The Lady at the Bar (5)

24 December 2014

He kisses her wet eyes attempting to erase the sadness with his kisses, lips pressed on her eyelids that quiver at his touch and open up revealing the inky pools that stare into his soul. He feels her go to that special place where they had been before, their first encounter when he sat on that rock watching her as she cried and he attempted to console her while the sheep grazed oblivious to their interaction. He kisses her on the tip of her nose and says softly “Memories, we all collect, carry them with us. Maybe we are just a mirror, perhaps to reflect on, passing to someone else…”

His voice trails off as the tears well in her eyes again. “Hush, he says, hush” as he holds her closer still “rain coming in, can’t you smell it?” He takes her hand “Come, let’s go up to the porch, watch the storm pass and light a candle, or two”.

She shrugs, incapable of speaking and he watches puzzled as she does not react to his touch anymore “Was I off somewhere, or just too high?” He feels her reticence, knows where her thoughts go now as he watches them be drawn to the cliff.

“Why do you have to go and leave me every time? I hate you every time you do that and am not able to bring myself back to that initial bliss when I knew not of this curse. Why does that dark brooding thing call you so?” she ends, voice down to a hoarse plea.

“You are my lighthouse” he says with a half-smile, hoping he will pacify her as he had done before referring to that day on the beach when they had come back from sailing and she said she wanted to spend the night in the lighthouse and he had said he wanted to spend the night in her for she was his lighthouse.

“And the sea calls you so” she says bitterly, refusing to be moved by his reference to their intimacy that night.

“It always calls me” he says softly and as she continues to press her lips stubbornly, refusing to yield he insists “you know this, yes?”

“How would we watch the storm pass” she spits out in anger and bitterness. “The storm, she calls you too that you may meet her at sea. She blows out the candles and beckons you out of the porch, out of that insipid haven.” Her voice chokes on the words that barely make it to her lips as breath fails her. She draws it in hungrily in a hiss and then calms herself down before adding sadly “You were made for the roughness of the sea, a son of warriors, their blood courses through your veins and pulses within your thoughts. The lighthouse must remain at earth leading the way for lost souls in search of a new found land while you throw your net to pick up those gone astray. Meet me at sea she calls out while the sea echoes her enthralling seductive invocation of hearts….”

Her voice trails off again between bitterness and sorrow as the tears force their way through her eyelids that she presses tightly in vain.

He lifts her head and kisses her tenderly trying to pry open her stubbornly set lips as she fights the urge to give in to his tenderness. He speaks to her without words “with a tender kiss upon your lips, I look into your eyes, have I ever misled you, taken you astray, as to what I live for and perhaps, someday, will die for?”

She finally gives in and returns his kiss passionately and they stay rocking together before he moves slowly away from her his eyes roaming over her “Undress slowly. Let me see you, in all you have. This time may be my last time.”

It is absurd that he must go back again and again to the sea despite how much she tells him of her fear for him from it but there seems to be no remedy to that ailment of theirs

• It seems Viking sailors always thought it was their last time on land before they set to the sea, following the sun she says undressing, almost in slow-motion.

We have much strayed from this cabin with the grass growing tall all around it inviting and foreboding all at once she thinks. Why is it that on firm land he always chose to be drawn to the cliff and its roaring sea?

• Does she call you so that you cannot take your eyes away from her, not even for me?, she says turning towards him her face that she had kept averted towards the outline of the cliff.

• Why do you ask? You always knew where my love lived. Is it not enough that I come back to you? The sea, she always calls for me. Can you not feel her power? Woman, you are enough, what I come back on shore for, but never ask me to compare. There is where I shall die, drowning but fear not, it has already taken me enough.

She looks at him with a mixture of sadness and defiance

• Yes I do feel her power, roaring, demanding, thunder in her voice as she cries, mine!, her thousand voices coursing through your blood even as you hold me and I hold you back, fingers groping reaching out but holding on to nothing. I feel your heart, like the tides, that ebbs and flows as it is drawn to sea and washed ashore to me while I lay waiting in every dark of the night casting my rays on to the inky black, eyes intent on her as she roars and you are somewhere there with her but unseen to me.

She pauses and looks back at the tip of the rock on the cliff, so similar to another cliff where she had indeed stood waiting for him to come back from his many journeys on the sea. It seemed that they were both cursed that everywhere they went, land and sea mingled so tightly that they were never able to keep away from either.

She turns back towards him

• Do you remember when we first sailed together? She was calm and silent then for you had chosen to forget her for a while as we laughed, foolishly in love, playing on the deck, basking in the sun. I never really understood then how much of her coursed through your veins

She walks towards him, the setting sun casting playful shadows on her nakedness, veiling and unveiling as he watches her torn between his two loves and angry at her for attempting to make him choose.

“Remember though” she says as she puts her arms around him and draws him closer to her, laying his head on her bosom “that she is ice-clad and will never give you my warmth”.

Her arms hold him tightly and as her heat engulfs him, she feels his body relax against her but she knows she is probably fighting a battle that was already lost. He lifts his head towards her and she too is engulfed in the roaring sea that courses through his eyes.

Read here previous part of story “The Lady at the Bar (4)”  https://geethabalvannanathan.com/2014/12/02/the-lady-at-the-bar-4/