Rajah

The Moroccan Cigarette Case

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…….. there was Chaos (with a capital “C”). My dear but irascible niece, Corrine, had for some incomprehensible reason known only to her, decided that she must be married on the 27th of December. She had tried to explain to both her mother and myself but the explanation seemed not to contain much reason. Something about it being such a joyous romantic time of year. I suppose such things make sense when you’re twenty-two and I’ve obviously become a cynical old fool.She had also decided that she absolutely must leave from my house. “Your artwork would make a much better backdrop for the pictures… please Uncle G…”. So there we all were, my sister-in law more than slightly miffed that Corrine would want to reject her mother’s home, and the rest of us thanking God for the innovation of central air conditioning in a globally warmed Sydney summer. I had never really understood Corrine. Her brothers were so much easier to deal with. Boys are so much more straight forward to bring up they used to say, the ubiquitous “they”. I used to think that was faintly insulting point of view, having been a young person capable of extremely intricate emotional intensity…. But perhaps that only applies to gay young persons. The boys are uncompromisingly straight. But Corrine…She’s uncompromisingly complicated. Wilful and forthright or wily and fey in turn, she sails through life with the supreme confidence of one who just knows that everyone adores her. Except for me, or at least that’s how it used to be.It is perhaps the great regret of my life that Peter and I never had children. A simple physical impossibility you might say, but we thought of surrogacy, adoption and many other alternatives before giving up in our late forties, when we decided that we were too old anyway. It has been, then, with great gratitude that I have accepted the generosity of my brother and his wife in sharing their children with me. Oh, I know that it hasn’t been entirely unselfish on their part. When the three were quite young, they could be an exhausting package and I occasionally took one or two of them away for a weekend just to give their parents a rest. Corrine, though wasn’t keen on my company at first. She was the youngest and only daughter and therefore to be adored, or so she instinctively believed, but she became aware quite early on of my disapproving stares at her attempts to stretch her parents’ patience to breaking point. In time, though, we made our peace and as she grew into a sensible young lady so did our mutual respect and liking. I had always loved her as I did her brothers as if they were my own .How could I not, when they all have so much of my only brother in them? And so it came to pass that on this roasting Christmas Eve, while wedding planners and bridesmaids bustled below, I sat my eyrie study and pondered the beautiful cigarette case I had almost decided to give Corrine as a wedding gift. Ridiculous perhaps, as she doesn’t and has never smoked but it is a beautiful thing and she has always admired it. She knows how much I treasure it so I hope she will too.It is inlaid with many coloured woods and most certainly was made in Morocco or thereabouts and so it was unusual that I should find it in the markets of Florence, but there it was one sparkling autumn morning all those years ago. Peter and I had managed to secure a short lease on a charming little house high up in the old walled part of a small village just an hour south of Florence and were in the midst of the most glorious holiday of our lives. He had recently completed his doctoral thesis and this was our long planned for reward.The house, while rustic, had wonderful views across the undulating Umbrian landscape and the weather was unrelentingly beautiful. The village seemed to bumble along just as it would have done for hundreds of years and in fact little had probably changed along the winding, cobbled streets of the old “town”. Every second doorway had a beautiful stone surround and we delighted in the soft and subtle colours and textures as we walked down the hill every few days to the train station and the slow local train into Florence.That morning was particularly soft and shiny,( perhaps I remember it all in soft focus) the sun gentle and the breeze coolly reminding us that summer was slowly slipping away. We woke very early, bought our bread sticks and plodded down to the train. It was exactly on time which always feels so strange in Italy, where nothing else seems to work, but we were grateful to be out of the wind on the platform and on our way. We pulled into Florence much earlier than we usually made it and I particularly sit, what we remember…. We must have headed off to the markets straight after, I suppose. I don’t really remember, but everything happened so early in the day that we must have. I do remember that Peter saw the cigarette case before I did and commented on it, saying how beautiful it was. He wandered off and I did what I had often done before, quickly bought it and secreted it in my bag to give to him later….. to remind of the day… that beautiful day….It all happened so quickly after that, I hardly know even now what actually took place. There was a lot of shouting around the corner. I couldn’t see Peter and hurried along to find him and draw him away from whatever was going on. There was pushing, yelling…. I was yelling… he was on the ground… blood on his head… Then, I don’t know when, my dear sweet brother was with me, sorting out the paperwork. Incessant paperwork. We brought him home. It all seems so long ago.So the children, Corrine in particular, have become so important to me. I needed, still need some other focus..Of course, the painful memories still come to the surface….. but I choose to remember the good times. I choose to remember that glorious morning …. and how I was going to surprise him with the cigarette case.