NOIR-vember_ BRIGHT MIRAGE

 BRIGHT MIRAGE

{A Beware the Jade Christmas Interlude}

1000 words

 “To live in hearts we leave behind 

is not to die.”

– Ingrid Durtz

Lucas often told me behind enemy lines that I was like Anna Karenina,  

the kind of woman that if you want to kill, you have to hit with a train.

I wondered if those words haunted him when I died in his arms.   

Since possessing this young policewoman’s body three months ago here in New Orleans, I have never asked.

We have talked about that which really matters.

That first night after the Le Prete murders when I awakened in this body in that horrid mansion, 

we had a wide-ranging conversation:

We talked about love, fate, and everybody’s inability to truly leave the past behind. 

It was all said in a simple kiss that had my lungs feeling as if they were going to burst through my chest.

I put the last candle on the Yule tree in my modest room in the Ponchartrain Hotel, 

courtesy of Lucas who needlessly refused to tarnish my reputation with my sharing his own suite.

 

When you have died and reawakened in another’s body, a tarnished reputation was the least of your worries.   

Being alone with the dread that I would return to the Darkness was the chief.

Perhaps that was why I was celebrating Saint Lucia’s Feast this thirteenth of December as I had as a little girl in Sweden.

I softly sang:

Natten går tunga fjät 

(The Night steps heavily)

Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring

(Saint Lucia, bright mirage)

Ute är mörkt och kallt

(Outside, it's dark and cold). 

There was a knock on the door.  I sighed.   

My table was not yet fully set.   

The lussekatt, the traditional holiday rich, spiced sweet bun flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg, still hadn’t arrived from the bakery.

I opened the door to a startled Harry Stills.

“What the blazes?” 

Harry was the hotel detective. 

He was a wiry man whose seamed face said he’d seen more than he wanted, had cared more than was wise.  

 Harry wisely trusted Irene Dupré, the actress, not at all 

and looked upon me as the daughter he’d lost in 1920 to the Spanish Flu which killed anywhere from 3 to 6% of the world’s population.

“Your hair’s on fire!”

I shook my head with its candled-adorned halo.  

 “No, Harry.  Tonight is the Feast of St. Lucia. I am dressed like her, and this Christmas Tree is ablaze with her candles.”

He darted in my room, shutting the door behind him.   

“Honey, you’re lucky you got me riding shotgun for you. The management catches you lighting fires in your room, and it won’t be your room!”

I patted his face.  

 “I was an O.S.S. agent, Harry.  I burn down a building only when I mean to.”

I walked to the table, picked up a goblet, and handed it to him. 

 “Here, have some spiced Glögg.  

 Its name means ‘glow,’ and being served warm and made up of red wine, port, and brandy, it will certainly add a glow to your chest.”

Harry eyed my tree, counting the candles silently. “There’s an empty spot in the center.”

“That is its heart where a very special item is placed.”

He hesitantly withdrew a faded scarlet ribbon whose gilt edges were nearly invisible.  

 “This was Ruthie’s favorite Christmas ribbon.  I’ve nearly worn it away, thinking of her over the years.”

His wet eyes blinked,

“I've just about worn it out, but it was worn out with love, and that's the best kind of worn-out. Maybe we're all like this ribbon. 

Maybe there really isn't any such thing as mortality.  Life simply wears us out with love.”

Nazi bullets had ended me, but this was Christmas, and my gift to Harry was to allow him to warm himself in this bright mirage.

I kissed his cheek. 

 I forgot how spiritual Harry was despite his police past.   

I’d been raised a Methodist where the highest sacrament was the bake sale.

The door opened without any knocking.  

 Irene Dupré, the lover of my dead sister, Marta. 

 She was as unbalanced and deadly as the Cheshire Cat, but Marta always fell for the dangerous ones.

Irene elegantly walked towards us in a gossamer gown, speaking in a voice like the Taj Mahal by moonlight.

 “You came back from the grave while my Marta is denied me.  You look so much like her.   

The sight of you quickens my heart yet wounds it in the self-same moment. I hate you.”

Only then did I notice the Luger in her hand.

Harry reached into the pocket where he kept his gun.  I shook my head.  He would not reach it in time.

Irene’s insane eyes met mine.

The synchronic circles of our pasts triggered a lethal domino-fall, 

and the steady clinking grew until it drowned any possible words I could say with the silent thunder of consequence.  

 Still, I spoke, for Lucas could not survive me dying again without him.

“You can let grief destroy you.  Or you can realize that every moment of the love you shared 

possessed more meaning than you realized. The laughter of each day you took for granted was priceless.”

The Luger trembled.

 I continued.

“One day you will be driven to your knees.  Not by grief, but by gratitude for what preceded this loss. 

The ache will always be there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, would be to disrespect the gift of the love you shared with Marta.”

Irene husked, “It is like listening to Marta.  For that ….”

She pocketed the Luger.  

 “I will let you live if for nothing else than to hear the echoes of her voice.”

She turned, walking out of my room into the night.

Harry rasped, “You know the difference between an asshole and an anus?”

I shook my head.

“An anus can’t point a Luger at you."

The laughter that followed was Harry’s Christmas gift to me.