In the Mood for Love: Yumeji’s Theme

He said, our path is not clear. I said, I must find a path without you. Tied to another, he was not mine to claim with love, so I claimed my pride and drifted away, a mock turtle, drowning. The seasons will come and go, I shall walk to the beach in Devon, see the bluebells float in the breeze like so many dancers thronging the ballroom of spring. But I will hold someone else’s hand and wonder what he would have said.

I will keep the small book of poems I found for him, filled with the words he so admired, because to send it is to inflame us once more. As I read the words, I wonder how they sound with his lips around them. The moon westers low when I see his face in my mind, the clear streams of his thought wash over me like the strains of this melody, quiet, strong and ponderous. I will move and ebb with others listening to this song, eternal in its yearning, for flickering moments I may wonder where he is. Who was he, coming from leftfield, to make me feel this way, when I thought I might never swim in warm seas again, find these lyrics in my heart to describe another again? Hear the strains of plenty with tears as Umebayashi conducts this psalm, an acknowledgement of love, feel beauty in long forgotten parts of my soul?

Wisteria in bloom, quiet afternoons dreaming and writing, the laughter and love of my friends around me chase away the blues of what is still hidden and cannot be spoken of. For this melody is as secret as moonlit, silk whispered corridors and the eyes that look longingly upon bright stars lie far apart, with wide seas between them. But not for nothing did we love, for I at least have changed, the actress left her stage those nights we spent together and it has remained empty of the players for some time now. I feel the emptiness of their kisses, the selfishness of their intentions too keenly now. Many men have told me they thought I was beautiful, but few have made me feel as beautiful, as sated as he did.

And my words flow again like an awakening, the crux that this longing must now remain a voluptuary’s dream, brought forth only in my mind or his when alone, my own hands not enough, because it was he doing those myriad things to my body. Because it was I, making him feel a thirst no mere libation could quench, each sip perfect for us, that made me feel irresistible like a goddess, he, an adored and beautiful King, ruler of my domain.

And such is life, the harsh lexicon of this life, so fraught, that there is a secret place inside me that belongs to this lovely man, who invited me, incited me to these beautiful movements, long inaudible, the rhythm section of our orchestra, not yet complete. I close my eyes and hear the song of his thousand wordless poems. I float above the deck on my ship of dreams, I the masthead of my own life, proud and carved in wood which gets a little harder each year, from salt and wear, but still believing, knowing that this is not the end of our story.

For although I am one of the fated women of my family, making my way along destiny’s path, knowing that I have disappeared to chase unknown galaxies and dreams, I have left my trace upon him too. In the timbre of my kisses, my passion which was his alone, and my taste, made all the sweeter for him. And one day perhaps Lemanja, the queen of the sea, will send him on a voyage to find my small footprints on a beach somewhere, in a ship filled with the precious cargo of peace and desire finally fulfilled.