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The Book of Perennials
by R F Grant There it lay, the notebook, concealed behind the antique Kit-Cat clock upon the shelf. The clock itself was broken—a drunken brawl he had with a stranger last summer. From the dust-ridden shelf, it grinned at me. Its dilated eyes seemed to follow my hand reaching behind it, enamored. I know what you’re doing, it said with a Cheshire grin. Conniving girls shouldn’t nose around. But it was the only thing he’d hidden. The only thing he’d closeted all these years. I sought it out of curiosity. Not because I’d loved him, but because he’d worn his heart on his sleeve. Objectified, this was his only secret. The only contrast to his candid nature. Allotted deep within its pages were pressed flowers. One for each of them. Harper—a cobalt-eyed southerner he’d met last spring. For her, he chose a Bluebell. For Zoe, a Dahlia. That one dyed her hair black. Treated her skin like a canvas, sleeves tattooed without an inch of natural skin. Orange-hazel eyes and a tongue so sharp you could flint fire off it. And then, me. He chose a Camellia for me, if that tells you anything. They’re symmetrical, like the Vitruvian Man. I removed the notebook from its shelf. Dropped it on the middle of his desk. Turned the porcelain cat around on the shelf so it wouldn’t leer at me. Humorous, it facing the corner like that. A dunce-capped child. Now who’s the guilty one? I muttered playfully. Dust billowed out from beneath the cover as it opened. I coughed, squinted. Glanced across the title page. Therein rested his name; Alan Kissinger. The pressed flower on the first page was an amaryllis. Bright crimson and white, speckled with red. A flashing, golden middle. Fresh as the day he’d glued it. The female associated had the name Darya, written in Persian and English. Her photograph could stun a stoic. Eyes of intrigue, outlined in black—a gaze that could freeze fire. Though she wore a hijab, it rested only lightly on a bun circling the back of her head. Raven-black hair, thick like a butter-braid. Painted nails too—unorthodox from what I know of that society. A rebel woman, perhaps. A mosque rested behind her, robin-blue scripture garnishing the walls. The flower and photo were laid out so perfectly, you could tell Alan had loved this woman. A hand-written paragraph below only affirmed my intuition. August 12th, 2003—we dined beneath a starry sky shattered with fireworks that night. It was Eid Al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. I believe to this day a peculiar joy in her was unshelled. One otherwise subdued—a freedom of sorts. Though we did not make love, I felt our spirits had treasured one another out of the same ecstasy. Her eyes made love to me within themselves. Darya revealed more in her silence than even the most talkative Westerner. It remains cause for nostalgia. Not her. Not her body. Only her presence. The way she carried herself. My words cannot warrant.” I scanned onward, turning the page onto another chapter of Alan’s life. This time, a lily-white edelweiss graced the page like a fresh breath of air. I touched its petals, softer than linens. A newborn rabbit’s coat. It lay seamlessly across the page, as if by the hand of a pianist. Sloane, the name associated. “She withheld a pure soul,” the entry read. “I always see her as enveloped in light, walking through a field just after the sun had risen. Dream-like. A flower you couldn’t pick. Silvery, ash-blonde hair. Bright, hazel eyes. Achromatic skin, a touch of frost. Words whispered from her lips, yet pierced you, though she never spoke ill to anyone.” Onward I read. A pressed flower came with each name. A journal entry, short or long. I wondered where I could find them. Rather, where I could find something more. A clue towards the lives they led. I read to the very last page. There, at bottom, I found a single line. It was written by the hand of another, not by Kissinger. The letters were curly and childish, dissimilar to his audacious scribble. They formed an address: 8821 Fleurbaix, Nord-Pas-de-calais, France. A day of contemplation followed. I soon made a decision to discover the place in person. Several weeks later, I found myself an hour’s drive from Fleurbaix. A short hop on a plane landed me in Paris, a day’s drive north of my destination. I rented a car, drove southward, and came upon a little house just as the day dispersed into dusk. Behind it spread a leviathan garden, this being the most prominent feature. It was Monet-like, and gave the home character. I imagined its caretaker—someone with a horticultural obsession. Someone who’d devoted their life to botany, to floriculture. Soon, I gathered enough courage to approach and knock. The little child which opened the door I can only describe as ethereal. She had blue eyes tinted with so much white, they appeared as stained glass of an Alice-blue quality. You could see through them, beyond them, as if into the clouds of a faraway place. I immediately felt drawn to her, like a clairsentient’s first time in a cathedral. Shyly, we locked eyes for several seconds before I snapped into reality. I asked where her parents were. “I don’t live with my parents,” she said. “Who do you live with then, dear?” “The man with gray eyes.” An odd description, though the girl seemed mature for her age. “Can you bring him to the door?” “He’s in a wheelchair. He doesn’t like moving around too much,” she said. She opened the screen door and walked past, her buckled shoes pitter-pattering across the flagstone. “—I’ll take you to him. He likes to sit in the garden.” We sauntered around the left side of the house, facing a tall gate. She released the latch and let me walk through first. This was when I got a good look at the garden. Flourishing, I’d never seen one like it. I almost couldn’t bring myself to walk forward. Though magnificent, it felt natural, not something out of a gardening show. It had a soul. “What’s wrong?” the girl asked me. “Nothing,” I replied, proceeding forth. Around a curvature smothered with flowers, I saw him. He seemed entranced by the forest which bordered the private acre only a quarter-mile away. A bulbous covered his entire complexion, steel wool both in texture and hue. When I walked around to his front, however, I noticed something else. The man was blind. Traces were still left within his irises—eyes of a swirling tempest, muddied and murky. Curdled milk and clay. The little girl tapped him on his shoulder. He flinched out of his hypnosis. “Grandpa, there’s a visitor.” “Oh?” His brows rose, head swiveling. “H-hi,” I stammered. “May I ask your name?” “Kass. I’ve come from England.” He smiled—one so gentle, anyone could’ve missed it. “I figured you’d show up. Someday.” “You’ve been expecting me?” “I suppose I have,” he replied. “Have a look around.” Bright white anemones. Drooping Irises. Flowery marigolds. Star-like orchids and veined petunias. They clustered around us in the thousands, their fragrance of a subtle potpourri, though not overpowering. Plump, little bees wobbled between us, pollen sprinkled from their coats and drifting off into the sunlight. I sneezed. The little girl laughed, palm covering her mouth. “Did you bring the pocketbook?” the man asked. “Yes,” I said, not surprised. I removed it and handed it to him. “Still looks intact,” he said. “What do you think of it?” “Admittedly, I’m curious.” He nodded and wheeled away from me. I followed. “Every flower in Kissinger’s notebook is in this garden,” he continued. “Go ahead, name someone.” “Sloane.” “The edelweiss patch is over there, in the corner. White as untouched snow.” “Darya?” “The amaryllises are right next to us, actually.” I lowered my gaze leftward, the crimson and white pouring into my eyes. “Every flower?” “Every flower,” he repeated. “But why?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he gathered a deep breath, exhaling the country air. I began to perspire, sunlight glaring across my forehead. “Before he passed, how did you come to know Alan?” “I was a foreign exchange student in Sicily,” I said. “Met him there. He was a young man travelling the world, blowing his parent’s trust fund.” The man chuckled. “Sounds like Alan. Always had responsibilities to run away from, and too much money to boot.” “You knew him well?” "All too well. I was his Godfather—caretaker, butler, all of it. I had a few roles when it came to helping his family. They’d supported me. Before Alan died, he put me in his will, so long as I kept his promise of living here in France and taking care of this property,” he explained. “He admired it here. Could’ve afforded a mansion and he fell in love with a 1600 square-foot cottage.” “Perhaps it’s the garden.” “Yes,” he said. “The garden. His bank of essences.” “Bank of essences?” "That’s what he called it. A storing place for souls. Like a living locket with many photos.” “What do you mean by that?” I asked, squinting into the marshmallow clouds. I raised a flat hand to shade my eyes. At this point, the little girl ran up to me. She handed me a Camellia. “How did you—” She laughed again and skipped away. I glanced at the flower--my flower. Perfectly white with a hint of pink. Like a single, rosy drop from a pipette into a bucket of white, mixed together and poured across the petals. The Fibonacci spiral, I thought, observing it. I spun it between my fingers. Paragon in form. Rather unlike me from my point of view. Perhaps it’s how Alan saw me, however. Maybe it’s why I was here. “A storing place for souls,” the blind man repeated, breaking my train of thought. He sighed. “Alan had issues with nostalgia, you see. With memories.” “I never knew that about him.” “He hid it well. He was talented with façades. He grew this garden out of his own pigheadedness. To retain memories of those who’d deeply affected him during his life.” “A flower for each of them,” I said. “A flower for each of them. Even for you. He wanted to remember things exactly how they were. We may forget minute details about things, but we always remember their essence.” The man’s gray eyes rolled around in his head, twitching with thought and spoken word. Gobs of clay in bowls of milk. A beautiful mind behind them, I thought. Children playing with clay, creating forms from the imagination. Gray dirt under fingernails—the man was given the blind road in life, his character built from it. "Did Alan struggle with dreams?” I continued. “Remembering them, I mean?” “Yes. Anything dealing with impermanence. A part of Alan never really grew up. Guess it’s true for any of us.” "What does it all mean, though?” "Hm?” he said, twisting to face me. “Now that he’s gone, what does it mean? Doesn’t really have meaning anymore, does it?” He thought about it, sinking back into his wheelchair. “I suppose it’s how you look at it. Alan created it. He ordained the chosen living to continue it. To anyone, it could be just a garden. A mechanistic collection of flora without meaning described by science. Passersby would see it all the same. But you and I know that’s simply not true—” he said. Pausing, he winked. Not at me, but at something behind me, beyond me. “—you and I have been let in on the Great Secret, haven’t we? His secret. That withstanding, I suppose you can choose the meaning of it all for yourself.” At that very moment, the little girl tapped me on my hamstring. I jumped, startled she’d crept behind me. I looked down at her and smiled. I’d been lost in a very deep sort of contemplation towards the man’s descriptions. For just a moment, the world around me had faded. I gazed back at the panorama encircling us; the bright white anemones, drooping irises and flowery marigolds. The star-like orchids and veined petunias. The known edelweiss, amaryllises and camellias. Even the familiar, cliché roses. The lavender hyacinths and petunias. Somehow, they merged into one another. A singularity of color. A mosaic of souls reformed. Feathers plucked from the superlative, amended into the dream-catcher. Cells spindling from the one into the many, only to return again. The myriad blended. Smeared forms upon the canvas of Māyā, only to eventually paint the transcendental. I admired the blind man. Simply, ever so faintly, he nodded at my silence as if he understood. “Care for tea?” he asked—a tone suggestive of the plainest event in the world. I laughed and replied, “I would.” I followed him inside, slipping the notebook back into my right pocket. As I helped the man in the wheelchair remove the chamomile from its shelf, I had a last, lingering thought; No amount of riches in the world could buy this notebook from me. Not for the rest of my life. |
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