YELENA DUBROVINA
THE ESCAPE
“Pani rozumie po Rosyjsku?”1 She heard a voice behind her back.
The wind blew from the deck of the liner into the ocean, scattering the Polish words. She sharply turned and almost buried her face in a white, well-bleached shirt.
“Pani rozumie po Rosyjsku?” Now the voice sounded impatient.
She raised her head. It was the same Russian who only this morning in broken Italian had argued with the maid so loudly that she could hear his voice from the adjacent cabin. She nodded coldly, not answering his question. He, ignoring her unwillingness to continue the conversation, comfortably adjusted his large body next to her, leaning on the handrails.
“This morning I heard you talking with your husband in Polish. From your conversation I learned that you, like me, are heading to Brazil. Damn time! Damn war! It displaced everybody around the world so that you forget who you are, where you live, and why you live. We have become people without a present and without a future. The past is foggy. Do you have a past?”
Now he turned his face to her and looked directly into her eyes.
His intense strained gaze frightened her, made her feel uncomfortable. She had a feeling that she had already experienced all of these in the past – him, this deck, the ocean wind, cold, penetrating deep into her bones, carrying her and her past away to a strange land, into the unknown, and this look, cold and curious, sliding into the cut of her light silk blouse.
He was waiting for an answer. Did she have a past? Could she explain to this stranger how much she had suffered over the past years? First, there was the flight from Warsaw, burned by the Nazis, to Italy, and now, from Italy to Brazil. How could she tell him about her losses, the fear, the routs, the hatred, the burning hatred of everything and everybody, even her husband, the only human being left in the whole world close to her? Maybe because he, but not their son had survived, a strong love for her husband had grown into a strong hostility.
She plunged deeply into her thoughts, forgetting about his question. He realized that he had touched a painful subject and waited silently. Now she stared at him and without any hesitation looked him over. He was tall and stout. A first hint of gray just touched his hair. A short, accurately cut beard framed his round face. His strong hands were holding on to the handrail. He was handsome enough to attract attention of women passing him by, but . . . his eyes, green, unpleasantly cold, did not match his warm smile and soft-spoken manners.
“I am very sorry,” she said tartly in broken Russian, “I am not inclined to talk to a stranger about my past. Sorry.”
And turning her back to him, she walked away. He did not move and only his eyebrows rose in surprise. An unpleasant smile touched his well-cared-for face.
In the evening, the wind became calmer. The sun had been slowly cooling down, and the fading red ball lazily immersed itself into the silver surface of the evening ocean. The ocean, lit by the sunset, shone like a steel sphere. These silver reflections blinded her and made her head spin.
* * * * *
It was the second day of their journey. Zbigniew did not leave the cabin. From the beginning of their trip he seemed to be bothered by seasickness. He was shivering, vomiting, getting headaches. He complained to Barbara about every unpleasant symptom, looking for her sympathy, her pity, and finding neither one of these, he turned to the wall, and shortly, fell fast asleep. He did not go to dinner. Suddenly, she realized that she was glad for her unexpected freedom.
* * * * *
After dinner, the crowd of passengers poured on a deck. The sound of the ocean and rare splashes of the moving waves merged with the loud voices of passengers. They were getting acquainted with each other, exchanging the latest news, enjoying the moon that generously dispersed the thick yellow light falling on the deck. In these strange beams of moonlight Barbara found her new acquaintance. He was alone, holding on to the handrails in the same manner as he had done it this morning. She could not see his face, but there was an air of mystery in his lonely figure, something very attractive and very unappealing. She wanted to slip away unnoticed, but he unexpectedly turned, as if he was waiting for her, and looked directly and coldly into her eyes. She stopped in the moonlight which seemed to bind them together with the same mysterious rays.
“I was waiting for you. You still have not answered my question of the morning, and I did not introduce myself. My name is Fedor Nikolaevich – or just Fedor. I was born in Russia, on the Volga. For more than ten years I’ve wandered around the world. Now, like you, I am fleeing from Italy to Brazil that I left with such anguish, as if I were departing from the woman I loved. And what is your name?”
His eyes had not left her face when he extended his hand to her.
Fedor Nikolaevich kept her small palm in his strong hand longer than required and continued openly to examine her with his sliding, confident eyes. She did not fear him anymore and his straight, open look disturbed her less. She leaned on the handrails next to him.
“I am Barbara, glad to meet you,” she said and fell into silence, as if giving him a chance to finish his examination.
She knew that she did not have the kind of beauty which attracted men from their first glance, but she was so feminine and radiated such warmth that after just talking to her for a couple of minutes one wanted to stay near her, to be warmed by her, rather like a furnace which gives generously of its warmth.
“There is something about you that draws me in. I can’t take my eyes off you. Your skin is so white and soft.”
And again, he looked into her eyes, as if he were challenging her.
That was impudent. She knew that now she should turn and leave, but the danger of a game started by him began to entertain her.
“What else do you like about me?” she asked loudly, switching from Russian to Italian.
The couple, passing them by, turned to her in surprise. A strong surge suddenly struck the board of the liner and splashes of cold water covered them from head to toe. They both jumped back and collided. She laughed and began to dry her face with a handkerchief. He followed her example, and then, unexpectedly, took off his warm scarf, wound around his neck, and pulled it gently over her shoulders. From this moment on, they began to feel freer, and the conversation moved easily without any tension.
* * * * *
Zbigniew continued to remain in his cabin, feeling Barbara’s hostility, her unwillingness to be with him. He suffered deeply from the death of their son, the loss of their parents and her sudden alienation. He was that rare and sensitive type of man who could feel and suffer too deeply, too nervously, too sharply. Barbara had become now everything to him: she was his mother, his child and his muse.
There, in Poland before the war, he was a well-known poet, but along with the stream of disasters, deaths and adversities, his fame had faded. He took very painfully the sudden needlessness of his work. He still continued writing at night, feverishly, giving his whole being selflessly to word, paper, feelings. The whiteness of the paper magnetized him as did the outlines of the woman he loved. And then, angry, unsatisfied, he violently put on paper a flow of words and a stream of consciousness, pouring from the very core of his wandering soul.
Take warmth of lips of mine,
And sourness of my heart,
And sweetness of my palm.
When you abandon me, I’ll be calm.
I write. The blueness of your eyes
Is pouring through slender walls of glass
On the open book of verses that I rhyme.
In the morning, reading to Barbara those verses, written the previous night, he could sense by the expression of her silent face how well he had done. She never criticized his work, but by carefully chosen words he knew how deeply she felt his poetry.
Everything she said, everything he saw in her, every detail of her life, he put on paper, turning them into words, images, reflections. He lived her life, followed her every step. Painfully suffering from her sudden alienation, her indifference, he sank even deeper into his own sorrow, tormenting her with his meanness, whims and misunderstandings. She and his creativity had become one, and with her departure he was losing his muse, his inspiration. He did not want to move, to get up or get dressed. The seasickness was a reason for him to lock himself up, withdraw from the world around him, to not think about anything, not to desire anything, except, perhaps, to bring Barbara back. He suffered from boredom, the futility of his existence, and made her suffer too.
“Why did the world all of a sudden begin to split into small particles? I am trying to put them together, but they still fall apart like the lines of my verses which I want to fill with words, but they slip away, split into meaningless sounds. I am still waiting for something to happen, maybe for the miracle when everything will become again as it was before.”
He got up, pulled her closer to him. His breath fell heavily on her shoulders. She wanted to throw his hands off her body and to run. He closed his eyes and as in a dream began to read his new poem:
Just listen to the wind and bow your head.
I call for you in silence.
The road that we went is long,
The wedding ring has faded colors.
He read it as a prayer, a spell, as if he were begging her to remember those short moments of their happiness together. She sensed, she knew what he wanted to say, but at the same time, he lacerated her with his constant laments. Anger over his selfishness to comprehend only his own sufferings – not hers – came over her.
He irked her with his sensitivity and refinement, his physical and spiritual steadiness. She thought how much she feared falling into his state of mind, losing her desire to live, to move forward and to hope again. Fedor Nikolaevich impressed her by his overwhelming, almost destructive energy. When he was next to her, she felt that he and the ocean wind were one. Fedor Nikolaevich stood firmly on the ground, as if he had grown into the deck, and the wind blew around him. He was stronger than the wind, stronger than her, stronger than anybody she had ever known. He planted a fear into her, but at the same time, she had an untamed desire to be next to him, close to him. Sometimes, she caught herself wishing to feel his hands on her shoulders, his lips on her lips. However, he only watched her with a prolonged, open look and stayed aloof, while she was burning with desire.
Once, he asked her about her husband, about her life in Poland, about her past, as if he were studying her up to every detail, every move of her soul.
“My husband was a famous Polish poet,” said Barbara, as if this meaningless phrase could add importance to Zbigniew in her own eyes.
On the contrary, it sounded awkward, unnecessary, and he, comprehending her emotions, changed the subject to her past, her interests. And she, following his demands, obeying him, told him her life story. She wanted to talk, to pour out all her pain, tiredness and dissatisfaction. Fedor Nikolaevich knew how to listen without interruption, with the interest and curiosity of a man greedy for other people’s lives, as if he was studying the contender.
* * * * *
It was the sixth day of their acquaintanceship – one more day of the inner war, the tense, burning, unbalanced game between “yes” and “no,” his game, cold and calculating. Both were exhausted, both knew that they were approaching the end of the game. She was nervous, often losing the flow of her thoughts. She wanted to forget about everything, to feel free and to swim along the stream from the hot day, where the sticky heat, like thick honey, glued to the body, into the unknown, into the mysterious darkness of the ocean. Combined with the ocean humidity, the heat made her feel weak. She sweltered, as if it were not the sun but him caressing her body with his hot lips, touching her with the beams of his burning palms.
They were sitting in the folding chairs on the deck. She closed her eyes to collect her thoughts, to escape this state of numb troubled weakness, this laziness, to stop feeling his presence, to avoid his look full of desire. Never before had she felt such a painful and sweet bitterness. She was longing so much to stretch out her hand, to touch his face, his beard, his lips. As in a dream, she heard his tender, mellifluous voice drowning in the waves, as if he were calling for her to plunge with him into the depths of the ocean.
“Look at the water, Barbara. Do you see these two white birds? They also languish as you and I do. What do you resist, a moment of happiness? How rare such moments are in our wandering, unhappy lives. Follow your emotions; do not fight with yourself, your desire. I see how unhappy you are, how unsatisfied with your life. I see how you resist your passion and do not understand why.”
He gently took her hand and brought it to his lips. A cold shudder crept down her back. She opened her eyes. The two white birds circled around the deck in foreplay, rising high in the sky and descending back on the water, coming first closer to the ship, then, flying far behind, until they completely disappeared from their view.
“Look, Barbara, passion is always a winner, not love,” Fedor Nikolaevich continued his thoughts, giving her an enticing smile, “A woman should not be given a chance to choose. A man should fight for her, lavish his care upon her, spread his wings over her and cover her with passion, warmth and tenderness. And she would always obey him.”
He suddenly stopped, noticing her fearful look and realizing that he went too far in his contemplations. He kneeled and lightly touched the palm of her hand, slid his fingers above her elbow to the shoulder, then stopped, and bending, reached for her lips. She strained and pushed him away. He backed. Now his voice was harsh.
“We are all exhausted, tired of running to nowhere. Our life consists of sharp angles, sticking into the body, tormenting it, and making us suffer. We all want roundness, simplicity, smoothness. Such moments of excitement, desire to give yourself, to dissolve into nonexistence, to forget about everything around us, are so limited in our short lives. Take what is given to you at the moment, Barbara, don’t resist the temptation, and forget about the past, the future and the present. Remember what Ivan Turgenev once wrote: ‘Tomorrow I will be happy, but happiness has neither past nor future. There is only the present and not even an hour, but just a moment.’”
He bent again close to her face, kissed her eyes and covered her shoulders with sweet, timid kisses. She could not think anymore or hear anything around her. She dissolved in the warmth of the sunbeams, the hotness of his hands and the sourness of his lips. The sky, the water and the deck – everything was swimming in front of her eyes into the past. She knew that she did not have a future, that there is just a moment on the border between life and death.
By evening, the weather had become stormy and the heat somehow lessened. The ocean had been breathing heavily, throwing splashes of angry waves on the deck. The wind circled around the liner, as if trying to bend her, push her in the wrong direction. The chill of the salt ocean brought some relief. Barbara got more relaxed. Her thoughts cleared, as if she had just recovered from a high fever.
* * * * *
Zbigniew lay in bed, watching Barbara as she prepared for dinner. In the morning, following her on deck, he had seen her standing next to a stranger, and a burning feeling of jealousy, insult and anguish captured him. But even stronger was the sense of vanity, an unwillingness to be humiliated in her eyes. She did not need him anymore, she had abandoned, betrayed him.
He fixed his eyes on her, angry that she did not see him, did not pay any attention to him submerged in her own life, in her own thoughts. He watched as she pulled her best dress out of the closet – the white, low-cut dress of heavy silk which tightly clasped her voluptuous figure. Her mother had given the dress to Barbara for her birthday just before the war. Since that time, she had never tried it on. She looked so young in it.
Zbigniew rose, leaning on his elbow. “Barbara,” he called almost soundlessly, but she did not reply. He opened his notebook and recited some lines of his last poem:
Lamenting and grieving. The flight to nowhere.
We measure the distance, the future we paint.
We’re tired of running. We fell in despair.
The stars on crossroads, they fall and they faint.
The fate is deceiving, the soul we bare.
Escaping the present, we run to nowhere.
She did not here the words, but turned slowly, bringing herself back from the past into the present with much difficulty. She blushed, having completely forgotten about him and his existence.
“Barbara, don’t go, stay with me. Please, don’t deny my love for you. I am so lonely. I need you so much. I see how you slip away from me and I don’t know how to stop you. I do not understand you anymore. You hate and blame me for the past. I am too weak for you. I swim upstream and you – against. We are both falling into an abyss, and trying to hold on to each other, just sink deeper and deeper into it. But if I let you go, you will drown. I am the only one who knows and understands you. I am the only one for you in this cruel world. I beg of you, don’t go away.”
He watched her sadly, and his eyes were filled with so much anguish that for a moment, Barbara hesitated but – just for one moment. She could not be with him alone any longer, listening time and again to his laments, his assurances of his love for her. She was tired; it was too crowded for two of them in the cabin, and she was eager to get back on deck, back to the ocean. The ocean, like Fedor Nikolaevich, excited her, burned her body with a cold wind and with a warm breath, bringing her back from the past, and pulling her deeper and deeper to the bottom. She sat next to her husband on the bed, took his hand.
“I want to go, Zbigniew, please give me my freedom.”
She got up sharply and left the cabin, silently closing the door behind her. She did not see Zbigniew following her to the deck.
Fedor Nikolaevich was waiting for Barbara at the same place. The white shirt and white trousers contrasted with his deep tan and curly dark hair. They stood there holding hands, like two white birds ready for their last desperate jump into the chasm.
An eerie feeling of the approaching end embraced Zbigniew. Barbara had left him; she was not with him any longer, and he could not save either her or himself. She had swum away from him, as always, against the stream, toward the unknown, destruction, and to her demise.
Tottering, he returned to the cabin and began feverishly writing. The verses were swimming, falling apart before his blinded eyes, and again, were forming misty images of Barbara, their perished son, the burning Warsaw, ruins, where his life, love, poetry, everything he possessed, had died.
A handle of a gun I lightly touch.
A player? I am not. Is it a game?
It seems unreal how the verses launch
And build some lines
Of autumn rhymes,
A prelude to my fading flame.
He finished writing and circled the room, as if he were trying to remember where he was, and why. Pain, despair, madness were in his wide-open eyes. Like a wounded bird, he rushed about the cabin, looking for an exit, searching madly for an escape, but his wings were broken, and all the exits to life were blocked. He bent over the suitcase, nervously searching for something in its contents, and at last, he rose, holding a small pistol that he so carefully had hidden from Barbara. Like a jet of the sticky morning humidity, fear streamed along his body. Zbigniew nervously squeezed the pistol, looked around with his almost blinded, mad eyes and pulled the trigger.
* * * * *
The dinner was very lively. Fedor Nikolaevich told Barbara about his childhood in Russia, mentioned some important connections, drank a lot of wine, joked and laughed loudly, infecting Barbara with his merriment.
“There, in Russia,” he continued, “I had everything, one could dream about – money, beautiful women, a rich circle of friends, high society.”
Just for a moment Barbara caught herself thinking how callous he was, how superficial and inane. Still, the lusciousness of his voice, the charm of his sweet smile, the soft light of his piercing eyes penetrated every cell of her soul, magnetized her, made her feel drunk with happiness. Forgetting about everything, she dove into the languor of the evening. She felt that she had never been so full of joy, so happy. The way he talked, looked at her, touched her, had the lightness of a spider net, its threads entangling her deeper and deeper. The time was flying fast, approaching the denouement, the end, and she imagined that from this moment on, her and his life, their journey into the future had just begun. She did not think about Zbigniew anymore, about her tragedy, about the war, the escape; she gave herself to this very moment, as if it were an eternity, the eternity of her life with Fedor Nikolaevich. She was longing for the new life that would start tomorrow.
The liner was swaying from the gusts of a strong wind, from the raging storm. Suddenly, it became chilly. Fedor Nikolaevich gently put his hands around her shoulders and led her to his cabin, not asking for her permission, as if this evening has already been foreordained by fate.
* * * * *
It was long after midnight. She lay in his cabin, clasping her knees. Her eyes were staring senselessly at a bright piece of wallpaper, lit by the moonlight which came from the narrow space of the porthole window. She did not know how much time they had spent together. It was cold.
Through her drowsiness, she heard his sententious voice, “Love. What is it? It is something uncertain. I do not care for love. Only passion exists for me, the passion of a moment that penetrates deeply inside your every bone, incinerates, exhausts you, inflames you with desire, burns everything around you, everything that has accumulated inside your soul – anger, hatred, pain. Do you know the expression, a ‘devastating passion’?”
Barbara did not listen to him any longer. She lay next to this strange and indifferent man. She was now emptied, disgusted, confused. She hated herself for not being able to feel anything anymore. There was none of yesterday’s pain, none of today’s love, nor dream of tomorrow. The moment was gone. There was nothing left to bind them together, neither him, lost in the emptiness of his meaningless existence, nor her, perishing from her inability to exist in this cruel and distant world. The ocean was singing its monotonous lullaby about one’s sacrificial life. The moon, hidden behind the clouds, suddenly reappeared in the porthole window, as if it feared the end of the night. They were approaching the final hours of their journey.
THE MUSE
Never before in my life had I transmuted the kindness of giving my heart to love into the unwillingness to love. But one day, solitude had become my escape, while painting had helped me to avoid the pain when my cry for help had not been heard or rather listened to by those I needed the most. Art had always been my passion, love – inspiration, truth – my credo. But life rippled by so fast – its scattered memories wafted away along the unfathomable road to eternity. I tried to forget my past.
Now, the meaning of my life led only to one goal – to achieve, to achieve the inner balance, emotional stability, to lull the turmoil of my heart-rending feelings. I strived for intellectual perfection of my mind and soul. But time passed, and now, more than ever, I craved for the ideal love.
One day, I began to brood over the truth of my inner state. I struggled to have my mind and my soul interweave into one unique fusion, the paroxysm of creativity. I was ready for the new beginning. A mysterious fire began to flare inside me, as an illusive desire of being loved again. The texture of my tormented emotions was so diverse, so deeply painful, and yet, as pure as the first rays of the rising sun, as a touch of its warm beams. I lingered in life with one wish to liberate myself from darkness, to stop my self-laceration. I was afraid to relinquish a hope waiting for me somewhere behind the horizon. I began to live again in the atmosphere of a viscous desire, languor for a conflict, drama, or for one ideal image of a woman, who would inflame me, make me suffer, annihilate my stubbornness, show me the world beyond the frame of my paintings, and yet, love me unconditionally. Was I ready? Had I have to prove to myself that I was brave enough to free from my past and move into the future she would be the one to force me to begin my voyage into the depth of art and into the depth of the creative impetus. My wandering soul was in search of my muse.
The events I am going to describe had altered my life and become engraved in my memory forever.
At forty-two, I was still a struggling artist, a lonely wolf, embracing solitude, self-imprisonment to justify my nothingness, my cowardliness to face the reality, open the doors that were still closed upon the world around me. The absurdity of my philosophy lay in my intellectual unrest, incapability to embrace the world as a total unity, desire to devote my life only to art. Had I understood at that time the importance of facing the universe and searching for the absolute truth and happiness not only inward, but also the outward world, I would have broken the frames of my solitude forever, a long time ago. However, things changed when I realized that I had exhausted my inner creative strength and had to move outside of my comfortable existence. I had this inexorable vision of myself as a portrait painter that haunted me in my dreams at night and my mind and soul during the sunlight. I needed a sitter, a model, a face and a body to study. I imagined a portrait of a woman that would penetrate hearts, magnetize everyone by its inner depth, the purity of her soul, and the glamour of her perfect forms.
One cold afternoon, she came to my studio after reading my advertisement in the local newspaper. A latent desire, passion pierced her every movement, her light gait, her refined features, her delicate hands. My heart palpated upon seeing her innocence, her hidden beauty, her confusion, modesty and her smoldering sexuality. I stood dazed in the middle of the studio, uneasy to start the conversation.
“Probably it was very impetuous on my part to come to your studio, but I need money, desperately need money,” she said this in a quiet voice, darting a quick glance at me.
She seemed to be very frail, extremely shy, and yet, I noticed, totally determined. I was smitten off my feet; I felt giddy. I stared at her not being able to utter a single word, until I, finally, noticed the awkwardness of our situation and her attempt to leave. I was overwhelmed by a storm of emotions, the impetus to the creativity, the awakening of my dreamy desires.
I ran after her, catching her by her hand, I almost shouted, “Please stay; you are the one I need.”
Intuitively, I moved close to her, looking straight into her wide-open, bewildering eyes. I felt the rarefied smell of her perfume, and had a wild desire to snuff her out. The undiscerning fear of losing her cast a spell upon me. She stopped at the doorway and stared at me, confused, still undecided about what to do next.
“I beg you to stay,” I repeated feverishly, afraid to lose her, the outline of her perfectly shaped body.
She stirred up a storm of feelings inside my heart, and I knew that I would die were she to leave me now. She stood silently for some time, until a faint smile touched the corner of her lips. Without uttering a word, she moved directly to my sofa and began fitfully to shuck off her clothes, as if a billow of uncertain feelings swept her whole being. The immense blind fear of losing her was replaced now with a burning desire to possess her. She sensed immediately my monstrous desire to satisfy my animal instinct, my passion, but continued to undress, coldly, mechanically, as if I had not been there watching her. Her trust, her faith in me fell upon me as a shame of my actions, my thoughts, and I blushed, blushed like a schoolboy caught cheating. She stood in front of me, her smooth skin glowing, her shy sweet smile frozen on her subtle pale face. I rushed to the canvas to apprehend the beauty of the moment, the softness of her skin, her deep hazel eyes, her reserved smile, and yet, the openness of her sexuality, the fullness of her breasts and the mystery of her soul.
I approached the window to draw the curtains and was astonished by the burning sunset. The sky, like a wounded animal, flared up, shedding a red light, as if bleeding with crimson rays through the moving away clouds. It was a different sunset from anything I had ever seen before and it seized my whole being with some kind of premonition. What on earth had happened to me today? My heart leaped up when I beheld the picture of the vanishing sun. The thought of the frailty of my life crossed my mind. In a slow pace, like a ghost, I roamed stealthily about the room, moving away from the chanting melody of a dark sky and heavy clouds, looping along the town. My hands feverishly yielded to the demands of my soul. I knew the only way to stifle my pain was to take a brush and through my work plunge into another world, capture the innocent beauty of a woman who trusted me with her body, her soul. With verve, I grabbed the brush, and without glancing at her, began to mix the colors. When, at last, I looked at her, she was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her hands crossed on her knees. She seemed to be crest-fallen; her spirit lulled down as she stared at me helplessly with a curious smile. She pierced her look through the invisible wall of space, directly at me, straight into my eyes. I realized that this portrait would be born in the agony of my creative spirit and imbued with pain, profound pain, almost hovering on the verge of madness. The more I observed my sitter, the more I saw a great sadness emanated from the eyes of this strange woman. Was it insanity, mad impulse, sickness of my exhausted mind or my imagination? I felt an incredible elation and a sudden crystallization of my soul, clarity of my mind. My imagination and my mind were inflamed, my hands were burning. An immense pleasure of working immersed suddenly and captured every cell of my heart. I found, finally, pleasure and excitement in my work.
Soon, the evening dust totally mantled the room. I began feeling heady and tired. I turned on the light and its flash blinded me for a second. My studio, in a shape of oval, was chaotically piled with works of art, and at the end of it, on the edge of my sofa, an unknown woman, exhausted and vulnerable, sat quietly, not moving, but only shivering with the evening cold. I brought her a woven blanket and wound it around her body, but a touch of her skin brought me back to life. Torturing desire to penetrate not only her mind, but also her body was so cruel, so vivid, so frightening. I could not help feeling the exultation over her presence, the happiness of seeing her in my room. The fear of destroying it, losing this illusive woman was stronger than my sexual desire. I saw my fear reflecting in her eyes, as she was throwing the woven blanket behind her on the sofa.
Under the light of the moon, rippling through the curtains, I saw her face. It did not express any emotions or desire when I put my arms around her. My hot breath burned her skin, as we both got lost in the powerful flux of feelings. I felt overwhelmed, happy, exhausted. I clasped her body gently in my arms, as we both slowly drifted into deep slumber.
Since that day, she began to come to my studio every day, at the same time. Undressing silently, she sat in the same pose on the sofa, while I feverishly, obsessively, devouringly tried to render her beauty, to capture the gloss of her skin and the sufferings of her soul. We hardly talked, plunged into physical desire – it was almost an animal passion of two lonely creatures, lost in this immense universe, forgotten and wandering souls, striving for perfection, unity and love.
Two weeks of her everyday visits had passed, and I was putting the finishing touches on the portrait. However, to my disappointment, all my frenzied efforts to bring her image to perfection had failed. I deeply suffered from my inability to capture the inner world of the woman I loved. Although her body was gloriously beautiful, her eyes in my portrait still expressed boredom.
Had I begun to realize earlier that I hardly knew her, I would have made more efforts to penetrate her soul, her unknown to me world. But ironically, it was my selfishness, self-absorption, disregard of her human side that prevented me from sensing her own feelings. Unfortunately, my obsession with my portrait grew deeper than my obsession with the real woman I made love to everyday. I felt again as if I were on the verge of madness. I could not sleep, I could not eat or even think straight – all I could see was the face of the woman with cold inexpressive eyes in front of me. I was supercharged with work, with my floating emotions, with the pallet of colors, with her spellbound that mesmerized my mind and my body. I had been lost in the desert of my own passions. I had been searching for sublimation of my soul, but was trapped between two obsessions – with a woman in a portrait and a real woman I had hardly known. It was such a strange feeling, as if my whole being had been divided, torn apart by impossible, outrageous love, selfish and glorious. I was dazed, my blood burning, my heart set on fire – instantly the world closed around me, all the lines crossed in one point – love. How could I express such strong emotions in the portrait, make the portrait talk, tell the story?
One evening she didn’t come. I had been waiting for her arrival without turning the light on. I stood at the window, staring into empty space on the border of twilight and darkness, watching them merging together into one unfathomable union. Does love give birth to a night? I thought, digging deeply into my fear, dreaming about the warmth of her body, the tenderness of her voice. My waiting became unbearable – I was losing my mind, my reasoning. I was in love with her beauty, the unveiled mystery she carried inside her soul, the unexpected.
I went back to the portrait, and through my imagination, through my sufferings emerged a different woman, alive. And following my impulse, with feverish brush strokes, I touched her eyes, her mouth, her hands, and they all began to talk to me. Intuitively, I painted a different woman – her beauty was cruel, her eyes had a hidden fire, and an evil smile danced at the corners of her lips. She was born from the twilight merged with the darkness, a mysterious woman of the night. It was not an imaginative woman anymore; she was real, tangible, almost sadistic, cold, heartless. Her pretentious innocence disappeared, and a new woman emerged, the one I could not see under the veil of my emotions. It was such an eerie disproportion between my ability to captivate the art and my struggle to expose the reality, between the real and imaginative visions. She was the realization of my hunger, primitive fulfillment of my dark sexual desire. I was totally blinded by the perfection of her features, and couldn’t see beyond the image I had created myself.
Only later on, I began to understand that she had given me this magic moment, saved me from my imprisonment, helped me to elude my past, to yield to the impetus of my dream. She had never come back, and I never saw her again in spite of all my endless efforts to find her. After all, my wisdom was born out of my experience. After enduring the days of sufferings and meditations, I, finally, ceased my feelings and went back to work. My passion turned into wild energy, and wedded with my intellectual and intuitive perfection, aroused in me the ascent of creativity. I had one exhibition after another, where her portrait was a great success – it brought me fame and money. I fulfilled my dream and had become a famous portrait painter. I seduced many women in my life, but the illusive woman of the night, who had given me her naked body, but didn’t allow me to undress and seduce her soul, I could never forget.
THE AUTUMN MIST
He was intrigued by her affected manners. Her lips were painted a bright red, and her skillfully penciled eyes slid over him as if she were blind. The woman was pale, and her hollow cheeks had a touch of blush. She wore a small hat with a broad brim that cast a shadow on her face when she bent over her small delicate purse to get a handkerchief to dry her constantly watering eyes.
While trying to impress him, she jabbered non-stop, nervously crumpling her jacket. When she spoke, she hardly moved her lips, but her arched eyebrows moved up and down in a strange manner.
Her voice was pleasant but with sudden melodic pitches that sounded like false notes in a long operatic aria. Nevertheless, he was annoyed by the vulgarity of her manners, her incessant babble. To all appearances, he found her monologue tedious because at times she was seemingly constrained and uncomfortable. He didn’t interrupt her discourse but watching her with some curiosity. What irritated him the most was her unnatural vulgarity combined with an almost angelic innocence or even na;vet;. In this, he sensed an air of mystery about her.
He was a famous writer, trying to spend some time in solitude, escaping a crowd of noisy admirers. He realized that the unknown woman had no idea who he was and had just stopped by to chat at her leisure, enjoying her free time. He learned from her that those three marvelous days on the ship had been given to her as a present by her mother.
It was a quiet, cold autumn evening, and the sea breeze was pleasantly refreshing. The northern wind blew from the ocean on deck, bringing with it bubbles of water that left a briny tang on their lips, redolent of the taste of salted fish. The lonely moon suddenly cut the mist, glaring down on the water, gilding a path to the ship, and then its light faded, and the moon became quite obscured. A heavy fog completely erased the visible line between the sky and the ocean. The night slowly thickened, merging with the vast expanse of the waters. It was as if the tiny stars and the moon had drowned in the interminable ocean, and the music of the night wallowed in its waves. The very air seemed full of slow melodies and buzzing sounds of the night.
A sudden feeling of tranquility seized her whole being as the earthy paleness spread over her cheeks. The cold stars, like small fireflies, twinkled in the distant sky, clear-green and almost pellucid. And everything suddenly became so distant, so unimportant, even this cold autumn night, the dark viscous air and her own life. She knew about the approaching end, and there, beyond the horizon, she sensed a mystery, the mystery of death. Watching the falling night merging with the ocean, she thought about immortality and infinity, which transcended her capacity for apprehension of life. One day, her life too would be brought to the finish line where space and time have no limits. The wind gently touched her face, stroked her cold hands, like a lover who felt her grief, her fear of death. She cited:
I am an illusion, a reality, a shadow, in pain,
Absorbing the suffering of all, in vain.
Oh, God, just let me land
Before I drown, before the coming end.
In the empty space of moon eclipse,
I do exist.
Just send to me a stream of living light
To stay alive.
He listened to her melodic voice in surprise. The depth of her verses touched his heart. They both watched in silence as night fell, and the moon reflected on the surface of the dark waters, imparted to their faces a touch of a silvery hue. Admiring the beauty of the moment, he bent and looked into her eyes. And there, he found fear, helplessness and sensitivity to spiritual unknowns. At this very moment he thought that her appearance alluded to some mystery in her past. Her subtlety charmed him instantly and aroused a deep sympathy to her hidden suffering. He realized that under the veil of vulgarity she sheltered the real woman, strange and mysterious.
“For pity’s sake, please tell me what is making you suffer,” he demanded, grabbing her hand, forgetting about his previous annoyance with her and felt how thin and fragile her hand was. She pulled it away and laughed loudly, embarrassing him for his sudden
impulsive behavior. The wind caught up her loud roar of laughter and carried it far away into the ocean, leaving only ripples on the water and the distant echo of her fading voice. He didn’t utter a word and, turning away from her, began walking at a sluggish pace along the deck, careening from side to side, as though there
were high waves. He hoped that she would follow him, but she didn’t.
* * * * *
The next morning, he saw her again in the dining room. She was eating her breakfast in solitude. She seemed to be deep in thought, leafing through the pages of a book, as if she were deeply immersed in her reading. He recognized the cover of the book even from afar – his latest novel.
The room at this early morning hour was almost empty. The shimmering sunrays rained down through the windows, playing with the crystal glasses and casting a light on her tired and yet very youthful face. She wore no make-up, and only her lips had a touch of pale pink. Her heavy dark curly hair was scattered in disarray over her shoulders. Puzzled, he approached her behind the table:
“May I share your solitude?” His hand instinctively touched her shoulder.
She gasped and then slowly craned her head.
“Good morning. It is a beautiful morning. Isn’t it?” She replied, glancing at him without any interest and closed her book, ignoring his question.
“Yes, it is a lovely morning, and I hate to see you having coffee alone.” He waved to a waiter and sat across from her.
“I noticed you reading my last novel….” She didn’t let him finish his sentence:
“Somebody left it on this table when I came…” And suddenly, she blushed like a child who had been caught lying.
He stifled a smile and said seriously, “What do you think about this book?”
She hesitated to reply as if a thousand thoughts had burst into her mind causing her to pause. “I am impressed by your sensitivity, your ability to look deep into the soul, to see beyond the invisible line. You are an artist, who can paint the portrait of a soul, feel its suffering and make the reader plunge into the story, and become a part of it.”
She lost all her jocularity and flippancy of speech. She was now a different woman, not the one he had met last night.
“So, you are familiar with my books.” He stared at her. “I am amazed by your vision. I would say the depth of your vision. Do you write?” She didn’t answer right away, thinking and then looked at him haughtily.
“Well, yes and no. I used to write poetry but not anymore.” And then, smiling, “Let’s go outside. I adore the autumn sun when it is so unusually warm and cold at the same time.”
He watched her closely, amazed at how much she had changed since yesterday. She didn’t try anymore to pretend or bewitch him with her vulgarity and loquaciousness and now seemed to be pensive and withdrawn. Today, he was struck by the allure in her sudden quiet manners as she gracefully fluttered about the deck, holding a long scarf and deeply inhaling the salty ocean breeze. She reminded him of an untamed animal, trapped in a cage and searching for the way out.
“Do you travel alone? I’ll be glad to keep your company.” He said softly, trying to march in step with her.
She steered away from this question, but her face brightened with pleasure, revealing her true feelings. The morning sun began to grow dim, and feathery clouds hovered above the waters, like white birds, spreading their wings as they fly away from danger. The air suddenly darkened, as if an invisible artist had splashed muted colors on a clean canvas. A strange otherworldly light cut the mist, illuminating the sky for only a moment, and then the first drops of rain fell on the deck. He dared to put his arms around her shoulders, pressing her closely and feeling the warmth of her skin under the light dress.
“I am fine,” she protested, easing away from his embrace. “I like to feel the touch of the first drops of rain on my face. It is like the timid kiss of a lover.” She squinted at him, flashing an expressive smile and suddenly changed the subject, looking at him over her shoulder:
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“Actually, yes, I slept like a baby. Why are you asking?”
“Because I didn’t sleep at all. I was disturbed by the emotion of our meeting. Don’t you think that emotional stress invigorates the creative process? Yesterday’s evening was sad and translucent, as if it were lit up from beyond by the cold fading moon. In my dream, there were strange images floating in space before my eyes: waves, stars, twisted faces of death, like those in Bosch’s paintings. I am so deeply aware of the power of the sea and its potential for death, and destruction, and yet of its contribution to the beauty of the world, and its inspiration for creativity.” All her worries seemed to melt away as she talked to him, watching the glowing open sea, outlined against the autumn sky.
Swept by emotion, he interrupted her:
“A German philosopher, Oswald Spengler, once wrote that the creative essence of culture is progressively lost, and now becomes shallow, giving way to a soulless civilization. I have to agree with his philosophy, but nevertheless, our emotions will never dry up or die. Their force will give us this impetus of creativity and will remain in our work forever. We derive our inspiration not only from our inner being, but also from the beauty of nature that gives us energy to create. And, yes, yes, I do agree with you about the emotional stress being a vehicle for the creative process.”
He began to enjoy their conversation when she suddenly turned away from the ocean and grabbed his hand. She had lost all her vibrant colors of yesterday and her body was shaking with a feverish chill as she turned deathly pale.
“Please, help me to get to my cabin. I am tired, very tired,” she whispered in a changed voice and staggered, almost fainting.
He wound his arm around her waist, and she put her hand on his shoulder, looking for support. People passed them by without paying any attention to them, trying to escape the cold drops of the sudden downpour.
She had just enough strength to get to her cabin. He helped her to bed and took off her shoes. He held her wrist – her pulse was all in a flutter. She was shivering and, in a peremptory tone, unusual for her, demanded a cup of hot tea.
When he returned with tea, she was already undressed and asleep. As he watched her face, peaceful in sleep, the contour of her shapely body, twisted under the white sheet, her full breast rose and she groaned heavily. Even in her sleep she possessed an ardent charm, a hidden sexuality that aroused his animal instincts and long-forgotten desire. He just could not force himself to leave, so he settled his aching body comfortably in the armchair, and watching her in her sleep, he too was soon engulfed in slumber.
* * * * *
When he opened his eyes, the rain had already stopped, and the room was luminous with sunlight. She was still in bed, awake and pale but smiling.
“Do you feel better?” He stretched his tired body and took her hand in his.
“Oh, I am fine. It is just my hypersensitivity. Life is so difficult, so painful. It frightens me to think that one day I’ll find out what lies behind that invisible line where the dark waters of the sea intertwine with the sky.”
She raised her head above the pillow and looked straight into his eyes, as if trying to remind him of the previous evening. He felt the movement of her fingers in his hand and squeezed them with all his might.
“You make me wonder about you. Would you like to tell me your story? Sometimes, it’s much easier to share your life with a stranger. Isn’t it?” He said, driven by curiosity and continuing to hold her hand.
“Please, let my fingers go. You are hurting me.”
She laid her head back on the pillow feeling dizzy. “Anyway, it is a long rambling story, and I don’t want to bore you. I want to enjoy my trip and my sudden encounter with such a famous writer. Let’s have a good time. My story will lull you to sleep. Don’t look at me in bewilderment, please…” She stretched out the word “please,” and it sounded to him like a musical score. She continued without paying any attention at him, “I feel hungry again, and I need a breath of fresh air. Go now and wait for me on the deck,” she said firmly, not as a request but a command.
It was folly on his part to persist, and he obeyed like a schoolboy. He waited for her on the deck, watching the serenity of the autumn sky and the bitterness of the heavy ocean, feeling the cold wind on his skin, thinking about her. He knew that she was not a woman of easy virtue but an interesting and complicated woman, a puzzle he was determined to solve.
As a writer, he couldn’t resist his habit of watching people, studying their lives, exposing their naked souls. He was always impelled to bury himself in flames, to put his burning emotions on paper, take refuge in his work. He knew loneliness, despair, pain, and nothing could dispel them but his work, his obsession with plots, mysteries, intrigues, loves. He missed love, it lived only in his imagination; he was hungry for love. It was like an illusion, a distant outline of an unknown woman, merging with the attenuated darkness. He was not afraid anymore to be hurt by love; he had faith in finding it one day, one day…
She appeared suddenly behind him, interrupting the flow of his thoughts, intruding into his life with her undue familiarity. “I hope I am not intruding.” She annunciated slowly as if reading his mind, piercing him with her divinatory eyes.
“Oh, no, not at all, just the opposite. I need some fuel, some human touch to carry me away from my dismal thoughts.” He was rejuvenated.
He was glad to share with her his time and began to enjoy her company. Her presence aroused in him diverse feelings, yielding to love and releasing him from the sense of reality and time. The sun generously squandered its autumn warmth, and he already foresaw his victory over her wayward nature and her stubbornness.
How often the course of events is as unpredictable and incomprehensible as the movement of human thought. They became lovers that same night, passionate lovers, plunging into the moment given to them so suddenly, so unexpectedly. He had power over her femininity, over her floating moods. She obeyed, she followed his orders; she moaned and laughed, and cried.
Three days stretched into one long night, and he still didn’t know her, didn’t know anything about her. When he tried to grasp the core of her being, her life – she skillfully escaped his questions, his curiosity. “Don’t complicate our happiness,” she would say gently touching his hand. “Please don’t take me back into my past. Let us forget reality, tomorrow. Let us enjoy this dream. I don’t want to wake up. This dream is so tangible, so beautiful.”
However, the taste of their fleeting happiness was bitter, enshrouded in obscurity, fear. They were both aware of the end and so tried to sustain their courage. He was bewildered by the miracle of completeness that they both found in each other. The complexity of her mind and unintelligible sadness, her versatility appealed to his
writer’s imagination, but he couldn’t decipher her soul.
Through the mist of the autumn rain, she watched him nervously puffing his pipe. She felt grateful to him for those three marvelous days that he had given to her. Their love presented them with a greater range of emotions, sensibility and depth, giving new meaning to their existence. She put her head on his shoulder, moving her body closer to his as if searching for a shelter, a safe place, like a snail longing to hide in its shell, layers of shell. The wind, the sea, the morning air had the scent of the coming autumn. The melody of the waves, the whisper of the wind created the music of sadness that tormented them, crucified them spiritually.
“You’ll forget me soon. I am nobody, or maybe just that tiny star that soon will merge with the clouds,” she said dreamily.
He didn’t reply because he didn’t know what to say to her. He felt tension and pity in his heart for her, for this seemingly insipid adventure.
They departed at the quay, where she was greeted by her husband and her mother, embraced by her sister and someone else he couldn’t see from that distance. He wished he could have been invisible and that all of these people would fade away before his eyes. The dream lost its shape and turned into reality. He rushed to get home, so that he could lock himself into his work. He hoped his work would keep him away from his memories, from her.
One month passed in solitude, in writing, but unconsciously, the memories of her still rushed through his mind as he tried to push them away. He gained new power in his writing as a novel began to take shape on paper. He allowed himself to reproduce the emotions and feelings that he experienced for those short three days with her. He thought that by this time he would have erased her from his memory, he would have healed the pain of losing her, and returned to his everyday routine, but he could not. Even his old friends and his habitual environment became an unexpected burden. He blamed himself for not trying to learn more about her, her life. Now, as he wallowed in total inactivity, life suddenly lost its flamboyant colors.
One more month passed before he saw her again. He was frittering away the afternoon in the park, watching another boring day fade away before his eyes. It was the end of fall, and the mist shrouded the sky and the streets. She appeared suddenly, as if she had drawn back the curtain of the dense fog. She didn’t notice him, being engaged in conversation with a man, perhaps her husband (he couldn’t remember his face). A little boy, three or four years old, held her hand. She looked pale and peaceful, and he didn’t want to disturb that peace.
How could he know that she would die soon of an incurable disease, dreaming of him and afraid of seeing him again, afraid to cause him unnecessary pain? How could he know that those three days with him were the happiest days of her short life? He would never know, and only the autumn mist would remind him of that fleeting episode in his rich and yet lonely life.