A Sneak Peek at "Who Has Known Heights" WHKH
Photograph of the Breezeway inside Jamestown Settlement. Title: "Coming"
The novel is complete.
Who Has Known Heights (WHKH) is a coming of age story—a baptism by fire—about a young man’s love affairs with a German woman and a Turkish woman twice his age.
Leitmotifs: spiritual emaciation of loneliness; unrequited love; the power of choices; the pain of gender and social expectations compromising free will.
A few things to be aware of: The name Regn is German and pronounced Wren. It translates to 'rain.' I make use of single quotation marks for dialogue, as is British custom. The narrative reads like memoir, utilizing 3rd and 1st person storytelling, past and present tense. Time becomes secondary to the emotions that inevitably transcend the human concept of "here and now." As my character Westcott puts it, "Everything is for the first and last time."
Quotes from WHKH:
“Every woman wants her chance at passion, even just once in her life. He wanted the years. He wanted the years without putting in the time.
“Confidence is being sure even when you don’t have all the answers. It’s a gut feeling. A sensibility that doesn’t always have proof going into the situation but most nearly always has evidence on the way out.
"Had I not been so young, I'd never have had the courage to love her."
"The body is a museum for memories. I am the Smithsonian."
“It was her presence he could not endure without. Her presence which he longed to enjoy with a freedom that would defy the constraints of time.
“He wanted those overlooked instances–-a place at the dinner table–to look up and across at her, fork in midair. To see her enter a room, package in hand. To quietly slip behind her as she stood at the sink and fold his arms around her waist. To argue about nothing and everything, to laugh for the pain of life itself, and to dance gently before going up to bed and falling into endless slumber.
“He had been a lover to her that day when all he sought to be at that moment, and what she needed most, was a friend. Dancing, holding her in his arms, like a cradled bird, not secure in its abilities to fly independently, he supported her–while the fluttering of her life’s fissure anchored him–a tree and a bird.
“Whenever he heard a siren, an ambulance or fire engine en route to some disaster or human emergency, Westcott had the urge to laugh. It wasn’t the destination that amused him. But the process. It seemed so comical. The hurry, the critical rush to get there in time. Lives might be in the balance, every second counted, but was it not an illusion? Humans do the best they can. Life and death matters are never indelicate. But to see and hear a whirring siren suggested absurdity. ‘Quickly now, move aside, we “must” get through.’ Yes, of course, but you can’t win them all. Look at us, so trained to just move into the other lane, look up maybe in a startled moment of surprise. Do we consider that one day the siren may be coming for us? For an instant we become excited, the urgency in the sounding alarm. Quick. Quick. We look up and around if we are not annoyed by the inconvenience of having moved over. We realize we are part of the endless motion. It reminded Westcott of Hugh Laurie’s fun rendition of Changes. Life often seemed a veritable circus. The whistles, the parade, the fanfare. How foolish it seemed and yet in queer moments, how equably heartbreaking. He was always conscious of his own impended leaving. He never laughed or felt amused by the shadows and sunlight in a private glade or in watching the foliage gather shadows. Such overlooked locales silently resounded with a passion so quiet its representation of life hurt to even ponder at length. Westcott lived in those shadows—in the most perilous zone between waking and night—the shadowlands of watching and waiting, questioning and listening. He lived in the glade of remembrance” (Grove, WHKH).
__
I grew up rather alone—
and during that most critical stage, I formed myself.
I live in strange places, stilled silences; others may glance upon them but rarely take stock–-the vase on the mantel, shadowbirds at five on a morning long ago, the blue dusk, the wind in the thicket, distant corners. I want to go out in the main street spinning up with the falling leaves, or into some open field and let peace come gently, with your presence to ease the transformation.
Less is more
--
Wheston Chancellor Grove
“There are many ways of being a man. Mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.”
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
WHO HAS KNOWN HEIGHTS
Who has known heights and depths shall not again
Know peace–not as the calm heart knows
Low, ivied walls; a garden close;
And though he tread the humble ways of men
He shall not speak the common tongue again.
Who has known heights shall bear forever more
An incommunicable thing
That hurts his heart, as if a wing
Beat at the portal, challenging;
And yes-lured by the gleam his vision wore–
Who once has trodden stars seeks peace no more.
–Mary Brent Whiteside (1876-1962)
The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Doubleday. 1936.
Table of Contents
Author's Note...................................................................................... 9
Westcott………………………………………….............................................. 15
Regn......................................…………………………………….................... 18
Prelude: Remembrances………………………………………………………..... 23
Part I: Jamestown: The Beginning: The Pursuit
Chapter 1: Being…………………………………………….............................. 91
Chapter 2: The Angels are Baking………………………………................. 209
Chapter 3: When I Am an Old Woman.............................................. 263
Part II: The Color of the Mountains
Chapter 4: The Path that Leads to Nowhere…………………………….... 309
Part III: How I Live Now: Crickets in November
Chapter 5: I, No Longer………………………………………………………....... 433
Part IV: Who Has Known Heights: That Evening Sun
Chapter 6: Rugged Grace…………………………………………………........... 539
Chapter 7: Strange Breed of Hope………………………………………......... 569
Epilogue…………………………………………………………….………................ 737
Acknowledgements............................................................................. 753
Memorable Quotes.............................................................................. 755
Suggested Reading............................................................................... 757
Westcott _____________________________________________________
When I was little after watching the animated version of The Jungle Book, I went into the dining room and climbed under the table. I cried. For two reasons: I wanted to be a panther in the wild; I wanted to be Bagheera. Secondly, I was outraged at Mowgli for leaving the jungle.
A social worker once told me, ‘You’re highly intelligent. What’s your IQ? Have you ever been tested?’
Another one, a therapist, held no punches and said, ‘You’re a genius.’
I wanted to tell her, A lot of good it does. There are different kinds of genius. If being a genius is realizing we are at the mercy of our own understanding, then I guess I am one.
‘But,’ she continued, ‘you’re loyal to a fault.’
Yes. O’ yes. And I do pay for it.
In kindergarten my teacher got mad at me for going ahead. In high school I took some advanced courses, but no A.P. classes. This was by choice. My teachers were disappointed. In their regular classes my grade point average exceeded 100. So, why didn’t I—
My 11th grade teacher took me aside and gave me Walden to read.
In college I took an abnormal psych course. One day when I stopped by her office, Professor Carpenter asked, ‘How are you doing so well? What are your study habits— I’d like to know? I design my tests to be deliberately tricky.’
A psychiatrist once suggested I was borderline autistic. Clearly a misdiagnosis. For years I wouldn’t make eye contact. But then I, yes I, took control of my confidence and never again was afraid to meet another’s gaze. In fact, now I often have the other person looking away, my focus is so intent.
An acquaintance once told me I reminded her of Little Man Tate.
I want to make one point clear—this isn’t me talking great about myself here. I’m just telling you what others have told me. Do with this information what you will. To date it hasn’t done me any good—at least not that I know of.
I once took the postal exam and passed it the first time out. My career with the USPS lasted 5 days. I couldn’t be a faceless worker bee. If anything, I wanted to be the Queen’s right arm.
But the truth still remains—I don’t relate to my peers, I don’t assimilate socially.
Is it because I “am” a genius? Because I was reborn into the wrong body? In the wrong time? Or is it but a combination of each of these factors and something more?
I’ve always been prejudiced against youth. For a long time I was prejudiced against myself. I longed to be seen for the way I felt, to be old if necessary. I hated my age. Youth was not wasted on me. I just never had the freedom to indulge, to partake of, and enjoy in it.
I’ve diagnosed myself with borderline eidetic memory.
The Fish Woman was right about some things.
Fluorescent lights, artificial lights of any kind, hurt my senses. I hate loud noises. I have a weak lower back.
If you asked me what the one feature about myself is that I most like I’d have to agree with what a few others have told me—my eyes.
They are gray-blue. My sister will tell you they’re ‘battleship gray.’ Sometimes if I stare long enough in a mirror I see the mysticism in them. Some old man, some ancient turtle—a heavy burden. My eyes sometimes frighten me—what lurks behind—the capacity for all manner of thoughts. Darkness too.
My eyelids fold on themselves and my eyes are never wide open. They are shaped like bird wings. I dislike “wide-eyed” expressions. I prefer shadow within the eyes, seductiveness, a mist of speculation—introspection.
Now where was I—Oh yes, genius.
Exquisite torment.
I suffered from OCD from age 14-17. I still have some mental idiosyncrasies, but nothing paralyzing. I inherited this from my mother. My mother was a knock-out in her youth. Things weren’t always bad between my mother and father, but this was before I was born. Besides, that’s another story.
I love washing dishes by hand and doing the laundry.
My favorite color is green or blue.
I don’t like white socks. Only navy or black.
The story of the Velveteen Rabbit says more than any Scripture. Where was my Skin Rocking Horse when I needed him?
I have a Galapagos turtle in my living room. Not real, mind you, but a life-like replica statue.
If I’d been able to go to West Point like my grandfather I’d have had a pin-up on my wall of Greer Garson, Maureen O’Hara, Jane Wyatt, Sofia Loren, Juliette Binoche, or Meryl Streep.
In looking back on my life I always see myself standing at a window—different windows—and standing alone. I see myself watching the day. I am waiting. Waiting for what, for whom?
For rest.
I’ve always been very conscious of time—how tedious the years. There is no adequate substitute for intimate frustrations. I was sexually thwarted, and thwarted is the exact term—for most, not all, but most of my early adult life—from the age of 22 to 29. My heart stood in the way of my body. I refused to give myself to just anyone. Without love, sex offered little appeal. Lest a genuine connection be felt, I preferred my own company to
that of a stranger.
Sex for the sake of sex is an ego-driven, inglorious, primal necessity, easily remedied by means of a healthy regiment, with or without someone. But affection—virtue—is what the body craves—the emotional witness—testament to a body not merely needed, but wanted. I’ve always known a single kiss is more lasting than a shag.
Others are attracted to me—women and men, often enough. But my attractions are rare. I’d rather be a decent man than a gratified one. Easier in theory. I’ve never substituted anything! I hate alcohol. I don’t like smoking (I’m not a nerd. My only detriment is my receding hairline caused by the testosterone I take owing to hypogonadism). I don’t like smoke, I love a mountain wood fire, but I have no desire to transform myself into a living, breathing smokestack. I may chomp on a pipe for aesthetic benefits, but I’d be hard pressed to smoke one. My only vice is talking to you.
I love two women. I’ve only ever loved one woman, truly, at a time.
And she—
She loved me.
Anything else I feel you need to know I’ll inform you as we go along.
Regn _____________________________________________________
The Blue Line
Don’t stop, don’t stop for one minute to think
or surely you will be sad
together, the camaraderie of her generation
champagne in hand, glowing the night away on the dance floor
a ride on the train
the boys gentlemen escorts
the girls respectable, both parties willing
but finding more pleasure in the ride, the sights, the freedom, their age, a night of their
lives.
He was absent from this night, a scene occurring four decades ago. But he was there.
He ‘was’ there, somewhere inside one of them.
The image of breasts in champagne glasses. A German accent and a girlish laughter seducing her own sense of woman. He took her into one of the compartments on the train and he made love to her. She was a virgin. He was a virgin. They made slow love, missing their stop, riding long into the night. She’d taken off her dress and shoes and lain on the softback bench. He’d untucked his shirt, folded his jacket on a handrail and hung his tie from a purse hook. She was trembling with excitement. Together, in the dark, lights from occasional village dwellings passing their window, they undressed each other. She lifted her back and he swung his arm round gently unclasping the eyes and hooks. He felt her long, kneading her warming skin. He kissed her neck. She stroked his naked back to the crest of his private ravine. They felt through the darkness of time discovering what moved each other. He slid the cotton blooms from her legs running his Irish fingers through the darkened spirals of triangular landscape. He came from the side and ever so slowly slid over her length, as one sliding piece fits within another, only one true fit born, the perfect design.
He felt himself in a way he did not know, in a way he never had. What organ was this that stood on its own? He took it in his hand and though she could not see, the wetness came from his eyes. He suddenly felt a hand on him; it was not his own. She was holding him there and he could feel it. He came down slowly, her legs wings unfolding. He didn’t want to hurt her. He pushed with reserve, withdrawing, thrusting, withdrawing, thrusting a little farther than just before. It would still hurt she now realized until the rooted innocence ripped open the beginning of the end of her youth. It burned, she wanted him to stop, but instead pulled him closer, held him harder, needing to know she was not alone in this. A cry, a gasp escaped her throat, and he stroked her forehead, brushing her bangs aside, tracing the side of her face down to her chin. Still firm, he had stopped for a moment to give her time. How could he wait? Didn’t the men always come so quickly, she had been told. He raised himself, withdrawing slightly and then with a power she’d yet to experience, he entered deepest. She cried in silence and he felt her cry. A warm shower within, a misting of unspoken communion, she had received him. He lay inside her for a long while and she let him. Something told her, though she could not say, perhaps it was the thundering of the train’s mechanical gears and the hush of the compartment, it would be a long, long time before such a night came again.
When the ticket master tapped on their door, the pale hand reached for his billfold, apologizing to the attendant. He explained politely they’d been so engaged in conversation they missed their point of disembarkment and needed to pay for a return 4 stops back the way they’d come.
The ticket master looked at the couple; not a word did he speak nor was one offered by the girl. He opened his mouth and then as though thinking better of it, replied cordially, ‘Very well,’ and received the payment with a white gloved hand.
There was something old about them, and he knew the girl was safer here than anywhere else. They were–what was the word, respectable? The young man, though his justification could easily be countered, was by all determinations honest in his presentation. A certain polite discretion on behalf of himself and the girl who sat quietly, confident in letting him answer the necessary interrogations so benign in nature.
‘Clear night out the window if you keep the lights off,’ the ticket master said, sliding the door shut.
‘When we get there I–’
‘Don’t say anything–’
‘I have to stay–’ his voice drifted.
‘Why?’
‘I hate to leave you like this. But when we get back it should be light enough out to see you home safely. I wish I could take you home–’
‘Where are you going? I thought you were one of Haumer’s friends–don’t you live in town? You always come with the others, or I thought you did.’
‘Yes, but this time–let us sleep for a while.’ He took her soft face in his hands. ‘Wait for me?’
‘But why, I don’t understand.’
‘You will.’ He kissed her then, softly on her mouth, opening his lips to her penetrating tongue. He kissed her forehead. ‘Ich liebe dich, Lass.’ He met her gaze and lay beside her, taking her small body in his arms. ‘Try and sleep.’ He stroked her forehead again, feeling the warmth of her face. She grew still and after a while ceased to intermittently open her eyes. ‘Don’t forget,’ he whispered.
The girl awoke to a rap at the door. Startled she jerked to an immediate sitting position. Hastily tidying herself, a second rap followed.
‘Yes?’
The door slid open. The ticket master from the night before gave the station call.
‘Oh yes,’ she replied hearing the name. ‘This is my stop.’ And then she became aware again of her surroundings. The ticket master was already heading down the side panel to continue his announcement. He hadn’t closed the door.
‘Sir, excuse me!’ She got up and stepped out into the hall. ‘Sir, there was a young man here late last night, or early this morning, he paid you our ways. Have you by chance seen him? I mean did you see if he got off anywhere?’
‘Miss, it is only you in this compartment. I stamped your ticket nigh past 3 this morning. It was only you in the room then. Sorry, miss.’ He continued down the aisle.
‘Wait!’
He half-turned, mildly irritated. She looked at him hard, verifying her misgivings. She opened her mouth and shut it. No, it was definitely the same ticket master.
She walked back into the compartment and shut the door, standing in bewilderment. In a moment of hope she shot a glance at the hook. No tie. There was no evidence of anyone but herself having been here. Had she really drunk that much? No, but where had her friends gone, and why had they left her? And why was the sun peeking on the horizon? She had no reason to ride the train all night by herself! She sat down not knowing what else she could do. She felt something only she could know. The stealth of intimacy, a private fluid crawling from between her legs. The reservoir gave way and she began to cry. Why, why give me something and take it away? Wait, he said, but how long?
The train pulled into the station. She took out a small square handkerchief with green embroidery along the fringe. ‘Why did I fall asleep?’ She wiped her eyes. Getting hold of herself, she pulled a tiny mirror from her handbag. Looking at her reflection she remembered his eyes at the dance and later on the train before they’d dimmed the light. Blue gray.
‘Leeeetzter aufruf!’ Laaaast call!
She stood up, ran her hands down the front of her dress, looked around once more, and inhaled long.
She stepped onto the platform.
A small group of American pilots idled nearby. ‘Hey, Davie,’ one comrade called to another. ‘You gotta light?’
As the train pulled out from the station it released a stream of exhaust around the wheels. The girl listened to the hiss. Was it her mind playing tricks or did she not hear someone’s voice, perhaps those soldiers over there, saying, ‘Don’t forget.’
* * * * * * *
He awoke. He went through his body, mentally feeling himself. All the way down he could identify himself. He reached below the abdomen and stopped. Something was missing. He just lay there, not needing his hand to confirm what he already knew. A deep sleep had overtaken him the night before. He’d had two gulps of Chardonnay to take in the holiday at the Christmas party. He felt like he’d been asleep for ages, not just some few hours. He seldom dreamt and when he did the details quickly flew as he rose. But this, this was not the case. He could not get up. Instead he lay still. A sentence came to him. He heard it being said. ‘I hate to leave you like this.’ He had said it to her that morning. No, this morning! But it wasn’t his voice he heard saying those words. It was hers and her voice had a lilt of perfected tone, polished into its accented lightness like wine that enriches and becomes more alive with age.
They’d made love again.
* * * * * * *
He’d gone that night on the train, gone without his knowing, gone on ahead. Ripped from an era he loved, thrust into a generation he could not understand. And she had stayed. Not trusting herself enough she’d succumbed to the resolution, the pressures of social convention that it had been a dream. It had to be a dream. The life she had been brought up to fulfill extended its hand and asked for hers in acceptance. And she slid her hand into another’s.
Though buried deep down, she kept it to herself, the truth. The knowledge that it had happened and the hope that he would return. They’d made love across the ages. Four decades ago on a train and again last night in his room. His stature was oddly slighter than it had been, but the face, skin, and wan complexion were hauntingly untouched with the exception of a quiet sorrow beneath his brow. He had held the girl he still loved, now a woman, to his chest. He didn’t want anything else, just to lie beside one another. He’d moved his head to her breast, listening to the even one-two of her life’s drum. Feeling her escalating intimacies his hand stroked her inner thigh and slowly came from above her abdomen, again slipping through the less darkened, closely trimmed spirals, and searching. He watched her face, her eyes closed in coveted ecstasy. She came in silence. Two lives had ushered forth from that small cavern which he now floated in and out of–a graceful ghost carried on the winds of long ago. He missed seeing her give birth, being able to come to her side, hold her hand, wipe her forehead and reassure as she shamelessly revealed herself in performing the woman’s right to give life. She slipped her hand beneath his band and moved her finger in circular motions. He felt deadened, the warmth filling him only from the waist up. He was about to say, ‘You don’t have to–it’s all right.’ There was wetness in his eyes. He pulled her close and with her free hand he interlocked his own, pressing her cheek to his. He closed his eyes just wanting to sleep. Knowing he would not come he let her stay and moved his legs apart. He felt her reach the foyer and come within. Lying still he held her, silently telling her it wasn’t that he wanted. Her hands alone, just feeling her touch was enough. And then his words repeated back to him. ‘I hate to leave you like this,’ she said.
Wait for me. He read the private book behind her eyes.
How long? He did not ask her. He did not ask himself. Just long enough.
I’ll return her tenderness promised.
Return for good someday? The gentle intensity of his touch kneaded to know.
He’d kissed her on the forehead. His way of telling her I will.
He fell asleep that night, his head the only indentation on his pillow.
Unlike the girl she’d been on the train, after getting home and sliding in a well-accustomed to bed, she did not let sleep take her.
Into the night she lay restless. Someone else in the room was breathing. She listened to the hiss. The indentation beside her. The wind whined now and again and the branches on a tree outside the window scraped the pane. Was it her mind playing tricks or were the four rhythmic scrapes not screaming inside her, like a crazed bow screeching across its cello, again and again—Ich. Lie-be. Dich.
Just as their compartment door on the train was shut for privacy, her breast heaved in its protected confinement. I didn’t forget.
__
Excerpted from The Prelude: Remembrances
Regn is feisty. She has a certain spunk that sets her apart. Despite her age, she often makes jokes like a kid—silly things. You could say she is young in spirit. Her company is warmth itself. She emits an energy—an aura. She is 5’2”, klein, the German word for small. Her voice languid, smoothly seductive without intention. Sometimes her cheeks look slightly packed—a squirrel storing a snack—the folds of her jawline formed long ago so that her accent and pronunciation usher forth from these sweet, ever so subtle pockets of stores. One would not notice this feature at first, but in careful observation her muscles form the words differently, beautifully.
You know without hearing her that she is from another place—somewhere ‘over there.’ There is something in the skin of Europeans—the term European being used in the broadest of terms—be it Mediterranean, Turkish, Italian, or the heart of Europe, German and French—that enriches the skin, making it well-preserved. In women a certain glow of vitality exudes—even in those who have lived in the United States for over 20 years. Their skin retains moisture—it does not become dry and old. Even in senior advent the muscles of the neck show firm—their bodies are reasonably fit and lithe. Walking is a frequent pastime, this and bicycling. It seems inherited, a cultural norm like language—learned early on so that a foreigner, even if she’s lived in America longer than her native land, always retains her heritage.
In skin tone, hair and eye color, she resembles Susan Sarandon. If the latter could affect a German accent, she’d exhibit a strong likeness to Regn. In trying to imagine her young, I think of the up and rising Juliette Binoche as Tereza in Kaufman and Zaentz’s 1988 film, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Regn was mousier, shy as an expatriate who barely spoke English. But her form, her sexuality, the very spark she possessed, exuded from her eyes—this is what she and the young Juliette had in common. The eyes and the smile never changed. In actress and Regn alike, I can see their earlier selves in the slightest expression borne of affection. Character-wise, Regn was modest, domestic, unsure of herself. Binoche’s Tereza could, and did, stand on her own.
Regn’s naturally brown sometimes redwood hair, depending on the brand of dye, compliments the honey brown of her eyes. She calls them piggy eyes. They are not vibrant or lush colored, but ordinary in color. It is the shape of her eyes that attracts effortlessly. Isosceles. That’s what they are. Two wedges opposing each other—the longest side of each slanting seductively to the corner socket, giving the appearance of eyes that hide themselves. At a distance her eyes seem shrouded. Up close, that pair of isosceles. Flags turned on their sides. You have to look hard to penetrate. She has a long nose, sharp in its own right—a half triangle to compliment her gaze. Her face, however, is not angular but soft, offsetting such pronounced physiognomy. And her eyebrows, faint with gray—one does not notice them without consciously telling himself to. Her front teeth are straight, though ever so naturally, marginally, protruding. As a toddler she sucked her thumb too long. Her breasts are perfect. Just the size Westcott prefers. Nothing cumbersome. A respectable B cup. Delicate in appearance, but still full to the touch, one imagines.
She is always so clean and fresh, smelling of, of what? Soap and oils, coffee, and Caleche perfume. She does not wear the scent. She exudes it. It is not body spray like the young spritz themselves with in harried movements. It is light, subtle, quiet. Pleasure and refinement linger as qualities of the application.
This is how I remember Regn. Some things have changed.
…
I wanted the years without putting in the time.
For some unknown reason I find airport terminals in the early morning hours and at dusk—just as the sun is cresting the horizon—terribly melancholy. It is the transience— the to-ing and fro-ing of so many passing lives. And the uncertainty. There is also a degree of finality. Traveling brings reunions, happiness. It also signifies absolute departure. A firm goodbye. It brings to mind looking inside a box—a tidy compartment, where everything seems ordered—times, destination, tickets, luggage. Looking at the edges in a geometrical way, all seems stable, bearing the weight of custom, the movement of the times. An airport or a train station is its own entity. Like a box—a parcel of contained changeability. Now peel back the lid, just a corner and look inside. The chaos is overwhelming. Why doesn’t the structure just unhinge—with so many variables it seems inevitable something will go wrong. If you believe at all in the odds of statistics then you surely must reason that nothing can be controlled absolutely. Peering into the box, movement is what catches the eye—the ceaseless flow of figures. Most with cell phones; few to none look up or at one another as they pass. Passengers who’ve forgotten the friendliness of the voyage and think only of the task at hand. As for myself? I study the utilitarian luggage—the coldness of it. The sloppy clothes—jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts with hoods, and most grotesque of all, flip-flops. Not cute little sandals or low-heeled shoes the ladies don on the weekends with a dress or skirt—no, I mean a thin little slab of rubber offering no pedestrian support, and revealing one of the least attractive features of our species’ anatomy. I spend all my time saying goodbye to the present moment. Some of the specimens are well-manicured, but it is the location of such flaunting that appalls an individual, such as myself, who believes in discretion, decorum—there being a proper time and place for certain dress.
To get to the point, I am watching the demise of social etiquette, the practicality of standards, not to mention self-respect. It is my job to observe; I’m a journeyman studying to become the Old Man on the mountain. No, not Moses. Religion is a crutch and divides the masses. I do however, believe faith—whether it is in the moon or the rising sun, or even in yourself, is essential. For life without faith is a type of spiritual myopia. Neither am I so detached that I find it essential to mimic John Muir in his peregrinated search. I do believe he was right though, as I somehow always knew but one day forgot—as often happens as we move further and further away from our origin—the day we are again born: the true source of inquiry and answer lies in nature—the trees, the mountains, dirt roads, untainted lakes (how few remain). The animals have it right, but man has gotten it into his head that because he can reason he is, therefore, superior, and immortal in legacy. Animals are not arrogant and I dare say the vast majority of human beings are not pompous, but they assume an emotional state of stability as a means of survival—not truth. (Yes ‘they’—I’ve just dissociated myself from the human race. Forgive me). And after a while, this non-reality begins to blur and is accepted as true—everything can be ordered, controlled, life is manageable from this viewpoint. But some things are not so neat or concise. And when events occur—whether global, national, or personal—and they cannot be efficiently trimmed of their raw edges, rationalized with a satisfactory explanation of why— then a person is bound to lose his head. He has conditioned himself or perhaps been born into an infrastructure that suggests control is a personal choice rather than a silver lining cast over the mind—leaving him vulnerable and underprepared for the shattering of glass. These illusions, dreams, and beliefs are a joy if never tested, but if something is never tested, never questioned, how then can one know its true worth?
When I was a young man, I wanted the years without putting in the time. I was old before my age, having cut myself off much too early from those explorations that form, establish, and influence the personality. I observed, but I did not observe myself or take into account my role and when, finally I did, the price had been paid. At such an early age, the price was too great.
__
It was a quietness of presence. A desire to put others at ease. Decency. That’s how Westcott lived. Following through no matter how small or large the item of agreement. He learned at Jamestown Settlement, learned at a young age, that people say things because they sound nice at the time or fill a space, but very rarely do they follow through on those throwaway lines. If Westcott said he’d bring in a book for someone to read, he did it the next day or the same week. If in his life someone ever loaned him a dollar or two he paid them back immediately, as soon as they saw one another. He never waited for the other person to ask. He always settled up, however minor the transaction. It was not proper to owe someone.
Mornings, should he need to make a phone call, it became a necessity of habit that he must first brush his teeth, remove the slick film from a night’s sleep. His mouth felt clean again, as though his refreshed breath could somehow be detected through the receiver, his very words taking on the minty cleanliness, becoming light to the ears.
At night, when he removed his pants, he always made sure the fly was zipped. It was provocative to leave them open and crumpled on the floor. He called the bathroom the ‘privy’ or ‘restroom.’ The expression he preferred was, ‘I need to use the facilities.’ He had a wry sense of humour and enjoyed wit, there being a time and place for certain language. But he did not care for vulgarity, crudeness, profanity as a second language. Oh he cussed, certain moments required it and it felt good, the emphasis. He liked the words ‘damn,’ ‘shit,’ but harsh language— ‘fuck’—was the exception not the rule.
He could engage in pedestrian conversation out of politeness, but nonetheless it bored him. He liked to get to the meat of the subject, into the swing of deep exchange. Garrulousness put him in an irritated mood afterward. His mind clamoring to escape, all the while diplomatically trying to disengage. His thoughts were active and he grew impatient, but he tempered it. For this reason he found most training classes and office meetings useless. He made word lists, drew pictures—anything, anything to keep the creative juices flowing. He could look through the handbook and know the necessary information. Listening to someone speak about it so that the audience could sign a form indicating they’d received all “necessary” materials was a mindless, inefficient way to spend a morning or afternoon. So much waste. His mother felt the same way. She loathed having to go every year to her own company’s training updates.
Decency was about purpose. Not motive or intent. Actions made with deliberate precision, a grace that was effortless, without airs, natural as the course of one’s fingers running through his dampened hair. In short, it was about consistency of character. A person could never outwardly announce that he was decent, for such traits come to the surface silently. It was not about raising your hand and saying look what I did, give me credit for my generous good will. No. Decency was a hand in the dark pulling a blanket over a shoulder, dropping 5 dollars in an outstretched can and walking on. Giving without the need for spoken gratitude. Surprising others because it pleased you. It was the same as accepting a handshake for a person’s word. The unspoken, communicated code of human integrity.
He judged people who did not push in their chairs. Westcott always left things as he’d found them or, if they were in disarray, he’d leave them better off for their wear. Tidy up so-to-speak. He took initiative in that realm of his life. No one had instructed him, he just knew. It was in his blood.
…
He’d seen therapists since he was ten years old. First his mother brought him and his sister to see one because of the divorce. In high school it was to find out what was bothering Westcott and to procure the necessary letters. And later it was to discover that none of them had succeeded in catching him before it was too late. None of them helped him—how could they? He was seeking ‘why’ when all they wanted to do was ask ‘what?’ Or ‘how?’ His desire for a guarantee—a certainty, was beyond them, beyond any facts of a psychological nature. He aimed for the bedrock, the heart of existence. It wasn’t his angle, nor did he go into the sessions with this purpose in mind, but he was teaching them; he was helping them to see.
His ingrained nostalgia was often mistaken for depression. He did not need his head analyzed. All he ever needed was an ear to listen. Someone to bounce ideas back and forth with—about human nature. His lifelong sorrow came from the fact that he knew much too soon; he accepted as a youth of 24 that nothing was permanent. Even in those moments of happiness, a feeling would taint the edges. The smiling face or laugh would vanish, one day death would have its say, or a cruel sickness. It wasn’t fair. What he wanted them to know, to see, was that loving something too dearly kills it. Life was endlessly painful because his species realized its own mortality. In everything, he felt life to the fullest.
His mother once told him, ‘If you were half as determined and passionate about money as you are about love, you’d be a millionaire.’
Right she was.
But what is wealth without someone to enjoy and share it with? Money can’t buy happiness, experience, or knowledge. Money merely buys a level of freedom and opportunity. Money can never buy real Truth. It can try. Love is something hard earned.
He possessed an unyielding determination, both dangerous and powerful. Dangerous insofar as his personal well-being was concerned. Powerful in his ability to see something to the end. He did not like unfinished business, endless speculation, whatever happened to—
His determination was spurred on, kept alive, by certainty. And then he met his match. The Achilles heel he never knew he possessed. A vulnerability that prodded the very will of his being. Love. The giving and receiving of a woman’s affection required absolute vulnerability and once exposed and subsequently wounded, one is never so solid again. Like a statue that is dropped and a limb broken, in being reattached it is never as strong or secure as the original bond. The fracture remains. Even when invisible to the eye, the heart remembers.
…
Westcott had no guilt for the love. There could be no guilt for something so earnestly and honestly sought. Instead, he was guilty of something he had no control over. Something he could never forgive himself for—of being young. He would not lose Regn to her marriage. In the end, he knew, he’d lose her to age. Yes, maybe, down the road, many years to come, Westcott would find himself in a marriage—a loving, amicable, affectionate exchange. But the passions of his true desires would always remain with Regn. Even after she was gone. It was characteristic of him—a deep-rooted melancholic nostalgia—to miss those whom he loved even in the present, when they were standing right before him or in the same room. An anticipatory loss. For this very reason he wanted to die young. He did not want to witness losing everyone he loved.
__
I’ve gone back to visit Jamestown Settlement a few times over the years. The last time was seven years after that first summer. The quadricentennial. Two summers. That’s all we had. I was with a male friend that last time I walked along the corridors of my mind, running fingers along the banisters of concrete memories. The museum possessed the same distinct smell it had always had. Warm, fresh, verdant. Redolence of wood shavings. The same audio sounds, same videos still played in the massive indoor exhibits and the grand copper chandeliers still appeared buffed to a natural sheen. Not polished, but still clean. We went on the ships, my friend and I. The costumed interpreters were different. Young. Strangers to me. I only saw one or two familiar faces. Rose Marie had been at the front desk in the visitor center lobby when we walked in. She was slightly thinner in the face, older.
Walking through the site everything was the same. Why wouldn’t it be? It made me feel alone, and I knew. We change. I knew those years before were gone, could not be gotten back for anything. They existed only because I existed. No one knew or remembered. Only I did. And Regn. In our separate ways. And what did Regn remember?
I also knew what I’d known to be true in the hours of youth. No love would ever again be so strong. Regn and I had been halved. Sometimes when I’d see a ton of tourists or huge crowds I’d think, how can every life have the same importance. There are just too many of us, the entire world over. And then I’d find relief in the sheer odds of it all, the wonderment. I’d look at the situation inside-out. How amazing that two individuals should find each other in the masses of millions. And this is how I knew. I knew it was intended. The love. The pain. The truth.
As I left my friend to take in and peruse the 30,000 square foot indoor museum I’d once strolled through with Regn, I wandered around, taking more interest in the material. Reading the facts in a way I had absentmindedly done in those years while employed with the Settlement. My mind was not filled with passion. The history of Jamestown had never enlivened me—it was gone. Dead. Irretrievable. I did not know those people from before. And yet, I felt it was now time to let the history of the land inside. Who would remember me, or even Regn, in 400 years? I might leave the details of our stories behind, but of equal significance was the audience. Those who would come after and preserve the telling, remember the words, and find affection for other places, other lives, other times. I realized that day—my memory, Regn’s, and everyone I had known and influenced, and those who had changed me forever—all of us required the future. Someone, if only a single individual, to pick up the story of these lives, my life, and relive, reawaken passions of the past. I would die. As would Regn. But the passion we held, the feelings we shared, would remain intact, contained herein, so long as I told it as it really happened.
I felt older, removed. Nothing about Jamestown revealed the unrequited love that had throbbed between us. The walls showed nothing. The breezeway was filled with a new energy, albeit, a foreign one. People I did not know and never would. I was merely visiting this time. For me the Settlement would always remain inextricably tied to my youth and those two summers, long ago, when anything was possible.
Excerpted from Part I: Jamestown the Beginning: Chapter 1: Being
She gave me The Beatles and paper boats.
I’d been quite nervous about starting in Group Arrivals. I’d gone over to shadow a couple of times. When the tour guide comes in or the teacher, there is no time for questions on procedure and often groups arrive simultaneously. You can’t interrupt your colleague and there is no one else—just the two of you.
I can still remember the scent of those days—the excitement mixed with nerves, and not just the newness of the task at hand, but of Regn. It was the smell of the gift shop employee exit which also ran into the breezeway where the groups passed through. The scent of sun, newspaper, and tiles. Check-In was located just off the breezeway through a set of doors. This adjoining building was known as the Education Wing—the ground floor being comprised of classrooms and lecture/training rooms. A small desk to the side, under an alcove, was the Group Arrivals Check-In. One could stand looking at Group Check-In and gaze upstairs—it was an open atrium. Upstairs lay the development and marketing offices, the President’s quarters. The carpet was gray-blue and sunlight always shown into the open area. Scuffing shoes and chattering kids could be heard through the glass doors, muffled and obscured by the Group Check-In desk being set back a little. In spite of the human traffic, the building still retained its scent of freshness, cleanliness, openness with all its windows and natural light.
I enjoyed picking out a new shirt and tie from my closet every morning, especially if Regn and I were working the same schedule. I alternated between two separate colognes. I’d never worn cologne until Ellis bought me some. To this day when I inhale a light scent of Wrangler—its sweet sharpness—or the stronger, darker scent of Musk, I return to those hours and it ceases to be just cologne that I take in but the very scent of age, of youth at its most beautiful peak. It bears the memory of possibility, of unknown forests, unchartered territories, and a heart light and skipping, hell-bent as the captain of any of the three ships, determined at all costs to prevail to the new world. Turning back was no option. Whatever the gales, whatever the emaciation, whatever the casualty to self, onward I kept my course. My heart felt the magnetism of its own compass guiding me on—its direction constant and sure. There was no other way through. I feel it again as once it had been, before it was broken-in; its strength and resolute ardency. The years of solitude were nothing compared to what lay ahead. In sailing for the horizon that part of my life had been sealed up, a gentle eddy, a trough of gentle waves diminishing further, receding away. Whatever loneliness and pain went with the years between the ages of 14 and 20, was closed, irretrievable—I was already cast in form and direction in a certain course.
When I open the little bottle of eau de toilette five hundred different days unfold within me, conversations so strained, breaking slowly, so painstakingly, to a comfortable place. A place so warm and inviting after the years of silence and introspect, of hiding. A place in the sun that would burn me alive before I let it cast a shadow on me. Until that time I had not known, I had not been conscious of my loneliness. Yes, I had been taciturn in school, alone, I had set myself apart when others tried to engage. But though I was alone, I had not felt the pangs of loneliness. It had not burdened or tormented as such when I first felt the clear tang of its opposite in the form of another’s company. Of Regn’s company. We came, each in our own way, in our own need—listening, wanting, tentatively, as though we came upon each other from the side in spite of having seen each other head on for two years. It was a gradual advance, much again like a vessel waiting for its sails to catch wind, grasping hold of the ropes and learning much too quickly, all at once, how to move in a certain direction. There was no practicing. It was everything and all—for the first and last time. Everything had to be right, whether it was or not. The waters were beautiful, the work harder than anything in my life, but the very glimpse of any tempest of defeat was never in my line of vision. I’d never failed at anything. And though this may sound quite an exaggeration, I tell you earnestly, it is true. Everything to this point I’d ever set my mind to, I’d achieved. But this wasn’t about conquering some land, nor had any of my other desires ever been about proving something. It just had to be—I could not break, could not turn or retract once I’d committed myself to my course. You cannot force a clock to run backwards when it is made to persevere always, and ever, forward. Had I not been so young I’d never have had the courage to love her.
I feel the tightness of some mornings when, tired, the want of sleep would pull at the corners of my eyes as I walked into work at 8:30. The morning still breezy before the heat might set in. I feel the neatness of my clothes. The solemn pride of donning a shirt and tie and cologne and being welcomed. Of dressing, not only for my own satisfaction, but also the pleasure of another’s.
One particular morning, when for the first time I would be in Groups all day with Regn, I chose my white shirt and a beautiful silk tie with slanted bars of navy and green. I fastened my watch, the one with the maroon, tan and navy band and rectangular face. My, how some customers did compliment me on it.
I wanted to make a good, strong impression in Groups. It was a break from the noise of the lobby on busy days and the gift shop with its doors flung open to the brick foyer of Visitor Services. I don’t believe, except when my company afforded, that Regn appreciated Groups as much as I did. Even at lunch, on particularly crowded days, she’d sit on the mezzanine upstairs with her book and lunch, letting all the noise from the lobby below rise up as she looked out the corner window at the brick walkway and trees leading into the Settlement. It was blessedly quiet in Groups except for the 5-minute rush when guides would come in—it is from these details that I gathered Regn did not like, or rather, could not endure silence.
I, on the other hand, relished stepping away from the lobby and letting the quiet descend upon my eardrums after incessant noise. I admit, on more than one occasion, I sacrificed this respite for the pleasure of dining with Regn on the mezzanine should our lunch breaks mercifully coordinate with each other.
In Groups we handled large sums of money. I’d had tills in excess of 10K at Busch Gardens, so the amount did not concern me and the sum would mostly be in checks. I was more worried about efficiency. It was actually quite easy and in time I would think nothing of the privilege of being in Groups alone, which I eventually was. There were some colleagues who wanted nothing to do with Groups—Jill, Magda, Ida and Rawlings, for some like Ida and Rawlings it was age. They didn’t want the headache or pressure of it (though there was no pressure). Even Parson never came over but once or twice to see how things were handled. He ended up doing other things like being a Museum Program Assistant and giving small tours in the outdoor areas. Group Check-In was mostly verifying numbers. For every ten in a group one adult or chaperone was free. I liked stamping the checks and seeing that everything balanced. If there was a discrepancy I’d go into the system and add or subtract from the total count. Seldom did we utilize cash when working in Groups lest there be a large amount of people who did not show or had not yet paid. When we went to lunch one of us always had the keys to our separate cash drawers. There was never a notion of pilfering. We were a family of sorts and even had one wanted to pocket a 10 or 20, which was evidently possible, it would not do. We, well most of us, respected each other and the level of trust between Regn and I was unbreachable.
I still have those exact bottles of cologne. Not new bottles of the same brand, but those same exact two bottles from that time so long ago. They are still mostly full. For some reason I never quite felt the want or desire to spray a dab again. On a rare occasion, I might perchance, but it is rare indeed. Afterward, in leaving the Settlement, somehow the scent had to stay with it so that now when I pick up one of the little bottles it all comes flowing back to me without being tainted or transposed by other places, times, memories.
…
In April I went to Staples and bought a tape recorder. The kind that still used microcassettes. It was small enough to fit in my pocket. It seemed the right thing to do. I still have it. Still use it.
I remember the first time I brought it to work. Regn and I were on the main desk—it was busy. I couldn’t decide where to keep the recorder to pick up the best sound. I was afraid that in my pocket it would be muffled. The keyboards on the main desk were pull-outs on a sliding drawer. I tucked the recorder at the top, never pulling the drawer completely out, but just enough so it could pick up a clear voice. I covered it with a napkin. Colleagues came and went. Sometimes I’d have to get up from my chair—it was risky leaving it there. I decided to keep it in my pocket for good. Later I discovered it picked up everything just fine through the thin cotton of my slacks. I had no intentions for my recordings. I seldom listened to them unless an argument had ensued or some sentiment had been spoken that I wished to preserve. It wasn’t unusual—in fact it seemed quite practical. I was making notes. For what I didn’t know. But somehow I knew even in that moment, one day those tapes would be all that remained of our---what? What did we have? At that point we were still crossing the waters. I also wanted the recorder so I could practice my speaking voice. I read some of my work aloud and recorded it for Regn to listen to. I played the piano and composed a piece with Regn in mind. I let her borrow the recorder to listen to it. Much later I even gave Regn a short story: The Blue Line. After it won in the contest. I gave it to her with my newer digital recorder in a yellow envelope. I asked her to read it and record it in her voice. I wanted to hear it in her accent, to have it spoken that way. She kept the envelope for a month or two. Then forgot she even had it! She said she didn’t have the time, what was she to do, pull over somewhere and sit in a parking lot doing it? Her unwillingness and helplessness annoyed me. I was also hurt. 15 minutes. She couldn’t find just 15 minutes to set aside and read a few pages out loud. She made excuses. ‘I feel funny sitting there with myself talking to a machine.’ There were so many instances when she could have done it. What this told me was she didn’t “want” to do it.
The recorder was a back-up. I couldn’t be sure I’d remember every word or detail—so I would have it as a reference. I also missed talking to Regn—just hearing her voice. I anticipated that maybe years from now I would want to be reminded of how her voice comforted and excited me.
I never have listened to those tapes.
…
I wrote my first letter to Regn in June of that same year. The fever had to break. There were two things I wanted to tell her. For months I agonized which would be better to come first. I wanted her to know my affections and I longed to reveal my past—
I still have that letter among hundreds more. Did I write a thousand? It’s possible. And I don’t mean little short missives or foolish sentiments. Everything I wrote was with an earnestness unparalleled. Sometimes in looking back, I know my writing brought Regn to me in a way my actions would never have let me—not at first, anyway.
I kept copies of my letters, and not just to Regn. Be it business correspondence, a casual thank you, or even a friendly how-do, throughout my life I always put aside a duplicate. My own personal archives.
In the beginning I never explicitly told Regn ‘I love you.’ It always seemed so trite, cliché. My letter spoke of many things. I concluded it with: You move me in a way no person ever has.
‘I had to walk through the upstairs gallery with tears rolling down my face. It was so cold up there, I thought they’d freeze.’ Regn said she read my letter in the restroom before going back into the gallery. Did the location matter as long as the message was heard?
Regn would have to discover who I was another way. This part of me would have to wait. The thing I coveted for so long and whom no one knew a thing about—this I suffered in silence another year. I had to find out if Regn was the one to tell. I could no longer carry it alone. At the time my desire seemed to be the impetus driving me on—both physical and emotional desire. I had no plan. There was no notion of such. Rather, I had a mission. I wanted Regn to know me and above all, I wanted to know Regn in every aspect. However long it took, I would wait.
…
Regn was not a writer. Even in her native tongue she seldom composed anything of length. It was always just a few words. She could write. She didn’t like to. Only once or twice did she ever draft something of five or more lines. Regn was afraid of writing. Yes afraid. I once bought a beautiful green leather notebook with gold-leafed pages. It was a journal. I gave it to Regn. She didn’t want to take it. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?—I don’t know if I can—’
‘Just write about anything. Write about us.’
Regn never put a single word on those unmarred pages—not to my knowledge. I did insert a small picture of me. I suspect it’s still there, waiting to be discovered. By Jay? Her children? Her grandchildren? In it I wear my olive green Fedora, a heavy dark brown suede jacket. My neck is turned, I am looking to the side, standing at Jamestown Island, the trees and national monument behind me. It is the one and only picture Regn took of me with my camera.
Regn did not like to deviate from her comfort zone. I learned this by degrees. She had her way of doing things and that was the only “right” way. I found this character trait irritating and narrow-minded. I told her, ‘You miss so much.’
…
Excerpted from Part IV: Chapter 7: Strange Breed of Hope
He’d met Lorraine while teaching in Munich. She was from Sweden, working on a Master’s program and taking English language courses. She spoke fluent German. They could teach each other. She both looked and behaved much older than she was. Westcott had never dated anyone younger than him. Lorraine was 4 years older. He enjoyed the feeling of belonging and knowing the feeling was genuine. It had always been genuine with Regn and Birçan, but the difference in age had always made him feel like an outsider.
Lorraine was an attractive woman, but the type who didn’t place much value in it, that or she was unaware of her own attractiveness. He liked to hear about what she was studying. They’d ask each other about their lives back home. Westcott thought it would be nice to visit Sweden, but he never suggested it. After two months and still no physical advances Lorraine asked him one evening, ‘Do you have someone back home—are you here trying to sort things out or maybe you’re planning on going back to her?’
Westcott looked at Lorraine fixedly. He was thankful for her directness. He could not have broached the topic. He was still too reserved. Not until that first brick was removed, that initial question asked, would he volunteer to give it up. He did not want to impose upon her, much as he enjoyed her company.
Westcott weighed his emotions for a moment. Was he still waiting, planning on going back? If Regn came walking up the sidewalk in front of them now would he go with her? He knew the answer and was relieved. Regn wanted him to be happy. Always happy. Regn had dissociated herself from Visitor Services after her position “downstairs” dissolved. She worked upstairs as a receptionist for Development—cloistered away. How boring, was all Westcott could think. How absolutely, horribly mundane. Thank god he’d never been hired back in any of the departments. Even the “product” did not interest him. A museum. Where everything is stored, still. Silently turning stale. It wasn’t the Settlement he missed. It was his youth and that’s what the Settlement would always represent to him—the peak of his youth; the feeling of being in love—the ardor of passion and a young body. A full head of hair. It was the feelings and the place which had held those feelings, witnessed them, which he looked upon with nostalgia, but no longer sadness. Sure, visiting the site would evoke memories, but he had no desire to go back. The memories had feelings—meaning attached to them because they were linked to Regn. The excitement was gone from the Settlement. At the time of his employment things had been imminent, preparations for the 400th–there was hubbub.
It was not flattery unto himself. It was a fact. The most interesting and exciting thing that had ever happened to Regn was Westcott. He knew she would be very unhappy if he ever told Regn directly, but he felt sorry for her. Such a little life she’d lead. Small part-time positions before staying at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation all those years. It wasn’t as though she’d had 5, or even 7 kids demanding her attention. She claimed she was a rather uninvolved mother with just the two children she raised. So what was she doing all those years?
Dreaming her life away? Just making ends meet? She had true artistic skills. She did nothing with them. She could have been a picture book illustrator. Westcott wrote a couple of children’s books and asked her to make some proofs. He received two small sketches, quite good, and that was it. She might have painted in her spare time. She could have taught German in a local school. Did her life consist solely of cleaning, managing, tinkering around the house and reading? She had no inward confidence. Westcott knew she liked mystery novels, stories which he found quite dull and boring in language. She did read material by mystics and Madame Blavatsky, but what else and to what end? She didn’t belong to any book club, she had no close friends. She may have, on occasion, gone out to breakfast with a colleague. That was all. Towards the end of the affair, for the relationship itself would never end, Regn had confided in Westcott that Rose Marie had become ‘cold and ignored her. She used to be my friend. I feel so bad about it.’ He’d tried to warn Regn about Rose Marie, but Regn had to find out for herself. And how do you think I feel, he wanted to say, losing you? I am reliable, always there. Regn didn’t see the double-standard in her statement. Westcott couldn’t sympathize with Regn about Rose Marie. Nonetheless, he tried to comfort her by listening. On some level Rose Marie and the other ladies, even Magda with whom Regn took walks, privately criticized her relationship with Westcott. They blamed her. An older woman; a young impressionable man. In the end it was Regn they held accountable. A part of him wanted to tell them it isn’t true. Yes, she did me wrong, but I started it, I was the one who pursued her with relentless determination. He sometimes wondered if Rose Marie was angry at Regn for breaking her promises to him. After all Rose Marie knew what it was to live with a broken heart; she knew the depth and strength of Westcott’s affection, which Regn just threw away. Regn had no one outside of Jay and her grandchildren. No one with whom to confide in after Westcott and she stopped speaking. Her stubbornness was her weakness. Every year they went a few times to the same place in the Shenandoah Mountains. Why not try something different? All right if a place is beautiful and you like it, but throw in a dash of variety. The country is enormous. There are so many mountain ranges and trails to hike. Regn stayed in her comfort zone, her own little world of things she felt she could control. It would never be enough. She convinced herself it had to be. All the unlived life. Her story was the tragedy. It was hard to believe, but Westcott’s mother had experienced more adventure than Regn ever had. His mother had lived a lifetime before he ever came into being.
‘No, Lorraine, that is not the case. I want very much to be close with you, but I’m just afraid. I’m afraid of losing you before it’s even begun. Isn’t that funny or maybe it’s sad.’
‘You’re a very serious man. And I sense you’ve been hurt in some way you don’t want or can’t express yet. And that’s okay. I won’t make you. But if what you said is true and you want to be close, then what’s there to lose? We only lose if we never try.’
‘I know that. All I ask is that you remember how we are and what we have said in this day, in this moment.’
‘You are a funny man, but I know you don’t mean it to be at all funny.’
‘It’s been a long time since I—may I kiss you?’
‘You don’t have to ask.’
‘Until I know it’s all right, I always do.’
She smiled a little, said nothing else.
‘Close your eyes.’ His ways had not changed, the process was the same. First he touched her face, took in its warmth, its softness. He made sure no one was looking, came closer, kissed her softly. Feeling her acceptance, he pressed firmer, longer.
Pulling away they both looked at one another. He knew it would not be long before she would be moved to take him to bed. He feared her reaction. Would he let her find out like Regn did, or tell her as he had Birçan? What if she ran out, yelled, tore him apart, accused him of being a liar and worse? He knew it would come to this. It always did. He wanted to enjoy this simple pleasure, this moment of perfection and mutual fondness for just a little while. It might be all he took away from their two months of knowing each other. He wouldn’t wait too long. Waiting would only make it worse, harder. He would let them have this day, but soon she would know.
Westcott looked at his watch. 5:05 p.m. You have to be able to look and feel ahead. His whole life that’s what he’d done. He’d always anticipated tomorrow. He remembered the days of Regn. When 5 o’clock carried the weight of the world.
‘Lorraine?’
‘Hmm?’
They stood to start walking again.
‘Should we make love, before we ever do, there is something I must tell you. But not now. Not today. Today is wonderful. Shall I take us to dinner—we can sit outside, enjoy the fair weather.’
That evening as they dined, sitting in the warm summer evening on wrought iron chairs at an outdoor café, music from a nearby performance mingled with the pigeons and sound of social life. It was an outdoor symphony of 5 musicians. Westcott counted the different instruments he heard though he could not see the players. The violin. For a moment he remembered the harpist and dulcimer player who had played at Jamestown Settlement on rare occasions. He recognized the tune. “Meditation Thais.” Regn’s favorite song. It always sounded like a phoenix flying from the ash. Westcott told himself to be present. He did not want Lorraine to see the momentary catch, the hesitation in his restive state, the feeling of being alone while sitting with someone. Lorraine hadn’t noticed, she’d looked at her plate for that split second and in that infinite breadth of time, Regn returned to him as she would throughout the years when he least expected it. She always managed to find him, even when he told himself he’d put her away. She once told him it was the song she wanted played at her funeral. Westcott listened, resumed eating, his appetite restored the moment he looked at Lorraine and saw that she was glad. Not smiling glad, but a quiet, peaceful glad.
__
When he started to feel really depressed he would apply for another host location. En route to a new post in Poland, he once enjoyed a 2-day excursion through the Bialowieza Forest. One of the last primeval forests in Europe. Regn had said she no longer needed to travel or see faraway places. She had experienced them in former lives and when she was younger. But Westcott knew she was making excuses, staving off her own brand of longing. As he looked about the old growth trees and breathed the scent of old earth dampness into his lungs, his mind became intoxicated with peace and a sorrow that had petrified itself within him. He looked upon the world not only for his own benefit, but also taking it in for Regn who would never lay eyes on such original grandeur. Her favorite scent was the smell of a forest. For this reason Westcott had wisely avoided going into seclusion, living and working in the remote countryside, cut-off from social opportunities. To be alone with just the land as he had imagined when young, would mean endless torment. For nature itself—the shade of clouds on the mountains, trees and pine needles—each of these was a trigger. A synapse formed long ago. Any beautiful sight, however simplistic or even rustic, evoked affection. It was not only an exquisite cathedral with its tintinnabulation of bells at dusk that moved him; it was the meaning behind those stimulated senses. One kind of affection always begets another. He often saw himself standing in a room full of shuttered windows and watching, hearing them unlaced. The room becoming impaled with streams of light. A zip-line of wooden chorus as the slats flipped open one after the other as quickly as all the notes on a xylophone can be played to resonate. This is how fast it takes for a memory to awaken.
Westcott stood in the imagined room, enjoying the warmth on his skin and face. He was remembering who he was.
It was late afternoon and the sunlight streamed chalky through the trees and heavy underbrush, not far from the borders of Belarus. For some unknown reason, Westcott felt a familiarity to the land, a sense of returning as if he’d always known it, or been there long ago. That afternoon, like other moments in his history, was worth all the discontent he’d ever experienced. The pain had enabled him to love far more than had he never suffered at all.
