The Candle Maker’s Widow
By R Reem
Copyright 2012 R Reem
License Notes
Though the night is dark and the moon has gone,
Love lives on in each flame shone.
It stood erect like an orange teardrop, the stillness of the air not offering it any inducement to dance. The widow brought it to life just five minutes ago, although she had not even realised what she was doing. It had been mechanical, the way her gnarled hands struck at the matchbox. She waited for the telling hiss to end before cupping her hand around the tiny flame. Her eyes stared unseeing as she transferred it from the matchstick to the wick. The only thing that betrayed her emotions was the quiver in her hands and lips as the candle lit up.
She sank down onto the bed, and its white sheets rumpled slightly. The flame on the candle danced in the tears that sprung up in her eyes. It was alive in her, yet it was all an illusion. The flame did not dance. Not even her shallow breaths could move it.
Now the widow lay on his side of the bed, the candle burning by her head on the bedside table. Her face was lit in its glow, giving it a pale orangey tint. The wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks stood out in stark relief against the soft colour of her face.
The widow lay with her hands clasped across her waist. Her eyes stared straight up at the ceiling, the colour of which she could not make out in the dark .Yet she knew it was white. She had seen that ceiling many times in her life. Fifty years, to be exact.
The day she first saw it, she had been in his arms. Her cheek pressed against his chest, his heart pumping into her ear. He had laid her down on the bed. As his hand caressed her arm, she had felt the coldness of the ring she had put on his finger just hours ago. It had been a simple silver band, the cheapest they could find.
He was a handsome young man of twenty-five; she, a delicate-looking girl of twenty. Once children in the same orphanage, they were starting a new life together away from it all. When she looked into his eyes that day, she had seen a promise that he was never able to verbalise.
He had broken that promise today.
She thought herself again a little girl. She should have seen it coming. The furniture had been left behind, but all the other things were packed in suitcases. Her aunt’s belongings, decorative portraits and pictures, ornaments. Her clothes – the only things that were hers – had been put away in sacks. Ugly brown sacks. Then bags of packed belongings started disappearing from the house. Never hers, though.
She awoke one day to find that her aunt had left, without a single word. Alone in the big house, with just furniture for company, she had shed bitter tears at finding herself suddenly alone. She was taught nothing of how to look after herself, her aunt having preferred to keep her ignorant. She could only stand helplessly in the empty living room, convinced her life was over.
Then strangers had turned up at the door. They were surprised at her presence. She shouldn’t be there, they said, talking over her head like she could not understand them. They asked her who she was and she could not answer.
They finally found out who she was. But they could not find her aunt. She had disappeared. Run off, the man had said, looking at her with exasperation. They did not want her either. She was sent to the state orphanage. By then, she had cried her fill and could cry no more.
She had vague flashes of her time at the orphanage – learning how to take care of herself and the younger children, being taught how to read and write. Yet they remained just images. She could not remember anything more of the people she knew, or the events she experienced during that time. But then, she did not remember anything much nowadays. The doctor had told her it was normal. That she was old. But she did not believe him. She did not feel old.
The widow looked over to her side of the bed. It was dark, and her candle was not lit. He had taken her with him when he left. She was gone, buried deep beneath the ground with him. She had made sure his promise was kept. She would not let him break it.
The doctor said that it had been painless. He had clasped her gently on the shoulder and had told her not to worry. He was at peace now, he had not suffered.
How could he know how he suffered? He who never said anything but spoke volumes with his eyes. She had been his companion for fifty years; she knew his thoughts as well as she knew her own. She knew all about him, things said and unsaid.
The life he never spoke about, even when he turned up at the orphanage as a broken twelve-year-old. A young child, abandoned like her. She had seen his story in the lines of his face, in his slightly downturned mouth. She had seen the hands made coarse and permanently stained black by the physical labour he had been forced to do to keep himself off the streets. She had seen the scars that he bore, trophies of his many victories at getting through life. One in particular she recalled with clarity – a long dark line that ran the length of his left arm. It was a memento of the strike of ’26.
She never asked him how he got that scar. She understood that he did not wish to talk about his past. She had respected his wishes. Yet she wanted to know. She hoped hard that one day, just one day, he would tell her.
She knew it was never a matter of trust. He knew all about her, and he respected her for what she had accomplished. From being weak and dependent, she had learnt to be strong and independent. He knew that, but he still was protective. When she was with him, she felt like that helpless child once again. Sometimes, she became frustrated with him for bringing out that old dependence in her. But then she reminded herself that it was just in his nature to be protective. He needed to do that to feel wanted.
She cherished every little bit he let slip about that life he tried to keep from her. She had shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by men coughing and spitting, some with only a few months left to live. A roof had collapsed once, killing everybody inside. The smell in the mine had been unbearable, he told her. She held on to these nuggets of information as and when they appeared, forming a picture of his childhood that she knew would probably never match up to reality.
He had mentioned the scar once, just once, when she absentmindedly stroked it with her finger. They had been lying on the same bed she lay on now. As her finger rode over its irregular ridges, he had said, without even looking at her, without even realising who he was talking to, that a frustrated stranger had brandished a knife, slashing everybody in sight. Men had run, but he stood frozen at the sight of that man gone wild. He had seen the stranger approach, shouting incoherently. The next thing he knew, there was a burning pain in his arm. He looked down to see a trail of blood along his arm, snaking its way down his fingers and dripping steadily onto the ground.
The widow felt cold fingers brush the corner of her eyes as she saw the scene with clarity in her mind. She had been there with him, yet she had not been there with him. He had wanted her with him, yet he had not wanted her with him.
Every day, he struggled to keep his condition from her. She had observed with a kind of compassionate silence his efforts at keeping her happy, to keep her from worrying. He thought he had succeeded.
But she noticed. His movements slowed, he fumbled when he tried to grasp anything. His breath became deeper and more laboured. He tired after standing for just one minute. His determination that she would not see him in that state touched her and his confidence in his success kept her from revealing that she knew.
There was only once she had interfered. Having lighted a match with much struggle, his shaking hand had let the matchstick drop. The tiny flame fell to the floor, announcing its position to her like Polaris in the night sky. Then the flame went out as he stepped on it, swearing quietly under his breath. She had gone over to his side, drawn to his silhouette in the moonlight that str
eamed in through the open window. Tenderly, she reached out and took the matchbox from his hand. There had been a loud smack and a stinging sensation in her hand as he slapped her away. It was the first time he ever hit her.
She went back to her side of the bed and lit her own candle. Then she lay down on the bed, fighting back a prickle in her eyes. She felt his hand reach for hers under the covers and turned to face him, a tear slipping out of the corner of her eye as she did so. She saw him illuminated in the lights from both their candles, and in his eyes, she read his regret at hitting her. She knew then that she would not attempt to interfere again.
They had fallen asleep that night holding hands.
The widow’s left hand clasped at the air as she imagined him next to her. It was the wrong hand. He was always on her right, but now she was on the right. She wondered