Chapter Text
“It’s a lie!” roared Simoun, pale and beside himself. “It’s false! Maria Clara lives, Maria Clara must live! It’s a cowardly excuse! She’s not dead, and this night I’ll free her or tomorrow you die!”
“And who might that be?”
The Spaniard nodded in the direction of a long-haired stranger whose eyes were framed in tinted spectacles as he wove through the crowd. He was wiry and slipped in the cracks between the prominent members of society, not unlike a spider would.
The Spaniard’s female companion turned to see. “Ah, he’s a real character,” she began, “An American jeweler who apparently just returned from Asia.”
“And his name?”
“Simoun.”
“And his company?”
The woman’s eyes creased upon seeing the lady at Simoun’s arm, whose Oriental blue-green collar made a remarkable contrast with his Western, reddish ensemble. While Simoun’s hair was lined with white, hers was black all over. And for all this, the Spaniard’s companion found her unfamiliar.
“I don’t know who she is,” was all she whispered.
The curtains waved slightly in the cold air. The windows were opened only a crack so as to let in a silver strip of moonlight cut into the room. Outside, the European city was aglow, but Simoun fancied himself a man of darkness even after a youth lived under a sun.
“Crisostomo…,” it was a sigh, tired and cautious, that called out to a forgotten name for help as it tried to blindly grip through the shadow.
Simoun replied with all sorts of endearment: sinta, amor, Cherie, and finally, simply, Maria, as he rushed to her side on the bed. Thin as a bird she was, draped in a nightgown she had possessed since the convent. He was careful to embrace her because in his head she was still a ghost, and in his hands she was something fragile that would break if he was not careful. And yet it remained that she was much more than that.
“I'm sorry,” she said, suddenly.
He knelt at the foot of the bed closest to her side, encasing her face and shoulders with caution. “Whatever for, love?”
“I shouldn’t have called you by that.”
He shook his head and reassured her. “You can call me anything you wish.”
He felt her hands. They were cold. “I know how it feels to remember things,” she said with a shaking voice.
“Shh, no need for that now,” he whispered.
“Please, forgive me…”
Simoun took her face and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her tears. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
He had waited so long to hold her again; his sleeves were wet with her tears, and she trembled in his arms, but here she was, alive and with him. It was almost surreal that he was doing so, and letting go was not something he was planning on doing – no, not for a while.