She suddenly felt the need for a drink and went to the liquor cabinet. Her mother didn’t even seem to notice. Before, it would have been impossible to take a single step around her mother’s house without being closely watched. Let alone go to the liquor cabinet for a drink.
She sat across from them and they raised their glasses to her. Cheers. There was something insane about the situation. Fanny slipped off her shoes and folded her legs on the armchair, which welcomed her as an old friend. She stared at these funny faces — one of them like that of a horse, stiff in a British kind of way, the other — a Viennese oval, with dimples. Both perfect. She gulped her drink with great pleasure and asked what the sitcom was about.
Her mother relaxed her head back into Mr. V.’s elbow and closed her eyes in rapture. Later Fanny was not able to remember what they told her about the sitcom. She only remembered how they were speaking to her and how she wished it would never end.
It felt so strange. After quite a few glasses and toasts for the New Year, Mr. V. ordered a taxi for her.
When she got home, the misanthropic cat Pavoné was purring on the table. Fanny hugged him and walked around the whole apartment, with a bounce in her step.
She decided to rent the place out and find something else for herself. Then she called the twins.
51. Boris, Philip, the Baby, and the Others
The phone and the doorbell rang almost at the same moment in Maria’s house. While Margarita opened the door to Boris and the baby, Valentin picked up the receiver. When Fanny asked him if she could come over, he didn’t know what to say. She ended the conversation after he gave her the address. It was two o’clock in the morning.
Margarita did not yet know. Valentin had passed the entire afternoon talking to her, but without being able to reach the point of no return. Talking to Margarita had gradually taken him out of his semi-unconscious state.
When he put down the phone, Valentin went to look for her and found her in her room. The baby was on her bed, and she and Boris were standing on each side of the bed, watching. Valentin came to the foot of the bed — just then the eyes of all three met somewhere at the top of a pyramid, at the base of which lay the baby. While they were looking at one another, they could hear the child’s rising, gurgling sounds.
Valentin saw Margarita’s pupils widen. He started going through all the things that could seem unusual and troubling to her — it was night, not day, Boris was in the house, the baby was without Maria, and who knew what else. The baby without Maria was probably the most disconcerting. What else? He felt increasing panic at what had to happen, unsure that he would be able to handle it. Boris’s posture and face projected something that confused him even more.
At this moment a bell rang and broke the pyramid. Fanny came in, and while he was showing her into the living room, Margarita followed closely at his heels. She had lit up with joy at seeing Fanny. Valentin left them and went back to Boris. He waved to him to come into the kitchen and the two sat down at the table.
Where were they to go from here? They had come so far and now the silence could be broken, or not. Both knew that Maria was dead, but they knew it in a different way. For Valentin this knowledge was so overwhelming that no words could rise to his mouth.
Boris poured himself a glass of mineral water from the fridge and sat back down at the table. The liquid, lens-like, magnified the hand holding it. His other hand reached out and took Valentin’s arm. He grabbed him somewhere above the elbow and with such force that Valentin searched for his eyes.
It was a true grip of friendship. While drinking his water, Boris continued to hold his arm and looked him in the eyes.
The doorbell rang again. It was Philip. He came in and sat down with them in the kitchen. Music from Margarita’s piano drifted in from the living room. Fanny must have convinced her to play.
Valentin felt the world swirl around him. Something needed to be done, here in this house, but it could not be done. Instead, other things were happening. This music, for example, and the baby in Margarita’s room, and the two fathers staring at each other, and his mother, absent. If she could have been here, it would have been different.
Valentin went to see the baby and found Fanny there. He bent toward her and whispered in her ear that his mother was dead, his mother and the mother of Margarita and the baby. Then he took the already sleeping baby to its crib.
He went back to the kitchen and asked Boris and Philip if they wanted to get some rest. Both said no. Margarita was still playing. Valentin suddenly remembered Christmas Eve and the party at Fanny’s. He said to himself that there was nothing else to do, at least nothing else for him to do. He stretched out on the sofa in the living room and closed his eyes. Margarita was playing Mozart. Just before falling asleep, he felt Fanny’s presence nearby. She sat in an armchair. There were white candles burning everywhere: around the fireplace and the piano, on the table, and everywhere else. People moved around him, covered him with a blanket, and he sank into quiet nothingness.
52. Awakening
The baby’s crying woke Valentin. In one fell swoop, everything he knew came back to him. The baby was screaming furiously, probably starving. Valentin took it in his arms, but the baby continued to cry.
There was some milk powder and fruit flour in the fridge. While reading the ingredients and the instructions on the packages, he rocked the baby in his arms. Where did Maria keep the sterilized feeding bottles? In the sterilizer.
He managed to prepare some food, more or less, and put the bottle in the microwave. After two minutes, the baby was snorting happily, sucking on the bottle.
Probably the diapers needed to be changed.
Once he managed to change them, again more or less successfully, by using whatever he found in the baby’s room, he went to Margarita’s room. The door was locked. It had happened before, but now he just couldn’t bear it. He pushed and pounded on the door with all his force. And he pushed and pounded until a disheveled creature, wearing his own face, opened the door and looked at him with clear eyes. At last.
The others were gone. Valentin went to his room and lay down, this time on his real bed.
He thought that from now on many mornings would be like this. He stretched and turned a little. Now he was finally in his right place, or so it seemed.
53. Short Days
In the days that followed, things took place and Valentin simply waited for them to end. He knew that these things had to happen once and only once. For example, Maria’s funeral, to which everyone came peaceful and calm. Valentin was also peaceful and calm. What was happening now had nothing to do with what had happened to his mother.
Margarita seemed to be feeling the same way. And visibly everyone else, too. Fanny was the only one who looked confused. But this somehow suited her.
Throughout the visits, the comings and goings of people, Fanny took care of the baby. She sometimes stayed with the baby in the house, and sometimes took him with them.
Gradually things quieted down.
Then Valentin decided to go and see Raya. And for some unknown reason he took Margarita with him.
When they arrived at Raya’s place, they looked like a delegation on an official mission. Valentin carried presents for his daughter, flowers for Raya, and Margarita carried the baby. The visit resembled an old-fashioned event where the families of the two parties met for the first time. Raya, who knows where she had found any, served them fig jam on small crystal plates, glasses of water, and some liqueur that made her tipsy in no time. But even that could not spoil the afternoon. Raya was surprised and happy to see the little baby, and her daughter was simply ecstatic. Margarita managed to convince them to return the visit the following day.