Short Story #011: Sol 2.0

 

Sol

That summer I drove down to Villa Rosa in Tuscany with the determined attitude of a Roman general on his way to war. I was going to meet Lizzie.

She had moved to that grand house in Italy to live with her new vineyard-owner boyfriend, and it was imperative that I see her before she married him.

There was another reason to make the trip. I needed to get her signature on a couple of documents which would release the house in New York to me. The work ought to have been done by my lawyer, but I accosted the tiny man and told him I needed some legitimate excuse to see my ex-wife again, and reluctantly, he agreed.

I arrived in Florence on a Friday.

Going to a car hire place, I picked out a convertible because I wanted to arrive at the precious Villa Rosa in style. I bundled the one bag I had brought from New York into the backseat of the convertible and settled in for the long drive to the country. I had given Lizzie warning of my coming, but I failed to mention to her the exact date. I wanted to catch her and the new man in her life unawares.

The house is New York ought to have been mine. It had belonged to my late father. When Lizzie and I married, my father, sick and bed-ridden, took a great liking to her. “You’re just the woman to tame him, and make a man out of Sol,” he said while I grinned sheepishly in a corner. Lizzie, wild and free, shot me a look of murder. She did not believe in taming anybody, any more than I did, but my father saw something in my wild wife, and deciding that we would be married forever, left the house in his will to her.

When three years into the marriage, we divorced, the old man, both shocked and deeply wounded, passed away without correcting the will. My first instinct was to let Lizzie have the house—an offer which she declined. So the place remained unoccupied.

After the divorce, Lizzie moved to Tuscany to teach music at a school there and I roamed the world with the gusto of a stallion that has been released into the wild. She had wanted us to be friends but I was indignant and rebuffed her.

The magazine sent me to cover a reclusive tribe in the Amazon, I went. They sent me to the Pyrennes, I went. They sent me to Cape Cod, Andalusia, and Venice, I went. I put all thoughts of Lizzie out of my mind. I was angry at her, and I knew she was angry at me. We had failed at the fundamental task of marriage—the task of taming each other.

In those three years of wandering, I began to pine for Lizzie. I missed her wide smile, her lovely long legs, and the sound of her laughter. Many times I had to stop myself from jumping on a plane to go to her. Now I regret that I didn’t give in to my impulse. She was on the verge of marrying another man.

When I returned to New York after another long stay abroad, a couple of mutual friends at a Thanksgiving party mentioned that Lizzie was living with a new man. They said she was engaged and planning to get married next year.

I felt a panic rise in my stomach the likes of which I had never felt before. I couldn’t rush off immediately because I had another assignment set for the winter. Once that was over and the time seemed right, I booked a flight to Florence.

I wanted Lizzie back, and I was going to go to any lengths to get her.

*

The drive to Villa Rosa was lovely. The weather was warm, sunny. I was in my element. Determined to shock and impress I’d chosen my best attire of blue jeans and white t-shirt. I admired myself in the rear-view mirror and was satisfied that I appeared like an old Hollywood star of great renown—Montgomery Clift. Lizzie was mad about him.

Cypress trees lined the curving road I was driving on and the fine dust raised from the wheels of my convertible danced in the sunlight. The murmuring within me grew strong. Lizzie was mine. I loved her. She would see that she belonged to me once I presented myself to her. I knew her romantic spirit would consider the notion at least once.

We had first met when Lizzie was eighteen and I was twenty four. She was working as a model in Milan and I was apprenticing under a renowned master photographer. She was all legs and bosom. That’s what had attracted me to her at first. Years later, Lizzie said she had loathed me at first and thought I was a pervert because I was wouldn’t stop staring at her chest!

After the shoot, a bunch of us went out to eat, and Lizzie took a seat next to mine. Later, she told me that she had planned to teach me a lesson for ogling her the whole day. But we got talking and I discovered that she was impetuous, wilder than me, spontaneous and bright, she had some rules she lived by and she wasn’t going to compromise on them. In the tidal wave of her personality I was washed away. 

I was going to remind her of those times. The times when my fire caught her fire and the whole forest came burning down.

I was driving up the gentle slope of a hill when I caught sight of the valley down below. The scene was arrestingly beautiful and I stopped the car and got out. The sun blazed down on us. The valley responded in joyous chorus at the roaring attention. I could feel the spirit of the land dance in one accord with my soul.

There was a great house on the crest of the next hill and I wondered if it was not the Villa Rosa. A few farm men were resting in the shade of a tall cypress tree and I asked them, “Is that the Villa Rosa?” “Yes,” they said. I took out my camera and took a few shots.

I wanted to capture the house in that golden light. The place was bathed in soothing shades of buttery yellow. Rolling hills surrounded the vineyard and the grape vine grew with mighty vigour over its support. I clicked a few more shots then I pulled out a cigarette and began to smoke.

All of a sudden I felt a little faint from the heat of the day. I went to the farm men who were sitting under the shade of a cypress and asked them if they had some something to drink. One of them had a bottle of limoncello, which he offered me and I took a deep swig.

“Rest,” they said, “it will take you only a few minutes to reach the Villa, you look like you desperately need to sleep.”

It hadn’t been a good idea to drive with the top of the convertible open, I thought as I lay back to rest against the knapsack of one of the men. In my attempt to appear as the dazzling jewel of the past to Lizzie I had almost suffered a sun stroke.

In a matter of minutes I was asleep. I slept fitfully. Was it because of the heat of the day or my own heightened sensations, I do not know, but I had a strange dream. I would prefer to call it a vision, for I was as alive in it as the light of day. 

I dreamt of a beautiful palace on top of a hill, something like the Villa Rosa, in construction, only grander and statelier. The room I entered wasn’t heavily decorated. White linen curtains hung from the arched doorways and were swaying in a gentle breeze. At the end of the room, was a throne, a magnificent golden one, full of intricate and exquisite work. On the throne sat a king. He was handsome, dark-haired, tall, and broad-shouldered. I knew his name even before the vision could introduce me to him.

His name was Solomon—the wisest king in the world, the offspring of a torrid affair, the man who had saved a suckling babe from death and restored him to its rightful mother.

We shared the same name, but more importantly, we shared the same outlook.

In Solomon, I found a kindred spirit, and as I saw him now, he appeared in tense and deep thought. His head was in his hands, and a heavy golden crown lay balanced on his forehead. He rubbed his forehead and looked straight at me. Together, we whispered—‘Meaningless! Meaningless! All is meaningless!’

Then Solomon got up from his throne and walked along the long avenue which led from the throne room to the pool.  At the end of the colonnade there were steps.

His feet went in first. Legs, torso, shoulders, chin, and eyes followed, until the very crown of his head was submerged. When he came up for air I heard him whisper, “All is vanity…”

Then I, Sol echoed him. “Meaningless meaningless…”

*

A friend had introduced me to this book, Ecclesiastes. It was a part of the Bible, a book which I later read from cover to cover. He said it contained more or less the same philosophical tone I had clung to throughout college. I believed life was meaningless and had no inherent value, Solomon observed the same, and he said all there was to do was to fear God and honour his commandments.

Except for the part about God, we more or less agreed that trying to find meaning in life was a colossal waste of time. I took the book from my friend and in a day had read it twice, cover to cover.

In those days I was a bitter cynic. I think I still am.

What kept me going was the pictures of the beautiful things I captured on my camera. People, places, objects, I snapped everything with character. I was afraid to lose the last trace of meaning I’d found in any of them.

Photographs sealed in time for me moments which I found too authentic to lose. A look, a grin, a laugh, a grimace, these things exposed what it meant to be a human being and like a mad fool I hoarded the examples just to make sense of the world.

In most of the photographs I took, people sought to cover the true nature of their personalities. I hated them for it. They smiled innocently though I knew them to be great posers. I could see through their facades. I always despaired that none of them had anything authentic to offer, that is, until I met Lizzie. She redefined what authenticity meant. She was a novice at concealing her heart and her face was the canvass of her soul.

Lizzie never had that ancient troubling of mine, the act of questioning what is, what was, and what shall be. She simply was. And I couldn’t understand how she lived from moment to moment without questioning how she had gotten there; knowing any moment could be her last, and that death had sealed her fate since her birth.

I woke up with a start. Lizzie was waiting for me at the Villa Rosa I remembered.

It’s nice to know that hope makes the world go around.

*

I got into the convertible, put the roof up, and made the rest of the trip along a winding path to the doorstep of Villa Rosa. As I drove up the drive way, I saw Lizzie. Dressed in a black and white polka dot cotton dress she was carrying a basket into which she was cutting and placing red roses. I honked to get her attention and without opening the door jumped out. Let her see how agile I still was.

“Sol!” cried Lizzie and came walking towards me, “It’s you! When did you get here?”

She gave me a quick hug, without lingering, without much contact, and smiled her smile for old acquaintances that haven’t broken her heart. A couple of dogs barked in frenzy at my presence.

“What a pleasant surprise! You should’ve told me you were coming today, I would have made you lunch. When did you get here?”

“Today,” I said and daringly kissed her on the cheek. She neither flinched nor pushed me away. I stepped back and scrutinised her face pointedly. I wanted to note the differences, but they were few. The same fire blazed in her eyes. On her mouth danced the full force of life. She looked exactly as the Lizzie of my past, only this time the fire was wild no longer, it burned with a quiet contentment.

I could guess at the cause behind it, and my soul broke to know that she had allowed another man to tend the furnace and quieten it down to fit a hearth.

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, suddenly embarrassed to be there on another man’s patch, “I’m starving. Put out Italy’s finest for me, Lizzie.”

She laughed, “No, I can’t. Bread and cheese are all I have, and a little stew left over from lunch. If that will suffice, come in doors. I’m glad to see you. How many years has it been?”

Without bothering to calculate the number of years it had been, I meekly followed her indoors.

Where was he? Where was the man I was up against? Sooner or later one of us would have to bring up the fian…

“My fiancée isn’t home. He’s gone to Florence to visit the bank,” she said laying a place for me at the kitchen table.

I smiled a wicked smile the meaning which she caught, but fought off with the edge of the dining knife. “None of that anymore, this time it is real and it’s for keeps,” she said, with quiet force that if I overstepped my boundary it would be the end of the friendship.

“All right,” I agreed and begin to attack the small repast she had laid in front of me.

“Where are the papers?” she asked.

“In the car,” I said, “Why the hurry, I was hoping you would show me around this property of yours.”

Lizzie looked at me to check if I was serious then said, “I’m sorry your father died, Sol.”

“Don’t be,” I replied, “Everyone’s got to go at some point. Life’s quite certain in that respect.”

She nodded and then began questioning me about my work. I told her about the Amazon, the Pyrenes, Andalusia, Cape Cod and Montenegro, and when I got to Venice she stopped me and said, “Sol, you should have visited me when you came to Venice.”

No, I thought to myself, in those days I was still sore, upset at having lost her, upset that she seemed happy after the split. For some ego-boosting reason I had wanted Lizzie to feel miserable without me, but from whatever news I got of her, she was still the same high-spirited Lizzie, colouring life with all the colours of the rainbow.

After my father passed away I felt more lost and alienated from the world. I didn’t have a home to return to, and that made me wander the planet like a madman.

Lizzie sensed some of my angst and not wanting to be to cruel said, “Eat up! I’ll go get the papers.”

She left me alone in that large kitchen, and I understood that there was something about me Lizzie did not want to put up with anymore.

I was afraid I looked like a lost puppy, asking to be taken back into her arms, having walked out in the first place. She was treating me kindly because I was now an orphan. I bent my head and ate my food quietly and like a scolded dog, put my tail between my legs and gave up.

*

But the feeling of submission didn’t last long. I wasn’t going back without a fight. I wanted to know why she had allowed this new man to tend a furnace that usually burned to a conflagration within her. Why hadn’t she done the same for me?

Lizzie returned with my bag and under my directions extracted the papers for the house. “Where do I sign?” she asked. And I told her. In a couple of minutes she was done. She’s in a rush to get me out of here, I thought.

“I’m all finished,” she announced.

“Lizzie,” I said suddenly, “I had a strange dream on the way here, and I want your opinion on it.”

“Yes?” she asked doubtfully, as though wondering if I had fallen asleep behind the wheel.

“I dreamt of Solomon.”

Lizzie gave me a look. A look which I interpreted to mean that she was tired of all talk of Solomon.

When we had been married I used to pick her brain a lot with my questions. At first, she had been patient with me and helped me understand her way of seeing the world.

Didn’t she think Death was a nasty cheat to walk in at the very end of a grand party and announce that he was making away with all the living? No, she said, she believed in an afterlife, and Death wasn’t terrible news to her. In the afterlife she would be in heaven, with a God who loved her and who was her Father. I could either believe this or else live in despair. We usually ended the argument with a full-blown fight.

I found her beliefs preposterous and chose to live in despair, or rather, as I said to myself, I chose to live still looking for answers.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I pleaded, “I’ve got to understand this before I leave here, Lizzie. There’s a storm inside me.”

“Understand what, Sol?” she cried in irritation, “Do you really believe the world to have no meaning? How can that be? Yet, we live, struggle, strive, plan, fall in love, marry and have kids. We bring new life into this world, Sol! Why do we bring new life into this world if it was so meaningless?”

“I don’t know,” I shot back, “we shouldn’t! We shouldn’t bring children in to this world to share in its inherent meaninglessness.”

This was turning into a scene on a page right out of our marriage.

“That’s because I don’t believe the world to be meaningless! Why have you never read Solomon’s other book, Sol? The Song of Songs?”

I know this book. It describes the deep love Solomon and a Shulamite woman share. What is Lizzie trying to tell me?

“I never read the book either until recently. And when I did, I wanted to tell you that I’d found the answer to your stupid question! But you disappeared out of my life and I couldn’t get a hold of you! Lovers don’t ask for meaning, Sol,” Lizzie yelled, “They are the meaning. What meaning can they find except in simply being?

*

I was silenced by this seemingly innocuous statement.

But more than that, I was crushed to know that she had wanted to find me and I had disappeared out of her life.

When we were younger and I used to get burdened by my thoughts, Lizzie was the one I used to go see to find some relief. As soon as my eyes clapped on her, all my questions evaporated as quickly as they had come. Lizzie was the light. Her face, her laugh, her thoughts, her look of welcome, they were enough to dispel the gloom which inevitably came over me. Being with her made so much sense, I forgot to question it.

But then even Lizzie’s love let me down.

“How come it never worked out for us, Lizzie?”

She sighed and shrugged. “We were unlucky. That doesn’t mean that kind of love doesn’t exist. It probably exists for you with someone else, just as it exists for me with someone else.”

“You can’t disbelieve the power of Love just because you haven’t found it,” she mumbled, and I could tell that Lizzie too had felt let down by the hope ‘true love’ offers this world.

“Lizzie,” I ask, “why can’t we get back together?”

“Sol,” she said and paused, “I’m sorry. You came too late.”

I looked in those lovely eyes for a while. The whole of spring and summer shone through them. How could someone so beautiful and tender strike a blow so crushing?

“I know that,” I said truthfully.

Lizzie is the kind of soul who loathes causing hurt but when the disagreeable thing needs to be said, she doesn’t shy away from it.

“What am I supposed to do Lizzie? You offer me the solution yet you won’t be part of the answer.”

“It isn’t love if it breaks up. We haven’t got that between us, the love of Solomon and his Shulamite, ours is a broken down fence, a tower that has crumbled. Why do you want to go about rebuilding it when the foundation can’t hold it up?”

“I’m lonely without you Lizzie. And I’m afraid of being lonely much longer.”

She looked at me and said bitterly, “Your father was right about you. You’re most selfish man on the planet.”

*

I left sooner than I expected to leave. Lizzie said goodbye to me civilly enough. I could tell she was angry and trying hard to forgive me.

On the drive back home I pondered over my ex-wife’s words. Her words cut to the very depth of my soul. Was I selfish to want Lizzie simply to cover up this gaping hole of loneliness?

Yes, I admit I was.

I think back to the joy Solomon and the Shulamite woman experienced in each other. They were united by bonds of mutual love, a love so beautiful it made redundant all the questions of the world. And that is what is at the foundation of the world—the love of a man for a woman and the reciprocal love of a woman for a man.

The setting sun lit up for a moment the sky in shades of pink. I watched silently as I drove back the way I came. Tomorrow, I would board a flight back home and visit the house in New York. It was time to put the past in its place and begin afresh.