The Colour of Lavender

by Merel Schreurs

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She wore a bracelet of pale purple, and then there was the scent. A continuous bouquet of lavender that followed her like a natural cloud of perfume. He remembered this in particular, as if he had watched her wade through the corridors in her habit just a few hours ago. He had been only ten years old when he saw her for the first time. He could still hear the rustle of her uniform and her feet tapping away on the icy stone floors of the school building. Once, when she stood in front of him, smiling fondly and her oval face bent towards him, he noticed the purple bracelet that had slipped out from under her sleeve. She tugged it away with minimum effort and winked. It had been their little secret.

Years later, he decided to frame her picture and put it on the mantelpiece for everyone to admire, and even though he married and fathered two children, the picture stayed where it was, in the centre of the room and in the centre of his heart. Whenever he walked into the field of lavender next to the old school building, his hands would caress the flowers and he would smell them, inhaling their perfume intensely, enjoying the secret they carried with them. The secret he shared with her.

He watched her picture now with calmness. The hazel brown eyes looked kindly upon him. The pale skin reminded him of a painting he had seen when, two years ago, he had slipped into a church unnoticed. A painting by a Dutch artist if he wasn’t mistaken, one of the famous Dutch Masters. He had forgotten the name, but he vividly remembered the brush strokes and the colours, as vividly as he remembered her. The woman in the church painting had the palest skin. Her eyes were golden and with a gaze filled with love, she looked down towards mankind. Her hair was fair, the kind of fair one would only see in paintings, but he once saw it in real life, a long time ago, when a strand of her hair had slid out from underneath the coif that had tried to imprison it.

He got up from the chair and pulled something from the pocket of his trousers. Then he sauntered over to the picture, blinked and placed a small token in front of it. He breathed in slowly, returned and hurried to the cupboard. Only after he had poured himself a drink, he released his breath and raised the glass, towards the picture. He took a sip before putting the glass on a side table next to him where it was going to leave a watery ring on the wooden surface.

The eyes were smiling, as they had always done. Seemingly nothing had changed. But he knew that from this day on her eyes would only be smiling from his mantelpiece. The lavender-coloured bracelet lay silently in front of the picture. The secret was over. There was no need to keep it any longer.