Windy

I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to love him. I only knew that he saw me. He really saw me. No one else ever did. I was the invisible girl, the one hidden by a nothing-special face and an ever-present slump. “Slump” was what everyone called me because that’s what I did. I slumped along never looking up. (What was the point of looking up?) But he never called me Slump. Not even once.

I’d seen him, of course. I’d glimpsed him out of the corner of my eye as he walked past me like a breath of wind. Wind – That’s what he seemed like to me. A wind from a far away place, full of soft smells and strange warmth. He was much older than I was, already a man, and I was barely ten. But I was old in my heart, and inside, he was young.

It was the fountain that brought us together, and to this day, fountains are sacred to me – fountains and wind. On that wind swept day, I was walking past the fountain in the street, and he was splashing his feet in the water. I don’t mean quietly rinsing his feet the way other men did. I mean stomping in the water with his pants rolled up, splashing one foot and then the other and laughing at the sound it made. I couldn’t see him – not really – because I was slumped and invisible, but I heard him and I felt him. He must have felt me too, because he turned and saw me. “Come on,” he called to me as if we were friends. “Come and splash with me! It’s wonderfully cool!”

After being invisible for so long, to be suddenly seen was almost painful. I stood there frozen as if he had struck me, and I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I shifted my weight and tried to speak, but all that happened was a moan, and I quickly turned to go. But he jumped down from the fountain and blocked my way. He stood there in front of me like a towering hero, and I stood there slumped and silent, looking down at his feet. They were wet and glistening and beautiful. Then, I heard him say, “What is your name?” And my whole heart cringed.

“They call me … Slump,” I said, and the shame of it felt brand new.
“But that’s not your name, is it,” he answered. And my eyes lifted to his – almost as if I were used to looking up. “That’s not your name,” he said again gently, and a confusion of feelings washed over me. He waited as if I should say something, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Finally, he said simply, “You are … Sweet.” And he meant it as my name.

********

Spring comes slowly to ground that is frozen, but it comes. And the warm wind of his smile brought me back from winter. Slowly, day by day, our friendship grew until I believed him – Slump was not my name.
“I like the way you walk now, Sweet,” he said to me one day, as we sat with our feet in the fountain. “You walk like a little girl and not an old woman.”

“I have a new name,” I said shyly and couldn’t quite look him in the eye.
He laughed – such a kind sound – and said, “And what about my new name? What will you call me?” The wind danced across our toes as we dabbled them in the water, and without hesitation I said, “I’ll call you Windy.”

“Windy,” he repeated with a smile in his voice. “I like it.” And he never told me if he had any other name.

We often sat there by the fountain laughing and talking and splashing, and in my memory, those days are golden and full of the bright promises of wind. He took me to the hills, where I’d never dared to go, and showed me the distant horizon. He combed my knotted hair and braided it with flowers. He read to me, and taught me the names of birds. He carved for me delicate creatures out of soft wood – creatures I’d never seen before or even imagined. He sang to me of safety and of home.

Was it only a few months? It seems like a lifetime in my memory. But before it was over, I had given my heart to him as completely as any child has ever given her heart away. During that time, nothing changed for me except for him. I still had the same reasons to slump. But my name – my new name – was so often on his lips that I began to live like a well kissed child.

********

I only knew there was something wrong when people started to see me. I used to be invisible, but slowly I began to notice that people were looking at me. Actually, they were looking at us, Windy and I, and they were angry. Their eyes were hard. I didn’t understand it.

Sometimes, when we would sit together outside the village singing and making daisy chains, people would walk by and stare at the grown man and the young girl leaning lovingly on each other. Sometimes, when Windy and I ran hand in hand down the street, they would watch, frowning, from their doorways. Once, after washing my face by the fountain, Windy bent down and kissed my eyelids. “Sweet, you are clean,” he said with so much affection that my breath caught in my throat and tears glimmered on my lashes. But at that moment, the priest walked by and glared at us as if he had caught us in some lewd act. I didn’t understand why the priest was angry. I looked up into the face of my friend, the friend I loved with passionate innocence, and I asked him, “Why are people angry at us? Is it because you call me Sweet … instead of my name?”

“Sweet is your name!” he said with sudden intensity.
“Are you angry too?” I asked softly.

“No,” he said quickly, and then more slowly, “Well, yes, I am angry, but not with you, child. I am angry that people are so blind to innocent affection and so quick to twist what they don’t understand into something they do.”

I didn’t understand what he meant – not completely – but a shadow fell over my mind. It was clear to me that people didn’t want me to love Windy. They didn’t think it was right. And maybe it wasn’t. After all, I was just the girl who slumped. What right did I have to sprout wings and fly? I should leave him alone and go back to being invisible. That’s what their dark looks and their mutterings said as plainly as if they had screamed at me. But how could I go back to the way I was before I heard him say my name? Who but Windy would look into my nothing-special face and see someone named Sweet?

I struggled against it for many days, but the shadow grew in my mind, and eventually, I stopped going to the fountain. I saw less and less of Windy and actually began to avoid him. Slowly, I became slumped once more, and the people of the village seemed relieved that everything was returning to normal. Soon, I was as invisible to them as ever. The offense I had caused (and never fully understood) was gone – and so was my new name. I was Slump once more.

********

It wasn’t long before Windy left the village. At least, there came a point when I never saw him again. Winter fell, and the cold made its way into my bones. But perhaps, unknown and unseen, an ember of Spring survived inside me, for one day an idea flashed across my weariness like sunlight on snow. What if I became a foot washer? There had never been such a thing in my village, but the idea came to me as I watched the men coming home from the fields. They stopped to wash their feet in the fountain, and as usual, their clothes got wet and the fountain got dirty. Suddenly, I thought, “Surely a man would like to have his feet washed in a pretty basin at the end of the day – even by a slump!”

The idea would not leave me alone. I hadn’t cared about anything since Windy left, but now, the vision of washing feet burned brighter and brighter in my thoughts as if it were my destiny. And perhaps, I told myself, it was. Perhaps I was destined for it from the moment I stood slumped and silent before a towering hero, looking at his feet – wet and glistening and beautiful.

I kept my idea a secret until my thirteenth birthday, and then, I gathered all my savings and bought a white basin painted with yellow daisies. I took it to the fountain and waited for the men to come back from the fields. At the end of the day, I saw them coming, and when they stumbled up the fountain steps, I said, “Sit and rest, and I’ll wash your feet for a penny.” The men seemed to accept my new occupation as naturally as I did. “Washing feet is about all she’s good for,” they laughed. So, every day from then on, I took my basin to the fountain at sunset to earn a handful of pennies. Strange enough (or maybe not), I was happier there than anywhere else, slumped over my basin, washing the day’s grime from the men’s feet.

********

Years passed, and I became a woman, but my life didn’t change. I still washed feet for pennies and slumped along invisible and alone.
The king’s palace was far away, and the people of our town gave it little thought, but one day a messenger came to our village seeking servants for the king’s house. No one wanted to go, and so the priest pushed me forward. “This one is skilled at menial tasks,” he said. “She washes feet.”

I was taken by wagon to the palace along with three other orphans from a neighboring town, and when we finally arrived, we were shown to the servant’s quarters and left alone. I stood beside my small cot in my small room, and all was silent – Except for the sound of a fountain splashing outside my window. A warm shiver went through me like a premonition. “I think I’m going to like it here,” I whispered to myself.

The next day, I was sent to the kitchen, but I seemed to ruin everything I touched. “What are you good for, slouch?!” yelled the cook, and I thought it was a real question.

“I wash feet,” I answered in a quivering voice, and she stared at me.
“Wash my feet then!” she growled, and I thought she really meant it.
Immediately, I pulled a chair closer and said, “Sit and rest, and I will wash your feet.” I grabbed a bowl and filled it with water while the cook slowly sank into the chair, giving me a strange look. I knelt in front of her with the bowl and placed her dirty feet in the water. I washed and rubbed her feet as I had done to so many others, and when I finished, I looked up and saw that her eyes were closed and her lips were smiling. I dried her feet on my skirt and placed them gently on the ground. She opened her eyes, and looked at me in amazement.
“I … wash feet,” I said haltingly.

“Yes, you do!” she grunted, and then she burst out laughing.
From then on, my official task was washing the servant’s feet at the end of the day, starting, of course, with the cook! Before long, everyone was calling me “Washer”, and the name stuck.

********

One day dawns just like another, and there is no way to tell which one will bring a miracle. I woke up one morning to the familiar sound of the fountain splashing outside, but the next minute, someone was banging on my door, calling frantically, “Washer, are you up?” I jumped from the bed, and opened the door. The cook was standing there, red in the face and shaking with either excitement or fear. “Get dressed and come quick to the Throne Room,” she shrieked. “Someone told him you would wash his feet!” She pushed me back into my room and slammed the door. I heard her running back down the hall, and I grabbed at my clothes unsure what was happening.
In a few minutes, I was dressed, and I took off running toward the Throne Room with a racing heart and a racing mind! I had never been in the upper part of the palace, let alone the Throne Room, and I didn’t even want to imagine who the cook meant by “him”! She couldn’t mean … him! Not the king!

When I got to the door of the Throne Room, the cook was standing there with a basin filled with water, and as soon as she saw me, she started whispering urgently. “Don’t look at his face whatever you do,” she sputtered as she passed me the basin. “And don’t speak at all! My goodness, who ever heard of a king walking in the garden, barefoot, before breakfast! Oh, and don’t rub his feet too hard or spill the water! Don’t slouch whatever you do…” I think she was still whispering to me as I went through the door, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. My ears were buzzing, and my head was light.

I felt small and slumped as I walked across the huge room with my head down, sensing rather than seeing the dais getting closer and closer. I didn’t look up. I just kept walking, and suddenly there was the throne and his feet before me. I knelt down with the basin and gently lifted his feet. I placed them in the water, and as I did, he said, “Mm, thank you.” And that’s when my fingers went numb. They turned to ice, and I couldn’t make them move. It was his voice. It had gone straight to my heart and stopped my blood. It was the voice of a laughing fountain. It was the voice of a warming wind. It was the voice I knew better than my own. My mind scrambled to steady itself against the sudden, rushing memory of the only one who had ever really seen me. Windy. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

When I opened my eyes, I saw his feet – wet and glistening and beautiful – in my hands. I was holding them in the water, but I was frozen there, unable to move. “Wash his feet!” my mind pleaded, but I was struck motionless. I couldn’t do anything but wait. The silence seemed to last forever, and then he said the words that instantly swept me back to a springtime far away. “What is your name?” he asked. And those words lifted my eyes irresistibly to his own.
Can winter wither in a moment? Yes! Warm tears sprang to my eyes as I looked into the king’s face and saw that it was him! It was Windy! “They call me … Washer,” I managed to say.
“But that’s not your name, is it,” he said, and the smile of recognition he gave me left me weeping at his feet.

********

I have served in the palace for many years now. I am married to a good man, one of the palace guards, and we have two children. Even so, it is Windy who remains dearest to my heart. Does that seem strange? I guess, to some, it does. I know there are still people who watch and whisper as Windy and I walk hand in hand through the palace or sit together beside the fountain. They seem to feel our affection is inappropriate. But if they only knew my story, I think they’d understand. Then, they’d look at us and see, not a woman and a man, not a servant and a king, but a child and her savior.
Now, every day after supper, my husband kisses me warmly and sends me off to the Throne Room. And there I wash Windy’s feet. As I do, we rarely speak. There is too much understanding between us. But always, when I’m done, he bends down and kisses my eyelids as he did when I was a girl. “Sweet,” he calls me. And as he says it, it becomes my name – as if for the very first time.

By Cherie D