Lars lit the lantern at his desk and stared once more, squinting at the necklace of notes strung along the stave. Why could he not be at peace with this final stanza of the composition? It was just not right. He could the thud of the children,s feet upstairs and their bickering voices deciding the true mother in his wife into fractions. There were too many demands on her to be able to answer them all so she chose to answer none. He looked through to the parlour and saw the lamp-lighter making his circles of gold spring to life on the pavement through the bay window. There were cushions on the floor, a china doll, a moth-eaten bear, a lone marble. The window bay was a place for the innocents and they made it their own. It is the hour to pray, he thought, and I am still not finished. Mine is a fevered life.
His wife came down and sat by the fire "your gown has a lost button, my love," she said
"And your eyes are as sharp as they were when we married, dear one, if you can see that from over there. Come here and kiss me and we shall have a glass together." She smiled at him,"mine own dear hear" writ large in her sparkling eyes.
"Your children are all a-bed my love, it's the proper hour. Will you sing to them a lullaby?" She said, coming to his arms to be gifted a chaste but tender kiss on her cheek.
"I will go up, and then we shall have our night cap, my busy little bees do not like alcohol kisses as much as there Mama."
His tread is softly on the stair but none the less five pairs of eyes, saucer wide and full of anticipation look from their bed as he enters the room.
"Papa," they squeal with excitement.
"What will you have this night mine own dear hearts, a story? A lullaby?"
"Sing for us Papa," they reply in harmony and he begins a song of tempting beauty beyond reach, a necklace of notes too pure for this world. He sings softly and his deep baritone voice caresses the night air in honeyed velvet tones as rich as melted chocolate. The children , one by one sink into peace and calm, and, contented drift into slumber. What secrets do they see in their dreams he wonders? Shifting sand dunes and camel trains of silks perhaps, or two papier mâché bees flying through the Venetian Carnival like the ones they had seen at the Opéra. What ever it was you could only see smiles on their faces, these dreams would remain a mystery.
He tenderly tucked their blankets about them against the chill and banked the fire in the grate. He retreats and retraces his steps to find his wife sitting in the parlour by the fire. Mine is a blessed existence here. The hours shrink and the years pass too quickly but still I am content. The music lies on the lid of the clavichord calling him to answer his responsibilities.
"Off to work we go." But he finds he cannot settle to the music and sits in his leather chair, his mind drifts like the tide, in and out of consciousness until he finally lands in restless dreams reeling among the stars as the sea writes its name in Arabic.
"What day is it?" he asks of the Sea.
"Tuesday. It is always Tuesday. Time does not pass for us, only water flows.
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