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Philippe stood looking out the French doors to the terrace and jardin. It was raining cats and dogs. Il pleut des cordes, the French would say: it’s raining ropes. The five-pointed leaves of the ivy on the garden walls were besieged by wind and rain. Drops didn’t take their time gathering and dangling on the points of each leaf—instead, they were whipped away into the maelstrom as soon as they landed.
The tall, dark, skinny cypress trees at the end of the garden bowed deeply in a gust of wind. It was the worst storm in a long time in Paris.
Meredith was upstairs, resting. He was thankful she had been spared. Elodie was taking the gift of an unexpected day off from the library to clean out a closet.
John had sent Emily off the péniche to stay in one of Philippe’s spare bedrooms. School was canceled because of the storm, and Emily was laying on the bed, poking at her phone. Having the three women upstairs, under his roof while the tempest raged outside, eased his heart.
He could imagine the Seine in this storm. The tourist attraction would now be a writhing pit of serpents, all biting at the stone banks. He could picture John on his péniche, watching nervously as the lines tugged against the river’s flow, wondering how much longer they’d hold. He called John’s cell.
“How are you?”
“Okay.” He sounded exhausted. “I have a working engine and bow thrusters, unlike many péniches tied up along the Seine. So if the lines break, I think I can keep her under control.”
“Please come here and stay with us.”
“No, I want to stick with the ship.”
Silently, to himself, Philippe critiqued John. He was loony. But what could he do except relinquish people to doing things their own way.
“Okay, let me know how you make out.”
“If I get through this, I’ll have everybody on board for dinner soon.”
“That would be great, John. Be careful.”
Philippe clicked the phone off. With so many bridges crossing the Seine, John would be in extreme danger if his lines snapped. The river might force him onto the stone supports of one of the bridges. Philippe decided to pray for him.
And for other urgent matters. For good to come out of evil. For the truth to prevail.
He sat at his worktable, just inside the glass doors to le jardin. He opened Rilke and found the passage he was thinking of.
“Voice of the storm, Song
that the wild wind sings...”
He gaze returned to le jardin. A gust pummeled the glass doors with a burst of rain and shook them as if in a tantrum.
Philippe took a deep breath and steadied himself. He wrote.
I call to you, Awesome One, from
my truest depths.
My words ascend on the wind.
Through the glass doors, he saw the three tall, narrow cypress trees he’d bought instead of a parsley plant years earlier bend in half and whip upright, repeatedly. They were ghostly, writhing dancers at the foot of the garden, half hidden by veils of rain.
The trees groan and the cobbled avenues
run with rain,
the waters of the Seine tumble away.
You are the one they flee, but I move
toward you.
And the fierce wind and dancing trees
and my wild heart and you, Awesome,
are a great chord, singing.
