by Lily Velez
It was as if Jeremie had spoken an incantation, for, much to his surprise, a place did begin to emerge from Noah’s thoughts then, sleepily waking from dormancy as if shaking off a one-hundred-year enchantment.
Lyon, France.
A sister, Aimee, had made her home there a year ago, as a way to escape the nasty gossip surrounding her when she’d inexplicably broken off her engagement to a well-off merchant. It was a two-day trip by horse and carriage, and while Noah had never been there, Aimee wrote often about the beauty of the countryside: its vineyards, its valleys of wildflowers, its endless, emerald hills. These days, she managed a ranch (the land existing under their father’s name, of course, as women were prohibited from owning property), and over a dozen horses in their last years were now in her care.
In her letters, she’d describe each new addition to Noah, knowing he’d find the details of interest. So, too, did she regularly invite him to visit, complaining that the local farrier was a grouch of a man who was impatient with the horses and half-hearted in his craftsmanship. Furthermore, he charged exorbitant fees. No doubt, she wrote, because she was a woman and he therefore assumed her incapable of judging what constituted as a fair price.
I find the men here to be no different than the men of Avignon, said her letter. Fearful of a woman with anything more than half a mind, as if she’s so frightening a creature.
In her last letter, which had arrived just before the spring, she’d described having learned about a college of something called veterinary science, where students were taught how to treat livestock diseases. It was located in the city—the first of its kind—and she felt it might appeal to Noah. Again she asked when he planned to visit.
“That sounds like it would suit you,” Jeremie said. “What has stopped you then?”
The reasons were many. For one, he was hardly the university sort. He wasn’t of Jeremie’s breeding and would be as conspicuous as a fox in a hen house at such an institution. He also didn’t have the funds for such an endeavor. The majority of what he made from farriery was either invested in the maintenance of his tools or given to his mother and father. Whatever was left over amounted to less than the small fortune collecting at the bottom of the wishing fountain at Avignon’s center.
Perhaps the biggest reason, though, was simply his concern for his family. Who would complete his chores if he were gone? And who would shoe the horses of Avignon? The blacksmith? It would inconvenience him, just as Noah’s absence would inconvenience his family. They needed him. They depended on him.
Aimee had left out of necessity. Her future would’ve lain in ruins had she remained in Avignon. Noah didn’t have such a need. Any abandonment on his part would arise purely out of selfishness.
No, this is where he belonged, and so this is where he would stay. He didn’t think he’d even know how to live on his own. The mere thought was intimidating.
He realized Jeremie was watching him, still waiting for an answer. He shook his head as if to dismiss the question.
“It’s complicated,” Jeremie concluded. “Such matters often are. Dreams can be troubling things, can’t they? I know. I know. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that they’re most certainly worth fighting for, no matter the costs.”
And then there it was again, that sadness in his eyes Noah had first observed what seemed so long ago. This time, it lingered, casting a spell over Jeremie’s hardening features as if turning him to stone. Even when they’d eventually pulled away from the bridge, the remaining rays of dying light spilling all over the stone buildings of Avignon, casting them in a heavenly glow, even when they’d returned to the bookshop, even as they’d finished their shelving for the day, the sadness in Jeremie’s eyes remained, and Noah wanted to ask after it like he’d never wanted to ask after anything before, the question pressing against his temples impatiently, pulling at his tongue, knocking against his lips.
But he never did.
11
Often, Noah and Jeremie would walk about Avignon, leisurely wandering along the town’s knitwork of roads as their shadows gradually lengthened across the uneven cobblestones. Jeremie, who dwelled in the apartment above his bookshop, didn’t spend as much time in his living quarters as he did outside of it, as was apparent in the number of people he greeted by name in passing. Seeing someone with whom he was acquainted, he would pause and trade pleasantries, asking the person about their family and, if applicable, their store.
Noah watched each person come to life in Jeremie’s presence, like flowers opening up and turning toward the sun, as if his interest in their affairs had revived them from the hypnosis of mundanity. Observing it, guilt nagged at him. He hadn’t known, for instance, that the Rocheforts were grieving a recent stillbirth, or that Monsieur Houde’s son had traveled to America for new opportunities, or that Madame Vernier was closing down her flower shop indefinitely, weakened by a sudden illness. Jeremie, however, knew every detail, navigating the conversations with ease. Noah remained silent at his side, thinking he knew the horses of Avignon better than he knew its own people.
Jeremie, too, enjoyed exploring the town’s history. At the papal palace, he’d stood in speechless wonder of the mighty fortress, hailed as the largest Gothic palace in all of Europe with its twelve, indomitable towers and crenellated walls. Centuries ago, it’d served as the seat of Western Christianity. Now it was nothing more than a military barracks and prison.
“Did you know,” Jeremie said, “that the papal library once housed here was the largest in Europe at the time? Clerics would flock to these wondrous halls to study belles-lettres.”
They regularly visited Rocher des Doms as well, a rocky outcrop behind the papal palace that rose high above the earth and gave one the feeling of being on top of the world. The views were without equal. In the distance, Mont Ventoux loomed like a colossal, blue spike on the horizon’s backbone, and a patchwork of rooftops, vineyards, and greenery stretched south toward the coast, the Rhône curling along beside the landscapes like a thick snake.
One afternoon on the bluff, they watched on the fringes of a gravelly court as a group of elderly men played a game of boules. Sunlight painted the tree leaves a soft yellow, the earth dappled with long patches to match. It was as hot as a fever outside, enough to parch a throat, but the air from this height was refreshing, and the ample shade made for a cool refuge.
“What are the rules?” Jeremie asked Noah regarding the game.
Noah explained that each man was purposed with the task of rolling a heavy, metal ball—a boule—as close as possible to a smaller target ball at the court’s center. Whoever drew closest to the target ball scored a point, and thirteen points won the game.
Currently, the men were unwinding a globe of string.
“What’s going on now?”
The men had disagreed on who’d come closest to the target ball during this turn, Noah said, and so were measuring with a thread to settle the argument.
When the winner was declared, his opponent shook his head at what he’d decided was an unjust ruling. “Tricheur,” he accused, walking away.
The winner called after him—there was another game to play—but his opponent continued to shake his head all the way down to the ground level. The winner waved a dismissive hand. Then he saw Jeremie and Noah, and his countenance lifted.
He held out a boule toward them as an invitation.
“He wants us to play?” Jeremie gladly took it, passing the ball from one hand to the other as if to get a feel for it.
The elderly man explained that Noah and Jeremie would make up one team, and he and another friend would make up the other.
Jeremie’s enthusiasm was practically tangible. Noah sometimes wondered where he derived the energy to approach everything with such vivacious curiosity. He was the same way at the open-air markets, his passage through them very much stop-and-go. He had to know everything about every merchant’s wares: how it’d been made, how long it’d taken, where the materials
had come from.
He walked across the court and assumed the spot the elderly man pointed out once his turn came. As he readied himself, he checked in with Noah to ensure he had good form—were his feet placed correctly, and what did he need to keep in mind, and how should he throw? Finally, he rolled the boule, and in a strike of beginner’s luck, he managed to cruise in impressively close to the target ball but still not as close as their opponent’s boule. Nonetheless, he let out an exclamation of happy surprise. The elderly man clapped him on the shoulder, nodding encouragingly.
Noah was next. The metal ball was warm in his palm from use. It was smooth, too, as if it’d been fashioned from clay. It was about the size of an orange and weighed no more than a few horseshoes. He reached down to coat his hands with some of the court’s dust. Then he concentrated on his target, calibrating his aim. After a few moments, he swung his arm and tossed his boule forward. It pitched into the air in a balletic arc before crashing down and rolling smoothly along the ground, the gravel popping under its weight until, with a loud and simple clack, the boule struck the one the elderly man had rolled, effectively shoving it away so that Jeremie’s was closest.
The elderly man and his companion gave a friendly outcry.
“How on earth did you make such a perfect throw?” Jeremie asked.
“Don’t you know?” was the elderly man’s response. “Every small town boy grows up learning to play boules.”
They continued playing until the elderly man and his friend won their thirteen points. Jeremie laughed throughout. It was a glaring contrast from his puzzling melancholy from just days ago, and far more preferable. Noah wanted him to remain this way. Any other manner of being simply didn’t suit him.
Perhaps that’s why, when Jeremie tossed Noah a boule and insisted they stay for another game, Noah decided his chores back home could wait a while longer. Perhaps it’s why, when Jeremie, with his infectious laugh, said he would compete against Noah next and perhaps find a way to beat him, “unless you’re hiding away yet another trick”, Noah’s lips stretched into something he hadn’t worn in some time: a smile.
12
It was the Pont d’Avignon they most haunted, however.
They would stand on the bridge as night swept the day away, the sun dipping behind the edge of the world, bleeding rays of light, staining the day with the color of peaches as if with spilled paint. As the light continued to fade, breeding shadows throughout Avignon, the sky blushed pink and then eventually darkened into amethyst, and the steeples, spires, and towers of the town became long, slender paintbrushes delicately coloring the heavens. Then the first stars emerged, shimmering like jewels on the moon’s dark nightgown.
“I was surprised to learn Avignon didn’t already have a bookshop by the time I’d arrived,” Jeremie said one evening. “But it won’t be long now before it does.”
Noah was gazing down at the Rhône. Muted colors floated on its surface, the reflection of the glowing sky undulating in its ripples. A church bell howled from far off. It sounded like the final warning at a soul’s midnight hour, or like the lament for one that hadn’t heeded the call. Beyond the tolling, horses plodded through the town, pulling carts and wagons on squeaking, rickety wheels, their horseshoes beating a clip-clop melody on the cobblestones.
“Do you think it’ll be successful?”
Noah said he saw no reason why it wouldn’t be. While he couldn’t guess at the reading habits of Avignon’s denizens, he had the fullest confidence in Jeremie’s unmatched ability to make connections. He would have no trouble locating those in search of rare and antique novelties, whether his patrons emerged from the townspeople themselves or from the city-dwellers who abandoned Paris to summer in the south of France each year.
“I only hope it’s as successful as I always dreamed a bookshop of my own would be. I’ve pinned so much on this endeavor. There are those who expect me to return home and admit defeat. I won’t. I can’t. Not even if I ended up penniless. Poverty doesn’t at all scare me. Only a passionless life.”
13
Whenever Jeremie visited the Capets, he always stayed for supper. Noah’s mother would have it no other way. He’d been so woven into the fabric of their lives that the chair he’d come to assume around the table spoke too loudly whenever he was absent.
On one such evening, Noah and Jeremie sat on the farmhouse porch, the smell of the waiting meal inside wrapping around them like comforting blankets. Noah caught the scent of pie and could already feel the warm, flaky crust melt upon his tongue. He continued cleaning the sweat from his face and arms over a basin, cool streamlets of water dripping from his elbows. It had been a long work day, and he was ready for a hot meal and a full night’s rest.
Jeremie meanwhile read aloud from one of his books of poetry.
“Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
“Ask me no more where those stars 'light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
“Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.”
“For in your eyes, the stars sit,” Jeremie repeated to himself. “What a magnificent line of poetry. One might say the same about your own eyes, Noah.”
Noah, his frame propped up against a pillar as if he might otherwise collapse from exhaustion, wasn’t quick to agree.
“As I said when we first met, your eyes are stunning. I’ve never met anyone with eyes like yours. People give pause when you lay your gaze upon them.”
Noah said he didn’t think the pause hailed from admiration.
“It should,” Jeremie said simply. His words were soft and languid like a lazy stream, like it was an offhand remark so easily delivered.
Noah, not sure what to make of it, looked his way, but Jeremie’s attention had already switched to the night sky, where a full moon lit up the firmament with her pale, round face amidst a crowd of flickering stars.
After the day’s long glare, the coolness of the evening was like water to a parched throat. A tranquil stillness overcame the farmland, the song of the cicadas filling the night, their music like grains of dry rice inside a child’s shaking rattle. In the west, a wind stroked the wheat fields, dividing them as if with a comb. A small fraction of those fields lay flat and bare, as if they’d broken the fall of some giant who’d plummeted from the sky. In truth, it was only the section of wheat Noah’s father and brothers had begun harvesting.
“It’s a pity,” Jeremie said, closing his book over a finger, eyes still stuck on the darkness above. “The sun and the moon share the same sky, they trace each other’s path every day, and yet they’ll never truly know the company of the other’s presence.”
Noah, wringing out the washcloth over the basin and then setting it on a step to dry, said he didn’t think they were supposed to.
“Logically speaking, yes. But I still find it tragic. And almost every culture known to man has some sort of mythology to explain this eternal separation of the two. Some say they’re a quarreling husband and wife. Others estranged siblings. Then there are those who say they’re forbidden lovers.
“One such legend describes a time from long ago, when gods still walked the earth. The sun was a prince back then who’d fallen in love with the daughter of the Night, but when he asked for her hand in marriage, the Night forbade it. Undeterred, the prince laid a trap for the Night, knowing the daughter would be free to marry whomever she pleased if her father didn’t exist to prohibit it. He held a glorious banquet in his palace in the Night’s honor, and when he received word that the Night and his attendants were secure within the palace walls, he ordered that the palace be set afire.
&nbs
p; “What the prince didn’t know was that his beloved had accompanied her father that night. She perished in the fire, her beauty reduced to ash. When the gods learned of this grievous act, they banished the prince. He had used fire to steal the lives of others and now he would be doomed to spend the rest of his days walking amongst a burning kingdom in the sky.
“His beloved they took pity on. They laid her to rest in a tomb among the stars, and to further punish the prince, the tomb would always be just outside his reach. With every step toward it, the tomb would retreat. With the passage of days, he would also see the tomb wane until it altogether disappeared from the sky—only to reappear and repeat the cycle for eternity: a permanent reminder of the way he’d erased his beloved’s life from all existence.”
He paused. “Can you imagine,” he said, “having to spend an eternity parted from the one you love the most? I can think of no greater torment.”
Noah looked up. High in the sky, the moon hung like a portrait on a dark wall, watching on. Perhaps even sadly.
By this point, Camilla had changed her tune where it concerned Jeremie, feigning disinterest in him, certain this would surely win her his attention.
“He’s only playing a game the way some men do,” Noah overheard her say to their sisters once as they practiced their needlework. “Men, driven creatures that they are, enjoy the pursuit, and so you have to humor them in these things. The more I pay him no mind, the more he’ll realize his desire for me. It won’t be long until he asks Papá permission to call on me. You’ll see.”
Little did she know that lately, when they were gathered around the table where they shared their meals, whenever Noah lifted his gaze from his plate, it was Noah to whom Jeremie’s eyes had strayed, Noah to whom he offered a smile unlike the ready smiles he supplied to all others, and in those simple, veiled moments, moments that continued to go unnoticed by Noah’s kin, it was as if they were co-conspirators holding a secret between them, even as Noah didn’t quite fully understand what the secret was.