Natalya Bartling

The Poems of Apricity

December is my favourite month of the year. Every time I go outside to breathe in the fresh winter air and wander around the city, I reflect on the time when I was a child. We walk through the Christmas market. I feel the warmth of my parents’ hands holding me tight, as if afraid of losing me in the crowd. Together they lift me up and carry over the frozen puddles. I jump as high as I can and imagine being on the moon with no gravity. They buy me apples dip in red sugar icing and drink mulled wine. I see myself running to a chalet with santons, hand-painted clay dolls representing religious as well as provincial characters. My father had been collecting these figurines over several years to complete the nativity scene. As our family did not have much money, he could afford to buy only one doll a year. The santon I see in my memory is the only figurine he misses in his collection: the infant Jesus. He buys it and we rush back home to put it into the cradle. I see my mother and father smiling at me, and in that smile is all the love and tenderness a child could wish for.

Today, being almost thirty years of age, I still remember this warm feeling of anticipation and shared joy. I spend this late afternoon at the Christmas market located near the Vieux Port, the old port of Marseille. Two days are left until Christmas. I stroll down the street looking for a special gift for my father which would make him smile again. He had not smiled in a long time. My father has grown old much quicker as I would have expected. Although I can still see a part of his old self in his eyes blue like a clear sky, he has changed irrevocably. Widowed and forlorn, he has lived since five years in a remote village of Provance. He avoids meeting new people and going to Marseille because every corner reminds him of my mother. Yesterday we sat in a living room of his two-storey house and talked about my time in Paris. The wood burned and cracked in the fireplace. My father listened attentively, smoked the pipe and stared at the flame. A small table stood between two chairs where we sat facing each other cuddled up in a cocoon of a blanket. The old santons for the nativity scene kept their position exactly as they were put on that memorable Christmas eve. I reached for a glass of wine and urged my father to do the same in order to drink to our reunion. Without turning his eyes away from the fire, he stretched his left trembling hand to lift a glass from the table, the movement he could do with his eyes closed. This time, however, he missed the base of the stem, brushed against the Virgin Mary figurine and knocked it to the floor. With thunderous sound, echoing from the stone walls, it broke into a thousand small fragments. For a moment my father sat trembling with his whole body. Then he slowly turned his head, hardly believing what he had done, tears running down his wrinkled cheeks. It was the very first santon he bought thirty three years ago. It was his first Christmas which he spent with my mother. It was his most precious memory. And now it was shattered into pieces.

I stroll down the illuminated street. I hear the crunch of snow under my feet and smell sweet roasted almonds. Every Christmas market chalet has something special to offer. I go past hand-painted ornaments and wooden children’s toys, hand-made jewellery and richly emblazoned candlesticks. A vast multitude of culinary delights bewilders me, my stomach growling like a bear. Mince pies, ginger bread, chocolate, sausages of various sorts, pretzels, tarte flambée and fromage. The enticing aroma wraps me with clouds of delicious scent. I surrender and buy me a cheese pretzel, curled like a shell of a wine snail. After washing it down with mulled wine, I go further and see a chalet with santons. This would be the best Christmas present for my father, I think. I buy the Virgin Mary figurine and secretly hope that it would slightly grace his life. I keep hoping, but know exactly that no gift from his son would bring back the love of his life. Sometimes people love their spouses more than their own children. The seller wraps up the santon in brown paper and hands it to me. I put it in a pocket of my grey taylor-made coat and head back home. The crowd of people gathered at the end of the Christmas market attracts my attention. I stay behind the backs of men and women and try to understand what or who they flock around. I hear a young woman’s voice reciting poetry: „more precious“… „the feeling of home“… „mother’s love“… Trying to remember where I had heard these words before, I push my way through those who stand before me in order to take a glance at the speaker. I stop dead in my tracks as I see a gentle sun ray peeking through the clouds and falling down on the woman’s head. Her shoulder-length straight hair, resembling the thick red fur of a fox, reflect the sun and brighten the admiring and inspired faces of the audience. There she stands dressed in a brown wool winter coat, a red scarf tied around her neck, with her hair beautifully lighted by sun rays. I have already seen this scene once in my life. Can it be the poetess who wrote the poems of apricity?

I met her during my fifth year in Paris. It was a cold early evening in December. I had just come back from visiting my father and spent the morning at my apartment, preparing my first exhibition in Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. I could barely belive my luck and was indescribably grateful for this opportunity. The invitation from Monsieur Gentilé concurred with the letter from my father where he wrote me about the sudden death of my mother. I had left the city for one week to attend her funeral. My father was in such a miserable state that I decided to stay for three more days and look after him. But the envelope with two golden letters „GG“ preyed on my mind. Gabriel Gentilé himself asked me to show my art work in the context of his exhibition „New artists of Paris“. I had to go back as soon as possible. Back to Paris, on that morning, I was looking through my paintings and knew at once what picture I lacked in order to be able to impress everyone. I had set myself a task of painting Monmartre with its white-domed Basillica of the Sacré-Cœur in different seasons of the year and this time it was winter’s turn. After several years of mild winter, it was highly improbable that this year would be any different. I tried to imagine what the church would look like covered in snow, so powerful in its monumentality, perched upon the hill. But I understood soon that imagination could not substitute something seen with eyes. I stood up from the floor covered in art books which I vigorously studied and approached the window in order to let my eyes rest on the view of the slate rooftops. The sun hid behind the thick clouds and I expected to see rain drops at any moment. I turned my back in order to lit a candle as it was getting dark. As I went back to the window, I could not believe my eyes. It was finally snowing. Without a moment’s hesitation, I took my art supplies and set off running up the Monmartre hill.

During the year I dedicated to painting four seasons and after trying out different angles, I finally found the perfect place. The steps of the square Willette extending upwards to the top of the hill in a range of lawns, terraces, trees and flowerdbeds provided the most picturesque view. I hurried to take my usual position and started to draw the outline of the Basillica. The snowflackes were slowly falling on the ground, dancing and twirling in the wind. The old fiddler was playing the Parisian waltz. An enamored couple was strolling up the gently sloping paths holding hands. A boy of about ten years of age was walking his dog which pulled on the lead and jumped around in circles, trying to catch the snow. It was quiet and peaceful. Out of nowhere, right where I stood, a young woman stepped up on a bench and started reciting poems. She tied a red scarf around her neck. Her leather low-heeled shoes barely covered her ankles. Her green pleated skirt poked out a few inches from her too-thin winter coat. I was not appalled by her audacity to interrupt my work. I was rather captivated by her shoulder-length straight hair, red like the fur of a fox. Could it be Patrice, the girl who sold petrichor? I put a pencil away and approached her. She saw me and exclaimed: „My first admirer! How lovely!“ I blushed at receiving so much attention and turned back to my canvas, without saying a word. It was not Patrice. This woman had round green eyes and her voice was too deep. My mother‘s eyes, flashed across my mind. I finished the rough drawing and proceeded with paint. After a while, a crowd of people gathered around the woman. She kept reciting her self-written poetry, gesticulating wildly and looking straight in the eyes of every man and woman who were listening to her. I tried to concentrate on my work but the fiddler had long packed his instrument and gone. Her voice and approving murmuring of people were the only sound I heard around me. The snow ceased. I looked towards the crowd and started listening.

The gloves warm your hands
When it‘s windy and cold,
Nothing‘s more precious
Than diamonds and gold.
Nothing‘s more precious
But these two, my dove:
The feeling of home and
Your mother’s love.

As if by enchantment, the sun came through the heavy clouds and illuminated the woman‘s head. I stood there admiring the way the sunlight played upon her hair and reflected in her bright eyes. I thought of my mother. I never believed in heaven but that moment rattled everything certain in my life. As if my mother watched us from above and sent a piece of her love down on earth with the sun. The feeling of home and your mother‘s love, could anything be more valuable? I did not notice how my eyes filled with tears. I came back the next day to finish my painting and brought some red and green paint with. The depiction of Monmartre in winter would not be full without this woman. She showed up at the same time, stepped up on a bench, winked at me and started reciting her poems all over again. But this time I listened from the very onset. The poems were dedicated to warm feelings like a child‘s first smile, touch of loving hands, parents‘ laughter, long-awaited family gatherings, crackling of the fireplace, kind eyes that make your heart melt, love. After the sun sank below the horizon, the crowd started to disperse. I decided to talk to her and nudged my way through people. As I approached the bench, nobody stood upon it. She was gone with the crowd. I looked around but could not see any red-haired woman in the falling darkness. I was about to go home when I saw a worn book lying on the bench. I picked it up and read the title: „The poems of apricity“. I had never heard this word before. Could it be the name of this woman? I opened the book. There was a dedication written on the first page: „To those who want to feel the warmth of the sun in winter again“. So this was the true meaning of apricity, I thought. I snapped the book close and headed home.

A loud cry snaps me out of my recollections. I look around and see a child standing in the middle of the street, crying its heart out. It is a small girl and I do not see neither her mother nor her father. I kneel down and try to calm her. As she does not stop crying, I take the small tube rolled in brown paper out of my pocket and hold it out to her. She looks curiously at it and starts unwrapping it, switching to quite sobbing. At that moment someone calls after her: „Stella! Stella, where are you?“ „Here, mommy!“ cries the little star and runs towards her mother. I turn back to the crowd in order to listen to the poems. The peope hold the mugs with mulled wine, laugh and talk to each other. Not a whisper of the speaker. She was gone again. Disappointedly, I head off back to my father, put my hands in pockets and realize that they are empty. I rush to the chalet with santons but it is closed. I must bring him something, I think, something that would do his heart good. I think of the red-haired woman. I think of her book of poems. The words can upset you, harm you, hurt you. But they can also heal you, bring you joy and peace. Words are both powerful and powerless. Two days later my father unwraps my present and I see him smiling for the first time over the past years.