YD6-48(SHEe) A French Girl, a Manhattan Studio, and Whispering Secrets

 

This chapter of “You Are MY Sunshine: Vitrine of Consciousness,” offers a captivating glimpse into a budding relationship and the narrator's introspective world. The writing style is richly evocative, drawing the reader into the scene with vivid descriptions and sensory details. The narrator's observations of Francine, their shared morning routine, and her departure for work create a sense of intimacy and anticipation. However, the narrative also hints at underlying tensions and complexities, particularly in the narrator's reflections on his past and his anxieties about Francine's new job. The juxtaposition of mundane details with deeper emotional currents adds depth and intrigue, leaving the reader curious to uncover the secrets and complexities of this relationship. Overall, it's a promising start to a story that explores themes of cultural differences, self-discovery, and the intricacies of human connection.

I scrutinize Francine’s thoughtful eyes as she lies beside me. Sunlight creeps into the courtyard and stroking the carpet out of the shadows to green lawns in the backyard. Softening her face’s edges with her morning’s make-up. In a slinky slip from beneath the duvet she rises, her silhouette crossing the panoramic window, circling the double bed. I lay still, lending an ear, to her body’s whispers through the air, until the shower hiss behind me. Tossing back the covers, I jump to my feet, step away from the bathroom doorway’s ghostly plume of steam escaping around the doorjamb in stealth. I reach around the foot of the bed, for my clothes draped over the chair facing my Compaq. I thread my foot through a pant, balancing as I thread the other, steadying, pulling my jeans up, wiggling in. By my dance rehearsal, I slip into the sleeves, tuck in my shirt, and zip up the fly. I pull up my socks and, at a departing pace, slip into one shoe, then the other, as I head toward the gapping archway to the galley kitchen.

Ghosting Shiva arms, I reach behind cabinet doors for the day’s dose of coffee. I scoop and pour the ground into a fresh paper filter lining the basket. Pirouetting with the jug to the sink, the faucet filling, the echo escaping. I uncoil, pour a spout stream into the cistern. Flicking the percolator switch, I listen for the gargling tone. But in the grip of impatience, as the coffee drips, I sneak the jug away for a quick few pours into two cups. Returning the jug, catching the stray drip dropping on the warming pad. Francine steps out the crack of the shower door in her cowgirl outfit. I’m there, offering her a crystal cup on a saucer, steaming coffee. My thoughts don’t wander from the pure, practical savoring of coffee.

Francine’s soft whisper jolts me. “I’m starting work.” 

‘In the middle of the month? The week?’ spurs to mind. The familiar rhythm of European lunar tides, contrast with New York’s bi-weekly pulse, though not crossing my mind. But a strange blush of dissonance flashes over Gaetano Pesce’s hotspot in the distance.  

By eight o’clock, Francine yanks on her pointed cowgirl boots, pacing out of the aisle. She pecks me on my lips while I stand by at the foot of the bed and turns away. Among the walls of the converted double garage, which rises in symphony, echoing to my mind. ‘Quand le soleil dit bonjour aux montagnes. . . — Now when the sun says good-day to the mountains, and the night says hello to the dawn…’

I’m baffled. ‘My Little Sparrow,’ I muse, ‘how does that work? Are you like a middle-age scribe, toiling over Gaetano Pesce’s art while he reaps the rewards?’ Words fail me, but bravery means letting her go. 

I trail Francine through the galley kitchen, our cups abandoned on the worktop. She swerves from the portrait window, its backdrop of flocculent clouds hovering over bushy young summer’s translucent leaves. Unlocking the door, she steps outside. I pause on the doorstep, glimpsing her hesitation, before she resumes her determined strides up the concrete driveway. The song’s melody follows her, but its lyrics echo in my head. ‘… Je suis seule, je ne veux penser qu’a toi — . . . I’m alone with my dreams on the hilltop… ‘

As Francine takes a few strides, she hesitates mid-stride, glancing back, Her gaze melts my heart, before she shushes her dread away, and walks onward. Distancing, her genie vacuums the oxygen out of my chest. ‘Let her go.’ I whisper to myself. Resisting chaperoning her to work. On the rhythm of her boots, mesmerizing her jeans-clad legs crossing the driveway, a diagonal shortcut, toward the far corner of the ramp. Over the ridge to the sidewalk, passing the neighbors’ houses. I strain for one last glimpse, but the overgrown hedge draws a leafy curtain with a shift forward of the following terrace houses. But the symphony lingers in the air, the song echoing in my mind. ‘… I can still hear her voice, though she’s gone. . .’ Now I’m alone, tracing her disappearance down the quiet 3rd Road of Forest Hill, toward Queens Boulevard.

As I close the door behind me, ghostly gleams in the sun, the canary-yellow taxi that brought Francine last Friday. The taxi fades into thin air, while a phantom of her enigmatic grin, and pleading gaze — ‘I have to go!’ — lingers in my mind. Her blush still warms my heart, while a celestial symphony lingers outside, the song’s lyrics resonating. ‘… I hear from my door the love songs through the wind. It brings back sweet memories of you…’ 

I walk through a nightly chill of the soulless galley kitchen, My mind opens at the flip side of Francine’s vibrant arrival. Urged, focusing on my precarious joblessness, stifling the whispers of my heart. In a whirlwind of uncertainty, the 1987 stock market crash still casts a long shadow. Once, I combed through The New York Times’ Classified Smalls, dyslexic eye scanning a myriad of columns of “construction” sections. I have in mind, the dwindled pages of Johannesburg’s The Star, with its vague interview promises. 

I’m heading, Home — ‘Tarzan’ in the zodiacal jungle’ — toward the gaping archway, the path leading to the Compaq Portable on the cluttered little table, surrounded by electronic equipment. The wireless phone stands upright and silent in its cradle, charging, Undermining my conscience. ‘Remember Ingrid’s call?’ to burgeon the idea, ‘about my French sister, Ingrid? But! I need foremost scrutinize her Moon in Sagittarius, in symbiosis with her Sun in Rooster?’

With a leading index finger, I press the Compaq’s “On” button and an acrobatic hip swing around the backrest of the kitchen chair. Tilting the backrest back, pivot on a far rear leg. Watching the green text stream down the screen, while the executive files boot up. At the “C:/” prompt, I type “WordPerfect” and press Enter. My knees bump the foreleg of the table. As the logo flashes by. I uncoil, squaring myself to my screen, spidery finger finding the keyboard. I exert patience, pleased to experience my “Micro” program without a keystroke. Open the recent file displaying my page on the screen. 

Motivated to write, I’m reminded of a letter I wrote to Pepsi Cola, seeking representation. The woman who called me back said. “We can’t retain you, but I’m so impressed with your letter, I had to tell you!” Her compliment still resonates with me, fueling my ambition. Adopting the motto, ‘If you can’t write, you can’t land a high-earner’s position.’ 

But when I walked into New York University to enroll in Journalism, the woman at the registration window emphasized, “the curriculum required advanced vocabulary knowledge.” I envisaged ants’ nests and army regiments of letters crawling through “De-Dike-Bonma”-Meyer’s dictionary. Always engrossed in crossword puzzles, she had a brick-thick dictionary at hand. The pages, rambled free new words definitions in the margins and weaving fine-penned annotations between the lines. While De-P’pa’s mechanical typewriter, and the neat row of letters. Had fascinated me. Although I like my handwriting, which was fine and reserved. My teacher remarked, “Patte de Mouche — fly leg” free handwriting. 

I turned away from the registration window, thinking. ‘I can never cram all that into my head?’ and scheming, I left. Haunted by the ‘invisible-handicap,’ — a disconnect between my brain and mind, accentuated with anxiety — a legacy of shame that plagued me and perpetuated since elementary school.  

In the mid-morning peace, while immersed in the Compaq’s small screen, revising my memoir, Between Love and Money, my thoughts troubled. I’m startled by a distant thrill in the air, rising from the ground. An aircraft darts forward, its approach unmistakable. Unlike the typical whining screech of jet planes, this one rumbles with powerful engines that hold my attention, pulling my mind back to Johannesburg’s international airport, where the Concorde once tested for high-altitude takeoffs. Now, sitting on the flight path over Forest Hills, I trace the source of the rumbling—its path leading back to a departure from JFK International.

I muse, “…and that’s just the idling thrust?” My mind races, “What must the thrust sound propel the aircraft toward breaking the sonic wall?” The thrumming intensifies, through a hovering-doughnut approach, I suspend my story, awestruck by the sheer air vibration. The masonry walls trembling with a ghostly fear, and coursing a visceral thrill through my body.

The Concord’s roar fades, and Forest Hills settles into a slumbering tranquility. Behind my Compaq Portable, typing my memoir. I muse on my ex-wife, Jean, her indifference nurturing a catalyst channeling my inner Tarzan urge. My screen scrawls, “adventuring into construction sites, raided for illegal workers I employed.” Then, my fingers’ clumsy spiders crawl to pause on the keyboard. Snapping out of my reverie, I lift my eyes from the Compaq screen, glimpse at the backyard fading sunlight, echo arises distant hums from city streets. Swelling into a doughnut-pulse hovering over the suburban rooftops.

Glancing at my wristwatch, I jolt out of my reverie. “It’s Five o’clock!” A flicker of anticipation about Francine arises in my mind. Flash downtown towers emptying their workers into the streets. To presume she has nowhere to go but home. I forget, though — she’s resourceful, the girlfriend of a barman, in the university city of Strasbourg, mingling with French patrons until closing time.

As evening chills creeps in, I find myself doodling my South African story in my mind, though Francine’s absence tugs at my thoughts. Restless glances shoot dart over my monitor as sunlight fades into long shadows of the courtyard wall. ‘She should be home by now?’ I think, but she isn’t. I cling to hope as the city hum rolls over from its crescendo.

The silence stretches on, gnawing at me. ‘You should’ve been home by now,’ I repeated to myself. As the traffic’s hum fades, dissipating through the streets, an eerie quiet settles in. My ears prick, and I wonder, “My Little Sparrow… where are you?”

As the city’s hum fades into a hush, my restlessness deepens. I remind myself, ‘She’s a grown woman. . .  Let her be!’ But my eyes keep flicking to the watch on my wrist. My mind races puppy hopeful feelers for company through the shower doorway, silence bouncing off the street-front wall. Beneath the portrait window, squatting by the galley kitchen door, mindful. I’m straining to hear her approaching boots. Only the occasional whoosh of a passing car breaks the silence.  

Then, I'm pricking my ear again, — startle, by the door muffling a furry pawing. Surge, a feeling of relief mixed with frustration. ‘She doesn’t have a key!’ I exclaim in silence. I glance at my wristwatch. ‘It’s a quarter past seven!’ over my shoulder. The portrait window portrays the sun casting a blush on the front yard bushes. ‘She’s here!’ While pigheaded, in my zodiacal jungle, my Sun in Warthog, and torn, lagging my feet. Hesitating to move, my willpower toggles to my Moon in Gemini, with a glimmer of enthusiasm at opening the door.

In the wake of my gaze, I stroll over, turning the key. A sarcastic, “Whoa—you’re back!” I hold back. In the door cracks opening, Francine greets me with her warm, enigmatic smile, melting my annoyance. She brushes past me, entering the galley kitchen. I step with the door swing, to shut and lock up, before trailing Francine, and asking, “Would you like some coffee?” 

“I’m baffled by the people on the subway this morning. . .” She says, as the percolator, I prepare with coffee and water, through Shiva arms, gargles. I catch Francine, boots off, crawls across the bed, rolls back to sit cross-legged among the pillows. “That’s New York,” I replied. She goes, her soft voice, with a tone, offering on a plateau. “… I worked on SHE?” Francine says. “Dotting colors blend into a tapestry. . .” Her words leave me puzzled over the meaning of “SHE.” 

Alongside the gargles, I settled at the foot of the bed, my thoughts drifting. We cross into territory, speaking on Aladdin’ magic rug — my mind flickering to Gaetano Pesce’s studio. Where a jealous flame kindles in my heart. I wonder if the professor, her boss, is here in New York, too. I pause, my curiosity tightening. ‘Wait, a minute—weren’t you supposed to be working on Gaetano Pesce projects?’ — Francine’s linguistic playfulness emerges, the covert allusion, soft-spoken, saying, “SHE? — '(ELLE/me)'?”

Surging me to reminisce over Francine’s silence. As we were engaged crossing Harlem the day after her arrival. When she exhaled, “the water towers are everywhere?” Her observation startled me — those iconic wooden water tanks perched atop buildings, dotting the skyline. 

Francine’s words transported me back to my teenage years on the Kyalami family poultry farm. In the twilight every morning, before school, my brother, Igor and I, took turns cranking up the single-piston diesel engine. - pop, pop, pop . . . - we left behind the flywheel driving the flat belt powering the water pump. The hydraulic pressure piped over the top into the perched corrugated water tank. Looming over the roofs, gravity-fed the borehole water piped out the bottom of the water tank. Nearby hens clucked away, beaks tapping the brass nipple for water. Afar the piped house, spouting from the faucet, filling the baths, flushing the toilets — a mundane routine, far from my mind as I stroll through Harlem with Francine, aware of water tanks, entrails within skyscrapers.

As we talk late into the night, in the corner of my mind, in stealth scheming, leaps onto Pluto’s carriage, carried underground. In the darkness of my subconscious realm, nurturing my sister, Ingrid, Sagittarius in her Moon, often confusing pity, for love. Both, her Sun in Rooster, proud and preening, flaunt her iridescent plumage, to exploit.

When night gave way to dawn, Helios’s chariot brought consciousness, and a thought surfaces. Puppeteered by Aetheria from her celestial realm. Ingrid, who had left the family as a teenager to forge her life in France. With 'My Little Sparrow’ as leverage, and Ingrid’s best friend, Jacqueline Leclercq, as a fulcrum, return a favor and forge a connection.