The Pirate's Daughter
Page 32
Still, having said all that, I want you to know that I do miss you and—call me crazy—would like to see you again someday. And I would like you to see your son. Three months out of the year, during the rainy season I am in Paris, usually starting April 1. I bought that gloomy apartment on the Ile St.-Louis, and there is plenty of space for you and your books there. You may contact me through my lawyer anytime: M. Gustave Leconte, 8bis Rue Lamartine, Paris 00017 FRANCE. Think about it.
Love, Cricket
P.S. Remember that mark on your shoulder? According to the Articles of Brotherhood and according to my heart, it means you are mine forever. XOXO—C.
Wilson read Cricket’s letter four times, and he studied the photograph obsessively for half an hour. His hands were trembling, his neck was cold with sweat, and suddenly there was a slight briny smell in his nostrils and he closed his eyes and saw the green waves crashing against the side of a ship, the horizon wild with storm, the black flag flying like a curse from the topgallants as a pirate wind rose out of the south. He shook himself away from this vision and went out into the yard and stood there till he was good and soaked and he could smell the wet earth and the horses in the stables and all thoughts of Cricket and the sea had been washed from him by a clean, forgiving rain.
Wilson did not go to Paris that year. He did not go the year after. True, some nights, sleeping next to his wife in bed beneath the beamed ceiling of the farmhouse, he awoke from a dream of Cricket’s skin against his own, and it took the entire force of his will to keep him there, to keep him from the midnight roads of Warinocco County, from the airport and the next flight across the Atlantic to Paris, and thence the wilds of Madagascar. Still, he did not go—it is almost certain he will never go—but who can say?
The wheels grind on; the future remains uncertain.