Fleur

Hussameddine Al Attar, Lebanon

Little Fleur died yesterday. We buried her six hours ago by Maman. Fleur never knew  Maman; she had died giving birth. The priest told me they’re meeting in Heaven ‘as we  speak’. I’d like that. But I think Heaven is very big. Fleur would need a map. Are there maps  in Heaven? The priest said God will bring Maman and Fleur together and I shouldn’t worry  about Fleur getting lost. God doesn’t need a map, I think. That’s good.  

There is a flower shop down the street. I want to get a flower for Little Fleur. It always teased  her when I called her “little”. She would always say she’s a big girl and pretend to be angry at  me. But she always giggled and laughed after, and this made me laugh.  

I walk inside and call for Papa. “Papa? I want to get a flower for Fleur.” I climb the stairs and  open his bedroom door. He’s on the floor snoring loudly. He’s heavy but I try shaking him.  “Papa, I want to get a flower for Fleur.” But he doesn’t wake up. Papa smells weird. He’s  been drinking again. He only drinks when he’s sad. He really stinks, so I cover my nose and  search through his things instead. I pull open Papa’s drawer and dig for money. I find a coin.  I have another in my pocket.  

I run back out and remember to close the door behind me. Two euros should be enough for a  flower, I think. But what kind? Fleur liked all types of flowers. I think she wouldn’t mind  whichever I choose. I walk along the neighborhood and practice asking for a flower.  “Bonjour,” I say to myself, “I would like one flower, please.” I extend my arm and pretend to  place the money on the counter. Just like teacher taught us.  

I skip over the cracks on the pavement. Teacher didn’t tell us to do this, my friend did. He  says if he steps on the cracks something bad will happen to his Maman. He sounded worried  when he said this. I don’t step on them anymore because I don’t want anything bad  happening to his Maman. They should make sidewalks without cracks. I see some people 

walking in front of me and they’re not paying attention to the cracks. I feel scared for my  friend’s Maman, so I don’t look at them anymore.  

“Bonjour – ” I start as soon as I enter the shop, but no one hears me. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” I  repeat when I’m close to the man behind the counter. “I want one flower, please.” I reach  over and drop the two coins into his palm. He looks at the coins and then at me; he seems to  be thinking. He turns around and disappears through a door behind him and returns a minute  later. The man gives me a pouch and presses a coin into my hand. “I’m sorry about your  sister,” he tells me in a sad voice.  

I look up at him, “Fleur is with Maman now.” The man nods and I leave.  

I scatter the seeds over Fleur and Maman’s graves. I open the faucet of the kitchen sink and  fill the watering pot. I let the water shower the soil. I sit down on the ground and wait for the  flowers to grow. I hope Fleur likes the flowers. I’ll ask her if she does when I meet her and  Maman in Heaven when I’m old. Or maybe soon. I suppose little people can go to Heaven  too.  

Around me brews a storm of bureaucratic paperwork, pretentious clients, and agitated  coworkers. Everyone is on edge, I most of all, but thankfully, I no longer have any clients  today; I made sure to deal with all urgent meetings quite early in my shift and scheduled the  rest for tomorrow. 

C’mon, I think to myself, watching the clock tick agonizingly slowly. It’s been three o’clock for ages now. Twenty-two seconds left.  

Someone rushes into the room in a frantic search for a bank clerk. Their eyes land on the one  unoccupied worker: lucky me. Goodness, not now. I pretend I do not see the customer, who is  a good distance away, and tap my heels nervously on the marble floor. I can imagine the  sound of their steps, like the ticking of a clock. Sometimes I think my own mind mocks me. 

“Monsieur –!” they start, now some steps far from my desk, only to be interrupted by the  loud buzz of the alarm. Finally! I jump up, grab my coat, and run pass the client, almost  tripping a colleague carrying an ungodly number of files.  

There is an old jewelry shop three blocks from the bank, six blocks from my house. It closes in fifteen minutes. I can make it.  

I start my car and drive dangerously quickly. There’s traffic a block away from the jeweler –  it looks like a car accident. Shit. I park swiftly and run the rest of the way. I cannot contain  my excitement. I bust through the door as the shopkeeper is lowering his curtains. We lock  eyes for an awkward few seconds, and I try charming him with my not-so-charming smile.  “Lord help me…” he sighs as he walks back around the counter. I browse the ring collection  and choose the one I saw a few weeks ago – it’s perfect. I cannot afford the diamond, but this  is just as beautiful.  

I am to propose to Marie this evening. I refuse to wait any longer. We are expecting a baby  and I would like to marry her, to make my vows and scream them from the top of my lungs.  

I buy the ring and drive back home, just as the sun has begins setting and the streetlights turn  on. My friends are waiting for me close to my house and follow me as I walk into my garden.  They bring their lanterns and two their violins – I could not hire a professional group, but luckily Marie never fancied professionals. They light their lanterns and begin playing the violins.  

I call her beautiful name, “Marie!”  

Some moments later, Marie throws open the door and wears an expression of adorable  surprise. My face burns red, and my hands begin sweating profusely. I’m terrified. I lower  myself onto one trembling knee and pull the ring from my pocket. I raise it under the light,  but it slips from my fingers. I fumble for it in the grass and Marie runs towards me. I find it.  I’m on my knee again.  

Under the song of the violins, Marie throws herself into my arms.  

Hours later, Marie is asleep, and I walk out to the porch, not before making sure her quilt hasn’t fallen off. I did it, I think to myself, we’re engaged! 

I pick up the watering pot and tend to the flowers. They’ve bloomed quite beautifully this  July. We chose coquelicots this year. I bought them months ago, in March, after spring broke.  I’m considering marigolds for next year, but it’s quite early for that. I sit beside the graves  and smell the flowers, then lay back upon the wooden fence.  

I suppose tomorrow we shall talk of the wedding – the date and place, whom to invite and  whom to purposefully forget, so on and so forth. I expect she’ll be beaming as she imagines it  aloud.  

Something nags at my mind: I wish she could’ve met her.  

I am happy. I am terribly happy – horribly, horrifically, horrendously happy. Have I forgotten  her? Precious Fleur died twenty-seven years ago. It feels like she died yesterday and forever  ago. I miss her dearly, so dearly, and it pains me to be happy, to feel as if she has finally  slipped my mind. I look up at the sky and wonder if she’s there, if she met Maman. I don’t 

think she did – it would be far too optimistic to think she did. Is it so fair, the universe? She  wouldn’t have been taken away if God were fair. They were supposed to meet here, after all,  not in Heaven nor in the darkness of the soil. Maman shouldn’t have died giving birth to  precious Fleur. Fleur shouldn’t have died so early. They should have been helping me choose  the ring. Even Papa! Papa shouldn’t have drunk himself to death in that cursed room; he  should have been here, telling me of the night he proposed to Maman!  

No, God is not fair. God is all but fair.  

A part of me is crippled, unmoving, unbreathing. The other has never felt so alive. Fleur  would want me to be happy. Not just tonight, but always. Not horribly or horrifically, just  happy. No, I have not forgotten precious Fleur, and I suppose I have not betrayed her  memory either. But still, I do not feel right. I do not know what I am, but I know I am not  whole, and I wonder if I shall ever be.  

The flowers are gorgeous. Bright red tops and thin green stems. They have much time to  bloom and spread, too, before winter. Marie loves them. Fleur would have, too, I think, if she  were here to see them.  

These flowers are blooming today, yes. But they will wither. They will wither eventually.  And I will have to tend to the corpses of these things most beautiful. It is always too soon for  beautiful things to die. What a tragic universe.  

I stopped praying many years ago, and I ceased going to church soon after. I am not sure if  God exists, but if He does, I am sure I will not worship Him. I have a new family now, yes,  but I do not see why I could not have had two. 

It is the first rain of the season. I really do love the rain. I am not quite sure why I do. Perhaps it is because I love the smell of the soil after rainfall, or because I love the sound of  the droplets pecking at the walls and windows. I do not know why I love it and I do not think  I care to know. It’s enough to love.  

Marie and Violette are bickering again in the kitchen. Their banters are a pleasure to listen to.  They quarrel over the silliest and most wonderful of things – today, it is the color of the  candles to buy for my cake: Marie believes I’d rather a red set while Violette is confident I  am more of a blue-candle type of man. Truthfully, I am more interested in the cake than the  candles. I cannot figure out what kind of cake they plan to bake for me. They’ve forbidden  me from entering the kitchen today. “It’s a surprise, Papa!” Violette tells me. I return to the  living room and pet the cat. Of course, five minutes later, I get up and try sneaking into the  kitchen again.  

Édouard laughs as I take a seat beside the cat again. “I think it’s chocolate,” I tell him. “It’s  chocolate, isn’t it?”  

Édouard laughs harder now. “I can’t tell you that. I’d never hear the end of it.” I can never get  a secret out of that man. We talk for the rest of the evening, about books, politics, not so  much sports, and a lot about cats – we are both very passionate fans of cats – until we’re  called to dinner.  

We all sit and eat together. We also smile, laugh, tease, and make amends. I add some salt to  the stew and pretend I don’t notice Marie eying me. She’s a firm believer that seasoned meals  mustn’t be seasoned again. I cannot hide my guilty smile. I kiss her forehead and hold her  hand for the rest of the dinner, and I tell her the food tastes wonderful.  

Some forty minutes later, Violette brings a large chocolate cake. I clap my hands once  triumphantly and wink at Édouard, who, after being accused by Violette of spoiling the 

surprise, must make it clear that I only randomly guessed. She doesn’t seem convinced but  lets him kiss her cheek anyway. Everyone is served a slice and is invited to add another, and  Édouard offers to pour us some wine. I, however, drink some juice de fruit – I could never  stand the smell of alcohol, so I stand away from the table during this time – and so does  Violette, who says she prefers a lighter beverage tonight.  

Marie remembers that they did not sing me Happy Birthday before serving the cake and  insists on doing so. She pulls my arm to seat me back at the table, Violette plants the candles  – they settled on purple – and lights them, and Édouard turns off the lights. Marie, my  beautiful Marie, begins singing. I make a wish, or rather pretend doing so, and blow out the  little lanterns.  

We return to the living room and spend the next few hours quite joyfully. Marie and I reenact  some embarrassing memories of Violette’s youth, many of which she has, in her own right,  not told Édouard, who enjoys watching Violette retaliate by recounting some of my own  embarrassing moments. This isn’t without the help of Marie, of course, who seems to be  playing on both sides. We insist Édouard share some of his own stories. He tells us new ones  and ones we already know, and we laugh all the same.  

I cannot bring myself to tell them. Not tonight. Every night I tell myself this. Not tonight.  

I need to think. It has stopped raining, so I casually excuse myself to the porch. I wipe my  rocking chair with a towel and take a seat.  

The doctors informed me of a tumor in my heart. Malignant, they said. Fatal. I have a few  months left, at best. No one knows yet, not even Marie. It has been two weeks since I was  diagnosed, and I went alone. I could not bring myself to tell her that day, and I couldn’t any  day since. 

I hoped to pass in my sleep, that my final days would not be a bother to anyone and would  not be painful to me. Alas, we do not die on our own terms.  

I do not know how to break the news to them. I can hear their laughter. What right do I have  to strip them of their joy? I’ve considered not telling them, but I believe they would take me  to the hospital as I weaken. Of course, I would protest, but the sick acquiesce quickly. They  would hear of my diagnosis from the doctor, then, rather than me. What right would he have to strip them of their happiness?

If their hearts must break, let it be by my hands. At least I shall take care in their breaking. I  must tell them. Tonight. I cannot postpone this any further. Let them hear it from me while I  am still healthy. While my heart beats painlessly.  

The door creaks open and a shadow spills onto the porch. “Monsieur.” It’s Édouard. He’s smiling. “We have something we’d like to tell you and Madam.”  

He never stopped calling us Monsieur and Madam.  

They’ll make their announcement, I think to myself, then I shall make one of my own.  

Édouard and I join Violette and Marie. I take a seat beside Marie and the cat. Violette and Édouard are standing. They look at each other excitedly and then back at us. Édouard puts his  arm around Violette’s waist. Violette smiles. She slowly raises her hand rests it on her belly.  

What happens next is a flurry of tears, smiles, joy, and love. I hug Édouard tight. I hug my Violette even tighter. Tears are streaming down my face, and I do not care to wipe them.  Marie is all over the place. My wonderful Marie. Her words are unintelligible, but we still  understand her well enough.  

Not tonight. I cannot do this to them tonight. 

I wake up quite early in the morning. Not early enough to witness the sunrise, of course, but  early enough to witness the world warm up.  

I leave my bed and make sure Marie’s quilt hasn’t fall off. I walk past a locked bedroom and  down the flight of stairs, to the porch then to the garden. The flowers this year are Violette’s  suggestion: hydrangeas. They’ve bloomed to their extent and may not have much longer. I’d  like to think they’re in retirement now. It’s a comforting thought.  

The rain seems to have tended to the flowers already.  

I’m happy these flowers will be the last I plant. They may be my favorite. I often wish  flowers did not wither, that they could withstand the turn of the seasons. That beautiful things  did not wither. Maybe flowers are beautiful in their finiteness. Maybe we are beautiful in  ours.  

I breathe in the cool, fresh air and take a seat on my rocking chair. Two boys run past along  the sidewalk. I notice they’re hopping over the cracks.  

I still think of her, and I still miss her. Very much. In the short years we had together, I found  in her a great friend. I am sorry she could not explore the world like many have done, but I  hope I have carried her memory to enough places.  

By the time Violette and Édouard’s child is born, these flowers will have withered. I believe  some others will be planted, but I will not be here to tend to them. By then, I will have  withered too. I would have liked to meet my grandchild. I would have liked teaching them  how to plant.  

My Fleur died sixty-one years ago. I hope to meet her and Maman soon. I hope Papa will be  there too. 

Hussameddine is a 19 year-old Lebanese engineering student currently enrolled in his second year at university. He has a deep passion for history and literature and is submitting a piece for publication for the first time. Hussam is still trying to figure out what genre suits him best and is also having fun experimenting with poetry and prose. He also really likes cats. And dogs, of course.