SAMREN
***
There was no time
to waste. I went down the stairs closely behind Faden. In my father's house, it
was dinner with the family or no dinner at all. And it was usually simple. That
night it was some smoked salmon, a potpourri of cut vegetables in a salade
composee, and some bread and cheeses sliced and served. All the parlor's lights
were on and cast a golden ambience to the room, my father's face was pinker
than usual and the edges of his mouth turned up rather than down. And still,
somehow, I felt oppressed by the entire situation.
Arnaud folded his
hands and closed his eyes in prayer. We followed. He tended to keep it brief
and impersonal, and usually about the food. Only heaven knew what went on in
his head. His expression was positive, as was Faden's. I felt trapped, but
worked hard to maintain composure. I considered the speed and the angle at
which I brought bites of food to my mouth as well as my mouth's tension:
whether or not there was any. What I failed to consider was the speed, and I
finished far before the rest of the family.
"Excuse
me." I said, as soon as I was finished, then burst out of the living room
into the hall, down the stairs, and out on the street just as Elliott had, what
seemed just seconds before.
Night had already
fallen. Rooms lit up in checkered pattern in the buildings and apartments all
down the street, and the air heavier with dew. I looked all around, hoping
Elliott was still there, somewhere, perhaps on my own street. Crumpled paper
from a wrapper made a crumpled sound as a breeze wound down the street. A cat
darted across the way, which was carless by dusk. What a quiet town it had
been. Then, I ran. I ran down the street which wound around and down one of the
prominent hills of the town. No sounds, no leads. Groups of elders huddled
together, cheeks kissed pink by the drink, stumbled out of bars and ambled down
the narrow ways, on foot.
Nothing at all, even
as I jogged down the main road. So maybe more than a jog, it became a sprint.
Eventually I stopped, leaning over, weight over my knees, catching my breath in
heaves which burned. The farther I strayed, the less the lights became. Only
the moonlight cast a silver-blue glow over the town. I began to accept that I
wouldn't find him, but my feet still guided me until I stood before Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, a graceful thing of a church which resembled a chateau to the
father, or power above. I crossed the wide treeless grounds which stretched
before the church and walked along its stone walls until slipping in through a
wooden door with a heavy iron handle.
I crossed the back
of the church, behind the very last rows of pews, to a dark wooden confession
box and slid onto its bench. At that time in the evening, the church was empty
save for a few altar assistants who lit the candles as well some of the most
urgent stories in town-- people came desperate for insight or assistance in their
life's most unravel-able problems.
As did I. I jerked
the curtain of the confessional closed at my side and leaned my forehead
against the wooden wall. No words came to mind, but I suppose it was comforting
all the same.
Whether there was a
God, or not, there's something divine about going to a place and being forced
to sit alone with your thoughts, reflect, and feel truly healed when problems
dissolve with time.
I pounded my fist
against the interior of the booth and closed my eyes tightly.
"I don't know what I've done." I
choked out, and buried my face in my hands. The moving, the change in father's
airs, the new stranger: and my own actions of the evening whirled in my mind. I
turned my eyes up to the space above the the tightly slatted window: to a
crucifix, and slipped some francs from my perspiring palm into a small
receiving box.
Taking a deep
breath, I emerged into the church, its wide expanses and domed ceiling sharply
contrasting the atmosphere of the narrow confessional. Candles flickered at the
front altar and I saw the backs of two or three heads bowed in prayer. And one,
toward the front, struck me as somehow familiar. A mop of decently attended to
brown hair and a Lycee Peyramale jacket gave him away.
