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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.
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.
