A Life In A Moment (18 page)

Miraculously,
I managed to somehow find my way to Pavlos’ house. My memory
captured only random fragments: getting into the car, then a hospital
entrance, Samantha wailing, Pavlos holding her.

In the
hospital washroom, I tried to wash the tears from the face looking
back at me in the mirror. The pale face was crumpled and lined,
glazed eyes bloodshot, and hair shocked white that very hour.

Like
a man gone mad, I invented crazy rationalisations to explain it away.
We had once promised to live together to
a ripe old age. That must be it! I grew old before I was supposed to,
so our promise has been fulfilled. There’s simply no other
explanation for her going away without me!
I
thought.

Back in
the waiting room, my eye caught the date on the wall calendar. July
21st. Laughter careened out from my chest, tearing and ripping
through the middle of my grief. Samantha and Pavlos looked on in
horror at what they could only see as derangement and brokenness.
They would never have understood. Only Angelique would have laughed
with me at the sick, sad satire that fate had played on us again...

56

She loved
fire, because it redeems the soul and sets the spirit free. I knew
this was how she would wish to go. How could Angelique, so much
larger than life, be contained inside such a small, small box? 

Though
perhaps I was fated to live out many more days, my life had now come
to its end. I lost track of time. My memory leaked. My throat ached
constantly, and my right hand was perplexingly numb.

 
Someone
had once told me
that
 every
human being has two hearts. One beats inside his chest, and the other
somewhere else. No matter which one stops first, the man dies. That’s
how I died. And when I tied this up with what Angelique’s
father had told me, I understood anew.
Your
lives are bound up in a metaphysical knot. You two will never
separate. 

Somehow, I
found myself in Greece, at the house by the sea. It was summer, but
whether it was the same summer or the next one, I never knew. I was
back again. In the same house, with the same furniture, the same
view, the same solitude. It was as though fifteen years had never
passed. There was no betrayal, no wondrous new life in London.

I leaned
over the veranda railing to breathe in the sea below. Just as she had
done five years ago, spellbound. I closed my eyes and found her
standing wordlessly beside me, eyes shut tight against the wind. I
had always wanted to believe she was fragile. Porcelain. The wind
caught her hair in its hands, tousling and trailing it out behind
her, teasing loose a flutter of feathers. When I tore my eyes open to
see her, she flew away. I didn’t know that when you open your
eyes, souls fly away, like birds glimpsing captivity.

My life
journey started here, in this house, and ends here. And since I’m
going away again, I am contemplating taking it with me — a gift
for Angelique, wrapped in  fire. I’ll give her the most
magnificent fire she’s ever seen. I don’t want to arrive
in Paradise empty-handed. 

Everything
smells of petrol — another anointing. Everything is ready. I
strike the match, and let it fall to the ground, petrol-soaked.
Immediately, fire sets off on a psychedelic, meandering route through
the house, the oil seducing the flames in an unearthly dance.

With the
fire raging and shouting behind me, I tuck the fragile porcelain urn
under my arm, and climb up onto the balustrade. Opening it, I throw
the ashes into the wind, dusting the ends of the world in a blessing.
I turn my back to the fire and close my eyes. I hear the sea crashing
and roaring beneath me. Infinitely, deliberately slowly, I allow
gravity to pull me down, towards the tumult of sea and rock below.

My
love, I am coming to find you...

57

Time
rushes to stop my fall. Suspended a metre above the rocks, I feel
salt burning my eyes and my nostrils. 

No matter
how long this narration lasted, in reality it is only a moment. This
moment. My life just flashed before my eyes in a fragmented film of
spliced-together memories. A whole life in a moment. 

Once time
drops me, only the rocks will catch me. This will be the end. The end
of me. The end of my story. Devoured by fire, the house will crumble
and crash into the sea. The waves will wash my blood far away. My
eyes will close forever. My soul, set free, will spread its wings. It
will fly the only route that had ever been charted for her. To
Angelique.

And as my
beloved French girl is now waiting in horizon’s embrace, where
we arranged to meet, where years and dreams reconcile, where kisses
and words die abreast, then that is to where my soul will run...

THE END

A message from the writer:

Thank you very much for buying and reading this book. I hope you
enjoyed it!

Please,
feel free to connect with me online and send me your message on
my
personal website
.

I would also like to express my special thanks to Roger, Julia,
Anne and Richard for their great help in the adaptation of the
English version.

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