“May the wind carry me away. There is no way back anymore”, she thought, and looked back with disgust. What was waiting for her there? There was nothing but disappointment, pain and death. In some way she already felt more dead than alive. “It won’t get worse”, she gasped and sheltered on the island of light under a lantern.
Black like an upturned inkpot of oblivion, the night was flowing around her. Time and again rambunctious wind would blow close to her barely distinguishable voices from distant, entangled like destinies, boisterous streets.
“What street is this?” there was an alien unfamiliar voice ringing in her head.
“Is it really that important?” she gave a defiant response.
The blessed silence was reigning on a dull street and inside her.
“How empty it is”, she thought, suppressing flickering tears on her eyelashes.
The pocket of her partly up-flung cashmere coat was vibrating. It was her cellphone. Could it be that someone was looking for her? Could it be that someone needed her? Sucked in by a strange feeling of excitement she pressed “answer”.
“Hello, Irene? This is Jean-Luc speaking. The Russians have confirmed the meeting. I need the translation of the agreement by tomorrow morning. You won’t let me down, will you? Okay then, bye! Have a nice night!” Her boss hung up while she was still looking at the illuminated island of her phone screen.
Fifteen pages of technical translation on a Friday night after an exhausting working day. She was ready to fall on the cold sidewalk and cry her eyes out, but instead it was her new shiny phone which fell on the ground and flushed into the sluice. Irene was motionless. She tried to force her hand into the sluice. In vain did she search for a passer-by to ask for help. Everything was futile.
The night was thickening around her, mantling the town.
“Look at him. Raise your eyes”, the restless voice whispered to her again.
“Where upwards?” she responded furiously.
“Up there, in the windows of the house across the street!” the voice was tweaking her mind insistently, a pizzicato countermelody of distraction, while she was trying to hook her phone with a twig found on the sidewalk.
“And yes, forget about your phone. It is all for the best. You’ve been long looking for an excuse to abandon this hateful job. And now, at last, you have it”. This sudden thought sobered her. Irene stood up and abandoned the fringe of light, finding herself in the kingdom of the night.
Unremarkably white, swollen from lime, commonplace buildings came apart. There was an old Italian baroque house built a century and a half ago that emerged right in front of her. Irene shivered. Her light-splashed face was distorted with bewilderment.
“I know this house, I’ve seen it before”, she thought, dumbfounded.
“What did I tell you?” the voice responded with a smug and selfcongratulatory tone.
“How strange”, she thought, and looked at the warm yellow light emanating from the windows. The wind was flapping against window frames, taking away chipped pieces of white paint. The house was nowhere near new, indeed it gave the impression of not belonging to this city, this country or this epoch. Yet there was something about it that felt astonishingly familiar.
One of the windows was wide open. It was the window to which according to the voice, Irene was supposed to fix her gaze. The window was on the front facade right above the gate, leading to the grey, moonlit courtyard.
“What a charming girl”, a deep male voice said. Out of darkness there was a concierge dressed in a tail-coat with neatly trimmed sideburns who was making his way to her. The man came up to the ornamented fence and not without pleasure studied Irene’s pale face. “Come up. He is waiting for you”, he said cunningly, and having opened the gate for her, he withdrew back into darkness.
“Who is waiting for me?” she asked herself, examining air pockets of fresh paint on the front door.
“He is”, the voice responded in her head.
Despite its apparent heaviness, the door yielded easily. In front of her there was a foyer with the spiral staircase running upwards. Marble steps slumped underfoot, adopting the shape of her boot. On both sides in cast chandeliers candles were weeping, throwing off crimpy shadows on the walls.
Away, somewhere on the top floor she seemed to be aware of a young woman playing Chopin’s nocturne, and her beloved - full of admiration - turning pages of the score. In the opposite apartment a wife seemed to be blowing off the dust from old photographs, while her husband wrapped in a plaid was reading poetry to her.
All apartments of this house were living and breathing their own life, all the while the cabinet clock imperceptible to all, was striking nine times. At the last strike Irene froze. The pulse was pounding in her head. She was standing right in front of the apartment whose windows had lured her, but not daring to knock.
Her gaze wandered all around the door. “What’s his name?” She looked over the walls searching for the name of the owner.
Next to the door bell under the glass she found “Jacques & Irene Montinieu”. Irene staggered. “Could it be a dream?” she thought, studying her wobbling reflection in the mirror framed by chandeliers.
She brushed gently the door’s old wood, ready to knock, to put an end to all these puzzles once and for all, but the door was opened even before she made her presence known. Irene noticed how the long empty corridor stretching before her, virtuously twisted around, creating the feeling of intimate closeness and mystery. High ceilings were adorned with mouldings. Contours of a black grand piano were visible from one of the rooms. Everything here seemed familiar to her, everything lured her to come inside and stay there forever.
Not knowing how, Irene found herself in a cosy drawing room in front of the lit fireplace and an open Bosendorfer Grand. The room was scented with freshly cut lilies, rare books and burning down, crackling bark. The window, that very window that lured her here, was half open. There was water shining in it. It was the first rain of March that filled the city with springtime freshness.
“Irene”, she heard the warm, familiar male voice behind her. She was afraid to turn around, afraid to look into the face of the one she hoped (or feared?) she was looking for and waiting for all her life. And what kind of story was this anyway? It was already clear to Irene that such things could only happen in a dream, only in a world we invent for ourselves, fantasies which erupt only to hide us from cold reality, in which every person is alone. “Irene”, the voice repeated passionately and seized her wrists. How intensely she became aware, of all things, of the warmth of his hands, the touch of these long musical fingers. How familiar it all felt to her. With her eyes semi-shut, Irene stretched her hands out to him, crucified to her own fears which were transforming themselves imperceptibly inside her bruised self awareness into hopes. “Let it be so”, she made up her mind, “If it’s just a dream, then for as long as I keep my eyes closed, I will stay with him a moment longer”.
He drew her closer to him, each inch of distance closed seeming to rage with expectancy, and he closed her in his arms.
“I missed you so much. Oh, how much I missed you, Irene”, he whispered, running his warm fingers down her long hair.
The cabinet clock struck twelve times. “Is it midnight already?” Irene thought, detached and opened her eyes.
“Oh God!” an unintentional gasp slipped out, “Jacques!”
Body, soul, mind and awareness curled up in her stomach in an intense spasm of excitement.
“I have seen you in my dreams all these years. Oh God, how happy I am! Where have you been before? Where?
***
“Did I wake you up, Irene?”
Copyright © 2017 by Anna Novikova
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods.
No comments:
Post a Comment