I HAVE NOTHING
Chapter Eight
Wedding Bells
There wasn’t any hope now. Jack’s
search was over, or that was what he was thinking as he was sitting in the
attic, trying to remember. He couldn’t. He concentrated until he felt a
headache, he breathed, and he tried again. He closed his eyes, he clenched his
teeth…everything was useless. His memory had died in the sea, and Jack started
understanding that the only way he could go on was to start again.
He didn’t have a past, but nobody
could take his future. And the future was home. Paris didn’t have any memories
for him, so his next step was to get some money to buy passage to New York.
Pierre didn’t like the idea, but like good friends do, he didn’t try to stop
him. Anyway, Jack wouldn’t have listened to his opinion.
Maybe his American brother, as he
used to call him, had lost his memory, but his soul was still like a wild hawk.
Free and brave. The only thing he could do was help him, so that morning he
borrowed a newspaper from the plaza’s restaurant and gave it to Jack.
"In the last pages there are
always some work advertisements. I saw an announcement where they need a
translator; they’ll pay you very well."
Jack knew that Pierre hated the
idea of letting him go, so he thanked him for that action, giving him a sincere
hug. His friend left, murmuring something with lots of bad words, and Jack
started reading the paper.
It was last week’s, but maybe he
would have luck and find something. He started reading it on the last page, the
place reserved for the society news. Rich people’s silly things, of course.
A marquise that had left all her
fortune to the army, the announcement of a captain’s wedding…his fiancée was
also in the picture…the fiancée, the bride, the future wife, the beloved, the
lady, the woman, the girl in the picture, her eyes, her hair, her lips, that
perfect face, that look, yes, yes, yes. He knew her, he knew her! He could
smell her, feel her, touch her, and hear her breath just closing his eyes. He
could want her. He could love her from the bottom of his soul! Jack opened his
eyes.
"Rose!"
The scream came out of his mouth
without him noticing it, and in a magical and eternal instant the box that was
floating in his memory opened. All his memories, all his past emptied suddenly.
Everything was there again—his childhood, his father going fishing with him on
the lake, his first drawing, all his life, his first journey to Europe. And the
Titanic. And Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose. Jack didn’t get tired of repeating her
name. He looked at the picture in the paper and repeated her name like a child
who has learned his first word.
Rose. Her frozen hands. A low
voice telling him that she loved him. A mortal dream. And cold, a lot of
cold…it had been the last time he saw her. Rose. It had been worth dying for
her. Live for her. Love her more than anything. All the mysteries of the world
started and ended in Rose.
Jack looked at the picture again.
Near her, a tall and kind-looking man was looking at the camera, satisfied. He
was going to marry her…when? When? Jack read the wedding’s date. It was today!
At three o’clock in the DeRouche manor’s chapel. Where the hell was that? He
had to find her. He only had two hours to look for Rose, and Pierre wasn’t
anywhere. He looked for him in the restaurant, in the square, in the street…and
he finally saw him writing at a table in a restaurant.
"Where’s DeRouche’s
manor?" Jack asked him.
"What? Who? What’s going on,
Jack?"
He didn’t have time to explain
everything. He just needed to find that chapel quickly. Pierre went to talk to
Agnes, the owner of the restaurant and probably one of the sharpest tongues in all
of Paris, and he came back with the information. The DeRouches lived in the
center of the city. If he hurried, he might arrive in time.
The streets never seemed more
full and straight, but Jack was flying. He didn’t feel his legs. He just
thought about Rose, and about not listening to the sound of the bells. While he
was getting close to the chapel, he was praying to not hear them. If the bells
were silent, there was still hope.
At the same time, inside of the
chapel, Rose listened to the voice of the priest. It was a low and distant
sound, compared to her heart’s beating. She didn’t look at Vincent. She
couldn’t. She knew he was happy and trusted her, but she wasn’t able to share
his happiness, and instead of that, the sadness was invading her heart, pushing
her to run away. She was about to marry a man she didn’t love, and she didn’t
even know why. Rubbish. She knew it. She was marrying Vincent because she had
fear, a terrible fear of the loneliness and of the madness, of war and of
death, of despair. With Vincent, she could start all over again, and leave
behind all the pain from the past. Forget everything but Jack. How much she had
loved him…she had loved him when she was entering the church, when she was
walking to the altar. She had loved him when she had looked at her bouquet. And
she had loved him more than ever when she was listening the priest’s words.
"If anyone knows any reason
why this wedding shouldn’t happen, speak now, or forever hold your peace."
Just at that moment, Rose’s
diamond fell to the ground. The chain had broken, and the blue heart was lying
on the ground at her feet. She hadn’t had enough time to take it from the
chain…the chapel’s door opened suddenly, and sunlight invaded everything.
"Rose!"
Jack’s voice echoed through the
church. It went through Ruth and Molly’s incredulous ears and stopped in Rose’s
heart. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t…Rose turned around slowly and saw him.
Exhausted, smiling, alive!
She wanted to pronounce his name,
but she couldn’t. The world disappeared suddenly, and she fell to the ground,
unconscious.