Her quick lithe steps sloshed about the newly formed puddles as she hurried towards her temporary recluse from the sudden downpour. The sound of the rain obscured by the menacing noise of the late afternoon traffic as cars honked with the air of impatience. People rushed past her, futilely avoiding getting drenched as their thick black coats shielded them minimally from the cold and the wet. She stopped just below the awning of a familiar French restaurant. She shook her wet umbrella vigorously before clasping it shut and turned towards the door. The restaurant was nearly empty except for a young man in a dark suit sitting at the far end of the room sipping coffee and reading the paper. She sat down her favourite table by the window overlooking the busy street. She hung her wet umbrella behind her chair and rested her bag on the floor beside her. She proceeded to run her fingers through her messy brown hair that hung limply down her shoulders, slightly drenched. Mozart was playing in the background and she was relieved that it was a slow hour. She could start her shift in two hours when the dinner crowd was to be expected. Young professionals like the young man sitting by the Kahlo, were their usual customers.
“Ah, you silly girl!” a familiar voice called out to her. She smiled warmly up that old wizened face of her grandmother. “Eet eez far too cold outside to be wearing zis kind of dress around ‘ere. And zos cute shoes don’ give much protection in a weazur such as zis. Ay, you are going to get yourself zeeck, yes you are!” she admonished in her heavy French accent.
“But it was warm out this morning grandmaman. I didn’t think it would rain. And you know how much I love my summer dress. It is summer after all.” She smiled apologetically, crossing her arms to keep herself from shivering. Her English devoid of any traces of a French accent.
“Ah, very well ma chérie. I shall go get you a coat and a cup of hot coco. Zat should warm you up.” The old woman left her sitting by herself.
As appearances go, the girl looked nothing like her grandmother. Perhaps the word girl would be inappropriate since she was in her early twenties, though her features wouldn’t have given her away. She looked young, possibly eighteen at the latest. She was petite with a frame that made her look more adolescent, a striking difference from her tall and willowy grandmother who had silvery blonde hair and olive green eyes. The girl’s face looked innocent and unassuming. Something about her made her look fragile, as if she had been broken once before and was merely pieced together.
Her grandmother came back from the kitchen carrying with her a warm cup of coco in one hand and a long brown coat slung over her other arm. She took the coat from the old woman and slid her fragile arms through it. Her grandmother sat with her as she sipped the sweet, warm concoction. The sweet scent of the chocolate reminded her of something that she could not put her finger on. It reminded her of home, but not of the French countryside where she supposedly spent her childhood, as she was frequently told by her grandmother.
“What eez eet zat you are thinking of ma petit chou?” the old woman asked her.
“Nothing grandmaman. Just wondering what this coco reminded me of. Home, I suppose? But somehow not exactly.”
“Ah, well... zat is charming. I need to get back before Antoine decides to experiment with ze menu again.” The old woman kissed her granddaughter atop her head before hurriedly heading back to the kitchen.
It wasn’t strange. Not even unusual. She knew it must hurt her to be reminded that she could not remember. Not the pain or the people. It wasn’t even an echo of a long forgotten memory. She had nothing but jogs of her senses every now and then. She doesn’t have a history, but she has now and tomorrow. And that thought comforted her. She unzipped her bag, took out her Proust and began to read. She had time and she was happy that at least she had that.
He watched her from his corner as he pretended to scan the business pages of his paper. “Some things never change.” He muttered silently to himself. He smiled sadly as he watched her turn the leaf of her book. The young man kept his paper in front of him as if to read it, yet his eyes were glued to her. He saw her from across the street hurrying towards the restaurant. His heart skipped a beat as her eyes seemed to look into his. He needed to remind himself that the restaurant had one-way glass windows, that she could not have recognized him or seen him at the very least. When she walked through those doors a few minutes ago, he was taken with a powerful urge to approach her and tell her who he was. He wanted to take her away with him. He wanted to hold her hand again the way he used to. He wanted to talk to her, make her laugh, the way he used to. He wanted things to be the way they used to. But the voice of that kind French woman woke him up from his reverie. He needed to see to it that things were as they should be. That was how it turned out. That was how it was supposed to be. He kept himself busy flipping through page after page not reading any of it, his eyes watching the girl who sat by the window immersed in her book.
The girl’s grandmother came out of the kitchen and sat with her, saying something he could not hear. The girl smiled and nodded and he looked away, the pain searing through him like a jagged knife through his flesh. The old woman walked out the door. She had her eyes on her book again as he bid his time, taking in as much of her as he could from where he was. He did not know if he would ever see her again. Not after tonight. After a minute or so, the young man folded up his paper and signalled to the waiter by the bar. He left a fifty-pound note then stood up and left not bothering to wait for his change. She did not notice him or the way he looked at her when he walked through the door. The pain masked ever so poorly in his eyes.
He walked hurriedly barely noticing the light drizzle that soaked everything in dull gray. He was at the train station before he realised it and he searched for her amongst the sea of people going about their late afternoon businesses. He finally saw her sitting by herself in the far corner of the waiting area. He went over and sat beside the old French lady with the silvery blonde hair to whom he owed so much.
“She looks well...” he said.
“She eez doing very well at ze University. Her professors speak very highly of her work. She eez a very intelligent girl.” The woman replied.
“She always has been. I can see that that did not change.” He smiled sadly looking out onto the throngs of people coming in and out of the station.
“Eet ‘as been two years and three months since. Don’t you want to let her know?” she said, her heavy French accent made it a bit difficult for him to understand. So he paused, thinking about how he would respond.
“Can she play the piano now?”
“Yes she does. She plays the piano beautifully. Zat girl is talented.”
“She is.”
“She loves to read. She would bring home many books from her trips to ze bookstores and read zem all in a day.” The old woman laughed as she looked down at her hands.
“I followed her once. I saw her reading at the park.” He replied. His smile fading as he remembered the day he followed her from one of her classes during one of his visits to her university.
“Ah, yes, yes. She loves going zer to read. Curious leettle thing she is.”
His agony was unfathomable. He remembered that day when he sat beside her at the park bench, wanting to reach out to her. Knowing that no matter how close he lingered she would not notice, she would not remember. He sat close enough that every time the light breeze would blow a strand of her hair, he would catch a whiff of her and it was as though pain and happiness could exist at the same time. It was as though torture and bliss were bound together by that moment. His moment. The closest he could ever get to her now. Or ever.
“Perhaps eet eez time zat she learned ze truth about herself and her life.” The old woman said.
“No. She is happy here. She is whole and well. If those people didn’t kill her, the truth will.”
“But zis is unfair. Zis is unfair for her and for you. You know so much yet she knows nothing..”
“You think that matters to me now? I don’t care how unfair it is for me. I don’t care that I am a stranger to her, that she no longer remembers me. I don’t care that she doesn’t know that I exist and that I am here. If it means that she does not fall apart then hell, I don’t care where this would take me.”
“I know zis must be difficult for you. I want you to ‘av a chance. I want her to ‘av a chance.”
“She has a chance. You gave it to her and for that I will be forever grateful.”
“She could remember you someday...”
“If it would mean that she would remember losing her family then I’d rather she never remembers me at all.”
“But you are her family too!”
“I always find time to be here for her that should be enough.”
“Eet eez not enough for you. Ze both of you!”
“It is enough for her.”
“But she does not know!”
“And it’s best that she doesn’t!”
He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the old woman.
“Here. Keep her safe. I will visit when I can.”
“I will monsieur.”
“Thank you Madame Solange.”
He walked out onto the late afternoon drizzle and hailed a cab. On his way to the airport and to his future, he thought about her and everything that he had to leave behind. His life, his soul, his heart, would forever be hers. He was now an empty shell, a broken man. The cab ride to the airport was dreadful but he was here and this was it for him. No more turning back.
He took his time walking towards the check-in counter, wanting to revel in the few minutes that he had, seeing her face in his head, when he was pulled back from his trance by a voice calling his name. He thought that he had imagined it but the voice kept calling him. He searched for the person who called his name wondering if it was really his name that he kept hearing. He turned around and he saw her standing a few feet away, soaking wet with tears streaming down her face.
