Through a lens darkly
VIII.
citadel of memories
I've already boxed up my memories of her time with me in Cascais. Five years of remembrances cost one-hundred dollars and a quick trip to the UPS. I sent everything she asked for: the dresses, the books, the photos, the letters and the miscellaneous bric-a-brac. All that physically remains of hers, or rather, ours, is a single photograph taken her last week in Portugal. I keep it in a sealed envelope, wedding ring enclosed in the deep recesses of my closet.
We look happy, standing in front of the esplanade gazing out over the Atlantic. We are framed by a clay-colored turret and a light blue sky. Yachts are languidly gliding toward the horizon. All the hope in the world is captured in that moment.
She's wearing a semi-transparent lavender blouse - which she claimed showed too much cleavage (and I would retort, let them look) - and a black mini that emphasized her perfect silhouette. Her hair, recently bobbed, falls to her chin and gleams in the mid-afternoon sun. I am remembering her pursing her lips just so, to give the shoot a "touristic air." Her Chinese eyes are glimmering in the light, highlighted by a judicious amount of eyeliner, looking into the lens, playing with the imaginary photographer and revealing her passionate inner sensuality.
And there I am. Trying to look comfortable besides this obviously attractive woman, not thinking of her really, but preoccupied with will the automatic timer work or not. Wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants, nothing in the way I was dressed at that moment alludes to the fact that later that evening that it would all come out: five years would be over. A letter in her purse, right next to my unsuspecting shoe, holds the evidence of her infidelity and my cuckold. The camera cannot capure that.
But, I repeat, we look happy, or at least I was, in suspecting but trying-not- to-suspect obliviousness.
It appears as though we are two young lovers out to conquer our hearts and the world. Before, in the beginning, we thought we could do everything together, for eternity. But, like the crumbling citadel behind us in the photo, those were remnants of another era, needing desperately a renovation - if only for a moment, to help guide us into a more secure future. But, like the walls that slowly melt into the sea, the changes were made too late, previous decisions made by outside forces made me obsolete. I was good for a photograph or a scenic moment, and that was it. I had in sense become a memory in the present. And she was waiting for the perfect moment as when to go.
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