17 She reached over the empty seat in the car, rolled down the window, as she noticed Adam stood in the archway of the door to the PX. It was as if he knew she was coming. He seemed to have an enormous shadow, one that went from the archway to the car, or at least that is how Carmen saw it. Adam had known she left the phone off the hook purposely, and wasn't sure why, but likely, he concluded, likely she did not want to receive anymore phone calls, as simple as that, should he wish to think about what was said and call her back. With vivid clearness he could see Carmen in somewhat of a serene pose, she seemed a bit wobbly though, or frigid, but quite at peace, a funny kind of peace, too peaceful now, now that he put more thought into it. She even smiled, he smiled back but thinking: maybe she came to have her last look, and then go home, he was nervous, and getting more nervous by the second. He smiled again, not knowing what his next move would be. He even got thinking it wasn't a mannish thing to do by simply calling her on the phone and breakup, rather a coward's way I suppose, but it all was too emotional, too trying, so he told himself at this very moment. He moved about, frigidly kind of, then refocused his eyes towards her, took in a deep breath 'what is it she wants [?] he asked himself. What was different about this, he speculated; I mean she did odd things, but just staring at one another was weird. Then he noticed a shoebox. He had seen it before, I think under her bed he concluded, but he was told to leave it alone, it was just girlie things he was told by her, and so he never explored it. 'Funny,' he murmured, trying to get a better look at the shoebox. Carmen noticed he was straining his eyes looking at the shoebox. She then told herself: "I have to do what I come to do, and do it quick,"? it was about time anyhow. She was for once in her life under a state of complete nullity. Everything was now superficial for her. She had two shots more of whiskey, Adam saw it, shook his head, put a grin on his face, his eyes looking at her and that damn shoebox: what in the heck was that shoebox doing there, ran rampant in his cerebellum; and now the two more quick drinks were down her. At this point he had enough, he was holding the door to the PX open, cigarette in his hand, he forgot it was there, was about to step out of its archway, and she put the bottle on the floor of the car, at that very same moment, she opened the top of the shoebox. Again she smiled at Adam, and she pulled an item out of the box, it was a gun, a rather huge gun for her small hands. (Dust was in the air, army trucks were in slow motion going back and forth, around corners"?everywhere; soldiers marching, running in squads across the green grass; the American flag flying high in the air on top of nearby wooden pole. The military compound was busy, busy like working ants; but to them it was just another day, another day for the three-hundred soldiers station there.) Adam saw it, saw the gun, but it didn't quite register, and he didn't want to die: it was an invented moment for him, should he run to the car, he couldn't, or at least so he told himself, he was in disbelief; she put the gun up to her temple"?Adam's eyes bulged out of his head almost, his mouth...mouth...wide opened"?dry as a desert, this was a 'joke,' which flashed through his mind, 'she wants me to makeup with her' there was a cracking sound in the air, echo, loud; wet blood spattered all over. He had not moved, dropped to his knees, put his hands over his ears as if to stop the sound of the shot, but it was all over, she was dead in the car, it was no joke. She had come to fracture the silence, and she wanted to die in doing it, but needed an audience. The invented moment for him was all over. It was her sacrifice. As he looked up, Garmisch came into his mind, as if he was in a day-dream, "Don't be unhappy darling,"? she said, she said with a whisper as they sat at a table, a drink in his hands, one in hers. "I'm going to take care of you, such good care, I really will..."? that's what she said to him in Garmisch. It made him feel good. Carmen's fingers closed gently and warm around his hands (that was his last thoughts of her as someone shock him by the shoulders to come out of it. He was in a day-dream, shock.) 18 Her last words and last poem: (Quod sum eris ((epitaph on a Roman tombstone)) if he could have read her lips, Adam would have read: "I am what you will be."? Carmen's Selbstmord Was gibt es hier zu
Sehen?
Wo waere es gut,
hinzugehen?
Ich nehme das Boot,
Da bleibt die Liebe immer
Ueber Wasser ...
Nun nicht mehr... Carmen's Suicide What is there to see
Here?
Do you know a good place
To go?
I prefer a boat
Where love
Floats
No more... . #510 [3/7/05] [Six months later.] Adam had become aware of a nagging and reoccurring dream. At first he didn't think much of it, but he couldn't shake it either. He even told Frantisek about it, but she kind of kept her distance now, he seemed a bit disturbed. They had an on and off relationship for the most part, and she was thinking of divorcing her husband for awhile, but was now having second thoughts; especially when she'd had to sit up and listen to his retelling, and retelling of his nightmare all the time, his last thoughts at Garmisch, how she [she being: Carmen] took the gun out of the shoebox, it was all a tad too much. She wanted attention, not to be his counselor. In his nightmare dream he saw her lips moving, they had said something, he could never quite make it out, they were her last words though; it bothered him, and he went over them a hundred times; matter-of-fact, he became obsessed with them, and would walk by the tower, the one he got to know with her, and ended up talking to the tower as if it was his amulet (his charm to ward off evil). Especially when storms came, he'd think about that day, how Carmen said she'd take care of him; her lips moving, saying something he couldn't interpret, translate. Did he kill Carmen, no, of course not, but try and tell him that; he felt he had something to do with it. He told himself, the nightmare would fade into oblivion eventually, they always do, but then he didn't know for sure, he never had one before, not one recurring anyhow; it was just a matter of time he said: he said that year, after year, after year. Carmen's Winter Your days were bleak,
Your wings were chilled
The poetry of love
Inside your soul"?
Was crumbing
In a rhythmical
Dirge...
Death, death was calling!... #538 [3/11/05] Stanzas FAREWELL Life! My senses swim,
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night;
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill;
Strong the earthly odor grows,--
I smell the mould above the rose! "?Thomas Hood End of the book Love and Butterflies
[For Elsie T. Siluk my mother] She fought a good battle
The last of many"?
Until there was nothing left
Where once, there was plenty. And so, poised and dignified
She said, 'farewell,' in her own way
And left behind
A grand old time
Room for another Love and Butterflies...
That was my mother. "?By Dennis L. Siluk 7/03 |
