Marlène has left. The world’s silence echoes a deep void where love once thrived. Why didn’t the world, in its power, warn me, guide them? Was their fate preordained? Why didn’t it speak out? Could it have made it clearer? The end had to be, and I’m left with nothing, but memories of our love.
Author: Elsa Godinho de Matos
Fall
Part 2 of 4
Now the question is, why didn’t the world do anything? Why couldn’t the world—in all its strength, power and size—warn me? Why didn’t it try to fix things, to guide us back to safety? Were we truly so destined to break from the beginning that even the world, in all its grandiosity, wouldn’t save us?
Couldn’t have the world told me, left a message, anything? Warned me? Couldn’t it have made it clearer that Marlène sometimes danced too dangerously close to the sun, that she’d burn her wings, falling for that Icarian risk not even Greek heroes could survive, that she lived to gamble her future away? Shouldn’t it have been clearer? More obvious? Had I been that oblivious, that self-centred, that blissfully unaware of her drowning? Should I have noticed that she was sinking, should I have seen the dark circles under her eyes, should I have brushed her messy hair when she was too tired to do it? Perhaps I was too in love with her chaos, with the way she sat by the window, writing poetry and sipping red wine, a cigarette in hand. Perhaps she was so mesmerising, so bright that her darkness faded away. Perhaps I even liked her darkness, sometimes. She was everything I had never been allowed to be, never had wanted to be. Perhaps it brought me comfort to know I’d never be like her. That I was better than her.
I watched as she died, and I didn’t even know it. When she keeps me awake at night and her face haunts me, when I see her cries for help, I tell myself they were invisible and inaudible. I couldn’t have known. But I left her to die, I made her so unhappy she couldn’t bear to hear my name or smell my breath. I made her so sick she had to abandon all that we built together, leaving no trace behind, nothing but a few strands of dark hair tangled in my bed and a cigarette butt in a flowerpot. She was willing to let me wake up in cold, unmade bedsheets, in an apartment that suddenly felt as grey and empty as my chest, echoing with the silence of her absence.
I waited for her, lying on the wooden floor where we had danced the night before, looking at the framed pictures of my lover hanging on the wall. Unable to move, to get up, to do anything else than wait and let the tears roll down my bruised cheeks, going over every second that preceded this moment, twisting the dagger in my chest and my throat and my stomach, howling like an animal in agony, no hunter in sight to end the agony once and for all. Anxiously waiting to hear the keys jingle in the hallway, hoping to see Marlène’s smile, handing me a fresh croissant. The pictures on the wall know how long I waited. Marlène smiling, drink in hand at our favourite Italian restaurant, knows I remained on the floor as the sun went down. Marlène in my arms, lying on the grass, knows I tore my nails apart. Marlène standing tall and proud on the stage of the local library, reciting poetry, knows I aged ten years in a few hours, she knows something in me died that day. Marlène standing in her kitchen, coffee in hand on a Sunday morning, knows I searched the whole apartment for a bottle of wine that hadn’t bled to death. I did have that feeling in my gut, now.
But Marlène, the real Marlène, my Marlène, she’ll never know. She’ll never know how the next day, lovesick and hung-over, tears in my eyes, I walked all the way to her studio, carelessly crossing the roads, only to find it empty. She’ll never know how, back at mine, I called her every hour, hoping that someone would pick up, someone, anyone, anything else than that incessant ringtone that was everything I dreaded simply because it wasn’t her voice. She’ll never know how I searched so deep in my memory for a mention of a family member, a friend, someone to call, anyone who would recognise the shape of her angelic name. She’ll never know how I went to every Parisian police station and hospital, how I said her name to whoever wanted to hear it, killing her all over again as I asked if they could find my friend. Or if they could fix my wretched heart. She’ll never know how I explored every cemetery and graveyard I could find, dreading the day when I’d see her name on one of the stones. She’ll never know how fervently I prayed for her safety. She didn’t have to come back. But please, please let her be safe. Let her be happier. She’ll never know how I went back to her place every day for weeks, until one day a woman who wasn’t Marlène opened the door. Yes, Marlène had moved out two weeks ago. No, she didn’t know how to contact her. Yes, she was sorry. No, there was nothing she could do. My heart shattered as I shot a last glance to the half-empty apartment, brown boxes vomiting their guts out in disgust of such a powerful love forgotten so quickly, any proof of our past sold with the keys that lay broken and boneless on a shelf. Somewhere on them remained the drawings of my lover’s skin, soon to be covered with other life stories.
I smiled at the lady, thanking her for her time. As soon as the door closed, when I heard the keys turn in the lock for the very last time, I crumbled to the ground, all dignity lost and gone, shivering and trembling. I looked around, recalling that summer night months ago, back when we were drunk and young. She had kissed me centimetres away from where I laid now, alone. I wept silently at her doorstep, breathing the air that no longer came from her lungs, hoping to find a linger of her perfume. Marlène was gone. It had been too long; she was not coming back. I had lost her, and with her, myself. Was it real? Was it true? Was this emptiness overflowing from all my pores enough? Shouldn’t I be crushed, shouldn’t someone – anyone – step over me until my body was reduced to blood and dust?
I was tempted to stay there forever, to let myself die in the graveyard of our future, slowly decomposing into the soil of a lifetime’s tomb. Maybe if I waited long enough, the tears would come back, maybe if I waited long enough, the tears would suffice.
But life seemed to go on, people passed me by, throwing me looks carried with disdain and disgust. Had I had the energy, I would have hated them. How dared they keep on living? How could they smile, work, or even breathe, when my world had ended? How could they ignore my pain? How could they walk past me as if I were a dirty mendicant in their immaculate lives, begging for a bit of peace, for a bit of quiet so that I could grieve the love of my life? She was gone! She was gone, and in my heart, I knew it was all my fault. I had lost everything. I was all alone in this world. Was I not even allowed to die in dignity?
Edited by: Hedvig Paulander
Cover Image: Filmbetrachter from Pixabay
