Lavender

She does this every day: take a warm lavender bath in her en suite bathroom. She is a lady of leisure, a young widow whose young husband died of haemophilia a couple of years back. It was sad, but her full life distracts her from the grief of losing Richard, who was her childhood sweetheart.

The daughter of a Colombian sugar baron and descended from a Spanish aristocratic family related to Queen Isabela, Clarissa seems to have it all: wealth, social position, influence.

But when left alone after parties and excursions, life feels empty. Her parents have not been amiss on reminding her of noblesse oblige, she supports several charities and spends time with the poor, but somehow, after all is said and done at the end of each day, life is empty.

Her hour long bath is a ritual in meditation. She is a cradle Catholic, but not a devout practitioner. Her preference for the scent of lavender was cultivated when she attended a boarding school in the South of France, which sat beside a lavender farm. The scent calms her. And it gives her courage. To mutilate herself. Every time she sinks into the bath she brings a razor blade with her. She makes successive shallow cuts on her upper arms, where they will not be visible under the sleeves of the tea dresses that have become her uniform in this tropical country.

Clarissa knows her problem. She is a double major in World History and Psychology. She knows her complexes and she has not been remiss in seeking help for her condition. Only she dreads to accept its name, accept its effect on her, and accept the possibility that she can be happy.

The presence of Richard during their short marriage was a palliative to her pain. But after he died she felt life only got worse.

Schubert was playing on the radio when she got out of the bath. She dried off and put on a night gown. She is not strictly pretty, but her retrousse nose gave her face a unique charm. She was not short on suitors but she knew she’d never fall for anyone again after Richard. The time she had with him, no matter how short, was enough to make her decide to be his widow all her life.

She picked up her favourite book of Rilke’s poems from the bedside table and proceeded to read but tonight she was distracted. She could not focus, so she decided to change into a track suit and running shoes and walk around. It was safe to do so at nine in the evening. She lived in a gated community that crawled with guards all the hours of the day.

Her pace was brisk as she walked to the north of her home. She gave a smile and a nod to familiar neighbours. She liked coming to the park to watch the ducks swim on the pond. She sank into one of the benches and breathed in the balmy September air.

Clarissa was lost in thought for a few minutes before she noticed the old man sitting on the stone bench opposite her. He did not look like a mendicant. Though soiled and smelly, his clothes looked expensive. His thinning hair was neatly groomed, as if someone bothered to keep up with getting him haircuts.

She approached him. He was chewing on a leaf and she was afraid that it could be poisonous. He could be someone’s father or grandfather and she thought he should not be unsupervised outside the house during this time of the day. He smiled at her as she came closer, a greeting of someone to a beloved coming for him. 

“Ah, dear. I’ve been waiting for you. What took you so long?”

Her friendly smile became puzzled. She racked her brains for a name to associate to the stranger but none came up. She never met him before but he seemed to know her.

“Beatriz, why not give your Dad a hug? I’ve missed you. You took so long in Basel!”

“Beatriz? Beatriz who?” she was getting an idea, but she needed to confirm.

“Don’t act like that! You know you’re my daughter. I got bored at home so I waited for you here.”

The man was clearly suffering from dementia, Clarissa concluded. She signaled to one of the guards on duty at the park. She asked him if he knew the man, and the guard answered yes. He lived near the park and has been wont to stay there for hours, sometimes missing meals. He lived with his son, who was a government engineer; his wife and their three children.

“I think I should bring him home. It’s getting cold, he might get pneumonia. Do you know the address?”

The guard gave her directions after hailing a taxi for them.

“Daddy, let’s go home. It’s getting cold,” she told the old man, playing along with his delusion, whose name she gathered to be Jacobo.

He got willingly into the cab and was chatty on the short ride to the bungalow where he lived.

She rang the bell and a distraught woman answered the door. Clarissa introduced herself and explained that she found the man in the park.

“Yes, he does tend to do that,” the daughter in law said. “We got him two nurses but he still manages to give them the slip. He doesn’t like wearing his dog tag, we got him several just in case he gets lost but he threw every one of them I don’t know where. We’re just grateful he doesn’t wander too far from here.”

Then, “Hey, I know it’s late but you might want something to drink. Just to thank you for your concern,” she added.

Her brain still wide awake, so she accepted the invitation. Jacobo’s son was still up and he told her all about Beatriz. She was the elder of the two children and died in a plane crash coming home from university in Switzerland. Jacobo never got quite over the tragedy and as his mind waned, he hung on to her memory with a tenacity that would put a pit bull to shame.

The following morning Clarissa went about her ablutions as usual. Her secretary came in at nine am with her schedule for the day, but she asked her to cancel everything. She could not get Jacobo and his family out of her mind. She put on jeans, a thin sweater, and soft shoes. She walked towards the park but he wasn’t there yet, so she decided to try his home.

Matilda, his daughter in law, was getting his breakfast ready when she got there. She greeted Clarissa warmly and offered her French toast and coffee. She was about to decline, but the old man squealed in delight when he saw her. “Bea! You came! Let’s eat!”

She smiled back, and sat beside him. “So tell me about university,” he prodded her. She looked at Matilda, who smiled and nodded at her. She told him about her experiences in Harvard, where she studied and their chat occupied the good part of the morning.

It was nearing lunch time when she consulted her watch. She told Matilda she’ll go home to take her meal, but the woman insisted she eat with them. “I’ve never seen him this happy before. Make his day and eat with us, please.”

She curled up on the Lazy Boy in the den when Jacobo took his siesta in his bedroom. When he woke, they talked a little more. It was late when his batteries got spent and his nurse prepared him for bed.

Clarissa called for her chauffeur to pick her up. She was pooped. She did not even get undressed when she got to her bedroom. She just took off her shoes, crawled into bed, and slept sounder than she could remember in a long time.

The following days were not like her first with Jacobo’s family, but she made certain to spend at least half a day with him, despite her various social commitments.

After a few weeks, his son, Jose confessed to her that his father’s illness was taking an emotional toll on him.

“When someone you’ve loved your whole life treats you like a stranger, you know that has to hurt.” 

“Well, why not talk to him about yourself? Ask him to pretend you’re his son. You just have to figure out how to find common ground with him,” Clarissa advised.

“Know what, I’ll try that. Introduce me to him, please?” Then he smiled, then laughed with her at the irony of their situation.

On Saturday she packed a picnic. She would take Jacobo to the park and introduce him to Jose.

“Good morning, Dad!” she greeted him. “I’m taking you to the park and I’m bringing friends along. Is that okay?”

Jacobo smiled his toothy grin. He was obviously pleased. “Friends? Sure Bea, the more the merrier.”

Jose met them at the park. A blanket was laid out and Matilda laid out their picnic. She brought smoked duck, grapes, saltine crackers and orange juice: Jacobo’s favourites.

“Dad, this is my friend Jose, his wife Matilda and their children Susanna, Cristina and Alberto. They’ve been wanting to meet you. I’ve told them all about you.”

With time alone with his father, Jose told Jacobo about himself, often saying, “You know, my father is just as great as you.” Jacobo seemed pleased and prodded his son to tell more. Jose recounted his memories of his father to him, his eyes sometimes tearing with happiness. Somehow, in a strange way, Clarissa’s suggestion was working.

On the anniversary of Richard’s death, she went to Church to offer Mass for his soul. Then she went to the beach in the afternoon. They used to go there every weekend when he was still alive. Her maid unpacked her luggage, her clothes in the closet, her journal resting on her pillow. The sight of it startled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she wrote on it. She’d forgotten to since meeting Jacobo and his family. She opened it and the blank pages reminded her of something: she stopped taking her lavender baths and cutting herself. She went to the mirror and ran her hands on her upper arms. There were almost indecipherable scars, but no more cuts. She smiled. Somehow the conundrum of Jacobo pulled her from her self harming tendencies. She went to the bathroom, and poured the bottles of lavender bath liquid into the toilet, and flushed it.

When she got back home, she bought orange scented bath liquid, which reminded her of her friend from the park. Jacobo loved orange juice and the smell of the fruit incited hope in her heart.

Clarissa would take orange scented baths for the rest of her life, even long after Jacobo died. Jose and Matilda became her lifelong friends and when Jacobo passed she made it a point to spend time in a home for the elderly. She would not suffer dementia herself, she would remain sharp in her twilight years, perhaps by the same grace of God that worked when Jacobo erased the emptiness from her life.