Tears and Roses

To her who placed a veil between us and herself, and withdrew, building out of her solitude a fence around herself, depriving us of her great heart... to her I present "Tears and Roses"...

I returned with a trembling heart, waiting to see her after four years spent abroad... I returned with anxious eyes that wanted to see in reality what they had seen in dreams... I had left her a child more than a young woman; she was like a bud clothed in dew, beautiful as the morning, of whom I dreamed waking and sleeping, whom I sensed in silence and reverence, imagining her growing and opening into a dazzling, captivating beauty...

On the second day after my arrival I visited her father at his office, and he received me warmly, asking and answering, laughing and welcoming; and I almost lost my composure as I caught at his words, waiting for the one phrase I wanted to hear, when he said with a smile:

"I think your little friend 'Nana' will be very pleased with you, for all the height at which she carries her nose these days"...

I laughed and said with feigned calm:

"I have never known her to be haughty, and I will not believe that she is!"

He laughed out loud, then exclaimed, shaking me playfully by the shoulder:

"What a happy, lucky fellow you are! Tonight we celebrate her seventeenth birthday, and your coming will be the biggest surprise for her! Eight o'clock in the evening — don't forget"...

In the evening I stood at the iron gate, catching my quick, hurrying breaths as I watched the house ablaze with lights, my hand in my pocket toying with the gold bracelet studded with pearls, my gift to her after four years... I walked over the soft gravel toward the light and the music, and on entering found myself standing between her parents, greeting her mother, taken by the sincerity of her welcome, charmed by the gentleness of her words. Then they left me to move alone through a crowd of guests, women and men, searching for her face among the faces... I did not find her, and shyness overcame me as I saw the eyes staring at me with strangeness and curiosity, so I took a corner near the band of musicians and set about examining the faces anew...

The music rang out, and bodies streamed past me like sea waves onto the dance floor — and then I saw her... It was she, Nana, wearing a dress the color of jasmine, on her breast a rose the color of blood, her beautiful black hair dancing on her bare back, waving and winding... Her lips rivaled the rose in redness and artistry... and her eyes were like the night when it floods the earth and hides all that is on it... "Nana," I cried in a whisper, to her and to myself, as I walked slowly toward the floor... I threaded my way among the dancers and reached her breathless, cutting off her partner's path... I held out my hand to her, silent, waiting; her arms went slack and she stopped dancing, looking at me with a mixture of bewilderment and displeasure... I said, smiling:

"Raji." Her eyes flashed for a moment; then she smiled coquettishly, raising her arms to me, and I circled her small waist with my trembling hand, and she said, laughing:

"When did you come back? And what is this happy surprise?!! Tell me — how do you find me?" I said: "I see you as a rose that has opened from that beautiful bud!"...

She laughed out loud, throwing her head back. Then my eye was caught by the immodesty of her dress, baring her neck and part of her bosom, and I felt jealousy gnawing at my heart as I pictured the greedy eyes devouring her beauty without shame or reckoning! And as if she sensed what I felt, she said with haughty coolness:

"Don't you like this dress of mine? Papa chose it for me himself"...

My head spun as I imagined her father looking at her admiringly, unaware of how little that dress he had chosen covered, and I said, trying to hide my perplexed sorrow:

"It is a beautiful dress — but you are younger than it"...

She laughed a second time, and the music suddenly fell silent, so that the echo of her laugh rang in the air; and before I knew it she was snatched from before me, and the cry rose resounding:

"Nana! Come to the buffet, let us drink a toast to Nana"...

I walked slowly behind the callers, watching her through the bodies... She took a glass of champagne and raised it to her lips, crying:

This is a toast to "Nana"! Then her eyes wandered as if she had remembered something, and when she saw me she came toward me with another glass, saying in a loud voice:

"You have not yet drunk to 'Nana'!"

I took the glass from her soft hand, sorrow wringing my heart, and cried:

"Long live Nana — and long live 'Nadia'!"...

She stared into my face, dazed, then laughed a loud, empty laugh and said: "You remember?"

I said: "Yes, I remember"...

She said, regarding me quietly through her long lashes:

"Tell me — what do you remember?"...

I said, looking into her eyes:

"I remember the day I met you for the first time. You were a pure child whose face was clothed in sadness, toying with a history book, your eyes straying beyond the horizon, as you lay on the soft grass... I asked you about your father, and you stood up at once and walked to the wide door ahead of me, then went inside, calling him in a voice sweeter than music... And when I came out, you were in the same spot, so I came near you and asked you shyly:

"'Would you kindly tell me your name, Miss?'

"You said: 'Nadia — but they call me "Nana," or rather I named myself "Nana" when I was a child who could not yet speak properly'...

"I laughed, and you laughed a clear laugh, and I said, to cover the embarrassment of us both:

"'My name is "Raji," and I never called myself "Rari," for instance'...

"You laughed again with mirth and pleasure, then walked with me to the iron gate, smiling your farewell, inviting me to other visits..."

She turned her gaze to the glass in my hands, and for a moment it seemed to me that a mask was about to fall from her face; but when she raised it to me again it was as it had been before — cold, carved... Then she said quietly:

"And what else do you remember?"

I said, cursing that hateful affectation within me:

"I remember the day I once found you weeping by the rose tree, as though the tears of all mankind had their wellspring in your eyes... I put my arm around you for the first time, and you clung to me and kept saying through your tears:

"'I am lonely, Raji, for all the size and grandeur of this house. I see my mother only a little, and when I do see her she is tired or worn out with some task. My father is forever in his work and his world; he makes up for spending time with me by buying gifts that are not worth, to me, one hour at his side... I want to talk to them whenever I please, as children talk with their parents; I want my right to cling to them in body, soul, and spirit... Do you know when looks of pride and admiration in me shine in their eyes? When I am led out to where the guests are and displayed to them like a talking doll, and they say: "This is Nana, our daughter." Yes — then, and only then; not when I bring them my high marks in my lessons, or when I show them my skill at drawing, for instance; that is answered with a passing smile or a hasty kiss'...

"You said this and wept the harder, so I stayed with you until you grew calm and promised never to weep again"...

Her hand rose to her breast as if to shield it from a cruel blow, and it seemed to me that she would throw her head on my shoulder and weep, for her eyes were like the eyes of a tortured, wounded creature, fettered by pain. Her face showed bare of its mask, humbled in its look, innocent and pure like her face as she wept by the rose tree years before... Her face spoke to me in silence of what her heart concealed, and my heart danced to see her before me a second time — little, beloved Nana, despite her dress and her paints and her veil... I drew near her, gripping that fleeting moment with a hand of iron for fear it would slip away and retreat once more behind the mask, and I said breathlessly:

"Come — let us go to the garden and take up our broken-off talks"...

She stretched out her hand to me, then stood in her place and was silent, not uttering a letter...

"Nana, where are you? Come, let's dance."

She turned toward the caller, then turned her face to me once more — turned it masked, beautiful, smiling, aloof — and said:

"I am sorry, I cannot leave my friends. We shall talk another time; please excuse me now." Then she walked away from me, into the arms of the noise and the music...

I felt for the bracelet crouching in my pocket, the bracelet that should have been around her wrist and not in its blue velvet box; then I went out like a man stunned, without another glance at her — out into the darkness, far from those lights and glasses and bare throats, into the belly of the night, where the merciful blackness would hide my disappointment and my daze...

★

The days passed after that, their hours pricking me like needles. I thought of visiting her by day, to see whether the sun of daytime would be kinder to her than the candles of night; but a strange feeling shackled my feet and I could not stir... I was afraid that the eyes of the new "Nana" would kill the love my heart carried for the old Nana, and that it would be wounded by this strange creature who wore masks and bore paints...

I plunged my thoughts into my work and spent my time bent over my papers in my new office, forgetting my confusion and my heaviness of heart, fleeing the sight of her despite my deep, sweeping longing...

I had made no reckoning with chance when one day I found myself standing face to face with her at a row of books in one of the bookshops. Her thick hair was tied with a red ribbon and drawn back like the hair of a child of no more than nine; in her loose striped dress she looked like a beautiful butterfly escaped from the heart of spring... She was Nana in everything — save that new face...

I cried out joyfully, trying to hide the quickening of my breath:

"Nana! What a wonderful chance! Listen — what do you say to a quiet hour in some café?"

She smiled sweetly and said with forced gaiety:

"Splendid! A cup of coffee for you and a glass of juice for me"...

We walked in silence until we sat facing each other, and I said:

"Nana, my gift to you is still in my pocket — here it is"...

She opened the box and drew out the bracelet, looking at it in silent scrutiny; then she raised her head and said slowly, like one recalling the details of a bygone dream:

"A gold bracelet, with gazelles swinging from it, their eyes set with pearls... So you promised years ago, and here you are keeping your promise, and not forgetting it." Then she added in a broken voice:

"I had almost forgotten, Raji — forgive me"...

The mask fell swiftly; my heart leapt, and I reached out my hand to the bracelet, took it from her, and wound it around her round ivory wrist, whispering:

"I have not forgotten a single one of the words I used to say to you. I dreamed of what I had said, and of what I would say and you would say. So talk to me, Nana, as you used to do, and without this frightful stiffness that is a stranger to me and to you. Tell me what has become of Nana, and tell me what they have done to you; your stiffness bewilders me and blinds me and stirs weeping in my heart"...

Her black eyes turned; then tears clouded them, and she said:

"Since that night — the night of the party — I have been like one who lost his memory and finds it again. You spoke to me as though you were setting before my sight something lost and forgotten, whose existence or place I had never known... Do you know what I did at daybreak, when the last of the guests had gone? I went to the rose tree and sprinkled it with all the tears my eyes had hidden away; then I began picking roses and pinning them around the opening of my dress, covering my breast and my neck, drunk on the fragrance, imagining you standing before me, smiling, content, stretching out your hands to me, the light of your eyes brighter than the light of dawn... I waited for you to come back the next day, and you did not come. I asked my father about you, and he knew nothing of where you were staying. There was nothing before me but to wait, so I waited — but you did not come back... So I shut my eyes and cursed myself for my weakness and my weeping, and went back to what I had been, laughing at my frailty and my clinging to the frayed rope of your rescue, hating the memory of your wilted face as you watched me from afar drinking wine! Cursing your sad, pleading voice as you asked to speak with me! Mocking your angry, somber looks at my dress and my lips and my friends! And I said to myself, wrestling with sobs:

"'Why do I deceive myself with his concern! He is like my father, like my mother, like my friends, like all people — I mean nothing to him! What he has seen is enough for him, and he will strip my name out of his heart with all speed and calm of nerves! He will not come back to see me; and if he does come back, he will come back mocking and contemptuous, filled with scorn at the madness of our world...'"

My hand tightened over hers, and I could not speak...

"You will never understand what befell me. I was lost and I floundered, and no one took my hand... I was allowed everything, forbidden and permitted; I was given everything in the name of modern freedom. How not, when our life is a life of absolute freedom — a life of elegance and dancing and lights, a life of noise and wine and merriment! A strange life, by God! Full and empty, elegant and threadbare, luminous and dark! Empty of every true affection, of firm love, of real fellowship... We laugh much and we are silent much; we are silent, and each of us is to the other as one hotel guest to another... I hate my appearance, and I am not what I appear. I am tired, Raji — and how I wish I could rest"...

I could not put my arm around her then, or pass my hand over her face to wipe away those black circles under her eyes and the cry for help on her lips; so I said slowly, emotion breaking my words:

"A little house shaded by fragrant rose trees, where a maiden walks, beautiful as the goddesses, who ties her hair with a red ribbon and winds a yellow bracelet around her wrist — a little house with love in it, and safety, and tenderness; no darkness in it and no emptiness... What does Nana say?"

I waited, leaving her to take in what I had said slowly, my soul imploring her to understand well and completely...

"A house for me and you? You and I?"

I said: "Yes — for you; for Nana; for Nadia."

She bent her head to hide from me the trembling of her lips and the wetness of her eyes; then she raised it, saying shyly, as she stretched out her other hand to me:

"Come, let us tell Papa and Mama — now, at once..."

And I said into her ear as I walked beside her out of the café and into the sunlight:

"And we shall ask Papa to choose the wedding dress, and Mama to cry out at the top of her voice before all the world: This is our daughter and her bridegroom — Nana and Raji..."