En Passant (In Passing)

The church bell tolls again. I have nothing better to do than to count, so I do. One... two... three.

It's summer and the sun is still high in the sky when I look out of the window. In the piazza across the river, the old men have gathered again around the giant chess board etched into the ground. They are bickering over a knight that rises to half their height, its equine countenance turned away from them in indifference verging on disdain.

I am reminded of you.

"Why is mating the end of the game?" you had asked a day ago, with your impish grin.

"Because human males suffer a fate no different from what is alleged of our arachnid counterparts. Mating is the end of us," I had retorted with a weak smile.

"More like you guys can only mate once, then you need to rest," peals of laughter accompanied your unwillingness to grant my pretensions.

And so it should be. Men of a certain age should be shorn of all pomposity if the species is to survive. And who better for that task than you?

It was there in that square that we first met two years ago, when you sat yourself at my table and struck up a conversation about the book I was reading. A conversation that spilled over to dinner that night, then the next, and four months later a real date.

I hear your key turn in the lock. You insist on locking the door when you leave early in the morning for your conference sessions. I have learnt not to argue with you, especially about such things.

A second later you are in the room, your little frame filling the space like the force of nature that you are. I hold my arms open and you rush into them, your lips landing on mine briefly before you lean your head back, eyes quizzing mine.

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes I did," I know better than to return the question, "Very much."

"Good, show me how much."

Afterwards we walk down to the square. The old men are still there, and they pause their argument to watch you with indulgent smiles as you dart between the oversized pieces.

"I am Judit Polgar," you announce with self-mocking grandiosity, placing one hand on the much disputed knight which now occupies a position deep in hostile territory. The sun, now lower in the sky, seems to shine right through your white cotton dress and your body. We grin, all of us men, disarmed and captive.

It has been an entire week. A rare treat to have you all to myself for this long. I should be grateful. Instead I am petulant when you lean out of the train to blow an exaggerated kiss to say goodbye. When I return to the room, it is too warm to sleep. I perch by the window and pop open the laptop, and start typing. In a day or four you will read this non-story and send me a text.

"Oh my! The unbearable lightness of being with me!" you will teasingly admonish me, your message rich with affection, "Stop moping and cheer up!"

And I will cheer up.

--- x ---

As the train approaches the city, and as you reach for your phone to message me, your attention is drawn to the middle-aged couple - or are they older? - seated opposite, who are in the midst of a hushed and heated disagreement. The woman sits immobile, her brown hair drawn back and knotted into a bun, head bent slightly down and at an angle, as if to catch some invisible words which would bring coherence to the man's protests.

He is tall and lean. A sports coat that fits poorly over a rumpled shirt suggests someone whose work attire might be or have been a lot more informal. He directs a rising tide of increasingly agitated questions towards the woman, barely pausing for answers. Finally, he gesticulates in exaggerated frustration and rises up off the seat and wanders out into the corridor.

It occurs to you that when men ask questions, they already have an answer in mind that they do not want to hear.

The woman has shifted to the window, looking out with seasoned calm at the rolling green meadows as they start to surrender the scene to concrete. Concrete bridges. Concrete warehouses. Concrete walls exploding in the universal script of graffiti.

"You are American?" the woman turns towards you and asks.

You nod tentatively in response, preparing instinctively for some impending preconception. Instead, she simply switches to English.

"I am Pauline. That's Bernhard. He's upset! Men, they need..." she searches for a word, then gestures palm up pointing outside the window, "... these."

You scan the world outside, trying to fathom what amongst the objects flying by could provide the critical clue to men.

"Milestones," the older woman finds her word, "they need milestones. To tell life so it doesn't just pass. Our daughter cannot make up her mind about her boyfriend. He wants to get married. She doesn't know."

Pauline pauses to assume a gruff male voice.

"What's there not to know? You like a person or you don't. It's simple!" she winks at you as if you are in cahoots in her imitation of Bernhard, who has returned with three cups of coffee.

"It's not just about love. People break up because they come to know each other's weaknesses," Pauline turns to the man as he hands out the cups, "Isn't that so, Bernhard?"

"No, no," he shakes his head. A small smile of reconciliation moderates the stern lines that descend down his face.

"People stay together because they learn each other's vanities."

The train pulls up at the station and Bernhard insists on pulling your bag off the rack and carrying it to the door. You wave to them from the platform. Pauline waves back, then sticks her head out and misquotes John Lennon, "Remember, life is what passes you by when you are busy making other plans!"

It's another hot summer day. The heat bounces off the walls, sending you zigzagging down the sidewalk, seeking the scattered shadows of trees and awnings, dragging your bag behind you. While you walk, you think back to Pauline and Bernhard, and their daughter. It had taken all your diplomatic skill to disguise your suspicion that your view might be more in line with Bernhard's. Now, as you walk home, you wonder what I might say about the matter.

You have a good guess. I would be the Pauline to your Bernhard.

But that would be wrong too, for you do not live by milestones.

--- x ---

It is a little before sunrise when I wake up in a sweat to the sound of muezzins wailing to their God, each one inheriting the dying strains of his predecessor, dispatching the laments heavenward with renewed vigour. To the non-believer that I am, their sonorous but doleful chant seems to fill the predawn air with the intimation of an execution. Beware, they appear to warn, to my ignorant ears, it could be you. But is irrelevance any better than a brisk execution?

Women live forever. The life of men ends at around thirty. There is a species of fish, you once told me, in which the male attaches to the female and over time disintegrates until nothing remains of him but a sac of sperm that the female harvests on a periodic basis to fertilise her eggs. Evolution, I am pleased to learn, occasionally employs Ockham's Razor with a wicked sense of humour.

I open the window and the cold, moist air from outside flows into the room. You stir and I listen for the insincere crossness of your voice asking me to get back to bed. But when you do speak, you catch me by surprise.

"I want to have a baby."

My room is on the fourth floor of a walkup in the old town. In winter, there is an occasional clanging that rises up the floors and within the walls, perhaps from the pipes that bring the hot water to the radiators. The sound offers me a distraction and I seize upon it. As I place my hand on the radiator in an attempt at naive diagnosis, I can sense you smiling in the darkness; smiling at my confusion.

"Come back here and make yourself useful. Chop chop!"

Your giggles draw me in and I sit by you at the edge of the bed.

"A baby!" I remonstrate, attempting to mimic the tone and words you use when you try to impose seriousness on our conversations, "That's very impractical, don't you think? Creating a dependent being and then tending to it as penance?"

"No way!" your hand reaches up to mess with my hair, "Don't you know that the hen is an egg's way of making another egg? It is very practical to fulfil my biological obligation, and clearly you have shown some fitness in surviving this long."

An orange glow spreads across the room announcing dawn. I lean down burying my face in your hair, and your hands slide down my neck to lock your arms protectively around my shoulder.

"Let's get coffee," you whisper, then gently push me off of you, throwing my shirt at me while you bundle up in a sweater.

We walk down the cobblestone street, past the shopkeepers cranking up shutters, and the chestnut vendor calling out to us, steam already rising from his cart.

At the shop, you sit opposite me and while away time with an intricate game of tapping your index finger over my palm. When the coffees arrive, you finally look up at me.

Your eyes sparkle not with innocence but with promise. People start streaming in as sunlight floods the ancient city, the crossroad of civilisations. Sounds abound around us. The clatter in the kitchen grows. I am lost in your kindness.

--- x ---

When I answer the phone you skip effortlessly over a decade of my silence.

"Hey! I saw your byline. I am in New York too. Let's meet... You are not going to be difficult, are you?"

"No," I promise, and check the train schedule.

It feels easy again. Your voice and presence - the easy familiarity of what is at hand - transform the burden of the impossible into weightless clouds that slip away and out of my mind; much like that moment of psycho-chemical clarity I can still recall from a childhood illness after a strong dose of cherry flavoured cough syrup was poured down my reluctant throat.

I walk up from Penn station, navigating the infernal grid of Manhattan. A modern city for modern men, purposeful and efficient. We are both anachronisms, you and me, a traveller from the past and one holding the promise of a future.

We meet in Central Park near the statue of Alice and her fabulous coconspirators. You have in tow a miniature of you. She gives me a hug, and then, having given more than was due scampers away before we can be formally introduced.

You hug me tight and kiss me on the cheek, then taking me by the hand pull me down onto a bench with you.

"I missed you so much." you say, "Have you been productive in exile?"

I deflect the necessity of having to account for myself, "When did you move back to New York?"

"Eight years ago." you gesture in the direction of the replica, "When she happened."

"And after you switched to law."

"Bioethics. You did not approve?" you smile.

"To the contrary! It is the noblest profession. And you recruited a willing partner for your, uh, practical project?"

"I sure did. In law school. We are married. He's a lawyer, one of those Wall Street types." you wrinkle your face as if to give me license, adding for emphasis, "Terrible, I know."

There is a pause.

You grin again, "Just silence? I was hoping you would do the contrarian thing and supply some philosophical justification for his existence."

"Not so easy! Surely you know that sophists bill at an hourly rate!"

"Oh! That reminds me," you motion towards the young one, who is now making her way back towards us, "He wanted to call her Sophia. I wanted Aretha. I won!"

The twinkle in your eye anticipates my response.

I cannot help the wide smile on my face, "Virtue over wisdom. Well done."

The child hears her name and quickens her pace. We are finally introduced and exchange a few pleasantries about the monotony of school, the intransigence of parents, and of course the greatest hits of Aretha Franklin.

With an air of someone about to get down to business, she reaches into her little bag and pulls out a box.

"Mommy says you will play chess with me."

It's a statement, not a request. I help set up the pieces and notice she picks black.

"Deference to age. That must not be genetic then," I smile at you. There is a look in your eyes, as you gaze upon the two of us, that is new to me. I rather like it.

The game is on. I make wild moves, my king daring its way into the centre of the board, much to your disapproval and hers.

"You have to be serious," her face is scrunched in mild reproach, but she too humours me. We play on.

Eventually, after a flurry of attacks, she advances a dormant pawn two squares and traps my meandering king.

"Whoa! Check mate!" I do my best to assemble a look of devastation on my face.

She is not amused. Instead she shakes her little head disapprovingly. Long blonde wisps of hair descend over her eyes, to be dispatched backwards in quick swipes of her busy hand.

"No," she reaches for one of my white pawns adjacent to her menacing one, uses it to cut hers and dismiss the threat on the life of my king.

"En passant," she whispers. Accompanied by a sigh to let me know that she knows I know.

I look up at you and laugh, "Judit Polgar!"

You smile, indulgently.