ITALIAN POSTMODERNISM

"If you ever hire a detective to spy on me", he said to her as they were having a walk down one of the quieter streets in autumn-time Brooklyn. "This seems to be the right place". 

He said that casually, en passant, holding her by the hand, and she quickly laughed it off. After all, a casual remark like that was nothing new. Brooklyn was at its best in early October, and it inspired them to be playful during these long walks close to the Borough Park area where they lived. They would make comments on just about anything, from drooling babies to drunk teenagers. Nothing was off limits, which was the way they dealt with the insidious middle age slowly, meticulously taking ground. So really, there was nothing odd about him throwing a one-liner like that. As a matter of fact, the idea of a detective agency made little sense to her. Outside black and white Hollywood movies and paperback novels by Raymond Chandler, the world had no place for them anymore. Seconds later, Paul brought up something else and that was the end of it. And yet whatever they saw and spoke about later that Sunday afternoon, in her thoughts she kept returning to the detective agency and its name which had stuck for no apparent reason. The somewhat uneventful word ‘Phoenix’ was written on a golden plaque and featured the sort of ill-advised italics she had not seen in years.  

That evening, as they were about to go to bed, Rachel searched the detective agency on the Internet and discovered a rather modest-looking webpage with minimalist design. The stomach-churning font was unmistakably there, at the top of the page as well as a brief list of services which, among other things, offered to ‘tail’ your spouse or your lover for a negotiable fee. The whole thing looked silly and grotesque and she had switched the phone just before Paul joined her in bed. 

Her next week at the office was rather intense and her thoughts were hijacked by a rumbustious delegation from Lisbon who wanted to promote Portuguese rice which, from what she could gather, was rather nondescript and had no chance of success on the American market. Still, during the business lunch she suddenly realised that they were close to that very street from last Sunday. She suggested having a short walk in the Borough Park area, and the Portuguese people did not mind. By that point, they had been too drunk to care, and she took them to the very place where the golden plaque was. "Look", she said to Monica, the easily amused daughter of a businessman who owned the Portuguese brand. "You know what that is?" However, Monica was more interested in the idea that a detective agency would name itself after a mythological bird rather than the fact that this was, in fact, a detective agency. "Would you spy on your husband?" Rachel asked half-jokingly. "Why?" Monica laughed. "Would you?" Rachel said no and chose to change the subject.

She said no but what she really meant was Olivia. 

Olivia was an Italian student who had come to New York to write a paper on Italian postmodernism. They got acquainted back in August when at some point late in the evening the bell rang, and this slender girl with big glasses and full-blooded Sicilian lips was standing in the door way. In an expressive manner that seemed at odds with her subtle build, she said she had moved to this house three weeks ago and was now so excited to be living in Brooklyn. Her apartment was downstairs and Rachel thought that this could be one of those noise complaints they had not had in years. The girl mentioned her name was Olivia and said she had some friends for dinner and maybe they had a corkscrew. A corkscrew? "How dull", Rachel thought and immediately felt Paul's presence behind her back. "A wing corkscrew?" he asked. "Or a cloche?" It was all fairly innocuous and back at the time Rachel did not pay it any mind. But now, puzzled one more time by the word ‘Phoenix’, she really thought about Olivia and the day when she came to ask for a corkscrew. Also, she thought about what happened two days later when she opened a casual bottle of Primitivo and the corkscrew was back in its usual place. 

Later that afternoon, at home, she cooked dinner and waited for Paul. Paul was a travel agent and he was running late, and while this was nothing new, she felt angry and strangely agitated. So much so that when he came home, kissed her on the forehead, sat at the table and began to eat, the anger welled up inside her to the extent that she could not hold it back anymore.

"Did you just fuck her?" she said. Paul raised his eyes and looked at her with a badly conceived smile. "What? Actually, the risotto is undercooked. A little too al dente for my taste". 

And that was it. There was no question that he had heard her just fine, and yet it was utterly unthinkable that he did not even make a feeble attempt at talking it through. At trying to understand. At getting to the bottom of it. In fact, all he did was change the subject and mention risotto which was just about as al dente as it had ever been. And no, this was not just a casual comment, one of those which can could be brushed off in favour of a better one. There was no doubt in her mind that he knew exactly who ‘her’ referred to. And still. Olivia. How cheap it was, how mind-crushingly obvious. A corkscrew? A corkscrew which he handed to her? Really?

That night, she made a point of making love to Paul in a way she had not done in years. For a start, she put on The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack by Peter Gabriel (her perfect sex music) and told Paul to take her from behind. She talked dirty (she used the word 'cock' a few time, which he used to love, and at one point she actually inserted her tongue into his ear and whispered the word 'corkscrew') and she faked multiple orgasms that rose in volume and intensity. Rachel screamed during those orgasms with a somewhat desperate abandon in the hope that the sound isolation would fail and the Italian girl would hear everything. By the end of it, Paul was exhausted and wondered what had possessed her. "Nothing", she said. "But I just hate it when it is too al dente".

Rachel never did go to check whether Paul was ever downstairs with Olivia huffing profusely and trying to make her Italian body excited. First, she did not need any proof as she had already discovered a novel by Italo Calvino in his briefcase, and second, he would not have done that in her apartment in the first place. She knew Paul. Paul was secretive, and there was a bigger chance that he would do it in his mother's basement or in a cheap hotel in Queens. Instead, at some point in early November she found herself in one of those quieter streets in the centre of Brooklyn and stared at the golden plaque with the word ‘Phoenix’ on it. Now that she looked at that plaque against the yellow-coloured maple trees of Borough Park, it did not look so tacky and dated anymore. As a matter of fact, she stepped into the doors of the agency with a certain defiance she had not felt in years. 

Considering the fact that she did not know what to expect, the place was a match for her imagination. There was a bored girl sitting at the reception making selfies and feeling completely at ease now that Rachel was sitting there waiting. The walls were completely white, and overall the place had a distinct look of a hospital or maybe an especially uninspired lawyer's office. There were no posters on the walls and no certificates flashing a meaningless award won by Phoenix a good decade ago. After some time, she was asked to enter a small room at the very end of a long and uncomfortable corridor. As she was walking there, feeling the odd floorboard creak under her feet, she could not stop wondering what could possibly be happening in all those other rooms along the way. 

The room which she entered looked like a Stasi interrogation cabinet. Again, she was mostly drawing from books and movies but the similarity was uncanny. There was little furniture inside, and the lamp standing on the edge of the desk smelled of dead flies and burnt oil. "How can we help you?" said a middle-aged man on the other side of the desk. He did not quite turn around so effectively to greet her, the way Philip Marlow would have done, but this was still a little too theatrical for her taste. In the end, though, the meeting turned out to be very business-like and efficient. Also, as she studied the face of the man more closely, she recognised him to be your average New Yorker (if there is such a thing) that you would overlook on your next commute to Manhattan. "It's my husband...", she began and immediately felt a tinge of remorse and even panic. Who were these people anyway? And did she have to fear God? Still, she thought of Olivia, Italo Calvo and the rest of it, and in the end provided all the required information and signed an agreement which included, among other things, a somewhat exaggerated down payment.  

Phoenix worked fast, and two or three days later she had a second meeting in the last room of the long corridor in downtown Brooklyn. There, by the same lamp smelling of dead flies and burnt oil, she was shown a dozen printed images of her husband walking into a hotel in Queens and leaving it a few hours later. And then there was another picture, made twenty-seven minutes after the first. It showed Olivia walking out of the same building with a tote bag saying ‘Save the Planet’. Rachel felt severe palpitations inside her throat as she studied the pictures again and again. Then, however, as she paid the rest of the fee (which seemed counter-intuitive as she was paying for bad news) and left the building, the feeling changed. For the first time in what appeared to be days, months and even years, she felt free. She felt ecstatically, perversely happy. She knew exactly what she was supposed to be doing now. And when over dinner that day Paul mentioned that he felt like he was being watched by someone, she only shrugged her shoulders and tried to suppress the subtle glint in her eye. “Maybe one of your past clients who you fucked over. Sold him a trip to Saudi Arabia or something”.

As a matter of fact, she actually felt emboldened by what she had discovered recently, and there was a new dimension to her voice as she offered John to have coffee after work. John was taken aback at first and did not quite understand where the catch was, but John was notoriously slow and she was not especially looking forward to sleeping with him. Still, she chose John because he was single and he appeared to have good relationship with Paul. During her birthday party two or three years ago, they bonded quite seamlessly over the latest travails of the Brooklyn Nets, and this, she felt, could be explored. That, and John's suppressed sexuality where a corkscrew was nothing more than a corkscrew. She loved that. She loved the possibilities.

Surprisingly, she did not see a lot of Olivia in the ensuing weeks. But then she did not care anymore. This far into the season, New York was getting less attractive, and Olivia may have been stuck in her room reading Infinite Jest and waiting for a visit from Paul (who did not have any reason to hide now that she was quite open about John). She did not care. In more ways than she cared to admit, she was actually enjoying her life.

And then, by Christmas time, the whole thing was effectively over. They were both invited to come to a classical concert that neither of them really cared about. Haydn's symphony felt like one big false ending, and she kept looking at the yellow socks of the cellist which seemed oddly out of place. Two hours later, they walked out into the snow, and at some point and for no reason at all, she brought up the detective agency. "Why", she asked, "why did you mention it that day in October?" Paul said he did not know what she was talking about, and for once she believed him. He actually had no idea. "Which detective agency?" But she only chuckled and so they trudged along, in the dirty snow, towards their apartment in central Brooklyn. He was thinking of that Italian postmodernist novel that Olivia had given him a while ago. "Read it", she said. "He is one of my favourite authors". He read it but there was little of it he understood. "So", Rachel said. "You did fuck her?" Paul was no longer trying to talk round this or hush it up. Besides, she had those photos with her which she felt was a great moment to reveal. "Yes", he nodded casually. "Yes, I fucked her. But only when you asked me to". At which point she brought up the corkscrew and he said that he had no idea what she was speaking about. This time, though, she did not believe him. Which did not really matter as once they entered the apartment, Paul suggested a divorce. And then, once the word was mentioned, they both felt the old and barely familiar sensation that made them jump onto the bed and make love half-dressed and for the first time in a very long time.

In the meantime, Olivia asked one of her friends to open the wine and somebody brought up the corkscrew. "Oh", she said. She had only just moved here and small details like that had completely escaped her. "Fuck it!" she cursed in that exaggerated manner of Italian people. "I guess I will have to ask my neighbours". However, no sooner had she left the apartment than her friends screamed: "Olivia, come back! You do not have to go! It's a screw cap, we do not need a corkscrew!" She actually heard them well and there was a brief moment of uncertainty but in the end she chose to go anyway. There was this bored middle-aged couple living upstairs and besides, there was something anxious and free in the air. Perhaps it was August. In the end, it was always August. August was her favourite month.

COLOSSEUM

I never knew why Dad took me to Rome - but he did. It happened every Sunday, and we came in his red Fiat which we would leave in one of those quieter streets in central Rome that tourists could never find. Dad knew those streets well, and I felt a strange sense of pride. We would then walk towards the Colosseum and the Roman Forum in complete silence, and this silence was like a magical bubble that was only occasionally disturbed by the rare pinpricks of my questions. In a way, there was no need to talk in this big old city which, to me, looked like the intestines of an ancient dinosaur. I hated Rome. Rome frightened me. It frightened me with its perpetual noise and its thunderous conversations and its overwhelming filth. And yet, despite all that, I loved coming here with my Dad. Him in his glamorous, slightly oversized black suit with a white shirt sticking out from the chest and me in my faded jeans and the tucked in shirt of light blue which mother would iron for just this occasion. 

Once in a while, Dad would stop at some place and get me a slice of pizza or show me the remnants of ancient ruins which at some point started to look indistinguishable from one another. And it was the same with the churches, too, which would all become a blur and which would occasionally save us from the sweltering sun and the sudden rain. We would walk past fish restaurants smelling of chlorine and we would drop into a bar where my Dad would smoke and drink a long glass of beer and I would sit close by sipping the extra cold Coke which would sometimes make my teeth numb with pain. I hated Rome, but I loved being part of this Sunday ritual. Besides, the sheer vastness and the ugly deformations of the city made my Dad less scary than he would be at various other points of my life. Rome was much too big, even for my Dad, and it swallowed him up like it did with everyone and everything else. Like it did at those moments when Dad disappeared behind the back door of the bar and did not come back for ten of fifteen minutes. But even as he was away, I felt no imminent danger. I felt secure.

And then, past a drug store and a noisy park with yoga mats and sparkling glasses of champagne and short grass burnt by the sun... and it was here, by the side of a corrugated gate, where the man was. The first time, I had actually caught sight of him way before my Dad stopped me and spoke those rare words. It was not even the man that I noticed - rather, it was his naked leg which was all black and full of a million cracks. The leg looked like a charred piece of wood and I believed that if he was to stand up and try to walk, the leg would crackle under pressure and break down into a thousand splinters. When we walked past the man (I tried not to see him but I could not look away), my Dad grabbed me by my shoulder and stopped me in the middle of a busy street. "There", he said, taking out a few banknotes. "Give it to that man". And so I did, because my Dad asked me to. Because there was not a cell in my body which could fathom saying no. With my hands trembling I approached the man as inconspicuously as I could. I knew that if he noticed me, I would have to greet him and perhaps even answer some sick question that he had for me. I knew that if I would just throw the money into his coffee cup and run away, he would not be able to stop me. And then I would also have to hold my breath, because I did not want to feel the rotting stench of the black leg. The stench that could, in all probability, kill me. 

But, again, I could not look away, and so he always noticed my presence and the hungry pair of eyes fixed on him. I threw the money into his cup and ran away, holding my breath and trying not to hear the muffled voice that contained all the heat and the filth of the city. Then I ran to my Dad and, once again, the world was back to normal. Dad never explained this, and yet on our way through Rome we would pass hundreds of beggars and it was only this man, the creepiest one, the one with the charred leg, who made him stop and look for money. My Dad avoided being seen by that man, or so I thought, and there were times when I had to wonder (to myself, of course, never out loud) if the man was not the reason why we never changed our route. Why we came to Rome in the first place.

On our way, I would also notice those wonderful street magicians that could do things even my Dad could not explain. There was one bearded black man in particular who was levitating in the air like an evil ghost, and sometimes I dragged my Dad by the edge of his sleeve but he just shrugged his shoulders and started another cigarette. Rome was enormous, ugly, impenetrable.

But then we came upon the Colosseum. You could never anticipate it, not even if you sensed its quiet onslaught from a mile off. It crushed you, it caught you unawares. Small and completely overwhelmed, I would be feeling dizzy and even nauseous. I remember looking at my Dad and noticing his Adam's apple moving faster and faster as his breath kept growing in depth and intensity. He was breathing in the Colosseum, he was trying to get it, the full extent of its giant dilapidated carcass, into his chest. I tried to do the same, but the Colosseum slipped away and I could not understand it. Nothing in my imagination and the way I saw the world could prepare me for the sheer enormity of what I was witnessing. And yet each time the Colosseum seemed to be the apex of our trip to Rome. Whatever we did later on would feel meaningless and have a dull effect of an anti-climax. Dad never took me to galleries or museums. It was not something that interested him. We went to the Colosseum, and then, later, after another slice of pizza by the Arch of Constantine, we found our way back to the car and went home. 

However, I remember the day when my Dad inserted the key into the ignition and did not turn it. Instead, he yawned and remained motionless. He said he was exhausted and suggested that we both sleep for a while. I remember feeling uneasy about that as I believed it was late and mother was probably waiting for us at home. Still, I could not say anything, not to my Dad. Besides, he soon fell asleep and the peaceful snore filled my heart with an unknown kind of restlessness. I looked out of the window, and the dust was making the view blurry and unattractive. In the end, I decided to open the door and slipped out onto the street. 

Roman heat was at its most unforgiving during that part of the afternoon. It was slimy and fatigued and it filled your lungs with something heavy and dangerous. And yet I did not want to go back to the car and instead, wandered cautiously down the street. I did not want to get too far away, though, and kept the red silhouette of Dad's Fiat within eyeshot. What caught my attention was something that I had seen many times before and that I had never dared to mention to my Dad. It was a small kiosk squeezed between two narrow buildings with a young woman half-hidden behind the counter and making fresh orange juice. Holding red oranges in her right hand, she was pressing them tightly against this clever contraption which transformed fruit into liquid. The intense smell of that liquid I could feel on the other side of the street, and it seemed to me as if this was the smell of the girl's long black hair, dense and lit by the sun. It was a mesmerising sight, and at one point I got so carried away by the act that I walked a little too close to her. Taking note of my curiosity, she looked straight at me and offered a glass of orange juice. I blushed, made an embarrassing sound that felt like a short squeak and quickly walked away. I was so busy walking that I did not even notice how I got lost. At some point I realised that I could no longer tell where Dad's car was standing, and it filled me with fear - the idea that Dad could wake up soon and not see me in the back seat of his car.

Still, I kept walking along those streets trying to find something I could recognise. At some point I ran into an old couple who were walking in my direction, slowly, hand in hand. With my voice uncertain of itself, I asked them where Colosseum was, but they said something in a language I did not understand. I was living inside a nightmare now, one which had probably come to me before. It was a nightmare of being lost in this enormous city whose present was lost in its history and with a million foreign tourists none of whom could help me find my way. Currently, I was trying to hang on to something, anything at all, and in my despair I discovered a butcher's shop where a giant bald man was standing behind the wooden counter cutting huge chunks of pork with a big set of knives of various sizes. Again, this seemed hypnotic, and the man was so deft with all those instruments, so elegant and so gruesome. He was kneading that meat, slicing it, chopping, carving and throwing onto a different table. Thankfully, the work was too demanding and he did not notice me and I could be standing there for hours.

 

But then, all of a sudden, a strong wind gathered, and I could see how glasses and plates were blown off the tables on the terraces. Sharp sandstones flew into my eyes, and Rome was growing darker. The wind spelled late afternoon, and I was forced to rush into another street. This time, I was lucky as I finally discovered something I had seen before: a park, and a broken gate as its entrance. The man with the charred leg was still sitting there and suddenly I realised that he was the only person I knew in this whole city. I saw the man from the distance and I tried to think of what I was supposed to be doing now that I was so close to him. This time, I could finally understand what he was saying, and this frightened me. It felt dirty and wrong. He was saying that I could get closer to him and that everything would be okay. I tried to explain about my Dad and about Sundays, about the Colosseum and the Fiat. I tried to describe my Dad to the man but words failed me time and time again. He listened, though. He tried to catch my words as they dangled in the air like a swarm of dead flies. Desperate and out of breath, I then grew silent and stared at him.

"The leg?" he said at last, noticing where my eyes were. "You want to touch it? Be my guest". 

I winced and I looked away. Then, however, I did touch it, and it was a different sensation from what I had expected. It was soft and smooth and it did not frighten me anymore. There was a smell, too, but I could not really tell what it was. For some reason, I thought the leg smelled of burned plums and the smell was not altogether unpleasant. You could get used to that smell. Then a pinprick of memory, and I realised that I could not find my way to the car and the dusk was growing thicker and more hostile. "Do you remember me from earlier?" I said to the man, trying to stay close. "I gave you money earlier today?" The man nodded vaguely, as if realising what I was doing, humouring me, indulging the game, and I kept throwing questions at him so as not to lose his attention. "What happened to your leg?" This time, he spoke. This time, he explained that it was a red car and its wheels ran over his leg a long while ago. "Did it hurt?" He nodded again, and this time his nod seemed clearer and more confident. "It doesn't hurt anymore, though".

He then told me to pick up the cup and count the money. I did that, after which I took one note for myself and carefully placed the rest of the money into his bag. As ever, he was weak, and I had to hold his hand and lead him to the back of the park where our spot was. It was a good spot, one of the best you could get once the yoga mats and the champagne glasses were gone, and the man told me that he had cracked the mystery of the bearded magician. However, I did not want to listen. He asked me not to leave him again for so long, and I felt the warmth and the sadness which I also knew as love. He then told me that I was in luck today for if I looked hard - I could see the upper edges of the Colosseum. I looked, I looked really hard - but I could not see anything. "Well?" he whispered. “Do you see?” I nodded, the way I always did. I did not want to disappoint him. Besides, the night was upon us and I could always dream it.

DECEMBER 1, 1921

She had no idea when the vague interest had turned into obsession. If she had to guess, she would have said that it happened three months ago when the rain started. It was like some giant floodgate was kicked open and the water that had been lying dormant all those dry summer months was finally released. And of course she did not have an umbrella. She never did. She believed umbrellas to be cumbersome and generally quite ugly. On that particular day in late September, the rain was relentless. It was the kind of rain that made everyone wonder in half-religious whisper: what have I done to deserve this? The moment when it started, she was standing at her usual spot - by the four lanterns, over the grave of Luigi Tassistro. She did not leave when the first wave hit the rough edges of the granite tombstone. If anything, she enjoyed being soaked through.

The ritual was quite straightforward, and to an outsider it looked like she was an overly devoted relative lost in thought. That the tombstone was that of a 15-year old boy who had died more than a century ago was immaterial. After all, the old Italian cemetery was full of old tombstones, and most of them looked tidy and well taken care of. The ritual was her standing over the concrete grave recounting the tragic and extraordinary story of Luigi's life. She was standing there, by the four lanterns (which she herself had brought - she had the habit of replacing the oldest lantern with a new one at the start of each month), looking at Luigi's face slightly blurred by the crumbling stone and trying to uncover his secret. The secret was his story and the early death which still made no sense to her. Early deaths never do make sense, though, and so it was only natural that when she first came to this cemetery, more than a year ago, she stopped by the tombstone of a handsome boy who died on August 1, 1921. The date of his birth was scratched away by the wind and the heat but she could still make it out: March 11, 1906. Somehow, the figures did not add up. They made her feel uncomfortable. Anxious. It was a blistering summer day in mid-July, and she just stood there sweating under the sun and wondering about the fate of one Luigi Tassistro. There was no answer. That day she came in as a depressed tourist, and she came out as... well, she came out as someone more than that.

The story got changed occasionally. Or, rather, it grew and expanded, it evolved and it acquired more details. Sometimes she tried to search online, but there was no information. There were multiple Tassistro families around Veneto region, but what could she do with them? So instead - she dropped the search and began to unravel the story of Luigi Tassistro the way she herself could see it. And even if it was not the authentic story, or parts of it were not, what did it matter a century later? The story was developed gradually, with each visit, and it was all in the old face of the young boy and the way he looked at her from beyond the grave. A mysterious, ghost-like look (the eyes were completely transparent, which may have been the effect of the sun), and yet there was dignity in them. A dignity that must have come from an aristocratic Italian family. All through his childhood, Luigi had it all. Elaborate toys with complex mechanisms, private tutors and an ornate swimming pool whose edges were decorated with small statues of Greek goddesses. Luigi loved that swimming pool, and he could be seen dipping and diving late in the evening, his golden hair soaked and stuck to the sides of his head - emphasising his beauty and the slightly effeminate facial features. Luigi had everything. He even had a lavish black suit which his grieving family would choose for a tombstone photograph and which was tailor-made for him by the famous Mr Rosetti from Venice. 

There was, however, a problem. It took her some time to figure it out but then, on a nippy morning in early April, the image came to her in graphic details. Back when Luigi was seven or eight, he saw something which would leave a lasting impression on him. That day, he was standing on the terrace and looking into the neighbour's garden when the said neighbour came out of her house and looked at him. A young woman of thirty, disturbingly beautiful and completely naked, was looking straight into his eyes and smiling at him. She did not try to hide the obvious fact that she could see him. No, she knew full well, and she carried no shame around her breasts or her thighs. His face got red and, later that evening, he felt sick and his mother had to call a doctor. Since then, he got a clenched throat and a patch of green light appeared in his eyes every time when he caught even a glimpse of a female body. This aversion, of which nobody else knew (not even the local priest who was apt at making boys confess to 'acts of impurity'), was especially strong when Luigi was joined in the swimming pool by his mother and his two sisters. The aversion would even spread to the small statues of Greek goddesses whose nakedness would sometimes feel more real than his own embarrassment. 

At which point she knelt down, took out a piece of cloth she always had in her pocket and wiped the bottom part of the tombstone. This was a habit, a ritual, and besides, there was always a speck of dust or perhaps a few sandstones eating at the granite. 

It was a year or two after the incident with the neighbour when a young girl student was brought in to teach English to Luigi. Her family was British, she was twenty-one and she needed the money. The offer was generous, too generous even for the city of Verona, and very soon she got to meet this brooding boy who blushed far too easily and whose face was as sullen as it was handsome. Also, his hair curled in the sun, and she envied those curls which her straight locks could never quite achieve.

They were studying the language by reading English poetry. Luigi did not much care for it, but while he was bored at first, there at one point appeared something that drew him to those hour-long classes on the terrace. A white dinner table was standing there, and she was sitting on his right. It happened on a hot summer day. Her dark blue blouse (she was the one who told him that it was better to wear darker colours in the shade) had its top button undone, and he realised that he could no longer focus on Coleridge and Shakespeare. All he could think of was her right nipple cradled inside her blouse. It looked hard, and perfect, and a feeling was stirred inside and the old aversion to female forms began to subside. 

The story was so smooth in her mind now - like she was reading it in a book. Originally, though, it was rough and sketchy and it took a year of these visits to the cemetery to make it wholesome and consistent. All those dead people lying around, humming inaudibly, and she was here on the first day of every month trying to make sense of the troubled past of Luigi Tassistro. And today, perhaps today, she could get that ending right.

The nipple was not always there, but her soft white breasts were, or his idea of them. During the classes, he found himself floundering between two extremes. Either he learned the whole sonnet by heart to impress her, or else he forgot his own name. Did she understand? Did she have any idea of the passion that was crawling all over his body? Well, initially he could not tell. She never unbuttoned her blouse more than a little, and she rarely talked to him about anything other than the uptight pronunciation and the rigid forms of the English language. But then there were moments when she was writing something, and her left hand would brush against his right arm (she was left-handed), and the tension inside his body would convulse and contort with forbidden delights. Besides, he began to notice the lewd subtext in some of those poems, and there was little doubt in his mind that she was choosing them deliberately. With a purpose. Luigi began to have those wet dreams that started with him lying in his bed in the darkness of his room and thinking about his hand touching the white breasts, touching the nipple, and then progressing into these giant swimming pools filled with Greek goddesses coming alive rubbing themselves against his body... He would wake up covered in shame, and at one point he woke up with a plan.

The days were getting hotter now, and she started wearing shorts (which were still rare but which were now coming into fashion) and her bronze legs once made him stop in the middle of a line from Wordsworth and say that he wanted to show her something. "Show?" she asked, confused. "Where?"

He invited her to follow him, and they entered the far area of the garden where the swimming pool stood. "Yes?" she said, looking at him with a half-smile, not noticing the wild contortions of teenage lust overwhelming Luigi from the inside. At which point Luigi took off his clothes and stood naked right in front of her. Thinking his naked body was her body, and thus trying to bring her closer to him. This moment, watched by no one but six nude goddesses of cheap marble, lasted a few seconds, perhaps a whole century, and while he was expecting her to follow him, she told Luigi to get dressed, turned around and left. Without saying a word. Without ever looking back and seeing the fear, the hurt, the desperate intention. 

Oh her heart was beating faster now. Because this was it, this was perhaps the ending she had been looking for all this time.

Because when this English girl came the next day, unsure of herself, feeling some strange guilt for which there was no cure, the atmosphere about the house had changed. It was no longer that of languid luxury and unassumed bliss. The very mansion looked downtrodden and oddly compromised. There was an envelope offered to her by the servant - dated August 2, thanking her for her services. She tried to ask, to say something, to reason, but the servant said she had to leave. There was a sob that came from within the house, an impetuous and lonesome sob, and it was like a small crack that was now covering the century-old surface of the granite.

She shivered. It was winter now, the first of December and the thin layer of snow was covering each tombstone of the cemetery. It was quiet and calm, but she could not stop hearing that ancient hum of the dead. For the first time ever, the hum was coming from within, and as she looked around and saw the hundreds upon hundreds of black and white tombstones, she realised what it really was, and she screamed. But the scream was but a whisper. Or, rather, it was the hum that someone outside, in the real world, could hear. That is, if he cared to listen.

Аповед пяцідзесяты. Цішыня.

Больш за ўсё я сумую па цішыні. Ва ўсім гэтым беззапаветным мінулым, якое цьмянее, выгарае, але ніколі не знікае назаўжды, мне так бракуе цішыні. Але не любой цішыні, не ўсякай. Мне не хапае цішыні вясковага дома.

Цяжка растлумачыць такую цішыню і яшчэ цяжэй апісаць. Памятаю, як аддана я ўслухоўваўся ў яе кожны раз, калі не мог заснуць, а яна шамацела выключаным радыё і непрачытанымі кнігамі Жуля Верна. Калі мінулі гады і не стала ні хаты, ні вёскі, я часта ляжаў у менскім ложку і спрабаваў прыдумаць гэтую цішыню. Узнавіць яе, сабраць па секундах. Я думаў, што калі мне ўдасца гэта зрабіць, то я вярнуся ў старую хату з яе цьмянымі сценамі і пахам сушаных грыбоў. Вядома, нічога не атрымлівалася, і цішыня рассыпалася ў маіх сонных далонях.

Гэта глыбокая цішыня, яна дыхае калодзежнай вадой, зорным небам, аддаленым брэхам сабак і прахалодным летнім вечарам. Яна паглынае цябе і ўсё жывое. Яна здушвае грудзі нечым мяккім і прыемным. У ёй жыве цэлы свет сакрэтаў і мільёнаў недаказанасцяў.

Тут яе няма. Яе ўвогуле няма нідзе, гэтай цішыні. Справа не ў суседзях і не ў шуме грукатлівых трамваяў. Справа вось у чым. Гады тры ці чатыры таму я быў на лецішчы ў сябра і ў нейкі момант застаўся адзін. Я падышоў да кніжнай паліцы і дастаў «Ганну Карэніну». Сеў чытаць, на канапу ля прахалоднага акна, і ўжо не мог адарвацца. Дваццаць, трыццаць, пяцьдзесят старонак... Цішыня вакол стварала ўнутраны спакой, ад якога кніжныя словы цёпла асядалі на спіне і на сценках страўніка. Я чытаў да таго моманту, пакуль сябар не вярнуўся, і цьмяная лямпа не пачала згасаць.

Я ўзяў гэтую кнігу ў Менск, каб працягнуць чытаць, аднак кожны раз, калі я разгортваў яе ў горадзе, у хаце ці ў вагоне метро, я губляў цікавасць і пачынаў думаць пра нейкія пабочныя справы. Так адбывалася зноў і зноў, кніга марнела, цьмянела і закрывалася. Нават калі сусед спаў, а вулічны трамвай самотна начаваў у якім-небудзь далёкім і ціхім дэпо.

Аповед сорак дзевяты. Танцы і цішыня.

Яна паглядзела на ўсіх нас, мокрых і ўсхваляваных. Мы стаялі ўздоўж бясконца доўгага танцавальнага станка, калі яна ўрачыста прамовіла: «Цяпер я падыду да станка і пакладу на яго сваю руку. Гэтым я адлучу тых, каго мы бярэм у школу ад тых, каму мы адмаўляем». Яна выстраіла нас у лінію ў вызначанай, адной толькі ёй зразумелай паслядоўнасці, і падышла да таго месца, дзе стаяў я. Паклала руку злева ад мяне і аб'явіла: «Тыя, хто справа... Я віншую вас. Вы будзеце вучыцца танцаваць». Страшэнны цяжар зваліўся на драўляны паркет: я быў апошнім, хто апынуўся на правільным баку. 

Пасля мама часта расказвала гэтую гісторыю сябрам і знаёмым, і кожны раз дадавала, што да апошняга была ўпэўненая, што мяне не возьмуць. Што яна магла пакласці руку і справа ад мяне і, мусіць, амаль зрабіла гэта. Але ўсё ж. Яна паклала руку менавіта з левага боку і тым самым узяла мяне ў свой танцавальны клас. У тыя моманты я ганарыўся сабою, аднак моманты гэтыя так і засталіся момантамі.

Бо танцы палохалі мяне. Заняткі, трэніроўкі, справаздачныя канцэрты. Я адчуваў той самы ўнутраны дыскамфорт, які адчуваў на занятках па тхэквандо ў яшчэ больш глыбокім дзяцінстве. Я не разумеў, навошта ўсё гэта трэба, і чаму пасля школы я не ехаў дадому глядзець серыял пра снежнага чалавека па імені Гары, але ехаў у аўтобусе нумар 72 у іншую частку горада. З танцавальнай формай у торбе і бутэрбродам з сырам у заплечніку. Часам мама ездзіла туды са мной, аднак часцей я ехаў адзін. Разглядаў дажджлівы горад у апошнім акне аўтобуса і думаў аб танцах. Я не ведаў, атрымлівалася ў мяне ці не, аднак новую канцэртную форму шылі таксама і на мяне і ніхто па-ранейшаму не выганяў мяне з заняткаў. Як не выганялі, напрыклад, іншага хлопчыка, які ўвесь час еў яблыкі, і чыя сястра стане калісьці прымай-балярынай Вялікага тэатра.

Часам, калі заняткі заканчваліся позна ўвечары, мама забірала мяне дадому. Часам гэта адбывалася яшчэ да таго, як выкладчыкі адпускалі нас. І гэта было шчасце – такое ж, якое адчувае дзіця ў дзіцячым садзе, калі яго паднімаюць з ложка падчас «ціхай» гадзіны, каб сказаць, што за ім прыйшлі...

Аднойчы мама ўстрывожана сустрэла мяне каля дзвярэй танцавальнай залы і сказала, што нам трэба спяшацца дадому. «Чаму?» пытаўся я, выбягаючы ў калідор задоўга да канца занятку і радасна скідаючы з сябе чэшкі і ўсю гэтую ліпкую, ненавісную форму. Мама сказала, што забылася выключыць пліту, а дома нікога не было. Мабільных тэлефонаў яшчэ не існавала ў тым свеце, у якім жылі мы, і нам нічога не заставалася, акрамя як хутка паехаць дадому. Захапленне раптам знікла, вылецела за душную шыбу ў пакоі для пераапрананняў, і мы выбеглі з танцавальнай школы.

У галаве праляталі жудасныя карцінкі спаленай кватэры і абгарэлых цацак, падпаленых шпалер і дыму з акна дзіцячага пакоя, і ўвесь шлях дадому, у аўтобусе і на сцяжынцы ўніз ад вуліцы Чыгуначнай, я ўяўляў сабе страшныя наступствы пажару. Памятаю, як мы наблізіліся да нашага цаглянага дома і паглядзелі на балкон... Але ж не, на балконе нічога не было, адны толькі вазоны з кветкамі і белыя прасціны на вяроўках. Праўда, кухня была з іншага боку, і вось мы абмінулі нарэшце дом і паглядзелі ўверх. Не, у акне не было агню, і праз прыадчыненую фортку не выляталі густыя клубы дыму. Мы ўскочылі ў ліфт і праз імгненне апынуліся каля дзвярэй кватэры. Мама ўставіла ключ, павярнула яго, і мы ўбеглі ў пустую кватэру.

У кватэры было ціха. Такая глыбокая цішыня пасляабедзеннай кватэры, ад якой на сэрцы стала так дзіўна і так бясконца лёгка.