Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti

She was sitting in her study having her afternoon tea amid her books and cats, when the fax came in.
“Darling, I’ll be in Fiji when you get this. I’m not coming back. Don’t come after me.”
She stares at it for a few seconds longer than necessary, then goes to his bedroom, unlocks his left bed side drawer, takes out the pistol. There is a rude bang, then a ruder shock, then blessed blackness.

I enter the room late, my eyes are swollen from fever, exhaustion and too much caffeine, and everyone in the meeting turns to stare. He pauses mid-drone for a split second of relief, then continues his presentation.

“Mommy mommy! There’s a man at the door, he says your name is Sarah. I told him he was a stupid head, your name is mommy.”
“Darling, I told you not to talk to strangers, let Beth answer the door.” She goes over to the foyer, and the maid is letting him in. She pauses, a greeting frozen on her lips, lungs freezing in recognition. The twelve steps she has to walk to the door suddenly disappear, and she’s there, right in front of him, then she’s in his arms.
“Mommy! Why are you hugging a strange man! I’m going to tell daddy!”

I snap to attention at the question addressed to me. I shuffle through my papers busily, and say “Do you want X or Y?” I say, shooting blind, because I haven’t heard anything. I hope the man to my left can’t see the doodles in the place where my notes should be. I give the answer, the meeting ends, and we all shuffle to the backlog of immense piles of paperwork.

She’s in an alleyway, its dark. She’s on her knees, screaming. There’s blood spreading beneath him, too much, too fast. The man in grey, the one who shot him, is long gone. She should run, she should try to get away. She knows she only has seconds. But she has to tell him, so she ignores the footsteps hurrying on the pavement. “Darling, darling! They said I had no choice! They have her!! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Then arms are grabbing her, cold steel manacling her wrists, face shoved into the concrete, into his blood. They hit her hard on the back of her neck, she feels a sting of a needle, and then nothing. Mommy! Mommy! Are the last shrieks she hears.

The screen blurs in front of me, the dull ache at the base of my spine spreads slowly upwards. I hit print, the writeup finally done, and put the papers in my out tray and breath a sigh of relief so I can finally head home.

He’s supposed to ignore her, just plant the device in her jacket pocket, then rendezvous with her husband later. Her husband dealt with the business, she was just a carrier. But for some reason, he fumbles at the last second, and she looks up at his startling grey eyes.

They meet again later, as he hides in the trunk of her car as they cross borders. Moonlit nights and furtively exchanged code words, and she almost giggles at how theatrical it all is if it wasn’t so serious.
They laugh plenty later. Laugh irreverently at the irony of having met because of him. Laugh in a bed stolen from a loveless marriage of convenience. Laugh at necessities and promises of youth. Their moments apart become more and more like voids of waiting till they meet up again. Life turned to grey and breath eagerly anticipating mingling with each other in stolen secrecy. The Assignments became more and more difficult to handle because the more they were apart the more they yearned for one another, and the more reckless they became.

I walk on the pavement, and it feels odd not to take a car. The night air is crisp, and stings my nose and cheeks as I huddle into my coat. I stare at the sidewalk as street lamps phase in and out as my boots rhythmically stamp the concrete on my way home.

Was it recklessness or love? Or both? Or was it just burnout, just an escape from the hell they routinely put themselves through for their country? Why had he suddenly learnt to fear the bombs and the snipers, and why did every prayer start with her face and every night end with a silent kiss across the night to her lips?
Why was he standing on her doorstep when he knew it would kill both of them? Why was he selfishly putting her in danger, just because he couldn’t live for another second without holding her, without loving her, without sharing the rest of his life with her, country and agency and secrets be damned?

And he knocks, and a little girl with his grey eyes and black hair stands at the door, and his breath freezes and knees feel weak. And then he knows why he came back.

I open the front door, and don’t bother turning on the lights. The memories wait in lighted corners and I avoid them and scuttle in the darkness to my bedroom and pray for oblivion.

She cautiously decides to meet him again. She’s been dead so long, she needs him to make her live again. Cozy evenings in stolen restaurants and hotel rooms hours out of the way of ordinary life.
The little girl is like him in so many ways. Already at ten, her grey eyes hold his secrets. So grownup she’s almost frightening sometimes..

And then one day she comes home to disaster. They’ve taken away her life, her baby, her only link to him.
A voice on the phone tells her what to do.
She does what they say.
But, even as she betrays her one and only love, she manages to whisper and tell him where to go. Where he will be safe, where he can grow old happy, and she can live knowing that he is alive and well in some corner of the world. She knows she will never share it with him, because she loves him too much, and he husband loves her too much to let her go. The eternal power struggle.
One day, when the child some of age, she tells her. Tells her the secret she has so long harbored, awaiting the time when there can be a memory shared, of one to tell of the memory, and another to hear of it, so that he may live again.

I avoid my eyes in the mirror. The grey is bloodshot, my hair stark black again the pallor of my skin. How long can I live with the knowledge? I look at my face, and remember the man who ruined my family. I stare at my face, as always, and try in vain to find some trace of the brown chocolate gaze and silver hair of the man I truly loved as my father. The bathroom mirror disappoints me once again. My father is gone, and only I am to blame. I look at myself, and see the guilt claw its way through my veins, and I know its only a matter of time before it consumes me.

She was sitting in her study having her afternoon tea amid her books and cats, when the fax came in.
“Darling, I’ll be in Fiji when you get this. I’m not coming back. Don’t come after me.”
She stares at it for a few seconds longer than necessary, then goes to his bedroom, unlocks his left bed side drawer, takes out the pistol. There is a rude bang, then a ruder shock, then blessed blackness.