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Why aren’t there places like that for fallen men, I wonder, where they are tsked and told every day that their recklessness has led to disaster?
I was enchanted by the way the word amaryllis fell on my ear, and the color that filled my mind when I said it out loud. It was such a beautiful word. And I loved even more the notion that its bulb was a promise of beauty to come, despite the harshness of winter.
An amaryllis is always waiting to delight and surprise you, even when your world seems cold and dark. I
A life that will allow me to buy amaryllis bulbs to my heart’s content—the only “children” I will ever have. And I will have them. Windowsills full of them. A life where the colors are my well-kept secret. A life that is good.
Martine’s words to Johannes that long-ago night are echoing in my head and heart. Who are we to say their lives are meaningless, Johannes! Who are we indeed? I rise from my chair, shaking with anger and regret for all that I did and cannot undo. “You think you know everything, have seen everything,” I say. “But I’m the one who has seen where this takes us all in the end, how the way you’re thinking right now can degrade and make you—yes, you, Doctor—just like Hitler and all his murdering Nazis. You want only perfect people living in the world, and for you and only you to decide what is perfect
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They wish for me begin work on the book right away. I’ve never thought of myself as a writer, but I immediately feel that I can share on paper as easily as I can at a podium. At least I believe I can, and isn’t that half the recipe of any successful endeavor? The belief that you can do it? A book is always in many places at once. That is its singular wonder. A book takes one voice speaking and makes it many. A book can shine far brighter and longer than I ever could on my own.
“Power like that can’t be stopped,” and my own voice saying back to him, “Of course it can.” It can. It is stopped. All the time. Not with a magic wand or hopeful thoughts or wishful thinking or mere words, but with courage and resolve and the refusal to allow those without voices to remain unheard.
