My lover tells me the story of Laüstic, The Nightingale. In Marie de France’s lai, a noble woman listens to a nightingale on her balcony each evening in the unspoken company of a handsome neighbor for whom she yearns as beautifully and perfectly as the bird sings. Her husband, ignorant of his rival, kills the nightingale and delivers her the bird wrapped in his handkerchief. Now you will have no reason to leave our chamber and stand on the balcony. The corpse is small and warm, the linen damp and stained with blood from the arrow’s wound. She holds it until even her burning hands cannot warm the bones.

My lover is the jealous husband. His wife, who is still in the city where he used live, meets nightly with his best friend. He is sure of it. The noble woman, he tells me, orders a gold and jewel case for the dead bird which she wears on a golden chain around her neck for the rest of her life.

We broil lambchops and make ratatouille in his rented townhouse. The walls are so thin you can hear the neighbors turn over in bed. They have probably heard this story but have forgotten it. He’ll change the sheets after I leave because his wife is visiting this weekend, or next, if she comes at all. She has been saying, What’s the point? There’s nothing there. You should come home.

All these years, I have been wondering, am I the nightingale or am I carrying it?

– Ellen White Rook