Saturday, August 9, 2008

The Bishop's Palace, France

We entered under the stern gaze of two stone statues. They stood to attention on the side of a square lawn like security guards. Later, I came to see the statues as oversized bishops standing by the side of a chessboard lawn. The lawn was the board on which our family rivalries and manoeuvres were played out, where meetings and departures were frequent and significant. Each word was tense, on edge; every move altered the balance of power between siblings, lovers, children. We were the pawns. I didn't realise it then, but my family were playing dangerously close to checkmate.
The house was antiquated, majestic - an appropriate place for a grand reunion of faded fortunes and dreams. Grand turquoise sofas sighed when you sank into them. Heavy curtains of burnished gold glowed with sunlight, wooden floors ached with moths and bats and cobwebs. Rot and deterioration crept into every corner.
The bookshelves were packed with neglected beauties, a veritable Aladdin's cave of books. Their thick leather bindings sported gold leaf that glimmered. These books were ghosts of an old nobility, meticulously ordered and beautifully bound - but never read. The paintings were of little boys and pretty young women whose eyes followed you through the corridors. They glimmered in the dark and watched.

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