Chapter 5 – Yurilee, again
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The rain caught up with us at the cemetery, but seemed as tired as I was, squalling briefly before limping back toward the bay. Rainwater muttered in the drains as Yurilee crawled along the bricked path that wound between the grave markers. I followed at a respectful distance, allowing privacy to her mourning. We had the grey garden to ourselves.
Yurilee paused often, bending down to speak softly over a grave. When she switched to English I knew she had reached Julian’s stone. Not that Julian’s body was beneath it. His remains had been flown back to the States, and turned over to whatever family he had. I wondered whether his family still visited his grave, if they kept him company on rainy days.
Of course he’d have a star on the wall at Langley, and a blank space in the Book of Remembrance. Here he had a memorial. Yurilee spent moments telling Julian what she wanted him to know, then moved on. As I passed his stone I offered silent respects of my own. I’d barely known the man, but he had died in service to his country – our country – and I credited him with that.
Afterward she pointed out a few more graves, stones slicked with a film of rainwater that made them difficult to read. Of course Yurilee had known many of the men buried here, but a few had been more than casual students. A few of them had loved her back.
As we left the cemetery and started on the road to home, I had a question for her.
“Where is the lamia cemetery? Do you have a similar tradition? Or do you girls just stay young and beautiful forever?”
Yurilee smiled, as I’d hoped. “You flatter an old woman, sweetbit. But no, we do not live forever.”
“So what are your traditions?”
She stopped, and looked down at me. For once, her eyes reflected the many years that her body did not. “Do you really want to know such a thing? It is sad to think about.”
I glanced back the way we’d come. “I want to know the things that are important to you, Yuri. The good and the difficult things, both.”
“You are a strange and wonderful man. Very well. Follow along with me.”
We weren’t far from a beach. It’s not a large island. The narrow strip of sand stretched into rocky coast on either side. Beneath the remaining shreds of cloud, an orange disk of sun was sinking toward the sea. The beach was deserted, and there were no signs that anyone ever came here.
“Very few husbands ever know this. They do not need to know this,” she said, looking out over the gentle breakers. “Some of us do have special men, but they grow old and die before we do. And old lamias do not take lovers.”
I didn’t say anything. There was reproach in her voice, but it wasn’t directed at me.
“When one of us has seen too many years – when the days grow longer than her tail – she will come to a quiet beach like this, alone. Watching until the sun goes down.
“And she will swim away.”
Then she was silent, resting there on the beach.
I stared out at the waves, feeling it: muscles cooling and slowing until swimming becomes sinking; the last, reflexive deep breath; colors fading into greys then black as the water pushes down from above; deepening cold pressing from all sides, then burning water gushing into nose and mouth and lungs…
I gripped her hand tightly. Eventually my throat opened enough that I could speak.
“Promise me that you will never do that.”
Yurilee turned to me, smiling, although her cheeks were wet. “And you will promise me also, that you will never grow old, that you will never die?”
I leaned and kissed her cheek. But I didn’t say anything else. We were too old for forevers.
Instead, we held hands and watched the sunset. Before the fading sun touched the water, we left the beach, and went home.
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THE END
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