by Roman Payne
Dragomir smiled and replied, “Your callouses, my dear girl. Those precious, little fingers of yours had the indentations of guitar strings on every one!”
“Oh!” Saskia thought about that a moment, and then she blushed to her ears. “…And that I sing? However did you guess that?!”
“I don’t know,” said Dragomir, “have you ever met a guitar player who didn’t like to sing songs?”
To this, Saskia smiled and shook her head… “Boy, a thirteen-year-old will believe just about anything! You really played just as you fancied with my innocent little mind, didn’t you, Dragomir? But today my life is perfect, so I’m glad you chose me for a victim.” Saskia then exhaled her sweet breath. And let her eyes dance to each of our eyes, and she smiled that great, wide smile—that beautiful and sincere smile that could seduce the whole world: the smile of The Wanderess.
Chapter Thirty-nine
It was evening now at the Lion d’Argent in Calais when Saul finished telling me the story of his adventures in Europe and North Africa, as well as the naissance of his romance with Saskia: that magical Wanderess whose image will always burn bright in my memory and imagination.
So, I wondered what happened afterwards: When Saul, Saskia, and Adélaïse parted ways with Dragomir in Málaga, it was still autumn-time. Still the same year and same season as when I first met Saskia and Saul in Italy, and drove each one separately to Civitavecchia. Now it was springtime; and two and a half years had gone by since then. Today that is long past.
“After we left Málaga,” Saul began, “we all three… Saskia, Adélaïse and I… went to Paris, where we lived together in perfect happiness. Life was an idyll. Money of course was no longer an issue for us, yet Saskia and I lived in frugal simplicity, spending very little money at all; it was our mutual love and our hope for a happy future that made our lives rich. Likewise, our friendship with Adélaïse constantly renewed all the joy in our hearts. Saskia and I both looked on Adélaïse as on a daughter. She was much less worldly than Saskia. She was more vulnerable and naïve, more precocious, and was still a child in many ways. Although she confessed to us one day that she’d had a lover once. He was a poet, and the two spoke English together. She said that her time with him was the happiest time of her life, although the two separated by accident and, to her great sadness, she gave up all hope of finding him one day. We asked her if her lover-poet ever called her “My English Lady.” Adélaïse blushed like a blooming garden of embarrassed flowers when we asked her this, and she begged we tell her if all poets call their muses their ‘English ladies.’ Saskia and I winked at each other and agreed that our Adélaïse was the famous Adélaïse who was the subject of the poem we were read by the love-struck gentleman in the bathtub in Siena.
Adélaïse’s birthday was coming up, and for her present we took her to Siena and arranged for her to stumble one afternoon, all alone and vulnerable, on her past lover, the poet Pietros Maneos, who was still where Saul and Saskia left him: reciting Homer in his bathtub—‘à la Diogenes’—on the lawn of the University of Siena. Both Pietros and Adélaïse, being now older and more mature of heart than when they first met, fell deeply in love with one another. And they, bless their romantic and innocent souls, agreed that this “accidental” reunion was proof that both their gods—Adélaïse’s Catholic god, and Pietros’ Greek gods—were either both the same god, or else they were great friends and approved of each other.
Since the two lovebirds were in paradise together and had almost completely forgotten that we exist, Saskia and I went ahead and left them in Italy. She and I went, just the two of us, to the top of the earth… to experience in the month of June what I’d always dreamed of experiencing: the white nights and eternal days of Saint Petersburg.
We loved travelling together so much that, after Russia, I took Saskia wandering for over a year. Or perhaps it was Saskia who took me wandering for over a year…
We visited places we had never imagined we would go: the cities of Prague, Kiev, Budapest, The Black and Caspian Seas, Macedonia and the sacked city of Troy, Constantinople: the gateway to Asia; we then explored Persia. We wandered on further yet, to India, to Nepal, to Tibet! I studied the origins of Sanskrit, and the complexities of opium smoke. Saskia studied yoga, and the Kama Sutra. She and I cooperated to smuggle a kilo of saffron out of India, into France, where we sold it at a tremendous profit. She and I both agree, looking back on all we did and saw, that the East had a good influence on us. Thanks to the East, Saskia was inspired to ingest oriental medicines and consider her body as a force of nature. While the Orient inspired me to inebriate myself with perfumed wine while reading the poetry of Omar Khayyám1.
Saskia and I are happy to be back in France though. No country is sweeter! And we also get to see Adélaïse and her poet again… they also just returned from travelling—or from: wandering, rather…
They lived with gypsies in Romania. They wandered Europe like rustics, travelling as far north as Sweden; and they wandered like fortune-hunters to the equator, hunting diamonds in the rainforests of the Congo. Maneos in enjoying great fame from his latest book; and he’s also encouraging Adélaïse to write a novel about her own wanderings. He is impressed by her literary talent. She is spending hours every day working on it—she says it will be a “romantic adventure” novel. Saskia and I need to make sure that Pietros and Adélaïse can concentrate on literature without having to worry about the “practical things” that get in the way, so we decided last month to sign Saskia’s inheritance over to Adélaïse. That way, Saskia and I don’t have to be discreet about our relationship, while Adélaïse will have that income to give her security for the rest of her life. So we immediately hired a team of attorneys to study her uncle’s will to look for a reason why such a transfer would be impossible. The attorneys found nothing in the will that forbids such a transfer, and nothing that would afterward forbid Adélaïse from enjoying romantic involvement with a man. She will be free to marry whom she wants, or otherwise live as she pleases… Thus, it seems like a perfect arrangement to us all…
“So this is the reason we all came to Calais! Yesterday we arrived here and Saskia, Adélaïse, and Pietros took the boat to Dover where Saskia has arranged to sign the papers that will transfer her income into Adélaïse’s name. As you know, I’m forbidden to enter England, so I’m waiting here in Calais for their return. Adélaïse and Pietros had the misfortune of catching food poisoning on our way here from Paris, so they went straight to bed in their cabin when the three got onboard. That’s why you only saw Saskia when their ship left the port. But they’ll be back this evening—according to the timetable at the pier, their ship will come in before nightfall. Oh, you must certainly wait! They’ll be as thrilled to see you as I was!, for if it weren’t for you, we would all be no doubt, alone, poor, and without love in our lives. When we are back in Paris, I would like to invite you to the Comédie-Française if you’re free.”
1 OMAR KHAYYÁM: 11th Century Persian poet and thinker, most famous for his collection of poems known as The Rubáiyát. Khayyám’s poems are highly respected among scholars and often center around the virtues of wine and intoxicants, as well as the joys of drunkenness and the romantic advantages of being inebriated to the point of losing inhibitions. Payne read Khayyám’s poetry with fervor during the brief time he lived in Muslim Morocco.
“I’m always free for the theatre,” I said to Saul.
“You know, it’s funny,” continued Saul, “I used to have three ambitions: To visit Florence, experience the white nights, and then to let the earth swallow me up.”
“You wanted to die after visiting Saint Petersburg?” I asked. “Well, to be honest…
“…But I hope I’m not annoying you by talking about this. I just imagine that, as a novelist, you like to study man’s character.” “I’m interested to hear it,” I said.
“It’s just that I don’t believe in living a life in decline. Either one grows, one blooms, or one diminishes. I wasn’t able
to imagine any way after witnessing the white nights to continue to live while growing. And since I refuse to live and diminish, I wanted to die.”
“But now you’ve seen the white nights. And you’ve chosen to live after?”
“With Saskia, I cannot diminish. When lovers are in love, they don’t diminish. When wanderers wander, they do not diminish. The world lays itself out beautiful before them; a rich tapestry to explore; with love in abundance. But for this, a wanderer must be favored by Fortune. Fortune is not “riches,” it is “Poetic Beauty” that comes by surprise!—like a ship coming in from Dover…”
And with those words, a ship came in from Dover. It came in as if summoned by the gods. A vessel emerged from the twilight and entered the port of Calais: A stately ship, with English flags fluttering. On the deck, a multitude of passengers: the ladies brightly-colored in their spring clothing, or else dressed in white; and the men in their white, or their dark, serious suits, all gathered for their arrival on the continent. Saul and I raced from our private dining room out to the great balcony overlooking the port below. I put on my eyeglasses to see more clearly the horde of passengers gathering to disembark.
“Saskia is on that ship,” Saul mumbled calmly, “She is on that ship…” And then he cried out… “There she is!… the beauty wearing the yellow dress!” He turned to me, “You know how my heart is racing right now! It will stop beating all together if I don’t hold her in my arms very soon!”
“Go and meet her, Saul!” I cried, “Don’t wait here a minute longer. Don’t wait for me. I will hurry down to the port, just the same. But I have to take it easy on my leg; I will watch you two from up here… but you run all the same! Saskia is coming ashore… This will be the first time I will see you and her coming together… and not splitting apart…”
“Okay, but we will wait for you below by the ship… We’ve been hoping to find you again for so long. Saskia won’t be happy to hear how I spent these last two days until she gets to see you herself… she will insist you spend time with us! What a perfect surprise!… À tout de suite1 !”
* * *
Of course I wished to see Saskia again after all these years. From where I stood on the balcony of the Lion d’Argent, all of the port was lit-up and bright. She looked amazing. She disembarked from the ship, no longer like the clumsy young girl she was— albeit she was a very beautiful clumsy, young girl… No, now time had passed for the better, and she was a woman—sophisticated and alluring. She didn’t skip or hop down the platform; she walked with the feminine perfection and grace that God, the sculptor, gives when he has created a masterpiece.
And from my balcony I saw him approach and greet her: the only man that God created worthy of this woman. Saul took her bags and embraced her in his arms; while I watched on with pride and with love. So why on earth would I want to go down to the port to be with those two? Was I not the author who helped create their happiness? Did Saul really think Saskia wanted me there at this moment, when on earth all she wanted was him?
As for me, I had all I wanted… I had their story. Saul and I spent all of two days together, separated by a night where neither of us slept, nor ever wanted to. For two days and one night, Saul narrated his story, while I set his soul to page for generations of readers and dreamers, of lovers, and of wanderers and wanderesses: those tossed among the continents on this, our pleasant earth. And so I ask you one more time: Do I really need to go down to the port—amid the travelers in their drab or colorful dress who grow fewer until gone—so that I can interrupt the eternal kisses Saskia is giving to Saul? No, I knew better than to go meet them. Saskia would thank me in her heart for not coming. Perhaps I will run into them again someday, in some unexpected place as usual… or perhaps at the Comédie-Française in Paris.
Until then, I can always read about their love in the novel I will write from Saul’s story. The book will begin in Italy. And it will end right here: where Saul left me… I’ve changed my plans since my arrival in Calais… Au Bras d’Or and the gardens of England can wait. I have something more important to do. And so, I am finishing to pack my bags this instant, to leave Calais— and Europe altogether—to travel long and far, very far away. And so, the novel will end now, just as Saul left me to run down to the port, so he could leave every person, every soul, everything behind—so as to meet his love, his Wanderess, his life; the woman he himself had wandered so long to find.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments & Legal Statement
Important Note to Readers
Roman Payne’s Dedication
Introductory Quotations
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine