chapter Ten

to read from the FIRST CHAPTER

previous CHAPTER

EPISODE 20

When we meet on the other side

Will you recognize me then

Can we take up from our last goodbye

Or back from start again

(from the song 'On the Other Side' by Jay Jay Johanson)

I was the only child born from an only child who had been kept away from home and another only child who was orphaned -- so that my household had always been very limited, and further decreased with Carlo's departure . Suddenly I recalled that, in Punaouilo, I used to include in our family the maid Joanna and her husband Will, whom I called uncle.

'Armand... is my uncle!!' -- I exclaimed, shocked. My father's great love... was my uncle... his brother-in-law, though actually not in law... Armand Purlux Drurien, my uncle!... The fact that the renowned architect was gay had sounded like gossip, but suddenly it spoke directly to my heart, and I felt I was already bonded to that uncle whom I had never met...

That also meant that Monsieur de Montbelle was... my grandfather! Gaston, the noble, Catherine's father, whose name I had never heard being spoken in our house! Had my parents really kept that secret so well? And why? Or was Carlo lying? I knew Catherine's father had died in early 1983, the same year that we had later moved to France... just after his death, probably -- but why?

And then... I was... de Montbelle?

Laurent D'Allegro et de Montbelle!?!

My grandmother Celeste, the eternal great lady of the French theater, was a fierce flame that had only recently extinguished -- together with Catherine I had visited her just once in Paris, the city she dreaded to leave -- according to her, "the only civilized place in the world", though she hadn't travelled much --, and I had not seen her since I had moved with Angelo to Vice City in 1994, well until her death. I had been abroad, and I didn't fell like going back to France for her funeral.

"Never call me Grandma!!" -- she shrieked, right the first time we met, when I was nine years old -- "That makes me sound so old! Celeste, my name is Celeste! And Grandma just doesn't match it!" -- in fact, her name was Cerlestine, exactly like that, with an extra "err", an error registered in her birth certificate, and she had hated her real name, and kept it like a secret, until she finally managed to change her certificate and all others documents issued under that name.

Celeste -- and I was always tempted to call her Cerleste -- to me, was little more than a bony hand covered in jewels who patted condescendingly on my head and handed me money for every visit we paid her -- and though those visits were very few, the money had never stopped coming in the mail for my birthdays and Christmas. Monsieur de Montbelle's or her own money? I'd never known. She had been more like a cash machine to me than a grandmother.

'Please, Laurent...' -- Carlo begged, speaking low -- 'Let me tell this story to the end, and then you can ask the questions you want. It is not easy for me... still not easy for me, even after all these years...'

'Have I told you already that once I've seen an aerial picture of the Île du Blanchomme, and its shape actually reminded me of a human heart?' -- Carlo asked dreamingly -- 'Anyway...'

With just a few hours until dawn, there was no point in trying to rest my troubled heart, and that night I neither slept in bed with Catherine nor did I go after Armand.

I didn't just want to be left alone -- I felt lonely. Deeply, essentially lonely. No family -- my grandfather still completely unaware of my tropical adventure -- and no friends, except the one I had betrayed and just hurt. I saw myself completely enveloped by that family intrigue like in a powerful and toxic fog. I felt I was choking, losing Armand's friendship and love, without having conquered Catherine's, having only the promise of a child to cling to, an unwanted baby, threatened by his own mother.

Nevertheless, that was exactly how I was joining Monsieur de Montbelle's family -- I mean, if he would allow me to. Putting myself in his place, I realized how in his point of view I had not only misled his son during college, and used his name and influence to travel for free, then prolonging the suffering of his wife on her deathbed, thus prolonging his own suffering while delaying his freedom that her death would bring him... Finally, I had made his daughter pregnant. Without a roof to offer neither her nor Mounsier's grandson.

I feared how Catherine would react upon the discovery that I was "persona non grata" at the Château de Montbelle, where she would now be admitted... Just her and the baby, however, could live there -- as father and husband, I would be kept away. And unless I'd use a false name -- how to explain that? -- she would probably discover it already when we tried to board for France, because I had also become "persona non grata" on the fleets of ships belonging to Monsieur's friends.

And what if Catherine decided, after all, to tell her father about the "secret preferences" of her half-brother, committed as she was in destroying Armand... but I thought she wouldn't, since it implied destroying me too, and she would not, now that our future was bonded... Otherwise, I'd become "persona non grata" in all aspects of Monsieur de Montbelle's life.

Penniless, and now disgraced. Without the best friend I had ever had in my whole life, my spiritual brother, master, my true love, that I hadn't honored nor respected, and now running the risk of losing the mother of my yet to be born child, too.

I cried so much that I finally dozed off, exhausted, on one of the veranda tables, where I had once exchanged confidences with Armand, where once I had engaged in seducing Catherine.

The worst pain I felt upon waking up was not in my body, abused from a sleepless night, and full of tension. Nor was it in my heart, made hollow overnight, since I was losing Armand without having replaced him with Catherine... No, that feeling hollow, that pain seemed to be myself, my whole self, my entire existence. I saw my whole life as one continuous mistake, especially since I'd left my grandfather's house in the Apennines, willing to cultivate a talent I had imagined I possessed. But I should have kept on growing vegetables, now that I realized how completely unprepared for the subtleties of love and life I was.

I had to recognize that I was no romantic hero out of the Scott Fitzgerald's books Armand loved so much, nor like any of the Nouvelle Vague anti-heroes that made Catherine sigh -- just a plain orphaned peasant with little past. Neither glamorously decadent like Dick Diver nor ruthlessly handsome as Belmondo's Michel Poiccard, I was more like a helpless, clumsy Mr. Hulot, naive at best.

Awakening that morning was waking up to a nightmare. I did not want to meet neither Catherine nor Armand, since I owed explanations to both -- and I wished I could have taken a road and just walked away without stopping, without looking back.

On the Île du Blanhomme, however, I was left with the possibility of swimming until I drowned, engulfed by the treacherous currents -- but in fact, escaping was not an option for me, when I thought about my future son,  who had already announced himself to me! And the recollection of his apparition reminded me that I hadn't sat to meditate in the mornings for a long time now, having felt too lazy after so many long nights of sex.

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes, 

May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes, 

May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering, 

May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

I prayed, more for myself than for all beings, that once, and my heart found some peace while I descended the stairs and walked towards the beach.

But instead of redemption or enlightenment, a worst nightmare awaited me at the beach. 

Standing before the sunrise, there was not an apparition, but my transfigured -- or disfigured -- friend.

'Nooooooo!!!!!' -- I cried as I ran towards Armand.

His beautiful blonde hair, the ponytail he had started growing during his first trip to India, the long hair that had represented the rebelion against his family, while he had kept on moving towards a truer and happier Armand, that had culminated with his coming out and revealing his deep feelings for me, his love and longing... that beautiful, soft golden hair that I had caressed just the night before, as I had kissed him...

'Why have you done this to yourself, Armand?!?!' -- I cried, as I saw my friend looking more like a fasting Gandhi than a gallant D'Artagnan.

But Armand remained silent, quietly breathing and glancing over at the rising sun. I thought that not talking was his way of punishing me, for he remained silent for several minutes.

He had started crying when I touched his shoulder. For a second and very gently, he tried to escape from my grasp, but I held him tighter, and he surrendered to my grip. That second, when I realized how easily he submitted to my demanding touch, something triggered in me.

'The sunrise is so beautiful here...' -- he finally whispered, very slowly, without taking his eyes from the horizon -- 'If the soul exists, it rises with this light... Ascesis...' -- I wondered from what source he could still pull so much sweetness and peace into his words and tone of voice?

'Why, Armand?!? Why did you do that?!?' -- I whispered too, though I could not disguise my anguish, and another violent feeling, yet unnamed, that had started building inside me just a few seconds ago -- 'You... you were so... beautiful last night...'

'There is no more reason for beauty.' -- he stated, and again he fell into silence.

I stood beside him, listening with attention, peering at his face, searching for a clue of how his feelings towards me were. What was I looking for, what emotional breach or glimpse of weakness was I hunting for? But his countenance was placid, and once again, if it were not for the abundant tears that rolled down his cheeks, I would not have known that he was sad.

'I've decided to become what I am...' -- he said, and again fell into a concentrated state.

'What do you mean, Armand?' -- I was puzzled, and frightened. My heart was already beating faster, my whole body had started shaking.

'A monk.' -- his answer came more than a minute later, and only after I gripped his shoulder tighter, making his gasp -- 'I'm going back to Thailand, to that Buddhist monastery I really enjoyed there. You can stay on the island... with her.'

'No, Armand!! You don't need to go away! This island is your dream... Your home, your garden...' -- I was heartbroken upon hearing his decision, but strangely I also felt humiliated -- 'How can you leave it all behind?'

'This island was my illusion... But I awoke from my attachments...' -- he gave a subtle and sorrowful smile, which however did not hold back his tears -- 'You two will take care of it... I could not take care of the island... alone. You can both stay. I am leaving.'

'Armand...' -- I had to tell him the truth -- 'Catherine does not want to stay on the island. She wants to return to France...'

My friend did not help my sincerity, asking me what I wanted to do next, with whom would I stay. Perhaps he had already understood, and did not bother to ask. I guess that was the precise moment when I was able to recognize the violent feeling that had been building in me -- rage. I had hurt him, Catherine had humiliated him, but still he acted as if he were superior to both of us and whatever we could inflict on him.

But he couldn't have foreseen the request that I threw at him next.

'I need money, Armand!' -- I spoke quickly, and harshly -- 'To return... to France.'

For a moment, I considered telling him that Catherine was expecting my child -- partially because I wanted to be nice and give him something to bargain against Catherine who, through me, had discovered the secret about his sexuality. On the other hand, it was also to justify the need to go with her, because the baby was the only thing that actually bonded her to me.

I wonder why my loyalty was to Catherine on such a moment, and I can only guess it was the tremendous peace and calm Armand was able to maintain in contrast to my feeling so dilacerated, that enraged me. How he magnanimously now wanted to hand us the island. I think it was that superiority, even when dealing with strong and difficult emotions, that stranged me from my friend, then and there. And I empathised with Catherine's rage, understanding how she must have suffered constantly feeling inferior to her half-brother, all through her life, and even on the Île. Because I made the decision not to confide to Armand the truth, allowing him plenty of space to imagine reasons for my sudden departure with his half-sister.

'So... do you love her?' -- he asked, and started to sob.

In an impulse I hugged him, and immediately he began to shiver, trying to get rid of me. I was surprised with that reaction, and I felt rejected. That was his mistake, I guess, pushing me and challenging my love and loyalty for him, because it suddenly turned into repulsion. With my arms that were much stronger than his, I held him tighter -- I held him hostage of my embrace. What else did he want from me? What impossible else did he fucking want from me?!?! And of course I knew what it was that he was longing for. Could I give -- or should I give -- it to him?

'No, it's not her whom I love...' -- I still confided. Had I been feeling so much love to my unborn son as to follow a woman I felt no more than plain lust and desire for? Or I simply wanted to protect the baby from his own mother?

Anyway, I did not have the heart to tell Armand it was him whom I loved, because I was no longer sure. I might as well have hated him, that very moment. Why was he still crying, when he finally was in my arms, my body tightly pressed against his body like he had always wanted?

 I had loved Armand like a brother, I had loved Armand from the distance, I had loved the memory of him, but having him again in my arms, his body pressed against mine, feeling his tight muscles and aspiring his manly smell, I no longer felt the urge to kiss him like the previous night...

'I will give you the money...' -- he struggled to get rid of my arms, and aggressively I held him even tighter, squeezing him. I was aware that I was hurting my friend, and to my horror and desperation I realized my own violence in my intent to dominate and imobilize him. Yet, that aggressive dominance over him struck me as a strange, wicked form of sensuality, and I felt that familiar tingle in my groins and the blood rushing to that area, being pumped into my organ. I was almost lifting Armand from the ground, and his feet trampled the sand trying to escape, as I tried to twist him and have his back against my chest -- 'No...' -- As I pressed my erection at his side, I guess he must have sensed the thought that had invaded my mind, as I saw myself ripping off his clothes and throwing him against the sand to give him what he had been longing for all those years, right there on the beach -- 'No! Let me go!' -- We had never measured our physical strength before, but once he was totally under control and at my mercy, with a quick gesture I lowered the back of his shorts  and exposed his white, boyish buttocks -- 'Please...' -- the more desperate his struggle grew, the more my excitement escalated -- 'No! Please, Carlo... No!' -- he whined, as he had started to lose his breath and finally submit to my force. But just before we transformed into opponents and entangled in a fight, by the way Armand had cried my name into his plea making my embrace sound like a kidnapping crime, as I if I was already raping him, I immediately released his body and pushed him away. He looked at me with terrorized eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he regained balance and recomposed himself from my assault,  lifting his briefs.

 And since I could not think of anything else to tell nor ask from him, I simply made my way back to the house. I was panting, and I tried to avert my eyes, but my gaze did follow him for a moment, when he walked swiftly towards the other side of the island. It was fine with me if he felt like isolating and hiding himself from me, I thought.

Exhausted and confused, my body all sweaty and still shaking, no longer able to think nor feel anything, I lay down and immediately fell asleep on the couch in the hallway.

 I would have probably spent the entire morning there, but Catherine had woken up to go to the bathroom, and she nudged and urged ​​me to go back to bed with her.

'Our bed.' -- she emphasized.  In my mental confusion, I thought it was "our bed" twice for me, because in that same bed I had also slept with Armand.

In fact, as I would find out many years later, Catherine was awakened by my scream when I rushed towards Armand on the beach. From the balcony she had watched the whole scene between me and my friend unfold, confirming her suspicions and adding another triumph over her half-brother when, seen from the distance, our struggle had looked more like foreplay.

I followed Catherine into bed, and although sleepy, it suddenly occurred to me that the boat should come to the island within a day or two. Armand had rented another boat to return quicker, and so the normal boat continued on its regular schedule. It saddened me to think that I had only a day or two left at the Île du Blanchomme, which I'd leave forever.

I also realized that, from that moment on, I would have to lie constantly to Catherine, and with greater skill, trying to avoid at all costs that Monsieur de Montbelle discovered that I was now in the company of his daughter, and no longer in the likings of his son.

For now I was covered, since Catherine also wanted to hide the pregnancy from her family. And to think that, all the time, as she spoke on the phone from the hospital in the Elder Sisters Islands... with her mother... it was Monsieur de Montbelle's second family that I was getting involved with!

In my sleep I was again tormented by those erotic dreams full of ambiguity. Now that they had almost become reality, they seemed more real and struck me like nightmares, in which I made love with both Catherine and Armand at the same time, as if the siblings were one and the same person.

I kissed Armand, who corresponded with love, and so it was that Catherine did no longer refuse my kisses. Catherine did not complain on the harshness of my hands over her soft skin, because  Armand loved the almost rude strength with which I grabbed him. I penetrated Catherine, who was soft and moist to welcome me, and Armand was equally willing to open himself up to me. At my thrusts, I heard one indistinct voice moaning in pleasure, begging for more. And in my dream I could not distinguish which of the siblings I gave myself to, now him, and then her, and to both I gave pleasure in an escalation that culminated with their orgasms as they were being flooded by my seed.

I woke up feeling tormented, my underwear all sticky, but still unwilling to make love to Catherine, because I could strongly sense Armand's presence on the island. I even lift my head from the pillow to check if he was not spying on us, but there was nobody in the room, and the Île was perfectly silent.

When was it I thought that Armand could enforce certain conditions to hand me the money? I was now in his hands, and the time factor and my despair helped him and conferred him power over me. If he demanded it, I would have sex with him -- I  don't know if I thought about it a bit before falling asleep, or if I actually dreamed it, and within minutes I was sleeping again, and in my dreams I had indeed to assault and beat him, and steal the money from him.

That renovated burst of violence against Armand made me wake up again, around midday, and I felt the urge to hug Catherine tighter. It was already a miracle that she had not dumped me, when she had found out that I had no partnership with her ​​brother. My greatest fear now was losing her, and separating myself from my son. Or daughter. It might indeed be a girl, as Catherine sensed, and I was delighted with Sophie already. 

Having little time left on the Île, I felt no desire to paint -- not a canvas, and much less the walls. I would have again to roll my paintings, and take them to an unknown destination -- where would we actually live, Catherine, the baby and I? I had no idea whatsoever... I could not plan ahead nor foresee anything. First, we'd have to leave the Île -- and that gave me a heavy heart --, so that I could remember how the world outside functioned, but even before that, there were a few things to pack.

'I'm always ready to leave this hole, my darling...' -- Catherine had said, ironically, when I asked her to prepare for the next boat -- 'Do these things have any value? Will they give us money?' -- she had inquired when she saw me rolling my paintings -- 'Aren't they... useless?'

I almost decided on making a new bonfire and burning absolutely all of my paintings, when I realized that the answer to Catherine's question was that they had no value at all. Not worth anything to absolutely no one -- except, perhaps, for Armand? But even that, now that he wanted to become a monk, was indeed useless. I would leave him a single painting, that which was hanging in his room, the one he had "bought" from me. 

And as he also wanted to leave the Île, I did not try to paint the walls, nor did I resume working in the garden, that had again become so desolate. It no longer seemed worthwhile to try to take away that ruined look from things -- soon, the house would be empty, occupied only by the wind, sand and spirits, and the garden would be nothing more than a wild tangle, without no one to look at it. So why should I care, why bother at all?

Was I still genuinely concerned about Armand's well being, when he did not show up for lunch? Or did I seek him in the corner of the island where he had fled to take refuge, simply because I desperately needed the money?

He had spent all day meditating at the beach, sitting on the edge of the sea. Hours and hours sitting straight without moving, without anything to eat or drink. How could he? I was unaware about that concentration skill from my friend -- as for myself, I had never managed to stay motionless for more than two hours, and after that, all the peace and contentment I would have felt with the meditation was extinguished and there was only boredom and discomfort. 

I was a little worried that he might have a heatstroke because the coconut tree shade he had chosen was not exactly a good protection against the sun, as I had warned Catherine.

I came to check on him a few times during the day, wondering what levels of contemplation he would have achieved to remain so long in meditation. And I finally realized, with a shudder, that the shade of that coconut tree beside him... It hadn't moved! Just like Armand himself! I felt goose bumps... The shade had stood all day long on the same exact spot where Armand sat!

All other shadows on the island had logically and naturally followed the solar motion... but not that one, which was fixed on Armand, providing him protection from the sun during his meditation!

Not without fear, I approached Armand. Was it me who was having a sunstroke? Upon approaching him, I felt a very intense scent of flowers -- but there was no nearby bush on that corner, nor was the wind blowing to bring that wonderful aroma from another part of the island. Anyway, that was a perfume like none I had smelled before, and it did not seem to belong to the Île du Blanchomme.

I went away, intrigued with that strong yet delicate scent of flowers, and truly scared with that immobilized shadow.

I knew how the story of the Buddha -- the prince who leaves his palace and kingdom, turning his back on a life of pleasures and ease, abandoning his beautiful wife and a newborn son, to undergo severe spiritual practice until finding his own Middle Way that lead him to a definitive way beyond and out of illusion and suffering --, had impressed Armand. I knew how my friend had identified himself with the great spiritual master. Armand was almost a prince himself, and he too was willing to abandon his family, a life of luxury and hypocrisy, for a noble cause -- as an architect, he wanted to build quality housing for the poor. And he had come a long way already, living a simple life on the Île. And now, he wanted to move further on the path and become a monastic.

That night -- and only after having verified that Armand was still meditating at the beach -- I again made love to Catherine -- and only because it could be the last time on the Île du Blanchomme. I was very turned on since that morning, when I had tried to assault Armand, but I tried as hard as I could to push that episode of violence away from my mind, as I concentrated on exploring Catherine's body.

She had spent the whole day teasing me, and I thought it was out of her insecurity in face of my relationship with Armand, and because of her desire for revenge. After all, why hadn't Catherine separated from me when she found out that I was poor? Why didn't she leave me behind on the Île? Not because she loved me, nor because she needed me to return to France. Just like she had arrived on her own, she would have returned alone.

The truth was simple -- because I had been her brother's love. She had confirmed her suspicions, upon seeing us together on the beach in the morning. And in the lifetime competition with her half-brother, the official son of Monsieur de Montbelle, for the first time Catherine had beaten him, by taking something from Armand that was very dear to him. 

Me. In fact, while I was worried about losing Catherine and getting separeted from my son, she in turn was keen to keep her brother's ex-boyfriend to herself, like a prize. 

For the rest of our lives together, Catherine was never convinced that I had never had a romantic and sexual relationship with Armand -- in fact, she had to believe that it had been indeed lovers that she had actually separated, to make her revenge the more enjoyable.

Despite the inexperience and selfishness that I had revealed in our first time, she wanted to believe that it had been my first time with women only.

'We are much more demanding and hard to satisfy, darling! No wonder the sex you had before with Armand did not help much when you made love to me.' -- Catherine's theory was that men who loved women had to be much more competent than men who loved other men. Thus she explained why gays had such a strong fetish in seducing straight men.

She herself, however, seemed to have a fetish in seducing a homosexual. For she felt content thinking I was gay, and that she had seduced me and "made ​​me a man". It was another fantasy of power and control for her. And also on that track Catherine went ahead with the pregnancy -- it was another way to keep me on her side, since she realized my attachment to that child. To keep her trophy on the shelf became so important just because she had snapped it from her brother's shelf.

"Come to me... please..." -- I heard it being whispered in the middle of the night, out of my sleep. Not a distant voice, but as if it were whispering in my ear... Or rather, inside me.

'What is it?' -- Catherine was angry when I woke up startled, terrified, waking her up too.

'Did you hear that?' -- I asked, still scared, trembling. Was the island actually haunted? The unborn spirits... Or had the deceased Herr Weissmann being watching on us all the time? I checked that there was nobody in the room nor on the porch or in the bathroom, and I felt goose bumps.

'Hear what? There is only this boring silence all day long...' -- Catherine was sleepy, and that's why she wasn't actually more upset when I said I would take a blanket to Armand on the beach -- 'Will you cover him, will you? Just go, then!' -- but she was terribly jealous.

"Please... come..." -- I heard it again, and this time, being wide awake, I was sure it was a voice inside my head... -- "We need to talk..."

I'm not the kind of person who hears voices, much the less voices from within my head. I am the kind of person who won't even believe such thing is possible -- and yet, I was listening to... Armand's voice inside me!

Terrified, thinking that maybe my friend had already died from starvation, I went down to the beach. Even from a distance, I could smell that intriguing yet delicious scent of flowers coming from his direction.

I found him in the exact same place where he had been sitting since that morning, at the same position, in deep meditation. Gently laying a blanket over his shoulders, I noticed how his face was illuminated by such peace and contentment as I had never seen before. I had never seen a monk meditating -- and apparently I'd go away from that part of the world without having had the chance -- but Armand's expression reminded me of nothing less than the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini.

"Come sit here with me... Do not be afraid, my friend..." -- I heard him say, but no sound came out of his mouth.

'Armand... You're scaring me!' -- I babbled.

'Don't talk. Just think.' -- his commands raised softly from within my own mind -- 'Yes, speak with your mind. And do not use your ears to listen. Listen with your heart. In silence, our communication will be immediate. Inexpressibly perfect and clear, as it always is between minds...'

And despite the sweetness and calm in his voice, I almost ran away when my friend turned on himself -- first, his head and neck faced my direction, and then his whole body, as if it were smoke, twisting towards me, and he began to rise from the sand and up into the air.

Armand had begun... to levitate... Was it an hallucination? An aberration? Another apparition?

As if expanding, he seemed disproportionately larger than me, and yet so intangible and diaphanous.

'What are you doing, Armand?' -- I still whispered, unable to just think in silence as he had asked me to -- 'Are you trying to scare me?' -- I was afraid that my friend was actually disembodying before me.

'I just want to pacify you...' -- his voice was soothing -- 'I asked you to come here so that we could talk without anyone knowing it, without anyone seeing it, nor listening...'

He could only be talking about Catherine, the only other person on the Île du Blanchomme, who was asleep... Or was he talking about the wandering spirits of the Birth Island? Was Armand... seeing them?, I thought, and I felt shivers.

'I have to ask forgiveness...' -- Armand's first sentence astounded me so much, and though I thought it was exactly the other way around, I was too confused and scared to grab that last opportunity to speak my heart out, to sincerely try to apologize... I just sat there in awe, listening to his beautiful, wise words that followed. 

'I've created a fantasy of love, I now see it. I impinged an ideal picture over you. Maybe that's why I haven't truly seen you, Carlo. I had my expectations about you. About us. Too many. And they collapsed not because of you... But just because I had created them in the first place. This is, because that is. Such a simple teaching by the Buddha, yet so complex to grasp. "Where there is sign, there is illusion."  I can now see it.'

'I thought I desperately needed you, Carlo, in order to be able to finally overcome the suffering of my mother's death... it was so hard, so painful for her... And sometimes it seems that it was even harder for me... And that kiss, yesterday, made ​​me so happy! Even if that happiness lasted only for a few minutes, it was a balm for my heart... It was then that I realized... You had already helped me overcome... Everything! Being present, in my heart and mind, since the day I left the Île until my return.'

'During the whole time I was away, I remembered your last words... Whenever you feel lonely please think of this beautiful island ... think of me here, taking care of it for you... waiting for your return. And you made ​​me dream of this house made ​​our home... When you face difficulties please think of how the breeze runs free on this island, and unreservedly wanders into all rooms of the house... that will be illuminated from within, painted white as you have envisioned it... Can you see it, already?' 

'It was all true, Armand! I was not lying... At that time...' -- I could finally think only, and I had no doubt that Armand could listen to me, because our minds were not two different entities anymore, and our voices occurred in the same place, neither inside nor outside of us. Just too immediate and interconnected to seem still split or to be placed in time or space.

'I know that.' -- Armand replied sweetly, trying to reassure me -- 'But what was it that went wrong, I thought, when I returned and your words hadn't come true? For a moment, I thought of confronting you with your own promises... Our house painted, a garden full of flowers like a vision of our beautiful life together as a couple... But who confronts God in prayers? What is the difference between the comfort of God and the comfort provided by praying to Him?' 

'That's what I've realized today, while sitting here. Your loving words on our parting helped me cope with my mother's death, and again when I confronted my father about my future, and when he left for good to live with that...' -- he paused -- '...with Catherine's mother... Until this morning, I thought of that woman with hatred... I thought she was responsible for my mother's death... Now I see she was my mother's best excuse to give up her own life, her struggles, her pain, her suffering... Having lost my own mother, how can I hate another person's mother, wish her any ill? And especially when that person is my sister... None of us is to blame for the lack of scruples of the man who unites and separates us... Nor am I going to blame my father for my own suffering, nor anyone else's... I have finally understood how much he must suffer himself. How he is like a tree bearing fruits consisting of the same suffering he is rooted into.'

'My sister waiting for me on this island was a great surprise, and a great blow... and the greatest lesson of all! I should have looked for her earlier... She must have interpreted my silence, when we found out about her family's existence, as plain despise. Despise on top of rejection... Catherine must have suffered unbearably all her life, but until today I was too lost in my own selfish suffering to actually care about hers... When I came out to you, Carlo, a heavy burden was lifted from my shoulders and the healing began... Just by listening to me, by not rejecting me at that moment, for being as welcoming as you could have been... You've liberated me from my deepest suffering. What else can I expect from you? Sex? When you have already shown your love to me, to the limit of your capacity... Now the main question is how can I love my sister? And how to love her mother? How can I go from hatred to love?  How to love, simply, completely, in essence? I thought I knew love until I had met Catherine, but so far it had been just a romantic illusion... I have placed a huge burden on you, Carlo, and only upon you... I'm so sorry about it.'

'The love I felt for you... A romantic love... so limited, so narrow that it included so few people... that is, if it didn't exclude everyone else but you, and especially my sister and her mother... who seems to be the love of my father's life... So much delusion, and so much suffering derived from it, involving so many beings... While I wished and longed to be back in your arms, Catherine was here, filling them already... That was no coincidence. And I finally realized that all you had already done for me... was everything that you could do! Being satisfied and content with that is my problem, not yours.'

'In times of greatest pain, I could again feel your embrace, and I was relieved. In times of trouble, I could smell your body, and that secret pleasure gave me strength. And in times of loneliness, feeling your beard brushing against my face while your strong arms embraced me, always made ​​me smile and dissolved all the difficulties... Do you remember that line from Malle's "Le souffle au couer", when Lea Massari tells her son Laurent... "I don't want you to be unhappy, or ashamed, or sorry..." Do you understand what I'm saying, Carlo?'

'Last night, that kiss seemed to be a beginning, when it actually was a closure. To my romantic life. Finally! I now want to experience a greater love, the love for all beings... true love, unconditional, unrestricted love. And for this practice, the new challenge is my sister... How to love Catherine, who hates me so much? How to make up for a lifetime of frustration, rejection and inferiority complex on her part, and so much prejudice, ignorance and misunderstanding from my own?'

'I cannot give her this beautiful island since it does not belong to me, but I could transfer the government concessions for you both. But no, she doesn't want to stay here, I know it. I can help you two return to France, though, if that's what you want... You can take all the money you need from my office. There is plenty of it hidden in the false bottom of a box, the third from the top, at the stack closest to the corner...'

'And while waiting for your ship to France at the Elder Sisters Islands, you can stay at the hotel next to the harbor on my account... That's where I usually stay... Room 8, not one of the noisy ones at the front, who are turned towards the port, but at the back, with a nice view of the beach. Just give my name at the reception, and I shall pay the bill the next time I go there. And I don't think it will take long for me to pack here and to leave for Thailand... As a monk I won't be needing much, so that I could almost leave it all behind...'

'Carlo! Carlo! How much longer will you sit there? Carlo? Are you pretending not to hear me? Carlo!!'

Finally, as if coming from another world, Catherine's voice reached me.

'I'm sorry, I hadn't heard you before!' -- I apologized. There was an urgency in her voice that made me stand up at once. Curiously, after having sat in meditation for so long, my legs and back did not hurt at all.

'How come? I've been calling you from the balcony for a long time! Have you guys gone mad? Do you like evading reality, is it so?' -- she accused angrily.

'Meditation is not escaping reality... It's confronting it, instead... Calmly confronting reality...' -- but she seemed annoyed with my words -- 'Catherine, aren't you seeing it?'

'Seeing what? That idiotic man sitting there and pretending to be a statue since this morning? Is he in a trance or something?'

'Catherine! It is... a miracle!' -- I had never talked to her about spirituality, and I did not know how to introduce the subject, which was of great importance to me... She had mentioned her studies about that eleventh century orthodox monk, but she was primarily interested in him because it might have been a woman, and in the style of his/her writings, not in fact about that monk's spiritual practice... what would Catherine think and understand if I said Armand was achieving enlightenment?

'It will be a miracle...' -- she replied sharply -- 'if you don't catch a cold, having stayed almost naked for so many hours out here! And do not point your finger, ever... That is so rude!'

'Catherine...' -- I tried to make her see it -- 'Don't look with your eyes...'

'I'm sleepy, Carlo!' -- and she was angry, too -- 'I've had enough of this nonsense! I'm going back to bed. I shouldn't have worried about you...'-- but in fact, Catherine's only concern was what I could be doing with Armand on the beach, for so long... in her imagination, she feared that she would find us naked on the sand, in the arms of one another, like lovers reunited...

Love.

Love, Catherine.

True love, Catherine.

Pure love.

Don't look with your eyes.

Look with your heart...

Can you see it?

 NEXT  CHAPTER