She chose the thickest crowds to navigate when she was allowed to errand on her own. Saturdays through China Town, her training ground. She was perfecting her practice of slithering through the dense pack. Faster she would slip among the banging bags, elbows swinging and ladies lunging for their daily produce and dried spices. She was swimming swift waters. She saw the Chinese ladies as quick swatches of color, brown face, black hair, white teeth, red sweater. She was familiar with the size and shape and the movements each would make. Predictable like fish. The flowing deep maroon in motion slowed her for a moment. Her eyes met this unfamiliar hue near the ground, where her gaze fell, but she rode the texture up from ankles to knees and further to find this rich robe, embroidered like the ceremonial gowns hanging in the shop windows. This well dressed passing pedestrian was not rushing, not pushing through the congestion. This form was slow, moving in stillness. She was caught for a moment, wanting to know more. Stepping slowly, where the robe opened for the next foot fall... a boy, a man? Tanned face, shorn hair, a shine from his cheeks, deep dark brown eyes. And there she was caught. His eyes met hers, for just a second and within that flicker so much said with the tilt of his head. She swallowed his hello in a gulp to keep it from spilling as she rushed on, embarrassed and shy.
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
This time they sat even closer, and not because they had to. She had never much existed in the outside world, so what did it matter what the world thought of her. What she felt she needed was to share the air, feed on the energy of this other. She sat near to him to inhale him, the odd collection of ambers and sweat and spicy sweet breath. Sitting in his presence she became greedy, boggling up what he emitted. Thinking she must fill of it now, for soon, it will go. Seeing him only from the corner of her eye, she saw his black thick beard beginning, each prickly hair start. She wanted to stare. She wanted to touch, to press a soft cheek against the needles, blending the bitter with the sweet. Still she couldn't look long. Couldn't alarm him and make him go slowly away as he always had before. She sat still, closed her eyes, curled her finger nails hard into her palms and folder herself around that little pain. At that hour organ music played. Candles were being lit as the devout shuffled in through heavy doors, shutting slowly with a muted bang, whispers, squeaks, incense, song and his scent. She sucked it in and was intoxicated. As the music stopped, he rose. Paused as a good-bye and was gone.
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
Although it went unsaid, by now she realized that 5 O'clock was their time. She usually arrived after him. And now she could sit right up next to him. She put her head down, as in prayer, and she breathed. Deep sweet breaths. She swooned, flushed, exhausted herself in the heady stuff. When the organ stopped and they put their heads up, this time he looked to her. She looked back. For a long moment they kept their gazes tangling as they had their breath. She felt he was pouring it over her. And through her eyes she accepted all the light he gave. Thirsty for it, she couldn't drop his gaze. More, she pleaded silently. Confidence came from this hunger. And she thanked him finally with a slow unconscious smile. With that his lips parted, he inhaled so deeply she felt herself being sucked in. With his exhale, he too allowed a sly smile. The currency of their connection exchanged. And with his next gesture he invited her, this time, to follow.
They were from a quiet place together. Their world had always been the hushed tones of the evening Mass. Only the one time had she ever seen him outside in the light and loud of the city streets. Odd to see him here, as if he only existed in the light cast by the penny candles. But she followed, watching his robes skate along the sidewalks. His feet not showing could have been wheels, tractor chains propelling him up Filbert, around Stockton and to the steep steep Chestnut Street. His pace did not alter, only his incline. He leaned into the hill. She kept in step just behind. Then stairs twisting around and behind the stucco structure until up to the roof top. There perched a little deck apartment, built hastily of wood and bamboo and tacked on roof paper and a borrowed window for a door.
A graceful teen ager or a serene man, he was ageless. He would always be. Before and after this life. So time was meaningless to him except how it wound in circles. Sunset after sunset, each making the next more dense with its addition to the pile. As each evening mass came and added its resonance to the one before, building til it meant more. He watched carefully and read that their connection there was saturated, and she could move beyond. To his home.
There he kneeled next to his low table and lit a single burner for tea, nodding for her to take the cushion across. Mysteriously, as she sat on her folded ankles, she found words for the music in her mind. Poetry percolated in her and bubble over her tongue. She said, "You enchant me..."
She breathed " Who are you?" She shook her head and within the 'mmmm" she said just loud enough to be heard, "touch me." It startled her. That she should speak at all, much less. But she held out the back of her hand towards him. Seemingly needing to prove that he was real, in this realm with her. Her skin pleaded independently for contact, alert from the crown of her head to the souls of her stocking feet. She needed to feel what had been silently taunting her for so long. She had been in love with a spirit silently occupying a life. He heard her words and nodded both up down and left right. Agreeing yet no. Not yet.
He rose again to add loose leafs to the tea strainer, light a candle, press play on is tape deck. Still matching his slow deep breaths she was feeling light headed. His exhales long to the bottom of his belly as she breathed in deep, sitting taller. And the reversed, she kept pace though it was not asked, and felt she was carrying him as the balloon in his chest filled and then folded on to his cushion he sat. Quiet as a cake. Baking. He faced her now, and finally he lifted his gaze to find her here. What was created between their stare was no longer the timid product of shy souls. It was independent of their own demeanor. It was fueled and inflamed by the outside source that brought them here. All they could do was open their eyes and let the hurricane of hope blow wildly about them as they sat there stone still and spinning.
