Affliction

Sometime in the night, I was awakened by a soft nudge against my shoulder. Though my mind was at ease when I had lied down, I never slept so soundly that I was not easily awakened, and so my eyes flew open with a start and I turned in the direction of the pressure still on my arm.

“Marie?” There was a tremor in the whisper of my name. Something was wrong.

“Sir?” I sat up at once, and without thinking I reached out for his hand, reassuring him before I knew what the matter was. “What is it?”

He recoiled slightly from my touch. He was sitting on a three legged stool that usually resided in the far corner of my quarters. It was very dark, but there was a crack in the curtain that let a sliver of candlelight cut across the blackness. I could see the faint white glow of his shirt in it.

“I am sorry to wake you,” he said softly. “I was having trouble sleeping…” he stopped, uncertainty plaguing his words. I sat motionless, the sense that if I moved at all, I might frighten him away. So precarious was this encounter, so delicate the balance. I hardly dared to breathe.

Encouraged by my silence, he continued. “It occurred to me that I have never told you my name.” He paused. “I do not” – I heard him swallow, words lost momentarily – “I do not know what makes me think of it just now.”

I could tell he was losing confidence, second guessing what must have taken him an enormous amount of courage to do. This was entirely out of character for the man I worked for. It was a great compromise of his ideals, his pride. My heart ached for him, so obviously shaken, but needing to reach out.

“It’s alright, sir,” I whispered, finding his hand in the darkness, and smiling to myself when I felt him take a hold of it as though his life depended on the simple contact.

We sat that way, hand in hand, surrounded by darkness, for some time. I could feel the tension in him, transferred to me through his tight grip of my hand. I could not tell which of us trembled harder.

“Erik,” he said at last. His hand tightened on mine even more.

I nodded, though of course he could not see me, and squeezed his hand in return. His palm was sweating profusely. “Yes, sir,” I breathed.

Nothing else was said. He released my hand, and I heard him wipe his own against the leg of his pants. He stood up, left the stool where it was and hurried to the curtain.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, and then he was gone.