The Little Black Cigarette Part 2 Chapter 2
Part Two Chapter Two: The House
Click here to read Part 2, Chapter 1.
The Rijksmuseum was opposite our loft in the Museumkwartier. As we made our way through its gardens people flooded the small maze of arbes. Cecile seemed to be reborn in the presence of the crowd of strangers, while I couldn’t help but develop a small tightening in my throat with each set of eyes we passed. Just beyond the gardens we were able to see the water and as we approached the bridge I scanned the docked boats for my mother, but they were all empty.
“I wish I could smell the fresh air through this stupid, phallic apendage I have on my nose.” Cecile said, pulling at her hat in a desperate attempt to hide her new nose.
The mist of the morning was starting to burn off and a warm blue took its place. We sat on the ledge of the bridge, watching as the dark water reflected the narrow canal houses, their many colors rippling in and out of the current. A few boats passed beneath our feet: an old man and young boy in a metal two-seater, dressed for a day of fishing outside the city center, a couple of longer canal boats full of tourists heading towards the house of Anne Frank. Then a boat, quieter than the rest, cruised towards us. Its open top had a pop up canopy, my mother reached out and waved from beneath as the boat slowed to the side of the canal. Cecile and I ran to jump aboard.
Teak decking, with mahogany finishes. A marble bar top and tan leather bench seats. In the back under the canopy was a muted pink daybed full of pillows. Anna Pavlov sat just beside a rounded table, dressed entirely in lilac, from her blouse to her shoes. Accompanying her, and helping us onboard, was a swankily fitted captain and a small statured bartender. The latter handed us each a coupe glass filled with a pink-orange colored cocktail, garnished with a small paper plane on a toothpick. My mother thanked him as she patted the seat next to her.
“So girls, are we ready for a bit of freedom?” She held her own cocktail to ours and we cheersed as the captain sailed towards the city center.
Cecile began to dig through the fruit and cheese spread on the table. At its center was a large four-hose hookah that seemed to be fastened to the table. It was embedded with emeralds and red diamonds, the mouthpieces were heavy and as I lifted one my mother took it in her hand.
“Solid gold,” she said, twirling it around in her fingers. “Your grandfather gave it to me on my twentieth birthday. It’s specifically designed to smoke poppies instead of tobacco. Here, have a puff.”
I took the golden mouthpiece in my hand and inhaled, the sweet aroma of poppies filled my lungs. As I blew the smoke upwards, passing the hose back to my mother, the blue of the sky turned a bright lavender. I heard her exhale in relief, placing her hand on mine. She squeezed my fingers tight.
“Magnificent, aren’t they?”
Anna Pavlov took a puff herself, motioning for Cecile to join.
“The taste, the scent, is unlike anything you can find in a garden, yet it feels like that’s where it belongs. My father, your grandfather, gave me my first experience when I was sixteen. We had a country home, in the south of France, just between Monaco and Nice. There’s a botanical garden there, in Eze, set upon a cliff, overlooking the French Riviera. He walked me through a trail of flowers that led to a small greenhouse, chained and padlocked until we entered inside. This is where he grew a small collection of poppies, for his pleasure. There were Oriental Poppies, bright orange with large petals. Ice Poppies, yellow as the sun. Icelandic Poppies, a perfect combination of the two. And hanging from the ceiling, the most ideal vantage point, were the Opium Poppies. They ranged in color from deep violets to unassuming lavenders, each seemed to radiate light from within. My father reached out and plucked one, crushing it in his hand. ‘It isn’t the petals or the flower which is important,’ he said, ‘but from where they derive.’ In the beginning stages, the pod of a poppy, its seed, can be cut or crushed to expose the latex within, a milky secretion—that is the opium. The juice of the plant. My father opened both his palms, in one the crushed petals of a poppy, in the other a tightly rolled, black cigarette. I took the cigarette in my hands and he led me outside to a bench. From the breast pocket of his coat he pulled out a box of matches, placing them softly on my lap. Then, before leaving me in the garden alone, he lifted my chin so that my eyes met the sun and he said these words: There are two ways to experience the world, from outside and from within. But to appreciate the outside we must first be centered within. To be centered we must understand our place. He closed my eyes with the tips of his fingers and told me if ever the outside is too much, to only shut my eyes and see.”
“And what was it like when you took your first puff?” I asked, overwhelmed by the melodic rhythm of my mother’s voice.
“Oh, I’ve forgotten so much over time. But, I do remember this. The feeling of being with and without in unison, that is to say that I was both looking out of my eyes but also seeing myself. That my body was only a vessel of which to experience, but it wasn’t me at all. I was everywhere. I could follow the breeze of the ocean up the cliff, through the trees, collecting the scent of flowers, passing them through my breath and out back towards the sea. All as One.”
“All as One,” I repeated. “Why is it, then, that I cannot keep my memories from the poppies? That I feel jumbled and confused until I smoke another?”
“Because you are broken!” Cecile was laid out across the daybed with her third Paper Plane cocktail in her right hand, twirling her rubber nose in the other, which she had apparently peeled from her face during my mother’s story.
Anna Pavlov laughed.
“In a way she is quite right. Sometimes our mind shields us, keeping some memories in the dark so that they don’t completely engross our thoughts. Poppies accelerate your thoughts, your mind opens up completely. Perhaps this is a new skill for you, and when the poppies retract you can’t replicate what they allow. It will get better, with time.”
We floated beneath one of the many stone bridges that cradle the canals, though this one smaller than the rest, a footbridge. The captain took a slight left and suddenly our boat was alone, threading carefully between the walls of canal houses on either side. The blue of the sky shrunk above our heads, eaten up by rusted red bricks and black metal railings. The boat cut through the silence as we moved deeper down the water alley. We came to a rest at a house numbered six in navy blue tiles. By its side, a clean white door.
We climbed a small staircase that was partially engulfed by the water. Moss had taken hold of the steps during the vacancy of their owner. My mother took a lone key from her pocket and unlocked the door, pushed it forcefully inside with both hands, then disappeared into the darkness. The arched doorway let in just a crescent of light, not that there was much to capture from the canal anyhow. I stepped into the home, my heels clicked against the floor.
Tiny, dark green mosaic tiles. Cream, hand-painted walls, black furniture. There was a spiral staircase directly to the right with a maroon runner up the first two flights. The stairs continued for at least two more floors. My mother’s shoes were neatly left against the wall, so I lifted my heels and kicked them aside. A light flicked on down the hallway, I saw Cecile disappear around a corner. Somewhere a piano began to play, harsh against the silence of the house. I walked towards the music on the tips of my toes, cold against the shiny floors.
Anna Pavlov was sitting on a small bench in front of a Cristofori piano. Her long, skinny fingers danced wildly over the keys. Her shoulders bounced and curved. Her eyes were closed.
Cecile was spread across the floor, her head supported by a 19th century Victorian sofa. Somehow, she had already managed to find another drink, it dangled in her right hand. She too had her eyes closed. I stood over them both, unmotivated to move, captivated by my mother. I watched her until her fingers played the final chord.
“I recognize it.” I said as she lowered the fallboard over the keys.
“I thought you might. Liebestraum, by Franz Liszt. I played it for years after I lost your father.”
“Liebestraum,” repeated Cecile in a perfect German accent. “It means love dream, or to dream of love.”
“Exactement Cecile. To dream of love. It was inspired by a poem by a German writer.”
“It sounds much more like heartbreak than love,” I said quietly.
“Yes, it does seem to express pain, the pain of loss I suppose. Grief. In the poem, the writer says, ‘O lieb', solang du lieben magst! Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt, Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst!’”
Cecile sighed, then carefully repeated my mother in English.
“Love as long as you may, the time will come when you will stand at the grave and mourn.”
“I never did get to stand at a grave, but everyday I mourn, still I mourn. He was an extraordinary light in my life, as he would have been for you too.”
“My father, what was he like? I know we spoke about him briefly before, but I find it hard to believe after all this time you never found out what really happened to him.”
“Yes, bien sur, I tried to find him. But, my love, you were just an infant when it happened and by the time I was free enough to do some digging myself, it had been years. Even now, with all of my reach, I cannot seem to find anyone to talk to that knew him during that time in Italy. Even the shopkeepers remain tight-lipped on the matter. Alexander was a good man, a righteous man, a man that I would have thought would have left a trail of witnesses begging to clear his name. To bring peace.”
I sat down next to Cecile on the floor as my mother stood and moved to the sofa.
“I see so much of him in you,” she reached out to brush the hair from my face. “Your intelligence, always getting the best of you, keeping you grounded, out of the dream. It is for this that the poppies have a hard time taking hold. You fight anything that doesn’t fit within reality. It is a great quality when shared with others, but suffocating to live with alone.”
“Anna—Mother, why are we here? What is this house?”
“This house, Anna, was your first home. You were born here, in the bedroom upstairs. We didn’t leave the bed for your first five days on this earth. You were so little, so attached, I was worried I might roll over you in my sleep.”
I looked around at the vaulted ceilings, imagining how small I must have been beneath them.
“As for why we are here, well I have a proposal for you. There is something that has come up that you must make a decision on. I promised myself I would never stand between you and happiness, that I would only aid and escort you along your path. But it seems our paths have become tangled and my hands are a bit tied.”
“What is it? What else could I possibly not know?”
“Oh this isn’t something you don’t know, well not entirely. This is more about something you must choose to realize.”
Cecile laughed, “What is this, a riddle?”
“The poem we were speaking of before, it continues. It reads: Be sure that your heart burns, and holds and keeps love. As long as another heart beats warmly with its love for you. And if someone bears his soul to you, love him back as best you can. Give his every hour of joy, let him pass none in sorrow.”
“You wish to speak of Pierre.” I shuddered.
“I would, yes. If you’ll let me.”
I nodded for her to continue.
“As you know I am looking to move away from the Italians. They have handled distribution for the company since your father passed it along, but since the completion of the Al Thani Collection, I cannot continue to employ them with Pierre by my side. He has made quite the enemy of them. You can understand that before I formally excuse them from my company I need to be sure I have a suitable fall back plan. You see, Anna, the smoothest transition is to put distribution into the hands of Pierre.”
“That is hardly his skill set,” I spat. “He is an artist. A con man yes, maybe, but an artist first.”
“Of course he is an artist, one never stops being an artist. He has been acquainted with my network since he was a boy, a familiar face for my clients, and furthermore he is interested.”
“You’ve already spoken to Pierre about this?”
“Yes, we discussed it yesterday morning. I thought he might have already told you.”
“Classic Pierre,” barked Cecile. She tipped her head back and shook the flute in her hand for the last drop of champagne, “Always hiding something. His timing with secrets is really terrible.”
“Oh Cecile, right you are! That is precisely what needs to be discussed. You see, this business isn’t for the faint hearted. And I know you haven’t been around the business long, but it is in your blood dear. No matter how far you run, if you choose to, you are connected to me and to this empire. Now I cannot tell you whether that is fortunate or not, but I can say that if you choose to embrace your connection you will have more support and love than if you don’t. But there will be sacrifices and those sorts of things need to be communicated properly. If I move forward with Pierre, which to be frank with you is what I intend to do, then you must decide if you can trust him.”
“How can you intend to hire someone while also questioning if that man can be trusted?”
“You misinterpret what I am saying. I trust him, but my relationship with him is business. He is an excellent business man. But when trust is a matter of love, a matter for the heart to decide, it is much more grave. Speaking from my own experience it is better to be blinded by the light than left in the dark, and communication and trust are the only tools you have to achieve this.”
“But what if the dark suits me?”
“It doesn’t. It suits no one in love. You must give all, and you can, when someone loves you as Pierre does.”
“Pierre loves his jewels, the collection. He has no room to love me.”
“Oh my sweet child, it was never about the collection. Pierre has been searching all his life for much more than sapphires and rubies. The only reason he fought so hard for the collection is because he knew it would eventually bring him to you. He is a silly boy when in love, normally he is very cautious and looks from all angles, but the past two years I simply had to find you to find him. He’s let his guard down.”
“I see now. This is actually your way of prompting me to influence Pierre into returning to his cautious self. If I am with him he won’t have to look for me, he won’t have to let his guard down. Is that it? This is all about the survival of your business.”
“No, Anna, this is about love. Business has no place in it, but I do admit it is a bit of a win for us all. The right decisions normally are.”
I fell silent. A muffled snore came from Cecile’s limp body. I have always wanted this: for someone to whisk me away from my poor, dreary, monotonous life and, in my mother’s words, show me the light. The difficulty is not in knowing what I want, I know what that is instinctually. But to act, to concede to what I want, when a month prior none of these options were remotely feasible, feels asinine. I know Pierre as well as I know French, and that language is nothing but music to me. And my mother, how can I be sure that she too isn’t just back to take advantage? If we all are formed by our past actions, bound to repeat and recycle, then won’t she eventually abandon me again?
My mother put her hand on mine, motioning me to stand up.
“Come, I want to show you something.”
We left Cecile alone to sleep and climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor. The hallway was identical to the one below, closed doors lined it on all sides. I followed my mother to the final door on the left, which she unlocked and entered. The room was dark. She went to the far wall and pulled the curtains from the window, they were heavy and pink. The sun crept in, shining directly on a cradle in the center of the room. Dust hung and shimmered in the light. Old white iron. Sheer canopy curtains hung from the ceiling around it. I approached the cradle, a small stuffed elephant was laid inside. I reached in to hold it and as my fingers touched it I knew it wasn’t for the first time.
“Before today I used to return to this house only when I felt far from you. For twenty years this room has been untouched, since the last time you were in it.”
I placed the elephant back into the crib and looked up at Anna Pavlov, tears welling above her smile. I took her hand in mine.
“I know it must be hard for you to overcome the pain caused by my absence, to understand that it was for you that this was all done. Your safety has often come before your happiness, but now you have the chance to combine the two. If you cannot trust me, not yet anyhow, I ask you to at least try to understand where I come from. I am a mother and have remained a mother even without my child. I would never make a decision that would put you in harm's way.”
“After the auction, when all this business with the collection is done, will you disappear again?”
“I will not disappear, not from you. From this day on we will always be in communication, and even when you do not know where I am, I will never be far. I promise you nothing can take you away from me again.”