I listen to the sound of raindrops falling sadly and slowly. You weigh upon my heart.
You are the red leaf come to rest upon my walk, I haven’t the heart to brush off—and so you remain.
And the wind is kind to your memory as well.
I thought you indifferent—that’s all—and wounded too, as far as eyes could tell—but I was wrong, and now you’re gone.
You were my obsession, Mara, and I remember each of your careless gestures and how they made a melody inside me of sad carelessness.
I listen to Eric Satie’s Gymnopédie No. I, and alternate between piano notes and the sound of raindrops falling sadly and slowly—and cannot tell, nor do I care, where the one begins, or the other ends.
I made a space for you in my heart—where I thought you’d be happy, but can’t imagine how we can ever meet, let alone talk, now that you’re gone.
I need you to haunt me.
“You’re afflicted with love sickness, my friend”
Bookman peers at me over silver rimmed glasses, and comes down from a ladder dusting a tome’s tooled leather cover.
He shakes his head sadly as if chiding my right to grief, sighing as many tsks as the Moon sprinkles stars for asterisks.
I know I’m a romantic, but what can I do?
“And now, what will I do with you, Walter? You’ll perpetuate her tormenting spirit in life-long grief because you’re a romantic. Only a young man of such ideals would be so fetishistic as to build a shrine and plan to read Cyrano in her memory every spring.”
“She was my Roxanne,” I protest.
He shrugs, “As I said, a most idealistic young man—but a fool nonetheless. She’s gone and you missed your chance.”
“I think she knew, Bookman—in fact, I’m sure she did. My soul reached hers across the ether.”
He pauses at the counter, puts down the book and stares through the shop window out into the shining streets.
“It’s raining again—appropriate, somehow—as the ancients said, tears for things.”
“Of course there will be tears for her,” I muse.
“No, Walter—that’s a pathetic fallacy, and you—well, you’re such a pathetic young fellow. As I asked before, what will come of this now?”
“I’m not sure it matters—it didn’t when she was here. We communed in the spirit, my soul touching hers.”
Bookman’s eyes flashed. “She was a jumper, Walter. It took the city hours to clean up the blood from the subway tunnel. Don’t idealize her death.”
“She’s not there—her flesh perhaps—but her spirit’s fled to heaven and is stamped out in stars.”
Bookman reaches down beneath the counter and fishes out a bottle of Old Overholt Rye and produces two tumblers. “Shall we drink to her?”
I nod and come around the counter and sit on the stool beside him.
He hands me my glass. “You should make the toast, Walter.”
I stare at him blankly. “I have no idea what to say.”
“Tell me about her. Recall a memory.”
I close my eyes and think of the first time I saw her.
“I was walking down Yonge Street in the wind—past bleary windows and chestnut sellers. A young girl, honey-colored hair, camel coat, came towards me, smiling.”
Bookman raises his glass to mine. “To the young girl who walked in beauty.”
I grab his wrist. “No wait—there was more than just beauty.”
The old man shuts his eyes in reverence, “Go on, my young friend—honor her memory.”
“She made no attempt to tuck in the stray ends of her hair—it was lovely to see it floating and tumbling on the breeze and spinning to nothingness in the air.”
“Shall we toast her careless beauty?”
I frown remembering. “She was happy then—did I say her cheeks were rosy?”
“You didn’t, but now, you did. And I can picture her clearly.”
“Did I tell you she haunts me?”
The whiskey sloshes against the glass rim, inches from Bookman’s lips. He sets down the tumbler and stares at me.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Last night I had a dream where we met and conversed. When I awoke, I thought it was over, but when I passed the hallway mirror, she was there.”
“Did she speak to you again when you were awake?”
“She did.” I smile at the memory of it.
“Do you know why I cautioned you about love madness, Walter? It’s dangerous—it opens the door to tormenting spirits—and you already have a tendency to worship women.”
I stop my ears and refuse to hear his warnings.
“Go ahead—think me demonized. I don’t care. The truth is, I’ve been channeling her for some time—for months before she passed.”
Bookman is scandalized. “You have been doing this dark thing without telling me—Why?”
"I wanted to tell you, but when made public, love rarely endures".
“Ah, so you’ve read, De Amore, my young friend—but be careful—it’s powerful magic, some might say, wormwood.”
“She’s all I have, Bookman. Is it so abnormal for a lonely man to obsesses about a female co-worker?”
He shushes my objections with a wafture of a heavily veined, almost transparent hand.
“Tell me how you went about it, Walter. Did you employ black arts?”
“You think I’d stoop to occult means to conjure her semblance?” I sneer at the old man.
He’s undeterred and repeats in a calm tone, “I want to know how you did it.”
I throw up my hands in exasperation. “I’ll be damned if I know how I contacted her. It began I suppose by finding a picture of her on one of her girlfriend’s Facebook pages. I copied it and made it my desktop wallpaper.”
“I see,” Bookman muttered, “—a fetish.”
I ignored him and continued my explanation.
“I began thinking of her at night when I went to bed – invented various scenarios in my head where we’d bump into each other in malls or bars and end up spending the evening together. It was a pleasant diversion—and hers was the last face I’d see each night before I fell to sleep.”
The old man shook his head sadly. “So, you’ve been obsessing about her for months until she becomes a habit, and then a concrete idea. In a sense, one could say, you enslaved her.”
The idea enrages me. “What do you think I am—some disgusting night crawler or stalker? Yes, this was some grand obsession, and yes, of course, it was totally unreal—but face it—so too are most of our lives. It wasn’t as if I wanted another man’s wife—I simply wanted my own life. I was walking alone on midnight streets surrounded by the colored windows of other people’s lives.”
Bookman goes quiet and rasps in a barely audible whisper, “But it was a fantasy, Walter—a dreamland.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I admit it—it was a fantasy. But a normal man, on average, spends twenty years of his life daydreaming. So why not me—and why not daydream of her? Why should she not be my grand obsession? Would you have preferred I wasted my life on unworthy concerns? No, I chose to spend my time obsessing about her.”
The old man picks up his rye and salutes me in a mock toast.
“I drink to your solitary existence, my friend—shut in alone with your fantasy and your obsession.”
“You think so? Turn around, my friend. I’d like you to meet Mara Portinari.”
Bookman turns around, and stares into the shadows and sees something, just outside the circle of lamplight.
His jaw goes slack and the glass of rye tumbles from his hand and shatters on the floor.
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