PART III - Chapter 26: PLEASE ... WAKE UP

 

 

Chapter 26

Please … Wake Up
(Ó 2010)

 

This small village … just outside of Paris. In the beginning of its history, it was just the main township and meeting point for all of the local citizens there in the farming community at the turn of the twentieth century. It started at a crossroads centrally located, where first there was a store for general merchandise. This was then followed by a bakery with a small wine store. The church was built some time after. However, after World War II, it was the arrival of Chef Gerard Qudrou, who had decided that this would be the best place for his innovative café. He believed that with the help from the farmers that he would have the freshest ingredients needed for his special signature dishes.

Gerard’s Café opened and then soon began to make a name for itself. First, the patrons from nearby Paris who knew of Chef Qudrou would travel to the small village and felt that the serenity of this rural farming village added to the atmosphere and the ambience of his establishment.

Soon afterwards, Gerard’s Café patrons began to multiply in number and other entrepreneurs took notice. Candle shops, curio shops, shops for specialty foods; then came the artists and artisans selling their wares. The crossroads grew into a small village for tourists and Parisians who came for the serenity and atmosphere of the farming community.

One man was the father of Pierre Casignole, who had the idea of a small quaint hotel to offer these tourists extended stays in the village. He then built a small fifteen-room hotel that, once opened, also built a steady clientele, especially by those who would dine late at Gerard’s. 

Now Pierre Casignole was in charge of the small hotel that he had inherited from his father. He had stepped out to the registration desk where he found his thirteen-year old daughter already dressed and awake. He looked to the clock on the desk and saw that it was 6:50 AM. “Did I hear someone come in last night Michelle?” He asked his daughter.

“Yes Papa and I took care of it, here look.” Michelle answered excitedly. She loved to help around her parents’ hotel here in the small village where she grew up. “He said he did not know how long he would be staying, but he paid for two weeks, in advance, and in cash! He also let me imprint his credit card in case of any other expenses … see? Here are the receipts and everything.” She showed him her precise and organized work. Her blue eyes beaming from under her short curly black hair.

Pierre Casignole smiled down at his daughter and put on his eyeglasses to inspect her work. He first took out the cash and counted it, then looked at the receipt that she had written to him. Then he looked to the copy of the imprinted credit card slip and saw that she had done everything perfectly. “This is excellent work my dear, truly excellent. I believe that soon I will be able to …” Pierre stopped suddenly as he saw the name of the cardholder that was imprinted on the card, L.I. MORROW, he then finished his sentence in a tone of quiet astonishment.“…leave you to run things here.” He looked at the name on the imprint again and then asked his daughter, “Michelle my dear, what did this man look like?

“Oh … he is a big man Papa, big and strong looking. He smiled at me very pleasantly the whole time he registered. He is very nice. Here, you can see where he signed in the guestbook, and oh, he asked for the best room we had available, the big room was empty, so I gave that one to him. The most expensive, did I do good Papa?”

“Yes little one, you did extremely well. Is your mother in the kitchen?”

“Yes Papa.”

Pierre then turned to the door that was behind the registration desk and called out, “Elaina! Elaina! Come here quickly!” He called to his wife.

She came some seconds later, “What? What is it?”

“Here, look at this.” He handed her the credit card slip.

She looked down at the slip and read it over, she then snapped her head to her husband. Her eyes were wide with surprise, “Do you think …?”

“From the description that Michelle just gave me, I believe it may be.”

Michelle then asked with curiosity, “Who is he Papa?”

“He just may be someone who was dear to us all little one, someone who just left and disappeared a long time ago.”

Elaina Casignole then asked, “Is he up in his room right now?”

“No Mama,” Michelle answered, “I heard him get up and leave early this morning.”

“Did you see which way he went?” Her mother asked.

“Yes Mama,” Michelle answered, “he went walking up the road … that way.” She was pointing northward.

Elaina looked to her husband, “Towards the cemetery.”

Pierre then had a sad expression come to his face, “If so … then … it is him.”

* * *

Logan had found that the gate had been already opened when he arrived at the old cemetery. It was still immaculately maintained. Beautiful trees, shrubs, grass, stone paved pathways and monuments with the graves of the generations past from the small farming community. Some of the graves had markers that were one hundred fifty years old, and the whole cemetery was enclosed by a whitewashed stone barrier fence, with an arched stone entrance.

He remembered his way to her gravesite after seven years; however, he was not there to see when her grave marker placed. He had stood there now almost frozen in the same position as he looked down at it. It seemed to stare right back up at him, confirming to him even after all this time that yes, “it” was true. There it was, her name, etched into a small eighteen inch long by nine-inch wide white polished granite slab that was set prone to the ground:

LILLIAN EMILY MORROW

1961 - 1993

BELOVED WIFE

He began to feel his throat tighten and his eyes burn with tears. He clamped his hand over his mouth as he continued to stare down at the simple monument. It was seeing her name, written in stone, it was seeing her name somewhere else either then the few familiar places where it was written. It was seeing her name, there on the stone, the stone that was flat on the ground, knowing that she is buried right below it.

Finally, he managed to pull himself together and he whispered through, “Hi … hi there Lil Girl. I … I’m back … I came back … just like you wanted. I … I heard you … I know it was you.” He then went to his knees and started crying, “Oh Lily, please forgive me. This is all my fault, what happened to you was because of me, I’m so sorry. I’m so … so sorry.” He knelt there and sobbed when the church bell began to ring and it made him sit upright. The bells were announcing to everyone in the village that it was now 7:00 AM. Logan reached into his coat pocket, drew out a handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and cleared his nose.

The bell rang a second time, then the third, then the fourth. He began to think of all the events of that day. - - -

- - - There must have been over a thousand people in attendance that morning of Lily’s funeral. Inside the small church, the pews were packed and they were standing in any place that was possible. The mass of people overflowed to the outside of the church and onto the crossroads.

This mass gathering of people whose lives were touched by Le Petit Coiffeur in some manner large or small. The entire population of the borough where she once lived and worked must have been there.

Inside the church, her coffin was set before the alter. It was white with gold trim. Lily lay inside wearing a lavender dress, in her hands was a bouquet of roses that came from her own bushes around the home of her and her bereaved husband that was just up the road. She had baby’s breath in her hair.

In the front pew was here family from England, her father, mother, and brothers. Logan was next to them, he was still heavily sedated in order to keep him in somewhat control. Cosette and Miriam sat on either side of him, constantly consoling him. Next to them were Clive, Bricey, and Claude Deveroux. Directly behind all of them was Captain Reginald Thiebulet with his wife, Jean-Luc Pontius with his wife and children, and Henri Beauchard along with his family.

The ceremony itself lasted about two hours with the Catholic Mass along with many people making speeches about their memories and thoughts of Lily. Logan could not speak because of the drugs that kept him sedated, he was still in shock, and it had rendered him as helpless as a handicapped child. In fact, he hardly spoke a word since “it” happened.

The whole time in the church, he had just stared at Lily lying in her coffin.

The time had come to take Lily’s coffin from the church to the cemetery and the church then began to empty of all the people. Lily’s mother stood and placed her hands on Logan’s s and shoulders then embraced him and kissed his cheeks. “She loved you so much my son.” She whispered to him, “Always know that. She loved you more than anything in the world.”

The church was soon empty and the only people sitting in any of the pews were Logan, Cosette and Miriam. “Come on now Logan,” Cosette whispered to him, “Let’s take her with us now, and lay her to rest.”

Logan nodded, and then spoke for the first time, “Okay … can I have a minute with her?” Cosette and Miriam both nodded “yes” to him and helped him to his feet. They escorted him up to Lily where he then looked down at her, “She is so beautiful … ain’t she?” He asked as his voice choked.

“Yes, yes she is.” Miriam answered.

Logan stared down at her then placed his hand on hers. “She’s cold.” He said, “She’s cold, she needs a blanket. Get her a blanket or something, she’s so cold.”

“No, no Logan,” Cosette said, “it is all right Logan, she is all right.”

He then looked at Cosette and then to Miriam, who nodded “yes” to him. He then looked down again to Lily and bent over her face, “Lily?” He said to her, he waited as if she were going to respond to him. “Lily? Wake up. Please… wake up. Don’t let this be true Lily … please … don’t let this be true.” He then began to cry, his tears were dripping from his eyes and onto her face, “Please Lily … don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me here … to be all alone again. What am I going to do without you Lily? Please don’t leave me here.”

“Logan, please.” Cosette said, “We must go now, I’m sorry.”

He looked to her face and then kissed her on her cold lips and said. “Good-bye my love … good-bye my heart … good-bye my life.” - - -

 

- - - The sixth ring, and then the final seventh. Logan stood up and continued to look down at the gravesite of his late wife. He wiped his tears with his hands and said, “I’m so sorry Lily. I’m sorry for everything. You are the only person in the world whose forgiveness I would want. I’m sorry for what happened to you, God knows I wished everyday for it to have been me. I should have let them kill me when they had their chances.” He then looked upward to the sky and then back down to the grave marker, “I’m sorry also for everything that I did back in the States. But, those people, those low life people.”

He felt the anger building up in himself as the memories of all his “missions” came flowing through his mind, “She was just a kid for Christ’s sake,” He said now rattling off, “she was only fifteen fucking years old, when I saw what those two bastards were doing to her, I just snapped. Turns out, she wasn’t the only one they hurt. And that poor Russian maid, what that pompous fuck was doing to her little boy? I couldn’t let that go, I just couldn’t. I’m a soldier … and a police officer. I’m the warrior remember? That is what I was put on this earth for, that was my destiny … remember? My job was to stop those people, people like that. Hurting the weakest, I … I just went crazy. I got all caught up in it. Then I saw all those rat fucking politicians, how they were involved. I couldn’t let it go by; I just could not ignore it. I know the ways to stop them.

“But … I realize now that … I just can’t stop them all. All the terrible people, there’s just too many of them for me. They just keep on coming no matter what. And all of the good people? Yes, there are a lot of them too it’s just … well there are also too many naïve people, who think you can make the bad people into good. I have discovered that it’s all just one big eternal vicious cycle. You just have to do what you can for those alive here and now. Someone else has to come along for the future.

“And that’s what I have to do Lily. I just can’t do this any more. I’ve been doing this since I was eighteen, and … I’m tired … I’m just too tired … and yes … I’m too damn old now to be doing this shit anymore. Let somebody else do it now. I’ve done too much … killed too much … hurt too much … and have experienced too much. What has it gotten me in the end? It got me everything that I have loved, more than anything in my life taken away from me.

“Yeah, I feel I have sacrificed too much and have nothing to show in return. I know that everyone who was a victim of those shits that I went after are happy though, they got their vengeance, their pound of flesh. What about me? Where’s my happiness huh? I’ll tell you, it’s buried six feet below my feet … right now … right here.

“Well … if I can’t have my happiness then I want peace. I want to live the rest of my days here on earth in peace. I can’t do this anymore. So yes, I am going to justify my actions. Yes, the peace I want has cost them. It cost them their power, it cost them their bodies and it cost them their money. My peace has cost them … so now I am avenged … somewhat.

“And you … you are the only one that I will apologize too on that. You are the only one whom I will ask forgiveness.”

He then realized that because of his anger he was panting and speaking just a little too loudly. He calmed himself, “And as far as taking their money is concerned, no, I have no guilt about that. Taking that money hurt them, it took their power away, and now I see that it is causing a big chain reaction back there. They are all going to fall, every last one of those filthy pigs, from the top officials, to the lowest dirt bag. Because I did it, I took them on and I brought them down. I promise you, that money will be used now for only good, I promise you.” Then his thoughts went to the two men back in Chicago, “Those two inspectors, Todd and Jaworski, they’ll reap the benefits of everything I did back there after all the bullshit clears.”

“But I heard you Lily.” He continued, “I heard you calling me, I know it was you. I heard you warning me. So, I came back. I came back home. I know what you mean, you’re right, I’m sorry. I promised. I promised that I would never leave you. And I won’t, I won’t ever again.”

He looked around the cemetery and felt the serenity around him. The morning sun was rising higher in the sky and the songs from the birds of spring were filling the air. “This is a beautiful place for you Lily.” He said. “Everything you enjoyed, trees, bushes, and when the grass comes in I bet that it will be beautiful and well maintained.” He looked down to her grave and looked from one side of it to the other. There were no other graves on either side of hers. There were none in the row above hers either. “This isn’t right.” He said.

He stepped back and looked around even more; her grave was separate from all the others. He looked down again to the small headstone, “No, this isn’t right. You deserve more than this, more than just a piece of rock with your name on it set on the ground. No, this isn’t right, this just is not enough.”

He looked again around her grave and then some plans started to come to him. He continued to make a plan for Lily’s grave when suddenly he saw a man walk through the arch of the entryway. The man was pushing a wheelbarrow that had the long handles of some landscaping tools sticking out over it. Logan figured that this man must be the caretaker for the cemetery; in fact, as he watched him he realized that it was he. Logan recognized him from when he had lived here before. “I’ll be right back Lil Girl.” He said to Lily’s headstone. He then approached the caretaker. As Logan came closer, the caretaker looked up at Logan, and then did a double take. A big smile came to the caretakers face as he recognized “The Legionnaire”, and he held out his hand to shake Logan’s. When Logan grasped his hand, the caretaker also embraced him with his free arm.

“Monsieur à la maison bienvenu Morrow! Maison bienvenu!” (Welcome home Mr. Morrow! Welcome home!) The caretaker exclaimed.

* * *

It was 9:15 AM when Logan returned to the hotel. He stepped through the entry and saw Pierre, Elaina and Michelle Casignole a standing behind the registration desk as if they had all been waiting for his arrival.

“Mr. Morrow?” Pierre asked, “Mr. Logan Morrow?”

“Yes Pierre,” Logan answered smiling, “It’s me.”

“Oh Logan!” exclaimed Elaina as she came around the desk and embraced him, “Welcome home Logan, welcome home!”

Logan embraced her back and lifted her slightly off the floor. He managed to shake the hand of her husband as he too came from behind the desk. “Yes indeed, welcome home Logan!” Pierre said. “My Lord how have you been? Where have you been?”

“I’m just fine now, thank you.” He answered, “I have been in America. I was working for the Bank of Paris there. I just decided that it was long enough. I wanted to come home. So I did just that.” Logan then looked down to Michelle, “Oh I see that my little girlfriend has grown up so. My, she has stayed as beautiful as ever.”

“Yes, we had to remind her of who you were and of how much of a crush that she had on you when she was little.” Pierre said.

“I remember you too.” Michelle said, “You use to always play games with me, and I remember waiting for you at the window.”

“Yes,” Elaina said, “and I remember how you would always jump up and down whenever you saw him coming down the street.”

“Yes,” Logan said, “and how Lily and you would have tea parties in the gazebo, and how excited you would be because she let you have them with real tea.” He fell silent for a second as well as the others; he then stepped back to the front door of the hotel and looked up the street into the direction of his former home. “Do you know who lives in the house now by any chance?”

“Yes we do.” Elaina answered, “They are a nice young couple and they have a small son, Michelle baby sits for them once in a while. The Pinchot’s, Lauren and Barbette.”

“Do you think that they are happy in the house?” Logan asked.

“Oh I would not know that. He seems like the serious type and she, well … she seems somewhat … odd. Yes, odd is the only way to describe it.” Elaina said, “Why do you ask?”

Logan turned to the family and said, “Because I have come back home for good, and I would like to see if they would be willing to sell the house back to me.”

Pierre then said, “Well, I know he works for the government and he is gone most of the day, she is home during the day mostly. They have an infant son and all.”

“She’s home during the day?” Logan asked.

“Yes, as far as I know.” Pierre answered.

“Then perhaps I should make a call on Mrs. Pinchot this afternoon,” Logan said, “but first I have to stop by Gerard’s and make an arrangement there beforehand.”