't flinch or shrivel. She remained with her hands on her hips, waiting for the boxer to reply.
At last he took a long, deep breath. "I suppose that is something I got to consider," he said with a nod. "I ain't being very nice to the Professor and I got no excuse for being rude." He turned his attention to me and stepped forward. "Professor, it ain't a good reason, and I ain't making excuses, but every time you call me a bird enthusiast, I think of my Bea. I know you ain't saying nothing to be rude or disrespectful to my daughter, but I took it that way is all." He offered his calloused hand. "My apologies. It's a little heavier today, but that ain't got nothing to do with you and everything to do with me."
I suppressed a shiver, aware that my own heavy burden had returned with thoughts of Bjorn at the forefront of my mind.
My father had never once acknowledged his wrongdoings. He had never apologized for the nights of rage where at the very least he screamed and spit in my face and at the worst left me with a burn that still caused me excruciating pain.
An apology was foreign to me, and acknowledging the unfairness of a situation was an idea that didn't register.
"Understood," I said, not knowing what else to say or do.
Bernard attempted to widen his eyes despite the significant swelling. He looked me over, gaze settling on my left arm, which made me aware that I had pressed my thumb into the flesh at the center of the scar tissue, where the pain was always the worst.
The prize fighter met my eye, and although he didn't say it aloud, I could sense what he would have said: You're hurting yourself. Again.
Embarrassed, I drew my right hand away, feeling the static course beneath my ruined arm, my fingers involuntarily twitching from the significant nerve damage.
Bernard turned back to Celeste and ran his tongue along his front teeth. "I don't know about you, but I need ten minutes of breathing to clear my mind," he said. "Sit wherever you want."
Without a word, I took a seat on the floor, same as Celeste, who continued to eye Bernard with an unreadable expression.
"You good, kid?" he asked.
Celeste readily nodded, smiling at last. "Thank you, Bern."
oOo
The erratic buzz inside of me, the one I had always known was there but had no desire to acknowledge, stared me in the face once I sat with my thoughts, turning over the moments in my past that I envisioned as pebbles and stones.
The first ten minutes of meditation were dedicated to grappling with thoughts of my own father, a man I despised more than anyone else I'd ever encountered. The weight of him was no heavier than Erik, but where the heaviness of my brother was grief, Bjorn was a raging pyre of pure apathy.
I hated Bjorn, truly and deeply. I would hate him until my last breath, deciding that my abhorrence for him was at the core of my being, as vital as an organ.
Scorching my soul, I thought to myself. A burn that will never heal because I keep feeding it more kindling to keep it alive.
Eyes closed, I sat rigid on the floor, startled by the acknowledgment. Bjorn had caused me a lifetime of irreversible pain, both literally and figuratively. I had every right to hate him.
"Breathe, Professor."
Bernard's voice irritated me despite his unusually calm and gentle tone perfectly suited for meditation. I didn't want to breathe. I didn't want to do anything but crush the memory of the man who had harmed me repeatedly as a child, who returned home stinking drunk and took out his frustrations on his wife and child. I wanted to snuff him from existence, rendering him nothing more than soot, and the only way I knew how to block him from consuming my thoughts was to replace the emotions with something physical.
You're hurting yourself, the voice in my head warned.
What did it matter? Physical pain smothered the emotional torment. It was the only way I could cope with the childhood that had left me empty, lost, and lonely.
Bernard sniffed and I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, blue eyes ringed in black.
"Breathe," he whispered. "It ain't doing you no favors holding on to it."
I started to shake my head, but he nodded.
"Breathe. Let it go."
My jaw tensed, and I scanned the room, finding Hugo and Celeste kept their eyes thankfully closed, unaware that the words were directed at me.
The thrum within me became unbearably tense. Bernard knew nothing of the turmoil I had suffered. He knew nothing of how in that brief moment, when I pressed into the ruined flesh and slowly released the pressure, when the bolts racing up and down my arm finally dulled, there was a sense of relief, a calm that the worst physical pain ceased.
"Inhale."
It was a direct order, not a request. My teeth gnashed together, but I still drew in a long, slow breath and held it despite the desire to scream from the top of my lungs or lash out physically.
"Hold it," Bernard instructed. Seconds passed. I forced my jaw to relax and my tongue to settle from the place I had lodged at the roof of my mouth. "Breathe out."
I was breathing too hard, I realized, noticeably harder than anyone else in the room. My aggravation threatened to get the best of me.
"If you are grappling with something too big to manage, take a good look at what you've got weighing you down. Look it in the eye. Feel what it means to you. Do you see it clearly?"
I closed my eyes and swallowed, thinking it was an ignorant question. Of course I saw it clearly. I had seen Bjorn's face every day for years as I had inherited his features. We had the same eye and hair color, the same high cheekbones and full lips, the same arched brow line and strong jaw.
The difference was that Bjorn was a greasy, drunken idiot and I had no desire to be covered in filth or become a slave to the bottle. It had been enough of a difference to distinguish father from son when I traveled back to Conforeit to watch the inebriated fool take his last breaths–or so I had thought. Few residents had seen Bjorn in at least a year as he was confined to the house, and when I came into the train station it had been dark.
When Bjorn finally did me the courtesy of dying and I settled what debts I could afford, the citizens of Conforeit saw me as one of their own resurrected.
I had been to Conforeit a dozen times since Bjorn's death and still wasn't sure what to make of their reactions, the blatant stares and whispers. On several occasions I found blue bottles of water with crosses tied to the necks and lines of salt in front of the doorways as though they assumed some evil entity had returned. The first time I had been quite taken aback, but in the years since Bjorn's death, I found their superstitions tiresome and their comparison between father and son offensive.
The simple folk in a secluded village had no idea I was not him, that the belligerent old bastard had fathered two children and one had returned to watch the evil die. The monster was dead and buried, not re-animated to walk the earth, but I doubted they would have believed me if I'd given my name and attempted to reason with them. Conforeit was filled with uneducated people who knew no better.
The only benefit was that their wariness toward Bjorn afforded me the privacy I desired while tending to the old house, which was desperately in need of repair.
As I sat on the gymnasium floor, I envisioned Bjorn before me, barely able to stand upright, his dirty long hair graying, his face marred by deep lines from a life he had made difficult for himself.
What the hell do you think you're looking at, you worthless little bastard? He asked me.
I didn't owe him an answer, real or imagined, but I wanted to tell him I was staring back at a monster, at the embodiment of evil. I wanted to tell him he was a disgusting excuse of a human being. For as long as I lived, I would want Bjorn to know how much I despised everything about him.
"If you're still holding onto it, I want you to ask yourself if it's worth keeping close."
I balked at Bernard's inquiry. My hatred of Bjorn kept me motivated to continue my search for Erik. It had fueled my desire to be an artist, to earn an honest living and to be better than the man I resembled. His value was in how much I desired to prove him wrong, to be worth more than he'd ever been in his short, meaningless life.
"Is it what you want?" Bernard asked.
I sat rigid, fighting against the answer. My hatred had also kindled hundreds of altercations, fights with nameless strangers lusting for blood. My apathy had landed me in jail cells almost every weekend for years. It had caused me to miss my first art show and lose my place at the salon. My vexation with Bjorn had nearly cost me my relationship with Hugo and had left Valgarde and I as strangers instead of cousins.
"Does it bring you peace?"
The breath in my lungs exited my body in one harsh exhale, and I wasn't sure who I despised more: Bjorn or myself. Nothing about Bjorn had ever been peaceful. He was a tumultuous man, uprooting everything in his path like a tornado.
And long after he was dead and buried, he was still ripping through me because I allowed his memory to take up residence in my thoughts. He had been dead for years and yet still he existed prominently, no different than he had in life.
"You're allowed to have peace," Bernard said.
My breath hitched, my throat tightening. Mentally, I examined the cause of my torment, the seed of my anger and resentment. Bjorn was part of me. I hated the idea of any shred of him still existing. I wanted peace-and I knew he would never allow it if he remained in my thoughts.
In my mind I stepped toward him, standing toe-to-toe with the man I had hated and feared, that I still hated and still feared.
I'm not looking at you, but you had better look at me. Look at what I have become, look at what you wanted to destroy that prevailed. Look at me and know you never deserved us, I said to Bjorn. I will search for Erik until my last breath. You will never, ever be able to keep his memory from me.
"Deep breath in and hold," Bernard said.
I held my breath and turned away from Bjorn, leaving behind the disgust I had cultivated for as long as I could recall. Realistically I was aware that he would not be absent forever, but I could at least leave him behind for the remainder of the morning. Perhaps, if I put forth a great effort, I could incapacitate him for the rest of the day and live without his loathsome memory. For my own sake, I had to turn my back to him.
"Exhale," Bernard said. He opened his eyes and looked at the three of us.
When his gaze settled on me, I spread my fingers on both hands, focusing on the stretch of the ligaments and tendons, the slight tug to the scars on my left hand that made the flesh tight but not outright uncomfortable.
I felt no desire for the physical pain I had craved, for the sensation that had, at least for a moment, dulled the emotional ache. I could balance the emotional ache, keeping it steady without replacing it with a different pain.
"Well done," Bernard praised.
His opinion should not have mattered, but still I found myself pleased by his acknowledgment. I had released the burden that had held me down since childhood, rendering it powerless. The relief that came with it was greater than I had expected, and I found my breaths came slow and even.
"Now, "Bernard said, stretching out both of his legs, "who's hungry?"
"Famished," Hugo said.
"I suppose I could eat a little," Celeste replied.
"Good. Monsieur Duarte, you take your fancy carriage and the kid and meet us at Pietro's. Me and the Professor are going to walk."
oOo
"Was there something you wished to discuss?" I asked Bernard once the gymnasium door was locked and Hugo's carriage departed toward the restaurant two streets away from the university.
The air outside was damp and chilly, which made me regret leaving my heavier coat at home in my haste.
"We don't got to speak at all."
I scoffed. "Then why are we walking?"
"Don't you like to walk?"
"Do you?" I asked, eyeing his weak knee.
Bernard shrugged. "It's a nice day."
"Nice? It hasn't been this cold in weeks," I pointed out.
"Eh, I've been here for six days. Switzerland was colder. Besides, the cold is good for your blood and bones."
I doubted the validity of his claims as my blood and bones were both quite uncomfortable, but didn't argue, and together we rounded the gymnasium building in silence as we headed toward the main building.
Given that it was a Sunday morning and bitterly cold, we passed only a handful of people bundled in their coats, faces wrapped in long, colorful scarves wound around their heads. The windows in the buildings were beaded with condensation, the grass shaded by the buildings sheathed in frost that made each blade appear silver, like little swords protruding from the ground.
"Were you on holiday in Switzerland?" I asked.
"I don't take holidays."
"Business, then?"
"Swimming in the lake."
I turned to face him, my brow furrowed. "In winter?"
"It's the best time. No crowds."
"What is the temperature of the water?"
"Cold enough to freeze your balls off."
My lips parted. "What a lovely image," I dryly retorted.
Bernard nudged me with his elbow. "Paint it and sell it in one of them fancy galleries. Fancy little birds and big, hairy–"
"Kimmer!" three female voices shouted before he could finish his horrifying sentence.
"The hell is that?" Bernard asked.
"Irresponsible second year art students," I answered.
"My eyes must be out of focus. Is it one person or three?"
"Three," I answered.
" Are you going to the studio?" one student yelled as she flagged me down with two others trailing behind her. She paused and examined Bernard. "Professor…?"
"Bernard. Boxer, not a professor," he answered.
"What did you lose, Janette-Marie?" I impatiently asked, surprised that her head was attached to her shoulders. I could have dedicated a lost and found box to her and ran out of room on the second day.
She released an exasperated sigh. "I didn't lose anything, Professor Kimmer."
One of the other girls ran up and came to an abrupt stop a fraction of an inch before colliding with Janette-Marie.
"Janette-Marie cannot find her pastels. We've looked everywhere," Kikky-Marie breathlessly explained.
"And where are your pastels, Kikky-Marie?"
"In my satchel."
"And where is your satchel?"
She forced a toothy smile. "Beneath my chair."
I rolled my eyes. "And would that chair be in my studio?"
"Yes, Professor Kimmer."
"Larissa-Marie," I said to the last of the triplets as she approached, crimson cheeks peeking out from beneath her rainbow scarf. I crossed my arms. "Go on with it."
"I've used my pastels down to useless stubs or I'd share mine. Bloom's is closed today or I'd have stopped there this morning. We're in a bit of a pinch, it seems."
Larissa-Marie was the most sensible of the triplets, although all three of them seemed to share one feeble brain. It was probably for the best that they were all artists living together as if they were separated, I wasn't sure the three sisters could function in the world.
"You are all quite fortunate you didn't take pottery," I said. "Monsieur Raitt would not tolerate this absent-minded foolishness."
"We wouldn't need pastels if we took pottery," Janette-Marie said under her breath.
"And you're our favorite professor," Kikky-Marie added.
"There isn't much competition," Larissa-Marie mentioned.
"Indeed," I replied.
"May I retrieve my satchel?" Kikky asked.
"You know where the spare key is," I answered as they followed me to the building's side entrance.
Despite being a mere twenty paces from the building, Bernard wisely chose to stay put rather than put unnecessary strain on his knee.
"If my spare keys are missing Monday morning, what do you owe me?" I asked the triplets.
"Five thousand francs," Janette-Marie answered.
"And a cup of coffee," Larissa-Marie added.
"Only one?" I asked.
"One per day for the next ten years," Larissa-Marie said.
I arched a brow and waited for Kikky-Marie to finish my list of lost key requirements.
"And we fail the semester."
"Unless…" I prompted, unlocking the door.
"Unless we stand on our heads and sing La Marseillaise in front of the whole class," they said in unison.
"Put the studio key behind the placard and the main building key in your satchel, which you will not leave behind tomorrow morning. Understood?" I grumbled.
Three matching faces nodded in unison.
"And be on time tomorrow morning with whatever you're working on today, regardless of whether you've sketched a single flower or an entire field."
"Thank you!" they said before the three of them scampered through the open door, which I locked behind them.
I shook my head and returned to Bernard, who was whistling at the bird with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"Insolent fools, all of them," I groused.
"You could have made them wait until tomorrow," Bernard pointed out.
"I could have," I agreed, "but artistic hands are better off with pencils and brushes than empty."
"Speaking from experience, eh?"
"Speaking as an artist who had too much time on his hands when I was their age–which was not thirty years ago as you seem to believe."
"Age ain't nothin' to be ashamed of, Professor. It's a luxury not everyone is afforded in life."
"I agree, but regardless I would prefer not being mistaken for a man in his fifties."
Bjorn crept into my thoughts. I recalled how haggard he had appeared in his last days of existence. His thinning hair had receded, the bags beneath his eyes drooping down his wrinkled face stretched over his skull. He was unrecognizable, and I never wanted to look as he did, so far past his prime.
Refusing to allow Bjorn into my mind for a moment longer, I started to ask Bernard about Switzerland when I realized he was a considerable distance behind me, limping along with his hands still in his coat pockets, the tassels of his wool scarf swaying back and forth with each step.
"Why didn't you tell me to slow down?" I asked once I changed direction and walked toward him.
"As I said, we don't got to talk." He shrugged. "And I figured you'd realize I was behind you eventually."
"My apologies for walking ahead of you."
"My apologies for walking like a turtle in a race with the hare."
"You would have been more comfortable with Hugo."
Bernard made a face. "Nah, he's going to talk the whole damn time and you ain't. What happened to his leg, anyhow?"
"Infection," I answered. "A few weeks ago I thought he was going to die from it."
"That bad?"
"Bad enough to have half his leg removed. Quite frankly I don't know how he survived."
"Because he didn't want to die, that's how."
"That seems entirely too simplified."
Bernard huffed. "It don't got to be complicated."
I drew my hands into my coat sleeves once we passed the main building on campus and the wind cut through me. Thankfully the sun peered through the clouds, warming my face and ears that stung from the cold.
The ground was still wet, the snow melted into puddles of mud that filled the spaces in the cobblestones and ruts in the streets.
"You return to Wissant tomorrow?" I asked once the silence became unbearably uncomfortable and our pace so slow I could have walked backward and still been several paces ahead.
Bernard nodded once. "Train leaves at five in the evening. I should be home by midnight."
"Your wife doesn't travel with you?"
Bernard turned his head to look directly at me. "We ain't together no more."
I stared back at him briefly, finding his words unexpected. "I am sorry to hear that. I didn't realize–"
The prize fighter shrugged. "You got no reason to apologize. Sometimes you can't hold on, no matter how hard you try."
"Which is something I evidently struggle with accomplishing," I said under my breath.
"Loss ain't easy. Sometimes you can see it coming, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's for the best, but it still hurts like a son of a bitch. Don't matter if you expect it or not. Loss is completely out of your control and that's scary as hell."
I considered Bernard's words for a moment as we trudged toward the street corner.
"How did you–?"
I stopped myself short of asking an uncouth question, one that was none of my business.
Bernard issued a peculiar look. "How did I what?"
"It isn't an appropriate question."
Bernard chuckled to himself. "Those are my favorite questions. Go ahead and ask, Professor. At the best, I answer and at the worst, I punch you square in the jaw for pissing me off."
I offered a significant look in his direction and exhaled. "How did you know it was for the best to part ways rather than reconcile?"
If the boxer's face hadn't been so swollen, I was certain he would have lifted a brow.
"Helena," he said, "my wife, she had a rough time being a mother practically from the day Beatrix was born. She went from elated to meeting our daughter to barely being able to tolerate being in the nursery with her newborn daughter. Helena wouldn't hold Bea, wouldn't feed or change her, wouldn't get up to tend to Bea when she would cry." He shrugged. "Nine months of carrying this life in her womb and Helena said it was like being held captive day and night with a demanding stranger."
I stared at the street ahead, wondering if his wife had suffered from the same afflictions as Gyda, the woman who had still been a child herself when I was born.
"We was supposed to have a boy," Bernard said. "The third Bernard Montlaur in the family."
"A boxer to follow his father's legacy?"
"Hell no, he wasn't going to be in no boxing ring if I could help it. You know how many boxers die from their injuries? Didn't want no kid of mine takin' blows to the face or gettin' injured and dyin' from infection. No, little Bernard was going to be educated and go off to boarding school and make a name for himself. He was gonna be better than the other two men sharing his name.
"And then little Bernard was born and the son I wanted turned out to be a girl and I will tell you what; I didn't want no part of her." He swept one hand down the length of his torso. "For Christ's sake, what the hell was someone like me going to do with a girl? I'd break her in half the first time I held her. And what in the hell would she make me of me?"
The question was entirely rhetorical, but I still thought of the coveted son I had fathered, the boy who was nearly a man in his own right. The thought lingered, tugging on my insides.
"How long were you disappointed in her gender?"
"From the time the physician told me congratulations on your new daughter to the moment he handed her to me, which was probably a whole thirty seconds. I looked at her, said 'I don't think you'll like the name we chose for you', and that was it. She let out a squeak like a mouse and my heart just fluttered." He jabbed me in the arm as he spoke. "And if you tell anyone I said that–"
"At no point do I believe this will come up in conversation," I said through my teeth, "therefore poking me in the arm is completely unnecessary."
Bernard frowned. "My apologies. It's a reflex."
"Reflex indeed."
Bernard sniffled and gingerly wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "It was me and my Bea from the moment I held her," he said after a brief moment of silence. "Helena got more comfortable as Beatrix grew, but by the time my wife was prepared to be a parent, Bea and I had bonded and Helena was like a distant aunt that came to visit on holidays. They never was close." Bernard shook his head. "I dreaded leavin' the two of them together when I had matches. Bea would beg me to take her with me and of course that just upset Helena seein' how her own daughter didn't want nothing to do with her."
I thought of the woman with the cart and how I looked forward to her visits, how relieved I felt when she placed me onto the bench and put her shawl around me and I knew for certain she would take me away–and how I hoped she would never make me return.
There was no recollection of her leaving me at Bjorn's home; only happy memories of being taken away, and I wondered if I had begged her to stay with me, to keep me safe from the hell that awaited when I returned. I wanted to believe that I had simply gone back without protest, that the woman who had doted on me would have never left me behind to endure beatings and neglect. I was absolutely certain she knew what transpired in Bjorn's home, the heavy-handedness of a man infatuated with a bottle of spirits.
"A few weeks after Bea was killed, Helena said she was going back to her parents' home in Collioure. I asked her to stay, but she said it was evident I loved Beatrix more than I ever loved her."
My jaw moved in silence as I considered his wife's accusation.
"What?" Bernard gruffly questioned.
"Did you love your daughter more than your wife?"
"Not more, but different, yeah," he admitted. "Me and Helena, we didn't meet and fall in love. Her pa and my pa thought it would be good a match, but it wasn't, and I knew she wouldn't have picked me if it had been her choice of a husband." Again he gestured toward himself, from his face down to his torso. "Look at me. I ain't no one's first choice."
When I said nothing in return, the prize fighter grunted.
"You disagree?"
"I don't believe love is purely physical attraction."
"Pardon me, Professor, I didn't know you was the authority on love."
"I assure you there are many topics in which I am sorely lacking."
Bernard was silent for a moment. He shuffled along beside me, dragging his right foot with each step.
"I can tell you I loved Bea like I ain't never loved no one else. She was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I know you ain't got children of your own, but the love you feel for them is greater than anything you've ever felt before. I couldn't understand how Helena didn't feel like her whole heart belonged to Beatrix, but she didn't feel nothin' for her. It was a damn shame."
I had felt no connection to Gyda or Bjorn, but my affection for Erik had been exactly as Bernard described. My entire heart had belonged to my brother, and when he disappeared, he had taken part of me with him, a part that was still missing.
"A couple months after we buried our daughter, Helena told me she couldn't bear to stay in the same house with me one more night." Bernard rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. "And that was it."
"You let her leave?"
Bernard narrowed his eyes. "What was I supposed to tell her? Helena was my wife, not a prisoner sentenced to living with someone she didn't love. I cared about her enough where I didn't force her to stay where neither of us would be happy."
"You were happier apart?"
Bernard frowned. "I wasn't happy at all. There were months when I felt like I had died the day Bea was murdered," he admitted, "and I was certain I'd never be myself again. How could I? They took my little girl from me. They may as well have taken my life."
I looked away from him, preferring to stare at the ground rather than meet his eye. My grief for Erik and anger at Bjorn was magnified. Many times I had looked in the mirror at my reflection, ashamed of the man I had become, unable to imagine who I would have been if Erik had not disappeared.
"You know how that feels, don't you?" he asked.
"I do," I said, keeping my gaze averted, mentally pushing Bjorn back.
"Your brother?"
I nodded.
"I think about Bea every single day," Bernard replied. "Every day. But not the way I used to."
"I'm not sure what you mean."
He unwound his scarf and tied it differently around his neck, placing the tassels behind him. I realized that the pattern of the scarf was birds–terns if I was not mistaken.
"The first six months, I spent eighteen hours a day trying to relive every moment we spent together. I didn't want to leave the house. Hell, I didn't want to leave her room 'cause it smelled like this floral perfume I bought for her eleventh birthday and I was afraid it would fade and I'd forget how she smelled when I hugged her. I could spray it in the air, but it was different when it was on her. Warm, I suppose, like little girls are supposed to be, all warm and sweet."
He came to an abrupt pause on the street and winced, his right leg giving out. I turned my face away from the wind, knowing there was much of Erik I had forgotten over the years, parts of him that had faded with time. He had smelled earthy, I assumed, like dirt and spring water from our days spent roaming the woods.
"I lost my Bea again every day for months, and I lost myself a bit too."
"Is that why you started meditating?" I asked.
Bernard shrugged. "Part of the reason, yeah," he answered. "Make no mistake, I think about her every day, but I ain't afraid of losing her memory." He smiled to himself. "She ain't going nowhere. I loved her too much for that."
"I doubt I will ever get to that point of feeling like I won't lose my brother if I stop thinking about him," I admitted.
"You ain't got to hold on so tight," Bernard said.
"That seems impossible."
"It ain't easy, but it ain't impossible. Sometimes I still wonder whether or not Bea would have outgrown that damn bird dress. I know for certain she would have made me keep building them bird houses, thousands of them all over Wissant."
I smiled at the thought of a quaint seaside commune overrun with thousands of bird houses hanging from every available tree as a sentimental gesture in memory of a little girl.
"How many have you created thus far?"
"How many bird houses have I made? I'm up to thirty-eight. The last one I made had a front porch and everything. It's like a palace for these stupid little birds."
I chuckled, resisting the urge to reply.
Bernard nudged me in the side. "You was right, Professor. Go ahead, I know you're dying to say it."
"Well done, fellow bird enthusiast," I replied.
Rather than scowling, Bernard gave a hearty belly laugh. The sound of mirth was so unexpected, I found myself chuckling alongside him. "Yeah, I admit it, I love those damn birds, all 'cause of my Bea. It's my way of keeping her close, but not holding her too tightly."
I took a breath. "I suppose I have something to practice."
"Tomorrow before class," he offered. "Before the kid wakes up, I'll meet you in the gymnasium and we can sit on the floor."
"I would like that," I admitted.
Unexpectedly, the boxer grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and gave me such a hard shake I felt as though I would topple over.
"I've enjoyed this walk in silence, Professor," he said. "Now, let's put some food in our bellies."