The events that changed me didn’t occur overnight but instead happened over a series of evenings that whispered, elongated and hot, through the small Spanish town. It began, in truth, when I was sat in the plaza and waiting for the ochre sun to sink beneath the glistening skin of the river. By then, days after my arrival, the formal part of my visit concluded and having informed my boss that I would be extending my stay—him seeming happy to oblige, saying I should enjoy myself and take a few days off to languish in the sun, a hint of jealousy perhaps present in his words and his email not without mention of the cigar, for him a cigar meaning any kind of gift—I could think of no other place I wanted to be. I submerged myself into the thick, humid air—an air the town seemed to so easily capture and hold within its winding streets. I meandered each day through a place ignored by time, and by night, as the air cooled by imperceptible degrees, stripping the sweat that wanted so much to accrete on my flesh and pool between the creases of my arms, I would sit in the plaza and breathe and be at peace. It was an act I was entirely unused to, and in so doing I felt I could sense something, as though a life force ran deep beneath the streets and that welled somehow there in the square with its tourists and locals, all of whom, I thought, felt it too, a subconscious sensation of being drawn or pulled, like an ocean tugged at by a distant moon.
Of the numerous restaurants and bars lining the plaza, there was one in particular that I would visit, a small restaurant with only a handful of tables inside and out and run by an owner who employed only one other: a teenage girl I later learned was her daughter and who emerged periodically from the kitchen to serve food as wondrous as the warm night air. The restaurant’s terrace offered nothing of note except for the plants that spilt from its eaves and gushed wildly from each of the tables, no two arrangements alike and set about in pots without any sense of order or scheme, the flowers appealing in ways hard to describe, flowers I had simply never seen before, having shapes and hues that spoke of connections natural and symbiotic and not the pretentious pairings of a florist. Above these, above the terrace’s flowers and eaves, there was a sign painted in soft silver by an elegant hand that read Jardín de Luna, or Moon Garden as my rudimentary grasp of Spanish managed to translate. A pretty name, one as pretty as the proprietor, who may have been the real reason I was so drawn to its doors. Like the flowers clustered upon each of the tables, there was something about her, something I couldn’t immediately define. She was beautiful, but her beauty was transcended, and it was only by the third or fourth visit that I realised by what: she was spiritual, emitting something that invited you, stilled you, made you want to sit and find acceptance in the mere act of sitting alone, and more often than not I would be content to do just that, to be in her vicinity at one of the tables and surrounded by the many flowers of such types I could not explain, waiting for the sun to dip behind the buildings and for the stars to emerge, or watching as the clouds drew their hidden shapes across the darkening sky.
“Astri,” she said, telling me her name on that third or fourth visit, an evening where once again I found myself drawn to the plaza. I was sat at one of the tables in her Garden of the Moon, for some reason that order of the words being more preferable to my mind than the strict translation, evoking something mysterious and special, and I wondered whether in Spanish Jardín de Luna evoked the same, the English destroying any hope of its true romance. “A pretty name,” I returned, smiling, my words automatic—her name seemed the perfect match for her face and hazel eyes, the same eyes that her daughter wore. It was the first time we’d spoken, our interactions having before been nothing but glances, my eyes following hers as she moved about each table, her hands touching the flowers where she would pause a moment as though in conversation, as though speaking with each coloured petal, to then move to another table or patron or back inside to the bar or kitchen, moments later emerging with a tray of drinks or a plate of tapas.
“I’m a botanist,” she said, “but not the usual type.” She spoke as though we were mid conversation and there was a logic to the announcement of these words, words that were coy and hinting at something else, not sexual but a sense of the spiritual, and as she moved from my table her hand grazed my arm and our skin touched and in that second I heard her—not out loud, for I was looking at her and I could see her mouth and how it didn’t move—but in my head, her voice there and present and as if she was whispering straight into my ears.
Come with me, that voice said. Come with me tonight.
To be continued… (here)
Thanks for reading. This is a continuation of Part I of The Botanist. If you enjoyed this, I’d love it if you could take a moment to click the Like button, drop by for a comment, or share the post (or all three). Such actions are the irrigations that keep the botanist’s flowers in bloom.
Wow. Just wow. Reading this, I am lulled into the most welcomed escape, drawn into the “life force beneath the streets,” lingering in its abandonment of time, tangling with the symbiotic bouquets, tumbling into the botanist’s eminence. Your superb, delicious, yawning sentences that mirror the narrator’s inner experience.
“she was spiritual, emitting something that invited you, stilled you, made you want to sit and find acceptance in the mere act of sitting alone, and more often than not I would be content to do just that.”
Nathan, your writing has a lushness that’s creating a place that’s both precise and dreamlike, in just a few sentences. Delightful and immersive! Maybe this is what happens when a scientist picks up a pen and explores magical realism?
My favorite bits:
. . .a subconscious sensation of being drawn or pulled, like an ocean tugged at by a distant moon.
. . .flowers I had simply never seen before, having shapes and hues that spoke of connections natural and symbiotic and not the pretentious pairings of a florist.
. . . in my head, her voice there and present and as if she was whispering straight into my ears.