fan-tailed across my desk like a deck of cards) and observing these unusual happenings, I myself had not felt one solitary kiss. Perhaps it was my wide-brimmed black hat (the one they say makes me look like a parson) which broke the kisses’ fall, or possibly I had been advancing too erratically and in all the wrong places; whatever the reason, I had begun to feel a strong desire to know what all these people were discovering with such evident happiness. I removed my hat, handed it to an accommodating branch, and experimented with strolling very slowly and regularly in those areas where the kiss-drops appeared to be falling with most vigor. I could make out a shimmering in the pearly sky and hear that incessant susurration of puckered lips, but could not feel a thing. Was I still doing something wrong, or did I emanate some sort of antimagnetic force which deflected the kisses? If I were a scientist or philosopher I might be able to tell you, but I am neither, and I doubt anyway if the entire professional community would be any more expert at explaining this phenomenon than a mad poet. Stretching out my left hand, I at last detected one—it lasted but a moment, pressing very lightly against the back of my wrist, right below my watch, and it left a nearly undetectable trace of a damp sheen there, as well as an equally slight scent, similar to perfume or the memory of lilacs.
Even if I am not scientist, philosopher, or even poet, I will attempt to explain further:
altogether, it had been a pleasant if all too-fleeting sensation which left only a tingling to the skin as in a mild frostbite. I rubbed the spot with a finger—it was indeed damp and a little bit warm; the epidermis was rosier in that spot, although the color faded rapidly. Like a bee-sting? No. A lover’s pinch? Not quite. Just like... a kiss. As I said, pleasant but quick; like a memory it possessed no substance of its own and existed outside of time. Of course I wanted more. Encouraged, I flung out both arms and went as far as sticking out my tongue, but no more kisses came my way.
Meanwhile one couple after another had been passing me by on the sidewalk, holding hands and kissing passionately, eyes closed and sleepwalking blindly along, as if this were the first day of spring and bluebirds spun around their heads. These were couples of all ages, most of them whom I knew or recognized and had never seen kiss before (and were certainly not the sorts to demonstrate any sort of affection in public); they did not notice me as we crossed paths, so intent were they upon each other. They were all like beautiful young lovers in love for the first time—many of them had already stopped to bill and coo on benches and on the grass, exploring the range of kisses they could share between themselves. (We did the same once, I recalled.) In the almost-dark, porch swings creaked all around me: the chirp of love-birds. The smallest children kissed each other as well (more chastely, of course), and if I am not mistaken I saw a few cats and dogs giving each other hesitant licks and smooches. A world of love! Well, this tender interaction was quite charming to observe, but still I could not attract another kiss of my own.
It appeared that the shower was diminishing as fast as the light, and I realized my chances were growing thinner with each fall of a kiss. Remembering the girls with their umbrellas, I opened my small leather valise (the one she mockingly gave me so long ago, saying I carried my heart in a valise), stuffed what forms and letters were inside it into my mackintosh pockets (rain, after all, had been predicted), and began to chase madly about in the streets after the elusive kisses, much as a neophyte butterfly collector might with his net in an abundant glade. It could not be possible not to ensnare at least a few wayward kisses within the yawning mouth of my valise (snapping it shut again and again to keep them in—to alter the comparison, like a frog in a swarm of gnats), and when I felt that the bag had grown perhaps a bit heavier—for even kisses must have their own weight, however minimal—I rushed off down the sidewalk and into the twilit rooms of my walk-up maisonette. There I fumbled at a light-switch and, sitting down at my table with the valise like a pirate with a just-unearthed trunk, very carefully undid the clasp and cautiously peered within. Inside there was something of a dim phosphorescent glow that may or may not have been slowly pulsating—I cannot really trust my eyesight anymore, especially in lamplight. What next to do? With a wild tremulousness I shook the bag over my head... but instead of being sprinkled with divine kisses they sputtered and spattered and stung my nose and cheeks with an almost electrical crackling—there may have been blue sparks as well, for I was momentarily blinded and dazed; I cried out and hurried to douse my burning face with cold water. Naturally, I felt ashamed of my greed and dismayed that I had lost my one chance... and yet... When I returned to the table, I don’t know why, but I had the distinct impression there was still one softly glowing, softly pulsing kiss, and one that had not spoilt, in a far bottom corner of the valise—how I determined this I can’t exactly explain, though I was sure it was there and was determined to seize it. At first it tried wriggling free like a mouse trapped in a crevice, but I pinched it between two fingers and held it there although it looked as if I were holding nothing much more than air.
If this were to be my last opportunity I was not going to waste it. Steady now. Raising the kiss up to face level in the flickering light of the lamp and squeezing it tight, I prepared to press the kiss against my own puckered lips... and it slipped away. But then something peculiar happened—the kiss must have stayed suspended before my mouth for a moment when suddenly, like a tack attracted to a magnet, it made contact with my lips. And it lingered—if just a second or two can be called lingering, though it felt much longer: a moment’s kiss, an hour’s bliss, as the poet might say. It appears I had captured and activated a most powerful kiss, one that jolted me with a tremendous bolt more electrical than sexual, but one which was above all human and alive and charged with love. For an instant I felt that warmth and cool dampness (yes, but that’s just how kisses are) and smelled those lilacs unleashed with the burst, and of this I can only conclude in the truest hyperbole: that kiss was not without a soul and for a moment I felt that kiss enter me and become me and overwhelm me.
But... there was more. How can I explain? Just to say, her kisses were, at their best, very much like that, they affected me like that—could it be a sign that sentimentality is catching up with my age to admit I felt with that kiss I was kissing her again? Kissing her again in the moonlit quietude of her family’s garden on a long-lost April midnight, brushed by lilacs and the darkening leaves... and the both of us harmonizing with an unseen piano, and her cool soft lips, her cool white shoulders bared... years, years, and years ago. Was it her kiss? Was she there?
Am I a silly old fool? It happened all so quickly; I was left so empty.
Again I found myself darting and dashing through the streets and over lawns, in pursuit of more kisses—but they had all dried up in the chill night air. Cursed fate, to think so late! A radio in a window reported that they had finally dissipated themselves in a torrent over a group of parochial schoolgirls leaving church after either choir or basketball practice. I ran to the churchyard, breathless. The last of the parochial girls in their blue and white uniforms floated down the sidewalk in a mist of confused euphoria. The loveliest of them walked with her eyes shut like a saint ready for assumption, the hair around her rosy ears damp and curling from so many stormy kisses. Bright stars illuminated us all in the frozen dark, the girls and the couples still kissing on doorsteps and the children breathing warmth and blowing kisses into each others’ hands, and I saw there was no reason, no reason at all to be sad. Kisses may not linger, I thought, but love, yes, love will, hope will remain in the world. Maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow another cloudburst would come, a precipitation of caresses or warm gusts of embraces—blown in on winds of chance or design. Someday soon might come that certain everlasting happiness after all. Let the rains fall! prophets and weathermen everywhere will be crying unto heaven, let them fall! I went up to the pretty schoolgirl with the closed eyes, threw my arms around her, and upon her chill virgin cheek poured kisses of my
own; I was not surprised when she dropped her books, opened her eyes, answered in the same way—and she tasted like vanilla cream and smelled like lilacs, lilacs in November. Then we wandered together throughout the town, she and I and whoever joined us, out into the countryside and from town to town, kissing everyone in our joy, male or female, child or adult, like the maddest of madmen.
But we were not the only ones.
A Fever of Unknown Origin
Our father lay in bed, dying, we were certain, and so we had gathered around, bearing candles, sprinkling holy water, reading the rosary, praying—whatever Mother thought would work best. The doctor had done all he could, and since one of my brothers had just been ordained a priest, we were prepared. The illness had started as just a fever which had come from nowhere, but something fierce and vengeful had quickly overtaken Father, and by the time we had all assembled in the room his body lay bloated and stinking like a dead man’s. Mother was frightened, for he spoke with the voice of a demon, his teeth grating