soupir - sigh

2006-12-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

We speak here of codified symbols, of dialect formed by two that remains strictly between the two and understood by only them – a dialect that is not only symbolic then, but that begins to include actual words. The words may be made up words (for example, a cup of tea may become a “flea”, almost like rhyming slang, popular in Great Britain, but that has, or is, sadly dying out.)

Here, we take only eight (8) words of that shared dialect because let’s say they have meaning to the two – to Asa and to Abner. The words, in this case, can be in French or in English. Either way: the two have used them in both ways, depending on who is about. That is the thing about a shared language – you must be careful to keep it between the two of you – a secret. As I’ve written before, you know you are in if you do not share this or do not bring it home at the end of the day. If you do not utter these words with anyone other than the other, then there is more to the relationship than you are, perhaps, willing to admit. Or perhaps you do admit and all is well. Or perhaps one admits and the other is too frightened for his or her own reasons but will not say.

I read, and I know this is true, That words may sting and hurt, but that silence – silence breaks the heart.

I leave that as a stand-alone sentence. It merits its space on the page for it cuts straight to the core doesn’t it? How true is it then. When we are left with no explanation, we are left with no understanding of what has happened. Here is your scenario, your situation: Asa and Abner are happy, so happy in fact, that Aba – she is so happy that she almost doesn’t trust it. In fact, almost is not the right word. She is suspect of it in the first place. How can she be so happy with Abner? There must be some catch here.

Yet here they are, alone, the noise of the city far below them, sitting together alone at last on a big bed with a Victorian quilt with their precious (yes, codified) gifts spread out between the two of them. Her skirted legs are wrapped on the bed. She has no stocks on and her legs are then bare and her skirt rides up, which seems to phase neither of them and are situated such that they almost wrap about his waist but not quite. She opens the seal on a jar of honey (there’s that other symbol – the one we wrote of, miel – sweet, just like honey, which they share from the same spoon without saying a word about it). This, this as they had spoken of before, now that they are alone, just as he said or wrote they would be in his letter is how she knew it would be.

In fact, all of the words they use she has made into an eight-page book. It is wrapped in soft-grey tissue paper and tied delicately with her hair-ribbon, which is gros-grain and hand-sewn and has orange and yellow flowers on it. That she ties it with her hair ribbon, this too is symbolic. It has the scent of her – she gives a piece of herself here as well.

The book is a perfect square which fits exactly into Abner’s palm. It has a cut-out window on the cover into which Asa has carefully cut and measured one of her photographs: this, a statue of two lovers. The woman falls arching over the man’s arm as he leans in to catch her and kiss her face, her throat. There is no ambiguity here. This is the first time Asa has given Abner a gift that is so forward.

He can’t stop staring at it. Clearly he is taken by it, with it, with her. She blushes, he blushes. They blush. There are only 8 pages and on each page there is one of their private code words in both English and in French. The book reads:

1. Les mains – hands

2. Miel – honey

3. Soupir – a sigh

4, Muette – tongue-tied

5. Bisou/Baisers – kisses, kiss

6. Un petit-saut – a little skip

7. Sans-issue – without end

8. Sous-silence - …

The book is called “ainsi dire.”

Abner says “What happened?”

The phone-line crackles and hisses, drapes from pole to pole as it stretches between them, a direct link.

She tells him all of the things. She tells him what did happen. She tells him the facts of the day: what about the honey? That we ate… that we sat… that we held… that book… those words… but a part of our language… she tells him, “Don’t tell me you feel nothing.” He tells her, “I feel nothing. I love you like any friend. What can I say.”

Her eyes fill with large-salt tears. He says nothing. She thinks, Silence breaks the heart. She thinks, Soupir. She thinks Sigh. She never thought their sigh would come like this, but then, how can one predict.

This is their sigh. The origin of sigh… how does one define a sigh anyway… how does Abner explain? He is “muette,” there is no miel here, the petit saut is away instead of to, the sans-issue somehow ends but does not end. It ends with no understanding, no resolution. His hands become just hands, like any other. She must divest herself of any meaning now. They are hands like any other. They are not Rodin’s Les mains de mon amant. They are not. She says it over and over and over again. A mantra. A bisou – a kiss – he kissed her at the cab stand, he watched her sorrowfully as she pulled away that awful day. Now he kisses her off.

All of it? None of this is spoken… this much he keeps… how can he speak of it? Fear rules the day. Muette, tongue-tied aphasic, sous-silence but not with romance – never that. Oh shit, ever that. “Oh shit,” he said. Just “Oh shit…”