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Embracing each other, backlit, with the first languid rays of sun stroking them from behind, the two figures swaying at a slow pace in the center of the living room almost seemed like they were being formed for the first time. They were dancing to a soft, intimate melody sans words, which reminded of an ancient song, one telling the story of a creature being born. And as this creature began to stretch and discover their surroundings, both figures melted into one another sharing one single existence.
The beauty of the image was being witnessed from the uncrossed threshold of the hallway. Shay was mesmerized, fully aware that everything happening before her eyes –inside her ears- did not belong to the conscious stratum of energetic exchanges. She couldn’t bring herself to make a noise that would announce her presence, to disrupt the fragility of the veil covering them. She knew she would be welcomed to that little space of protection, but she also knew that she would draw a crease between one scene and another, and Shay just wasn’t ready for that unique moment to end. For the deep steady breathing emanating from one half of the swinging figure to change its rhythm, for the golden curly shine on top of it to reflect another kind of light, for that smooth, gentle voice coming out of parted lips, articulating random syllables to quiet.
So, hidden by the darkened hallway, Shay restrained herself from walking into the room, but not the tears that had been swelling in the corners of her eyes upon listening to the transfixing foreign tune. She lowered herself to the floor, leaned against the wall and craving one note after the other, not understanding the sudden longing within her heart, silently participated in the journey.
The echo of the shutting door dissolved.
The airy scented oxygen settled.
Shay ventured to break the silence.
“She was singing in the shower.”
When there is a sense of tacit knowledge, words don’t need to feebly caress a certain shape, blowing in its direction is enough. Cosima smiled, her eyes fixed on the mug she was cradling, imagining Shay’s words interlacing with the steam coming out of her tea.
“She was.”
Shay followed Cosima’s gaze. She blew.
“And two days ago when I came from the store because we had run out of dill and she wanted to make that French soup.”
Cosima’s lips displayed a smile not entirely for Shay to interpret. She sipped at her own beverage without removing her eyes off Cosima, the mystery of her silence heating Shay’s blood. She decided not to blow, not to caress, but to grab.
“She stopped. She stops singing whenever I’m in the room.” The random patterns and scribbles Shay was imaginarily drawing on the tablecloth were increasingly becoming intricate. She felt Cosima’s hand upon hers, soothing, stroking knuckles. Shay raised her gaze to meet Cosima’s whose quiet smile was reflected in each of her features.
“She gets kinda shy with the singing. I know, right? I don’t get it either. She doesn’t allow anybody to listen. At first I thought it was like a complex or an insecurity thing, but… Maybe that’s not it. Maybe it has something to do with her family. They are, like, totally weird.”
“Weird how?”
“It’s not a topic she likes discussing. But I’m sure if you ask her she will tell you.”
Shay nodded playing with Cosima’s fingers, both women observing absentmindedly the slow dance of their joined hands.
“So you think it is some sort of trauma? She lets you listen. She sings to you.”
Cosima’s closed-mouthed grin widened as she tilted her head. She released a little chuckle as if she was re-living a past moment privately.
“Yeah… Sometimes I suspect that she knows she has this… magic power she doesn’t know how to control. But, she wants to use it for good.” Cosima raised her free hand to rub at her forehead momentarily before seeking the heat of her porcelain mug with her palm. She leaned towards the steam, to breathe it, or perhaps to hide a rueful smile. “I guess we’ve been through some situations in which she was desperate enough to try it.”
Shay released the hold on her mug and used both hands to massage the other woman’s hand deeply, her bones, her tendons as if trying to reshape it.
“Quite a power she has…” Cosima eyed her, a question in her gaze. She waited expectantly until Shay noted it and managed to find her words. “I listened to her singing to you a couple weeks ago. It was… I don’t know how to describe it. It felt like mother Earth telling the trees to grow, telling the mountains to move.”
“Scary, huh?”
“I was scared. I mean, that song sounded like something forgotten, forbidden. Bigger than you and me.”
“You are so poetic.” Cosima leaned forward to tuck a strand of blonde hair behind Shay’s ear.
“But I’m serious. It feels like a secret I cannot grasp.” Shay shook her head, her eyes lost, unfocused. “A lover I cannot reach.”
Cosima fell silent for a while. Neither of them able to move.
“Yeah… I know the feeling.” Those were her words and both of them knew they were meant to signify several universes.
“I just… I want her to feel comfortable with me. I want her to be every version of herself she wants to be freely. But I don’t want to push her.”
“If that worries you, you can tell her.” Cosima shrugged stretching her hands. “Though I’m sure you two will be cool. She adores you. I mean, how could she not?” Cosima gestured with her hands in the air eliciting a smile from Shay. “She just probably needs some time with her magic… stuff.”
“You seem very sure.”
“Let’s say I have empiric evidence.” Cosima flashed a toothy grin, folded her arms on top of the table and rested her head upon them, sighing. Shay mirrored her posture, closing the bubble forming around them when their eyes meet.
“Explain yourself.”
Another sigh and wandering eyes were the preamble of Cosima’s answer.
“She is private in a way that may seem like… she judges herself, but she’s the bravest person I know. And even though she hides in the shower to sing, she opens herself to love shamelessly. And that’s probably a good thing for the rest of the world, because discovering the layers of Delphine Cormier has been tough, but also, like, one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.” Cosima’s eyes found Shay’s one more time. The tacit knowledge reared its head blowing a mild wind in their faces. Cosima shrugged, anticipating. “I know what you are going to say. That this is not a very scientific proof, but…”
Shay leaned her resting head to the side watching Cosima lovingly with a soft smile on her lips. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply and released the air opening her eyes.
“I think we both know that you can’t always touch empiric evidence with your hands.”
Tacit knowledge built a home on that moment. A home made of warm hands, of blurry angels, of sweet tea and Neruda’s verses.
Sometimes Shay discovered a roaming place in the universe where she felt like a traitor. The place would move around silently awaiting not giving hints of its attentive watching activity. The place would hide behind rituals, behind kind words, behind the beauty of tiny snowflakes melting on a patch of grass among avenues, presaging a sense of childhood. With a sudden jump, the place would face her, making itself visible in the miserable eyes of those who Shay tried to help day after day, and she would attempt to avoid the place and the feeling of being outside her person.
One day, the place manifested in death. Not in loss, not in uncertainty, but in the unfinished path of someone who departed without creating a home for themselves in the world, no matter how much they tried. Shay found herself huddled in a corner of the place, watching another person with her body shouting obscenities towards the ceiling. She felt that, somehow, this ceiling was her beloved being insulted and humiliated.
When she arrived home, her back numb for having to carry the weight of the place, her ears sore for having to hear the pain and the denial, she found the living room empty. Dragging her feet, she let her body incarnate the defeat in a way only solitude has permission to witness. Without realizing, she was trying to gasp away the place.
A silhouette slid behind her entering the bedroom. Taken aback, Shay turned around and felt relieved seeing that it was Delphine, her hair damp, exuding a bare, intimate air, as if she had also been caught on a similar act of lonesomeness. Both women, breathing each other breathe themselves, stood in absolute silence, until the solitude finished performing.
“Shay… You are crying… What’s wrong?”
Shay touched her cheeks and felt the droplets on her fingertips. Her hands fell and she shook her head looking away. She couldn’t understand herself in the place, so she let her mouth speak unconsciously, simply, sincerely.
“It’s just… I don’t…” Shay was controlling herself not to cry, instead, her body released some tension shuddering. Delphine remained quiet and unmoving. “I-I try to believe everything happens for a reason. I try to be thankful to the universe all the time. But today… today it has been really hard not to hate it, not to be mad and…” Shay’s voice broke. “Why can we all see-? Why are there people who have to die without feeling-? Why are people so sad?”
The last two words came out slowly, as a broken weep. Shay covered her face with a hand suddenly too small, too exposed, the two images of herself battling on her mind.
Delphine took a step forward reaching for Shay with her arms to fold her into a hug.
“Come here, come here.”
Shay let the cry overflow her, not understanding, not wanting to understand in that moment. She attempted to raise her arms to embrace Delphine, but she was only capable of getting hold of the hem of her tank top. Delphine rocked them back and forth, rubbing Shay’s head and back. Shay felt like it had been years since she last cried, since she last allowed herself to feel frustration and anger towards the world.
“I hate hating this…” Tears kept on falling. Shay felt Delphine’s mouth on the shell of her ear murmuring.
“Give your feelings the value they have. You have every right to feel like this.”
Hearing those words, Shay could not help releasing a laugh aware that she was the one who used to say them whenever the occasion needed it, calming and reassuring. However, today she was also the figure of the traitor, screaming with fury towards the ceiling of the place and the figure sitting in the corner, scared, judging the outburst of rage inappropriate, unwise, dishonest.
Shay did not speak again. Instead, she abandoned herself to the soft humming sprouting near her temple, growing to swallow her into its shelter.
“I’m home, beautifuls!”
Only a low melody responded Cosima’s message. She tiptoed through the house, the humming intensifying, traveling from the ghost realm to alive clarity. Bathed by the dim light of the bedroom, she found them tangled on the bed with their eyes closed. A petite body being hold by a willowy figure. Delphine laid with her bare legs interlaced with Shay’s, one hand stroking slow and relentlessly the ribcage of the smaller woman, whose head rested in the crook of Delphine’s neck, tears wetting her throat and clavicles. She was singing.
Cosima approached the bed taking off her shoes, leaned down to kiss Delphine’s forehead, laid on Shay’s back, making full contact with her body from behind and kissing her nape, extended her arm to touch Delphine’s hip. Breathing Shay’s scent, she closed her eyes.
Cradled by Delphine’s lullaby, the three of them travelled to a bastion of healing, a home where tacit knowledge cuddled at their feet. Shay discovered in Delphine’s voice another place where she could shed two different kinds of tears and did not feel like a traitor. A place where that traitor was just another version of herself to love. Where acts of sincerity for solitude were exposed as young ballerinas unfreezing their movements, learning how to dance together.
‘I can be this person today.’ Shay decided. ‘As long as you keep singing.’ That was going to be her next thought, but before she could formulate it, Shay was asleep.