When I close my eyes, I see him now. What did I feel then? Oh. Have I grown so old?
He said, "It will only be minute. Just a minute now." He seemed so out of breath, shuddering over my body. He was holding me on the flagstones, close to him, holding my head.
What did I say? I asked him his name, and he said "Laurent," and I said, "Take me with you. Let me go with you."
When he took his hand from the back of my head, it was all red, and wet, and shaking, and I saw him despair, and I said, "Don't cry," I said. "Ne pleurez pas," like that. I could feel air on the inside of my throat.
He put his quivering hand to his lips, "It won't be long, not long."
"I don't want to go alone. Take me with you."
And he gasped, "I am not your angel," and I saw the other one near the gate, covering his face with his hands, the hawk-faced one who had come into my house and dragged me out, and beaten me with an iron rod, and I cried out in fear, because I thought he was Lucifer in life and I looked up at my angel, and his head was crowned with stars, stray hairs glowing, and I narrowed my eyes, because it was too bright, lolling in his arms.
"Laurent," I said, "Laurent," reaching for him, "Take me, take me," because I feared that he would leave me on the earth, with all of its pains and tortures, and because he wept for me, and I felt released by his love for me, and because with him I felt ready, oh for the first time since I had begun to draw ill. I breathed out and let my chin tip back, swimming in the consumptive evening, head light. The violence of earlier had gone. His brown eyes closed. It was so quiet.
When I reached for him again, he took my hand in his hand and put it in his hair, and then he was kissing me, kissing me, and speaking to me, but I couldn't hear him because of the sound of rushing in my ears, and there was a small pain, but it was as nothing. It was as if he had come down, and extended me his arm, and when I opened my eyes again, I kissed the tears from his cheeks, and kissed his mouth, softly, and I died.
I think that I was dead for many days. When I woke it seemed I was underwater, because I couldn't breathe, as if my chest were full of foam from the sea. The room was all yellow-gold to me, because of the low flame on the candle by the bed, but it didn't matter because I couldn't breathe. I put my hands to my neck, and all across it there was a raised and raw wound, and my heart beat so hard in my chest I felt as if the entire earth were keeping time with me. There was my angel, rushing into the room, and when he opened his mouth I saw his teeth for the first time and tried to get away, tormented by demons. He pinned me to the cushions and cried words, but they were just sounds, because I was feeling too hot and afraid to hear them. He lowered his face to mine, holding my chin steady with his hand. He breathed forcefully out into my mouth, and breathed in again, sucking my air out. He spat and it brought me to tears when the air came in, weaving its way into my ruined lungs, pushing my chest up and bringing peace with it.
"The light," I said, "the light," and he wet his fingers and put it out.
Then he lay with me in the dark, holding onto me, low on my body. "Be still now," he said. "I will stay with you, little pea."
Somehow, when I am with him, it is as if something in my head is complete, as if a circle were closed, and there is a humming of this completeness, as if it had form. I said, "Did I die?" and I called him "ma moitie" my half, because I felt that in some way he had taken part of me and given some part of himself back.
He laughed darkly, quietly, and said, "Mon coeur en sucre." My heart in sugar, as if my words were sweet to him. "Sleep, my blond. You are tired now."
"Am I dead?"
Then, he kissed my lips, just gently, and I kissed him, my only kiss, premier bisou, my first real one.
He said, "Hold me, innocence," and slept.