More shaken by Sci's blunt words than he liked to admit, Thayer found his steps taking him, by force of long habit, to the tower. Not the tallest parapet in the Palace complex, it was nonetheless the one he liked best, the one with the clearest view up into the heavens, the one nearest the shore for the occasional whiff of the sea's aroma, the one hardest to reach from the interior passageways of the Palace, ensuring a certain degree of privacy.
It was also the one where they'd first kissed, the day--or night, really--he'd dared to tell her of his love, gambling all on the hope that she would receive and reciprocate it--and winning all and more in return.
And once that thought had come to mind, the tower was no longer a place he could stay. He wanted time to think, he supposed: but it would be impossible here, with the course his thoughts were going to take, as the memory of their kiss here released a sudden flood of memories, cruelly plunging headlong toward that culminating memory--another kiss, in Paris, that in his mind marked the end of everything.
He fled the tower. Long he roamed the Palace, restless in anguish, and all the more frustrated for his dawning suspicion that the anguish was more of his own making than he had once thought: that he had chosen what to do about the betrayal, and that his choice was his torment.
Might another choice have brought hope?
Unable to know, he must seek another hope, or at least let the grieving run its course. His wanderings ended at last at the Palace's ancient chapel.
Not even the view of Jerusalem, looking down from the Mount of Olives towards the Eastern Gate, could distract her this time.
Becki had concluded quickly that there was little chance of privacy on the Red Home, so she had fled towards the city, ending up on the Mount--not all that great a distance from the Home's hideaway in the eastern hills--in her rush to keep away from Kristy. Not that she had any great wish to avoid Kristy per se: but the Prophetess had had a great deal to say on subjects Becki had preferred not to think too much about. And as far as she could see, Kristy had been dead right in every word.
So she couldn't run from the situation any more, taking temporary refuge in the busyness of the mission. But in order to really confront herself, she did have to run--from everyone else, from advice, from accusations, from shock and surprise, from even the dreaded sympathy. It would be easy enough to talk about it--or rather, let it be talked about, as her friends bandied opinions and suggestions back and forth in their well-intentioned efforts to help. But she was only going to be able to do something about it by getting away, alone, with nothing left to hide behind.
Right now she was hiding behind the wall surrounding the grounds of the Dominus Flevit church on the Mount of Olives, and she was weeping, though she beheld the city not at all. The little church building was closed--with the sun already setting on the other side of the city, it was well past visiting hours--but that was just as well: it meant no tourists. Becki sat with her back to the little wall, watched the wind in the olive trees, and wept the tears long held at bay.
Had I known how much it would hurt to let her go, I might have been less quick to do so. Yet I was so certain that it was my only option. How could I hold her to an engagement she no longer wanted?
Kneeling here in this old chapel, holding this ring of hers--even now, I'm thinking of it as hers?-- I know better. What she wanted? That was never the question. I broke off our engagement for one reason: I wasn't willing to face public opinion when word gets out about Paris. Suddenly I've gained a new appreciation for all those jokes about cuckoldry in Shakespeare.
Well, no, truthfully, there were two reasons. I also wasn't willing to face her.
Here I am on a wall again, Lord. Walls are gaining a bit of a bad association for me. Last time I was playing around, walking along top of one like a silly schoolgirl (okay . . . technically, I am a silly schoolgirl. Hey, I'll graduate eventually. Whether being a silly graduate is an improvement is anyone's guess), look at all the trouble that caused.
Okay, never mind, I know better. It's my fault, not the wall's. And it started long before . . . before I kissed Josh. Or he kissed me. Whatever.
You know, I've been pretty foolish the whole time I was dating Thayer. Well, yeah, of course you know. But give me a minute here; I'm just figuring this out, myself. . . .
How does it happen that love grows so cold where once it burned so brightly? We thought our love would last forever: but doesn't everyone think that, at first? Yet so many pairings end unhappily. Well, we never expected to be one of the casualties of love. At least, I didn't.
And yet, without warning, she turned from me to another. Was this through some fault of my own? She once professed me all her desire: what, then, can she be desiring in him that she had not in me? Or was this merely female caprice? I haven't ever put much stock in the notion of female caprice, actually: but circumstances may force me to revise my opinion. . . .
No, enough! What's done is done and it is not my wish now to dwell on why and how. I cannot go on thinking ill of her and her betrayal; it only darkens my own thoughts. If I am honest . . . she alone cannot bear the blame in this.
Sweet Heaven! How Sci may have mastered this art of being always right, I don't know, for I truly haven't been. I've gone about this all wrong, it seems.
Now I wonder--am I wrong, and he right, about her loving me, as well?
So now you see why I've never cared much for long-distance relationships. Still . . . I would've thought we could have made it work. I mean, Thayer and me . . . Lord, if we couldn't make it work, who could?
Okay, maybe you shouldn't answer that.
I don't know whose fault our whole communications breakdown was, but I certainly never did what I might've to reverse the process, so I'm to blame as much as he is. Kristy's right: there's e-mail, there's comlinks. . . . We had no excuse. And as far as I can figure, that's pretty much where it all started. We lost touch. . . .
If only we hadn't lost so much more as a result.
If only . . .
Mightn't there be some bit of love for me left in her still? She can't entirely have forgotten. . . .
If only we might be as before! If I knew that she could love me again: if I had that hope, then, I think, I would not cease loving her, and seeking her love, till all should be restored.
O Almighty, let her love me again!
How foolish I feel, to utter such a prayer. . . . She'll love me, or she won't. Does it make any difference to you? Of your love there is no doubt. Do you, then, take a hand in the affections of men? Or is this all irrelevant to you?
What was I thinking in Paris, really?
What I'm thinking now is that I don't like thinking that I can be so . . . so . . . so vulnerable, so ready to fall! Oh, let him that thinketh he standeth . . .
How'd it happen that I let myself start falling for Josh? Even now . . . even now, I don't think he'd be all that upset if he knew Thayer and I had broken up. If he did know, if he decided to take advantage of the opportunity--
Why is it only now that things are over with Thayer that I'm so desperately ready to push Josh away?
And do I really even love either one of them? But if Thayer no longer wants me, why keep Josh at arm's length now?
miser Catulle desinas ineptire . . .
You know, I hate it when that happens. Why Catullus, huh? Why now?
And what I really want to know is: Why is my life suddenly so well-suited to a Catullus poem?
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
Well, ol' Catullus would've been a lot happier if he'd just admitted it was finished and gotten over Clodia. "Wretched Catullus! You've got to stop playing the fool, and what you see is lost, consider it done and over with!" [1]
But I think I know how he felt, and why he kept going back to her. Because I'm starting to think I'll never be over Thayer.
But I have to. Don't I?
Sci said they must have had good reason for the kiss that I saw, however it might have looked to me. When does one need reason for a kiss? was my thought. Or worse than that: of course they had good reason, if they are in love.
Yet in the days since I saw what I saw, do you know, I never bothered to ask her what reason they had. The one time I saw her and spoke to her, after that--it occurs to me, now, that I did most of the speaking, really, on that occasion; I took her silence for confirmation of my fears, but what if--didn't she, at the end, want to explain? Something she said--
I didn't give her much chance to answer my accusations. And then when she tried to, she was called away. And I held even that against her; but surely I know what it is to be constrained by the duty of one's work, and how can I be angry with her only for doing that duty?
Now here is a paradox! I don't like to think that I may have been wrong, yet if I were, might not that be the hope that I need? If I've feared the worst, but I' m wrong, then perhaps . . .
Perhaps I'm truly to blame. I cast her off, and without ever hearing her side. . . .
Well, there's no changing what's happened, but how I wish I'd been more careful! I think I'd have been happy with Thayer--regardless, I had made him a promise--and I ruined everything by letting that promise slide. I ought to have known by now how to be faithful.
I'd be faithful now, I think. And then some. But it's too late.
Sci thinks she loves me still. But how would he know? I've talked to her more recently than he has.
And even I am not sure what to think about that encounter.
If there is the least chance, the slightest possibility--if there is a good explanation for everything and she's not really turned so irrevocably as I thought from me to Josh--if I haven't already driven her too far away by my anger--
The sun had already set over Jerusalem, but it was still early afternoon in Mendel City. Wind whispered in olive branches on the Mount of Olives; the sound of the sea came through chapel windows in the High Palace of Mendellia. But for all the difference in their surroundings, the same words could be heard at that moment, uttered by the man kneeling with a ring between his hands and the woman drying her tears as she looked out over the City of Peace:
"Father, forgive!"
[1] The English quoted here is the translation of the Latin lines just above: the opening lines from Catullus VIII, where the poet bemoans the breakdown of his relationship with Clodia, basically saying "just forget about her and get over it, stupid Catullus!" It seemed appropriate here. :-)