Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler

Author:Richard Zimler [Richard Zimler]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781780332512
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2011-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

XXVI

Benjamin, when preparing me for marriage to Francisca, once told me that if affection is to last, one must love the person one knows in the present as well as the one he or she may become in the future. I was not sure of his meaning until the early summer of 1819.

This was a most troubling time for me, for I’d begun to think constantly about the unfairness of death. Nights were the worst. Lying next to Francisca, the gratitude I felt at being with her led me to thoughts of dying before seeing her to old age and the children to adulthood. Trembling in the dark, afraid to embrace her lest I wake her, I was frequently unable to sleep.

Perhaps due to the exhaustion caused by my insomnia, my feelings soon changed, however, and I began to believe that my obsession with death was a result of impositions being placed on me by my family: the need to earn a living, to care for the children, to encourage Francisca during her moments of doubt. I came to regard these as a threat to my very existence and the cause of my morbid state of mind. In my troubled state, I could not conceive of any way forward for the boy and man I used to be. They had vanished. Or so I thought. At times, I seemed to be looking through a window at all the things I would never get to do and see.

I would frequently sit for hours in the Lookout Tower, watching the successive phases of the moon, allowing the glowing petals of red and yellow filtering through the restored colored glass of the skylight to fall across my body as though to camouflage me. Beneath all that beauty, however, I felt barren – that my life, just like the tinted moonlight, was nothing but a clever illusion. My shadow cast across the floor seemed that of a straw man.

I tried to hide my feelings from Francisca – after all, no woman could react well to being cast as her husband’s jailer – which created distance between us. Despite the pain this caused her, she never mentioned my lack of enthusiasm. Pity the young husband who forgets that his wife may not be so different from him….

One Sunday, after daydreaming all morning of a life with the Bushmen in the deserts of southern Africa, I decided we ought to journey to the beaches at the river mouth by donkey, as I had on occasion as a lad. By so doing, I hoped to compensate for my recent lack of attention to my wife and the girls.

Just as I predicted, Francisca was skeptical from the very beginning. Making a sour face, she said, “Are you sure a two-hour ride atop a smelly beast is how you want to spend a day of blessed rest? Would you not prefer to sit in the garden and read?”

“Your husband is game for adventure,” I declared.

I can see now that a part of me wanted her to fail this test so as to have proof that she was holding me back.

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