The Brevity of Roses

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  Her other half switched off. That controlled Meredith stood at the collapsed dig observing the recovery of the bodies of the two men, and felt sympathy for Carl’s wife, at home in the States, and not yet aware she was also widowed. It was that steely Meredith who flew home with the coffin, arranged the funeral, accepted the offered condolences, and wrote the thank-you notes.

  At some point, her shattered self and her stoic self merged and went on with a life. She continued writing for a while, but she couldn’t face the prospect of field work. She continued teaching, but her heart was no longer in that either. Within a year, she had resigned her position at the university. At the age of thirty-five, she retired.

  It had been a long time since she pulled out, dusted off, and examined the memory of her life immediately following Stephen’s death. At first, grief covered her like skin, defining her, holding her together. Gradually, it sloughed off, and collected into another form—pain without warning, like a cat hiding under the bed reaching out its paw to swat her when she least expected it. Finally, it ceased breathing and became only an object, a fact of her life, but that object cast a shadow—the dark, formless absence of Stephen. This shadow lay over her so long she became oblivious to its presence. Then Jalal lifted it like a veil, and now she craved this new sun-filled life.

  Five

  SOMEONE NUDGED THEIR cart into hers as Meredith stood in the frozen food aisle of the market. Assuming it was was accidental, she didn't react until they spoke.

  “She lives!”

  Meredith stiffened and forced a deep breath. “Hello, Judith.”

  “So, you are still speaking to me! I didn’t know, since you don’t return my calls anymore.”

  Meredith was surprised to feel a rush of pity when she looked at her. Judith was all hard edges and brittle points. A lack of love had burned away all softness. “I’ve been busy.”

  Judith rolled her eyes. “Well, now that you’ve finally qualified as one, you need to know that we Wanton Women stave off depression by finding a new man as soon as possible.”

  “Why would you think I need a new—” she didn’t bother to finish her protest. As usual, gossip had spread faster than a canyon wildfire.

  “It wasn’t hard to figure out. No one’s seen him around, and you’ve locked yourself away.”

  Meredith forced a smile. “Jalal is away on business.”

  A tinge of delight colored Judith’s look of pity. “Honey,” she said, “he’s not the type of man who goes away on business.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Oh, don’t be a fool,” said Judith. “Jalal’s off chasing some new—and almost surely younger—piece of ass.”

  The sympathy Meredith felt moments ago washed away in a wave of anger and she lashed out. “We’re not talking about your men!”

  “You bitch!” Judith grabbed her purse from her cart, and shoved Meredith aside as she stormed off.

  Meredith resumed her shopping, but all the while, she questioned herself. What’s wrong with me? Where is my dignity, my self-respect? Why would any woman agree to let her lover be unfaithful?

  On the seventh day, Jalal sent Meredith flowers. Two days later, he sent a silver bracelet with dangles of sea glass and a hummingbird charm. The next day, he sent a Danish edition of Out of Africa she once mentioned coveting. His unspoken message wrapped around her heart like a cashmere scarf, melting away any resolve she had to forget him.

  Late the next night, when the phone woke her, and Jalal asked, “Am I still welcome?” She replied, “You are.”

  Jalal arrived an hour later. She met him at the door and, as though suddenly shy, they shared an awkward moment of fumbling with words and doors and bags—and then he pulled her to him. For a second, she longed for the comfort of their bed, and then he kissed her. As her gown slipped down to puddle at her feet, she felt a cool whisper against her skin only seconds before his heat seemed to touch her everywhere at once. And for just that moment, she surrendered herself completely.

  They slipped back into their routines as though there had been no interruption. Yet, they didn’t ignore the ten days they had been apart. Jalal, of course, asked her direct questions: Did you eat every meal out? Did you decide to plant the ginkgo or the pistache trees? Did you remember to take your car in for an oil change? While she, afraid she would overstep, did not question him. She took the oblique route, saying things like I hope you had time to write, or you probably had a lot to get caught up on at home, but nothing that would hint at the question that twisted in her mind. Never would she ask why did you leave me? It was easier to play the game.

  “I must teach you to cook,” he said as they cleaned up after lunch on the second day. “Preparing a meal together can be very sensual.”

  Meredith laughed. “I've noticed that, somehow, you manage to make everything we do together sensual, Jalal.”

  He came up behind her. With his arms wrapped around her waist, he nuzzled her hair aside and kissed her neck. He whispered, “Sensual is bad?”

  Breathless, she pulled away and turned to face him, “Sensual is good, but the landscaper will be here any minute, and I have to show him where I want the trees planted.”

  “And then?”

  “And then … I could teach you to garden.”

  He frowned, but seconds later his face lit up. “We could plant a garden at my house?”

  “You have a house?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Well …” She shrugged. “I guess, I pictured you in an apartment.”

  “I have a house on the coast.”

  “What! You don’t live in Coelho?”

  Jalal’s face blanked and he looked away. “I do not know why I let you think that.”

  Yes, why, Jalal? At the sound of voices outside, she looked away. “The landscaper is here,” she said and started toward the back door. Though she knew the answer before she asked, she needed to hear him say it. “Where is your house then?”

  “In Bahía de Sueños,” said Jalal. “It is not far away. You must know it.”

  “I’ve been there.” Her hand faltered only a little as she reached to open the door. “But not lately.”

  As she talked to the landscaper, another part of her mind stood waiting with Jalal’s revelation in hand. He’s not as honest as you thought. What do you think of that? Only after the men began their work did she consider the question. So, Jalal had gone to his house when he left her. What other secrets did he have? Did he have another woman on the coast, and, if he did, how had he explained to her why he was nineteen days late returning from Seattle? Was this woman fool enough to believe his lies? And how will he explain why he never takes me to his house? Lost in thought, Meredith didn’t hear Jalal come up behind her, and when he took her hand in his, she startled as though she were the one caught in some illicit action.

  “Do you have to start work out here right away?” he asked.

  “No, but I planned to go to the nursery sometime this afternoon to pick up the winter annuals.”

  He nodded. “Could that wait for a couple of days?”

  “I suppose.” The tension, the underlying sobriety, in Jalal’s voice made her wary. “Why?”

  “I want to take you to my house,” he told her.

  They left within the hour. Though Jalal reached for her hand often, he said little as the car wound through the coastal range. Several times he glanced at her and she sensed he was about to speak, but he only turned his eyes back to the road ahead. All right, so he lived alone in his house. Still, he had warned her; somewhere, there was another woman—or women. When their car passed a road sign informing them they were only twelve miles from their destination, Meredith broke the silence.

  “Why did you choose to move to Bahía de Sueños?” He looked at her immediately, but she saw in his eyes that, for a few seconds, his thoughts were still far away.

  “I passed through there many times,” he said finally and nodded as if confirming the fact to himself.
“When I needed to get away, I would drive down the coast from Seattle. Twice I went as far south as Mexico. Certain places along the way stayed with me, Bahía de Sueños—the ‘Bay of Dreams’—especially.”

  “Oh, Jalal, if only you had driven thirty-five miles inland on one of those trips, we might have met then.”

  “Do not think that way, Meredith. Regret only steals the present from you.” He squeezed her hand. “Though, having known you longer would not be a bad thing.”

  A few minutes later they were driving through the picturesque section of the town—the Old Village, he called it—and as the car approached its lone traffic light, her pulse quickened with an irrational fear Jalal would read her mind and know she had spied him at that very spot only thirteen days ago. She saw now that the shop he exited that day was a bookstore. Had he been there to inquire about the Danish edition he sent her?

  Jalal turned off the main street, heading west, and at various twists in the road, she caught glimpses of the ocean. When he entered a gated community and descended onto the beach access road, she cried out, “Oh! You really do live on the coast.”

  He laughed. “I have the realtor’s word my house will not drop into the ocean any time soon.”

  “Why, this is a little cottage,” she said, when he pulled into his driveway, and then, afraid she might have offended him, she added, “for some reason, I pictured your house a sprawling thing, all glass and angles.”

  “Then, as a cottage, it does need a garden, yes?”

  Meredith, not waiting for Jalal to open her door, got out the second the car stopped and hurried through the side gate. “Oh, yes,” she called back to him, “it begs for a garden. Of course, with all the fog, there might be a problem with mildew on roses, but I can research which ones will do best. Rugosas should grow here surely, and lavender, rosemary, fuchsia, begonias. Oh, it’s going to be beautiful! Did I see a garden center in the village?” When he didn’t answer, she turned to him. “Why are you grinning at me like that?”

  “Would it be all right if I take our things inside before we start digging up the yard?”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry. Of course, yes, show me your home.”

  She followed Jalal inside. He continued on to the bedroom with their bags, but Meredith stopped in his living room. He had lined three walls with shelves of books. Shorter cases ran under the windows, and taller ones in between and along the other wall. The room was smaller than her bedroom, and yet, with the large windows and pale leather furnishings, it seemed light and airy—New York loft meets California beach house. She stood scanning book titles until Jalal returned.

  He flashed her a comical leer. “Could I entice you into my kitchen for tea?”

  His kitchen was three steps to her left, little more than an extension of the living room, and separated from it by a breakfast bar. From what she could see, Jalal’s home was no more than one-fifth the size of hers. “You must think it’s ridiculous for me to have such a large house for myself,” she said.

  “I love your house, and it suits you well.” He filled the kettle with one hand and gestured around the small room with the other. “I admit I am jealous of your kitchen.”

  “Which is wasted on me.”

  Jalal smiled. “We will remedy that.” He sparked the flame under the kettle and began opening cupboard doors.

  Meredith stood by the table and looked out the window. “You must miss this view when you’re at my house.”

  “I have you to look at.”

  She smiled, but rolled her eyes. “If someone hasn’t already published a book titled 1,000 Ways to Flatter a Woman, then you should write it.”

  “I am only noting the obvious,” he said.

  “Oh, lord!”

  He laughed.

  While Jalal readied the tea things, she watched the waves. As always, the sight quickened her breath and made her a little apprehensive. “I love the ocean, but it frightens me.”

  “Frightens?” he asked. “Because it’s powerful … and mesmerizing?”

  “Yes, and that’s a dangerous combination.”

  He came up behind her and hugged her to himself. “The ocean is a woman.”

  “Are you saying I’m dangerous?”

  “Only powerful and mesmerizing.”

  “Ha!” she said. “I don’t see myself as either.”

  “Why?”

  Unable to think of a way to answer without revealing more than she was ready to tell him, she stood silent, wrapped in his arms. Maybe she could avoid ever telling him. Let him think of her as the woman he imagined her to be. She had perfected the art of pretense over the years.

  When the kettle screamed, Jalal let her loose and turned back to the stove. While the tea brewed, he placed shortbread on a plate and carried it to the table. “Sit,” he said, “but I have not forgotten that you declined to answer my question.”

  “We have a lot of the same books,” Meredith said and took a seat at the table.

  Jalal gave a sad shake of his head and told her, “I will keep asking that question until you give me an answer, you know.” He filled their cups and settled in the chair opposite hers. “And, yes, I noticed. I calculate our book collections are about sixty percent the same.”

  “Doesn’t that surprise you?”

  “Not at all,” he said, smiling. “The Fates were paving the way for our meeting.”

  “Oh, good lord! Do you actually believe all the bull you spout?”

  At first, Jalal looked at her wide-eyed, but then he broke into laughter. “So,” he said, “I guess this means the honeymoon is over.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m blurting out one rude thing after another today. I didn’t mean—”

  “No,” he said. “This is good. Now you can be honest with me.”

  Aware her question was as ridiculous as Jalal’s flattery, she asked it anyway. “When have I not been honest with you?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “When? I could start with the day we met.”

  “How was I dishonest then?”

  He sat back in his chair and smiled at her. “Tell me why you took me home with you?”

  “Wasn’t that obvious? I wanted to have a little fun.”

  “That sounds like something Judith would say.”

  She only shrugged.

  “So,” he said, leaning forward again, “it was no big deal to you? Sex with a stranger was something you had every afternoon.”

  “No, of course not!”

  He had just raised a triangle of shortbread toward his mouth, but now he pointed it at her. “Then you were being dishonest by acting as though—”

  “You reminded me of someone.”

  Jalal stiffened. “What?”

  Equally surprised at her response, she grabbed her cup and took a drink. The words were true, but she had never intended to say them, and now she prayed against reason Jalal would forget she had. “You are hardly in position to question my honesty, Jalal. Didn’t you deliberately let me think this house was in Coelho? I might wonder what else you’ve deceived me about.”

  He studied her for a moment, then picked up his cup and smiled. “I believe I forgot to show you my work. I will share some of my poetry with you after dinner.”

  Meredith and Jalal, laughing, raced to the porch. After dinner, they had strolled along the beach footpath, and a windswept rainstorm had caught them by surprise. Now, just as they stepped over the threshold, lightning splintered the air followed by an explosion she felt in her bones, and a velvety blackness swallowed up the beach road. Jalal reached out and flipped the light switch with no result.

  “The transformer must have been hit,” he told her, his voice hushed.

  She sensed him bend down beside her and then she heard the clunk clunk of his shoes hit the floor, followed by a rustling. Wet fabric pressed against her hands and she realized he held his jacket out to her.

  “There is a coat rack to your right,” he whispered. “Stay here. I will lig
ht some candles.”

  As Meredith wondered why every utterance in the dark seemed to become a secret, she slipped off her shoes and hung up their jackets. Light flared in the kitchen, and then Jalal carried a candle into the living room. The antiquity of the image struck her. He was Atar, eternal purifying flame. For a moment, she believed that no life existed beyond his circle of light and the darkness held no past. She longed to step into that fire and let it consume her.

  In reality, she watched while Jalal used the first candle to light one on the breakfast bar and two more on the mantel. “Is that a gas fireplace?” she asked.

  “Good idea.” He leaned down to turn it on.

  “A little wine would be nice while you read to me by firelight.”

  Jalal grinned. “Why, Meredith, are you suggesting something sensual?”

  Suppressing a smile, she turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the wine. You get your poetry.”

  When she returned to the living room, she found Jalal reclining against a nest of cushions before the fire. She poured the wine and settled in beside him.

  He opened his journal. “In honor of this occasion, I will read only poems inspired by you.”

  For a long while, he read beautiful poetry of love and devotion that brought tears to her eyes, though not for a minute did she believe she had inspired a word of it. After the candles burned down, they lay in the glow of the fire as he fed her slivers of ripe pear and bits of dark chocolate between slow, tender kisses.

  In the morning, Meredith woke before Jalal and crept from the bedroom. She gathered yesterday’s clothes off the living room floor and dressed, then lit the fireplace to break the chill. One glance out the window told her the weather was dismal, though the rain had tapered off to a drizzle. In the kitchen, her plan to make coffee fell through when she found the power still off. She would never attempt Jalal’s complicated chai brewing process, so she searched the cupboards and, to her relief, found mint tea bags. She lit the burner with a match and put the kettle on to boil, standing guard. At the first hint of whistle, she grabbed the kettle, poured the boiling water over the bag, and carried her cup into the living room where she could sit to warm herself by the fire.