All original work © 2009 - 2023 Alexey Provolotsky

31 December 2016

Маргарет Митчелл и бледные руки



Книга была огромной. Тем более огромной, что бледные ладони едва могли удержать ее. Но каждое утро я подходил к тому окну, под которым она читала, садился рядом и ждал момента, когда она перелистнет страницу. И если школьный звонок не прерывал эту странную близость, то... Тонкий палец легонько вздрагивал и начинал медленное движение к самому краю страницы... Напряжение возрастало. 

Маргарет Митчелл. Конечно, я знал о существовании этой книги. Видел ее на полке в своем доме, на старой видеокассете, которую мама отматывала назад каждое Рождество. Я даже примерно представлял сюжет и переживал за Юг куда больше, чем следовало. В то время мне было десять лет. Ей было одиннадцать. Именно в ее руках, тонких, бледных, была огромная книга с бесконечным количеством страниц. Настолько бесконечным, что я не мог вообразить того, что кто-нибудь сможет ее однажды прочесть.

Я хорошо помню, что когда впервые оказался рядом с ней, на этой длинной узкой скамейке, от которой исходил пронзительный запах спортивного зала, она была на семнадцатой странице. Но как же сильно меня привлекло то, что этот факт совершенно не смутил ее! Она просто дочитала до конца страницу (краем глаза я смог увидеть исковерканные слова южного диалекта) и оказалась на восемнадцатой. После чего закрыла книгу и, не заметив меня, вернулась в класс. 

В тот момент я не понял, что произошло со мной (и произошло, наверное, впервые в жизни), и медленно и немного сконфуженно пошел по коридору к своей аудитории, где меня ждал выговор за опоздание. 

Я пришел на следующий день. И приходил всякий раз, когда удавалось не влезть в драку и не обсудить с одноклассниками все последние результаты футбольных матчей. Я садился в трех метрах от нее (кажется, за все время она так ни разу и не заметила моего присутствия) и взглядом выхватывал новую страницу. Вокруг рвались резинки, пролетали школьные пеналы, и кто-то вечно приседал за бег по коридору. Одна лишь она молча сидела с книгой и с каким-то непонятным постоянством перелистывала по одной странице в день.

Разгадка случилась через неделю, когда я впервые увидел ее в компании подруги (громоздкой, неуклюжей, необязательной). Она спросила ее про книгу, и та ответила, что книгу ей посоветовала бабушка. И вот она решила читать по одной странице в день, пока однажды не перелистнет последнюю. В тот момент разгадка казалась мне такой же странной, как и весь этот обряд. Интимный - по крайней мере, таким он был для меня. 

Я продолжал ходить к ней. Садился рядом, боясь пошатнуть неуверенную деревянную скамейку, и ждал, когда она перевернет наконец очередную страницу. И сейчас же закроет книгу. Я не думал о том, как она может оборвать чтение на полуслове или на самом увлекательном моменте. Для меня существовали только ровные, методичные движения, которые давали странную уверенность, и без которых я едва мог представить скучные школьные дни.

А затем все закончилось. Просто, резко - как забытый сон. Сбился фокус, который и без того работал на пределе резкости, и я больше никогда не видел ее. Ни на крыльце, ни на школьных коридорах. Она исчезла, вместе с неизвестным именем, забытой внешностью и книгой Маргарет Митчелл. 

Так странно, что за все это время я ничего не написал про нее. Возможно, мне просто казалось, что этот образ сильнее любого рассказа. Не потому, что она читала когда-то эту книгу, а потому что читает ее до сих пор. Я не знаю, на какой странице она теперь. На 192-й или 435-й. Но только все, что я сделал и делаю, все это происходит благодаря тому, что где-то на спортивной скамейке она по-прежнему читает огромную книгу. И так же неизбежно, как последние слова Ретта Батлера. Слова, которые она прочтет слишком рано. Или слишком поздно.
   

2 December 2016

AQUALUNG

      
                   
Isabel Martins had sharp eyes yet I always wondered what she saw when she looked at me. What sort of man was I and what was it that I had in mind - because her eyes could tell. Like they could tell that it was not an old rag or some God-forsaken flotsam but something else entirely. "There, look!" I swerved my head to this side and to that, trying my best not to notice the aqualung. Noticing it would be disastrous. Noticing it would mean that I had to get up from the beach, run forty meters to pick it up and then get back to the dark subtle figure in an oversized dress of light blue. A period of time which roughly equaled eternity.

We were sitting on Praia da Marinha (her uncle had business on the beach that was apparently expanding due to growing numbers of tourists), which had been our habit for quite some time now. I would tell her my stories from the north and the city and she would reply to me with silence. It was the listening silence of someone who had seen death much too early and who had swallowed the vastness of nature more than a few times. 

There was not a lot I knew about Isabel Martins - but back when we first met I found out about the grim childhood in Luanda and how she would have to wake up at five to travel a few miles to the nearest coffee field. Angolan colonial past. There was not much I knew about the rough times stretching to early eighties. So all I could do when it grew darker and I had to be on my way to the hotel, was imagine the bus that took Isabel Martins and her five siblings to the field. Dusty windows. Potholed roads. Women and children sitting in silence. A toothless driver. An ancient radio playing jittery songs by local pop bands. Endless plantations outside.

And in the meantime, her silence. There must have been a thousand reasons why I loved her silence as much as I did, but perhaps the biggest reason of all was that it made me want to kiss her. Kissing Isabel Martins felt (at least in my mind - heated by the Portuguese sand, soothed by the Atlantic ocean) like the apex of all my dreams, past or present. So I would turn my head to her, and she would do so to, inviting me to a key and a mystery I could not yet fathom. Her big African eyes looked willing, and my head would inch closer and my clenching heart would lose all patience - yet something always stopped me (and by always I mean those two weeks I spent in southern Portugal having escaped the stress and exhaustion of the University of Minho). 

In fact, it was during one of these moments of silence, our bare feet a few sexual inches from the steadily creeping water, when she pointed me in the direction of the aqualung. "Would you?" said her eyes, playfully childish first and only time that I knew Isabel Martins (having initially met her at the beachside cafe when she was serving me local green wine). And so I got up and hurried to the spot where the blasted thing was. I had no idea how it got there, but it must have been washed up by the ocean. A relic of some forgotten past, the aqualung looked old but not too old. The hoses had gone and the front part did not look especially presentable either, but overall the state was good to the point where you did not want to just throw it away squeamishly.

Isabel Martins examined it with a puzzled expression on her face and then placed it on the sand nearby. While I began telling her about this latest film (I wonder if she was seeing a lot of films - she didn't seem to connect too well with the outside world and her waitering technique was rudimentary at best) in which one particular character was wearing a gas mask that looked a little like this aqualung. She smiled and we both fell silent. This was perhaps the moment, my moment, and once again my head turned to her but then she smiled again, brightly, smartly, as if suddenly realising something she had been meaning to do forever, and asked me to put it on. And so I did. Stupidly, I did. And Isabel Martins kissed me, or laughed, through the slime and the seaweed, as she swiftly unraveled my mystery. One that, unlike her, I never really had. 


25 November 2016

ФРАГМЕНТ ИЗ ЖИЗНИ ХУДОЖНИКА

                                                     

Открытая клетка одиноко стояла на столе. Ветер, метавшийся по комнате под видом обычного воздуха, незаметно теребил железные прутья. Птицы не было. Были только перья. Она осторожно закрыла дверцу - так осторожно, как не закрывала ее никогда. Хотела выйти из комнаты, или выбежать, или что-нибудь еще, но ее остановила капля крови на краю скатерти. "О Господи", слова скатились по вишневым губам и забрались обратно в горло. Рука потянулась к старому польскому графину, но тот стоял в противоположном конце стола. Или нет - того хуже, он стоял на книжной полке. Почему, черт возьми, почему графин стоял на книжной полке, а не на своем привычном месте в девяти с половиной сантиметрах от края стола? Чья-то небрежная рука поставила его рядом с томиком Камю, в самом центре второй полки слева.

Небрежная рука, вероятно, обтянутая холодной черной перчаткой. Ну конечно же! Ведь нельзя оставлять никаких следов. Капля крови была ошибкой, которую следовало принять за виноградный сок или собственное воспаленное воображение. А еще лучше - стереть. И никто бы никогда не узнал - если бы не она, не ее опыт, не ее любовь... Она вырвала из пыльной челюсти книжной полки томик Камю. Открыла где-то на середине, чтобы не дай бог не открыть в начале, там, где вдумчивой и слегка уже влюбленной рукой было написано несколько слов. Дата и подпись. Ее подпись.  

У нее перехватило дыхание оттого, что книга все еще была здесь. Весь этот проклятый супрематизм, он исчез навсегда (и черт с ним!), но рассказы Камю. Дата и подпись. Ее подпись. Все это по-прежнему было здесь. Как злая шутка. Как болезненный порез на кончике пальца от острого края любимой открытки.

Взгляд скользнул вниз по непрочитанным белым страницам, и на полу как будто следы борьбы. Во-первых, стул, который помнил так много звуков и слов (она только не знала, можно ли помнить молчание). Стул казался сморщенным, и ткань была исцарапана в нескольких местах. Чьи-то ногти вцепились в бордовую обивку, надеясь спастись. Но было уже слишком поздно, и в последние секунды в голове пронеслись слова рассказа, который она читала вслух. В этой самой комнате, когда температура поднялась до тридцати девяти, и пол был усыпан холстами и таблетками от кашля.

Рассказ был про гражданскую войну в Испании, и название она давно успела забыть. Возможно, "Смерть художника", что было так жутко и так неуместно в этой комнате со спертым воздухом, невкусным холодным чаем и невыносимым криком птицы. Только сюжет она помнила до сих пор. Или, точнее, одну сцену в самом конце, когда художника ведут на казнь за открытое сопротивление режиму Франсиско Франко. И раздается шесть выстрелов вместо положенных пяти, и повисает нелепое молчание. Художник лежит на земле, в алой рубашкой с невидимыми разводами крови. И пять солдат, каждый из которых имел по одной пуле в своем ружье. И бывший друг художника, теперь офицер армии Франко, опускается на колени к мертвому телу. Тщетно нащупывает пустые карманы в поисках револьвера. Боясь отыскать выстрел, сделанный им самим. 

Кажется, наутро наступило облегчение, но уже никогда не было так, как было прежде. Появились посторонние звуки из других комнат дома, проклятый супрематизм, трещины на обоях. И теперь этот черный волос в складках ковра - возможно, с того самого момента, как борьба прекратилась, и голова тяжело коснулась пола.

В дверь постучали, и вскоре показалась круглая голова женщины суровых средних лет. "Вы уже уходите? Простите, но мне нужно убирать комнату". Она вскрикнула что-то безумное, что-то наподобие вопроса, после чего выбежала из комнаты. Вероятно, в последний раз. "Нет", прошептала женщина, на полпути в комнату, с голодной тряпкой в руке. Прошептала ветру или пустой клетке или графину с водой. Или стенам, на которых не осталось ни одной картины с этими чудовищными квадратами и треугольниками. "Да нет же, говорю вам", дыхание женщины сильно отдавало кислым соком винограда. "Он не оставил адреса".

7 October 2016

PASSWORDS AND CODES



We met in churches. That's how we used to meet. It wasn't sexual, so I don’t mean to say that we made love inside the confession box or behind the altar. There were times when I may have wanted that, and in a few churches in southern Portugal we may have come close, filled as we were with laidback vibes and Mateus, sparkling and sweet, but there was never any physical sin.

She was Christian, too. At least, I think she was. Sometimes, as we were walking by the frayed frescoes of Catedral de Santa Maria or hiding in the smallest chapels of Siena, she would tell me stories about El Greco and Caravaggio. 'Can you imagine that El Greco would do a completely naked figure of Christ for a Spanish sacristy? In the mentality of those days?' I would think about the mentality of those days, and the image of disrobed Christ would almost send me into a fit of anguish. Such travesty, such desecration.

We couldn't meet in one church all the time, so we picked spots all over Europe. Expansive Anglican cathedrals of Wales and tiny Orthodox churches of Moscow, they were the places of romance and discovery. And there were stories, too. Stories of madness and stories of cruelty.

For instance, there was one time in Vienna that I would never forget. She called me at night, two or three weeks before we were supposed to meet, and told me there was a nice little place off Felberstrasse that could be good for us. 'A place of worship', as she put it, way before we were forced to introduce passwords and codes. 'But we have to hurry', she said and switched off. So we did, to set up a meeting two days later within the walls of a small Katholische Kirche in Vienna. The place, however, was shut down literally in front of our eyes, as we were hurrying towards the steps and each other.

Much more dramatic was the day I was wandering through Bath, the true Sussex beauty filled with hungry seagulls patrolling the city during the night time, and then stumbled upon a desolated little place that almost looked like it belonged to the world’s most ancient religion. I texted her, and she was with me two days later, inside St. Tomas à Becket in Bath, and hours later we noticed someone's presence nearby. At first it seemed like a bad dream, something you shake off when your lover takes you by the hand, but our fingers were heavily linked, and still there was a feeling we were hounded from all sides. And, indeed, we saw them pulling from the corners and even from under the dome. We ran outside, to the sound of crushing walls and shattered stained glass windows. We ran outside, to not see each other for three months.

Which was when we figured they must have been on to our mobile phones and e-mail accounts. So that we were forced to invent passwords and codes that got us through another autumn, and then winter, and then spring. In summer, however, we had to invent a new set of passwords and codes to have a chance to meet in peace and quiet.

And when we did meet in peace and quiet, which was about once or twice a year, it was like that old song by Robert Smith, only when you can actually feel Heaven in your bones and in your blood. She told me stories, and later on, I did too. About the tears of Peter or else the weight of the monstrance and the origin of those paintings covering the walls of another church. And when somehow, somewhere, there was a feeling they might be upon us, we closed our eyes and it passed. For now, it passed. Even if she did put her hand in mine and someone was watching us from the farthest pew.

You might be wondering, reading all this, why we didn't meet inside Il Duomo di Firenze since there was no way anything could happen to a place of that stature. Well, you are being naive if you think we didn't try, and you are being silly if you think it was easy. Because it was hell. People might think a big place is an insurance as they would simply not have the guts, but wait until you see them approach from both sides. Whispering something unintelligible yet horrible, filling us with the dread of the centuries. So that she screams and you try to appear calm. Shaking all over, shaking like a leaf.

Which is how it happened in a Trinity Presbyterian Church in Cork. We hadn't seen each other for a year, our meetings were scarce now (this was last June), and we had all the world to talk about. She was telling me about this Irish monastery that helped the deaf and the blind. A group of nuns living in a huge tower, never seeing the light of day and only communicating with the outside world through one narrow door and one narrow window that allowed them to get their requests from the poor and from the sick. Once there was a woman who came to ask for her little boy who couldn't walk and the doctors told her he had no chance.

'And did he?' I asked her.

But she couldn't answer, because suddenly they appeared and took her away from me. 'And did he?' I kept crying into the dome but there was no one to tell me. 

I haven't heard from her since, though someone has told me she has joined those nuns in the convent in Ireland. I hear it's closed and we can’t meet inside, but if I agree to join then we could spend a lifetime together. Which is something I'm afraid I can't do, and instead, I'm going to be there next month to ask for something through the narrow porthole they use to communicate with the outside world. Using passwords and using codes, I'm going to whisper something that will in no time fill them with the most profound feeling of dread. 


18 September 2016

TODAY WE ARE PLAYING BRIDGE



‘Today we are playing bridge’.

Oh how we longed to hear those five English words at the start of his class. And how much any one of us would have given for him to just walk through the green classroom door, put his briefcase on the desk and take out the shabby pack of cards he had bought in London ages ago. Because it was so different and so unlike Shakespeare’s murders and all those impenetrable passages from Beowulf.  

In those thirty minutes that seemed to be over in a flash, he would not just painstakingly describe the bridge rules to every last dummy who probably didn’t know how to put a teabag in a cup, but also talk about matters we were all deeply concerned about. Girls. Sex. Relationships. And he would do so to a classroom that was only half boys.

It was not like he had a gambling problem, and there was one month, April I believe, when he never once took the cards out of his briefcase. And it was not like he could not recite huge chunks of Leaves Of Grass or give you the precise timeline of Ulysses. He could do all that with a fascinating lack of effort. But my God you should have seen him. You should have seen the nondescript brown briefcase that blended so well with the nondescript nature of this crumpled old man who sweated profusely and who was safely beyond sixty years of age. And you should have seen his car, the sorry enfant terrible of the college parking lot. He had sneakers, too, underneath his grey trousers that were no doubt ironed by hanging.

Imagine all that and you would never in a million years believe the talks he gave us. The very intonation, by turns warm and weary and confident, created the sort of carefree bonhomie that showed you how fickle and ignorant a teenager’s boredom actually was. The transformation was nothing short of magical, and it was all the more bizarre for the reason that he was clearly speaking from experience. And you just looked at him and asked yourself, time and time again: Experience, him? What experience? He spoke warmly, with a gentle warble to his voice, but equally I felt it was not done for us. It was done for someone else who may or may not have been in that classroom.

In particular, I remember the short talk he gave us on flirting.

‘Girls?’ he said, not replying to anyone but simply going by some distant memory or a particular recollection. ‘Take it from me, once you understand flirting – you understand the meaning of life. Okay, maybe not the meaning of life. Relationships’.

Which was precisely the sort of introduction that made your inner cynic commit suicide or at the very least fall into a deep coma. It made a highly uninteresting girl sitting to the left of you utter a short gasp that was almost erotic in its desperation.

'Let’s put it this way. There are two types of girls in the world. Those who say they flirt and those who say they don’t flirt. Naturally, you would think the latter are the ones you should go for. Take it from me, a worse mistake could not be made. Because the girls who say they don’t flirt are the ones who do it all the time without even noticing it. Why? They do it intuitively. And it's not like they cannot love. They can – but not before life teaches them a cruel lesson. Once it does happen and the lesson is fully taken in, believe me, you won't kiss lips that are more wet, and full, and curious’.

Shell-shocked but wanting more, oh inevitably, we listened on, forgetting about the game we were playing, hoping we would have a little less time to talk about Lady Chatterley's Lover that was too tame anyway and that could never describe a girl's lips as 'curious'.

‘As for the ones who say they flirt’, he continued, ‘they are the best. Because they can actually control it. Like once I dated this girl who told me she spent one whole year of her life doing nothing but flirting. And then snap – she stopped it. There are girls who flirt because they are bored and there are girls who flirt because they simply feel like it. But that’s okay. These girls will know love when they see love. They will quit flirting without ever looking back, losing every shred of skill they ever had!'

The girls seemed to be no less interested than we were, and they probably wondered, just like every boy in that class, what in God’s name that proverbial girl even looked like.

'Date girls who know how to flirt. The key word is 'know'. Because the secret of happiness is to never plunge into anything completely. Do not immerse yourself, you will get burned. For when you read a book or watch a film and get lost in it entirely – you will lose touch and the ability to relate to real people. Girls who are natural flirts will exhaust you, take it from me, because you will never be good enough. Equally, you should avoid all the extreme cases. Certain girls use flirting the way a hitman uses his gun. It's those girls who have a swimming pool but who only jump into the water on Wednesdays and Fridays that you want more than anything else in life'.

And that’s just one such talk, written from memory. Seconds later, he put away the cards and we went back to Lady Chatterley’s Lover but no one could really concentrate. 

Hard to say how many of us took his advice seriously, later in life or even in their teenage years, but what I know for sure is that you took him seriously. And could hardly act surprised when at some point you saw him with a girl from your class, or just any other girl from school, getting into that ridiculous little car by an Italian café or a local cinema. One thing you asked yourself, though, was if he actually took them to his apartment and if so, what happened next. Because for all you knew, he could just take a pack of cards out of his briefcase and they could spend a whole night playing bridge.


5 September 2016

FLOWERS FOR THE FUNERAL



This afternoon, when John Riley comes into the bar, a peculiar kind of silence is created. If you're a journalist working for a local tabloid, you will call it deafening. It is this soundless clamour produced by every object inside the room, from the drinking glass to the piano stool. If someone throws a dart, it will miss the target and go through the wall and hit a dog sleeping on the pavement.

It's curious what your eyes will do in a situation like this. The million ways they will travel on a windless afternoon in late August. When one sense is blocked, completely shut down, you begin to see things you are not even supposed to see. Like the blue shirt John Riley is wearing. There has to be a million things wrong about this shirt, but by far the most disturbing part of it are the two tiny buttons at the top. They are undone.

I look at the four spiky, Goth-coloured teens crouched at the table by the window and gesture them to get lost. The teens look hurt, but they soon realise that nobody cares one way or the other, abandon the beer and leave through the back door.

John looks around the room. We look back, a bunch of mannequins from a department store across the street, with eyes that can wink. We are supposed to say something quiet and tragic and obvious, but instead I keep wondering about the two buttons at the top of John's blue shirt. The fuckers are undone, and you cannot exactly blame that on a windless afternoon in late August.

'Why is it so quiet in here?' says John. 'Is it supposed to be so quiet in here?'

'A glass of beer?' asks the Sailor, by way of a reply. Which is either rude or exactly what we need in this situation.

John doesn't say anything. He turns his head around, intensely, as if looking for someone. The Sailor repeats the question. Basically, the man has no nerves.

'Yes, thank you. The usual'.

At which point the clock strikes three, and I start thinking of Randy who is supposed to be in Bermondsey Street by now. It's a thought which sticks, like all those thoughts you are not even supposed to have. In the meantime, John Riley sits at the table opposite ours and looks in our direction the way you look when you have a story to tell. From two metres off, I smell shampoo on his hair. If anything, I smell too much of it. For all the world, it's a Tuesday afternoon like any other.

'John', says Peter and I recognise the jittery intonation, I recognise the sentiment. I touch his hand, begging him to stop. In fact, I'm thinking of calling Randy and telling him there may have been a terrible mistake.

We are looking at John, three pairs of lips disfigured by something quiet and tragic and obvious. A slow dirge in the distance could prove fatal, but in the meantime we are improvising, we are playing along. Two days ago, when John dropped in here on the way to the hospital, he just sat there at the table opposite ours and we talked about the bad sides of Spanish cuisine. Now it’s the silence and it's past three in the afternoon and we can't even resume the conversation we were having five minutes ago. 

'Can I have cognac?' says John.

'I thought you said the usual', says the Sailor, looking not in the least confused.

'Yes. But can I have cognac?'

'Certainly', says the Sailor and removes the glass from the table.

'Hey, could we have cognac too?' I ask. Peter and Collum are looking at me and I know full well none of us have drunk cognac in years.

John takes a sip and says nothing. The vague promise of a story gives way to the bittersweet taste I recollect from the day when Connie said she had a splitting headache that only a glass of Courvoisier could cure. This was the first day of our honeymoon. It's bizarre how you always remember the time and the place where you drank cognac.

Slowly, we are dragged back into the small talk that presently never rises above a whisper. The Sailor is cleaning the glasses, and I wonder if anything can break the guy.

'Remember Hank?' asks John, shutting us down, shutting everything down, and all I can hope now is for Randy not to come back in the next half hour. 'Hank Flanagan? Antique dealer? Remember that story about how he died?'

The Sailor, all confidence and rude authority, steps outside the counter, walks up to the door and shuts it. John is looking at us with that quizzical confidence of someone who he is trying to figure out if we are worthy of the story. If we have the guts and intelligence to grasp it. We shake heads: no, we don't remember. We've heard about it but we don't remember the story. Because we were young at the time and because you can't trust a rumour in this town. Also, people talked about a thunderstorm, but when you are young you don't notice. Or else you do notice and then one day, one night you stop caring about anything you had once given your heart to. Friends, girls, even deaths.

'He died in that freak accident in the field’, says the Sailor.

'No, before that', says John, his eyes fixed upon the three of us like the Sailor is not even in the room.

'What do you mean, before that?' I ask.

'So you don't know', says John. He seems to be satisfied with our ignorance like any story-teller should be (not that he is – in fact, this could well be the first story we hear from John Riley). There's a rush of blood to his cheeks which dilutes the tension and even the walls heave a sigh of relief. For a second, there's a feeling that Molly got it wrong when she burst into the bar yesterday evening and if I now excuse myself for a second and ask the right question, we could appreciate the black humour and maybe even laugh about the whole thing. 'Well', John continues, 'this happened three years before the so-called freak accident. Hank shot himself'.

This sounds like a statement for a Tuesday afternoon, and there's a sense that the Sailor has stopped wiping the glasses.

'It happened on the 22nd of August'. Oh my God, I’m thinking, this is awful: the cognac tastes like medicine. 'I remember exactly because I was keeping a diary at the time and I diligently wrote all my cases in it. I was young'. John Riley says it like we are making a judgement. We are not. We are listening. 'Sarah and I were having dinner when the phone rang. Back then, I thought I could recognise from the way it rang what the trouble was. I swear I could tell from the sound if it was internal bleeding or a sore throat. This time, it was different. It was long and fitful and it had this anxious twang to it. Sarah paled and put her hand over mouth and right away I knew this had to be something I had never dealt with before. When I took the phone from Sarah, I heard the visceral scream of a desperate woman. Mary. Hank had shot himself'.

John Riley finishes off his drink, and the Sailor fills up his glass for the second time. 'We are fine,' we nod in unison, and I'm trying to call Randy under the table.

'I took a cab and I came to Hank’s place in just under ten minutes. He was lying on the floor, cold and heavy, and I was ashamed of how unsteady my hands were. I was afraid to touch him! I was the doctor, but I was also young and I had known Hank and Mary since early school. In fact, I used to date Mary for a short while – but that was no more than a fling. It was before Hank’s time, too’.

We need time to process all that as John’s speech is getting soaked in pace and alcohol. And it’s like John senses that, for suddenly he stops, and all four of us (the Sailor is beyond my field of vision, my eyes are fixed on John Riley) exude a short-lived yet intent curiosity. It’s like we are trying to hear something in the distance, maybe a mile off, but it appears to be nothing and John continues.

‘This was my first suicide, and my fingers were trembling. I remember tapping on his wrist for pulse instead of squeezing it. Also, why would I be doing it when the death looked so obvious?.. In medical terms, there was nothing for me to do. You have perhaps read that not every shot in the temple is successful. There's a nerve in your head that you shouldn't hit. If you hit it, you will end up blind and paralyzed and facially disfigured for the rest of your life. Well, Hank made no such mistake. He served in the army, remember, and he knew exactly where the bullet was supposed to hit. A tiny pool of blood and the minute hole in his temple: death had come immediately. American Remington Model 51, his pride and joy he had sworn to never sell, was lying by his right foot. When my stupor subsided, I finally heard the sound that had been all over the house since I’d arrived. Mary was hysterical'.

John takes out a cigarette and lights it the masterful way of someone who holds your attention by the pull of seven strings. Smoking isn't allowed in here, but it's not like the Sailor is going to do anything about it.

'So what about the freak accident three years later?' asks Collum, and I want to strangle him right there. Some people have no concept of timing.

'Freak accident?' says John Riley, lost in reverie. When he is finally jerked back to reality, it’s as if through some wild jostle from inside his chest. 'Funeral was two days later, because it had been a suicide and the police had been involved briefly. It began after three o'clock, like it had always been in this town: the hearse, the music, Mary and the two little daughters who could not quite understand what was going on. It was an eerie experience. Everyone was still talking about the reasons for Hank's taking his own life. Someone mentioned his financial situation and someone mentioned a military incident that I knew had never actually taken place. And then there was also the case of Hank’s dog which had run away three day before he shot himself’.

We all hear stories of runaway dogs, and there’s a moment of reflection lasting less than a second because of what we might hear if we pay attention and listen up. John Riley is a first-class storyteller.

‘I remember the flowers and how when we got to the graveyard Father O'Brien said a few words and then I remember how some kid I had never seen before, possibly Hank’s Scottish nephew, kept scratching the lid of the casket and it was driving everyone insane. I remember the kid for the overzealous fringe that certain protective mothers were so fond of. I dragged him away, rather rudely, and then he just vanished and I never saw him again. Not that I paid much attention to it, mind. All I was hearing was the music and all I was thinking about was Hank'.

'What did you think?' I say. I feel like we all need a short breather before whatever comes next. 'Why did he do it?'

'It was remorse‘, says John, rather absent-mindedly, turning his head to the counter so as to negotiate his next drink. 'It wasn't about the army and it certainly wasn’t about the money. Antique-trade is fairly safe. It was about Mary. He hadn't been faithful to her'.

John Riley is on his third glass of cognac while we are still cringing and puffing and wincing at the first one.

'And then, when I threw a handful of earth on the casket after it had been lowered into the ground, there was this sound. This crude thud from within. I screamed. In fact, I wailed – if you can actually wail for no longer than two seconds. The dread was primordial, absolutely physical, and it was far from over. Because the lid was flung open, and he emerged'.

'Fucking hell, John!' says Peter. 'Who emerged?'

'Hank Flanagan'.

'You mean he was alive?'

'Yes, with just a scratch on his temple'.

'Fucking hell, John', whispers Collum.

'And then he gets out of the hole in the ground, without anyone's help (we were hardly able to move, it was like the air became solid matter for those thirty seconds), and walks up to Mary. They embrace, and she calms down straight away. It’s like a miracle, and the four of them, Mary, Hank and two daughters leave the graveyard’.

‘And then what?’ asks Peter. ‘What next?’

‘What next? What do you mean – what next? Life goes on, right until the freak accident in the field'.

'And what did everyone think about it?' asks the Sailor. ‘I mean the whole thing?’

'Nothing’, says John, and there’s a certain weariness to his voice now. ‘At first, there was this awful sense of confusion – but then we got used to it. It’s an old town, it digests any kind of oddity and perversion. It’s like the stomach of a pigeon. Ever tried to imagine the stomach of a pigeon?’ John Riley finishes up the dregs and looks around. It isn’t that he is interested in how we took the story, it is more like he is trying to figure out where he is. And then, suddenly, it’s as if he knows. ‘Hank was a quiet man, and he seemed to be back to his old ways. Reading newspapers and selling antiquities. We did not communicate much after his suicide but a few times I was summoned to treat his two daughters who suffered from peculiarly poor health. Well, they are both married now, living in America. And Mary, well, you know about Mary'.

But we have no time to reflect on the fate of poor Mrs. Flanagan, because at this point we listen up and hear the slow dirge in the distance, about a mile off, and it's all over. John Riley rises from the table, leaves a few coins and walks out of the bar. Slowly, mournfully, as if the music is for him. But it isn’t. We all tiptoe to the window to see where he is going – and he is indeed walking towards the funeral procession. I turn around and see Randy standing by the Sailor with a beautiful bunch of flowers. It looks like he has been standing there for quite some time now, having no doubt entered through the back door. I’m looking at that overzealous fringe which has minutes ago been featured on the head of a non-existent nephew from Scotland. I'm thinking of the story we've just heard and I'm thinking of the flowers and how lucky we are that Randy never picked up his phone.

'Randy', I say, 'You got the inscription?'

'Yes', he says, and shows me the black ribbon. The ribbon says 'It's for Sarah'

'Good. Now please follow that man. And when it's all over, put the flowers on the fresh grave of Mrs. Riley. And hold your cap! The wind has picked up'.


30 August 2016

16


SIXTEEN


Remember how I sent you a flower
and you wrote to me that it was not a flower
but a bird that flew into your window
when you were sixteen and sitting on the chair
cutting those tiny figures from paper
that you said were a pale shadow
of what Matisse did in his dying days
when he was in France and bedridden
and visited by Picasso who himself in those days
was but an old man with wrinkles
the size of your beautiful cutouts
that included all sorts of creatures
that your vivid imagination produced by night
but also by day
when Mildred sent you to work in the post-office
where your job was so boring
that you sometimes fell asleep and they woke you up
(the senseless animals that they were)
with a new pile of envelopes
which you had to disassemble
into a bunch of separate groups
that were later picked up by local postmen
who were so angry when you 'dared' to make a mistake
 that they called you all those cruel names
which you could never repeat
not even to yourself
but in fact they were madly in love with you
even Mr. Fonstein who you once told me
had this enormous collection
of Playboy postcards
at the bottom of his black leather bag
that he was so proud of
as this bag (he claimed)
came from his great-grandfather
who had built the post office a few million years
before you put your pretty little foot in it
and then got bored by the routine
that made you think of all those creatures
that were by turns fascinating and absolutely ghastly
and made you scream at night
much to the discomfort of Mildred
 who had all those lovers sleeping with her
and who may have been so disturbed by the noise
they jumped out of bed right in the midst of it
and never came back to Mildred
who would in the morning ruin your breakfast
by making a scene or just telling you off
for being such a ‘spoilt and selfish little brat’
and for destroying her life
which had really been destroyed ages ago
 when she had worked in the house of Mrs. Kitts
that spooked us so much every time we passed it
in those three weeks that we spent together
and that I could never forget
and wished to substitute with something new
but failed miserably and instead came back
time and time again to those wild gasps of pleasure
 that added some strange spice to our walks
and filled them with the understatement
we could barely expect the night
when I walked up to you
after that strange Bergman film
that you watched with some lanky idiot
who yawned in the middle of it
and whom you subsequently dumped
with such phenomenal ease
that I felt you had a list of idolaters
that stretched way beyond London
where you only came for a day
and would later return home
and I would think that was it, really, but in fact
you replied and subsequently
I found out about how awkward you were
and yet how spontaneous and electrifying
and my God how disorganised your handwriting was
 and how many nights I spent trying to read those
 bizarre scriptures that never contained 'I love you'
or even 'I miss you'
and instead concentrated on what you thought
of this or that film, book, record
and so walking by the house of Mrs. Kitts
was an erotic experience so strong
that it welled up inside us until it finally happened
and we released it by the cherry tree
near the place where I was staying
because Mildred disliked me with a jealous passion
and because I had the money from the military
that could sustain me for those three weeks
before I had to get back to the front
yet I was no longer scared because I had you
you who were so sensitive as to never mention death
 in your letters except maybe indirectly
when you asked me to be cautious
and not to attempt any courage
because otherwise you would cut me out of paper
(which you did in the end)
and hang me over the window
alongside all those dreadful creatures
from your nightmares that nothing could cure
except for a small flower I sent you
before they assigned me to my final mission
and that flew into your window as a bird
of which you told me in your last letter?

Yes, I did receive it,
and yes, you were only sixteen at that time,
and innocent, and too immersed in life to know
that one day
one night
we would really meet.