Zimmer: A Dusty Madonna & a Rabbit Netsuke...

ACT 2

12

Amelia had to admit, she’d all but hibernated for most of the cold winter months.

She’d never been partial to the cold. And now, she could hardly be any more elated that it was Spring day, finally! She was particularly fonder of those in-between seasons, temperate and full of life’s smaller changes, almost imperceptible at times. They suited her.

Doing things as she did in her own small way. Unobtrusive, but sometimes surprising.

In most areas of her life, aside from work, she had to admit she’d perhaps slacked some in the passing months, hosting very few dinner parties and making poor headway in other aspects. At least her garden had survived the winter with her, with Jack checking in here and there and staying for a cuppa tea. So there was that to be grateful for, she figured.

This morning, more than any morning before it, Amelia felt as a woman truly on a mission. She had spent the first hour of her waking gazing at her 5 point to do list and as for filling empty spaces with art, her home still left a lot to be desired as she took it all in, dismally disappointed. But she knew, almost instantly, that she had just the thing for it. All it would take was some caffeine to bolster the day. A cup of black coffee and some orange in salt and freshly ground pink peppercorns, as she liked it, would have to suffice for breakfast.

And one cigarette.

The last one in a while, she promised herself, yet again.

She was to go down a deep and meandering path into a past life she had tried to keep at bay for so long, not wanting to relive the memories for they meant reliving also the death of mother at such a young age.

Breakfast, one cigarette, and a change of clothes later, and she was out of the door lest she think twice and chicken out. First stop, the nursery. This, she hoped, would ease her into the next stop she would have to make towards the day’s eventual conclusion.

Unlike her usual self, today she turned on the radio in her grandfather’s old fiat so that she would at least have some form of a welcome distraction by way of the music and the rambling conversation between the show’s hosts. But soon she was upon the doorstep of the nursery. She found herself craving a cigarette again.

“It’s just a plant, Amelia. Come on. You’ve got this,” she tried to reason with herself, closing the driver’s door behind her and locking it before coming to a hesitant pause at the front entrance to the nursery.

Once inside, she marched straight up to the front desk, wanting to keep the mission as short and to the point as humanly possible before she had any wavering doubts. She rang the bell at the counter and waited for the attention of an assistant.

“Hello!” A rosy cheeked face, framed by bright purple curls, confronted her.

“Hi. Um, hello. Do you perhaps have a river indigo in stock?”

“We do, we do! Great, great choice. Such a fantastic addition with those pink and white flowers and delicate little leaves. They always remind me of ancient bonsais somehow, y’know? Just follow me.”

And in no time at all, as if still in a dream, Amelia found herself back in her grandfather’s fiat listening to callers phone in requests on the radio, but this time with the addition of a river indigo about a metre tall and a large dark blue pot and a couple bags of potting soil in the back of her car. Jack had promised to help her later that day with all the offloading.

Next on the list was an old garage she rented to store the few possessions of her mother’s she had been unable to part with.

Arriving on the scene, she turned the garage key with a little effort and lifted the door to reveal one dusty box after another. But the particular item she was after she knew would not be in a box but at the front of the storage unit ripe for plucking from its bowls.

Eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, it soon revealed itself to Amelia.

It was the Black Madonna her mother had carved in dark Teak wood that had rested below the mosaic fountain and under the shade of the river indigo tree where they used to live.

“It’s good to see you again too,” Amelia whispered to the wooden statue while she rubbed years of dust from the Madonna’s visage and feet. A tear escaping and slowly falling down her cheek, she attempted to wipe it away, only leaving a wet dirty mark across her cheek, fingers covered in dust.

Surrounded by all of those boxes felt like an assault, leaving her craving a cigarette for the third time that day.

Amelia quickly locked the garage door once more and gently buckled the Madonna into the passenger seat beside her.

She arrived home just as the professor was pulling up in his vintage Morris Minor.

He rushed over to help her offload the bags of potting soil and large pot and plant. Amelia fiddled with her free hand for the keys for the front door, a bag of soil resting on her hip, and slowly but surely they managed to carry it all out into the corner of her courtyard that she’d earmarked for the feature.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, the professor was only too delighted when Amelia offered to prepare a jug of cold lemonade for them to enjoy at the patio table. Setting it all out on a serving tray, she assured the professor she would be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

Moments later, she returned with the Madonna statue and cleaning it off thoroughly, she laid it at the base of the river indigo and joined the professor at the table, knocking back her first glass of lemonade, parched as she was with an embarrassing blush to her cheeks.

It had been hard work, and emotionally trying at times, but she had done it, and her home felt all the more homely for it.

She felt sad too in some ways, that she had left the Madonna locked up in the dark for so very long.

But it was where it belonged now.

“Oh, now she is a fine beauty indeed!” the professor gushed, observing her closely.

“My mother carved her. Out of Teak. Whenever I felt lonely as a child I would find myself at the end of the garden by our fountain, beneath the shade of the river indigo and at the feet of the Madonna.”

“So then, all we need now is a water fountain for your garden. Well that shouldn’t be too hard,” the professor smiled at her. “Although I dare say we’ve done enough for one day. Your garden is coming along so handsomely, Amelia. I must congratulate you.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you. You. And Renate. And even my new friend, Tal. You’ve all been so very well, instrumental, in all of this. I hope you know how grateful I am.” And just like that, flushed face and all, Amelia began to feel her temperature rise again and her eyes glisten with tears.

Humbled tears. Happy tears. And the tears of so many emotions, some old, some new, some waylaid but rushing back all the same, after all this time had passed.

Ever one for gallantry, the professor stayed silent, smiling a compassionate smile, while extending an embroidered handkerchief for her. She took the handkerchief and appreciated that he let the moment rest for a while in kind silence.

***

The professor had left, and Amelia was clearing the lemonade pitcher and glasses from the table when Ailuros surfaced and began to inspect the latest addition in the garden, nudging her chin up against the folds in the Madonna’s garments.

“So you approve, do you?” Amelia poured herself one last little bit of lemonade from the dregs of the pitcher and filled her glass up with ice chips. She topped up the pitcher with another batch of lemonade with the cordial and some water for keeping in the refrigerator.

It was an unusually warm day, even for Spring.

Feeling emotionally overwhelmed, she added a tot of the professor’s gin to her glass, perspiration beads already forming around it, and gave it a stir with her pinkie finger.

A bit early in the afternoon, but it was a Saturday after all. There was still one last item on the day’s agenda, and it could use a swig of gin or two. Maybe just one. Then again, definitely two. It could wait no longer or she knew she’d lose her nerve. Downing two swigs in quick succession from the gin bottle, it was time.

Laying her glass on the patio table outside, Amelia returned inside to retrieve the package her mother had wrapped for her, for her 35th birthday. Plain brown paper seemed like a curious wrapping but when had Georgina Young ever done anything like regular mums.

She carefully unwrapped the parcel to find a small red box, and within that box a very small leather pouch with a netsuke for a toggle.

The netsuke was a wood carved rabbit.

Her mother had often called her ‘little rabbit’ growing up. What does little rabbit feel like for dinner? Howwas little rabbit’s first day at school?

How her mother had treasured her netsuke from her many travels to Asia. Feeling that the collection was wasted on her, once she’d reached adulthood, Amelia had donated them to the local museum. She’d not visited the display in many years.

That was yet another thing in her life that was long overdue, she thought, looking out to consider the resplendent Madonna statue gracing her small courtyard with her ever-constant presence of benevolence.

Before she could get to the contents of the pouch, Amelia discovered that there was too, a letter, folded up into a tiny paper rabbit. And as her mother had always taught her, read the card before opening the gift.

Though she may have been an unconventional woman, that Georgina Young, she had always insisted as the saying goes that manners maketh the man, or woman, and that in the end there was a certain decorum that was crucial to a civilised and well cultivated life all the same. Build a house of solid foundations and then throw the book of rules at them! Their cards will come tumbling down!

She never knew what her mother truly meant by that, for she was a mercurial creature given in sometimes to many moods even in a single day. But that was her. Love her or hate her, all respected her.

Even more carefully than she had torn off the brown wrapping, Amelia unfolded the paper rabbit to find her mother’s elegant handwriting in green ink upon the page.

Dearest Amelia

I find myself ever quickly approaching the age of 35, the age you will be when you finally read this, reflecting deeply on childhood. Is this a thing? To reflect, to revisit and mull on the ebbs and flows, the waxing and waning, through one’s ages? The sense of freedom and wild abandon in early childhood, though at times not without its own traumas… The trials and tribulations with adolescence… Maybe it’s just me, being revisited by the Ghost of Once Upon’s.

But oh how I often long for those simpler days, when stubborn to a fault, I could simply disappear into the tops of the nearest climbing tree, or into the cool comforts of my wardrobe with my Mother Mary figurine, praying for the patience I would need to suffer fools, adult or child alike. Or better yet, into the far recesses like that other little troublesome Mary of Secret Gardens, into my own patch of green paradise where I could so effortlessly remove myself from sight, to be left unbothered to play amongst all of the littler, less intrusive creatures.

And how often do we shrink ourselves to fit the roles that become learned and accumulate, almost imperceptibly at first, that we do not even notice the measured tightening of breath, the nervous conditions and whisperings of self-doubt that encroach upon the truth... Even me... Though you may find that hard to believe. It is true. I have had my tempting misgivings before returning to the greater truth that should have defied them all: we are, each and every creature, immense!

Once, when words were nothing but glorious conjurings on a page brought to life by my father’s calm and steady voice, I looked upon the librarian in awe. From her kingdom, and with their treasures, I could be anything.

I was Jonathan that mystical seagull, transcending realms, guiding disciples into the unknown where speed barriers were nothing but a trifling of the mind at will. I was the Little Prince taming foxes in foreign lands and never once afraid to be curious or to speak my mind. I cared not I was a girl and that perhaps these things were not for me, or ever considered that these freedoms could be denied me. They were my birthright as I saw fit.

So do not, my dearest Amelia.

Do not go gently. For anyone. Or anything.

And from here and forever after, take heart.

Kindle joy.

And take flight, like your dear velveteen rabbit.

All my love.

Mum

Amelia was grateful to have the professor’s handkerchief close to hand as her long lost mother’s words rendered her to tears for the umpteenth time that day. It had certainly been an emotionally tumultuous day. Her mother would have written this letter not so very long before she was so cruelly taken from them.

Calming her nerves, she laid the paper down on the coffee table and again regarded the small pouch with the netsuke. Pulling back on the little wooden rabbit to open the pouch, she could feel something papery. Was it a book? And one so small?

She pulled it out from the pouch and was immediately transported back in time to find a little book she had made as a child before she could quite read. It told the story of the velveteen rabbit in pictures and she had compiled it all those moons ago using old scraps of paper cut into tiny squares with the crude but charming illustrations of a child, in her mother’s darker 4B and 6B pencils.

As a child, she had loved the way the pencil illustrations caught the light and almost shimmered. She remembered as if it were yesterday, all of those hours she had spent in her mother’s studio, imitating her mother, wanting to be an artist just like her one day. And later, an animator for Disney. The first motion picture she had ever seen was Disney’s Fantasia and it had left an indelible mark at such an impressionable age.

What far-off dreams those were, all but forgotten until now. It was a strange sentiment indeed, to feel so connected by something so seemingly insignificant, but like a rekindling of an old friendship, meeting herself as someone else, in a different time, and in a different place. And what would that young Amelia think of the woman she had become... That dreamy, young Amelia who made pets of all the creatures in the gardens from caterpillars to snails...

That dreamy, young Amelia who believed so very fervently for so many years in faeries and garden gnomes and pots of gold at the end of a rainbow....

Centering herself in the present in the courtyard, Amelia took in the fresh air she so desperately needed to reckon with the events of the day, downing her glass of lemonade and gin. She decided to fill up her glass yet again, this time with a stiffer serving of the professor’s gin. How does one find one’s spark again? Wasn’t it Roald Dahl who had said that the best thing a person can ever be is ‘sparky’?

But what if it’s been extinguished? she wondered ruefully.

Could she be reunited with that young, so easily awe-struck girl whose whole world had changed in one night at the cinema with a single motion picture?

Like the poor Madonna carving, how could she have been so thoughtless and left that little girl behind for all these years? She suddenly felt as if she had committed one of the most brutal betrayals.

As if in answer, a cool breeze swept across the courtyard, bringing with it some respite from the heat, the leaves of her new river indigo quivering in its wake.

Allowing herself to savour it, she turned to the statue with a quiet longing in her heart. To be a dreamer once more...

To kindle joy and take flight as her mother had asked of her in her letter...

If she had one last wish...

And in return, the carving smiled upon her with that selfsame eternal expression of benevolence.

(If you can't wait for the next installment you can purchase the e-book here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zimmer-Jocelyn-Fryer-ebook/dp/B09BCTYG9T)

Netsuke ("Hare") at the Linden Museum Stuttgart