The Memory of Lost Senses

by Judith Kinghorn

  “And he never discovered what became of them?” Sylvia asked.

  “Didn’t your mother say she ended up a duchess or something?” the woman broke in, addressing her husband.

  “That’s right!” He laughed; then, scratching his head, he said, “No, no, it weren’t Fanny Abel. ’Twas the girl, the girl what ended up a duchess.”

  Now Sylvia laughed too. “A duchess! Gracious me. But however did your mother hear that?”

  “Woodbridge is a small place, missus . . .”

  “Miss.”

  “Aye, Woodbridge is a small place, and she knew the family, see, some of the family at any rate. One of them had went off to work at . . .” He looked toward his wife.

  His wife stared back at him blankly for a moment; then she said, “Wasn’t it Jersey?”

  “Jersey, that’s it. He went off to be gardener to some folk at Jersey, but they must’ve had connections in Woodbridge, I reckon—imagine it’s how he got the job. Anyhow, they knew, must’ve known, because they were the ones it came from, the ones what told him. Imagine, eh? Imagine finding out that your own sister was aristocracy!”

  “Ah, so he was the girl’s brother, this gardener in Jersey?”

  He scratched his head again, looked back at his wife. “I think that were it, weren’t it? You remember better than me.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” his wife replied.

  “Aye, well, they’ll all long since be dead so we’ll never know now, but I fancy the notion that I’m related to the nobility,” he said, smiling and winking at Sylvia.

  “Fascinating. And your great-uncle, he died eventually at . . . at Woodbridge?”

  “He was locked up,” the woman replied quickly.

  “Locked up?”

  “Mm. Put away. Best thing for him,” she said, glancing from her husband to Sylvia. “He was a . . . a—”

  “Nothing were proven,” the farmer interrupted, suddenly raising his voice. “It weren’t proven and shouldn’t be repeated. Some silly young girl’s word against his.” He turned to Sylvia. “Best let sleeping dogs lie, eh?” he said. Then he raised his cap to Sylvia. “Good day to you, missus.”

  Walking back from the farm that day, Sylvia knew what she had to do. But, trying to look forward and not back, she struggled to contain her emotions, struggled with the knowledge that she had been the one to lie. The confirmation that Uncle John had not only existed but that he had lived to the age of ninety meant she owed Cora an entirely different story, one that absolved her and gave her back the life she could and should have had.

  But could she? Sylvia thought now; could Cora ever have had that life, the life she so wanted—with him, George? Sylvia reordered her thoughts. She did not want to think of her own intervention. She had made amends. She had given Cora that life, given it to her in a book begun as a memoir now rewritten as a work of fiction. Yes, she had given her back her life, something Cecily could never do. That was why she came to me, Sylvia thought, to sanction Cora’s memories, to fill in the gaps. You were there, Cecily had said. Yes, she had been there.

  When Cora married Edward Lawson at the town hall of the eighth arrondissement in Paris, three days after her fortieth birthday, she became stepmother to her son’s father, wife to his grandfather. But only Sylvia and Cora’s aunt knew this. Edward remained almost as oblivious as his son. And he, like others, was intoxicated by her—that aura of experience, that enigmatic smile. For Cora had lived, she had seen life, and felt it, too. And now she seemed to guard its secret. If one could only keep hold of her, pin her down. In the meantime, one could watch. Watch her. The way she spoke—to a waiter, a dignitary or a dear old friend—was something to behold. The way she tilted her head and blinked as she listened to those same people as they spoke to her; the way she drifted effortlessly from one language to another. And the places she knew and the people she quoted, and her knowledge, and empathy, that ability to relate to each and every person, no matter how extraordinary, no matter how mundane, as though she was completely captivated, immersed in their experience.

  And all the while George saw this. She belonged to him, and yet he had never owned her. He loved her, but he had thought he needed something more. Something he would see and know, something he would recognize when it presented itself to him. It had been her; it had been her but not her. How could it be her? He had walked away. How could it be her if he had walked away? And his father, pandering and fawning like a lovestruck adolescent—it was despicable, sickening. It had made him feel physically sick. Cora was almost young enough to be his granddaughter!

  And that day, that fateful day in Paris, when Cora married Edward, how bittersweet it had been. Even at the time, the marriage had had the scent of scandal about it. In ignorance, people’s main concern had been the fact that Edward, a longtime widower, respected member of the English establishment and father of England’s greatest painter, had elected to wed a woman almost three decades his junior, and one residing on the Continent, and one with a dubious past. For no one was quite sure of her credentials or where she hailed from. But it mattered not to Edward. He was in love, bewitched, mesmerized. No one in attendance at the nuptials could have been in any doubt about that.

  Cora’s son and her aunt were both present at her marriage, and a notable mix of artists, architects, English, French and Italian friends—including the Hilliers and George—attended a second ceremony at the British Embassy and a reception there afterward. It was unbearably hot: the temperature in Paris that summer’s day hit one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And though each of the long windows of the embassy rooms remained wide open, the air was stifling, oppressive.

  Circumnavigating the room, holding on to the arm of her new husband, Cora looked radiant and much too youthful, people commented, to be the mother of a young man. Edward smiled broadly, barely lifting his eyes from his new bride. And in his speech he thanked his son, George, for bringing himself and Cora together.

  That was when Sylvia noticed George’s expression, one she would later describe as “bewildered detachment.” He shuffled, looked down at the floor and kept pulling out his pocket watch, as though he needed to check the time of his next appointment. Oh, how Sylvia had felt for him! Whatever he had done to Cora it seemed cruel beyond words that she was standing there in front of him as his father’s bride—his stepmother.

  Was Edward Lawson aware? Sylvia had wondered. Did he know what had taken place—what was, perhaps, still taking place—between his son and his new wife? But surely it was obvious. It was to Sylvia. For she had studied them for years, followed the strange and fragile dynamic of this denied, ongoing and furtive love affair.

  When George shook his father’s hand, he simply said, “Congratulations, sir,” and then added, “I wish you both a long and happy life together.”

  “I only hope that one day, and in the not too distant future, you can find yourself a Cora,” Edward replied, red-faced, delirious with the occasion. “But I don’t suppose there is another Cora in the universe,” he added, gazing at his wife.

  No, there was not another Cora in the universe. How could there be? Who, other than Cora, would have had the vision, imagination and skill to invent such a character? For Cora had invented herself, and then reinvented herself again and again, honing and perfecting her creation, each one of her selves better than the one before. But she had had no choice. Robbed of identity early on in life, she had had to become someone else.

  And that day, all George could do was stand back and watch, like everyone else. Watch a woman who seemed only to improve with age.

  Sylvia was not sure if she was the only one to notice the one person Cora did not kiss on that her wedding day. They came face- to-face, stood and smiled at each other, but nothing more. And later, as everyone was leaving, bidding each other a weary adieu, and kissing once again, Sylvia saw them standing together in a corner. Cora had her hand upon George’s arm, and
it seemed to Sylvia as though George was refusing to look at her. Then, at last, he raised his eyes to her and smiled: a sad, affected smile. As Cora turned and walked away, toward Edward, George watched her intently, but she never looked back at him. Not once. Though Sylvia had willed her to.

  Later, Sylvia traveled back to the hotel with George, who seemed exhausted, monosyllabic. The hotel lobby had been busy and—“Much too hot to retire”—George suggested they take a nightcap together in the lounge. He ordered iced tea for them both and they sat in silence for some time, watching others come and go: the rigmaroles of travelers.

  “It was an elegant reception,” Sylvia said at last.

  “Mm, yes,” he replied, absently, gazing across the room.

  “I’m sure she’ll be happy . . . sure they’ll both be very happy.”

  He said nothing.

  “She looked very fine,” Sylvia persevered. “Everyone looked very fine.”

  He moved forward in his chair, placed his glass down upon the table in front of him, and with his eyes fixed on it, he said, “Why did you tell me those things, Sylvia? Why did you make up that story about Cora, all those years ago, and then tell me?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. Which particular story are you referring to?” she asked. “There have been quite a few, you know.”

  He lifted his head to look at her. “The one where Cora was wanted for murder. The one you told me in such extraordinary detail in the Piazza del Popolo that day. That story.”

  Sylvia glanced at the letter. She was unsure about opening it, reading it. Unsure what it would say. It could say so much, she thought. Until opened, it could say so much . . .

  And it was typical of Cora to have the final word. Even from beyond the grave she would have the final word. But there was a sense of unspent luxury to be derived from looking at the envelope, anticipating its contents, her words. It was bulky, clearly contained more than one sheet of paper, and the knowledge that it had been written some years ago was intriguing. It came from one who had not only gone, departed this life, but from another time also. It had been sealed by Cora, passed on to Cecily and then kept, stored in an unknown place through seasons and years, until now, when it had finally arrived at its destination, its intended recipient. There was something impossibly romantic about all of this to Sylvia. And, in a peculiar way, it seemed a shame to break the seal, open up the pages, read the words.

  Sylvia would wait; find the right moment. It deserved that. She deserved that.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The plane came down near Bixschoote, in Flanders. Others had seen him fall. That he had survived the crash was almost unimaginable, but not impossible. He was an accomplished pilot, without doubt one of the best. And he had already had a few “star turns,” earned his badge as a flying ace, shooting down more than a dozen enemy airplanes.

  Those working in the fields stopped. They raised their heads to the blood orange sky, to that halting, whirring sound. And as they watched its steady, smoking descent, they began to walk and then run across the flat earth. They saw it bounce and burst into flames, saw a figure emerge from the burning wreckage, stagger, and then fall. They took off tunics and shirts and jackets and smothered the flames. And then they carried the burned body back to the farmhouse of Monsieur and Madame Ricard.

  For a number of weeks—no one would ever know how many—the rescued pilot lay unconscious in a cellar in Flanders. When he finally opened his melted eyelids, he was unable to see, unable to hear, unable to speak. Badly burned, with broken legs, broken ribs, a broken shoulder and fractured wrists, he drifted in and out of consciousness for more weeks, oblivious to his surroundings, unaware of what had happened. When he did, eventually, gain consciousness, complete consciousness, he was unable to tell anyone his name, unable to remember. His memory had gone. But he had spoken, had uttered a few words the evening he was rescued, before he passed out.

  Monsieur and Madame Ricard’s daughter, Susanne, told him that when he was rescued, as the plane burned, he had told her that his name was Jacques, and later, in his delirium, he had spoken of a Cee-cee, or something sounding like that. But all clues to his identity—his uniform, any papers or documents he had had on him—had perished.

  Jacques’s recovery was slow. It was months before he was able to climb from his bed and stand on his feet, months before he was strong enough to learn to walk again. But as his physical wounds slowly healed, his mind began to throw things back to him, offering him snatches of nameless people and places, glimpses of moments: a church steeple, a village green; an elderly woman with a shock of white hair and piercingly brilliant blue eyes; and a girl, a young woman, whose lips he so wants to kiss.

  As time went on these things came back to him more, in dreams and, encouraged by him, in conscious moments, too. The elderly woman, the one with the white hair, speaks to him in French, and another woman—one he suspects is his mother, suspects has gone, died—sometimes appears at the foot of his bed. But the girl, the girl with the lips he longs to kiss, comes back to him more than anyone else. She smiles at him from shadows, in sunlight and moonlight, next to painted gates and sun-bleached canvas, sitting on a garden bench and lying back upon a bed. And she says his name: she says Jacques. He knows that this is the Cee, the Cee-cee. And in his dreams she stands very close to him, staring at him, smiling. She says, “Promise me . . . promise me.” She says, “Never ever forget.”

  But how many months have passed? He has no idea. No idea. He belongs nowhere, has nowhere to go. And though they continue to hide him, he catches time: colors changing, fallen leaves, snow, and then the thawing, a gradual warmth. He hears them speak of plowing, planting, and then harvesting. When Susanne returns from one of her meetings, she talks of a final push, and tells him, “It will be over soon, the war.” A final push, he thinks. But he can’t remember any war. Can’t remember where he came from, or who he is. And he sees only the scarred face of a stranger looking back at him from the glass.

  Susanne has nursed him, bathed his wounds and changed his dressings. She is the one who has fed him, brought him up from the cellar to look at the sky, the sunset. She is the one who helped him take those first steps through the pain. And she speaks to him in English. She says, “The body chooses how and when it heals itself. It chooses its time, like the mind. When the time is right, your memories will return.”

  But as summer slips to autumn, nothing comes: no parents, no siblings, no family. And Cee-cee continues to stare back at him, elusive, impossible for him to take hold of: “Never ever forget.”

  Lying in his bed, staring up at the cobwebbed beam, he hears the tail end of a conversation, one he has heard before, one that makes no sense. A woman says, “She is afraid of being discovered, being found.” Another asks, “Why?” The woman says something he can’t quite hear, and then, “My husband adored her.” But who are these people? And whom do they speak of? Later, when Susanne finds him sitting on the floor, weeping and surrounded by broken glass, she wraps her arms about his neck and holds him to her. She strokes his head, whispers in his ear, and she says his name: Jacques.

  She has a familiar softness, a scent similar to something before. And there’s a craving in him, a longing to languish in that softness, to taste and know that scent. But something stops him and he pulls away.

  “I’ll be dead to them all by now,” he says. “Forgotten . . . mourned and forgotten.”

  She shakes her head. “I think not, Jacques. I think there’s someone waiting. Don’t you?”

  He wanted to say yes, because he hoped that there was, and part of him—that irrational, instinctive, illogical part of him—knew that there was. Yes, Cee-cee was waiting. Somewhere. She was waiting. And in his dreams he wanted to take hold of her, tell her that he was alive and coming back to her, if only he could remember. He wanted to reach out and touch her and know that she was real, and maybe then he would remember who he was, ha
d been.

  He was sitting on the bench outside the farmhouse when he heard the noise. He could see Monsieur Ricard nearing, coming up the cypress-lined lane on his bicycle, ringing his bell and calling out, “Vive la France! Vive la France!”

  Unsteadily, he rose to his feet.

  “The war is over. Fini!” Monsieur Ricard shouted, dropping his bicycle to the ground. “Fini!” he said again, crossing his hands in front of himself. Then he grabbed Jacques by the shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks and rushed into the house. “C’est fini! C’est fini!”

  At the celebrations in the local village square, Jacques joined in with the others, drinking and singing and cheering “Vive la France!” and falling into the fountain wrapped in a flag not his own. And later, as dawn broke, standing by the gate to the farmyard, Susanne wrapped her arms around his neck again and said, “So, Jacques, do you want to kiss me?”

  It was a clumsy, drunken kiss, and only made his head spin more. But the sensation of another’s lips upon his own, of arms wrapped around him and a world spinning was too familiar. And as he pulled away, trying to steady himself, his mind, he saw two figures standing at the top of a purple-colored hill under a vast blue sky, kissing.

  “Cee-cee,” he murmured, “Cee-cee . . .”

  Susanne stepped back, listening, watching.

  “Cee-cee-ly . . . Cee-cee-ly,” he said, and he fell against the gate and dropped down to his knees. His head bent, he stared at the ground and didn’t speak. Then he raised his face, closed his eyes to the light and exhaled one word: “Cecily.”

  “Cecily? And who is Cecily?” Susanne asked, crouching down next to him.