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| The Old Windmill |
With a sudden move, Oscar dived the hand in the flour. A clean blow, and a shower of white powder covered the dark hair of André, leaving him stunned. “You stupid!” He was furious.
Oscar was laughing aloud, holding her sides with laughter. “ I wanted to see how did you look with the hair powdered like the aristocrat dandies of Versailles.”
The revenge was immediate and a handful of flour rained down, on the hair of the blond brat. “Now we are all square!”
Oscar wiped the flour from her face, and with a flash in her eyes started the fight. By then the flour was everywhere, on the hair, on the faces, on the clothes, even inside the clothes... they ended up on the sacks of flour put in a corner, the one laughing at the other.
“André, you look so funny!” She said, crossing her legs on a sack of flour.
“ What about you? You look like you're ready to be fried in a pan.”
They looked at each other laughing, then André said: “When we'll be back at home, we'll be really done for, look what a mess we are in, grandma will split my head open with her wooden spoon!”
Oscar stretched the legs, snorting: “It's the least that you deserve!”
André sat close to her, grunting: “Look, it was you that started this mess, it's all your fault!”
A very loud thunder boomed in the mill. They almost forgot why they were there. They were caught in the storm while they were wandering the countryside. They decided to seek adventure and go far away, as far as they could. The secret destination was Paris, and they got off on the roads that lead to the big city.
But in a flash it became dark in the height of the day. Black big clouds loaded with rain were about to release all their fury on them, and they had to seek refuge. The first drops of rain were already falling, when they spotted from the road the old mill, that was built on a little elevation, and they ran there to shelter from the rain. The place was deserted, but it was obvious, as it was Sunday. Like two ferrets they managed to sneak into a hole between the irregular and broken planks of the big door. Being still little had some vantages. They were growing up, but still they were in a limbo, not anymore children, not yet adults. Oscar was twelve and André was thirteen.
André was looking at his friend and was asking himself what it will become of them in the future, now that they were facing the transition to the adulthood. He was changing, and she was, as well... the change of their bodies would have coincided with a change in their lives. He felt like he was seized by insecurity.
Now he saw the lightning crossing the sky of the window, followed by a even louder thunder.
André drew near his friend Oscar, seeking the contact with her body: the thunders had always frightened him to death.
“You are really a sissy, André” Oscar said.
André bit his lips and answered her, acidly: ”And you instead, what are you?”
Oscar returned the glare of André: “I may be a female, but I'm not afraid of thunders.”
André was shaking with anger, with the tears in his green eyes. Oscar understood that she had gone too far. She remembered that André on the first days at her home was always sad, with misty eyes. And she remembered that she found him crying in his room during a storm, and that she consoled him a long time, holding his little hand.
She never got to know why he was so sad in that moment. Oscar knew that he had lost his parents, and confusedly understood the pain of her new friend, she that still had her parents, but it was like she didn't have them. “André I apologize... sorry... but why... why do you act like that...”
André heaved a long sigh. “You know, Oscar, my parents died during a storm... like this.”
Oscar opened her eyes wide with astonishment, feeling immediately a lot guilty because of the words she had said. “Sorry André... I'm very sorry... but you... why you didn't tell me anything, though we are friends, aren't we?”
André cast at her a glance as an adult, sweet and sad. “It was too painful to remember, Oscar, I couldn't manage to talk about it.”
Oscar passed her arm over his shoulders, cuddling him. André laid his head on Oscar's shoulder: he perceived her scent and her heartbeat was calming him. Leaned against her he felt in peace.
That little tomboy in that moment was so... motherly. Decidedly a female, he thought.
They remained silent for a while, embraced like this, until André said: “Oscar... when you too will be one of those aristocrat dandies of Versailles... will you forget about me?”
Oscar put her hand in his floury dark hair, with a caress, and answered him: “Stupid, I'll never forget about you. The two of us will be together forever. Forever, did you understand?”
André closed his eyes: “Is this a promise, Oscar?”
And she said: “It's a promise.” Oscar remained a while silent and then added: “And besides... I will not powder my hair, never, André!”
And they bursted in laugh, always embraced.
The wind moved the windsails, and the millstones were turning, making a loud and regular noise. The pattering of the rain that lashed against the roof merged with that noise.
That sound had the effect of a lullaby, and they fell asleep like this, embraced each other, on the sacks of flour.
~~~~~~~~~~@~~~~~~~~~~
Two soldiers in blue uniform entered the old windmill. The decrepit door opened easily, by now that place was disused. “There is no wheat to mill, anymore.” remarked the dark-haired soldier.
“The famine has been terrible, all the harvests were gone and last summer very little wheat was threshed.” answered the blond-haired soldier. They were looking around, searching for a place where to settle.
The rain caught them on the road to home, and now they could do nothing but wait for the rain to stop.
There aren't anymore the sacks of flour piled up in that corner, both thought.
“Oscar” the dark-haired soldier said “we have to make a virtue of this, better here than under the rain, but how it is cold here...”
The blond haired soldier cast a glance at the window, that hadn't the shutters anymore. The wind entered forcefully. “André” said in a whisper “let's sit in that corner, even without the sacks of flour is the most sheltered place.”
They sat close, wrapped in their mantles. They remained silent for a while, then André started chuckling. Oscar for a moment looked at him inquiring, then she too started chuckling: she understood what her André was thinking about.
“Oscar, do you remember that time that we sneaked here into this mill and we covered ourselves with flour...?”
Oscar nodded, smiling. “Nanny then gave you a good beating...”
“Yes, but it was worth it. I felt so good in company with you that day.”
Oscar cast at him a sweet glance, that André returned. Suddenly, Oscar's face grew dark.
André for a moment was disoriented, he didn't understand. “What's the matter, Oscar?”
She opened her eyes wide, because she had remembered.
“André I... I recalled my promise.” And lowered her eyes. Then she said: “Forgive me, André.”
In André's look a flame lighted. “What should I forgive you for, Oscar...?”
Oscar looked at him. “Here I promised you that we would have been always together, forever, that I would never have forgotten about you. But I've broken this promise the evening I told you that you shouldn't accompany me anymore. ”
André shuddered, but remained silent. They had never talked about that evening.
Oscar got on speaking:”How insensitive of me. How could I think to say something like that to you, you've never been just a valet, no, you have been always my dearest friend. And I was sending you away from me. I had lost my mind. I was so afraid of showing my weaknesses that I didn't care about your feelings.”
André remained silent, like if he had to pick and untangle the skein of his thoughts. Then he looked at her with a sad expression and said: “I've broken a promise, as well, Oscar.”
Oscar looked at him, questioning.
“It wasn't a promise that I've made with my voice, but with my heart. And exactly for this reason it had to count more. But...” He clenched his fists tightly on his knees. “Do you remember the day in which you risked to die because of me, to save me from the king's anger?”
Oscar nodded.
“When you reopened your eyes I was so happy... and I swore to myself that I would have protected you always, even at the cost of my life. But I've broken this promise, Oscar, the person that should protect you on the contrary assaulted you. That very evening.”
André lowered his head, while tears came out of his eyes without being able to prevent it. Then Oscar passed her arm over his shoulders, like the other time there, in the mill, as she drew him to her. "Come here.” And made him to lay his head on her shoulder. Like that time.
“André, I won't hold it against you. Let's forgive each other, please.”
Oscar put a hand in André's hair, caressing him. “Look at me André” and André looked up. “We are still together after all, and you still protect me, now like then. After all, our promises weren't really broken... we had just lost our way for a moment. But then we found it again, and we got together.”
André felt like she had taken a load off his chest. She hadn't changed a bit, she was always the same Oscar of his childhood. But their friendship... no, it couldn't go back as before. He loved her, and she knew it.
Oscar read his heart. “André, I know what you are thinking about.”
André smiled faintly: “What, I thought that it was me the one who knows always everything.”
Oscar smiled mischievous, like when she was a child: “This time I don't think so, at all.” And she told him about that evening at faubourg Saint Antoine.
~~~~~~~~~~@~~~~~~~~~~
The wind moved the windsails, and the millstones were turning, making a loud and regular noise. The pattering of the rain that lashed against the roof merged with that noise.
They were sleeping lulled by this sound. Oscar opened her eyes: she was in André's arms, lying on him, her cheeks rested on his heart. His body warmed her, and she felt good. She was listening to that sweet and familiar heartbeat. The sound that had accompanied her life. She was thinking again, incredulous, about what she had done.
She had drew André to her, turning the caress through his hair into a gentle push on his nape, and had kissed him, shyly. By then she had confessed her feelings to him. They kissed again, now passionately, while she pulled him on the top of her, lying down on the floor.
André broke the kiss to look at her, overwhelmed by desire. “Oscar... ” he whispered.
She stared at him with burning eyes: “André... don't say anything... this night let's forget everything, this night is ours... this night and all the coming nights, if you desire me... I want to be yours...”
André didn't say anything, and kissed her. What followed was dictated by their love and their passion: they let themselves go without thinking about anything, letting their hearts and their bodies join.
Together experienced the pleasure of feeling their naked skin under the mantles, together the caresses, the kisses, the shudders, the broken sighs.
Together, the hands clasped, the pain, the joy, the hips dance, the glows of pleasure.
Together, as always they had been and forever would have been.
Like the flowers begin to grow in Spring
love begins to grow in childhood. [1]
~ THE END ~
Notes:
[1]From the popular abruzzese traditional song “Vola Vola” (Fly fly!) by Luigi Dommarco.
“Come li fiure nasce a primavere,
l'amore nasce da la citilanze.”
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