Tomas Vaiseta

And where was I, Charlie, cast away. You know, here’s one more difference for you: practical pain imprisons a person in one point. For my beloved suffering Adele, that point became rooted in that plot of blackened ground that was our daughter’s grave. That plot of land where there is a little cross stuck into the ground and a tin board nailed to it with our daughter’s name. Lord, her name, and also the dates of her birth and her death. Oh, but abstract pain haunts a man in his wilderness of imagination. That is why I desperately needed to find a place to hide. I didn’t have any intimate place apart from our house. I only had the library. Then, I still had the library. I only returned home for a few hours to sleep. All the rest of the time I lurked in the library, not bothered by anyone, as though I were carrying a highly infectious disease. Did I eat? Did I bathe? I don’t remember. I was hunted, I was a target that was continually riddled with bullets. Although, I do remember that one time I returned home after midnight, stuck my key into the lock, and it did not open, as though it had frozen to the lock. Then, quietly, and gentle as a cat’s breath, the door opened, and Adele stepped outside, wrapped in the warmth of the house. Please, try to understand: I spent thirty-two years in the library, but I’ve lived forty-three years with this woman, who in that very moment was growing colder and darker, when finally the outer doors shut and we were pulled in by the cold, clear sky of the night. How did she, Adele, not use up all the gentleness she had in her? How could anything of that gentle nature be left after our daughter’s death? Of course, the words she uttered that night were the result of her terrible practical suffering. But she uttered them more gently than she ever had before. She said to me: Either come home for all times or leave home for all times. What a clarity of the voice! What a clarity of the night! Ashes of death were being sifted onto our heads through the colander of the black sky, through the tiny cracks in-between the stars; and its poisonous fruit remained shining up above, right there, up high, where unfortunately no one could reach it. It could be that after forty-three years together for the first time we experienced such a horrific, but, at the same time, as they say, romantic, moment together. It was as though we were not breaking up but meeting each other for the very first time. Did Adele not forgive me for not helping her put up our daughter’s gravestone? Did she understand what I, shifting my weight from leg to leg, standing on the threshold of our home, did not yet comprehend – that I had built my own grave and that I was living in it? That the library had become my hiding place, as well as a damned gravestone of my daughter?

After that performance, everyone, confused and hushed, quickly retreated to their respective rooms. Mr. Director postponed the traditional prayer circle to another day, dryly muttering, “Tomorrow.” Of course, I have my own guesses about Mr. Director’s decision, but what of it? There could have been hundreds of excuses, and I would be able to present just one to you, and not necessarily the most important one. But the cats came back to life. With their little eyes lit up like fireflies, they scattered around on their padded feet, as though they were taking care of all sorts of urgent cat business, but when they saw a human, that is one of us, they arched their backs and dashed away. Even though their joy seemed malevolent, I couldn‘t help but feel heartbroken for them. It was as though they hadn’t been treated right up until now and they finally tasted the life of a real cat. In this sad shock that engulfed the troupe. Who would have thought? How quickly one caves into the general mood! But what difference was it to me? Excuse me for being so blunt, well, but really, how is this my fault? That entire idea was the venture of Mr. Director. Nobody other than him ought to feel responsible for it. Still, after I’d cleaned up the stage, I scurried down the dark corridors to my little room, my dear Ch, burdened with whether guilt or dissatisfaction. Glum, I took off my tool belt and unbuttoned my shirt. That’s when I heard something scratching and scraping around my door.

For God’s sake, those cats had gone mad! (Allow me to admit, I am a little embarrassed of how I almost cursed those naughty, sweet furballs out loud that night; they were not at all responsible for our ridiculous human tragedies, or rather – yes, I agree – our boring human comedies.) When my doorknob rattled, I knew it was not the cats. (Oh, not only you have heard of those cats who learn how to turn doorknobs, but not in this factory, not even in this Walpurgis night of cats.) The door swung open, and I saw before me a bony silhouette. The darkness invaded with such impertinence that even with my well-practiced eyes I could not make out who it was standing before me. It was as though some witch had come to be married off to the devil! Well, what sort of a devil am I? It was all a joke, but I was in no mood to laugh then. The silhouette stepped inside the room – and of course, of course – I recognized her. It was Julita. She stood tall, strained, and her curly hair, which was normally tied up in a knot on the top of her head, fell onto her shoulders (her hair was always tied up, except for a few curly strands that always came loose, and, by the way, I would disagree with a guess that she did this on purpose – it was not her manner to be coquettish, even if innocently). That was why I did not recognize her. Well, and there was also, how shall we say, the delicate circumstances, which, pardon me, I’m obliged to chronicle. She stood upright before me only in her nightgown. Thank God her sleeves were long, but her knees and some of her thighs were exposed. (Oh, how thoughtlessly those subtle articles of clothing are sewn these days). “Please,” she said, leaving it probably up to me to decide which of her requests I’d honour. “Please don’t be afraid,” she said more accurately because she liked to be accurate. And I liked that Julita addressed even me, Charlie, politely, by using the formal pronoun, with none of that exaggerated familiarity which possesses our world and makes it dim-witted. How is this related? You see, being polite is not only about choosing to address one by the formal pronoun, it also influences one’s thinking, one’s lifestyle, one’s trajectory, which saves us from horizontal flatness. Yes, I see, it would take a long time for me to explain, and I am not at all certain that I would possibly manage to enunciate my thought. Please forget it. Julita’s good manners were not just a trick of this night. And that, you have to agree, was even more remarkable when one considered her work, its tiring tension, and all the mad people who would call her both for a reason, and for no reason at all. It’s no surprise that people working in her field tend to be rough, untrusting, and slow to forgive; they can’t be any other way, not with their language – heavy, thorny, and cold as a tank’s caterpillars – an occupational disease. Then again, can something that allows one to survive be a disease? And then suddenly I heard her say: “You, Charlie.” I swear, I would have done anything, and I mean anything.

But this I did not expect! Julita shoved out her hand and there was something in it. I gazed at what she was showing me and discerned that it was a lock of hair. I could not believe it until she said, “That is his hair, and my hair.” I understood that it was her hair, but how had she gotten his, you know, Ignas’s hair, I had no idea. I cleaned up his remains myself after the play and had shoved it into the bag. It was hard to see what was what, and I especially did not take note of his hair. I took the locks out of her hands: her curl, I glanced at Julita with one eye, and, really, you could see that on the left side of her head, above her ear, her black curls were less dense. Beside her curl now lying in my palm, the rest of the hair was not hers, it was much shorter, thinner and seemed almost colourless in the dark. It could have been Ignas’s hair, but how could I tell. Julita said in a firm voice: “Could you, Charlie, braid our hair together?” Braid is not a very accurate verb. Julita, who so favoured precision in language, could have found a better suited word. But I did not argue with her. That’s because one only argued over more serious matters. Please try to understand. That was not my responsibility, but something beyond it, and I don’t intend to get any more into talking about those, well, ahem, those hair sculptures. Not only did I not have to, as Julita asked, braid Ignas’s and her hair together, I had no obligation to do anything at all! That venturesome performance, those raving cats, even Julita in her rustling cotton nightdress, nobody could push me, Charlie, to do something with those locks of hair lying on my palm, as though they were ill-gotten money. I shook my head, no, and Julita took a few steps backwards towards the door. I hoped that she would soon leave. But no. She bent her knees a little, yanked up the edge of her nightdress, and began to slowly gyrate her hips. Julita danced, although it would be more accurate to say that she clumsily moved according to some rules she’d once learned. She obviously tried to be precise in her dance, only, that sort of a dance required a different sort of precision, an inborn, incalculable precision. I placed the lock of hair on my desk, pulled off my shirt and sunk into my bed under the blanket. I turned my back away from Julita and listened how the cotton of her nightdress rustled against her bony, gyrating like a squeaking swing body, how her deep, nervous breathing reconciled with a one-time defeat. Beyond the door, a sharp mewing of the cats rippled from the throat of the corridor. Suddenly, everything went quiet. Julita crept up to my sofa bed. In a single light movement, as though she were turning the page of a book, she pulled up the blanket and lay down beside me, pressing her body against my back. Trembling. She hugged me carefully with one arm and, in the blink of an eye, we both found comfort in a dream.