The Rainbow Bridge by Aubrey Flegg

General coughed and tapped the hourglass.
    Somewhere in the present-day building, someone, Raoul perhaps, dropped a saucepan.

    Gaston opened his eyes and lay staring up at the ceiling. His first feeling was one of relief at having woken at all; he had thought that he was trapped in that dream forever. Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed that there was someone sitting beside him. He turned, expecting to see Raoul, but it was a woman … a girl really. She smiled at him. Her face seemed familiar, but he could not place her just at the moment. He felt his eyes closing, but then he remembered his dream, and opened them again quickly; he didn’t want to go back to that.
    ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but do I know you?’
    ‘I’m Louise Eeden, the girl you rescued from the canal.’
    ‘Oh God …’ he groaned.
    ‘I’m sorry… would you like me to go?’
    ‘Oh no, please stay. It’s just that … I thought I had woken, but I must still be dreaming. The General did tell me that I couldn’t wake up until I had written my story.’
    ‘That sounds interesting,’ the girl said, leaning forward. ‘Tell me about your dream.’
    Gaston explained, as best he could, about the General and the examination he had to undergo. Rather to his surprise, she laughed. ‘My father told me about a philosopher once who said that perhaps we are all part of someone else’s dream. But I don’t think you can be expected to write your own story. We do that by living. Maybe someone else is trying to write your story and is waiting for you to decide who you really are. In any event, I think you can consider yourself awake now.’
    Gaston thought about this; then he smiled ruefully. ‘But if I’m awake you’ll have to go, won’t you – and I may never see you again?’
    ‘You’ll have my picture. Anyway, you may not want me around; I may just be part of your fevered imagination. Close your eyes … I’ll stay here, but only if you want me.’ Gaston closed his eyes. It was all too much for him, but somehow he felt happier than he had in ages and soon slipped into a deep and restorative sleep.

    As Louise watched the young man sleeping, she wondered about her presence here. She thought back to the only time, since the explosion in Delft, when she had really ‘lived’ in someone else’s mind. After the catastrophe, Master Haitink,the artist who had painted her portrait, had gone into a decline. But while his body failed, his mind remained strong; Louise’s image grew to be so vivid in his memory that he began to see her as if in life. During that year – as the town of Delft froze in grief – Louise came and sat with the old man, just as she was sitting now with this young French officer, trying to be a comfort and a real presence for him. When eventually the Master passed away, she was by his side.
    It was Pieter, the Master’s apprentice, who had finished Louise’s portrait after Master Haitink’s death, but because he had no indentures and no master, he could neither teach nor sell his own paintings. It had been a dreadful time. Time and again, racked with grief, Pieter had tried, in his own way, to do what the Master had done: recreate Louise in his mind as he worked, but their love had been too real to allow regeneration, their time together too precious. The pain of another parting would destroy Pieter. So she held back, and as time passed, she saw the possibility of a new love emerging for him. After the Master’s death Pieter had stayed on as a watchman and helper in the public house. Tongues began to wag at his continued presence in the house of the young widow. Mistress Kathenka was not yet forty when she and Pieter married. Though initially a marriage of convenience, it soon matured to love, and Louise was glad for Pieter. It was only when he picked up his brushes to work on her portrait for the last time, however, and painted her name on the plinth of the urn, that the pain of her death finally left him, and the