Everything Happens as It Does (6 page)

22.
Later

 

Later that night, Margarita woke up and looked at the lit lamp by her bed. The light made her feel warm and safe. She stretched her arms and legs in different directions, like a starfish; no matter how far she stretched, the edges of the bed remained beyond the tips of her fingers. The bed is my ship, she often said to herself, my territory, my planet. The planet of the Little Prince. With his sheep. Margarita too had a plush sheep, though it probably lay somewhere, who knows where, under the piles of clothes on the floor.

She decided to take a stroll to the kitchen and, walking into the hallway, saw that the light was on. I must have forgotten to… Someone was in the kitchen, someone was sleeping on the wide couch her mother had put there. Margarita guessed immediately—it was Maria. When and how had she reappeared? It never even occurred to her to ask. No one could pose such questions to her mother. A full ashtray on the table and the little bundle with protruding, tiny, child-like feet under the enormous mass of hair. Margarita ran to the baby's room—the baby was fast asleep, cradled in its baby smell. And Maria returned every night, taking the baby from the crib and breastfeeding it, holding it and singing lullabies, and then she'd turn into a swan again and glide down the river.

So now what? Everything seemed to be alright, but Margarita did not feel at ease. Usually things in her life were not alright; to be amiss was in the order of things. Her mother was sleeping soundly, unperturbed—he who can, let him try and wake her. You're smoking too much, you'll turn into a witch, her father used to scold her mother. But I am a witch, Maria would reply.

Margarita took the ashtray and tipped it over the garbage can. A few cigarette butts fell on the floor. She picked them up and then rinsed her fingers at the sink. Water drops spattered over her bare feet. She wondered whether she should cover her mother with a blanket or switch off the light. This way it could all seem real—someone real is truly asleep, in this real night, just like in other people's houses. She didn't dare do either. This fragile being, coiled up like a round bun, should not be disturbed, could not be disturbed. It was one of the first laws Margarita had learned to observe.

No breath could be heard from under the hair. Margarita felt a familiar fear rear its head—was her mother a living thing? A human being? But such a question could not even be formed. Something lay hidden in this tiny, motionless creature, curled-up like an unborn baby on the kitchen sofa, something that no one, under any circumstances, could reveal. Was she sleeping or not, Margarita had no way of knowing. And she had no way of finding out. Was her mother angry, did she feel love—no one ever knew. And no one was ever able to ask her such questions.

Margarita ran back to her room, silently closed the heavy oak door and turned the key in its lock.

Then she lay down on the bed and looked at the lamp.

 

23.
The Gentleman Mr. V.

 

The gentleman Mr. V., the lawyer, heard the car door close behind his back with a velvety thump. His chauffeur was going to wait for him, for as long as necessary. He saw the chauffeur light up a cigarette before he entered the apartment building. His wife's daughter lived on the third floor in a seemingly endless apartment resembling an art gallery. With her big cat.

He rang the doorbell twice. Its pleasant lilt could be heard echoing through infinite empty spaces on the other side. Fanny opened the door and without saying a word led him into the living room, where, on a small corbel table, was a steaming pot of tea. Why do I always have tea, the gentleman thought to himself, but he was going to have some tea and with pleasure, as usual. Fanny put the tray on the dinner table and the two of them settled down with some buttered toast, jam and small jugs full of who knows what—probably milk or cream.

Mr. V. had an envelope with money for Fanny, but before giving it to her they had to have a little chat. About this and that and the other. Or the ins and outs. Or the polar bear cubs at the zoo. Or Fanny's gallery and her cat Pavoné.

Fanny looked like a wild thing, of some northern species precious for its gray-white fur. Every time he met with her, Mr. V. went through two emotional stages: first, confusion at the sight of her exquisite pedigree features, and then, confusion again, at the simplified relationship he had with her. Her house was like the Snow Queen's palace—ice-white and empty, the floors smooth like mirrors. Who polished everything here? Or maybe there was no need for polishing, so much did it feel like an ice palace. One could see one's breath in winter.

Mr. V. wondered if her bed was covered in white down, like a snowdrift. Did she go to bed in a gown like Sleeping Beauty?

It was time to show her the bills for the sale of two paintings and a sculpture of indefinable genre. Fanny signed her name in the designated places, and the envelope changed hands. She never asked any questions about her mother, which always put the gentleman
ill at ease. But he was strictly professional; besides, he had other meetings to attend to. Fanny was also strictly professional and knew how to get what she wanted. There was no need to waste their time here anymore. Mr. V., however, did deliver his wife's invitation for the weekend. Fanny proffered no answer and led him toward the door. What would happen if she turned now and looked at him with her lynx-like eyes? The end. While climbing down the stairs, his legs tingled with the fainthearted ecstasy of his imagination. So much more powerful and worthwhile than real life, where everyone had to play only his or her part.

 

24.
Even Further Backward

 

Valentin was sitting at his small desk under the low slanted ceiling, contemplating the domes of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He wasn't sure he liked the cathedral, which wasn't really a cathedral, although everyone called it that. A memorial temple. A massive church, squat and puffy like braided Easter bread. Nonetheless, a landmark on the peninsula. He wondered: what peninsula, exactly? It was the inland, rather, the continental part of the peninsula. Which meant not on the peninsula.

He was reading about Haussmann's plan for rebuilding Paris. The book was absorbing, but there was also something that deterred his progress. The more he read, it seemed, the denser the text became. He had reached the point where he had to pause after each sentence and read it again, and sometimes reread the preceding sentences. He was moving through the text at a snail's pace; on top of that, he fell into daydreaming so often that he suspected himself of using the book merely as a pretext, or subtext, or transtext—how many more of these could people come up with?

The important thing was that now he was precisely where he wanted to be—in the little garret, as if tailor-made for him. He was feeling as calm as a sleepy kitten, with the little roof over his head, and sitting in front of the beautiful big window, which let his eyes wander above tree tops and chimneys. He was holding the book in his hands, he liked this book, he was going to continue reading it. A distant window beamed bright orange with the rays of the setting sun and Valentin burrowed under the blanket on his bed.

Just then the church bells began to ring, singing, enfolding him in their peals; they burst in, filling the air of his small garret, also pervading that quiet, barely noticeable emptiness that tormented him sometimes at night and which, on such nights, he called simply “my head.” What peninsula—there were bells ringing, and that was that.

From the moment he had moved into the small garret, perfectly suitable for his meager needs as a student, and he had surrounded himself with books, Valentin knew that he had made an important step. But was it a step forward or backward? He was old enough not to ask himself such questions. Here, no one tried to melt him like ice on a hot stove and tuck him away in a precious jar. Whatever happened, he could always go back to his garret.

He thought of his father. His father had also found a place, somewhere where he could imagine himself still living. On the other hand, where would Boris go? To some far country, so that he could peer through the distance at his parents' house. Maria had finished with him in about two years, but Boris, he would continue to think of her as his wife. Same as his father. Was there going to be a third? What an absurd question. His mother never changed. It was as if she had come into the world the way she was, ready-made. That was probably how she was going to disappear, too. If such a thing was at all conceivable.

Valentin shivered. The bells had fallen silent. And he was thinking of her death, his mother. Conceivable?

Dozing off already, he realized that he no longer knew what the question was—what was conceivable or not? His mother, or her death? Then he said to himself that the two were one and the same, and fell asleep.

 

25.
Night Vigils

 

Margarita tiptoed between tangled legs and arms, tilted lamps, overturned glasses and all kinds of remnants from hours of sitting, smoking, talking and listening to music. She saw a couple kissing, their lips sunk into each other with such riveting force that she could not take her eyes off them. Worn-out desperate things had a strange effect on her. A threadbare blanket, for example, or this hopeless kiss, beautiful like a dead rose's petals dripping with their scent of hysteria. She decided to walk around them, bumped into a sleeping body and the solid surface of an armchair, finally reached an emptier space with enough room for both her feet and managed to steady her step. Where could she have left her coat, her oversized, long black coat and her gigantic bag? They must be here somewhere. The figure of a man holding a candle appeared out of nowhere. Nothing ever happened the way one anticipated it. Come to think of it, even tonight, earlier in the evening, she had tried to explain that she didn't have the time, but it turned out that she did have the time, she had lots of time. And what birthday were they talking about, no one had a birthday. At least she couldn't see anyone who had a birthday.

For the first hour or so, it had been only the three of them—the boy who had brought her and who seemed to know her very well, and the girl she had assumed was the hostess, as she had changed into different clothes at least twice. They had all been sitting around a low coffee table when the girl had stood up and walked away, and just when they had almost forgotten about her, she reappeared wearing something like a transparent nightgown over her naked body. She looked beautiful in the dim light. Then more people came and Margarita lost sight of the girl, only to see her later in a different outfit, which made her doubt for a moment that it was the same person.

Now she was looking for her coat and her bag, and she was starving. Finally she stepped into a room with piles of coats thrown on a bed, and she buried her hands to search for hers. She recognized it by the touch of her fingers, like a blind person, and pulled it out, overcoming the resistance of the soft mass of clothes around it. Her bag was on the floor and she almost tripped over it. She flung it on her shoulder, continuing to tread carefully toward the exit.

Once outside, she could see only machines; there were people, but the people were all inside machines—trams, buses, and cars. She didn't feel like going home, and decided instead to visit her father. The trams' jangle and dazzling threaded lights did not seem inviting, so she headed there on foot, her heavy bag on her shoulder.

Walking gave her the satisfaction of work well done. Work that was pleasant and amusing, squeak-squeak-squeaking feet on the snow. Gliding, slaloming between the parked cars, stopping at traffic lights, standing upright like a soldier.

At night the city looked like a picture. Spaces look indistinct, the houses are surprising. At night the city lets you be; it lets you in, in all of its places, which, you then realize, belong to the city and not to you, a passerby. If you are brave enough, it will let you in even deeper, to places invisible in daylight no matter how hard you look for them. Night people in the city know this, they belong to the city, and that's why they are scary and others are frightened by them.

Margarita was not thinking about these things. She never thought about anything at all. Thinking for her was like floating down a babbling stream, gently propelled by the drift of her unusual perceptions, until someone broke the spell by speaking or asking for something. No one had ever heard Margarita herself ask for anything. If she happened to feel like “asking,” what other people would call “asking,” she just let her feet take her to a place where whatever she needed simply happened to her. If she ever felt scared by something, she would run away and no one could stop her. She had thus gone through a number of schools, special schools and ordinary ones, she had started many classes and abandoned many, until one day Maria decided that she deserved some peace. Margarita read books, children's stories and other books, she went out with people, to the cinema or elsewhere, but how far her knowledge of things extended was a mystery. She did not seem depressed about not fitting into a normal category, and the doctor, Mr. T., whom she was seeing about once a month, had himself come to a standstill in observing her perpetual state. Valentin would sometimes drag her with him for weekends or holidays with friends, and Margarita would blend in, in her own dazed way. At the same time, she never forgot faces or people in general. Her memory, free as it was from all other things, recorded words, faces, situations—gathering an endlessly abundant material that would make quite a few film directors happy.

Now she strolled about the city and registered no signs of danger. Every once in a while she felt the weight of her bag and moved it to her other shoulder. What was in that bag, only she knew, whatever
to know
meant for Margarita.

The window of her father's apartment gleamed like a beacon. He answered the door almost immediately, dumbfounded to see her. So much so, that for a moment he did not invite her to come in, but let the smell of something burning reach her nose in wafts through the open door.

Are you alright?

Margarita smiled at him happily and he stepped back. He knew that she perceived things differently, but all the same he felt uncomfortable that she could see the remains of his lonely midnight dinner in the black frying pan. He chased away the thought of Maria's ability to prepare something tasty out of anything, her oven turning out unbelievable dishes as if by itself.

Margarita looked at the piano, but her father waved his hand—not now, people are sleeping.

I'm hungry, dad.

Straight away he put a plate and some bread on the table, poured her a soda drink and took a salad out of the fridge. Margarita began to chew heartily, while her father wondered how he could possibly tell her that he was worried about her.

He asked about Valentin, but quickly hit some barrier and concluded that he needed to find out what was happening at his wife's house.

Margarita finished eating, suddenly looking sad. He shouldn't have spoken to her about Valentin. He took a sip of his beer and asked her about the baby. Margarita's reaction was calmer, her mother and the baby were fine. And dear Boris? She hadn't seen him for a while.

Her father felt anxious, the way he did every time he received news from Maria's house. Margarita stirred from her seat like a restless bird before a storm. She wanted to go to bed and her father drove her home. He kissed her goodnight, lightly, as if this was something he did every night.

When she climbed into her enormous boat of a bed, her grandmother's lamp was still lit. She couldn't tell if there was anyone in the house.