Yearning

Copyright 2006 Marcel Arieli.

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ISBN: 978-1-4251-0395-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7706-1 (e)

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Contents

The Escort

Being Old Forever

By the Look in His Eyes

Yearning

The Good Neighbor

Reflection of the Soul

The Escort

It was twilight, and the most wonderful time, with the flowers growing pale, the trees becoming shadows, and the birds chattering loudly. Fred was strolling through the park lanes as usual, and this was the hour he enjoyed most. The park was quite deserted on that chilly autumn evening.

It was almost dark, when he heard steps behind him, and a child’s voice saying: Excuse us, sir, may we ask you something? Fred stopped, looked back and saw two girls, about twelve years old. He couldn’t see their faces clearly, but his impression was that they looked frightened.

Has something happened? he asked.

No sir, but we’ve sort of lost our way and we thought we’d ask you, please, to see us to the exit. It’s so dark and late.

Of course I can. But why are you alone in the park so late?

We wanted to take a shortcut through the park to my grandmother’s, said one of the girls, but we lost our way and there was nobody to ask.

They began to walk together, and Fred explained why it was extremely important to be cautious nowadays, especially young girls like them, with so many lunatics roving about dark alleys, looking for easy prey.

As often happened when he was carried away by his eloquence, Fred was doing things automatically; rather than taking the road towards the exit, he took his usual path, the one he used when he was walking alone. It was quite long and ended up at a crossroads, where three very dark pathways met. Fred continued to expand on his ideas, but after walking only a short way, two things happened almost simultaneously: Fred stopped his discourse and thought: Where am I going? while one of the girls shouted: You’re not taking us to the exit, and at the same moment both girls turned around and ran away from him. Surprised, Fred stopped and looked after them, then he cried: Don’t be frightened, I took the wrong way, I’ll take you to the exit, but the girls were out of sight.

He walked quickly in the direction in which they had run; he did not run, he didn’t want to frighten them even more. However, when he arrived at the crossroads, the girls were nowhere to be seen. Walking even faster, Fred went towards the exit, which was still quite far away. He looked in all directions when passing the crossroads, in case the girls had taken one of the other paths. Eventually, he got to the exit, but he saw no sign of them. Upset, he returned and searched all the paths he thought the girls could have taken, but in vain. He didn’t pass anyone on his way to ask about the girls. What a stupid thing I’ve done he thought, and went home very worried. He even thought of going to the police to tell them what had happened, but decided it was a crazy idea. They might think that I did it on purpose, he argued with himself. He went to bed with gloomy thoughts running round in his head.

For the next three days, Fred was out of town on business. Although he was very busy, thoughts of what had happened in the park continued to nag him. Why am I worrying so much? Nothing actually happened, he told himself. However, he felt uneasy. He perused the newspapers, but found nothing about the two girls in the park.

On his return, Fred continued to look for any sign, but there was nothing to indicate that anything had happened to the girls. Gradually his worries waned, and eventually, he stopped thinking about the incident.

Then, one night Fred had a dream. He was walking along a dark street, it was a foggy night, and a curious bluish light pervaded the air. Fred was walking fast to get to the street corner, but somehow his progress was slow, as if he was walking against a heavy wind, even though there was no wind at all. All of a sudden, a figure seemed to materialize out of the bluish light and he heard a desperate voice crying, Help, please help us, please!. The voice sounded like it belonged to a girl, but ended up in a groan that faded away. Terribly frightened, Fred woke up in a cold sweat, with his heart pounding in his chest.

Sitting upright in bed, he went over his dream. Obviously, it was because of the incident with the girls in the park. However, Fred had the strangest feeling that he had known about the incident for a long time. Maybe, he had had some similar dream in the past, but he couldn’t remember anything about it. How could it be that something that had happened less than two months ago was somehow related to an old dream? he asked himself. Actually, he was not even sure that it had been an old dream; however, the sensation that this was not new was very strong.

Although it was the middle of the night, Fred dressed and went out. It was cold, the sky was covered with heavy clouds, and it was drizzling. He walked along the deserted streets, the cold air did him good, and little by little he relaxed. His thoughts, at first blurred and mingled with the sensations left by his dream, began to clear up, and he realized that his state of mind, his anxiety and his worries since the incident in the park, had their roots far back in the past.

He was still a teenager when something happened, something which remained deeply engraved in his mind and soul. His school was near a small park, where he often used to stroll during his class breaks. Sometimes, on his stroll, a girl would pass by, or would approach him from the opposite direction. She always walked fast. She was not exactly what one would call beautiful, her face was always rather tense and her eyes looked worried, but her young body was vigorous, and there was a certain elegance in her gait, which attracted Fred and made him eager to talk to her. However, his shy efforts were unrequited, and after several such attempts he noticed that the girl had begun to avoid him. So, he decided to follow her.

One day, taking great pains not to be seen, he managed to follow her all the way to her destination. She entered a small, shabby house, surrounded by a tiny, neglected garden. Fred went to the garden gate, doing his best to look like a casual passerby. He rounded the corner of the fence to see the house from behind, and then stopped abruptly and remained motionless; there she was, near the fence, looking straight at him, her face a mixture of anger, anguish and disdain. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to annoy you, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out, and he remained like that, frozen for a very long moment, during which she turned on her heels and disappeared in the house. Fred remained very confused; he knew that the right thing to do was to ring the bell of the house and try to apologize, but he did not dare. Instead, he walked away, rather ashamed of himself. For several days following this incident, he did not walk in the park. When he did return, he hoped to meet her and tell her candidly that he meant no harm; that he just wanted to know her, but of course, not against her will. However, he never had the occasion to explain himself, he simply never saw her again.

Convinced that he was the direct cause for her change of routine, and feeling very guilty, Fred returned to the house where he had seen her the last time, determined to talk to someone and explain the situation. When he rang the bell, the door remained shut and a hoarse voice told him to go away. After two more attempts, Fred gave up and went away. A troubling vision then took hold of him: something unfortunate had happened to the girl, and he had no way of finding out what. This vision disturbed him for a very long time, and the enigma surrounding this girl was left unsolved.

While walking in the street that night after his dream, the memory of the vanished girl of his youth returned to him poignantly, and he thought he could see a connection between the two incidents. In both cases girls had been frightened by him, in both cases they disappeared without a trace, and in both cases he experienced the same suspicion that something bad had happened. This time I have to find out what happened, I must! he told himself, but he did not have the vaguest idea how.

Fred was very meticulous in everything he did. Business or entertainments, even trifling matters, were always organized thoroughly. So he took a detailed map of the city, and made a list of all the streets that surrounded the park where he had encountered the two girls. He began a systematic search of the streets, one by one, spending most of his free time in the quest. His method was simple: he walked leisurely along these streets, hoping to see either of the two girls, or to be seen by them. He concentrated on the streets near the park exit, where Fred surmised that the grandmother lived. The more this pursuit went on, the more it became an obsession, and it began to affect his life both at work and at home. After many unsuccessful attempts, Fred felt that this was doing him no good, and he decided to stop.

Several months elapsed, when one day while walking along a street Fred heard a girl’s voice exclaiming, Oh, my God, I’ve just seen him passing by. Looking back Fred saw two girls walking quickly away from him, and then turning the corner. Fred walked fast to the street corner, but couldn’t see the two girls. Am I going mad? he asked himself. I could have sworn I heard the girl saying those words, and now there’s no one in sight. They couldn’t have disappeared so fast.

The street he was on was not one of the many streets he had been searching for so long. He walked cautiously along the street, looking for any place the girls could have disappeared into, but to no avail. Here it begins again, he said to himself, frightened. I can’t go on like this. This must stop once and for all. However, the words he had heard were too real to be the fruit of his imagination. So, irrationally, for the next few days, he walked along that street, up and down, acting as conspicuously as possible.

On the fourth day, when he had almost given up, his efforts bore fruit, although not in the way he would have hoped. Two policemen were walking alongside, and suddenly both closed their hands on his arms. Keep walking, one of them said. They took him to a police car standing by the side of the road. Fred was so astonished, that he hadn’t been able to utter a word, but now he made a feeble attempt to free himself from their grasp, and asked What on earth is all this about? He received no answer, and the next moment, he was inside the car with one of the policemen sitting beside him. This is preposterous, you can’t just grab me like this and take me away, without any explanation, he protested. You’ll get all the explanations down at the police station, the policeman near him answered, and nothing more was said until they entered the station.

He was ushered into a room where the only furniture was a table and three chairs. He was left alone for quite a long time. He paced back and forth and even tried to open the door, but it was locked. Eventually, a man in plain clothes entered, followed by one of the policemen who brought him in. The interrogation that followed was long and embarrassing, and any attempt Fred made to get an answer as to why he was there was cut short. Then, abruptly he was asked, What did you do to those girls?

I didn’t do anything to any girls, Fred answered astonished, only then did he begin to understand that this situation was somehow related to the girls he had been looking for.

I was trying to find two girls I once met in a park, but I couldn’t find them. I didn’t do anything to them, he continued.

Well, now start talking and tell us everything, the man in plain clothes told him.

Fred recounted his story from beginning to end, and described his many attempts to find the girls. When he finished, a long pause followed, while his interrogator looked at him intently.

It would be much better for you if you just confess, he said eventually.

Confess what? I did nothing wrong, I just had this feeling that maybe something had happened to those girls, so I wanted to find them and make sure that everything was all right, Fred said, more and more worried that they didn’t believe him.

After many hours of interrogation Fred was released, but he was told that his movements were restricted, and that soon he would be summoned again. Indeed, after only a couple of days he was called to the police station.

Are you ready to participate in a line-up?

Of course, I have nothing to hide, Fred answered, hoping that this time everything would be put right.

He was put in a line with four other men, of more or less the same build. After about twenty minutes, he was directed to the same room where he had been on the first occasion. Two policemen were standing there, while the man in plain clothes looked at him for what seemed an eternity. Eventually, the silence was broken.

"You have been identified by your victims. You are under arrest