I’ll Be Seeing You

We stand on the edge of the pond, watching the swans glide on the dark green water, oh how beautiful they are, how regal. Their long curved necks, feathered torsos, sheer grace. I throw bread crumbs and suddenly swans crowd the edge of the pond. Up close they’re even more beautiful, their long necks curved into hearts, their feather ruffled, some with babies on their backs and some black swans.

“Those are Trumpeter Swans,” says Van Michaels. I met him at a zoom singles pandemic book club. A retired literature professor, he’s in his seventies. We’ve spent weeks talking on the phone, zooming, taking social distance walks and talking about art, what it is, films, life.

Five feet apart, we sit on a green bench, facing the pond at the Palace of Fine Arts. A mist of fog floats over the City. Our voices under our masks are muffled and lost in the rising wind. A black Fedora hat on which I stuck silk roses, keeps my hair, since the pandemic, grown down the middle of my back.

Mesmerized by Van, his charm, and intellect, and the swans, I take pictures of the swans with my phone, nodding, as Van explains the symbols of swans. They symbolize eternal life-creativity, beauty.

“Forever romance. Forever beauty,” I say.

“Nothing is forever. It changes,” he replies. “After his heart surgery, when he retired he changed everything.”

Silence.

“Maybe the swans are too beautiful, too romantic to be. Maybe like Dante’s Paolo and Francesca banished to be together forever in the circle of hell, they need to die too.”

I throw bread crumbs in the pond and a cluster of swans circle around the bread, like bouquets of white shadows.

After a long reflective silence, Van says: “I think the swans reclaim themselves every moment. I think they’re happy.” He pauses. “Let’s walk to my place. I’ll cook, we’ll have wine. We’ll social distance. It’s about time you come over. See my Joan Mitchell Painting. You love Joan Mitchell.”

His Victorian home is wall-to-wall books and interesting chairs from his world travels, framed awards on the walls, Indian velvet cushions and Persian rugs. A large Mitchell painting hangs in the dining room and it’s so beautiful, so full of movement and color, and vibrancy., I stand there for a long time soaking in it. “I’ve always loved the music in her work, the passion. “

“Your paintings remind me of De Kooning’s calligraphic line, he says …I saw them on Google. It was a show you had five years ago.”

In the large kitchen, our masks on, trying to keep apart, I help him make linguini and salad. We set the table hear the fireplace and from Italian bowls without our masks we eat the delicious food, and talk non-stop.

In my high heel yellow ankle boots, I’m a bit taller than he is, but he’s fit and graceful. His Einstein color thick hair sticks in every direction, and surrounds the most interesting Semetic face — his nose almost touches the tip of his very full long mouth. Everything he says, or owns has a largeness about it. I’m madly attracted to him in a way I have never been. All my life I’ve been fantasizing about love, and is this it? It feels different from my old fantasies…it feels friendly, connected, and silent. No raves, bouquets, protests, discussions, but it’s there. The bag of bread cut up neatly so I could feed the swans meant everything to me and I knew. Just knew.

“Over dinner we discuss painting. His drawings are precise, beautiful, abstract. “you’re a real artist,” I say.

He smiles. “All artists are real artists.”
“No. But I’m not a pure artist like you are. I write …romance novels and my paintings are always of the same women…”

“You also paint silk roses on your hat. I like your books. I like your high heel yellow boots and that you love jazz and everything out of order and… Let’s sit together. “

“I’ll be dangerous,” I say, lying next to him on the long sectional couch.

Billie Holiday is singing I’ll Be Seeing You.”

“Do I hear…rain?”

“You hear my heart beating. And then we kiss, all caution thrown to the wind, we kiss again, a deep kiss, a kiss like I’ve never felt, a kiss that scrapes your soul, leaves an indentation forever and then we lie still, so still. And his eyes are closed, shut tight, and is that rain, or his heart? Is this really happening? I’m floating,

“Floating,” I whisper again. “Are you Van? I feel like the swans, do you?”

His eyes still closed, I touch his arm, but he doesn’t move. I touch his hand, and he doesn’t move, I kiss his lips, and he doesn’t move. I open his eyelids, he stares, and doesn’t move.

“I’ll Be Seeing You,” Billie Holiday sings. Over again, she sings, I’ll Be Seeing You.

After I call 911, and after they remove Van, I walk home and don’t notice the mist or the smell of smoke or that I forgot my mask and I’ll Be Seeing You.

BarbaraRoseBrooker/author/Latest novel Love, Sometimes, published Feb 2020, Post Hill Press/Simon Schuster, Her TV appearances, podcasts are on you tube and on www.barbararosebrooker.com