It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “Hardly anything is. Synchronicity?”

  Indeterminable vibrations of elementary particles coarsened or crystallised out to form causal chains of events that appeared as the reality he thought he knew.

  “Why haven’t you made tea yet?”

  “I have made everything ready for to-morrow morning.”

  “Will we get any sleep first?”

  “It depends on how much you enjoy yourself, on how long you want to stay. I will have finished in two minutes. Then you can monopolise the bathroom till we have to dress.”

  “Biased and prejudiced, that’s what you are, beneath the cracked veneer of a liberal faÇade.”

  Sitting on the bed she began to shed her clothes on the floor – sepals of darkness unveiling Dawn – in a pirrie of impatience and eagerness.

  “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the branch of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the seed of thy lover’s eye.”

  “It should be ‘beam’ and ‘mote,’ not ‘branch’ and ‘seed.’”

  “Yes, but in view of καρπός, ‘seed’ or ‘fruit,’ ‘branch’ is better than ‘beam.’”

  He stretched himself out on the bed to look at her as she combed her hair.

  “You shouldn’t tamper with the holy text.”

  “The holy text has already been tampered with, paraphrased and rewritten seventy times seven.”

  “Maybe, but that does not invalidate my initial observation.”

  He kissed her on the shoulder as a surprise and feeling how his jaws ached he probed the resilience of her skin with his teeth.

  “It hurts! Don’t just think of pleasing yourself all the time.”

  “But I was only trying to please you.”

  “Don’t try to do something, do it or don’t.”

  “That was what I did, but anyway, you have always more pleasure than I have, so it’s not fair of you to complain.”

  Turning round her eyes flashed the sweetest of fires to burn up his insolence.

  “Dinna be coorse or A’ll skelp yer doup.”

  A barbed threat and a smooth promise – but sensing its inherent simplicity was to see a shadow from her past. It made him shudder. He was a painter of suggestions.

  “Although you’re teasing me you must have felt touched to return to the idiom of your childhood, and that has to indicate an innate gender determined aversion against having such a secret revealed.”

  “Why you are trying to provoke me with these ravings. They do not become you as they are deranged. My pleasure is not greater than yours, and even if assuming an emotion could be quantified, it would not in any way pertain to us as we abandon ourselves to one another to meet in the sea-stillness of the soul. Our psychophysiological nature urges us on, in different and similar ways. Usually loving consists in individuality identification or consolidation, but we are intent on the opposite, individuality or identity transcendence.”

  “But your capacity for continuing is not limited, and I imagine that the simple origin of the allotment as preserved in The Library may be found in this evolutionary manifestation to further the propagation of the species.”

  “Everything has evolved to further the propagation of the species including this physiological capacity to sustain stimulation as it would enhance the potential for fertility.”

  “Indeed, but I have often no clue as to when you may become angry. The common ideal of how a nice girl ought to behave must have repelled you already as a child?”

  “It did not fit me at all; I have always had to act like I felt, and you, with your negative capability, are so Protean that you can match me whatever my mood may happen to be; but you can never fool me by pretending.”

  “I have never lied to you and I am far too keen on reality to pretend.”

  “You do nevertheless pretend sometimes, but as long as I know it I don’t mind so much.”

  Cradling her fingers behind his neck she kissed him and two tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “But Caitlin, what’s the matter?”

  “You! Now I feel free to do whatever I want, whatever I please, because I trust you. I trust you with my life, that’s what I do.”

  “Like I trust you with mine?”

  “I have never trusted a man like this before, but I think you have been able to trust other women?”

  “Only to be more or less bewildered, miserable or furious.”

  “Will it be the same with me?”

  As she looked inward and her eyes turned away from his to see and not to see something in the corner of the ceiling he felt her trying to palpate the Braille of a distant future with moist and trembling fingertips. He would have to let her answer the question herself. But what would the future be like once the excitement of the initial clashes became less acute and the daily wear and tear began to take its toll of their love? How long would it last? Would they be able to grow old together – having discovered in themselves the loving kindness of empathy and the friendship of mutual understanding and tolerance that would enable them to sit hand in hand before the dying fire while the twilight deepened outside and they listened to each other’s heartbeats wondering who would be the first to go and fearing the stillness that would be left behind to give room for nothing but the memories of the years gone by that would come crowding in whatever it might be in the way the light fell upon the curtains or in the way the wind whispered in the leaves that caught the attention unawares – so as to form a time of subsistence in limbo before the final hour of the eternity of absolute absence – of nothing upon nothing within nothing. So the days that had gone already – the day to-day and maybe the days ahead would be the best of the memories which he in the future would have to cherish with affection and regret – but that applied to Caitlin too if he should leave her all alone with her memories of him. So all he could do was to live as fully as he could from instant to instant and remember that the time now never would return – nivver – nivver – nivver –

  “As I have not felt like this before I feel that it will not. This is new, a different dimension.”

  “If the future is determined by the present the subjective sense of an absolute will prevail.”

  “Nine out of ten problems are caused by not being aware of what we feel. If the felt reality – la vérité ressentie – seems unequivocal, life becomes easier, la vie en rose; but if there is doubt about what we feel, if the feeling does not flow like a great swollen river, but trickles forth only to manifest itself as thoughts, the glittering foam crowning the waves of the ocean, then we are not certain about who we are, and then a host of cognitive ghosts, as substitutes, as fautes de mieux, begins to haunt the mind.”

  “I have found a new certainty and you are that certainty, and I can do with you what I want, and you’ll still be mine, whatever I do. It’s a strangely liberating sensation.”

  “Like an expanding and a melting sensation but fused?”

  “Both, yes, and fused. It has all happened so fast, in bursts.”

  “A second or two can turn life upside down for better or for worse.”

  “I must have something to eat, come on! Don’t just lie there expecting me to do everything.”

  “But that’s what you want, to do everything?”

  “But together with you.”

  So dragging her by the hand he ran down the stairs to open the refrigerator – take out butter – orange marmalade – milk and fill the kettle – but seeing that she was standing still and appeared to be amused by his sudden activity he kissed her so hard that she lost her balance. But closing her arms around his neck she jumped up to clasp her legs around his waist. By catching hold of the door frame he avoided falling forward and staggered over to the kitchen table.

  “Would it not be better upstairs?”

  “Only if you can carry me?”

  He
took a few steps backwards and turned round to reach the staircase.

  “Hold on to the bannister.”

  “No! I will just hold on to you.”

  She did not appear to be that heavy because her gait was so buoyant. He took hold of the bannister and it steadied them a little. One step at a time. His legs were trembling – unable to keep pace with her desire. One rung at a time upwards through Purgatorio. She was enjoying his predicament – but of course she should. Conquering another ridge he had to take a rest and breathe. Why did she refuse to walk? Another challenge – to hone the cutting edge.

  “Come on now, what are you waiting for?”

  He began to lift his foot although it felt rooted to the step. The will alone was left and she was doing her utmost to suppress her laughter. He was hauling himself up along the bannister and urging his sinews to respond to the stimuli of his determination – and that was it – the level relief of the landing. Without pausing to doubt if he could continue he tottered on towards the remaining flight of stairs. The will to survive was the last resource – and if he fell forward now into her smiling eyes – he would never take up mountaineering – quite apart from the yawning abyss. The floor was a blessing and without bending in the knees he shuffled forward to cross the lintel and approach the bed where – with a deep sigh – he collapsed as she fell backwards on the mattress.

  “Was that really so hard?”

  “Oh no, you’re as light as a small white cloud drifting by in the blue above. But what would you have done if I had collapsed on the stairs?”

  “Taken hold of the bannister.”

  “We might have fallen down the stairs.”

  Her smile of knowing better – her smile of tears and laughter – suffused him as he found his right element. An Otter taking to the rippling river. Folding her hands around his neck she pulled him down to have his breast against her breasts for better conductivity – and lying still he began to get his breath back and kiss her dreams alive. Their movements in space and time synchronised their affective states as the cross currents of prior accidents were submerged in the confluence of the communion. Caresses and kisses – thrusts and contractions – formed the causal efficacy – the mutual loop – the crests and the troughs that increased to ease the way all water flowed toward the Sea. The impersonal will of the approaching crescendo – life wanting to continue come what may. The smell of her breath – sudden sunshine and honey – her slow contractions – the pulse of life – and the kittling that became too keen as it urged her to roll around and continue heaving and subsiding to move him as he moved her – by dissolving body boundaries and static forms. They shared an absolute that was an end in itself – a homely given. It did not relate to anything else and it was not contingent on anything else. It was the basic urge to transcend the biological and ontological differences between them that made their movements absolute for death – that made their movements dissolve in an interpersonal state of universality – where past and present – memories – identity and personality had ceased to matter as the presence of the common soul unfolded – a flower after the rain and sunshine of the interplay of arms and legs – of lips and eyes.

  “Oh no! It’s half past six. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “I must have fallen asleep just like you did.”

  “I knew something like this was bound to happen just because you couldn’t wait.”

  He laughed to accept the full responsibility and kissed her.

  “But if you knew it, then why did you – ”

  “Don’t argue! Call a cab and get dressed. Don’t just lie there smiling like a Cheshire Cat.”

  As she rushed out into the bathroom he telephoned and began to dress – seeing in his mind’s eye all the years ahead. A woman was a woman – irrespective of her level of independence and her celerity – and yet – he knew that she would continue to challenge and intrigue him and that was what it was all about – to avoid stasis and embrace kinesis. They had a good chance to grow old together – to grow and not just to get old together – and that was again what it was all about. The chirality of his black tie baffled him a little. Perfect symmetry was boring and real asymmetry disgusting – as in a face there had to be a preponderance of symmetry on both sides – though with a soupÇon of differences to give it character and to further interest and curiosity to explore the small variations. The same pattern obtained in the wings of a butterfly – the symmetry was pronounced but not complete. A handkerchief in the breast pocket and notes in the hip pocket. What was she doing? Had she fallen asleep?”

  “Are you all right? The cab will be coming in a minute.”

  “Just tell him to wait.”

  Shrugging his shoulders he went downstairs to accept the inevitable – and of course not to forget the small gifts of friendship that acted as reaffirmations. In the cellar he found a good bottle of Port for Seymour and in the studio a little sketch for Jessie. Still no sounds from upstairs. Then there was this article he should have a look at – for it could take some time. ‘Colour response – subjective evaluations – neurophysiologically determined – and birds – evolution of plumage – choice contingent on’ – she was running out of the bathroom and the cab was already waiting. He opened the door and waved to the driver. A couple of minutes. The key? She could take it in her handbag. Lights on to avoid – hush – for that would be nemesis indeed though also a perfect joke.

  “Have you been waiting?”

  “Oh no, I’ve been reading an article about how non-human animals and Humans in various cultures respond to colour. Let me see.”

  “Don’t kiss me now!”

  “The bloody lipstick! You can take the key in your handbag.”

  “I can’t be bothered to take a handbag.”

  “Then I’ll just hide it. Wait in the cab while I close the door.”

  At the back of the house he placed the key under the stone and ran out to the car.

  “What happened in the bathroom?”

  “What do you mean, ‘happened’?”

  “I mean, what did you do?”

  “Oh nothing in particular.”

  Peppery mischievousness coated by sugary innocence – a bait?

  “That was exactly what I thought.”

  “You think far too much.”

  “About you?”

  “Just wait till we get back.”

  “I cannot.”

  The cab stopped and he paid.

  “If you’ll give Seymour the Port I’ll give Jessie the sketch.”

  “You should have wrapped them up, like proper gifts.”

  “A waste of resources and we’re not in Japan.”

  The door was open and they walked in hand in hand to meet Jessie and Seymour who were waiting for them beneath the broad oaken beams in the hall of their new home.

  “We’re both so glad to see you!”

  “May I introduce you to Caitlin, and Caitlin, I have told you about both Seymour and Jessie.”

  “Yes, and about your fishing luck in the Spey.”

  “I hope you will like it?”

  “Are we going to have Salmon.”

  “Of course, Seymour’s salmon.”

  “Well, Jessie, here’s a little sketch of my orchard, for you.”

  “How lovely. That was when they were in bloom?”

  “Yes, I made it last year in April.”

  Her lips were wet on his cheeks – and genuine.

  “When Seymour told me what you had suggested he should do I was rather sceptical but having thought about it I realised that we simply had to have three full days together as a family; and two of his colleagues will now take care of his patients on Fridays.”

  “Yes, I can’t tell you how much I look forward to get more time for myself from now on.”

  Fishing Salmon and Brown Trout day and night.


  “In that way, Ralph, you’re lucky, you’ve always had all the time you wanted for yourself.”

  “Appearances can be quite deceptive, but from now on I will have time only for Caitlin.”

  Attention – loving kindness – sunshine – rain – gales – snow and sea-stillness in the soul.

  “But you’ll still find time to paint, and you match each other, that’s obvious.”

  His benevolence and spontaneous relief – an offering of friendship.

  “Thanks, and we might as well tell you now that we are going to get married.”

  “Congratulations, dear me, are you?”

  Jessie displayed a typical reaction to the blessed news of a wedding by a smile that softened the traces of hardship – engraved in her face by having had to support her husband throughout his turbulent career as well as by having taken care of her children daily – as she enclosed them both in a maternal embrace of empathy.

  “And of course we hope you’ll come, and Seymour, here’s a bottle of Port from our cavern.”

  Her innate self-assurance and grace shouldered naturally the social yokes he feared.

  “We would love to – ”

  “Oh thanks, let me see. Vintage, eighty-three. You know, you could not have found anything better than this for when I come home after a long day of dealing with the misfortune of humankind, I love to sit with both feet in front of the fire, think of nothing whatsoever and absorb myself in the fiery and mellow flavours of a good old Port. It’s a purifying process and I feel refreshed afterwards, even absolved from cares, or rather they have been put in a proper perspective, but what’s this smell? You had better have a look at the salmon, my dear.”

  Caitlin had not yet shed all her concern about how Seymour’s knowledge of what she used to do might influence his attitude towards her but preconceived ideas could not influence the pristine impressions he now had of her as a woman and seeing the nature of his honest appreciation attenuated her misgivings.

  “Let’s put this bottle away in the cellar before it gets too cloudy.”

  Seymour took him by the arm – for confidence – and he followed him downstairs on steps polished by the feet of Jessie’s trusty ancestors – or rather maybe by their trusty servants’ – into the low Queen Anne cellar where the walls still remembered what they had seen and heard.