Worlds Without End by Caroline Spector Page A

away.
    “I suppose it really is you.” I said at last.
    “I’m wounded.” he said as he touched his chest over his heart. “Have you forgotten me so easily?”
    I poured more water into my glass and put the spoon on top.
    Sugar cube.
    Absinthe.
    “No.” I replied. “Not so easily. Would you care for some?”
    He took his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and opened it with a little click.
    “Isn’t it a bit early for this sort of thing?” he asked. “I hadn’t figured you for the type.”
    The sugar cube crumbled in my mouth. My tongue was already numb and felt a bit grainy. Wonderful numbness.
    “What type is that?” I asked. “The type that indulges in pleasure? Think of it, Caimbeul. All the years and years stretching ahead of us. All the ones behind. And it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing we do matters. It all keeps happening again and again. I’ve spent plenty of time worrying about what has happened. And far too much concerned with what will happen. So, now, I don’t care.
    “This,”—I raised my glass—“gives me a brief taste of happiness. I have had far too little of that.”
    Silently, I toasted him, then drank. Ah, nectar. I was borne up by angels into clouds of gossamer and silk.
    He said nothing then. Just sat down there with me as I drank, then walked me home as the sun sank full and red into the gray twilight.
    Every day he came and sat with me as I drank. Sometimes, I would go to a different cafe, but he always managed to find me.
    One day I woke and discovered that I no longer wanted to go to the cafes. Caimbeul’s presence had muddied the pleasure of the absinthe for me. I hated him for it. I dressed hurriedly, rushing out without my hat.
    He was waiting for me at the cafe on the Rue Saint-Jacques.
    “I hate you.” I said.
    “I know.”
    “You’ve ruined everything.”
    “Perhaps.”
    I stood there, frustrated, not knowing what else to say.
    “Would you like to go for a walk?” he asked.
    I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
    “Because it’s a beautiful day.” he replied. “And I’d like you to come with me.”
    I saw the waiter coming toward the table with the absinthe and water. My hands started shaking and I felt my mouth go dry. Caimbeul. and I didn’t say anything as the waiter put them on the table and left.
    “Well.” he said. “Are you coming?”
    I looked at the absinthe. Ma petite amie. My life.
    Just one more , I thought.
    I could feel my mouth pucker, anticipating the bite of the sugar, the anise bitterness of the absinthe.
    Caimbeul held his hand out to me. Slowly, very slowly, I took it.
    * * *
    “Why did you stay?” I asked Caimbeul.
    “When?”
    “When you found me in Paris at that cafe. You could have left. It might have been better if you had. It was certainly out of character.”
    He looked out at the drizzling rain. The sky was overcast and made the greens outside brilliant and a little surreal.
    “I suppose it was the shock of seeing you there. You looked so . . . human. It surprised me. I had always thought of you as indestructable. No matter what knocked you down, you just kept getting back up. But there, in that place, you weren’t ever going to get up again. I just couldn’t stand to see the waste of it all.”
    The light from the fluorescents gave his skin a corpse-like pallor. It seemed almost incomprehensible to me that I had once held him in my arms. I felt like that had happened to a different person. A different Aina.
    “Did I ever thank you?” I asked.
    He turned toward me and smiled. The smile was crooked and made his face look lopsided. And I found it utterly endearing.
    “Yes.” he said. “You did.”
    “Good.” I said.
    And we sat there wrapped in our memories until the announcement came for our flight.

You have been hiding from me, Aina.
    You must know there is nowhere you can run where I cannot find you.
    No place that will afford you sanctuary.
    I am coming.
    Coming soon.
    16
    The international flight was cramped and