TRAIN DREAMS

She slept on trains.

Those were fast trains, quiet and efficient. Railway was like a mindless intersection of veins in a staggering body, and trains were this constant stream of blood seeping profusely as if from an open wound. Fascinating mechanism if you cared to think about it. Which Emily did quite often, especially in those first few months after her transfer to the south. When she couldn’t sleep.

Two years ago, more or less. Serene day in late May when she was coming home with the bad news. How would Charlie take it? What could she possibly tell him to stay? She bought two milkshakes and sat on a park bench, thinking how irresponsible it was – to be drinking milkshakes on a day like that. She weighed her options. “Charlie, if I go, I would not be able to make love to you. Once a week, maybe, but more like once a month. Are you okay with that?”  

Charlie smoked incessantly. He was anxious, he showed her a few pay slips from the newspaper. She couldn’t quit, not now. He brought up babies. Out of sheer desperation Emily threw a ceramic cup in his direction and it missed narrowly and broke the window. The argument proved to be short-lived. As a way of apology, Emily admitted she went too far and promised she would accept the transfer and how would he feel if she fucked the living daylights out of him that very night. “All right”, said Charlie. It was to be their last time for quite a while.

And then it began. A terrible drag at first: bad smell, bad neighbours, one long monotonous view stretching outside. She had to get used to that. She had to find something to do. Each train journey took forever, which in numerical terms amounted to one hour fifty-five minutes. For some reason, she could not fall asleep and was reduced to reading chunky erotic novels, listening to latest MTV hits, watching comedies on her laptop. None of it worked. And then Martin came into her office, sized up those two monstrous bags under her eyes and asked what the problem was. Then, before she could think of a reply, he offered to drive her to the station. That first time they had sex in a remote parking lot, in the backseat of his car, amid a handsome bunch of red roses, and it felt good. Next morning Emily fell asleep on the train. She had a nightmare. Something complicated, full of layers she could not peel away.  

More nightmares followed. A long, endless string of nightmares, pounding like some horrible train. And then Charlie came up with a solution. Of all people – Charlie.

A brief buzz of a text message scalded Emily’s upper lip. Martin. What could he possibly want at 6:15? She glanced at Charlie sleepwalking through the kitchen. Half-naked and even a tiny bit attractive. A slight tinge of shame as Emily typed her curt reply: ‘busy’. 

She knew: once you got used to your daily routine, there was nothing so annoying as those minor changes you were not even supposed to notice. But you did, and even a displaced sugar-bowl could make your nerve cells explode violently and spill your guts all over the kitchen table as well as the confused faces of your husbands, sons, daughters. Emily felt this was not a great start to her day. A leery question from Martin (what was it with men and their morning lust?), Charlie pointlessly obstructing her sleepy vision.

Emily grew tense. Charlie had to be in the kitchen for a reason. No pressing deadlines. No concerns about her schedule. Unlike her, Charlie knew nothing about insomnias and bad dreams, which she could often see in that vague, oblivious smile blanking her first thing in the morning. Annoying, but also peaceful. “As you were”, it said. But now he was awake, and judging from the nervous and noisy way he was sipping his tea, he clearly wanted to talk.

“Stop this, Charlie. What is it?”

“I was thinking”.

It wasn’t going to be about their sex life, was it? Just in case, Emily dropped that frown and smiled.

“I was thinking. I know it’s been two years, but things have changed. Everything’s going well in the newspaper, and there’s even talk of me…”

Emily could see where this was going, she had expected it. Well, the simple truth of it was that she was not going to quit now. 18 months ago, maybe, but not now. Babies? No. She wasn’t ready.

“I know how hard it is for you”. Charlie stopped drinking tea for a second and focused on the words. Words didn’t help. “Early mornings like this. Trouble sleeping. Train journeys taking four hours of your life each day. What I mean to say is – you can quit”.

Emily often thought about that: for all his semi-successful life in writing, Charlie was hopelessly monosyllabic whenever he tried to talk to her. He was obvious. She never had to overpower him, she won by default. Now was a good example. He left too many holes for her to slip through.

“Well, but thanks to you”, she faked a sunbeam, “I no longer have trouble sleeping”.

And that was that. Emily checked the phone screen, made a face (one more second lost, and she could be late) and got up from the table. In the hall, Charlie slipped a familiar blue envelope into her coat, then a swift kiss, then she left for the station.

Blue envelope was a romantic connection that was not supposed to be there. Emily knew that. Charlie had to know that too. But there it was again, light blue, carefully folded, in the right pocket of her coat. Emily knew that at some point today she would have to open it and read those five pages densely covered with words. Sometimes she discovered six or seven pages, in which case she would sigh and even skip a few lines. Yet there was an odd thing. Whenever she discovered that the blue envelope contained only four, even three pages of Charlie’s handwriting, she felt disappointed. She felt lost.

There was no particular rule as to when Emily opened the envelopes. Sometimes she opened them straight away, on her way to work. Sometimes she saved them for the return trip, realising how she might need a little peace and quiet after the constant nerve-wreck that was her job. After Martin’s mad lust and tons of paperwork, this was the kind of therapy she needed. Purring to herself with quiet delight.

This morning, she decided to open the envelope as soon as she got on the train and took her seat (near the aisle, next to a fat teenager with a heavy breath, not really what she wanted). 10 pages. Emily checked the number a few times before reading the first line. These letters, she knew, meant as much to him as they did to her. Each one of these letters was something unfulfilled deep within him, finding release. It was a mad idea, completely insane, and they never told anyone. She laughed at first but gradually they both grew into that experience. Newspaper articles stifled his imagination, and this was a chance to do something else. Invent characters, create fiction. And so there he was, toiling away at his writing desk, killing her nightmares with his dreams.

The fact was, outside nighttime Emily had trouble falling asleep. So Charlie wrote dreams for her.

For ten minutes Emily struggled to get past the first line. Anxiety got deeper and more intense, beating against her temples like a bad headache. What was going on? Weren’t these letters supposed to calm her down, create an illusion of sleep? Restless, she looked around and saw people texting and receiving texts, involved in some kind of undercover communication with each other.

To Emily’s horror, the dream was not getting better. For the first time ever, Charlie failed. But why did he fail? What did he do wrong?

And how did it work, exactly? Well, Emily could not fall asleep, nightmares being as far as she could get. Which was were Charlie came in. He wrote stories for her. Fairy-tales full of made-up lands, bizarre plots and extraordinary creatures. Places to get lost. Charlie could do that. God knows he was hopeless at so many things, but that he could do. Fantasy worlds for hyperactive children (well, wasn’t Emily just a hyperactive child?), full of chivalry and lucky escapes. Each fairy-tale consumed her mind, her senses, and she felt her whole body sink deeper and deeper into oblivion. With her eyes still open. It was not like these dreams sent her to sleep. It was like she fell asleep by reading them. After that last line, after the final resolution (so many shades to a happy ending, Charlie was good), Emily woke up. Waking up was a painful process because reality served up rampage. It served up Martin, who was her lover, and Charlie, who was her husband. Reality served up pointless office work, bad weather and a fat teenager with greasy hair and a heavy breath.  

Imagination, not flowers in the backseat, once brought them together, attracted them to each other. Imagination, not flowers, kept it alive while they were separated by a hundred miles, him at his desk, her on a fast train falling asleep to some extraordinary dream.

No escape this time. This time Charlie failed. Emily folded the letter and put it back into the blue envelope. She had only managed two pages when it was time to leave the train. People in slow-motion, though not like in a dream. Never like in a dream.

“Something’s wrong?”

Martin stopped his thrusts but remained on top of her.

“Why?”

“You don’t respond. It’s like you are not even here. Briggs is quiet today”.

Briggs was Martin’s ginger cat who made growling noises every time they were making love. As if a dozen angry mice were pulling him by his whiskers.

“It’s not Briggs, it’s Charlie”.

The name was an orgasm-killer, a sex-slayer. In a matter of seconds Martin’s cock grew limp, he fell down beside Emily and lit a cigarette.

“Tell him you had to stay longer, finish a report. For Christ’s sake, Emily”.

“You don’t understand. It’s a dream”.

Martin offered her a cigarette, Emily declined. Instead, she told him about the blue envelope. Something she was perhaps not supposed to tell anyone, let alone Martin.

“What am I supposed to say to that?” Martin asked.  

Two frustrated lovers, half-covered by blankets, sulking at each other, facing a breach.

“This time he wrote about me”.

“How do you mean?”

“Give me that cigarette”, Emily said. “It’s about me. Not some lovely girl with golden locks and freckled cheeks. It’s me. Waking up in the morning, getting on a train, reading a letter. Do you understand? Every last detail. My hair, my shoes, everything”.

“Am I also there?” Martin asked. “Does he know?”

“We’ve been through this many times. You don’t have to worry about Charlie. He doesn’t know”.

“Can I read it?”

“No”, she said. It was the kind of ‘no’ that implied no argument.

“Well”, he said.

Emily lay on her back, looking at the white ceiling of Martin’s apartment. What was Charlie doing now, at that very instant, and when was the last time she asked herself that question? The heavy whiteness of the room made her sick.

“You are insane, both of you” Martin said. “I like that”.

Then, with a quick, snake-like movement, he slipped down along her body. With one quick, snake-like movement, Emily slid from under the blanket and began to get dressed.

There was sour taste in her mouth, and she tried to find a reason to call Charlie. Tell him what she wanted for dinner, ask him about his day. However, they had long passed that stage, and she hated to sound unnatural, desperate, like she was trying too hard. Effort could lead to consequences, and she had no use for them just now. What if her sense of anxiety was irrational (which it probably was), and she would come home to Charlie’s vague, tentative embrace, bland dinner, too tired to love. She would smooth things over with Martin (who was sulky, then angry, then abusive). Martin. Could this really be about Martin?

Emily opened the letter and began reading.

A strange man was calling her, touching her shoulder. “Yes?” said Emily, still unsure about what she was supposed to say. “Your ticket?” She apologised and took out her phone. She waited, but there was no reply. “Your ticket?” Emily got back to the letter. Her dream. “You have to show me your ticket”. The man no longer sounded polite, and it jerked Emily back to reality. She produced the ticket, coldly, as if in a trance.

Charlie knew. He knew more than was physically possible. He knew about this day, too, including Martin’s frustration about not getting what he wanted. 

Gruesome, deadly fairy-tale which was like a description of her day, this particular day in late April. Emily felt naked, watched over by someone’s hungry, predatory eyes, but there was no place where she could hide. Somehow, Charlie knew that she would not finish the dream on her way to work, that she would feel this awful urge to read it on her way back. Gruesome, deadly fairy-tale climaxing with an oblique description of a sex scene. But it was not him and her. It was not Charlie and Emily. Because she knew his moves. Knew his foreplay, knew the way his fingers ran across her cold hips in some slow-burning, minimalist passion. This was not it. This was different.

She kept calling him on his mobile phone, feeling apprehensive and repentant, but the line was dead. There was something childish, helplessly infantile about her belief that if Charlie picked it up, everything would get back to normal.

There was no point in trying to follow the plot and so Emily largely skipped the first layer, the surface. Reality was inside, those horrible, bloody, disjointed bits of intestines that you were not even supposed to see. And then, on page nine, Charlie wrote about the train. Technical descriptions filled with details she found both engrossing and indecipherable.

Emily raised her head and studied the time-table. No stations anymore, hers was the last one. Suddenly, she remembered a film she saw with Charlie years ago, in a darkened cinema, about some guy trapped on a train. Each day he had to go through the same ordeal, again and again, ad infinitum. The resolution was always the same: the train crashed. Emily looked out of the window, like some trapped animal caged for slaughter. Indeed, that was the sentence from the dream, word for word. How was this all in Charlie’s letter, written yesterday, the day before yesterday, a million years ago? Question she could not ask herself, never mind answer.

She read on. She told someone to stop the train, but feebly and with no hope. She read on.

Then it grew dark.

Charlie was sitting in the living-room, watching breaking news on TV. Horrific scenes, disturbing images, bloody and indiscriminate, minutes after the tragedy. Ruthless men with cameras, vultures, feeling free, moving closer and closer still. Charlie had to look away a few times. Did they really have to show so much?

His phone was cooling off after those endless unanswered text messages and missed calls. Charlie had expected them, but even still – one or two times he almost gave in and heard her voice. Just to tell her yes, he knew it all, and the dream was a nightmare and the nightmare was what she got. Reality, gruesome, skin-deep, something you could not tinker with. What was it about reality? It was relentless, it despised happy endings.

All dead, they said. All dead.

Then it grew dark. 

Charlie got up, replaced the lightbulb, lit a cigarette, picked up the phone and called Emily. Emily said she had just gotten off the train. She sounded exhausted. Eight hours in the office, Charlie knew, could be a drag. He went to the kitchen to warm up their dinner, fearing they might have gone a little too far this time. Thinking Jesus Christ, the kind of imagination that some people have. 

PHYSIOLOGY

There was something illogical, if not decadent, about the man in front of her. Initially it felt like a slight pain in the chest whose exact whereabouts she could not determine. What was it about this man that did not feel right? His pale complexion? His short black hair, ruffled with such great care? Several times Norah had to close her eyes to make sure.

No clothes. Naked.

“What you have to realise”, said the man, getting more and more carried away, “is that regret should never come into it. Or bitterness. The fact that one human being prefers another human being to you – that’s natural. End of. That is to say, it doesn’t mean that you are in any way worse. It doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you can’t be loved. Hell, it doesn’t mean anything. It only means that one human being prefers another human being to you. That’s chemistry. That’s love, if you want”.

If you want. Indeed, it was very hard to say what she wanted. A glass of water? A cigarette? A lie-down? A better pencil sharpener?

“Love,” the man continued. “Do I believe in it? I can’t say I do but let’s just say I hate people who don’t. But we need to get back to my previous point. For reasons why someone is preferred to you can be simple. Hopelessly, pathologically simple. Social background, common interests, bad habits, favourite coffee in Starbucks. Not your fault. The question is – how do you accept it? Because like I said – the key is not to be bitter. After all, coffee in Starbucks can’t be your fault”.

Well, she did not mind the coffee but generally she tried to avoid the place. Hipsters with laptops, tramps hiding from the cold and the staff that was just one tiny inch above Subway and Burger King.

It was all happening against the busy background of pencils gently scratching the surface of a dozen canvases. And the man, speaking, looking around the room and sometimes (oh the horror) catching her furtive stare. Fifteen minutes in, and Norah had only managed a few rough outlines. And now that she examined them with a more critical eye – ‘hopeless’ would not begin to cover it. What she got was a wolf standing upright and trying to appear human, every possible proportion doodled out of existence.

The man was her first, too. Once there was a taciturn Spanish girl with sad black eyes, but that was different. Awkward at first, but gradually Norah grew into it and felt no more than what she felt looking at ancient sculptures in art galleries. And throughout the whole process the girl did not utter so much as a whisper. In fact, if there was anything wrong about that memory (apart from the fact that her own breasts and legs seemed so inferior), it was the concept of paying her money to do this. As a form of apology, Norah offered her the drawing. The girl declined.

“But I know what you are thinking. Easier said than done. Well, yes. Emotionally, you feel cheated…”.

Why did he talk? No, really, why did he talk so much? It could not be embarrassment, could it? After all, he was experienced. “Oh, many times”, he laughed, sliding his long grey scarf off his neck (Norah watching his every move, still wishing she could do him fully clothed and in watercolours). No, it was Norah who was supposed to blush her way through this afternoon that was perhaps never going to end. It was Norah who felt her red hair soaked with heavy drops of sweat.

“Your friends and your family – they will of course try to calm you down. But that is like telling a person suffering from a panic attack to stop worrying”.

If anything, a panic attack was looking more and more of an option, her heart palpitations increasing with every second gone or wasted. Maybe it could help if the man’s voice came in imaginary speech bubbles and not this soft, intense cooing – lashing down the ceiling and off the walls.

And crucially – what was he supposed to do with his hands? His left arm was propped against his thigh and his right arm was stretched along his body. Which made Norah see too much and ask herself, again and again, about whether or not he was supposed to do something with his hands. Norah thought of the famed statue of David she saw in Florence several months ago. Not a legitimate comparison by any means, but then she had nothing else to go on. Not even if she remembered that night under a thatched roof and Mark drawing blood from six broken strings of his acoustic guitar.

In the meantime, her drawing was doing the impossible: it was actually getting worse. Too inept to be offensive, it looked like something a small child with no imagination could do on a bad day. At school they sometimes asked you to draw aliens and you came up with a collage of your nightmares and your broken dreams…

“In fact, you should never stop worrying about love. The moment you stop, that’s it, you are done. From now on, Paris won’t give you a hard-on and a green bottle of absinthe will not get you drunk. Worrying about love is one of the most immense and, yes, perverse pleasures in life. Those things you never did…”.

But then Mark put away his guitar and said he had to go (Sandy? Anna?) and the night was over. There was nothing sentimental about that particular memory. It was cruel, bitter, uncomfortable. Like a bad roof hit by the rain. Which is what happened that night as she tried to fall asleep to the background of streaming water and her own tears.

Norah turned around. Incredibly, they all looked bored and busy. Only once in a while did they raise their eyes and looked at the man. Intent, workmanlike eyes, as if he were a statue or some lifeless artefact made of marble or stone. Unlike her, they neither heard nor saw anything. While Norah – well, she could see a ghost footprint, she could hear a poppy seed drop in the field.

Last time Norah felt something remotely similar to this was during a class of English literature, back at the University. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book that took her less than a day of strong tea and heavy breathing. Mrs. Hawkins (a young teacher who liked to wear short skirts and sit jauntily on classroom desks) did something that day, before the class even began. She asked them to stand up, one by one, and pronounce the word 'penis'. And when somebody said it quietly, or not as loudly as she wanted, she asked this person to repeat. Which led to further embarrassment and a few of the girls (none of them virgins, as Norah knew) bursting into tears and running out of the room. And then, when her turn came, she…

“But where can we see it, this chemistry thing? Beautiful girls date beautiful boys. Less beautiful girls date less beautiful boys. Ugly girls date ugly boys”, the man shook his head violently, as if this concept disturbed him too much. “Well, of course, once in a while you see a slight difference. A disparity, if you want. You see a handsome slim athlete walking hand in hand with this fat, pimpled monstrosity who has no face and no manners. Then you think it might be chemistry. Hell, it might even be love. Unless it’s money, of course, but let us not go there. My question is: how often do you see that?” 

Was he beautiful, she asked herself, still trying to do something about her drawing. Maybe somebody’s steady hand, maybe a few charismatic touches could bring it into focus, sprinkle it with resemblance? Norah felt lost and gave in to the first signs of suffocation. Like a giant aquarium, the room was floating in front of her eyes. Her dress was all wet.

And then she thought: could it happen? After all, there was always a chance that he would imagine something or his very words would make him so excited that the nature would do the trick. Would she laugh or would she feel sick? First was not polite and second was perhaps even worse.

“The answer being – not too often. Because your choice is corrupted even before you make it. You are predisposed. We are hypocrites, all of us. What do we care about love, this magical blast in the heart that may or may not exist? We go for what is attractive on the outside, we go for what is essentially physical and sometimes indecent. So deep down – it may not even be consensual”.

Norah’s whole body was shaking now, violently, as she was putting the final touches on her canvas. Almost over now. Almost.

“But it has to be consensual”, he said, a happy grin on his face. Was he improvising? Did he even realise there were other people in this room? “Unless you are a hopeless romantic, like me. Because as a clever man once put it, ‘it’s the girls you never had that have the biggest impact on you’. Hang on to that thought”.

Well, she tried, for a few more seconds, before she took a step back and the session was over.

Outside, Norah pressed the black leather case with her drawing closer to her side and inhaled what was left of the afternoon air. Early spring wasn’t all bad. As long as it came without rain.

Inside, they had all praised her drawing. Norah expected the man to come and look, but he only put his clothes on, took the money and left the room. Well, he didn’t have to – apparently, some things came with the trade. The Spanish girl had declined, too. 

The praise was flattering, but as she passed the crowded cafes stretching along her way (one day they would make a great picture) – that early feeling of uncertainty returned. The insides of her chest were yet again disturbed by some phantom pain she could not determine. Norah lit a cigarette. It was all quiet, despite the people. In fact, quietness was gathering around her like a blanket of sneaky clouds about to cover her in the night. And in her defiance Norah screamed. Like she did that day in her literature class as they were about to discuss DH Lawrence. When Mrs. Hawkins asked her to say the word and she did. No, not even said it – she screamed. So that a few people turned their heads towards her, and the boys blushed.

CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE

for N.

“Lily”, she pleaded, softly. “Lily”.

Lily was lying on her back, a thin blade of grass in her mouth. She whispered something, but her voice got drowned by the discordant army of ten thousand crickets. They invaded the garden back in June and seemed now so natural, so vital, that the girls believed them to be the way the plants talked to each other. The strange language had no pauses and no intonations and you could waste a lifetime trying to understand it. You could learn Spanish, Russian, even Latin or one of those odd Eastern alphabets, but you could never understand this insane rumble inside the garden.  

“Lily, but to steal!.. From my own mother. I can’t do that. Yes, I tried once, but it was not serious. Just a doll in a toy shop and…”

She could sense Lily rolling her eyes in quiet exasperation, and grew silent. Of course she was only looking for excuses. Her mother? A toy shop doll? Lily was the strong one, the one who had all the answers, but then Lily would not have to steal. She would just be standing there in her white summer frock, her freckles and her pale blue eyes glowing in the first shades of twilight. Tonight. Lily was only supposed to take the matches and light the two Chinese lanterns they had long hidden inside the shed. Behind an old rug and a few boxes of paint. Lily’s hands would remain white and silky and beautiful. It was her mind that would have to bear all the guilt. She was supposed to enter the dark bedroom down the hall and take two of the best-looking rings from her mother’s jewel-box. Lily’s idea. “They will make us look beautiful. And then we could sell them”.

It would have to be tonight, because of the summer. According to Lily, each season was different. Autumn was all over the place. Winter was never going to stop. Spring was about to start. Summer was always coming to an end. This one, too, did not have much to go on. A few more restless days, a couple of sleepless nights, and you were back to school and somehow older and smarter and more mature. As they kept telling you, from schoolteachers to grandmothers. Well, not this time. This time they had a plan, and it was so like Lily to think of something as reckless and brilliant as a sky lantern. 

“I will do it, Lily. You know I will”.

Lily smiled. It was not that she was winning again, it was this lethargic hum of the garden, full of roses and carnations and daffodils and lilies, and the fact that it was all going to be all right. Tonight. That sweetest, most priceless word of them all: tonight. 

The grass was delicious – the smell, but also the taste. Last summer, when Lily first appeared at the garden gate, her silhouette so languid and so elegant against the green intensity of the hedge, she explained which blades to choose and how you should always go down to the root. She explained many other things, too, about the most ‘improper’ dreams and those fascinating lanterns that had some Oriental magic hidden inside their tiny candles. In moments like that she sometimes saw the face of her mother. It was shame, confusion, doubt. If only her mother knew about a girl called Lily, a girl she spent all her days with, what would she think?..

Oddly, she never asked Lily about her mother. Or about her house. Or her garden. Lily rarely spoke about herself – and if she did, it was like she was imagining something or else talking about another girl whose name was ‘Lily’. They never met in the street or walked along the fields and other country houses. And she never asked Lily about her garden. Was it wild and overgrown? Did it also have white roses that shimmered in the dark? Were there ten thousand crickets hopping from one flower to another? Instead of asking these questions, she heard herself talking about magic lanterns and describing the smell of each flower in the garden.

And then, when she could no longer suppress her words and her questions, there was her mother’s voice coming from the house. Dinner. The word she dreaded so much, because she would have to let go of Lily. But now maybe for the last time.

“I will bring you some carrot cake. I hate carrot cake”.

She sprang up to her feet, straightened her frock and looked upwards into the afternoon sky that was always so dim at the end of August.

“But will it really? Will it really?”

Lily nodded. Of course it will.

Lily was waiting for her in the garden, standing there in her white summer frock. They both put rings on their fingers (all nervous and slippery as she had fumbled with the lock of the jewel-box), and Lily took out the matches. Her movements so smooth, so confident.

She almost missed it: the way the candles were lit and one of the lanterns soared up with the wind.

“Where are you going, Lily? Where are you going?”

But just as ever – there was no sound. The lantern was rising higher and higher, above the garden and into the dusk, its dark red glow gradually sucked into the sky. If you looked hard enough, you could see a small white lily stuck to its side. But the wind was too heavy to notice. Like she herself did not notice the few remains of the carrot cake pecked away by the birds. She did notice something else, though, something round sparkling beside her feet. Lily had left it behind. Crying, she took the ring off her finger, threw it into the hungry blades of the grass and held on to the weightless balloon with the black symbols she could not read. She was ready to follow, but her feet remained standing.  

When the girl let go of the lantern, it flew upwards trying to catch up with the first one. One that was no more than a bright speck in the overwhelming darkness above her head.

And underneath, amid the crickets and the hum of the night, there was a voice growing dimmer and quieter and then at some point no more than a whisper: 

“Where are you going, Lily? Where are you going?”   

LAST IRISH POEM

The headache was massive. Like some deadly crawling disease, it covered the whole upper part of his body. The radio played a girl-group hit from the 60s. Twenty years on, Boston radio was still the dullest thing in America. Somewhere on the floor lay a scratchy CD of the first Popes album, but his hands were too numb from hangover to pick it up. It was eleven in the morning though it felt like five.

Brendan put the kettle on. Thick black sweat was rolling down his hair, his neck, his white T-shirt. Some drops were trickling down on the kettle which was light metallic with deep grey patches. Each time the kettle was put to work, it looked either dead or dying, coughing up delirious steam and jerking hysterically as if possessed by some wild animal. Brendan’s body craved for tea, for the first time in weeks. Maybe months. Plain black tea that came in a million faceless teabags. Brendan threw one teabag into the cup and squashed it with pouring hot water. This was aunt Hilda’s way. The teabag had to hang onto the inner edges of the cup after which you knocked it down with water. “Make sure it is boiling”, she said. But he never did.

What was it about Brendan and boiling water? Once, back in Malahide, when he was six or seven, he burned his lips in a really bad way. This was Amanda’s birthday party, and he made a fool of himself in front of twenty people who all knew how to drink tea. He cried. There was nothing else to do but cry. As ever, only Katie was there for him. “Your lips”, she said. “They will now be perfect for kissing”. He thought he really wanted to kiss Katie and stopped crying.

Brendan looked into the stained mirror over the kitchen sink and studied his lips. Fingered them, sucked them in, stuck them out. The swelling had long disappeared, his lips looked normal now (awfully average in fact) and his sister was living in London. Last time she called was four months ago, to ask about his crazy lifestyle and his American girlfriends and his numerous agents. And, most importantly, why wasn’t he in April’s New Yorker? Brendan stared into the curtained window. He lied. He lied again. The worst thing about lies was that there were people who still believed you. Katie did.

The day was hot, which added to the sweat. The tea would make matters worse, but worse was good. Worse could save him from his headache and a few painful memories. Although wait. Wasn’t he telling that story, the one about Katie and lips and boiling water, to someone else? Last night, in this very kitchen?

Brendan swept the score sheets away from the chair and sat down. Some of the sheets had his words, notes, ideas on them. Some of them were blank. All disgusted him in equal measure. The tea was awful, all bitterness and no taste, so Brendan snatched a pack of cigarettes from the farther end of the table and searched his naked thighs for a lighter. His thighs were flabby and could not stand any fiddling about. Brendan had no lighter. Which made sense, because Brendan didn’t smoke. He did when he was 14, but then Amanda knocked on the door and said Patsy Flanagan was dead. Brendan had seen death before, but Patsy was different. Patsy was special. Patsy was the first person who told him about sex.

It must have been one of those old school recipes his mother was so fond of. “You know the old lady who lives at the end of Manor Street? Miss Flanagan?” Brendan nodded. He knew, but vaguely. The memory wasn’t kind: Jimmy once pushed his bike there and Brendan had to tell his mother he’d fallen from a tree… Brendan was only supposed to find out about an apple pie but he ended up staying there for six hours. Patsy (second name was quickly dispensed with, and never used again) was over sixty but Christ could she talk. Patsy didn’t have one dull bone in her body. Like everyone else, she liked to talk about school and weather and Irish economy, but her terms were different. Mr. Bennett was a paedophile. Big floods were coming. England had plans to buy Ireland back. Patsy had stories – and she could smoke, too. She smoked incessantly, like her life depended on it. Like Brendan wasn’t even there. Patsy offered him his first cigarette and he accepted. (Patsy never offered tea.) That first time it took him fifteen minutes to light it and then cough his way down to the fag.

Later Patsy would tell him about her sexual experience. Brendan found it easy to listen to the details that would scare and embarrass him the moment he left the house in Manor street. She was single and lonely and not especially attractive – even if you considered the few old pictures scattered about her fireplace. Still, she had done it all, and it was these stories that Brendan would remember during his first year in America. Then everything was shattered to pieces the moment Amanda burst into their house and told them the news. Patsy had died at night, in hospital, of lung cancer. This time, too, Brendan cried. Was there something wrong with him?.. Mother sighed, Katie pulled a long face and Brendan ran into his room, threw himself on the bed and tried to reenact in his mind one of those rainy nights in Dublin which Patsy spent with a drunken sailor. “The bugger”, she said wistfully, “hadn’t slept with a woman in years”. Then he ran outside to smoke, but the fingers were leaden and the lighter misfired again and again. Brendan had secretly visited Patsy in hospital, and it looked as though the slim sickly figure was now standing behind the tree. He threw the whole pack into some wild bush and went back home.

So why were the cigarettes on his kitchen table? Why was the pack half-empty?

Brendan finished his tea, grabbed a few random sheets and left the kitchen. There was nothing to do. His latest poems were no good and rejection letters kept piling up in his dustbin and under his bed. Together with dozens of empty bottles, they created some kind of paper-and-glass monster that could bite his hands off the moment he tried to get rid of him. And to think that twenty years ago New Atlantic couldn’t stop running ecstatic features on him. Praising his idiosyncrasies and his raw sense of humour. That’s how George found him.

“Do you work with me because I’m Irish or do you really like my poems?”

George was here two months ago. He looked around in shock and disbelief as if seeing it all for the first time. The sheets, the bottles, the small shreds of Persian carpet underneath the mess. George stooped down and picked up a paperback copy of Dubliners. Famously, this was the only book Brendan had on him when the pretty but humourless airport girl asked him what he had to declare. Nothing. Not even his genius which he never believed in. Not even a collection of Yeats’ poetry. George picked up the book as if it was some sort of rare jewel in a pile of rubbish. Which was true in many ways. According to George, Brendan’s apartment was the perfect showcase for a bohemian lifestyle where the artist had long lost all sense of taste or proportion. And it smelled of bad American whiskey and equally bad debts.

Unconvincingly, George said he was supposed to run to the office and only had a few minutes to spare. No tea? No wine? (Brendan didn’t have any.)

“I know it’s been a dry season lately”.

Dry? Brendan thought. Fucking barren. For five years he had to live off debts and nonexistent royalties from his first collection of poetry. Inexplicably, Shipping Poems was still doing all right.

“Brendan, what I’m going to say won’t turn around any fortunes. I don’t promise anything. They don’t promise anything”.

They. Always they. They wanted him to write a poem about Ireland for some sort of historic event. Two years ago this could send him prancing across the room, but presently it was early morning and Brendan felt too numb and old to feel anything. Could he do it? He felt he could, but there was so little to go by. There were no faces, no images and no memories.

“This might, just might, do something for you”. George again, already at the door. “But it should be good. Really good”.

“How good?”

“Your best”.

“George, I swear…”

Having seen enough disheveled Irishmen in his life, George did not even protest. Because every time he did protest, he looked like a sickly Englishman on a grisly farm in southern Cork. He took a crispy hundred dollar note out of his jacket and passed it to Brendan. Brendan accepted. Crispy hundred dollar notes were the best, because they looked unreal and seemed to ease Brendan’s conscience.

“It’s for the art, George”.

George nodded and left. The money wasn't for the art. They both knew it.

In the next few weeks, Brendan tried to write. At times, he really did. The Great Irish Poem, his very own “Song Of The Wandering Aengus”. It was an idea this country had a name for. They called it The Great American Novel. Brendan admired the disarming pathos if that. He sat at the piano, its lid closed, and wrote words and rhymes and broken lines. Then he crossed out the words, sabotaged the rhymes and the lines, crumpled the sheets and threw them on the floor, on the kitchen table and on his bed. He didn’t get far. He only got to the point where all his little ideas would be abandoned as soon as real inspiration came along. George phoned a few times (for some reason, the phone still worked) and reminded him of the deadline. What deadline? Somehow deadlines still existed and the hundred dollar note kept slipping away through his shaky, scrawny fingers.

Brendan sat at the piano. The piano was another thing that didn’t seem right. What was going on here?

It was the lid. The lid was open, which was not the way it was supposed to be. For twenty years now he used the closed lid as his writing desk, and some of his best poems, so often unpublished and rejected, were written here. This time, though, the lid was open and he tried to remember why. The more he thought about it, the clearer it became that something strange and unplanned happened last night. Why the tea, the story, the cigarettes, the open lid? After all, the little he could play he had long forgotten. Still, blood rushed to Brendan’s fingers and he tried to do it from memory. He thought he played all the right keys but the sound wouldn’t come. Clearly this was not the sound of that night when he saw her playing at some college party in Dublin. What did she play? He no longer remembered, but the music beguiled and transfixed him more than anything he had heard, read or seen before. Not even that recital party in Galway where he first heard Chamber Music. Timid and pale, he sat on the edge of a chair and listened. Concerned that he was sick, someone asked Brendan if he needed a glass of water. They should have asked about whiskey.

College party in Dublin. And it was that girl, again. Amanda. He hadn’t seen in her in a while. In fact, not since the day she burst into their house with the bad news. Today, with black hair covering half her face, she was good news. And later, no amount of cheap alcohol and poetic breakthroughs could make him remember how it happened that he saw her home. He only guessed that there had to be questions – about her playing so well, about her studying in Dublin, about her being at the same party.

And then, later still:

“Goodbye, Amanda”.

“Goodbye, Brendan”.

“Goodbye, Amanda”.

“Goodbye, Brendan”.

They kept saying that for a few minutes, neither knowing how to end the evening. He liked to repeat her name, aloud or to himself, because it felt American and exotic. Saying that name was like kissing her full on the mouth, with his tongue and his teeth. Which he did in the end, like Katie promised and Patsy made sure he would.

It was great while it lasted, and it did last. For two years at least. They spent that summer with aunt Hilda in Whitley Bay and then an offer came to fly to America. Not New York. Not Los Angeles. Not Boston. He was an Irish boy, as simple and talented as they came, and for him there was just America. There were no states and no cities. It was this giant, excessively friendly monster that glistened and attracted and kidnapped. Mother said he was a fool and refused to leave Malahide, never mind the country. Katie was happily married and in London. So that only Amanda was standing there, her hand in his hand. Before he even had the chance to board the plane – it felt like she was 2000 miles away... He promised he would get a piano once he settled in America. The same colour and the same type she played at that Dublin party. He fulfilled his promise, spending all the money he got for his first public reading. Would she come in two, three, four months?.. She never promised him anything. Which was a relief in those initial months when there were hoards of girl fans in thick-rimmed glasses, all named Rachel, ready to blow him after each rhyme that worked.

There was no calendar anywhere in the house, but Brendan knew the deadline was today. The deadline was this hungry werewolf you felt when its breath got too close to your neck. Also, he couldn’t stop thinking about last night and how it was all starting to make sense. Even the sheet on the easel of the piano whose lid he now slowly, carefully closed. Because there was something that connected these stories and memories. Ireland, poetry, yes, but also a girl. The girl. Her full red lips, her love of strong black tea, her piano playing that night, her black hair, her smoking. The way there was a sudden knock on the door and he opened. And saw her standing there, soaked through on a dry night in Boston. She came to save him. Amanda...

Because the truth hit him and Brendan realised. There was no need to stand up from the chair and enter the bedroom. There was no need to write anything, because the poem, his last Irish poem, was lying on the easel of the broken piano with its lid firmly shut. The poem must have been written at night, after a drunken bout of memories, in what Samuel Beckett once called ‘a frenzy of writing’. He only noticed it now. The sheet looked like some great work from the past, written by a great composer, waiting for the right moment, ready to be played. However, the room was too small. And the piano was out of tune. So unlike the telephone that rang in well-timed, perfectly pitched flashes. 

He would not pick it up. He wanted to sleep but that would mean going into the bedroom and admitting to himself that last night, amid the passion that wasn’t and the rain that didn’t, he killed Amanda.                                                          

ПОСЛЕ ПОЛУНОЧИ

Как же хотелось спать. Чтобы не война, не революция, но просто сон. Он зажигал свет, пил воду, мял в руках газету, заново перечитывал вчерашние статьи. Все это он знал наизусть, до ряби в глазах. И всякий раз его взгляд, искалеченный бессонницей, натыкался на список имен на последней странице. Имена ни о чем не говорили ему. О существовании этих людей он даже не догадывался. Возможно, кто-то из них однажды заговорил с ним на улице, кто-то громко отпил чай в вагоне поезда, кто-то лежал перед ним под общим наркозом. Это были небрежные некрологи: имя, возраст, место, время. Иногда указывалась причина, как послесловие или, хуже того, как знак препинания. Иногда было одно только имя, как в безжалостной военной сводке.

«Андрей Владимирович Трофимов. 53 года. Скончался вчера ночью на углу Вознесенской и Парковой. Сердечный приступ».  

Где-то в другом конце комнаты пробили часы. Холодный колокольный звон прошел от его головы до пальцев ног, задев по пути каждый сосуд и каждый сустав его тела. Одиннадцать часов? Или это полночь? Беззубая, прожорливая полночь?.. Он в панике выключил свет и закрыл глаза. И увидел Варю, которая завтра утром должна была вернуться домой. Он увидел ее в тот момент, как она прохаживается по безлюдной утренней платформе, пропитанной снегом и тоской. Ее лицо, морозное и вместе с тем такое теплое и домашнее. Варины глаза, необъяснимо черные и большие, растопили его неловкость уже в первый месяц знакомства. И затем, когда он приглашал ее в театр, когда делал предложение… И вот наконец она улыбается, тонкая рука в белой перчатке полуподнимается в полуприветствии. Он медленно и неповоротливо, спотыкаясь о ровный асфальт, бежит к ней.

Это сон?

Нет, это был не сон. Еще нет. Завтра Илья Сергеевич должен был проснуться в пять утра и ехать на вокзал встречать Варю. Хотя, возможно, это было уже сегодня (он малодушно не посмотрел на часы), и тогда времени было еще меньше. Угрюмый извозчик даже не посмотрит в его сторону, и он свернется где-то в углу, и будет нехотя переживать то ужасное обломовское ощущение, между сном, холодом и реальностью. Ну а что, если этой ночью с ним вдруг что-то случится? И на платформе к Варе подбежит веснушчатый мальчик со стопкой газет, и она откроет последнюю страницу… И лицо ее побледнеет, и она что-нибудь вскрикнет. Крепкий вокзальный служащий подхватит ее обморок, повесит на плече и унесет в свою комнату. Предложит невкусный сахарный чай. Нет, невозможно. Даже если случится худшее (а он, как врач, знал, что худшее случается), у них не будет времени узнать об этом и опубликовать его имя. Из окна снова потянуло морозным ветром.

Итак, что еще он мог придумать? Мысли больше не разлетались в его голове безумным снежным потоком, теперь они все срослись в один стремительный вихрь. Он думал о газетных списках и мысленно вставлял в них свое имя. Типографские чернила отстучат эти две холодные строчки, и кто-то обязательно прочитает. Пусть даже тот самый веснушчатый мальчик с железнодорожного вокзала. От скуки или от тоски он посмотрит на последнюю страницу и увидит незнакомые имена. Пробежит взглядом и даже не заметит. Ну а кто заметит? Вот вопрос. Илья Сергеевич в который раз включил свет и перечитал:

«Андрей Владимирович Трофимов. 53 года. Скончался вчера ночью на углу Вознесенской и Парковой. Сердечный приступ».

Варя. Он представил себе ее лицо, ее глаза, ее слезы, и его передернуло. Убитая горем Варя – это худшее, что могло случиться с ним, пусть и после смерти. И его даже не будет рядом, чтобы успокоить ее. Денис. Денис, наверное, не поймет, хотя бабушка попытается объяснить. Затем, со временем, он ощутит эту пустоту, которой раньше не было. Почувствует, что в комнате холодно, и одеяло слетело в сторону или совсем на пол. Родители… Да и вообще родственники. Нет, об этом думать не хотелось. Куда проще было представлять коллег из больницы. Степан Егорович закроется в кабинете и запишет что-нибудь в своем таинственном блокноте. Аркадий Филиппович слегка поморщится, болезненно схватит себя за бороду и посмотрит в пол. Сергей. Реакцию Сергея было представить труднее всего. Как многие молодые люди его поколения, он казался совершенно неэмоциональным. Ну а что Лиза? Лиза девушка нервная, сердобольная. Наверное, вспомнит дырку в его больничном халате и сразу расплачется.

Пациенты тоже. Школьные товарищи. Но что люди малознакомые и даже случайные? Что подумают они, едва встреченные в магазине, в поезде или по дороге домой? Кажется, о чем-то похожем говорила ему та странная женщина с растрепанными волосами, когда лежала на операционном столе, держала его за руку и так пристально смотрела в его глаза. Она поступила ночью, во время смены Степана Егоровича. «Внутреннее кровотечение», обреченно сказал он. «Язва двенадцатиперстной кишки». Она смотрела на него безумным взглядом, и говорила при этом так ровно и тихо. Говорила уверенно, словно готовилась к этому полжизни. Говорила о том, что всегда мечтала увидеть знакомых ей людей после смерти. Глаза, выражения лиц. Мало ли что пациенты говорят в такие минуты, но он тогда испугался и едва не рассказал об этом Варе, за ужином… Она потеряла слишком много крови и умерла, оставив после себя эти безумные глаза, эти растрепанные волосы, эту костлявую ладонь и эти странные слова о собственной смерти. Илья Сергеевич выключил свет, заглушив тем самым тяжелый грудной вздох.

Андрей, например, этот сутулый молчаливый человек, вечно стоявший в их дворе. Иногда он убирал снег, а иногда просто смотрел по сторонам. Словно искал что-то, но даже не надеялся найти. И всякий раз, когда Илья Сергеевич выходил из подъезда, Андрей выглядывал на него из-за дерева, из-за какого-нибудь заснеженного куста. Андрей всегда с ним здоровался – робко, почтительно, издалека, словно выуживая слова из-под речной корки льда. Илья Сергеевич тоже говорил свое грубое, семичасовое, но бодрое «доброе утро», и тяжело переступал через двор на улицу. Было жаль его видеть, пятидесятилетнего и такого беспомощного. Как он жил? Где он жил? Порой Илья Сергеевич думал об этих вопросах до самой двери больницы, а порой представлял его лежащим на одной из больничных коек. Андрей... Что случится, когда он узнает? Когда не увидит знакомое румяное лицо врача, когда не поздоровается с ним рано утром? Расскажет жене, уличной собаке или просто высморкается в рукав и продолжит мести двор?

Илья Сергеевич перевернулся на другой бок, где его поджидал сон. Беспокойный, неуступчивый, скоротечный, но все-таки сон.

Окно на пятом этаже продолжало гореть. Оно вообще вело себя странно этим вечером: то гасло, то загоралось вновь. Какое-то беспокойство внутри квартиры, и в сердце его тоже забралась неясная тревога. Бесцеремонно, в тяжелых черных сапогах... Но что его сапоги? Худые, промерзлые. Их давно было пора чинить, но не было ни денег, ни сил.  

Он знал всех, кто жил в этом доме. Знал, например, что беспокойное окно на пятом этаже было спальней врача Ильи Сергеевича Фролова, который остался в квартире один по причине того, что жена, Варвара Петровна, уехала отвозить сына в деревню к бабушке. Андрей не подслушивал, но обо всем знал. Возможно, в квартире Ильи Сергеевича происходило теперь что-то ужасное. С ним случился приступ или у него была другая женщина. Андрей с чувством подковырнул носком сапога плотный бугор снег и задумался о Кате. Она ждала его дома и наверняка волновалась. У Кати давно появились эти странные подозрения, о которых она, правда, никогда не говорила вслух.

Сегодня он придет домой позже обычного. Катя проснется и все опять закончится сценой, от которой он устанет еще больше, чем от заснеженных дворов этого города. Он вернется домой позже из-за того, что свет в окне на пятом этаже все еще горел, а больше всего на свете Андрей не выносил незаконченность. Между тем время давно перевалило за полночь, а свет то гас, то появлялся вновь. Еще эта метель, которая самым извилистым путем пробиралась во двор, заметая следы и дорогу к подъезду. В этом тоже была незаконченность, и победить ее было так же сложно, как справится с тревогой в окне. Сколько он ни пытался избавиться от текучих потоков снежной пыли, ветер наметал ее снова и снова. А еще этот двор, который так не хотелось покидать, и который был теперь самым теплым местом в городе. Теплее – наверняка теплее, чем комната Андрея в двух улицах отсюда. Его комната пахла простудой и Катиным настроением.

Свет в окне наконец погас более, чем на пятнадцать минут (он не знал, но, кажется, хорошо чувствовал время), и Андрей стряхнул с пальто тяжелый воротник снега и прислонил к дереву метлу. Должно быть, Илья Сергеевич уснул.

И теперь эта тоска. На открытой улице, в плотном окружении метели – тоска. Растопленная сердцем тревога. Андрей шел вперед, но всякий раз было чувство, что метель отбрасывала его назад. Расстояние до дома только увеличивалось, а снег залетал то в уши, то в глаза. Андрей подумал, что хорошо бы купить новую шапку. Такую, чтобы только глаза были видны. Но сначала сапоги… Завтра утром он поговорит об этом с Катей, если только она уже встанет и захочет его слушать. Андрей вставал в пять утра, а это значило, что на сон ему оставалось совсем мало. Ничего, он привык.

Он только не привык к этой метели, но к ней, как к зубной боли, привыкнуть было нельзя… Сколько он прошел? Из-за снега, липкого, свисавшего с ресниц, Андрей не узнавал этих мест. Он представлял, что должен подходить к Вознесенской улице, но уверенности не было. Тоска усыпляла, гипнотизировала его, и все чаще хотелось остановиться и никуда уже больше не идти. И в груди какая-то словно боль, но еще далекая и совсем тупая. Как боль в горле в самом начале простуды.

Фонари, казалось, не светили, но отбрасывали тень и лишь изредка стреляли одинокой полоской света. В лицо, в спину. Вокруг совсем не было людей, и от этого становилось еще тоскливее. Один угрюмый голос, выхваченный из морозного ветра, мог бы рассеять его тоску и сделать путь домой более легким и быстрым. Но голоса не была, не было даже воя собаки, которую то ли выгнали из дома, то ли не впустили назад.

И тогда послышались голоса, голоса отовсюду. Не редкие, не случайные голоса с улиц или городских дворов, но что-то ровное и стройное. Хор. Далекий хор, вырывавшийся из самых глубин метели. Из каждого движения падающего снега. И в этом хоре сотни, тысячи разных языков: английский, французский, немецкий, итальянский... Он не знал этих языков, и даже, наверное, никогда не слышал, но откуда-то взялось это странное ощущение, что он понимает их. Хор завораживал его, еще больше клонил ко сну, и он все пытался понять, откуда… Шея, изрезанная снегом и ветром, не слушалась, и он не мог поднять головы. И только представлял себе небо и звезды. Где-то очень высоко, за миллионы километров отсюда. Андрей понял, что остановился. Присел на сугроб и что-то как будто вспомнил.

«Как Варвара Петровна?» вдруг спросил Андрей, совершенно неожиданно для самого себя. Это было вчера утром.

«Спасибо, неплохо. Уехала с Денисом к матери. Как поживает ваша жена?» спросил этот полный человек с красным лицом. Врач. Он так редко говорил с ним.

«Все хорошо, спасибо».

Андрей не знал, что еще сказать.

«Простите, я не знаю, как ее зовут».

Андрей замялся, и в голову пришло только одно имя. Старое, полузабытое.

«Катя».

Илья Сергеевич слегка улыбнулся и дружелюбно кивнул в его сторону...

А дальше Андрей словно очнулся. Сугроб начинал казаться теплым, и он даже ощутил какую-то невыносимую легкость. Он знал, что дальше начиналась уже его улица, но также и знал, что никуда больше не пойдет.

Где-то вдалеке снова зазвучал хор. Миллионы стройных голосов, что рвались из ветра, из снега, из неба или просто из его груди.