In the Alcove

He was, at first, one in a crowd, and I did not distinguish him.
He was, at first, another in a gang of young men, all a bit cocky, all a bit nervous, all with names that seemed to begin with the same letter.
This caused me some confusion; I could never remember his name.
I knew nothing about him.
Except that he seemed less cocky than the others.
No less nervous.

One night, bitter cold outside, a loud and crowded night, we crossed paths at a bar.
People were everywhere, drunk and pushing and clawing at each other.
He sat alone on a high stool in the corner, wedged between the bar and the wall, shielded, perhaps.
I was escaping the clutches of an intoxicated friend, so the stool next to him, in the makeshift alcove, seemed inviting.
He did not brush me away.
I sat.
We spoke.
I certified his name.
I learned his story.
He was, newly, alone.
We drank beer together, and continued to talk, but I did not notice that others noticed us.
Perhaps they made remarks.
I do not know.
Suddenly, the lights in the bar became brighter, and we both realized that it was very late, closing time.
As the saying goes, we did not have to go home, but we could not stay there.
We left the bar.
We went to my house.

Not to fuck, although that could have happened.
But it did not.
Merely to avoid driving after so many beers.
He was nervous about the situation, and offered repeatedly to sleep on the couch or the floor (really?) but I reassured him that he would be more comfortable in the bed.
Sleep, I said, and the morning will bring light and sobriety.
It is late.
We spoke a bit, and I, lacking self-consciousness about such things, removed my clothes to sleep in my underwear, and turned off the light, and he removed his clothes and slipped in beside me.
In the darkness, in the silence, there were loud thoughts.
I took a bold chance, and asked him, aloud, but softly, if he would like to hold me.
He did, for a few minutes, and then we turned on our sides and we slept.

The next morning, lying in bed, we chatted, small talk, laughing, just as two friends might do after a night of drinking and sleeping.
What a night! Did you see him? He was so wasted!
Just as friends.
Yet I knew, and he knew, that we were not friends.
I did not press this, and I suggested we dress, and then I took him back to his car.
We hugged and he went off into the morning.

People had noticed us.
A friend called me.
He wants your number.
Give it to him.
He called.
We spoke.
It was…nothing.
He friended me.
We watched each other from afar, warily.
I tried to play the delicate game.
But I could not.
I was electrified by the taste of it, and I wanted it by the mouthful.

He came after me, and followed me, showing up where he knew I would be.
Another bitterly cold night, another crowded bar full of watching eyes.
He was aroused but also full of protestation and denial.
Too soon, too confused, too sensitive, too hurt.
I knew that his attitude was both wise and foolish.
I knew mine was both as well.
I suggested we walk outside, it is so hot and crowded in here, the cold air will be bracing.
I wanted a moment alone and he did not deny me.
Against an old brick wall, with freezing air swirling underneath my black, satin skirt, we kissed at last.
It was all hungry tongues and pressing hands.
It only lasted for a minute.
A minute was enough to know.

Still, he withdrew, whether out of wisdom or foolishness, into a place of retreat,
A cocoon, an alcove
Where he could protect himself and consider,
To move slowly and carefully.
I never move slowly,
Never carefully.
I allow myself no alcoves.
Yet I waited, poised to act, and there were bits of communication between us, very chaste, very pleasant, very off the subject that was likely most on our minds.
I see your work is coming along nicely.
I hope you are having a good holiday.
How is your family?
It sounds like a very big project.

At last, there was a message.
There was a break in the fog and a horizon emerged.
Another cold night, another bar, this one not crowded, no watching eyes.
I was there and he came to me, quickly, seemingly driving two feet above the road.
We could laugh and touch and talk with no barriers between us or around us.
The space around us was no longer confining.
Another end of a long night, another trip to a darkened room with a bed to share.
I did not know what would happen and I had no expectation.
Again, I removed my clothes to sleep in my underwear.
Thankfully, it was black and matching and trimmed in lace.
I did not matter, as he removed it all very quickly.
It was all conducted with hunger and shifting positions and the standard remarks.
“Are you watching me?”
“Yes.”
When it was done, I could sense his satisfaction, yet I could also sense his remoteness, his unwillingness to attach his emotions to this or to me or to anything.
We slept.
Another morning of light and sobriety, and another trip to his car.
I do not recall any embrace.
Only a polite goodbye.

For weeks, my efforts to be light and flirtatious were fruitless.
He withdrew again into his shell, taking weekend trips to platonic hideaways, immersing himself in work.
It was a modular alcove, I learned, one that could be erected or dismantled in a moment, as needed.
Then, one night, he emerged again, showing up where he knew I would be.
There was a bit of flirting, the meeting of the eyes that showed we both knew there had been an experience that neither of us could really ever wall away.
A touch of knees under a table.
A soft kiss.
And then, the walls returned.

I heard about his ultimate retreat in the most impersonal way.
But the message affected me personally, deeply, intensely.
I was, as all wise fools know, not only cast aside but declared null and void, and to be strictly avoided, as the presence of this woman would cause rancor and poison and questions that had no simple answers.
I was to be erased.

I erected my own alcove.
I removed all inscriptions from its walls and stripped them quite bare.
All around me was painted over, white and plain and flat.

It would be a year before I saw him again, accidentally.
I had overheard whispers about him, updating me on his life, whispers that cut into me despite my efforts to block them.
I saw him, as I came around a corner, and he was there, and his eyes, I saw them.
He lifted his chin a bit, a soft chin, and this gesture always denotes self-protection.
It is defensive.
I was not attacking, or bold, all warmth and pleasantness and ease.
He had nothing to fear from me or my presence.
Or did he?
I could see his eyes.
I saw them.
He saw me.
There can be no walls.

Light

Slip into a black, slim, sleeveless sheath dress, zip up from behind with a bit of inelegant contortion.

After all, who can see you in an empty hotel room? A room with zigzaggy orange carpeting, yellow faux stucco walls, and a view of the Eiffel Tower if you press your cheek against the glass and strain your eyes very far to the left?

Slide bare feet into high-heeled, peep-toed pumps, black kid leather. Regain balance.

The walk to the café is not so very far, and besides, in France, it’s expected that women will be able to walk in very high heels, and not to appear pained, even if they are.

Wrap body in khaki trench coat, lined, beltless, but cinched above the waist, a bit Empire.

Seems like the sort of thing Audrey would have worn, except with a belt around her waist, and extra belt to spare. She likely never worried about eating too many slices of foie gras.

Encircle neck with scarf, giant, silk, rippling Pucci design, vivid colors. Tie knot and pull the corners of the silk taut, elongating the neck as much as possible.

Every Frenchwoman wears scarves. Women admire the colors, the design, the beauty, the texture of the silk. Men dream of untying the knots and using the silk again to tie other knots.

Finally, cover eyes in sunglasses, oversized, black – despite the overcast skies, a must for that look of mystery, a bit of don’t bother me, I’m in my own world at the moment.

And I am in my own world, a world that is overcast, and in this world, I do not wish to be scrutinized by passersby. Luckily, in Paris, people on the street may glance your way, but they do not look you in the eyes. If they wonder why you look wistful or sad, they do not let on. They do not ask.

Grab best black shoulder bag, hard as a barrel, and aim for the door, one last check on the Blackberry to clarify meeting time at the café. I know I will be too early. Always too early. Yet at the same time, too late?

Down the elevator, nine stories, down to the street, pulling the trench coat a bit tighter around my body as I react to a chilly blast of wind. Is it really June? Only a block or so to the café, the café I have made my after-work haunt each night of the week spent in Paris, a café lined with photos of Chaplin, an American’s stereotypical vision of a Parisian cafe.

Yet I am too early.

I decide to walk for a bit, as it is Paris, and it is the point where afternoon turns into evening, and people are hustling along the street, leaving the metro station and bound for meetings with friends, drinks, dinners, stops at bakeries or little shops on the way home. I walk slowly, with no agenda or destination, just watching everyone pass by in both directions. There are trees lining the street, but as I walk beneath them, I scarcely notice their branches and leaves overhead. But I hear them rustling in the brisk wind.

I stop at a window. A real estate office. The window is papered with flyers advertising homes for sale or let. Chambres, fenetres, deuxieme etage, etc. I read the details, translating the words in my mind, and scan the prices. Not that I am looking for an apartment in Paris. How could I ever live in Paris? How could I ever find a job, rent a room, live a life, in such a place?

I know that this will never be a possibility, and I feel the sadness well up inside me again.
I feel the tears brimming in my eyes and spilling over, just a bit, enough to wet the skin at the top of my cheekbones.
Luckily, they are obscured by my sunglasses.
No one can see them.
No one will ever know.

I step away from the window, breathe the cold June Paris air deeply, and head for the café. I meet my friend, who is sitting at an outdoor table on the sidewalk. He is gregarious, excited to see me, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. He does not look around Paris and think about what he is missing – he thinks about what is present and drinks it in.

We order, we talk, we drink, we eat. Wine. Cheese. Bread.
Is this what French people eat after work at cafes? Or is this what we think French people eat after work at cafés?
I realize that he is on an uncertain path as well, one different from mine. Yet he faces it with confidence.
I feel ashamed, as I face mine with fear, uncertainty. I discourage myself.
I try to draw strength from his strength, light from his light.

He flirts, but without sexual overtones.
How does he do this so well?
He makes me feel hopeful and confident about the future.
Anything is possible.
He laughs and we comment about the French businesspeople passing by, carrying bags with baguettes sticking out of them, as if we were in a movie.
Are we really in this place? So different from our hot, humid home? Are we really in this café?
He pays the bill and then stands to hug me good-bye, a firm grasp around my shoulders and back, holding me for a second.
He can sense that I am in pain, that I am uncertain. He is trying to make me feel confident again. Confident about myself.
I hug him back.
I feel a bit uncomfortable because beneath my surface feelings of friendship, my admiration for my friend, there is a deeply buried seed of passion, one that would never surface.
This must be how one flirts without sexual overtones. One’s mind is so firmly in control, that one is aware of the presenc e of the seed, but wisely leaves it buried.
I say goodbye, and I turn to walk away, to walk back to the ugly hotel, to the room with the view of the Eiffel Tower if you press your cheek against the glass and turn your eyes all the way to the left.

I did not realize it on that night, but I would never see him again. My friend. I would write to him and speak to him, but I would not see him. Only in that city would I see him, in Paris, at a sidewalk café, a café lined with photographs of Chaplin, where we drank wine and ate cheese, where we talked and where he reassured me, without saying anything overt, that I was on the right path after all. A path that would not involve him, but one where he would be with me.

And the seed would stay buried, but it would sprout nonetheless, beneath the surface.
Love does not need to always come to the surface, or breathe the air, or see the light.
It is the light.

Back in my hotel room, with the hideous orange carpet and yellow faux stucco walls, I walked to the window.
The night sky was growing darker.
I pressed my cheek against the glass, and turned my face and my eyes as far to the left as they would go.
And there, just visible, was the Eiffel Tower. I could just make out its narrowing, basket-weave spire in the fading evening.
Suddenly, as night set in at last, it was set ablaze with electrical illumination.
A tower of light, pointing to the sky, pointing the way.
There was light on that night.
There is light.

A Bridge

Cold air bit into my skin as I bolted out of the hotel lobby and into the street.
The city street was loud, busy, full of cars and honking and people rushing by.
Noise wrapped its arms around me and protected me from the voices buzzing in my ears.

[Not voices - laughter.
Two laughters.
Coming from his room, from the other side of the closed door.]

A panhandler stuck a cup in my face and asked me for change; I sidestepped him. I ducked into a coffee shop.

Starbucks. The McDonald's of coffee shops. I bought a cup of bitter black coffee and sat at a small table, and started texting furiously. To anyone who might respond and make me feel less along than I did in that moment.

[Why did I feel alone?
I've always been alone.
Even the night before, when I was with him, and looked into his eyes and ran my hands all over his body, a smooth body.
Even then I was alone, and I could feel that aloneness.
Not loneliness. Some other feeling - of being singular.
I also felt trapped within myself, as if I couldn't escape no matter what I tried to do.
And that night I tried quite a lot.]

I texted a guy I knew in New York. He always responded to texts.
He liked episodic texts: I did this, I ate that, I am drinking, I am climbing a mountain. He was well traveled and a snob; he'd offer me suggestions on what to do in this strange city. He responded to my text. He suggested the Art Institute.

I kept sipping the bitter, black coffee.
The same panhandler walked into the Starbucks.
He walked from table to table, asking for change.
I tossed out the rest of the bitter, black coffee and left, sidestepping him again, and out into the street.

The line at the Art Institute stretched for blocks.
I decided to go to the modern art museum, which was nearly empty.
I looked at Calder mobiles and installations about heartbreak.
I was not heartbroken; I merely felt alone.
I felt ashamed too.
Not because of what I had done, but because I had been a fool, naively overlooking the obvious signs that he'd been lying to me.

I decided to forget him.
[And her, whoever she was. I could guess who she was.]
I decided to spend the day - a stunningly beautiful, cold, clear day - with myself, to celebrate my aloneness, my singularity. Just doing things I enjoyed, by myself, conversing with no one, thinking, decorating myself, feeding myself.
All on this one street.

A long, magnificent street, a famous street, a street I had never really known or felt anything about before.
Today the street would be the place of my pilgrimage.
A path to the next place in my life.
A bridge.

I left the museum, lingering by an enormous Calder sculpture, and then back onto the street.

I ate lunch in an elegant, oak-lined restaurant. I drank wine with my lunch.
I walked through a giant department store, and tried on lipsticks, and perfumes, and scarves.
I bought a pair of black suede driving moccasins and slipped them on my feet.
I drank a chile-infused hot chocolate, served in a tall, slender glass.
I watched hundreds of harried shoppers walk by in their straining tracksuits and clunky shoes, their arms burdened with plastic bags.
I wandered through displays, stopping at windows to consider the merchandise.
I went to an Italian lingerie shop, trying on lace-trimmed bras and panties to accentuate the curves of my body, and purchased a set.

On the street, I walked slowly, deliberately, almost rhythmically, swinging my bag of lingerie with each stride.
I took big steps, devouring the sidewalk with my feet and drinking in the wind with my body.
I felt the wind course through my hair and slip its fingers inside the opening of my blouse near my neck.
I looked up at the sky - brilliantly blue and unmarred by clouds or smog - and turned my face toward the warmth of the sun that penetrated the cold of the wind.

There was a bridge before me.
A wide, mighty bridge.
Flanked by tall monuments of stone, undulating stone carved in the beaux arts style.
Their arms and curves, and the towers all around me, made shadows on the river below, and in the sunlight that splashed on the surface of the bridge.

On the bridge, I stopped to stand before the river and think about the past and the future, and where I might be going from that point on.

I have always paused over rivers to think about such things.
I have thrown coins in these rivers, wondering where they might wind up, if they might flow across thousands of miles to settle at the feet of someone and bring a message to this person from me.

People scurried around me to snap photographs and chatter to their friends.
I did not pay attention to their voices; their voices were white noise.

Then I heard someone say that the river flowed backward, in the wrong direction, and that someone had made it so, men had made this so. They rearranged nature to make the river flow the other way, for their own purpose.

On a bridge over a river,
A river that flows backward,
A river whose course was changed,
I stopped to think about my own course,
And threw a coin in the river.

I was not alone, the river was with me, and even though I walked away and left it behind me, I knew I would come back again, and find my coin at the feet of someone, someone who would hear my message.

He will flow like a river.
He will be a bridge.

In the City, Alone

We drove for hours, through miles of sameness, rolling hills, dry air, scrubby banks, blue skies and blinding sun.
The wiry man whose fantasies of love and glory led him on ridiculous quests perched atop several peaks along the highway, along with crumbling heaps of castles he may have stormed in his dreams.
Between these, nothing much. Growing things were rare, not plentiful as the winds that blew.
And then, not even hills and scrub, but flatness, an arid stretch - desert.
The air grew colder as nothing blocked the wind. The day died slowly, and night took over, and the moon, flashing starkly in the sky.
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, miles of nowhere, I saw it - a city. A huge, urban, loud, bustling, teeming city, its buildings and bridges and streets and buses bursting straight up from the arid stretches.
We entered the city and were amazed by the activity, the wide avenues, the people rushing around and in and out of shops and restaurants, buying gifts for the holiday, drinking beers, pushing baby strollers with plastic lids so the babies stayed warm and snug inside.
The city was as busy as noontime but it was late at night.
In the shops, we talked with the clerks although we could not understand each others' languages.
The language of shopping is universal, an esperanto.
Everything was cheap and beautiful.
We found our hotel and headed for the bar, where we sat in upholstered corners and ate (not drank) cups of hot chocolate so thick they were as pudding.
Hot, rich and thick - eaten with a spoon and a surreptitious finger.
We slept despite the stuffy heat of the rooms and the late-night noisiness of the streets below.
The next day, we dutifully toured the castle, swallowing all of its anticipated features with our eyes and noses and ears - moat, quartered gardens, richly decorated walls, pointed arches so finely carved they were like lace.
We toured the cathedral as well. We admired the frescoes. We gazed respectfully at the shrine. We selected brochures.
We walked through the streets near the cathedral, where the local people walked purposefully, on their way to appointments, or to meet friends for lunch, or to buy gifts, or to push their babies in strollers, more plastic-lidded strollers.
We entered a shop. A glove shop. The sort of shop they don't have in America. The perimeter of the shop was lined in drawers, possibly fifty or more drawers, small drawers. Each drawer held a different style of glove. All of the gloves were made locally, by craftsmen, out of the softest skins.
In this shop, the customer didn't select her own gloves to finger the leather and fondle the lining. There was a shopkeeper, a glove seller, and she selected the gloves for you.
She examined our hands and considered the shapes of our fingers, the tone of our skin, the length of our wrists, and she selected gloves for us to try on.
I did not buy any gloves. My hands always feel confined in gloves. I like to feel the air on my palms and in between my fingers.
We left the shop, and then we all decided to split up for a few hours, to wander around without the agendas or the influences or the chatter of our companions. We picked a time and place to meet again.
I walked down the avenue where the glove shop was located, and found my way back to the square where the cathedral was located.
There were statues and monuments, grand buildings, and many people, people whose faces and names and voices I did not know nor would ever, likely, know.
There was a river on the other side of the buildings, and thick billows of fog rolled into the square from this river.
Strange, that in a city in the middle of a desert, there was fog, but there was fog. It wrapped itself around me.
I realized, in that moment, standing in the middle of a square surrounded by fog and hundreds of people, that I was alone, and I realized, in that moment, that I had never really been alone.
I realized, in that moment, that I liked being alone, like that, free to wander, not obligated to chatter, not required to do or say anything to anyone, or to be anyone other than the young woman in the coat in the fog who walked through the square.
And then I realized, in that moment, that I was not alone at all, I was part of something much greater. I felt at peace and though I was alone, I felt some sort of love, or the promise of love. It came upon me quickly, like the fog, and then it rolled away again.
This was a moment in my life when I was at a crossroads, like I am now, not knowing what I would do in the future, or if there was promise or only regret ahead of me. I was nervous, but I was hopeful too.
The city seemed to send me a message in that moment - that there is more than you and you are part of it, but you must go to it, embrace it, don't let it roll away like the fog.
I left Zaragoza after only one night and one morning. I never saw the city again. I went on, with the others, to Madrid, and then south.
Later I met a man, on a plane, and we talked, and I felt at peace after feeling frantic and uncertain. His name was Paco. He was slight and blond and wore glasses. He was on his way to Madrid and then to Copenhagen. But he lived in Zaragoza. His face warmed when I told him I had just been there, and how beautiful it seemed, how peaceful, how much I had liked the way I felt when I walked there.
We left the plane and as we separated to take our different flights, he reached his hand out to me.
He removed his glove.
He took my hand and squeezed it gently, and looked into my face, and said goodbye.
He put his glove back on his hand and turned and walked down the corridor to his plane, to Denmark.
I never saw him again.
I never went back to Zaragoza.

Lyric

It was the music that grabbed her; she did not understand the lyrics. She did not speak Spanish.
She danced to the song and felt its meaning in her bones, her muscles, her skin.
She felt him against her, a stranger. They did not speak, because neither spoke very much of the language of the other. Yet, she felt at peace as he held her body and bent and moved her.
Somehow, without really speaking, she trusted him. She did not know what was on his mind, but she trusted him.
It may have been the way he looked at her, but a look can be misunderstood so easily.
It must have been the way he held her and led her, with a care that was at the same time meticulous and measured, yet smooth and fluid.
He did not pull her or push her as they moved, but she knew which way he wanted her to move.
He did not squeeze her. His hands grazed her skin and the cloth of her swaying dress, but softly.
When the song was about to end, his arms around her waist tightened a bit, and he lowered her, looking into her eyes.

Then, suddenly, the song was over, the music swelled and stopped. Her back and neck still arched, she realized that he had never taken his eyes from hers.
As he raised her to standing, he smiled, and showed a glimpse of shyness - as if he did not know what would happen next any more than she did.
(And she had thought him so confident; he was unsure of what she was feeling or thinking, she realized.)
He paused, and started to speak, but stopped – only a small sound escaped his mouth.
He never took his eyes from hers, and his left hand was still holding her waist.
Her arms were limp at her sides and she was completely at ease in her body, but underneath her ribs her heart was pumping quickly from the movement of the dance – and the anticipation of this moment.
He looked at her as if to ask a question, and both of them knew the question (and the answer) without having to understand a common spoken language.
He kissed her.
He walked away from the dance floor.

She went home and began listening to a thousand songs online.
She knew that one way or another, she would recall the few lyrics she could grab from the air of that night, and find a file of the song she had dance to with this man.
Finally, she found it.
It was a well-known song, she learned.
It had been recorded by many artists, each with a different style.
Yet the message was the same.

The song title translated to “I have to forget.”
She realized that sometimes, love is painful, moments of love are filled with a sting that comes from regret, perhaps, or the knowledge that this pleasure will only last a moment and no longer.
Often, you wish to forget a painful memory, or the face and voice and name of a person who shattered your love.
She did not wish to forget the dance with the man, or the man himself.
In fact, she knew that she would never forget these feelings (the smell of his skin, the warmth of his body, the strength of his hands, the burning hazel of his eyes, the taste of his mouth), or the rhythm of this song, no matter how many years might flow under her feet.
She did not want to ever, ever forget.
But, a part of her heart sent a message to her: Yes, you will have to forget this, because it will be unbearably painful, this feeling of regret, this knowing that you shared a night and a dance and a kiss with someone who was lost to you forever.

Forget.
She did not know his name. She did not know where he lived. And if she could find him, what would they say to each other? Their shared language was only a few words at best.

But she knew she would not forget

Blood

She kept meeting men born in or around the year 1983. This was coincidence, but like all coincidences, possibly seemed plotted by some higher force, and seemed to have deep significance.

The fact that all of these men were born around the same time was indeed a coincidence, and had no deep significance or divine design. Yet it was driven by her own actions. She was drawn to these people and to the places where they congregated. Yet she met them everywhere. Without knowing it, she was compelled to seek them out.

They were born during the reign of Reagan. She remembered this time period vividly. They were learning to nurse at their mothers' breasts. She was learning to drive. They were learning to recognize their mothers' voices. She was learning to recognize the voice of Madonna.

Maybe she was hungry for a connection to that time in herself, a time when everything seemed possible for her, instead of this time, when options seemed few and the future seemed relatively bleak. Or maybe not.

Maybe these men just seemed beautiful to her (none were truly beautiful). They seemed unmarred by the terror of knowing that their futures were narrow, that the decisions that they had made behind them had sealed their paths with concrete. No, these men fairly burst with optimism. They were eager for the future. They had confidence that, despite the fairly grim news of the time, they would seize something for themselves, find power.

Somehow, in the crowds of people, of men, she could find them, without consciously looking for them (or so she thought). Perhaps she could smell them, like a vampire smells blood.

They seemed to sense her too, and approached her. Everywhere. They picked her out in groups of women. Suddenly, she'd feel a hand on her knee, stroking it. They wanted her for some reason. Even on days or nights when she felt disheveled, they came up to her.

She could feel how hungry they were too, hungry like someone who has not eaten for days. She first thought she felt their enthusiasm, the energy that comes with discovery. That may have been what she felt, or was that energy mixed with a touch of fear, of wariness, of self-protection?

The author Daphne Merkin once wrote that men are repelled by older women: "almost instinctively, because they sense the impending shadow of nongenerativity like a negative pheromone."

Was there a pheromone at work here? Or were her own actions, her desires, her tastes and her defiance, propelling her toward these men?

She knew she could outwit them, at least at first. She knew their weaknesses and what made them burn, and they, at first, were amazed that she had this knowledge. That was just at first. This amazement did burn, but only briefly in most cases.

Quickly, the fire would burn out. They would swiftly move on.

She realized that they were sharks. They moved like sharks in the water. They would course after their own desire for blood, the blood they smelled in the vast ocean, all throughout its expanse. She could see that they knew, instinctively, that the ocean was filled with blood.

They would taste hers, but then, they would sense others', and move on.

However, from them, she drew a bit of blood back into herself. She drew some of that optimism that coursed through their veins. She drew some of their energy, their hunger. She took all of this with her. She moved forward too, at last.

Green Wine

Hardly a moment goes by that I do not think of Lisbon. I want to return there so badly; nothing distracts me from these thoughts.

I had no expectations, no image in my mind ahead of time about how it would look, smell, feel, sound. Nor did I think of you. You were nothing to me.

It seemed to me as if it took a night and a day to get there. Dark, gray, rain, nightfall, a bumpy, miserable ride, lashed to a narrow seat, straining to find a place to lay my head against the wall of the plane that did not press against bone or cartilage.

Then harsh, blinding sunlight awakened me, then running and dragging through horrible, labyrinthine Charles de Gaulle.

A hastily guzzled soda. A crush of chattering, sweaty passengers to board the last leg of the flight. My eyes strained to stay open and I let them, finally, close, my face pressed against another plane wall. Teenage boys singing soccer chants. I slept through them.

Then, suddenly, the plane swooped on an arc and I saw it – a stunning coastline, the Atlantic stretching beyond in an endless stretch of blue-green, a brilliant sun over us. The teenage boys scream for home.

I manage to stand upright and get off the plane and onto Portugal. Another airport. Another taxi. But this time, something was different.

The streets looked familiar, yet I had not seen them with my eyes before.
Pastel buildings, a little shabby in places, yet with a relaxed glamour, no self-consciousness.

Traffic whizzing purposefully; nothing seemed frantic.

Circles, steep hills, craggy cliffs. Palm trees and billboards. A balcony with a garden poking over its rails.

And that sun. I will never forget it. Bright, lowering in the sky as it was late afternoon. But not beating down on my face, illuminating my face instead.

I felt that sun, felt it like a warm kiss on my face that would comfort and restore, not extract and drain.

I could not see the ocean, but I felt its presence nearby. Not in a scent – but in the wind. A passionate wind that changed the temperature in a matter of minutes as the day waned, changed it from a soft, warm afternoon to a chilled, bracing night, a drastic change.

And then, I saw you.

We spoke, businesslike, a bit formal. We sat down to dinner. Jokes, charming banter, but still that space between us. I was a bit nervous, trying not to say the wrong thing, trying to say the right things - to anticipate.

For days, we worked, long, dull days. A white room lit by fluorescent lights. But beyond the windows, Lisbon. The sky pure blue, unmarred by clouds or haze. Warmth and brightness. But work took precedence. At night, we dined together, the conversation becoming more relaxed. Sharing stories about home, music, sport, food, anything. But still – a gulf.

And then, a taxi ride.

Through the city, to the old city, to old Lisboa.

Past the cliff where the castle perched high above, bathed in a golden blaze that glowed in the velvety dark night.

Through teeming, cobblestone streets where locals walked, laughed, drank.
Bands were playing, inside the cafes and in the alleys and in the streets, which grew narrower.

We found the restaurant and the proprietor came out to meet us in the street. Have a glass of wine, vinho verde, or green wine they call it, here in the street. Listen to the music of the band in the street.

The wine was so sweet and cool, not sickeningly sweet, but like honey, and I could not help but drink it all, too quickly perhaps.

We laughed and drank, and listened to the music, and told stories about music. Such a soft night, a breeze cutting through the air but not harshly pressing against us.
The gulf seemed to narrow, like these alleys and streets in this old, medieval part of the city.

For a moment, there seemed to be a shift in the direction, a dangerous shift in some ways, a temptation that was all the more intriguing because of its inappropriateness.

But this may have been all in my mind, all because of the white port wine and the music and the woman who suddenly began singing in the blue-and-white tiled restaurant while everyone hushed to listen.

That night, and another and another, that castle on the cliff, the square where the annoying street vendors interrupt every conversation to peddle cheap toys and raggedy flowers, those tables in the middle of the street where we sat beneath umbrellas and drank vinho verde and ate fish with bones, the gushing fountain where we threw in coins to make secret wishes that would never come true anyway.

Another airport. A cold, dark morning and the thought of dragging my bag yet another time through Charles de Gaulle. More pushing, sweaty people rushing to get on a plane.

But before I get in the line, I held my bag in my hand and you looked at me, one last time. It would be the last time. And you held me, just for a moment.

Does it matter?

But I still think of Lisbon.

Even though you will not be there, and I will never find the blue-and-white tiled restaurant again in those winding streets, and I will never remember the name of the white port wine, and it won’t taste the same, and the woman will not be there to hush the restaurant with her song, I will go back.

I will go back to feel the sun on my face again, and to walk through those streets, to eat the fish with bones, and drink the cool, sweet wine, and feel my heartbeat slacken, and feel my heartbeat quicken again when I think of you.

I know I will never see you again.

I know I will not find rest until I return.

"Perception"

There is a star in the night sky and it seems very small, insignificant compared to the blaring lights of the electronic billboards and city towers around me. It seems far away.

When I am by the ocean in the morning, it smells very subtle, really, just a faint hint of salt and sand; it is fresh and as I head into the city and away from the shore, the scent of it fades from my mind.

It rains sometimes at dawn, over the ocean, and the sky is very gray; it sucks the light away from the sun and everything seems the color of steel.

If all of these things around me are small, insignificant, faint, easily forgotten, gray and lightless, then what are my feelings for you? Are they the same? Insignificant compared to the loud claps and horns and shouting laughter and boasts around us?

Small? That star is actually majestic and gigantic in size, too large and too hot and too bright for us, down here so far away, to even contemplate.

Subtle? That ocean is heavy with salt and wind and water and life, its fragrance is that of life and the place where life begins. It is the earth's perfume.

Gray? Beyond that brief shroud of morning fog and rain is a sky exploding with light and color, the colors of the burning sun as it asserts itself on the side of the earth that has been sleeping. It is red, pink, orange, yellow, pure light and heat.

What, then, are my feelings for you?

These, then, are my feelings for you.

"La Mariée de Guerre"

La mère coud la robe du sa fille,
La mousseline blanche contre sa peau blanche.
Avec soin, elle coud les coutures.
La fille est couchée dans son lit.
La mère mord le fil et regard fixament son ouvrage.
Elle soupire et elle s’arrête.
La souaire est complète.

"One, Or Two"

It is several hours past midnight. I stare through the windshield of my car but can barely see the road in front of me. I watch the beams of light coming from my headlamps cut through the night and then fade into the fog.

The mist or fog or whatever it is seems to wrap around my car and makes the night almost entirely silent. I don’t hear a thing around me, just the hum of my motor and the rhythmic turning of my tires on the road.

I can hear my breath too. If I concentrate, I can hear my soft, slow heartbeat as well. Then, I think about you, and both my breath and my heartbeat get a bit faster. I turn on the radio so I can’t hear them anymore.

I left you perhaps thirty minutes ago. You were sleeping. I slipped out of the bed and dressed as silent as possible downstairs, and then I grabbed by keys and my bag and my shoes and walked out of the house, turning the doorknob so slowly so it wouldn’t squeak and awaken you.

I couldn’t believe the fog that had settled, but I was glad for it – I felt that it wrapped me in a blanket and kept me safe. Safe from what? I don’t know.

I don’t know why I left you sleeping there. I don’t know why I left. Maybe I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I didn’t want to face being with you when we were both awake.

I recall a thousand different details of what happened before I left the house, before I left the bed, before you fell asleep next to me while I pretended to sleep but did not.

I remember the way you kissed me, not soft with your lips moving in circles around my mouth, but somewhat hard and fast and thrusting, as if you were hungry after not having eaten for a while.

I remember the way the skin of your bare chest felt against my palm, strange in some ways as I had not touched it before, but familiar too, as it was as I had imagined it to feel. Only not; there was less hair than I thought there would be. It was smooth.

I remember the way your palm felt against my skin, moving rhythmically up and down my back – or was it on my hip? My arm? Now I am doubting my own memories.

But I do recall, with perfect clarity, how, when I lie next to you, both on our backs with our legs outstretched but perfectly side by side, our shoulders and forearms and hips and thighs touching, you moved your hand.

My hand was pressed against the sheet.

You cupped your hand on top of mine.

You pressed your hand into mine.

I, after a second, or two, lifted my fingers up.

You opened your fingers to take in mine.

Our hands locked together, for one minute, or two.

We didn’t turn to look at each other or kiss or talk. It was just my hand, the back of my hand, cupped inside the palm of your hand, and our fingers intertwined.

For a minute, or two.

I don’t know why I left.

"The Scent of Orange Trees"

It is winter, and the gray sky holds no light even in midday, so I find myself imagining us walking together, far away from this place of dank air and garish artificial lights, in a place burned by the sun but also blessed with shaded, cool places where the air is very soft.

We walk together beneath the candy-striped arches of the Grand Mosque, deep inside its labyrinthine heart, beyond the whitewashed, winding narrows of old Cordoba, where Maimonides once lived, thought, wrote, prayed, perhaps loved. He was exiled from this place, but his presence is felt still.

We walk together, and do not speak aloud, and the sound of our footsteps echo harmlessly through this place, this sanctuary, where we are unnoticed by the others who walk around us, and glide through the walkways which never seem to end.

An old, Gothic cathedral sits inside the mosque, as if dropped inside it from overhead by a giant hand, and we linger a moment or two inside the choir. We overhear a guide speak of Visigoths, Moors, Reconquista. She speaks also of a courtyard, where she says there are orange trees.

We wind our way through the red and white stripes, the endless tunnels, until we find the mihrab, its walls richly decorated, and then into the courtyard, where we shield our eyes from the sudden light of the blazing Cordoba sun.

There are indeed orange trees. They have a delicate scent and glossy green leaves, rustling only slightly as there is a mild wind. You move next to a tree, and pull me close to you so we are both touched by the leaves. I breathe deeply to take in the scent of the trees, the water of the fountain, the warm summer air, and then you stop me with a kiss.

We go to the edge of the fountain, and I say we should make a wish by throwing in a coin, although nobody seems to be doing this. You fumble in your pockets and pull out a golden ten Eurocent coin, and we deem it lowly enough to part with. I close my eyes, to make a wish, and I feel your hand grasp mine, and you press your face into my hair, and we toss it in together.

I hear the coin rend the water in the fountain. I do not speak my wish aloud. You do not ask me what I have wished for. There are many people standing around the fountain, and I sense them watching us, even though they are not. We leave the mosque.

We walk through the streets of Cordoba, narrow, old streets with whitewashed walls, more like alleys than streets. Little archways reveal shops and restaurants and apartments beyond the walls. We glance inside the openings as we walk by. We see the entrance of a courtyard with a tiled fountain, and we pause. I say that I would like to live here, but you just laugh and we move on.

After walking for a while, hand in hand, past the statue of Maimonides, we come to a crowded tavern, where people are eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. We find an empty table toward the back of the tavern, and sit, and I look at you across the table. You don’t speak. There is a small window next to our table, and through it, a courtyard.

Somehow, it is the same courtyard I saw earlier, although it seems impossible. Have we walked in circles? There are pale yellow tiles lining the small fountain, which holds a still pool of water, and birds strut on the fountain’s edges, picking at seeds and leaves with their beaks.

Light trickles into the courtyard, dappling the tiles and the face of the water and the wings of the birds. Afternoon is waning, and the light will soon be too low to enter the courtyard. The tavern is noisy, but the courtyard is still, except for the sound of the birds’ feet on the tiles. Our wine arrives.

The waiter has black bristles on his angular, lined face. His whiskers remind me of yours when you don’t shave for a few days. He pours the wine; it is the color of the sun streaming through the orange trees at the mosque. We look into each other’s eyes, smile, touch our glasses together softly, and drink. We will not leave Cordoba.

-- Susan Bernstein