Belvedere
A Short Story
Belvedere
~n; Italian, meaning ‘beautiful view’; or any structure used to command a view
By: N. Mozart Diaz
I didn’t love him.
I didn’t love him and that much I knew. Mark and I had been engaged for a few months now and in the eyes of our colleagues we had become the inseparable couple — the people that seemed to give the office a little more color apart from the dull grey walls and the artificial white light.
I didn’t know much about anything they thought about us. But I knew one thing, I didn’t love him. No, not at all, not even a sliver of what one might call love; I didn’t love him — that much I knew.
Mark decided to do something different for our third anniversary and we drove all the way from Tarlac to Nueva Ecija for a place his father had shown him many years ago.
The car pulled up to a lake house with a breathtaking view. We parked on the driveway before it and I got out of the car while Mark got the picnic basket.
“Do you like it?” He asked me, I turned and saw him smile that smile of his. A smile that seemed to whisper ‘I love you’ every time he did, I smiled back with effort and turned towards the view. A thought latched itself into my head that my smile was hollow, that he would see right through me.
“When did you find this?” I asked
“When I was around 16 or 17, my dad used to work here in Fort Magsaysay when he was a Captain.”
I smiled and nodded in his direction.
“And when I came here, I promised myself that I would bring someone very special to see this view.”
He smiled that smile again and I couldn’t bring myself to smile — even hollowly, even a fake one with dead eyes.
“Shall we?” I said with feigned excitement.
He was in love with me, that’s why he can’t see. I did almost love him once, in the first year of our relationship, and it slowly vanished, hitting rock bottom today.
We sat down on the near ruined dock where canoes and small sailboats littered the shore. It was nearing four and the sun was behind us while the wind blew and blew from the mountains we could see in the distance. The lake house had been unmaintained for a long time, it was evident because of the bougainvillea that grew wildly around it, its petals a pale orange and pink; I can see why he fell in love with this place, I would too — but that would be low wouldn’t it? To love a place more than you would love the man you thought you had loved.
Mark unpacked the basket and laid out the wine, bread, and cheese. We ate in near silence, we seemed to be both awestruck by the view, that this patch of paradise would exist in the confines of a land that resembled a desert and had the heat to prove it.
The wind rustled the leaves and brought down a fresh batch of dead leaves towards us, it was no matter, the wine was gone and the bread and cheese along with it. I seem to have drunk most of the wine.
I needed to break the engagement. The thought dawned on me and it stung like hell. I should have rejected his proposal, I should’ve said no immediately. Such a cruel practice, that men can have months to think about and decide whether or not he was going to propose, but women only have a few moments. Other than that, they would purposefully do it in a public space so that the pressures of society would cause them to succumb. Borderline barbaric.
His hand brushed up against mine and I felt it settle on it.
I turned to look at him, his brown eyes staring intently at me and his body settling as if the weight of the world lifted off of his shoulder and that I, and only I, remained within it. I managed a smile and a small laugh. The world left him, but whatever fled from the warm radiance of his love seemed to enter me like cold, cruel dread.
He looked deeply into my eyes, so filled with love and some tender feeling that no one can place into words even if they tried, and here I am, feigning love as snakes would sometimes feign death.
“I love you.” The words slipped out of his mouth smooth like silk. As if saying it was easy, like it was just any other phrase one would say at a day to day conversational basis. And before I could say or do anything he lurched forward to kiss me.
I didn’t love him, even when he kissed me. But I kissed back, pushing my lips deeper into his, as if kissing him harder would somehow change the irrefutable truth that I didn’t.
He pulled away and I smiled.
“I love you too.” But my words fell hollow like beads on an old wooden floor.
He smiled again and looked like he wanted to kiss again, but I took a sip of wine still in my glass and looked out into the calm lake before us. It could stay like this, I thought, his love and my lies. But there was no point in hiding it anymore. It would come out eventually, and it would be so terrible. Better to say it now with some grace and save ourselves from the pain that would come if I just lied. No point in ruining two lives.
“Do you like it here?” he asked
“I absolutely love it.” I didn’t need to lie. The view from here is beautiful, the serene lake, the rolling mountains, the dimming sun, and the cool wind. Everything within it seemed to promise romance, that all is well, that the beauty within and without was the beginning and end of everything.
“I’d love to live here.” I said, immediately regretting it. In an instant, I seemed to have assured him that we would live together. We could. But even this view couldn’t atone for unhappiness.
“I’ll try to pull some strings with the GHQ” he smiled and laughed, as if sharing a joke with only him.
An hour had passed since we arrived, most of it in silent revelry. His hand remained on mine, and I continued to rack my brain for a way to break off the engagement without ruining him.
Am I serious? Of course I’d ruin him, but does that matter? If I don’t break this off, we’d be ruining each other. Any potential kids would be ruined too. There is no choice. It has to happen. Maybe now, maybe not, maybe soon, but I need to do it.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I’ll do it. But not here, of all the things I will ruin for him, I won’t ruin it here, even if he sees it as haunted, the view from here is too wonderful to ruin.
I can see it in Sheila’s eyes.
She thinks I can’t see it. But I do. She seemed cold the past few weeks. I assumed it was from work, but here we are now, with this beautiful panorama before us and she can barely look at me.
I suppose I had it coming, it was a good run. It was stupid to think — to even imagine — that someone like her could love me. She is multitudes within multitudes. She is so damned beautiful like the lilac twilights that seemed to envelope the city in her beauty. I used to revel in her smile, the way her scent filled every crevice in my cracked soul.
But now she only has words for me. Damned and hollow words shouted into a large, dark cave. This is the end, I know it. It’s beginning to eat at me, that dreaded demon that lurks behind dark alleys and forgotten boulevards. Anguish. Yes, that’s the word.
I’ll wait for her to do it; I would like to enjoy everything until the last moment before oblivion. I swear she was the one, but for the one to exist there must also be the wrong one — I guess it’s just up to us to discern who’s who.
I pack up the wine bottle and whatever there was left to pack. She’s still staring coolly into the distance. And I look at her intently. I remember how I love her, her dark hair, piercing brown eyes. Don’t be banal, they all told me. But when in love, all the cliché’s are true, the entire world is dimmed, and no other human relations matter.
But here we are at a close. I can feel the world within me exiting and entering again and exiting in some kind of cosmic symphony.
But I can’t know for sure, maybe she really does love me. Maybe she can, I can try harder, giving her more things, loving her more truly and bravely than ever before.
But that’s not true. Love isn’t based on effort, it’s thrives on choice. She loved me once before, but now she doesn’t, but I love her now, doesn’t any of that matter? I could try my hardest, but this is her choice. Love isn’t based on effort, no matter what you do it boils down to what she wants — for even an unstoppable force can’t move an immovable object.
She turns to me. Her hair whipping in the wind, she looks down and releases a breath.
She looks into my eyes, and conjures up a smile.
“Let’s go, I’m tired.” She holds my hand and gets up.
“Don’t you want to stay a little longer?”
“I don’t want it to be too late when we get back.” Her eyes were vacant and her words hollow
“Alright. No point in arguing.” I smiled.
I follow her to the car and we drive back to Tarlac City, a two hour drive. She slept, or at least I think she slept. The world turned dark before us and a thunderstorm gathered in the distance. If ever there was an omen, this was it.
The trip was made in silence. We had nothing to say other than the cold unutterable truth that it was over.
But it’s no matter, I thought, for at least one gleaming moment we had loved each other, and I still love her now. I loved her when she first saw the lake house. I loved seeing her awestruck by the beauty of it. I loved the view, where we were in that last glimmering mirage of love we had with each other. I loved her, my belvedere.
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