Passion

She was fifteen years old when she fell in love. Not with a boy, but with her city. Among her grandfather's musty old books she discovered a history of her city, published in 1893. In the photographs she recognized the small church three blocks away and the docks by the river and the old bridge.

She discovered she lived in a city of romance and intrigue, a city of martyrs and corrupt authorities, a city of commerce in which trade goods and flesh were bartered and sold with equal relish and profit, a city of churches and temples and brothels and slave markets. With her grandfather's book as her guide, she toured the city.

Here in 1844 the mayor stood trial for murdering his mistress (after his acquittal he was twice re-elected to office). There stood the Cathedral of Saint Michael which caught fire in 1815 and burned to the ground, destroying several blocks of shops and houses as well (money was raised to re-build the cathedral, but the banker entrusted with the funds disappeared, rumored to have fled to South America). By the river she believed she discovered the site of the old tannery, the enterprise around which the city grew, now the home of a sleek riverside shopping center.

She scoured the local library and used book shops in search of other histories of the city, and with each discovery she fell deeper in love. She paid court to the city's history and the city wooed her in return. She grew older, she dated, became engaged, called the engagement off, married another man, divorced him, re-married, raised children, grew bored with her husband. And throughout it all her passion for the city never faltered.

Even now she walks to the market accompanied by scoundrels and escaped slaves. She visits the library in the town square and hears the hoofbeats of the militia and the panicked cries of revolutionaries as they flee. She hears the church bells on Sunday mornings and she can almost recall their ringing to celebrate the end of a war that took place long before she was born. She sits outside in the rain, an umbrella over her head and a book in her fist, listening to the clack of horse-drawn carriages carrying duelists to their dawn rendezvous.

posted by greg @ 2:21 PM