Everything Happens as It Does (5 page)

19.
Forward and Backward

 

Margarita often filled her black bag with things and went out.

No one knew where she went. No one knew what she had in that bag. She carried the heavy thing everywhere with her, and like the weight on a pendulum, the bag always brought her home.

One evening Valentin found a laptop in the bag. A magnificent little machine, a real gem. Where could she have gotten it from—had she stolen it? In answer to his questions, at first Margarita calmly repeated that it was hers. Then she flew into a rage and threw something at Valentin. In the end, she grew sad and shut herself up completely.

Valentin insisted and Maria was obliged to go to Margarita's room. When she entered, Margarita was asleep curled on the bed. Maria lifted the object tentatively, as if its weight could provide an explanation. She held it up for a while; too long, Valentin thought. Then she placed it back, took Valentin's hand and pulled him out of the room.

He could not accept the sudden and inexplicable appearance of this object. Finally, Maria, kindly enough, told him that if Margarita had stolen it, they would be charged with theft and that was it. What was this, some kind of irresponsible accountability? This was his own mother. Margarita didn't just conjure up the damn thing, he screamed at her, slamming the kitchen door and locking himself in his room.

He was angry for several days. When he saw Margarita hanging her bag over her shoulder and leaving again, he decided to follow her, sneaking noiselessly behind her. Margarita changed multiple buses and tramways, most of the time traveling in a circle. Finally she got off and headed with a firm step up the steep boulevard toward the crossing called Krusta. When she reached the top of the hill, she stopped at the traffic lights and stood there for a while. Then turned and headed for Hladilnika.

Valentin was getting annoyed. This was probably useless. For a moment he thought of catching up with his sister and helping her carry the heavy bag. It would have never crossed her mind that he might be following her. He was also getting tired, but now his legs seemed to be doing the walking alone. There was nothing to be done; he had to continue what he had started this morning. He had to follow the mysterious itineraries his sister was walking and protect her from unimaginable dangers.

When Margarita finally reached the first tram stop, he was cursing her for having walked for miles. With astonishment, he saw her climb into an empty tram going in the opposite direction. On the other hand, trams could not go in any other direction from here. She sat down, rummaged through her bag, and, in that long and empty tramcar, took out the computer, opening it on her lap like a first-class traveler on an airplane. Locals and residents from other parts of Sofia were filling the tram, so he hurried to take the seat behind her and look at the screen. No one else was paying attention to what Margarita was doing.

She was playing a rather complex game of solitaire, which looked like Clock Solitaire, but the cards were not arranged in a twelve-point star. At first it seemed that she was moving the cursor randomly across the screen, but then he realized that she was wielding the in-built mouse with impressive skill. And all of a sudden the game was over and she had won. The tramcar, already half-full, started to move.

Before they reached Vazrazhdane, where Margarita prepared to get off, obviously to return home, she had won quite a few games of solitaire, on average a game every couple of stops. He let her descend from the tram alone and stayed on, feeling a kind of dazed relief. Margarita had apparently won her right to go out and play with the computer.

Valentin got off several stops after his sister and also headed home. He was ashamed, but he had managed to get some kind of essential information. He had witnessed something that could serve as an explanation, although he knew it didn't really explain anything. Some words could be used to describe what Margarita was doing with the computer, but so what? Other words could be used to describe what had happened between him and Raya, but so what? Such words could form sentences full of pathos, yet they didn't lead to any clarity or illumination. They couldn't show him a way, or reveal a place where everything resolved itself and fell into place, if not forever, at least for a while. Why could things happen like this, but also like that, and otherwise?

Valentin felt like he had become the embodiment of a crossroads and that there were many possible directions. And he silently cursed his fate—to have been born an imperfect being, and lured, who knows why or how, into searching for meaning.

 

20.
Suite

 

The gentleman with the umbrella entered the café, looked around him for a place to leave his umbrella and after freeing himself of the thing by propping it up against the edge of the table, sat down and stared at it. Suddenly there was the sound of parchment-dry skin, hands rubbing together, and his fingers produced a kind of impatient double snap. He cast a glance around, as if to stretch his neck inside his shirt and jacket, though elegantly enough not to attract any attention. Still, several pairs of bored eyes briefly turned in his direction, then, the movement caused by his entry having subsided, his presence was accepted as a fact. The gentleman rose from his seat a little and settled back comfortably, obviously in a peaceful state of mind. He laughed to himself at the thought of the panicky “No room! There's no room!” from
Alice in Wonderland
, and felt happy.

The place was just the way he liked it—ceilings at least fifteen feet high, lined with plaster friezes, supported by large cream-colored marble columns; a thick, dark-green carpet on the floor and shiny brass ornaments over the heavy, polished furniture; ample, cushiony armchairs that invited intimacy; a discreet melody drifting from the enormous white grand piano which someone was probably playing.

In such a place, even waiting could be pleasurable. And he assumed the posture of a patient guest waiting for his party with an expression of benevolent tolerance.

He was meeting a client in a divorce case. She had emphatically refused to come to his office, for who knows what complicated reasons. So their first meeting was to take place on neutral ground, far from the courtroom, over afternoon tea whose taste could delicately suggest the
beau monde
. He had already ordered his tea and wondered whether his client would appear before the waiter returned, and whether his client would be able to recognize him. The elaborate ritual of recognizing someone, with its “oh” and “ah” and “are you… oh, I recognized you immediately.” The gentleman speculated if their conversation in such circumstances could be called “tête-à-tête.” It probably could, if it came to that. Some deluded hope that their starting positions would be equal, a game whose purpose was to distance themselves from what usually happened and so suppress the mounting anxiety. He felt satisfaction at his own ability to analyze the situation. Everything seemed under control.

Two people, a man and a young woman, entered, leaving the winter afternoon behind them, and sat down at a small table. The man reached forward and switched on the table lamp, which enveloped him and the woman in a golden circle of light. What calm and somehow objective harmony other people could project. His mother had her own way of making a similar kind of observation—why couldn't we be like other people and get it right for once? People were her preferred object of contemplation. And really, what could be more interesting than people, than the perpetual back-and-forth movement of glances from us to them, and from them to us, and the infinite variety of interpretations it engendered. People, the product of our outward looking gaze.

Enough; the silly meanderings of a bored mind. The young woman at the neighboring table was slowly taking her slender hands out of unlined leather gloves, literally peeling them off. The man with her was having a full-fledged conversation with the waiter.

The gentleman finally took his eyes off them and focused on the russet color of his tea. Only then did he realize that he had been staring at these people with admiration: they were very beautiful. Were they always and everywhere so beautiful? Probably not, but what difference did it make, now they were: a tableau on a small stage, and those lucky to be there observed the scene.

His umbrella suddenly came to life, slipping slowly off the table, and fell on the carpet with a thump. The gentleman looked at it languidly, without moving. Then he felt that someone was standing next to his table, someone with a tiny fragile body, cloaked in a mass of hair. An odd-looking woman with a baby in her arms, the unlikely silhouette of an outcast about to extend a begging hand? His fingers were already reaching for his pocket, when he heard “Good evening” from an equally unexpected voice that made him freeze. A lower class, yet educated voice aware of its power over the listener. His professional curiosity was piqued just as he began to realize that this incongruous figure might be the woman he was waiting for. He immediately jumped to his feet and his arms opened in an overly dramatic invitation to sit. Unembarrassed, the woman alighted like a bird on the sofa next to him. He had not yet replied to her greeting when he met her eyes, the color of fog. There was none of the “oh” and “ah” he had imagined, nor any other signs of communication. The woman, having emerged from the numbing cold, sleeping baby in her arms, simply sat next to him as if her place had always been there. Her presence, impossible to reference or classify, transfixed him.

The gentleman grabbed his teacup as if it were a life preserver, and tried to smile.

It wasn't you I spoke to on the phone, was it?

His ability to draw connections between things was slowly coming back.

No, it wasn't.

Her voice embraced him again, annihilating his willingness to speak. She is unreal, he thought unwittingly, such creatures exist only in fairy tales, and fairy tales, too, are unreal. Then a relieving possibility—could she be a gypsy?

He tried to examine her discreetly, which didn't seem very difficult because she was looking straight ahead, with an unhurried expression, as if not expecting anything at all. And what was there to see? Her dark hair shrouded her body so closely that only her face remained open, glowing with an opalescent light, with the baby's head blending into it. There was a supple movement and from her hair emerged pale fingers holding a lit cigarette. The woman drew on the cigarette, breathing in softly, and set her eyes on his.

Oh God, he thought.

You wanted to see me regarding your divorce?

They spoke for about ten minutes, which gave him the opportunity to understand that, thankfully, fate had been merciful and the woman's case was quite simple. If, naturally, one could call these facts simple: she had twenty-year-old twins from a previous marriage; her present husband and father of the baby was about thirty, known as one of the best minds in microbiology; she herself was about forty, owned significant property, and had a prenuptial agreement. The young husband did not contest the divorce, he had already left the house, and she was the one filing the necessary forms.

The gentleman handed her the simplified form used in such cases, the woman hid it somewhere in the rustling folds of her skirt, and said she would send someone to pay the fee. Both she and her husband, of course, would appear in court.

Meanwhile, the gentleman had offered her tea, or perhaps something else, but the woman had ignored both his question and the waiter's expectant pause. There was no contact between her and the overall system that made the café function, as if they were meeting on a cloud, beyond time and space. The gentleman never managed to draw her attention to anything beside the object of their meeting. It was agreed that he would be paid for his services through a bank transfer after the case was closed. The amount of money was never discussed.

Throughout this exchange the baby remained asleep, and refined chatter purled around them but never reached the gentleman's ears. The woman's voice consumed all space, displacing everything else. If she had but wished for anything, he would have rushed to satisfy her, or would have died on the spot. He silently thanked fate again that she had never wanted anything more than an outline of the routine procedures, which he described to her in some sort of semi-automatic trance.

At one point, he caught in his peripheral vision her silhouette standing up by the table. He heard an ineffable “Goodbye,” and the creature disappeared as unexpectedly as she had arrived.

The gentleman rubbed his stiff neck and, with some vague feeling of shame, began to regain his senses. The beautiful couple at the neighboring table was still there, but now they didn't seem extraordinary at all. Beauty had become plain and bearable.

 

21.
Backward

 

Margarita had not left her room for two days. Prickly cookie crumbs and whole or half-eaten apples were strewn among the sheets on her enormous bed. Piles of clothes carpeted the floor, upon which Margarita's bare feet now softly descended. She could hear indistinguishable noise from the bathroom, whose open door was throwing light into the encroaching darkness of her room. She had reached the state where taking a bath and getting dressed, or going to the kitchen, were becoming possible. The big table lamp from her grandmother attracted her attention and she flipped the switch. The lamp came on, reflecting back eyes from the past, looking. She turned on the tap to fill the bathtub and, with the temerity of an anaesthetized patient, opened the door to the hallway. There was no sound, none whatsoever. She shuffled her feet around a couple of corners and came into the kitchen. No one here, either. Maria, or rather, her mother, no—their mother—was out. Her big blue mug was on the kitchen table, but it was clean, no traces of coffee. Margarita headed for the baby's room. The crib was empty, except for a few toys. It smelled like baby.

Being alone, she relaxed into her typical dazed, free-floating state of mind. There was no need to worry whether she appeared ridiculous. Whether she could frighten someone. She would take her bath at leisure and go out to look for Valentin. Where? Somewhere by the university. Yes, that was what she was going to do.

A little later, her enormous bag on her shoulder, Margarita was scuffling along the little streets by the Czech Club near the university. Her long black coat fluttered behind her like a cloak. She approached a group of people in front of the club, stamping their feet in the cold under the glimmer of the lantern above the door. The place was still very popular and too small to accommodate all who wanted to get in.

Big snowflakes descended slowly through the darkness and melted in the light. Margarita stopped for a while by the group of people, but then suddenly felt hungry. She bought a bar of chocolate, and munching, continued on her way. Cold chocolate under falling snow, the nicest thing. Her bag shifted like a balancing weight on her left shoulder. Why had she taken it, and why was it always so heavy? Her inability to answer these questions drove Valentin to despair. She barely lifted her heels from the pavement now, sliding them instead, like skates on ice. Night's winter in the hushed streets and the scattered flicker of lights. She entered the dark hallway of a building, and not finding an elevator, took the stairs. When she reached the landing one floor below the garret, the lights went off. Her fingers felt their way to a button that turned out to be a bell and not a light switch. A door opened almost instantaneously and Margarita blinked in the dark. She explained that she was going up to the garret. The young man who opened the door stared at her, then pressed the light switch and disappeared. Margarita climbed the stairs and found herself in front of many doors, some of which apparently led to inhabited apartments. She knocked on each one. There was no answer, so she calmly turned around and went down the stairs. Valentin was not there.

She roamed the streets for an hour, twice crossed the Doctor's Garden under tree branches weighed down by snow, climbed another two sets of stairs, rang the bells on several doors to no avail—and finally decided to return home. It was getting colder.

The tramcar was surprisingly warm and full of people. The first face she saw on entering the tram was that of Valentin. He started to make his way toward her, gesturing incomprehensibly and smiling. When he finally reached her, he kissed her in the middle of her blissful face, on her nose.

Where have you been in this freezing cold?

I was looking for you—was her answer, which provoked a nod of despair from Valentin. He explained that he was just about to go home to pick up some books.

Are you carrying rocks? Valentin tried to lift her bag. He knew the question was not going to receive an answer. He simply took the bag off his sister's shoulder and bowed under its weight.

When they entered the apartment, it was still deserted. To their shared, unspoken relief. These moments, when it was just the two of them, were rare.

While Valentin was searching through his room and the bookshelves, Margarita sat down at the table with a small jug of wine and two glasses. After a while, Valentin settled next to her and started talking. Margarita was not listening to him, she was just looking at him blissfully, repeating to herself that she had found him. Where exactly was his garret?—It didn't matter. One day she would find out. He kept chatting, carefully watching the expression on her face. This faraway, happy girl, his own crazy sister, the lovely Margarita. He felt like grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her awake. But now was not the time. Now he just wanted to look at her and to talk, without getting her involved in anything, letting her be the way she wanted to be. Right in the middle of all kinds of things happening, staring absently.

The floor shook lightly. Valentin looked up and saw the ceiling lamp quiver. He lunged for their coats; books could be heard tumbling in the hallway; he yelled something at Margarita. She didn't stir, but just kept smiling at him. Valentin became angry, grabbed her by the hand and felt her inert body resist. He threatened to leave her alone, they needed to get out because there was an earthquake. Margarita continued to look at him. Infuriated, Valentin slammed the door behind his back and ran downstairs, away from this madhouse where his mother was nowhere to be seen and his sister sat grinning in the kitchen.

By herself now, Margarita began to cry. She walked slowly to her room. The warm light of her grandmother's lamp welcomed her back. She turned on the tap to fill the bathtub again. That was how she drowned her tears—with water.

The transparent liquid absorbed her naked body and her hair floated around her head like a halo. She felt fine. She heard Valentin ring the doorbell, he had probably forgotten his keys and was coming back now that the earthquake had stopped. When the furious bell fell silent, Margarita got out of the water, splashing some on the floor. Her wet feet pattered across the empty space and reached the door, which she opened only to discover that Valentin was nowhere to be seen. She wondered if she had gone out at all today.