More Than Words
Page 45
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We walked in silence for a short while, each deep in our own thoughts, when the captain suddenly pulled me back and put his finger to his lips, as if he’d heard something or someone. We paused, and when we both peered through a break in the trees, we saw Jehanne, her head tipped back and her eyes closed. I was stricken with a sudden sense of … stillness, of something which I find difficult to explain. I could tell Olivier felt it, too, for he was watching similarly, with a look of stunned bewilderment on his face. It was as if the area where she stood was filled with a light that held no brightness, no glow, only … serenity, a deep, loving calm. It felt like a blessing, and it made me want to step forward, to bathe in it, to become part of it. And yet I didn’t understand it either, and I held tightly to the captain’s hand as he held tightly to mine. Jehanne’s lips were moving as if she were talking to someone, and she smiled, turning and walking back toward camp.
My mind felt foggy with awe, but strangely, I didn’t feel like I required answers. I knew we’d witnessed something miraculous, but there was no proof other than the faith in my heart. And that was enough.
The next day, time seemed to move at a turtle’s pace. Before now, I had found it so easy to lose myself in my work, fascinated by the story unfolding in front of my eyes, by the questions it posed, by the wonder it invoked. But though Callen and I had spoken about one of us moving to be closer to the other, neither of us seemed courageous enough to take that leap. And so we were left with mere days together.
I was so scared that once Callen left and we were apart, any feelings he’d developed for me would fade. It caused my heart to ache because I knew my own feelings would be far, far less fleeting. And yet, if that were the case, if Callen’s feelings for me were quick to dim, I guessed that would answer whether he did actually care about me enough.
I’d been thinking more and more about my mother lately, that old wound surfacing as I wrestled with my insecurities about Callen. When she’d told us she had cancer, I pictured that tumor inside her to be the product of all the pent-up anguish she’d carried for years over my father’s affairs. It was like the physical representation of all his sins, yet she alone had carried them and took them on as her own.
I would never live that way. Not again. I wanted a man who would fight for me, who would slay dragons for me, and whose love I could count on to be as steady and unchanging as the stars.
I was desperate for Callen to be that man, but I wondered if he was too damaged, too bent on self-destruction. If he wasn’t willing to fight for himself, his own battles, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to fight for me either.
In the year of our Lord 1430, on the fourth day of March
Today’s battle was expected to be an easy victory but, in fact, it was a horror. I was needed outside camp, where the injured and the dead were being carried—a seemingly never-ending parade of blood and misery. The nearby blasts and screams rang in my ears so that I thought I might go insane with terror. A victory was secured, but by the time the battle had ended, my heart was so battered by fear that Olivier and Jehanne would not return that I could hardly bear it.
I waited at the edge of the road for them, and when I saw Olivier on his horse, I was not able to disguise my relief, and sobbing, I ran to him. He swore savagely as he scooped me onto his horse, turning immediately onto a side path that veered off the main road. I was crying and he was cursing and we were both kissing, and I do believe perhaps our minds were lost for a time, so desperate were we both to confirm the safety of the other.
“You came too close to the battlefield,” he said angrily through kisses. “This is madness! I can’t worry about you that way. It will get me killed, do you understand?”
I shivered in his arms, crying harder, wanting to merge our bodies into one so that I knew well and truly that he was alive and unharmed. “Take me somewhere, Olivier, somewhere there is only us and nothing else. No war, no battlefield, no blood nor screams of the dying.”
He sounded so pained as he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I practically cried. I needed this, needed him.
He swore again and then said, “You won’t be able to go back. You’ll be ruined.”
I laughed, and it sounded crazed. “I am already ruined. This war has ruined me. The terror has ruined me. The questions that have no answers have ruined me. Make me whole again, Olivier. That is what I want.”
He held me close as we galloped away, for hours it seemed, my heart calming as I lay back against him. He rode us far away, and I knew it was to give me time to change my mind, but it only made clearer the rightness of my decision. I loved him. My heart belonged to him. And here there were no rules except those governed by God. Here, riding through this field of wildflowers on a horse that had carried my love to battle, there were no strictures of society, only the wild beating of our hearts and the knowledge that if something was done in love it could not be judged wrong. Here there were no assurances, and yet there were answers all the same.
We came to a stream, where Olivier tied his horse and left him to drink his fill and graze on the sweet grass that grew on the bank. From there we walked to a cave that sat at the top of a hill, almost hidden in the rock, and he told me, “If we get separated, if you’re lost, come here when the moon is new, just as it is tonight. From this moment, this place is ours.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “This place is ours.”
“What do you want, Adélaïde?” he asked, as if giving me one final chance to deny him.
I kissed him and whispered against his lips, “I want to live fiercely and without regret. I want you, Captain Olivier Durand.”
And with those words, Olivier first pulled me tight and then laid down a thin blanket that had been atop his saddle and his jacket over that. And for a time, in the mouth of that cave—our cave—where we could still see the stars, the war paused, the battle cries hushed, and there was only us. There was only that same peaceful stillness. There was only love.
Adélaïde! Her name was Adélaïde. Breathless with excitement, I e-mailed Dr. Moreau immediately and then texted Ben, who was out on an errand. I sat there in the quiet for a few minutes, repeating her name in my head, somehow feeling even closer to her. Adélaïde.
Midmorning I went to the courtyard where Ben and I usually ate our lunch together, needing a change of scenery and some fresh air after spending hours inside a windowless room. I thought about the piece I’d translated earlier. There was only love, Adélaïde had written, and it had caused a pang of yearning in my heart. I’d moved on in my translating, but I kept coming back to that line. I wanted the same. With Callen. I wanted our boxcar or our small room at the inn, our own version of the cave where Olivier and Adélaïde were able to leave the world behind. But I wanted more than stolen hours or weekends. So much more. Have faith, I’d told him, but in truth, I was having trouble holding on to my own.
It wasn’t lunchtime yet, but I decided to stretch my legs and clear my head. I’d tried to call Frankie that morning, but she was already at work and likely would be busy all day as she worked around the clock to get samples ready for an upcoming runway show.
I strolled around the perimeter of the space, trailing my hand along the wall. Climbing jasmine grew up the side of the château, and I breathed in its sweet fragrance, closing my eyes for a moment and listening to the birds. I heard footsteps and turned to see Ben coming up the stairs, obviously having just returned. “Hey, you all right?”
I nodded. “I’m fine. I’m just … having a little trouble concentrating today.” I gave him a wry smile. “She’s describing the landscape in the piece I’m translating now. It’s slow going.”
Ben smiled. “Hey, it’s a momentous day, though. We know her name. Do you think we can discover more about who she was?”
“I hope so. Dr. Moreau seemed excited about it, too, when he e-mailed me back. That one little word buried in an entry and now we know what to call her.”
“Yes. Adélaïde,” he murmured before smiling again. “Yeah, seems to suit her.”
We were both quiet for a moment, and then Ben tilted his head, looking at me more closely. “So, despite the earlier excitement of discovering Adélaïde’s name, what you’re translating right now is mundane and you needed a break. You sure that’s all it is? You look a little … blue.”
My mind felt foggy with awe, but strangely, I didn’t feel like I required answers. I knew we’d witnessed something miraculous, but there was no proof other than the faith in my heart. And that was enough.
The next day, time seemed to move at a turtle’s pace. Before now, I had found it so easy to lose myself in my work, fascinated by the story unfolding in front of my eyes, by the questions it posed, by the wonder it invoked. But though Callen and I had spoken about one of us moving to be closer to the other, neither of us seemed courageous enough to take that leap. And so we were left with mere days together.
I was so scared that once Callen left and we were apart, any feelings he’d developed for me would fade. It caused my heart to ache because I knew my own feelings would be far, far less fleeting. And yet, if that were the case, if Callen’s feelings for me were quick to dim, I guessed that would answer whether he did actually care about me enough.
I’d been thinking more and more about my mother lately, that old wound surfacing as I wrestled with my insecurities about Callen. When she’d told us she had cancer, I pictured that tumor inside her to be the product of all the pent-up anguish she’d carried for years over my father’s affairs. It was like the physical representation of all his sins, yet she alone had carried them and took them on as her own.
I would never live that way. Not again. I wanted a man who would fight for me, who would slay dragons for me, and whose love I could count on to be as steady and unchanging as the stars.
I was desperate for Callen to be that man, but I wondered if he was too damaged, too bent on self-destruction. If he wasn’t willing to fight for himself, his own battles, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to fight for me either.
In the year of our Lord 1430, on the fourth day of March
Today’s battle was expected to be an easy victory but, in fact, it was a horror. I was needed outside camp, where the injured and the dead were being carried—a seemingly never-ending parade of blood and misery. The nearby blasts and screams rang in my ears so that I thought I might go insane with terror. A victory was secured, but by the time the battle had ended, my heart was so battered by fear that Olivier and Jehanne would not return that I could hardly bear it.
I waited at the edge of the road for them, and when I saw Olivier on his horse, I was not able to disguise my relief, and sobbing, I ran to him. He swore savagely as he scooped me onto his horse, turning immediately onto a side path that veered off the main road. I was crying and he was cursing and we were both kissing, and I do believe perhaps our minds were lost for a time, so desperate were we both to confirm the safety of the other.
“You came too close to the battlefield,” he said angrily through kisses. “This is madness! I can’t worry about you that way. It will get me killed, do you understand?”
I shivered in his arms, crying harder, wanting to merge our bodies into one so that I knew well and truly that he was alive and unharmed. “Take me somewhere, Olivier, somewhere there is only us and nothing else. No war, no battlefield, no blood nor screams of the dying.”
He sounded so pained as he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I practically cried. I needed this, needed him.
He swore again and then said, “You won’t be able to go back. You’ll be ruined.”
I laughed, and it sounded crazed. “I am already ruined. This war has ruined me. The terror has ruined me. The questions that have no answers have ruined me. Make me whole again, Olivier. That is what I want.”
He held me close as we galloped away, for hours it seemed, my heart calming as I lay back against him. He rode us far away, and I knew it was to give me time to change my mind, but it only made clearer the rightness of my decision. I loved him. My heart belonged to him. And here there were no rules except those governed by God. Here, riding through this field of wildflowers on a horse that had carried my love to battle, there were no strictures of society, only the wild beating of our hearts and the knowledge that if something was done in love it could not be judged wrong. Here there were no assurances, and yet there were answers all the same.
We came to a stream, where Olivier tied his horse and left him to drink his fill and graze on the sweet grass that grew on the bank. From there we walked to a cave that sat at the top of a hill, almost hidden in the rock, and he told me, “If we get separated, if you’re lost, come here when the moon is new, just as it is tonight. From this moment, this place is ours.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “This place is ours.”
“What do you want, Adélaïde?” he asked, as if giving me one final chance to deny him.
I kissed him and whispered against his lips, “I want to live fiercely and without regret. I want you, Captain Olivier Durand.”
And with those words, Olivier first pulled me tight and then laid down a thin blanket that had been atop his saddle and his jacket over that. And for a time, in the mouth of that cave—our cave—where we could still see the stars, the war paused, the battle cries hushed, and there was only us. There was only that same peaceful stillness. There was only love.
Adélaïde! Her name was Adélaïde. Breathless with excitement, I e-mailed Dr. Moreau immediately and then texted Ben, who was out on an errand. I sat there in the quiet for a few minutes, repeating her name in my head, somehow feeling even closer to her. Adélaïde.
Midmorning I went to the courtyard where Ben and I usually ate our lunch together, needing a change of scenery and some fresh air after spending hours inside a windowless room. I thought about the piece I’d translated earlier. There was only love, Adélaïde had written, and it had caused a pang of yearning in my heart. I’d moved on in my translating, but I kept coming back to that line. I wanted the same. With Callen. I wanted our boxcar or our small room at the inn, our own version of the cave where Olivier and Adélaïde were able to leave the world behind. But I wanted more than stolen hours or weekends. So much more. Have faith, I’d told him, but in truth, I was having trouble holding on to my own.
It wasn’t lunchtime yet, but I decided to stretch my legs and clear my head. I’d tried to call Frankie that morning, but she was already at work and likely would be busy all day as she worked around the clock to get samples ready for an upcoming runway show.
I strolled around the perimeter of the space, trailing my hand along the wall. Climbing jasmine grew up the side of the château, and I breathed in its sweet fragrance, closing my eyes for a moment and listening to the birds. I heard footsteps and turned to see Ben coming up the stairs, obviously having just returned. “Hey, you all right?”
I nodded. “I’m fine. I’m just … having a little trouble concentrating today.” I gave him a wry smile. “She’s describing the landscape in the piece I’m translating now. It’s slow going.”
Ben smiled. “Hey, it’s a momentous day, though. We know her name. Do you think we can discover more about who she was?”
“I hope so. Dr. Moreau seemed excited about it, too, when he e-mailed me back. That one little word buried in an entry and now we know what to call her.”
“Yes. Adélaïde,” he murmured before smiling again. “Yeah, seems to suit her.”
We were both quiet for a moment, and then Ben tilted his head, looking at me more closely. “So, despite the earlier excitement of discovering Adélaïde’s name, what you’re translating right now is mundane and you needed a break. You sure that’s all it is? You look a little … blue.”
