The lie in Reims

It was March or April 2012 when I took a flight to Paris, found the Gare de l'est train station and traveled to Rheims. To this day, this is one of my most poignant and painful memories. I will never return to Reims. The thought of it makes me ill. When I was traveling with my Father through Southern France in July, I saw a brochure for the Cathedral in Reims (which looks like the Notre Dame Cathedral) and I became so nauseated.

At this point, Sjors was committed to his cause. He had left us five months previously to return to the bastards he worked for. But we had seen one another again in Naples when he returned for a de-brief with two fellow officers. And I had seen the look in his eyes and the passion when he secretly kissed me then.

Hope was the curse that bound me. It was the darkness that dragged me down. I loved him. He was my person and I was his. The future he had painted for us was still the scenery in my soul.

I had written to him every day on the shared account we had named after the licorice-flavored toothpaste I'd given him on his birthday: Marvis Amarelli. He did not see the messages until after we met in person. And he knew that, although he had tried to deny his feelings, I had not denied mine. I had waited for him.

After our meeting in Naples, he wrote to me, telling me to meet him in Reims. So, of course, I flew to him. He said he could meet me for one night. No - for two. I should stay and he would meet me.

I must have been so fragile then, still. Love had broken me. I look back on those dark days with such pity for the woman I was and know that she is gone. I am grateful that she died because she would have taken me with her if I had not let her drown. But I also hate Sjors for killing her. I carry this dead thing inside me now. A specimen pinned to a board.

I remember how he lied to me with nearly every part of him. And we both knew it was a lie.

He arrived late at the Reims train station. He couldn't decide whether to tease me like he used to, or love me, or reject me as forcefully as possible. I still don't know why he had asked me to come. It's possible he wasn't sure himself. Perhaps he simply wanted to see me because he missed me and, as he drove to visit me, he must have made up his mind, then: he would continue to be a company man. He would give me up a second time: deny himself the pleasure of having me in his life. He had invested so much in creating the lie - he should work to maintain it. He told himself that I would move on. This must have been the greatest lie of all.

While we waited to check into a hotel, he poured water on my head like he used to pour water on my head to tease me. But it was an awful mimic of what we used to share. Too much pain had passed between us, too much darkness in my soul, and I had not laughed for months.

We made love. It was awful, and the last time I would ever touch him like that. Only weeks before, in the hotel in Capo, he had been full of the passion he felt in seeing me again. Now, he was a robot. Unable to maintain an erection. Dull. He could lie with his mouth, but his body told me it was a lie.

We ate dinner next door. I choked down food because eating would give some semblance of normalcy - and I hadn't been able to eat all day.

He gave me the one lie he knew I couldn't fight. He didn't tell me about his company. He told me about his family. His family was a lie. It was the cover. At one time, he had railed against a friend for staying in a bad marriage. Now, he had realigned his paradigm so it could include this option.

"Anyone can make a relationship work with anyone else. There is no such thing as a soul mate. See that man over there," he said, pointing to a forty-something mustached fellow near the window. "If he was the last man on earth, you would find a way to make it work with him."

This was his compromise. This was the lie they had told him and he had learned to repeat to himself. Perhaps he had manufactured it on his own.

"That's where you and I are different," I said. "I would never do that. I know what it is to be with you - to be with the man I'm supposed to be with. I would rather be alone than make that compromise."

I loved him. I could not compromise. To this day, I find I am unable to compromise.