Chapter 13 of the R.M. Dolin novel, "Trophic Cascade"
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Sympatico wakes just before dawn, but Jake’s already gone. Quando though remains loyally at her side. As painful as it wis, she manages to get up and walk to her bedroom, sliding along the hallway wall for support. She turns on the shower before realizing it won’t be possible without getting all the badges wet. Even though her dress is littered with cut outs, tears, and blood stains, she neatly folds it before taking a sponge bath in the sink.
The sun’s well up and over the Sangre’s when Sympatico re-enters the kitchen immediately feeling a panic rise over the possibility that Jake might not be home. When she first woke and he wasn’t here, she assumed he’d gotten up during the night and went to bed, but on the way to the kitchen she saw his bed was neatly made. As manic builds, Sympatico limps into the empty tasting room where she finds Jake sitting alone in the courtyard. She watches in silence, wondering what he must be thinking after all that’s happened. There’s so much she wants to tell him but knows those words remain elusive.
She’s almost to the French doors when Jake notices her and struggles to stand up. He pulls a chair out and motions for her to sit. “How you doing this morning?” he asks. “I hope not too sore?”
“Mostly stiff, and what about you?”
“Dario says I lost too much brain matter to ever be normal, but I wasn’t normal to start with, so no big deal.”
“Memories move in and out of focus, but you’re the one who cut my dress, no?”
“We needed to treat your wounds. Neither of us was willing to take your dress off, so we improvised. I assure you; we were professional and discrete.”
“I trust you, and that’s not something that comes easy.”
Jake leans toward Sympatico, but only after deliberate and painful effort. “Let’s agree to not talk about yesterday. We can later, after our wounds heal, and hopefully by then, there won’t be any need to.”
Sympatico nods in agreement. “Quando, he is okay?”
Jake nods while looking toward the kitchen where he knows Quando rests. “That’s one helluva dog, but yeah, he’s gonna be okay. He doesn’t yet know I renamed him, ‘Quando de la Alamo.’”
“You know that means, ‘When of the poplar tree.’”
“I don’t care. Dario says his wounds are not as serious as they look. He took a lot of stitches though. My guess is in a couple days he’ll be chasing tennis balls and howling at the moon. Do you want some coffee, just made a pot?”
“No!” Sympatico abruptly answers. The last thing she needs is a cup of Jake’s toxic brew.
“I got boatload to do today for the festival, but it’s nice to sit here as the world awakens. All the death and devastation of yesterday erased. That’s the beauty of history, we can revise it to match our mood and this morning, I’m not letting one bad day ruin the memories of my courtyard.”
“I wish for you to teach me about such skills.”
“Not a skill so much as a survival instinct. We all have it; you just need to learn how to turn it on. And it turns on in often strange ways, for example, before you came out, I was remembering the first time I met Emelia, did I ever tell you that story?”
“No, but I would very much like to hear it.”
“I was in Paris, just out of graduate school and the Lab sends me there to present a conference paper. It’s the first time I’m in a foreign country and have no idea how to act or what to do. There’s a beautiful park on the left bank; not really sure how I end up there because I’m not a ‘walk in the park’ kind of guy. It’s late afternoon and it’s like the ghosts of so many others who walked here alone are guiding me.” Jake flashes back to the Café Les Deux Magots, on the most significant day of his life.
#
“The great Hemingway once spent a year living on the benches in that park over there,” Emelia states with a faultless French accent in a tone suggesting they’ve been talking for hours even though she just sat down at the sidewalk table next to his. She points to a beautiful garden with lush flowers and a generously manicured lawn beside the café. “He’d catch pigeons and eat them since he had no money for food.”
Jake looks up unsure if this beautiful woman is talking to him. “No,” he awkwardly manages to say, “I didn’t know that, but he’s my favorite author,” he adds hoping that’s sophisticated enough to impress her “He must have been plenty desperate to urban pigeons.”
Emelia enjoys the effect she’s having. “How much passion can you truly have for the genius of America’s greatest author without knowing how he dined”?
“I don’t know,” Jake stutters, uncomfortable with how easily she puts him off balance.
“This is what is wrong with the world, I imagine you can tell me all kinds of meaningless facts about your favorite author, where he was born, when he died, some senseless quote he once said, and yet you cannot provide any insight into how he lived.”
“Well, I-” Jake unsuccessfully tries to respond.
“So much of the world is lost when we look with our eyes and listen with our ears.” Emelia asserts from a position of control she has no intention of relinquishing.
“Well, we take in what we can and -” Jake again loses his train of thought.
“I bet you’re an engineer.” She interrupts. “You sit by yourself, lost in equations and thoughts while around you the world’s in constant motion. So caught up in trying to define a universe through mathematics you don’t see everything constantly changes. It’s like Hemingway and his pigeons.”
“As a matter of fact,” Jake proudly answers. “I’m a mechanical engineer.”
“I have a friend at university who took a mechanical engineering class,” Emelia states to further control the moment. “When I ask her why she’d do such a thing, she says because there won’t be many girls in class, so her odds are good. A month later I ask her how class is going, and she tells me with great disappointment that while the odds are good, the goods are pretty odd.”
“Oh yeah,” Jake says feigning offense. “Want to know the difference between an elephant and a girl who takes engineering classes?”
“What?” Emelia asks with intrigue.
“About fifty pounds,” Jake answers flatly. “Know how to make up the difference?”
“How?” Emelia asks already smiling.
“Force feed the elephant.” Jake states happy to deliver his joke devoid of error.
Emelia laughs at the surprise ending while assessing her current campus to determine if the joke contains a modicum of truth. “I can’t wait to tell my friend. She’s as skinny as me but obsessed with being over-weight.” Now it’s Emelia’s turn to counter. “Of course, that harsh critique only validates the old adage that engineers are people who are good at math but lack the social skills necessary to be accountants.”
“Ouch,” Jake laughs, “while sadly true, for the record, I do notice the world beyond my equations.”
“Really,” Emelia challenges, “how?”
“I noticed how beautiful you are before you even sat down,” he responds proud for finding the courage to say something so bold while simultaneously wishing he hadn’t said something so embarrassing.
“Really, that’s how you see me?” Emelia fires back pretending to be offended. “I am so much more than that if you could look with the eyes of poet. Is that possible?”
“Not really much of a poet,” Jake shamefully confesses.
The more awkward Jake behaves the more emboldened Emelia becomes. “Everyone’s a poet,” she states absolutely, “just some more repressed than others.” She continues unrelenting. “Look again and tell me what you see.” Emelia enjoys her assignment because she knows it’s impossible. Even poets are bound by metaphors describing women in terms of beauty. To add additional drama, she leans across his small table resting her chin on folded hands.
Jake squirms in his chair uncomfortable with the ease in which she challenges him beyond his comfort zone. He’s uncertain how to respond to a point a view he has no experience with.
“Come on,” Emelia teases. “There’s a poet inside the boy who lives inside every man. So, tell me, what do you see when you look at me?” She enjoys toying with Jake as much as she appreciates how hard he’s working to get his just right response.
From Jake’s perspective this might as well be the polygraph test he took as part of his security clearance. Hell, even that isn’t this painful. He struggles to muster all his mental might to come up with something. In the end he surrenders his logical reasoning to the only thought he has, “I see Mona Lisa.”
“What?” Emelia laughs in surprise throwing herself comfortably back in her chair. “I will marry the man who can convince me I am like the majestic Mona Lisa.”
Still threatened by the most beautiful and captivating woman he’s ever encountered; Jake rises to the challenge; or at least attempts to. “I am not saying you look like Mona Lisa,” he restarts, “I’m saying I see her in you.”
“Well don’t you know how to peak a lady’s interest,” Emelia flirtatiously responds. “Tell me more, and keep in mind, your answer completely determines whether or not I marry you.”
“I saw the Mona Lisa yesterday,” Jake stammers to take his shot. “On first pass I see a woman of modest physical beauty.”
“This is how you see me?” Emelia interrupts with faux anger unable to pass up the opportunity to further toss him off balance.
“Ah, no, not at all,” Jake stutters to recover. “Because the more I look, the more her complex layers of inner wonder are revealed. By the time I’m done, I understand she not only embodies a beauty both seen and unseen, she represents the beauty that comes from struggles we as mortals endure throughout life but don’t have a language to quantify. And that I’ve come to understand, is true beauty.”
“Well Monsieur,” Emelia starts hoping to stall long enough to formulate a response, “that is a far more fascinating response than I anticipated.”
“So we’ll marry then?” Jake asserts with playful confidence aware he nailed his response and now has the upper hand.
“Do I have any alternative.” Emelia answers dismissively, flirting her way back into control.
“Then I propose dinner tonight, to negotiate the terms of our engagement.”
“Hold on just a darn minute there cowboy,” Emelia again attempts to win back control by using what she thinks is common American slang. “That sounds more like a discussion you need to have with my Papa. If you want to ask me on a date, however, you have to do so properly.”
“Pardon my manners mon ami,” Jake restarts using what little French he knows still confident he has conversational control.
“It’s Emelia,” she interrupts continuing her efforts to regain control.
“Pardonnez-moi, Emelia,” Jake attempts to be charming. He takes the fact she tells him her name as sign things are going well. This in turn further emboldens him. “I would be honored if you, as my future wife, would grace me with your presence at dinner this evening.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Emelia slow plays, “I suppose I should accept, we being engaged and all.” She stands realizing she’s won but ironically at the same time lost. She won in the sense that she got him to invite her to dinner but lost in the sense that within the context of their flirtatious role-playing, she now has to marry him. “We’ll meet here at seven,” she asserts as a woman who’s mastered the art of winning while simultaneously loosing.
“Do you want to have drinks, or just dinner?” Jake asks unsure about French protocols.
“I believe that is something my future husband must decide.”
“Drinks it is then.”
Emelia knows the ball’s back in her court but is uncertain how to depart. If they were friends, they’d hug and give each other a light kiss on the cheek. Americans, however, aren’t big on such profound displays of tenderness, even if they’re now engaged. For the first time since they started their repartee, her awkwardness leaks through. “Adieu, I guess,” Emelia says giggling a little while backing up.
“Ah, seven then?” Jake stammers in a bizarre cocktail of awkwardness mixed with an engineer’s brand of eagerness.
By now Emelia’s backed up enough for her confidence to return and decides on the perfect ending for their magical first encounter. “Louie,” she laughs while holding his breath with her eyes. “I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.” With that she abruptly turns and sashays down the sidewalk leaving Jake to sort out what’s transpired. “The name’s Jake,” he’s finally able to shout after her not realizing she’s quoting from the movie Casablanca; a movie he’ll re-watch with her many times in the years to come.
#
“Was she an actress or something,” Sympatico questions bringing Jake back to the present. “I mean how many people quote Casablanca in conversation?”
“How how did you know it’s from Casablanca?” Jake fires back.
“My Abuelo watched it often,” Sympatico fondly recalls. “He’d cry every time it ended.”
“It was Emelia’s favorite movie but no, she wasn’t an actress. Turns out she’s a graduate student in Chemistry at the same University hosting my conference.”
“Oh, so you guys were like gold then?” Sympatico concludes based on an assumption that birds of a feather, even if one is from a French university.
“All I could think of for the rest of the afternoon was how much longer I’d have to wait there until it would be seven.”
“You sat at the Café all day?”
“Yeah, this was before smartphones, and I couldn’t run the risk getting lost and not being able to find the place later. Plus, since I wasn’t sure I how I got to the café, I didn’t really know how to get back to my hotel. And once I got back to my hotel how would I find the café again?
“I sort of see your point,” Sympatico says recalling the time her Abuelo took her to La Paz and they got lost. “So, I assume you two hit it off?”
“It’s funny, as we walked from the café to get a drink, she told me we could hold hands but that was as far as we were going on the first date.”
“That’s how dating should be, things that last forever are built in stages, like bricks in a building. My Abuelo used to say, ‘if you want something to stand the test of time, you have to carefully place every brick.’”
“We were married a year later,” Jake responds confirming her Abuelo’s philosophy. “And we certainly did withstand the test of time, as if time itself is what we tested.” He stares mournfully through the courtyard’s arched entry way to the far-away mountains basking in the new-day sun, “Tu Me Manques, mon amour,” he quietly whispers.
Note: “Tu me manques, mon amour,” translates from French to “You are missed, my love.“
