Silence Is Golden (12 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

For a while, my life seems to slip by in a succession of practically identical days: the bookstore, Emma’s, the bookstore again, and then Aris’s workshop. We work for a few hours on the desk; he says that even though I’m simply watching him, I’m working too. He calls me his muse. We have dinner at our own homes, so as to not further upset Dora, and then Aris spends the night at my place. In the morning we have breakfast together, wash the dishes, and walk along the road to the end of the forest. We part ways there, with the tacit agreement that I’ll see him again at six that evening. We may not be living together, but it’s the closest thing to paradise I’ve ever experienced. He spends weekends at my house, with him drawing and me reading. We make love in my bed, on the rug in the living room, in front of the woodstove, splashing around in the bathtub. He leaves around dinnertime to go to Dora’s, but he returns after a few hours. Sometimes we go for an evening stroll through the woods to “our” stream.

I look at him now, huddled against me. With his smooth skin, he looks like a young boy. He’s asleep with his head on my shoulder. His hair is tickling me, but I don’t dare move a muscle. I caress him with my gaze, eagerly anticipating the blueness of his eyes when they open. It’s snowing outside, and the only sound in the room is the crackle of wood burning in the woodstove. The fire is the only light in the room, and it’s illuminating our tangled bodies on the dusty blanket we tossed on the floor before falling into each other, lips seeking lips, and hands seeking patches of bare skin.

He stirs and gazes up at me with his eyes half open. My heart does a somersault. He smiles, closes his eyes, and curls up against me. I stroke his hair, silky under my fingers. My hair has never been that silky, not even when I was a child. I remember how my mother would yell at my father every time she tried to comb my hair.

“It’s all your fault!” she would shout, comb in hand, looking at me in the mirror. “Red and stringy just like yours! I’ll never be able to tame it!” And even though I’ve tried taming it, my hair has always been disheveled, as if it has a mind of its own. Red, stringy hair, to use my mother’s words, is perhaps the only thing I inherited from my father.

Aris sits up and rests his head on his hand, staring at me. I know that he isn’t going to say anything. His constant silence is still new to me. I suppose that for someone who only grew up with a father, it’s normal to be on the quiet side. There can’t be that much to talk about, so I hold his gaze and caress his face. I slowly move my hand down his neck to his shoulders, chest, flat stomach, and over his protruding hipbones. He lowers his head again, his lips grazing my neck. I close my eyes and wrap my arms tightly around him. Outside, the snow has made the world disappear, but I’ve got Aris, and he always makes me feel like the sun is shining bright.

Being with Aris is surreal. It reminds me of a movie I saw a long time ago, where a man went into people’s houses when they weren’t there. He’d eat, take a shower, fix something that was broken, wash their dirty clothes, and lay them out carefully. Then he would sleep there, and the next morning, he would search for a new home to occupy for a night. At some point, this guy meets a woman whose husband beats her, in one of the houses he believes is empty. She follows him, and together they continue to live this strange life, without ever saying a word. They communicate only with looks and gestures. I remember thinking it felt right, that words would be useless and almost harmful in that delicate, poetic story. It’s the same thing with Aris and me. He has no need for words, and I’m almost to the point where I don’t need them either when I’m with him.

He takes my hand and leads me into the woods, practically dragging me since his legs are much longer than mine. We’re almost running, and I’m trying to free my hand and slow down. But he holds on tight, only occasionally turning to throw rapid glances my way, accompanied by a roguish smile. I softly hit his back a few times, but he just laughs and continues to drag me. He knows that I have a smile on my face.

He finally stops at the stream, and we sit on the big white stone that I discovered my first day here. He takes my face in his hands and kisses me on the cheeks, forehead, eyes, and, finally, lips. It’s a kiss that takes my breath away. It’s naïve, it’s passionate, it combines a child’s affection with a man’s desire. We stay entwined, his lips almost touching my skin, his hand running through my hair. I keep my eyes closed. I don’t care that I’m three years older than he is; when we’re together, it feels like he’s older. His silence is filled with unspoken cries that he loves me, he loves me, he loves me!

As soon as I start to shiver, he immediately stands up and takes my hand to lead me home. Has he ever loved another woman? I’m not even going to ask. I don’t want to know. It wouldn’t change anything for me.

The forest we’re crossing through to get home has few trees but lots of shrubs. It’s full of clearings where the snow collects during the winter, forming a white carpet. I’ve never liked the rain, and I’ve always hated the snow, but I stop in the middle of one of the clearings and raise my face to the sky, eyes shut. Aris laughs while brushing the snowflakes off my face, then leads me home to the heat of the woodstove.

Today is December 15, and locals are beginning to hang decorations in shop windows. This village is strange. It’s so close to a town that’s filled with tourists during ski season and fabulous lights and beautiful markets at Christmastime. But Bren stays true to itself. It’s as if it’s afraid of being noticed. It’s the younger sibling that’s convinced it’ll never measure up to the success of the older sibling, and so it doesn’t even try. I was initially looking for a refuge, and it provided the perfect escape. But since Aris has come into my life, I’ve felt different, and the fact that these streets refuse to shine even during the holidays is beginning to annoy me.

I ask Helga if she’d ever thought about hanging decorations in the windows of the bookstore.

“Decorations?” she replies, sounding both surprised and irritated.

“Yeah. We could hang some bells from the ceiling,” I say, not to be discouraged, “and outline the shelves or the windowsills with garland, or even put up one of those light-up stars on the door and turn it on at nighttime. It would definitely attract attention.”

“This is a bookstore, not a kindergarten classroom.”

It would be so much more pleasant to work here if the environment was a bit more welcoming, but I know that would not be a winning argument with her. Helga is the ideal inhabitant of Bren: few words, fewer smiles, and always deflecting attention from herself.

“Attracting people to the store would be great for business,” I insist, hoping my reasoning will appeal to her practical side, given her constant budgetary concerns. She responds with a grunt, to my dismay, and walks to the back room.

I’m going to measure the window.

You never know.

Aris and I take a ride to the neighboring town, which is big enough for us to walk hand in hand without anyone giving us a second glance. It’s as if Christmas is already there. There are colored lights strung between buildings, and the windows showcase bells, garlands, golden pinecones, and decorated fir trees of all sizes. The market in the main square is my real destination, though.

“Isn’t this beautiful?” I say to Aris happily.

He smiles and kisses me on the cheek. I think I could burst with joy in the midst of this cheerful crowd, among the glow of the Christmas lights, with Aris’s hand securely in mine. The first market stall we see belongs to a carpenter who is displaying her small painted wood sculptures. I examine them critically, thinking that Aris could do much better. He picks up a small sculpture, a small sun with red rays, and spins it around in his fingers. I scrunch my nose and walk away, and he starts to laugh. He catches up with me, and we finally arrive at the stall I was searching for, the one with Christmas decorations. Store-bought decorations are too expensive for me, but the prices are more reasonable here. I buy two blue bells, two white bells, a wreath with red and green intertwined twigs, three silver painted glass balls, and a garland that I think would be perfect for lining the bookstore’s windows. Aris buys a string of colored lights, some dried orange slices, and tiny red balls. I look at him questioningly, and his expression silently tells me that I’ll understand later. With our purchases wrapped up as two beautiful golden packages, we continue walking until we happen upon a café. We go in to warm up with two cups of hot chocolate. We stare at each other from across the table, paying no attention to the other customers, until suddenly we just can’t stay there any longer. We run away, laughing and kissing on our way back to the truck. The lights and decorations are beautiful, and the cheerful bustle of the market is fun, but the house in the woods is waiting for us. Our time alone is never enough.

Helga watches over me like a hawk as I put up the decorations in the window and on the bookshelves.

“Don’t you think it adds something fun to the place?” I say with a smile.

“Not at all. It looks ridiculous,” she replies.

I won’t let her get me down. In any case, I can’t believe she’s letting me decorate the store. Just then, a woman comes into the store, holding a little girl’s hand. The girl’s gaze is transfixed on one of the bells hanging from the ceiling. It gives me an idea. When they leave, I explain it to Helga.

“Absolutely not!” Of course this was her answer. “We don’t need the shop full of kids. Their hands are always dirty, they touch everything, they make a mess, they shout . . .”

“But they’d be seated. We could read them some passages from Christmas stories. Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen . . .”

“Why should I do such a thing? Give me one good reason.”

“To get them excited about reading.”

“Children don’t buy books.”

“But their parents do.”

She gives me one last chilling glance, and I know I’ve lost this round. But I also know it was just the first round of many.

“What do you think, Helga? Should we call it A Christmas Reading or Christmas Stories on the flyer?”