Page 92 of The Phoenix Bride
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Jan and I wander often nowadays. So many of the places we used to frequent are closed. The coffeehouse on Temple Bar burned down, as did our favorite alehouse.
We usually end up going to the river, where we buy pastries and sack from a street vendor. This evening, many have had the same thought, and a large crowd of people mills near the water. A busker is performing magic tricks with cards. Jan insists on watching for far longer than necessary.
Afterward, we stroll west, toward the scaffolding and char, where the city has begun rising from its ashes. The damage is still arresting to see, despite the rebuilding efforts; a scar on London, a black hollow carved out like excised flesh.
Jan looks up at the skeletal remains of an inn. “Despite all that happened here, there is something beautiful about it,” he says.
“How so?”
“The burned buildings, next to those being rebuilt. What has been lost, what has been gained. Perhaps soon we will repair the damage in full, and ultimately be better for it.”
“How can we be better for it?” I ask. “So many have suffered.”
“I suppose so. But there is joy in our release from that suffering, is there not? Joy in recovery?”
We continue. Gulls swoop ahead, while barges drift listlessly across the water. We pause at the river’s edge to watch the sun as it sinks.
“David,” Jan says. “I think we must speak of it.”
“Speak of what?”
“It has been eight months. You are as bad as you were in September.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I reply, although I do. Of course, I do.
“You can’t run away from this. You can’t move on from her if you don’t acknowledge what happened.”
“There’s nothing to move on from.”
He makes an aggravated sound and tears a few crumbs from his pastry, flinging them to the river. A crowd of birds descends immediately, eager scavengers, clawing at each other in violent hunger.
His concern stings like lye. And it is childish, I know that, but I turn from him and start walking away.
Jan gives a cry of frustration and chases after me. “For God’s sake,” he says. “Surely you must realize how ridiculous this is.”
He sees something then, and his mouth snaps shut, eyes widening. I follow his gaze. He is watching one of the barges in the river. Like him, I recognize it immediately. It is unusually colorful, made of turquoise-painted wood, with a plum-colored canopy. There are a good number of people crowded on it, brightly dressed and obviously wealthy: gentlemen in wigs and embroidered jackets; ladies in vivid gowns and glittering jewelry, fluttering gilded fans that flash like flames in the light of the sunset. And one of those ladies is Cecilia, like a memory of a dream, tipping her head back to catch the wind.
Even at this distance, I know it is her. She is wearing a low-necked, sky-blue dress, with pink silk slashed into the sleeves.Everything about her is exuberant, excessive: her hair, tightly curled, springs to escape from its pins; her pearl earrings spin ardently as she turns her head, so large I can see them even from the riverbank; her lips are confected cherry-red with rouge, her cheeks the same. She is almost unreal. For a fleeting moment I recognize her no more than I would a stranger—but she is not one. She is Cecilia, still.
“David…” Jan says, laying his hand on my arm, but I am not listening to him. Like a fish on a line, I am pulled to the water’s edge, watching the barge as it makes its inexorable journey past us. Cecilia turns to Grey, who is standing beside her; he looks exactly as he did when last we spoke, cherubic and smiling. She says something excitedly to him. He nods and laughs. Neither of them takes notice of me. Why would they? I am only another member of the common crowd, staring at them in envy, imagining himself among the passengers. It is like observing a painting, or a stage play. We are in separate worlds. She is not real.
The barge continues east. The Thames tugs her away from me, smiling, unknowing. I watch her leave from the bank, and my denial leaves with her. Nothing has changed. I am with her beneath the linden, in Saint James’s Park, in a bed in her husband’s house. I am listening to her music and her laughter and her hushed-voice desperation, as she asks me if I love her.
“David,” Jan says again. “David, she is gone. David, listen to me.”
He is wrong: She isn’t gone. Cecilia is still with me, and she will be always. It doesn’t matter what I do. There is no wound to be healed. She is a gap, an emptiness, a limb amputated. If I do nothing, I will live my life around the space that she has left.
I look at Jan.
I say, “Forgive me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you are right,” I tell him. “It’s time I stopped running.”
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