Si un Jour

((The soundtrack for this post – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqVgzWzImUo ))

We move among the shadows and the alleys as silent and as silver as the moon that races through the clouds of soot high above. We are alive as we navigate the quirks and hidden ways of Babbage Square; returning to the damp passages that lead to our new home beneath these cobbled streets. 

The hunt was a success but the meat of this giant creature is rank. The blood that stains our chins is bitter. It is a foul meal but we are poor and so by needs we attend once more the beggars banquet.

In an alley hidden from view we are about to remove the grating in a cellar window when I am arrested by something melodic and utterly sublime. Oh, my brothers and sisters, how can I put into words the poetry of the moment? Such divine transcendence! It is almost too much to bear.

Si un jour tu me quittais

Si un jour abandonee

Je de vais mourir d’aimer

C’est la mort que j’ai pouserai

Upon the bridge of Jefferson Way an urchin boy of no more than ten with tousled hair and sooty face sings beside his upturned cap. Had the experience been nothing more than this image of innocence and vulnerability it would have been striking enough. A living and breathing piece of art that would have reduced Michelangelo to tears had he been challenged with creating such beauty. But the song that issues forth from those lips is the song of the eternal and I am humbled by its majesty. 

Si un jour tu m’oubliais

Si un jour seule, seule devais

Je devais vivre sans t’aimer

Mon Coeur lui se briserai

I have learned the classics by heart. Father’s library was extensive. I play the harpsichord and organ with a flawless precision yet how to compare the sounds of my hands with the purity of what that child channels with no instrument beyond that with which he was born?

Into this scene two men approach strolling along the canal from the south. They are loud as they discuss investments. They pause while one blows his nose into a handkerchief momentarily blocking my view. It is but a brief interruption before they continue on their northward march taking no notice of the child as they pass.

Si un jour le soleil ne brillait plus

Notre amour lui, lui serait devolu

Il n’est qu’a deux que nous pouvons vivre

Si nous desirons sur vivre

I hardly dare to breathe. I have become entranced, barely aware of the burden draped across my shoulders or the blood that runs in rivulets down my chest, dripping and pooling at my feet.

I turn to my right and see that Spurgan is equally touched. He couldn’t be more still had he been carved of alabaster. If not for the wind gently agitating his long, coarse hair he could easily have been taken for some ancient and fearsome statuary. I love him.

To my left, Mortimer fidgets but is patient. He is young and lacks the refinement required to soar in the embrace of Aoide to the realm of the divine.  

“Leave this carrion for the dogs and ravens to fight over.” I say to Spurgan and Mortimer, once the child has finished his song. I then drop the putrid leg from my shoulders. “Bring me those two fat bankers. I wish to educate them in the arts over dinner.”