XXV

H

eading back to base, my mind was railing. It should not have been. Such an insignificant happenstance should never have released such a pack of emotions: shame, guilt and fear being in the lead. Happiness ran with them though, and Hope. Could they keep up? Were they hungry enough?

I suffered a relentless evening, perplexing over my worrying. I paced for hours without turning and took that opportunity to reflect, once more, on all that had gone before.

By this time, it had been fourteen years since my first encounter with the sister of Phaedra. None of anything should now matter to me. It yet did. I could make sense of it though. There had been no art in me, no quest for Beauty before there was Beatrice. She and Art had come in together as though the one was a shadow of the other. It might instead have been that one was the torchbearer and the other the shadow then cast by my youthful form.

Shadows though describe an absence of light. If Beatrice wielded fire then Art was the dancing glow upon my face and the reflecting orange flame in my widely open eyes. Her brilliant halo illuminated a world for me. That torch was held high aloft that she could discern beauty in her own surroundings but it gave vision to others who could, themselves, strike no spark.

The chroma of my own candles, grey, is less than satisfying and the landscape that they daily paint is dreary indeed. Beatrice bears a red-gold shining that perfectly complements the slight sky-blue of my heaven. Thus does Beatrice stride through the garden of my mind shedding luminous glory upon every scene that she is allowed to enter but she is now barred.

When, by the dim light of my own devising, I cast about, I note that the flickering shadow that trails after me, my darkness, is exactly as black as that cast by The Glorious Light. It would be painted darker. We will it to be more lightless and so it seems to become so but no, there is equal absence. The more bright the light, the more is reflected by orbiting objects. Reflected lights cannot fill that sun-shunned void but it is given shape. The darkness is thus granted colour and contour. The golden torchlight shining off the friends and family of Beatrice could bring my deepest shadows to life even as the high hedged walls of my shames kept Her radiance from me. Art could find me.

On the morrow, the side gate would be unlocked and I would escape for one night.

Escape! This life had not been a prison until that day. It was a paradise of privilege. Fed, clothed, and able to waste whatever monies I wished, I was fattened by this pedestrian life of deprivation. The requirements of my existence were less than reasonable for the luxuries it offered.

There are magnificent incentives to normalize even in the comfort of this Western World. Produce what is asked for and you will be provided for. A digger of ditches will live a life of security and comfort beyond the imaginings of the Medici Princes. I was not one of those princes. I knew the value of what I had. I knew from my experience in Florence to what depths I could descend toward drowning. Having surfaced, I must recognize that we are land creatures. We are born to walk upright upon the earth. To propel ourselves into the seas or skies is to deny our nature, our purpose. Run as fast as you can but do not try to live beneath the waves. Build towers to impossible heights but do not yearn to fly. Excel at normalcy.

Colour within the lines but if you find yourself filling in shadows, colour them. Discard your greys.

With the coming of Phaedra, I found long disused crayons filling my fist. I was energized toward art but there was no image that demanded manifestation. I was spurred to create yet no nothingness cried out to be. It was an impotent God who spun that restless Monday. How many third-rate Galilean doorstops did the quiet apprentice carpenter have to carve out? There was no Miracle of the Many Foot Stools.

Had I any friend in garrison that would care, I still could never have shared my scheduled undertaking for that eve. I was entirely conscious of my shame even though the trespass could be easily explained away. My motives were base. Even when Anne and I, those years before, had tittering, lurked and skulked through the back yards of unsuspecting families, when we had peered deliciously through their kitchen windows, it was a lesser crime than my attending this public performance. The ethical transgression was never against Phaedra. Even should she learn of my presence it would not have registered as anything remarkable or immoral unless she was to mention the occurrence to Beatrice. Then, of certain, the weight of my evil would set the scales of private opinion against me.

In preparing myself for the date, I passed the underwear test trivially. There were absolutely no flights of sexual fantasy involved here. With supreme confidence, I pulled my pant seat up over humiliating briefs. I did not brush my teeth. Any effort to approach the girl would be sabotaged from the start.

Phaedra entered the stage a woman. I had taken a seat at the back of the auditorium and even from there it was quite a shock to see that she was no longer the girl that had housed comfortably in my imagination. She was pleasantly plain but with eyebrows that spoke of a generous humour. Phaedra's bearing was confident, her costume well considered, and her posture precise. Her hair was as brilliant as the other's.

It followed that her sister was similarly matured. Beatrice was, at that time, enjoying comfortable success in Europe as a member of a prestigious Philharmonic. She was also a part of assorted ensembles that would perform all across that other continent. There, she was safe, beyond any chance of my stumbling across yellow posters with her name in the bottom right corner. Beatrice could cast her light with abandon, knowing that the curve of the wide planet would leave me unlit and so herself unseen.

Moonlight is the cold, blue glow that descends upon us when the Earth shades us from the Sun. Reflected, it does not warm us for the surface is lifeless and static. The colourless crust steals every gold and red. There is a haunting sense of loss in the Moon as though it can only ever be a memory of the Sun. I love the moonlight. I have run dancing through Bavarian forests in the dim half light of that globe and spent long nights in exercise trenches, marveling at the grey shadow play. I have painted moonlight over waterline. It is a light without fire though and it cannot ignite me.

They sang, the singers, with a competence that was commendable and courage admirable. It did not surprise me (but it ought to have) that I felt immense pride in the sterling performance of Phaedra.

XXVI