In the hospital’s courtyards a reception is in progress. Guests circulate, drinks in hand, and chat idly, gossip or talk business. Among them a couple keep apart to stay together. They keep to opposing courtyards, separated by people and cloisters. Despite their separation, at moments it is like only they are there.
One sits alone on a bench peeking through the columns and guests to see the other who, as guest of honour, is almost constantly engulfed with requests for information of various kinds and, as such, can only manage a fleeting glance back. Every so often, though, their eyes meet and each feels an electric shiver.
At times, without the other in sight, they remember that more than space separates them: theirs is a love that cannot be expressed in public: the heat generated in private (and those electric shivers) makes them too scared to approach one another at this and other events. The wrong time, the wrong place is their curse and their fear.
Still, later that day they know that, by gaslight, they can do whatever they please so long as the guest of honour’s wife does not detain him. She is an ever-present thorn in their side. A family friend he had been driven towards since childhood, they often call her the cold stone and laugh before lighting up a second cigarette. Each moment alone is precious, every kiss, every touch. Any act that cannot be performed in those courtyards for fear of their love’s discovery.
One sits alone on a bench peeking through the columns and guests to see the other who, as guest of honour, is almost constantly engulfed with requests for information of various kinds and, as such, can only manage a fleeting glance back. Every so often, though, their eyes meet and each feels an electric shiver.
At times, without the other in sight, they remember that more than space separates them: theirs is a love that cannot be expressed in public: the heat generated in private (and those electric shivers) makes them too scared to approach one another at this and other events. The wrong time, the wrong place is their curse and their fear.
Still, later that day they know that, by gaslight, they can do whatever they please so long as the guest of honour’s wife does not detain him. She is an ever-present thorn in their side. A family friend he had been driven towards since childhood, they often call her the cold stone and laugh before lighting up a second cigarette. Each moment alone is precious, every kiss, every touch. Any act that cannot be performed in those courtyards for fear of their love’s discovery.
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