Imagine this. There is a mountain in Switzerland called Älplihorn. Now the mountain, as such, is a little over 3,000 meters tall but at the base of the mountain is a little villa. A baby castle, if you may. And the villa has a very fairytale like structure. It has two towers and a large roof in the middle. It has a huge garden and a river that flows by the back of the house. Now this villa could be seen only once you were within a hundred meters of it. The mountain and the river covered from behind and the trees from the front. Even from the mountain the only way you could see it was if you stood on the edge of the cliff that overlooks it.
Now I told you where I lived. Yes lived. It’s not that I don’t live there anymore. It’s just that I don’t live anymore. I have no remorse for being dead because I died a noble man. Why I didn’t cross over is because I was waiting for someone. And I’d tell you who right away but then it would ruin the surprise.
My name is Nathan Shamsson. I was always called Nash by my mates in school and I guess the name just stuck. If you want an idea of what I look like you could find my home and there is a portrait of mine, made by her hanging over the fireplace, but if you can’t then, Imagine this: think of the most average looking man you know, now put an ugly long nose and some tufts of brown hair. The only beautiful thing about me, or so I was told, were my blue eyes.
No my house would never look bad. I built it with her in the spring of ’85 and we made sure that it looked exactly as she wanted. It had the most beautiful rooms and big wooden doors. I spent my days looking at her while I worked. The way she’d scold me for hitting the hammer on my own hand while putting some ice on it so gently that I would have hit myself a hundred times more just so I could let her touch me with those soft fingers again. Her touch. She had the softest skin I had ever felt. So soft, so tender that I could have cut her if I touched her with my palm. But for you to imagine what she was you’d have to see her. So now imagine this, I’ll show you what she was like. She had the eyes of a newborn. They shone like the stars at night. Bright brown. Her hair was a silky black. Wavy, like the current in the river when the wind decided to play hide-and-go-seek with the night. She was tall enough to stand up to my neck but when she hugged me she’d rather have her hands on my shoulder. I was lost in her character in size.
As you have made out by now, I loved her a lot. That shine in her eyes, that wind in her hair, that brittleness in her skin. I loved it all.
We finished building the house by the fall of ’87 and the winter was looming in on the house. It had just started snowing when I lit the fireplace and put my portrait on the wall. She never really liked painting but she never really knew how good she was at it. She wrote stories, I painted. So I was working on her portrait, when it started to snow. She came up behind me and called my name. I looked at her and something was different. Her eyes were so dull, they made my heart hurt like a sword went through it. She was crying. I asked her what was bothering her and she said it hurt. Inside.
I thought a doctor was in order, she said no. I asked her why and she said it ached in her heart. I held her hand, she pulled away. When I asked her why, she said, “Goodbye”
I tried telling myself to follow her, but those eyes had frozen my feet solid to the ground. I fell to the ground. I felt so alone. Even my tears deserted me. I didn’t know what it was I had done wrong. Why had she left? I had tried making it the best house. I had tried being the best she’d ever need. If there was anything she didn’t like, she’d have told me. I loved her dearly.
I’d heard her laughter in the house when I was mowing the lawn and I’d run in only to find the half finished portrait.
My hopes of seeing her again, had dried for sometime like the brushes on that canvas. I woke up and went to the dining table. I poured out a bowl of cereal and settles into the seat. Next to my bowl a dried drop of brown paint distracted me. I had moved the painting into the attic to stop reminding me of her, but everything was her. That drop of dried paint told me that I could never forget her, even if I tried. And then my eyes went to the letter lying on the table. It wasn’t there before. And I had not received mail from anyone. I didn’t even have a postman.
I recognised her handwriting, that dotted “i” that elegant “r” I looked for a stamp but I knew she didn’t want to be found.
I tore open the envelope, and this is what it said inside,
“Dear Nash,
Forgive me for the last twenty years. I left you for reasons of my own.
It was never your fault, I didn’t blame you. I came to your house last night; I knew you wouldn’t change the key. I came up to see you sleep, I held your hand and you started crying in your sleep. Your tear stained pillow hurt me so much.
I left you that day because I realised I didn’t want this house. I was not ready to settle down into your life. I still had things I had to do, places I had to see, and people I had to meet. I had met someone and he seemed to be the one I needed. You always loved me fully. I thought I would get there eventually but I realised I didn’t and I could hurt you no longer. So I left.
So I loved him fully and I gave myself to him completely but he left me and I have suffered ever since. I didn’t know how to tell you this and have feared telling you for ten years now. I had to see if you were doing well without me so I came last night but I saw everything was the same, and so I’m telling you now, I love you, And I’m coming back, soon. Wait for me.
Love,
Patricia”
So I waited in that house, for her to come, come back to me. But age caught up with me first. I contracted a new disease called Tuber-something and now the doctor tells me I have to die soon. So I wrote this, this is her portrait. The now-finished picture.
If you find my house, sit down on the chair and listen to the laughter around you. It’s the happy memories that stay back after the sad years are over.
