Between the Folded Pages

Letter 3: October 15, 1983 – From Elise to William

My William,

It is late in Paris. The rain taps gently against the window, as if it, too, is waiting for your reply. The candle on my bedside table flickers each time I shift, casting long, uncertain shadows on the walls. I should be sleeping, but how could I? Your letter arrived this afternoon, and since then, I have read it over and over, your words seeping into me like ink on a damp page.

Your absence lingers in this room, William. It drapes itself over the armchair where you once sat reading aloud, curls into the spaces between the books on my shelves, and lingers on the rim of my teacup, where your lips have pressed. Sometimes, when I wake in the night, I half-expect to find you beside me, your breath warm against my neck, your fingers tracing absent-minded patterns along my arm. But then I remember: you are there, in London, and I am here, in Paris, and all that remains between us are these letters—folded pages that carry our voices across the silence.

Today, I walked through Montmartre in the rain, wearing that green coat you love so much. I should have brought an umbrella, but I didn’t mind the downpour. The streets were quiet, glistening, the scent of wet stone and fallen leaves clinging to the air. I passed by our bookstore, the one where the old man with the magnified eyes still remembers you as “my poet.” He asked when you would return, and I told him soon, though I don’t know if it was a promise or a wish.

I stopped at the café on the corner, the one with the chipped blue tables. The waiter brought me coffee without my asking—strong, bitter, as always. There was a couple beside me, whispering to each other in a language I didn’t recognize, their hands never parting, their laughter soft, intimate. I watched them for a long time, wondering if they knew how lucky they were—to be near enough to touch, to see each other’s expressions in real time rather than conjuring them from memory. I envied them, William. Not for their love, but for their closeness.

Your letter spoke of London’s rain, of Russell Square drenched in grey light. I imagine you there, hunched over a book, your glasses slipping down the bridge of your nose. I wish I could be sitting across from you, my stockinged feet tucked beneath me, watching the way your brow furrows when you lose yourself in thought. I miss the weight of your gaze, the way it anchors me when the world feels uncertain.

You mentioned translating Lorca. Oh, William, how well you know me! I read the line you sent—“I want to sleep the dream of the apples, to withdraw from the tumult of cemeteries”—and it settled into my bones like something I had always known but never had the words for. What would Lorca think of us, I wonder? Would he see us in his verses, two souls tethered by ink and longing, existing in the margins of time?

And then, your dream. The ship, the wind, my grip on your hand. William, my love, I think the sea is trying to tell us something. First my rowboat, now your ship. What does it mean that we both dream of water? Are we adrift, floating toward each other, or away? I don’t know, but I do know this: I would hold onto you, no matter how wild the storm.

I have been painting again. Not commissions, not polite landscapes or still lifes, but something raw, something just for me. For you. It is a portrait, though I hesitate to call it that. It is not your face that I have painted, but the way you make me feel. The strokes are restless, urgent, shades of blue and gold bleeding into each other. There is a warmth at the center, an ember that refuses to be smothered. I think if you saw it, you would understand.

Do you remember the night in Oxford, when we stood on Magdalen Bridge, the world suspended in that strange, hushed stillness? The way the lamps glowed like halos in the mist, the river reflecting them in trembling echoes? You kissed me then, your fingers tangled in my scarf, and for a moment, I forgot everything—my name, the cold, the fact that dawn would come and we would have to part. I have lived a thousand nights since then, William, but none quite like that one.

I ache for you. Not just in the way of lovers, though I do. I ache for your voice in the morning, for the way you murmur my name like it is something holy. I ache for your hands—gentle when they trace the curve of my spine, impatient when they gather me close. I ache for your laughter, for the terrible jokes you tell when you are tired, for the way your lips quirk before you say something wicked. I ache, William, in a way that no letter can ease.

You asked if the sky above Paris feels as vast and lonely as the one above London. I looked up tonight, searching for an answer, and I think I found it. The stars are the same, my love. The distance does not change them. They shine just as they always have, just as they always will, whether we stand beneath them together or apart.

I will wait for you, as I always have.

Come back to me.

Yours, always,

Elise