Love has no age, no limit, no law – it has nothing at all except love itself. And if she comes, we immediately understand it. We are afraid of it, and we are worried about questions: is it mutual, how long will it last, and what will happen if it runs out? The writer Anna Arkatova in her story presented the eternal plot in a new perspective.
– Aren’t you scared?
– Not. And you?
– I do not know. Have you had it?
— What do you think? I think I live a little longer than you.
– I think it was, but you say no. Our case is exceptional.
— Smiley. Now I will say so!
He rolled down from her shoulder into the warm lower part of her belly, kissed her navel, then covered it with his cheek, and a minute later he pressed himself against the entire half of her face — temple, cheekbone, ear, corner of her lips, as if baking a bas-relief in her tender flesh. She stroked his shaved velvet nape, blissfully cooling down from the first wave of fever.
Yesterday at this time they were sitting in a bar not far from here, it was cold, they didn’t even take off – she was wearing a raincoat, he was wearing jackets. He only threw back his hood and immediately became even younger. And she’s even older. They sat at the counter because they didn’t want to eat. Actually, I didn’t feel like drinking, and I didn’t want to sit in a bar – I wanted to freeze in the air, escaping from desire, which wandered somewhere at the very feet, licked shoes, recognizing its own by touch.
In her youth, she had a classmate who was bursting so that she came from a bar stool. Now, sitting down, I remembered her. Don’t fidget. This cannot be. With you for sure. He ordered coffee, she ordered a glass of wine. It was important to fill the space with foreign objects, to divide it with gestures – otherwise, stretched to the limit, it would begin to crack under their gaze.
Do you understand what will happen if we decide?
– What? Something terrible?
We will be in an abyss from which we may not get out.
– Are you serious? Right in the abyss?
“Looks like some are already there, though,” he said, turning to the coffee machine. He missed her irony, put his head on the counter, as if on a chopping block, facing her.
“Repeat, please, well, repeat what you said,” and closed her eyes in anticipation.
There was a metallic knock. As they would say in the theater – a cue. The bartender slapped the napkin holder in front of them. They jumped without saying a word. Just now they were discussing that restaurant stuff is simply created to break the pathos. For example, you run and run on a date, open your eyes, straighten your eyebrows so that there is not a single wrinkle, glue on the smile of a lost Alice, your hair is scattered in a strict mess – this is what a weary companion should see and be stunned, but at that very second a hospitable manager – are you alone? Do you have a reservation? No? are you expected? who? Bliiin!
Suddenly he felt that he was about to cry from tenderness and some kind of glacial folklore grief.
You feverishly change from grimace to grimace, and still the manager gets something that was not intended for him – after all, you cannot regally, like Fanny Ardant, answer without changing the trajectory, without taking your eyes off the goal. Therefore, your serpentine crumbles right on his tuxedo. And your companion is watching this scene on duty, and it’s stupid for him to move – you yourself will honestly tell the manager everything, you’ve already told, and he leads you to the table, like a father to the bride (what kind of man is this?), this man gets up, and you feel yourself as a gift with untied ribbons. But you can’t hug. You are still suffocating, not believing that you have lived to this moment – and you must already answer that you will be for an aperitif. Have a nice evening!
And now this napkin holder is on its way to the abyss. Not letting go of her smile, she stroked the napkins against the fur. He covered her hand with his. There was almost no one left in the bar. Tom Waits swam quietly.
– Do you know how old I am?
– Yes.
– Truth? True true? In some Caucasus, I could be your mother.
– In some Caucasus, you would have already been thrown off a cliff for the mass death of young inexperienced men.
Thanks for keeping me alive.
“Fool, you’re just lucky—we met in a civilized country. And then, how to say…
Do you know what courage is?
– Not yet.
Courage means not to be afraid. I read it recently.
— I won’t. Moreover, God, apparently, exists. And everything will somehow work out. Anyway. Not?
– Otherwise? Will you get settled? Damn, who taught you to treat love like a humanitarian catastrophe!
He pressed his palm against her wrist, as if the voice was coming from there, and then stroked her fingers with rays. Each. Detailed. Especially the nameless one with the flat wedding ring. Every bone stood out, and folds of dry skin gathered over each bone, and everything together was mobile and unreliable, like a bird’s skeleton.
Suddenly he felt that he was about to cry from tenderness and some kind of glacial folklore grief, from which the heroes are supposed to pay off at all costs. How, he didn’t know. That is, he knew only one way. Give up your whole past life with twin daughters, a spaniel, a bicycle, a green cottage, or the current one with its carefree routine, bursts of inspiration, optional companies, hard-won projects and the best wife in the world who endures him.
Now she only needed one glass to become sentimental. And all her age, not to think about the future
Realizing this, he was horrified by the scale of destruction. But now it seemed to him that this was even too low a price. For tomorrow’s happiness and the day after tomorrow, and for the daily coincidence of words, exhalations, bends. Behind the explosion, a clear field shone, with a languishing woman on the horizon, her cool, unread eyes. It was they who drove him out of calendar time into a milky binary perspective, which, as it were, illuminated the whole scene. As if illuminated.
The music hummed louder. Besame mucho trembled.
– Well, that’s it, the carpet bombing has begun, – he pulled her off a high stool and pressed her to him, – let’s dance. – Grabbed her, pulled her head. She buried herself in unfamiliar fluffy collarbones.
Smell. This is what it smells like. And taste. And breath. What will they hear at the beginning, and what will the voice be capable of at the end? Will it be his voice or their voices? What do you say? And why are you needed, the experience of dozens of novels, deadly breaks, jumps over the abyss – even if at the end you leave me as a schoolgirl, who can only be protected.
She threw back her head – her head was spinning, she liked his height, not even height, but height. To bend over for a whisper, and heat flowed through the vertebrae, to fold like a pen-handle, like an exquisite armchair for a powerless doll. Do not let me go. Kiss me harder. Now she only needed one glass to become sentimental. And all her age, not to think about the future. Yes, age is bullshit, age is when you stop being late for dates.
– Are you scared? He has already returned to the pillow and covered his thigh with a sheet in an antique way.
– I’m very afraid of heights.
“Okay, so be it, now it’s just me on top.”
– Haha.
– I am not talking about that.
– Really?
– What do you think?
To tell? Do you really want to know? It will be a long hot summer. Everyone will go to their dachas, seas and festivals. Summer is a dead season, washing away past pain with sea salt, and at the same time past joy. Complete spiritual disinfection. But it will not matter anymore, because you will get tired faster – after four meetings. Yes, there will be four of them. And in bed we are with you for the last time.
One day I will think that you have disappeared – and time will stop, however, it already goes on in some incomprehensible gait
So remember well these small details, these close-ups, yourself, who did not rise immediately, and me, stunned by a surge of such power that I did not know until now. Remember the tangled hair, the sweat, the tattoo on your shoulder, the almost broken chain in your mouth, curious fingers and timid fingers — silk iris blossomed easily under some and heavily filled aryk spilled under others. Remember, dear, this will not happen again in such a chemical composition, in such a divine combination.
We will still talk, have fun chatting, gradually, but inexorably cooling down – and you are much faster. I’ll come up with a reason for meetings, and you will build them in at lunchtime and be afraid, afraid, afraid. One day I will think that you have disappeared – and time will stop, however, it already goes on in some incomprehensible gait. It is already difficult to get through it, especially with my stomach, which you will not see, of course.
You will be offered a lucrative contract, and you will leave for Italy without even writing to me. Send a Merry Christmas greeting. Immediately after Christmas, not ripe, a girl will be born. She will be called the same as me – Nina. Because I am her. And she is you. That’s what’s going to happen, honey.
What do you think of all this? Do not be silent!
– And you?
“I don’t know what will happen to us.
– I know.
– What? What – say!
– I will be your wife.
– Wife?
– Yes.
– You?
– Yes.
– Wow. So, God still exists.
– Did you doubt it?