memories of la condamine

7/27/2019 Memories of La Condamine

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La Condamine

By M.L. Zambrana

Story based on the 1979 production of “Rebecca” starring Jeremy Brett

“Would it have scared you if I had told you what I’d been thinking then?”

She did not speak. She merely gave a slow nod; her sleepy expression did not

alter. The respect, the… closeness that we shared had not been shifted by my revelation

in the slightest. This, for some reason, disturbed me. Surely, any other woman that I’d



chosen to take on a drive would have been at the very least alarmed by my words? But

the young woman beside me barely stirred.

“I did consider it,” I insisted, perhaps a bit more strongly than I either wanted to

or even should have. My grip tightened on her bare arm, and I pressed my fingertips into

her cool skin. “Not when we were driving, as the narrow French roads were treacherous

enough to navigate. But when we reached the lookout area, it crossed my mind. Instead

of stopping the car a mere four feet from the edge, I could just as easily have rammed that

low stone wall with it.”

“But you didn’t, Malc,” she replied.

Softly. Simply. And I loved her all the more for that, though I knew better than to

say so. Love? This delicate, solitary creature knew nothing of love--I felt sure of it. She

had both the luck and the curse of being both too young and too inexperienced with the

world--too inexperienced with the brutal nature that lies inherent within human beings,

but which I had grown all too familiar with. That latter danger is what drew me to her, of

course, because I recognized it as danger, one that applied to her as equally to those

around her. Such a quiet, well-mannered, reserved yet somehow untamed woman such as

herself had no place in the upper echelon of society, and yet there she walked, in the

shadow of her employer, who saw nothing but another person who had no purpose except

to serve--who saw nothing of the beautiful vulnerability that could, out of pure ignorance,

rent a vulnerable man’s heart from him.

And so I determined that she should be with me. And so it happened. Oh, I’d

grown too used to having things turn my way over the years, so I thought nothing of it at

the time. Only in retrospect did it occur to me that her companionship had been utterly



out of my control, and the decision made had been hers, not mine.

“As we drove through the mountains that day,” I confessed, “I found a simple

happiness in your presence that I hadn’t felt in months, or perhaps years. It was an

unfettered enjoyment of the company of another human being. Nothing more. You had

no expectations from me, and I, none from you. We lived in the world of the now, with

the past cast off and the future utterly unimportant. And I realized that I wanted nothing

more than to have life stop right there.”

“Hence your thoughts,” she murmured. She lifted one smooth fingertip to stroke

the slight stubble on my chin. “I rather thought you might jump from the cliffs edge.”

“I considered it for several moments,” I replied in a near-whisper. “At first, out of

the shameful thought that I could have ended such a sweet life as yours. ‘How

presumptuous of me,’ I thought, ‘that I should want to exercise such power over

someone, much less one who has given me such a glorious moment of pause.’”

Tiny dimples of pleasure appeared on her cheeks. Pleasure, in the face of my

brutal revelation! My shame at the memories of my impudence and selfishness re-surged

within me. Those emotions demanded more honesty out of me, and I pulled her closer

for comfort as I continued.

“Once I’d calmed down from the idea that innocent blood would be on my soul,

my mind began to turn back to old miseries. Then the cliff beckoned for another reason.

After all, what did I have to return to the hotel for? Or to go back home for? What more

empty amusements could I find to fill my days to anything resembling satisfaction?”

Her head snuggled against my shoulder, and I dropped my face down and

breathed in the scent of her hair, then sighed and let my gaze turn back to the ceiling.



“And I realized at that moment that I’d just experienced a most sudden shift of

emotions. Joy, exhilaration, possessiveness, anger and self-loathing had flowed through

me in a minute‘s time, followed by the threat of the same numbness that I’d been living

with.” I looked at her again. “And then you walked up.”

“To interrupt your brown study,” she said with a delicate smile.

“You put me on the path again,” I explained. “I felt myself being drawn back into

the land of the living as I turned my view from the sea and encountered your steadfast

attention.”

I locked my gaze with hers.

“Just as that gaze of yours now pushes me to a new level of consciousness. My

soul is singing for you. Can you not hear it?”

“Can you not hear mine over your own?” she countered, as she blessed me with

the most wonderful smile that a man could ever know.

memories of la condamine

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