Diamond of Antwerp

               


      They planned their trip in advance. As always, her friend approached this systematically and carefully, reading all the possible information on the Internet, studying maps, and making innumerable calls to travel agencies. 


      She, as always, just followed her friend and agreed with everything. In fact, she did not care when and where they went. There weren’t a lot of opportunities for travel in her life and she had seen very little so far and so she was glad to travel to any corner of the world.

     In the end they settled on a cruise on the Rhine through many small and picturesque towns of Belgium and Holland. They got very lucky with this cruise. The company that gathered at their table at the restaurant for dinner each night was intelligent, reasonably funny and not bothersome: one couple from Florida, and another, elderly and beautiful, consisted of former university professors from Boston.
 
      They were, of course, immediately taken for lesbians, and they had to go to great lengths to convince the others that they were in fact just friends that did not even live together, and saw each other rather rarely and communicated more by phone.
 
      And how could they not be mistaken for a couple!  Over their years of life as divorcees, without the support and encouragement of their husbands, they have become similar: the aging, self-confident women who are not accustomed on relying on anyone else in this life, except for themselves. Different, but yet so very similar.

      The trip was going well. The company was good, the food was quite tasty, the cabin was comfortable, though small, and the views outside were scenic.

     On the first day they were presented with the staff – everyone, beginning with the very tall chef (a Frenchman), and ending with an eccentric, clownish-looking captain (a Dutchman). The rest of the staff was almost entirely from Eastern Europe: Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks.

     She suddenly caught a glance from the row in cruise ship uniforms. Not tall, fairly young, 40 - 45, she decided; he stood out in his red brocade vest. A butler, a head waiter, or, how are they called, the one who pours wine in expensive restaurants. The glance was quite interesting: mockingly thoughtful and pretty persistent. 
   
      She had a vivid imagination, a disadvantage that she was well aware of, so she laughed privately at herself and recalled a great story of either Tatyana Tolstaya or of Ulitskaya about an aging intelligent Soviet lady. She was traveling alone, and in Venice she met a beautiful, delicate, caring young prince, who added so much charm to her trip, but in the end turned out to be just a good professional, or simply a gigolo.

 
      She then had a long thought about this story, believable, poignant and absurd - ridiculous at the same time.

 
      - How easily we deceive ourselves, - she thought - how easily we take professionalism and forgery for the truth, the desirable for the real. Is it not better just to prepare ourselves for the fact that we  have to pay  for everything in life, and then, just buy a piece of what we need - attention, warmth, love, call it whatever you want. Then we can avoid these bad tricky situations and not look so hopeless and ridiculously outdated or simply old.

 
      The next morning at breakfast, she, not accustomed to getting up so early, looked gloomy and tired. The dark river was floating outside the restaurant, the window was filled with torrents of rain, and hail pounded the deck.

      She was startled by a quiet question in Russian behind her:

      - Coffee, no?

      She turned around. He was smiling, almost laughing; his large black eyes stared at her. She turned her eyes on a badge on his vest: "Andrei." Not the English modification "Andrew" or Scandinavian "Andreas", but a simple Russian "Andrei."
   
      She was surprised, since she had already decided that being not tall with dark hair, black eyes and a dark complexion, he was most likely Italian.


      - Where are you from? - She asked him in English.

      - Bulgarian - he replied in Russian, - studied Russian 25 years ago in school and forgot everything.
 
      And again he gave her back a broad smile with wonderful dimples in both cheeks.
      
      - Oh, that explains everything, - she thought.

      She was already familiar with this through many years of living in a foreign land. They, Slavs - Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Yugoslavs - were always drawn to each other, despite any past painful wrongs.


      - He must have sensed a big brother in me, or rather, a big sister, - she smiled ironically to herself.

      His Russian was distorted and clumsily funny, but his whole appearance struck her with an amazing combination of desire to serve (she could not say "to wait" even to herself) and a pronounced air of dignity.

      She watched him with fascinated eyes, trying to catch every detail, tiny bursts of emotion, turns of his head, his arm movements, and tried to imagine how she would behave in this kind of work. She could not.

      She could not imagine how one could move with such ease and the grace of a cat while holding trays and bottles, even skipping on the move, leaning over, smiling, at the passengers at the tables, skillfully turning the bottle in one’s hand so that not a single drop of wine fell on the tablecloth, all the while looking like the Prince of Wales – full of complete self-esteem, and even innate nobility. There was nothing in him that she did not like or was irritated with.

     - Bulgarian?   - She wondered again, - not even an Englishman!

 
      Are they now taught this in their special professional schools? And can one even be taught such a thing? Their captain, for instance, had no such qualities. It was evident that he was a shy and modest man who did not know how to behave with passengers, spoke confusingly, and then tried to cover it up with silly clown jumps and grimaces.

 
     - Probably something similar would take place with me too. - She thought.

      And, trying to mentally adopt, copy that innate nobility, those impeccable manners, she probably watched him too intently, following him with her eyes. She, however, never noticed that he felt her eyes on him. It seemed, that he quietly did his work without paying her the slightest attention. But in some inexplicable way, each time she looked up from her plate and was diverted from the conversation with the neighbors at her table, her glance was met by his glance.


      How it happened, she never could understand. Did she feel his gaze on her? Do we definitely feel that? Or was it just her inner eye, a sort of subconscious, tracking all of his rapid and unpredictable movements in a large restaurant around the many tables? She could not answer this question.


      Sometimes she even had the impression that he was playing some obscure game with her. For example, he poured wine for everybody but her, as if forgetting, missing her glass.  She did not know how to behave. Call him? At first she was afraid to appear ridiculous and just sat silently, wondering. But then she grew bolder and called him by name. He immediately returned with a broad smile, as always, and replied in Russian:

      - Sorry.  I thought you did not like this wine. You like the red one.

       And again, there was something inexplicable and contradictory in his behavior. Some kind of strange combination of the openness and vulnerability of a child with a hidden strength and sense of superiority.

       What bothered her more than anything, was that she absolutely could not figure out whether his behavior toward her was something unique or his common behavior toward all of the other passengers. And further, if it was only in relation to her, what was it – some sort of premeditated customary game for him?
 
      It is so boring to be kept in a closed space all the time, performing the same type of monotonous work day after day, month after month. In this case one must diversify it somehow, she thought.

       But how does he choose objects for this game of personal relationships, this match of glances and the light, barely perceptible touch of hands?

      But more often than not, she thought that all of this must just be her imagination. He had a handsome, manly face, and she knew all too well that she easily fell for the charm of big black eyes and broad smiles. But it all happened so long ago, when she was young, that she had already forgotten all these sensations, and now found herself bewildered and totally unprepared for how to behave and what to do.


      Almost before the end of the cruise, they stopped in Antwerp. It was six o'clock in the evening, almost dusk, and the passengers, worn out by day trips, scattered throughout the cabins, while she decided to go ashore and walk to the city. He, wearing jeans and an old striped shirt, was standing near the ladder and carefully rubbing something already desperately shiny.

      She asked him, in English, in which direction she should go to get to the city center. He explained and, smiling broadly as always, said:

      - But everything is already closed. Except for - he was embarrassed and stopped for a moment – the red-light district. You know, this is in fact also a tourist attraction.

      She replied that she had no problem with walking there. And he told her that he had discovered the area three years ago, when he was here for the first time and decided to go shopping. He started following a group of people and when this group turned right, he decided that this must be the most famous shopping street, only to be surprised by what he saw there. He laughed in embarrassment. She smiled goodbye at him, waved from the shore and went to town.

      The red-light district of Antwerp was much bigger than the well-known street in Amsterdam. It was getting dark, and strange types, apparently not tourists, walked the streets in groups and alone. The girls in the windows with the red curtains were very different: blondes and brunettes, pretty and ugly, old and very young - about fifteen or sixteen in appearance.

      She was surprised that almost all of them, standing, sitting and lying down, without wasting time, were talking on cell phones, and she tried to guess who they were talking with. With mothers, children, fiancés, girlfriends?


     She was the only woman in a sea of men, and she felt terribly uncomfortable, though she realized that she was not in any danger. She just did not know what to do, how to behave here, although she was curious enough to observe  these girls and to examine the look in their eyes. And the end result was that she simply started to wave at each of them and smile. And they, almost all of them, also waved back in reply, smiled, and even sent air kisses.


      She got a little bit lost coming back and she approached the pier through a vacant lot already in complete darkness. He stood on the same spot where she had left him. She slowly climbed the ladder, holding her right hand on the cold metal railing and stood at the top, looking down at her feet.

 
      Suddenly, like a blow, she felt the warmth of his hand on her fingers, just at the fingertips. He gently tugged at her fingers, and turning and not saying a word, went ahead. She quickly placed her hand in her jacket pocket as if to keep this warmth as long as possible, and followed him.


      He descended the ladder with the inscription "Crew only”, and she, not thinking about anything at all, went after him. In the long corridor, he opened the door of one of the cabins and let her go ahead. She was surprised that the cabin was even bigger than the one they had on the upper deck. 


      - Well yes, they, of course, spend more time here – was the first and last thought that flashed through her mind.


      She felt his very hot hand on her neck and immediately stopped being shy of her gray hair, her age, and her broad trousers that were not in fashion.

 
      The smell of men's cologne, so long and well-forgotten, suddenly returned to her all the feelings that she was sure had already irretrievably been lost, and she was surprisingly delighted by the warmth of his cheek on her cheek, and the light touch of his lips to her eyelids and the move of his hand, ruffling her short hair.


      - You are beautiful, - he whispered in English, and she passionately and bitterly laughed in response:
 
     - No, it is you who are beautiful, not me.

      He looked into her eyes and repeated, with conviction:

     - You are beautiful, and you have a beautiful name.


      She was surprised, because her name was not written on her badge, as his was. And his pronunciation of her name sounded very peculiar, as if not in English and certainly not in Russian. She was grateful to him that he spoke English, somehow the thought that he could pronounce it in Russian seemed unbearable.


      And then before her eyes she saw the Amsterdam canals with their boats, and then the bicyclists who were violently rotating their pedals, and finally the brightly colored tulips, exploding and dying, like fireworks.

 
      The next morning she came into the restaurant embarrassed and confused and was glad that he was not around and she could for a moment pretend that nothing had happened. Their table was in the middle of a serious discussion of either the weather, or the forthcoming tour, or something else extremely important, when she heard a barely perceptible Russian "hello" from behind her.


      And again she was now grateful for this Russian word, like a sign of closeness between them. And quite unexpectedly to herself, she happily and joyfully laughed.


      During a long and sleepless night, she decided that she would collect all her remaining money from souvenir shopping and give it to him. She resolutely refused to be in the position of the heroine of the story that she remembered so vividly. Ashamed and blushing for some reason, she asked the head of the cruise for a special envelope for individual tips and collected the remaining Euros and dollars that she had. She even demanded that her bewildered friend immediately give her the 16 dollars that she owed her.

 
      She absolutely didn’t know what amount should be in that envelope, but even if she happened to have ten or twenty times as much, she would not have hesitated to put it in there.

 
      In the rain and wind on the upper deck in the last evening, she pulled out her small envelope and, embarrassed, said the English phrase she had prepared the night before:
 
     - I would be happy to give more.


      Without looking at her, he diverted her hand:

      - You owe me just as much as I owe you.

 
      If anyone played out of tune in their small orchestra, it was clearly not him. She was ashamed.

      - Forgive me , - she blurted out, barely audible.


      Upon her return  home, she struggled to force herself not to think about him anymore, not to recall, not to analyze. Anyway it did not fit into any preconceived notions of her life, any shelves or drawers.


      But, strangely enough, his face stood before her eyes all the time, did not let her go, while many other faces of people close or dear to her she could not remember or reconstruct in her memory. Only something vaguely rounded without any expression surfaced for a moment and sailed away somewhere back into the distance.

 
      She, who had never in her life asked anything of God, now fervently prayed that God would help her to forget him so that she could once again fall in love with her house, her cat, her work, and her past life.


     In a couple of months she decided to write a story, hoping that she would feel better, and he would finally let her go. She started several times and each time she was amazed at how painfully her heart tightened and beat and how her head spun.

     Finally, she finished her story, and all of her friends - in particular, the one who had traveled with her - of course questioned whether it was  the truth or not and which parts were true and which were fiction, the fruits of her imagination.

       She noted that she answered everyone in a different way, and pondering, she realized that she did not know exactly, did not remember anymore where the truth ends and where fiction begins. Truth did not exist anymore.


      There was only this story, with its warm hands and shoulders, the smell of skin, hair and cologne, the noise of rain and splashing waves outside the cabin, a gentle whisper mingled in all languages. And it is all.


      And this story has remained in her life as a little, but bright and pure, diamond. Diamond of Antwerp, the world capital of diamonds and love for sale.