Once outside, she could see only machines; there were people, but the people were all inside machines — trams, buses, and cars. She didn’t feel like going home, and decided instead to visit her father. The trams’ jangle and dazzling threaded lights did not seem inviting, so she headed there on foot, her heavy bag on her shoulder.
Walking gave her the satisfaction of work well done. Work that was pleasant and amusing, squeak-squeak-squeaking feet on the snow. Gliding, slaloming between the parked cars, stopping at traffic lights, standing upright like a soldier.
At night the city looked like a picture. Spaces look indistinct, the houses are surprising. At night the city lets you be; it lets you in, in all of its places, which, you then realize, belong to the city and not to you, a passerby. If you are brave enough, it will let you in even deeper, to places invisible in daylight no matter how hard you look for them. Night people in the city know this, they belong to the city, and that’s why they are scary and others are frightened by them.
Margarita was not thinking about these things. She never thought about anything at all. Thinking for her was like floating down a babbling stream, gently propelled by the drift of her unusual perceptions, until someone broke the spell by speaking or asking for something. No one had ever heard Margarita herself ask for anything. If she happened to feel like “asking,” what other people would call “asking,” she just let her feet take her to a place where whatever she needed simply happened to her. If she ever felt scared by something, she would run away and no one could stop her. She had thus gone through a number of schools, special schools and ordinary ones, she had started many classes and abandoned many, until one day Maria decided that she deserved some peace. Margarita read books, children’s stories and other books, she went out with people, to the cinema or elsewhere, but how far her knowledge of things extended was a mystery. She did not seem depressed about not fitting into a normal category, and the doctor, Mr. T., whom she was seeing about once a month, had himself come to a standstill in observing her perpetual state. Valentin would sometimes drag her with him for weekends or holidays with friends, and Margarita would blend in, in her own dazed way. At the same time, she never forgot faces or people in general. Her memory, free as it was from all other things, recorded words, faces, situations — gathering an endlessly abundant material that would make quite a few film directors happy.
Now she strolled about the city and registered no signs of danger. Every once in a while she felt the weight of her bag and moved it to her other shoulder. What was in that bag, only she knew, whatever to know meant for Margarita.
The window of her father’s apartment gleamed like a beacon. He answered the door almost immediately, dumbfounded to see her. So much so, that for a moment he did not invite her to come in, but let the smell of something burning reach her nose in wafts through the open door.
Are you alright?
Margarita smiled at him happily and he stepped back. He knew that she perceived things differently, but all the same he felt uncomfortable that she could see the remains of his lonely midnight dinner in the black frying pan. He chased away the thought of Maria’s ability to prepare something tasty out of anything, her oven turning out unbelievable dishes as if by itself.
Margarita looked at the piano, but her father waved his hand — not now, people are sleeping.
I’m hungry, dad.
Straight away he put a plate and some bread on the table, poured her a soda drink and took a salad out of the fridge. Margarita began to chew heartily, while her father wondered how he could possibly tell her that he was worried about her.
He asked about Valentin, but quickly hit some barrier and concluded that he needed to find out what was happening at his wife’s house.
Margarita finished eating, suddenly looking sad. He shouldn’t have spoken to her about Valentin. He took a sip of his beer and asked her about the baby. Margarita’s reaction was calmer, her mother and the baby were fine. And dear Boris? She hadn’t seen him for a while.
Her father felt anxious, the way he did every time he received news from Maria’s house. Margarita stirred from her seat like a restless bird before a storm. She wanted to go to bed and her father drove her home. He kissed her goodnight, lightly, as if this was something he did every night.
When she climbed into her enormous boat of a bed, her grandmother’s lamp was still lit. She couldn’t tell if there was anyone in the house.
26. Big Things
A tree had to be found, a Christmas tree or a New Year’s tree, it didn’t matter, a tree to put ornaments on. Valentin was a little worried. The house the tree was meant for was very particular — Fanny lived in it. A fabulous beast of prey in a woman’s shape. She had taken him home after a party and here he was — like little Kai in the Snow Queen’s palace. Their first kiss had wiped his memory clean and he had lost his tolerance for his family and little Margarita.
And so a Christmas tree had to be found. He remembered he had a garret, but no tree could get in there, a fir branch or two at the most.
He wanted to go to the cinema, but now he was expected to look for a Christmas tree. That was a fact mandated by Fanny. Well, so what, I’ll buy the Christmas tree and get out of there. She could have a hundred boys at the snap of her fingers, and a hundred Christmas trees. And a hundred bagpipes playing for her. He burst into laughter and finally remembered where Christmas trees could be found in abundance. He would get Fanny a Christmas tree.
Meanwhile, Margarita was wrapping small presents in gilded paper. Tied with purple ribbons. She put them in her bag without having decided which one was meant for whom. She was at home, lingering like a useless whiff of smoke. To come up with something was nice, but to actually do it was a different story. Having put the presents in her bag, Margarita felt her work was done. She took out a book from the bag and opened it. An action that was like what she had just done, but in reverse. The book was a manual for a software program in English. The idea of a computer had sprung into her head a while ago, and after having carried the book in her bag for a long time, she had decided she needed one. A computer, with all the accessories and navigation devices. Why not, Maria had replied. No one mentioned the small laptop, as if such a thing had never existed.
For Mr. V. it was already the second hour in a board meeting with the directors of the bank. Watching and listening to them was amusing. Everything seemed unreal, pre-Christmas kind of unreal. He loved this time of year — people would say the wildest things and take the bravest decisions, because acting upon them was delayed until after the holidays. Visions about the bank’s future flew across the table like comets, circled back and forth; every now and again he wrote down something in his big notebook. Later that evening there was going to be a party for the board members, their wives and several other people with favorable political positions. Mr. V. did not like such parties, but they were mandatory and, as with all things mandatory, he managed very well. He had one worry, however, and couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he was forgetting something, something essential, fateful. If such things really existed.
He would never mention anything like this to anyone, not for the world.
Maria put the baby in a basket in the back seat of the car and drove off on the slippery, unevenly frozen road. She enjoyed driving at this time of year. Almost all traffic was gone and she could leave the city quickly. The highway to Plovdiv was clean and dry, and she hit the accelerator. The car was packed, the weight making it adhere to the road even better. Maria could feel the machine, its engine buzzing, the cars on her right seeming almost stationary. She devoured miles, like an unstoppable wind blowing through the landscape. When she entered Plovdiv, it was already getting dark. She knew the road to Boris’s parents’ village well; she hoped there would be no need to put on snow chains. The back of the car slid when turning every now and then, but it could be kept under control as long as the danger was anticipated. She loved driving, and especially in the winter. She passed through several villages and took turned onto a small, barely visible lane, at the end of which stood a cluster of houses. The last of these, some distance from the rest, was her destination. The headlights illuminated a line of poplars covered in snow. I hope no one comes the other way, Maria said to herself, but just at that moment saw the lights of a car emerging from behind the snowdrifts. She managed to brake smoothly but the car slid sideways and stopped in the middle of the road. The car in front of her had also stopped; a man emerged. Maria stayed where she was. The man approached, walking like a bear, covered in furs.