Love Is Never Past Tense... (16 page)

But the long-awaited surface was too far away. “Where has it dragged me—fifteen meters down, or more? To such a depth I didn’t dare dive, even as a youth with flippers …” The feelings of asphyxiation suddenly stopped, and he knew the next step: oxygen starvation and loss of consciousness. And still—he knew he couldn’t exhale, but had to keep going incrementally upwards, without hurry, without panic … It seemed to him, that he was stroking for an eternity, that he already turned into a fish and lived there, in the depths of the sea. Suddenly his hand plunged into something jellylike. With loathing, he tried to swim away from the big jellyfish, but the tentacles nevertheless hooked on him and painfully burnt him. Circles appeared in front of his eyes. They were either going farther, or coming nearer, and they were some strange, dark brown color. “Everything will now become dim,” he thought. “The brain will be disconnected …”

Already isolated and absolutely fearless, the old man thought hard. His sensations weakened, he easily and resignedly gave in to the charge of death, but still continued to stroke away from this monstrous abyss. His movements were slowed down, and no more strength remained in his muscles. So, haggard with pursed lips, he suddenly appeared on the surface. He took a breath, but not immediately, which is what usually happens. He lay on his back and let out the burnt air, then greedily took a gulp of fresh air. He floated and breathed often, restoring his breath, and watched with interest as life returned to him. Gradually the circles disappeared. He began to distinguish stars in the sky. The light sway of the water lulled him, and he stayed on his back, as though the business was done and there is no need to swim any longer. Indeed, he has no desire to swim anywhere, but felt like lying back and enjoying his second birth. But it would be more correct to say, returning from that other world, the world of the dead.

He felt a shiver. He literally shook from the cold, as if something was vibrating somewhere inside him. His teeth knocked against each other. He moved to a vertical position. He began to look around, but except for the sea dissolved in darkness, he saw nothing. He remembered that he wounded himself and that blood certainly poured from him. He grasped his anklebone, and then brought his hand directly to his eyes and saw that even the water did not have time to wash off the black as ink blood in the darkness. He removed his swimming trunks. With difficulty he ripped them and tightly tied up his leg. How long could he swim this way? This was not known to him. But to swim was necessary. Where? Where was the nearest coast? He pivoted around and saw nothing. But then, he saw only the glow of the big city in the distance. But there was no point trying to swim there—it was too far. The coast, though also invisible, was closer on the left side of the glow. He needed to swim about five or six kilometers, guessing the direction, in utter darkness.

Having made a few strokes, he understood that he had obviously lost his way and was swimming in circles. He lay on his back and tried to orient himself by the stars. Besides the Big Dipper, he knew little. But his luck was obviously drawn in the dark sky. Here, is the Polaris star; directly above the dipper. Peering at it, and then looking lop-sided at the glow, he at last chose a way and swam on his back, trying not to deviate from the planned direction. He swam for a long time, but everything in the sky remained the same. What distance had he covered, and was it in the right direction? He turned over and started the breast stroke.

Once in a while, he turned around and looked for the saving star. His teeth were clenched from the cold. This hindered his breathing. He tried to swim more quickly to warm up, but became exhausted and switched to a more economical style. All the same, the fatigue was taking him over. He now had to rest for a long time, lying on his back. He almost did not feel his tied up leg. Gradually consciousness was leaving him. He moved like a robot only because it was necessary to move.

How much time passed—an hour, two, three, maybe more—he did not know. But when, heaven knows, will dawn come? This foolish night can’t last eternally. But the dawn was not coming. He wanted to lie down in a hot bath. And he wanted to drink, a lot and long. The salty water, which he swallowed quite a lot, made him nauseous. “It is strange,” he thought. “The water is all around me, but I could die of thirst.” He turned over on his stomach and swam, trying to keep his movements rhythmical and his breaths even. So he swam, long and frenzied, seeing almost nothing in front of him. But here again he swallowed sea water. He cleared his throat. He swam some more and after a while again swallowed a big portion. He floated on his back and froze without movement, coming to his senses. He started to understand that he could not cope with this sea. It, evidently, would not release him. Then he would die, and that is what he came there for. It will happen, but not as he planned. But what is the difference? His arms did not move anymore; his leg had become stiff. Soon the waves would start to cover him, and everything will be over. So he reflected, calmly expecting the end. There was no desire to remember anything. The years lived did not pass before his eyes; he simply faded away, having spent all his vital forces.

Suddenly it seemed to him that the sky brightened. He turned back and saw a thin strip of dawn on the edge of the sea. Encouraged, he again began to spin around, hoping to see the rescuing shore. And he was surprised! The dark lines of the ground were directly before him, as far as the eye could see. But it still remained very far away. Still, it was the coast. The old man strained and swam with an obviously clear aim …

It was absolutely bright, though the sun had not yet ascended, when he crawled out of the sea. Half a kilometer away, right on the sandy beach, stood several little tourist tents. The old man shouted, but only a hoarse sound came from his chest.

His legs buckled, and he fell with his face in the sand, unable to utter any more words. He did not remember how he was moved onto a sheet, how they rubbed his body with vodka, and gave him a drink from a flask. He drank, not waking up. Only in the evening he opened his eyes and began to regain consciousness. He was fed fish soup. Night fell again on the shore, and the kind "savages” (as the locals referred to the beach-dwelling tourists) carried him by car to the hotel where he had stopped the day before. His room had been cleaned. All his things lay how he left them. He opened the nightstand. There among the unnecessary papers was the passport in which he had enclosed a short note. “Please do not search for me. Do not waste your efforts in vain. I was born on the sea and decided to remain in it. Consider this as my will. I loved this world, but have not managed to integrate into it. Forgive me all, and farewell …”

The old man lay down on a pillow and plunged into a deep sleep.

The next day, exactly on schedule, the airplane took off on the runway. Soon the sea appeared. The plane tipped down its wing and made a semicircle. Odessa quickly disappeared in the thickness of clouds …

***

Part Three

Exodus

Serge lays half asleep. His eyes are closed. In the fireplace are nearly burned logs, and dim patches of light run across the walls and up to the ceiling. Sometimes he opens his eyes and takes a long look at the play of the yellow-orange tongues of flame. Then, he closes his eyes again, and he is instantly carried away there, to the Black Sea coast …

The hot Odessa summer was replaced by the coolness of early autumn. The foliage on the trees was still green, but here and there, thin strokes highlight the yellowness of another time of year. A few more weeks will pass, and the crowns of maples and poplars will change their color to red-brown-yellow. Only the cypress trees shaped like candles will remain the same, proudly meeting winter’s bad weather.

But now everything, except for puffs of colder wind, was still summer-like. The center of the city was overflowing with foreign tourists preferring the velvet of September to the stuffiness of August. They sat in small street cafes, slowly wandered around Deribasovskia Street, and were languidly interested in souvenir shops. It was the same as it was many years ago. Flocks of youth gathered, but only now their conversations were often interrupted by the various warbling of cell phones—nothing could be changed: on the Earth the 21st century was strongly affirmed.

Two days ago Serge and Janna arrived in the city of their youth. The circumstance of their meeting is not so surprising: in our century it is possible to fly from different parts of the world and arrive at one point. The surprise was something else—they met as if they had separated only yesterday …

***

From the time of their last meeting in 1985, a whole eternity had passed. When in 1992, Serge learned that Janna, with her daughter and her mom, had moved to the USA, it became clear to him: in this life he would never see her again. He had already lived without her for about twenty years. The kids were growing up. Sometimes, it seemed to him that he was quite happy, but the number of nasty days was increasing. His business was falling apart. In his personal life his hopes for a solid foundation, between a man and a woman on which family relationships are based, never appeared. His wife, often without visible reason, created arguments with shouting and tears, and they did not promote a loving relationship. For weeks on end, Serge found it difficult to remove himself from a state of catalepsy and detachment. A feeling of loneliness engulfed him for a long time. Several times in the past years he opened the journal with his memories of 1973, and each time, tears welled up in his eyes.

He was continually putting away his journal, thinking that he would not open it any more. But then he was finding it again, and again was wiping away tears. That feeling for the woman which he experienced in 1973 never returned to him. For sure, he had affairs. But these affairs were fleeting and superficial. The birth of his children strengthened in him the thought that the past should remain in the past, where it belongs. He begged God to grant to him love for the woman, the mother of his children, and from time to time it seemed that God heeded his requests. But the Almighty handled it differently. He had not given happiness in home life to Serge, nor, as it became clear later, to Janna.

***

“Well, hi.” Serge opened the door of the taxi and gallantly extended his hand to the lady.
She fluttered out of the cab without effort as though her shoulders did not feel the load of the years lived.

“Hello,” she pronounced with a smile and immediately fell silent, as if her lips were under the power of his. Then she smiled with the same wide smile, showing the whole expanse of her strong teeth, and a sparkle of mischief appeared in her eyes. Her black, big-bellied suitcase travelled into his car. At the beginning she was holding her purse on her lap, and then she populated the dash, just below the windshield, with her phone, cosmetic bag, wallet, and a bottle of water. The purse fell under her feet—she quickly arranged her spot, surrounding herself with things familiar to her. It seemed to Serge that she had been riding with him her whole life. The wall which had been built from a huge number of days apart collapsed: beside him sat that very same Janna, his Janka,
⁴¹
from the distant 1973 …

Truthfully, to think and say
his
was presumptuous. But all the same he thought it, though he did not speak—he simply felt the warmth of a dear person. Ahead, the chain of cars facing the customs post appeared, and Serge tapped the car’s brakes to take his place in line. He threw off his seat belt and drew Janna to himself. They kissed for a long time, as if they didn’t finish kissing then, in 1973, and now it was necessary to make up for the lost time.

***

… Serge rises on his elbow, looks at the fireplace, and reluctantly gets up and throws on two logs. Then he takes the poker and moves the fire wood so that it doesn’t burn too quickly, looking as if it were melting, although this may not be the right word.

He moves to an armchair and pours some cognac into the bottom of a glass. “My God!”—he thinks, “How fast these ten days flew by where we tried to replace our missed life together.” And now again a separation—would it be another long time?

***

To find Janna in the presence of the World Wide Web was not so complicated. He had quickly found her website and sent an empty email, attaching only a poem he once wrote for her. That’s all! He waited for a response. Then he stopped waiting—four or five months passed. Janna was silent. Probably, she had crossed him out of her life. So thought Serge. Maybe, she was right. Who was he for her now, 35 years later?