Rose remembers
How well Rose remembers that long ago meeting, a spring day when the air was scented with peonies. Again tonight, all these years later, the subtle scent of peonies is coming in the open window. From this garden tomorrow morning, she will cut a perfect peony bud, white with its heart delicately traced in red, and give it to him. One single flawless flower.
She hopes that memory will assail him, momentarily stop his breath, as it did hers when she saw his name again. She believes fervently in the soul-stuff exchanged during their single brief meeting.
Too old to care any longer about looking a fool, she hopes once more to witness evidence of the mysterious connection that can arise unexpectedly between strangers. Rose feels sure that a sincere and innocent desire generates the experience that satisfies that desire. He will join her in a moment of memory.
What will his memories be? Perhaps the cold of the foreign country, the unexpected difficulties encountered. Will he remember Rose’s heartfelt determination to do right by him, to ensure that he will be able to devote himself to his beloved music? She sighs. She cannot know. It does not matter.
The young musician she met when he was barely seventeen was already a composer. In his youthful naivete, he was passionately determined to walk his whole life on an untainted path of pure bliss.
Frankly, fearlessly, he importuned her to rearrange his schedule. He wanted to study “willingly, lovingly,” he explained. From behind the boy’s innocent transparency, the man’s powerful self-confidence looked out. She looks again at his picture on the front page of today’s paper and stares transfixed at the familiar yet unfamiliar image of the conductor with his baton upraised. The moonlight streams across her desk. Tomorrow, he will give a concert, and Rose will be seated in the front row.
Weighing her words to express feeling and memory, Rose takes up her pen. She opens the card to write, and from its fold, the delicate white paper bird flies up.
“Dear Camilo,” she writes, “We met briefly, about twenty years ago. I was the Dean at the college where you took classes. I rearranged your schedule, when you told me it was essential for you to be joyful in your work. I still remember how you revelled in your passion for music. I knew then that you would succeed brilliantly, and you have. With best wishes, Rose Green.”
Rose feels suddenly exhausted. The right words have eluded her. She cannot express what she wished to say. Resigned, she puts the card in its envelope, falls into bed, sleeps fitfully, dreams her dreams.
In the early morning she goes into the garden and finds the perfect peony. It must be fresh; she will not cut it yet. At noon, she prepares and eats a light lunch. Then she dresses for the concert in a neat white linen suit with a ruby brooch and low-heeled white pumps. Just before leaving the house, she cuts the chosen peony. Uncharacteristically, she forgets her pruners and gloves, leaving them on the garden bench.
When the time comes, she gets in her small Toyota, drives to King George station, parks and takes the train downtown. She enters the Orpheum, holding in her wrinkled hand the single unadorned peony, still fresh and lightly fragrant. The card containing the white tissue paper dove is tucked in her purse.
The house lights dim; the crowd waits. In the front row, Rose opens her program and reads, "from Medellin, Colombia, The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presents Guest Conductor Jose Camilo Mondragon." From her seat in the front of the centre section, she gazes up as he walks onto the stage amid thunderous applause. From barely an arm’s length away, he fixes her eye as he bows a deep Latin bow. Then he turns to raise his baton.
Swept away by the sublimity of the music, Rose closes her eyes. When it stops, applause fills the theatre. Unnoticed by the great conductor, who is acknowledging his orchestra, she rises, tosses the flower and card onto the stage and drops quickly back into her seat.
Taking its own line of travel, the envelope falls short, but the peony lands neatly at the great man's feet. Acknowledging the crowd with another low bow, he notices the flawless white bud, lifts it, and gravely places it in his lapel. Gazing back at the audience, he meets the intense blue eyes of a silver-haired woman in the front row. Mysteriously, his own eyes fill as he turns once more to acknowledge his fellow-musicians.