Two days later, Julia was down to the final box. After a very enjoyable evening with Zsuzsa and a few other graduate students at Grendel’s Den on June thirtieth, Julia came home determined to finish unpacking.
As had been her practice, she shelved the volumes in alphabetical order almost mindlessly. Until she came to the last book in the bottom of the last cardboard box, Marriage in the Middle Ages: Love, Sex, and the Sacred, published by Oxford University Press. Frowning, she turned the volume over in her hands. It took a few minutes for a distant memory to creep back to her—Paul, standing in her studio apartment, saying that he’d retrieved her mail from the department.
“A medieval history textbook,” he’d said.
Out of curiosity, Julia leafed through the volume and found a business card wedged in the Table of Contents. The card was for Alan Mackenzie, the Oxford University Press textbook representative in Toronto. On the back of his card was a handwritten note that stated he’d be happy to help her with her textbook needs.
Julia was about to close the book and shelve it when her eyes alighted on one of the readings.
The Letters of Abelard and Héloise, Letter Six.
It only took an instant for Julia to recall her last conversation with Gabriel.
Gabriel turned away from Jeremy, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph four.”
Her heart racing, she turned the pages, shocked to find an illustration and a photograph marking the place where Abelard’s sixth letter was found:
But whither does my vain imagination carry me! Ah, Héloise, how far are we from such a happy temper? Your heart still burns with that fatal fire you cannot extinguish, and mine is full of trouble and unrest. Think not, Héloise, that I here enjoy a perfect peace; I will for the last time open my heart to you;—I am not yet disengaged from you, and though I fight against my excessive tenderness for you, in spite of all my endeavours I remain but too sensible of your sorrows and long to share in them. Your letters have indeed moved me; I could not read with indifference characters written by that dear hand! I sigh and weep, and all my reason is scarce sufficient to conceal my weakness from my pupils. This, unhappy Héloise, is the miserable condition of Abelard. The world, which is generally wrong in its notions, thinks I am at peace, and imagining that I loved you only for the gratification of the senses, have now forgot you. What a mistake is this!
She must have read the passage five times before its message began to sink into her agitated mind.
Julia looked at the illustration closely. The title read The Contention for Guido de Montefeltro. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t quite remember its significance. She grabbed her latptop, intent on looking the image up on the internet but quickly remembered that she didn’t have internet access in her apartment.
She located her phone, but the battery was dead and she had no idea where the cord was to recharge it. Undeterred, she returned to the book and picked up the photograph that had been placed next to the illustration. It was a picture of the apple orchard behind the Clarks’ house. Gabriel’s handwriting was on the back:
To my Beloved,
My heart is yours and my body.
My soul, likewise.
I will be true to you, Beatrice.
I want to be your last.
Wait for me…
When she’d overcome her shock, she was desperate to speak to him. She didn’t care that it was close to midnight and Mount Auburn Street was dark. She didn’t care that Peet’s had closed hours ago. She grabbed her laptop and fled her apartment, knowing that if she could stand just outside the door to Peet’s, she’d be able to pick up a wireless signal and email Gabriel. Julia had no idea what she would say. All she could do was run.
The neighborhood was almost silent. Despite the gentle drizzle and mist of warm vespertine rain, a small group of what looked like frat boys were about a half a block away, talking and laughing. Julia stepped from the curb and began to cross the street, her flip-flops squishing against the wet asphalt. She ignored the droplets that fell from the sky, soaking through her T-shirt. She ignored the thunder that began to roll and the flash of lightning that illuminated the eastern sky.
In the very center of the road, she stopped because straight ahead of her, she glimpsed a shadowy figure lurking in the darkness behind the oak tree in front of Peet’s. Another flash of lightning revealed that the figure was a man.
He was half-hidden by the tree and in the absence of light, she couldn’t make out his features. She knew better than to approach a stranger in the shadows, so she stayed where she was, craning her neck to see him.
As if in response to her movements, he came around the edge of the tree and slowly walked into the pool of light that cascaded onto the sidewalk from the street lamp. Another bolt of lightning shimmered overhead, and for one brief instant Julia thought he looked like an angel.
Gabriel.