Saturday, June 25

a lady in waiting.

I.
If you are summoned you appear right away. So, I put down my book in mid-sentence. I shed the cloth I wore where I had been sitting, by the open window. I dove strait into the bath and swam across to its other end. A bowl of soap was brought over and placed beside me, and quickly I washed myself all over, particularly scrubbing behind my ears, along the back of my neck under my hair, the front of my neck, and then the rest of me. My auntie is correct in what she told me – that cleanliness is half one’s beauty.

Soon after, I appeared before the queen. I walked towards her keeping my back strait and my head up, until I came close, where I knelt and bowed down before her. While she spoke I faced the floor, my left cheek touching my left knee.

We did not say hellos and goodbyes. In such situations we acknowledge one another with a pause of silence before she speaks, and another pause of silence, after she has spoken, before I get up to leave.

This is what she told me: she said the prince will come to meet me now. She said: ten men will come to see you, and if you recognize the prince he shall reveal himself and his kindness to you. If you do not, you shall be expelled from the state for thirty years.

When she had finished speaking, she glanced for a moment down at me, and then strait ahead again. I stayed bowed on the floor.  This is the way I showed her my gratitude, and my appreciation of the honor that was being done me. I left without looking at her again.

II.
Going back to my apartment, I took off the celebratory dress and wore another more simple cloth, so light and so flimsy that the breeze touched my skin again as if I were naked.

I ordered somewhat my books along the windowsill, as I did not have time to do that when I left, and, stepping out from the camara into the garden, I went down towards the beach.

The sun was hot, and rising, but the breeze was cool, and the shades wide. I walked down amongst the trees, down the 200 steps, through the cold stream, and down to the beach. The rising sun had not fully reached here yet, and the beach pebbles rested cheerfully in the shade of the boulders. I walked across them and round to the lagoon. My walking disturbed the stones under my feet and little crabs shuffled about me. I mean tiny little crabs, about the size of a fingernail. I reached the sand, and sunk my feet into its body. The coolness of the wet sand bellow the surface layer stimulated my feet. I twisted about, digging my feet a little deeper in, and enjoying the grainy texture.

The sun began to show above the cliff. The soft waves breaking along the beach began to lessen, subdued by the growing heat, and the sea was becoming more serious. I dropped my cloth and ran in.

I felt anxiety and fear. The woman who had the home before me had failed. And the woman before her. Women everywhere were often leaving.

The first thing I decided is that I would not be afraid. There is no usefulness in being afraid.
In fact, fear has one value. It indicated to me that this is an important task, a significant one – and that it is difficult.

But I knew that. Otherwise, fear could only get in my way. I would do everything that I could, anything that I could, and then I would have to let things be and become what they will. It would be ok, as, having done what I could, there would have been nothing I could have done about it, were I to choose badly.

How would I know the prince? I thought, I wouldn’t look to recognize him, I would wait for him to recognize me. I thought, that a normal man usually cannot see you. He looks at you, and he sees only what he already has in his heart. So I would wait to see what he had in his heart in this way. Also, I thought, only a man who can love can see another person as they are. I would wait to see who would recognize me, and I would choose him for a prince.

I lay on the water floating with my eyes closed. So vast is the sea, and so open a space, and still, you can be there and trust that you are alone. You can relax, and open you mind and your heart, let them unfold and spread to fill the whole area – as if there is no one there to confine you by observing you. With this vast expanse about you, you can trust that you are alone there.

I put my ears inside bellow the surface and I listened. I sought advice, and hope.

The other thing I decided was this: that I would give time. Time, I thought, is like a dimension, and it lets you see the shape of a person well. From where we stand, without it, we cannot see.



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