Fanny had always had her life organized. If she did not work from six in the morning to ten at night, she feared losing her brilliance. But here she was now, sitting, rotting because of this idiotic hollow day, this “holiday,” and no one cared. She had to get a grip on herself, otherwise she risked losing it. In the same train of thought, she remembered something. In her car, she had a bag with everything needed for a short trip, and another bag with accessories for the gym and for swimming. Her credit cards were there, and her passport with a one-year visa for the European Union. She picked up the phone and booked a room at Hotel Athene in Athens. A little later, passers-by on the streets of Sofia glared after a BMW, wondering what thick-necked boss was pushing pedal to the metal this time.
43. Erotica
Mr. V. unlocked the apartment door and stopped to listen for any noise. Half past eleven, Christmas morning. He was anxious, tense, ready for anything — an attack and a quick retreat. The words he was likely to hear scared him. One couldn’t do anything with words. He was less scared by things in the absence of words. He could hold somebody’s hand for hours, rub somebody’s little feet, change wet towels, and check somebody’s blood pressure. He could run to the pharmacy to get something and juice tons of citrus fruit. But words, words were deadly. They paralyzed him; they deprived him of his dignity every time he could hear himself mumble in response to Madame’s fiery cannonballs.
The house was quiet like a closed box. Mr. V. went into the living room and saw a row of different-sized bottles neatly arranged on the coffee table. A blanket and a pillow were on the sofa — somebody had slept there. The lights were on.
Suddenly he felt panic — pills! Covered in cold sweat and trembling, he pushed the bedroom door ajar. His wife was lying across the bed, the shutters and the curtains were closed, and it was almost dark inside. He tiptoed toward her. She was breathing. Thank God.
His presence did not wake her. She lay relaxed in her lacy underwear, which stood out dark against her skin. In spite of himself he admired her body, curvy, but well proportioned, and below the belly, that incomparable little mound; looking at it suddenly aroused him. It excited him to see her strong and round legs meet at a triangle that looked tiny in comparison, almost like a child’s.
He slowly lay down beside her and put his hand on her stomach. She was still sleeping. He unbuttoned his pants, he could barely stand them anymore. His arousal was so intense that it was becoming painful. He slipped one hand under her waist, and the other under the lace disappearing between her legs. She sighed softly, opened her eyes and closed them again. His fingers sank into the folds of that place he loved so much, drawing him in as if it was the center of the universe. She opened her legs slightly and, through the haze of his excitement, he could feel that she wanted him, that she wanted him more than anything, her desire growing with his. His hand glided under her body and slowly pulled the sheer fabric down from her waist. When he reached the middle of her thighs, he was amazed to see his other hand half hidden between her legs. He bent lower over her and pressed his lips on her belly, holding her up from behind. Desire was now neither “hers” nor “his”; it was simply desire. He climbed over her and penetrated her, slowly and gently, as if opening a flower. He felt her abandoning herself to him, wanting him even more, and he went deeper and there, stood still. Movement was unnecessary. He held her, filled with him. He loosened his arms and pulled her up toward him. Her eyes were still closed. The two of them were half sitting in each other now, as if some craftsman had shaped them as a perfect fit. He reached for her breast. Touching the point of her hard nipple made them both moan with ecstasy, their bodies had become finely tuned instruments, from which they could draw melodies. She opened her eyes when his fingers touched her lips. They looked at each other as if they had never looked at each other before — her eyes were bottomless and his eyes disappeared into hers. There was no anxiety, no worry about anything; there was only this, here, where everything happened as it did. His lips melted into hers forming a masterpiece of a kiss, their fingers wove together and they knew that anything they did would be right. He pressed her against his chest and entered her with more force, with impossible force, and his desire exploded, disintegrating his consciousness into pure gratitude — toward her, toward the world, toward everything that had made his existence possible. He fell asleep in her, in his place, forever his.
44. Whereto
When Philip woke up, Rallie was gone. After a momentary pang of fear, he realized he felt exhausted and slumped back onto the pillows. Images from the previous night rushed through his mind. He was certain that if he called the apartment in Suhata Reka, Stephie or one of the other girls would tell him that Rallie had gone to work. And what was he calling about anyway?
What life was this? It seemed to Philip that despair had deluged the world and people were living sub-aquatic lives. He had started to move through his daily obligations more and more like a ghost, like a sleeper through a dream, as if driven by someone’s dreadful spell.
His job consisted of finding causes. The causes of death. Only one thing prevented him from succumbing to the anguish of staring at the pale corpses — his students. He was outstanding as a teacher. He was good at it; it was his calling, he knew. After the last crisis, when he had again blamed himself for the death of a “patient,” his doctor had recommended finding another job. But Philip decided to keep struggling, or at least to give it another try.
That was when he discovered he enjoyed working with students, with “the kids” as he called them. It wasn’t the first time he had read lectures or led laboratory classes. But he had never realized how good he was at it. If teaching anything to his own kids was entirely out of reach, here at least, he could be useful.
Of course, he doggedly clung to that “thing” inside him. And he was grateful to his colleagues for preventing his dismissal throughout this time of abysmal descents into underwater caves.
He knew that he was hanging by a thread. More than anything, he yearned to break free from himself, to flee from something he designated by the harmless word “failure.” All words seemed innocent in comparison to the unnamable, that which every now and then hurled into the world a different Philip, with a face familiar to no one. Not to his brother, not to his parents, not to his friends.
Only his doctor recognized these faces as a collection of new personae of sorts. But whether his doctor kept them, or hid them in a file somewhere, whether he found them of any use once Philip had reverted to the familiar Philip, bending over to examine yet another corpse, he had no idea. What he knew with absolute certainty was that even if Maria and the twins could magically return in his life, things would still remain irreparable — this filled him with despair. For a brief moment it had been possible to be happy. For such a brief moment. And it now felt so incongruous with the rest of his life that Philip simply wondered when, if ever, the suffering would be over.
He opened his eyes again and decided to follow the movements of his body, to become dependent on them. Just as a diver was dependent on the movements of his body under water.