Rain drizzled and the winds howled. Jack pressed on, determined to not let the weather stop him. An occasional passing car splashed water up at his feet.
He drew up to the graveyard and squeezed through the gate. It was cold, and mixed with the rain and wind, Jack shivered. He moved to the far side, the newest graves and the fewest as well, and he found the one he was looking for, the one he knew by heart.
Sarina – Daughter, Mother, Child. DMZ
DMZ. Jack let that sink in again.
Dead Man’s Zambra. The Forbidden Dance, Way of the Movers. The Zambras.
Sarina had met her fate at thirty-two. Caught dancing the zambra mora.
Jack knelt down at the head of her grave. He pulled four purple roses from within his thick jacket and set them down in front of the tombstone.
“One for each fight so needlessly fought. One for the night that I saw you fall still. One for first sight and our first lover’s kiss, and one in the light where I’ll meet you again.”
Jack muttered these words under his breath, watching as wasps of fog slipped from his mouth. He would have lit a candle as well, but in this rain it would neither work nor last. Instead, he pulled the candle from his inner-jacket pocket and pushed it into the mud between the middle roses.
With a sweeping of his hands, he made a line through the wet leaves, a border around the entire area where, six feet below, he believed Sarina’s body must lie. This took a few minutes, but he pulled a bag from his jacket when done.
Chocolate kisses.
He opened the bag, and as if to seal up this border he’d made, he placed one chocolate kiss pointing up, and another right next to it, and another and another, filling the grave’s border. It took him a long time, but eventually he had the kisses all placed, facing the falling rain, each one touching the ones to their sides.
Jack pulled a pillow from within his jacket, his last hidden item. It was wet from the rain like the ohters. He placed this below the flowers, not underneath, but further from the tombstone than the roses. He lay down on this pillow, six feet above his Sarina.
The rain poured and the wind howled, yet Jack lay still and soon fell asleep. A while passed as he slept like this, but when he awoke he found that the rain and wind had calmed.
A light further in the graveyard caught his eyes. It drew near, growing bigger and brighter but never too much.
“Hello my Sarina,” he said when the light reached his feet.
He remained on the ground, aware that his touch would end it all. She nodded her head. He gazed at her beauty and found himself happy.
“Dance for me,” Jack said. It was a plea as much as a statement. “Dance the forbidden dance. Dance me the dead man’s zambra. Dance me the zambra mora!”
The ghost moved away no more than a few feet. She turned in the direction of the central graveyard and beckoned. A ghost appeared and made its way toward them.
This second ghost held an instrument as surreal as himself.
“Hector!” Jack’s eyes widened in surprise.
Hector the ghost nodded in reply and began playing a tune that only they knew. Jack clapped his hands, a rhythm appropriate for the dance. Sarina began moving, her hands and her feet, spinning and moving as befitted the dance.
The song sounded eerie, washed out by its ghostliness, but Hector played and Jack clapped and Sarina danced. Tears rolled down the sides of Jack’s face, mixing with light rain that continued to fall.
It was wonderful, the zambra mora, dead or alive.
A long while passed, Jack enjoying his loved ones, them bringing him peace, but as always happens, the time soon came that they must say goodbye.
The rain picked up and the music and dancing died down, fading to the smallest trickle and ceasing altogether.
Jack smiled contentedly happy as they departed, and he lay there a little longer, getting up when the cold grew too strong.
He left the roses and the kisses and candle, picked up the pillow and walked to the gate.