Two people, a man and a young woman, entered, leaving the winter afternoon behind them, and sat down at a small table. The man reached forward and switched on the table lamp, which enveloped him and the woman in a golden circle of light. What calm and somehow objective harmony other people could project. His mother had her own way of making a similar kind of observation — why couldn’t we be like other people and get it right for once? People were her preferred object of contemplation. And really, what could be more interesting than people, than the perpetual back-and-forth movement of glances from us to them, and from them to us, and the infinite variety of interpretations it engendered. People, the product of our outward looking gaze.
Enough; the silly meanderings of a bored mind. The young woman at the neighboring table was slowly taking her slender hands out of unlined leather gloves, literally peeling them off. The man with her was having a full-fledged conversation with the waiter.
The gentleman finally took his eyes off them and focused on the russet color of his tea. Only then did he realize that he had been staring at these people with admiration: they were very beautiful. Were they always and everywhere so beautiful? Probably not, but what difference did it make, now they were: a tableau on a small stage, and those lucky to be there observed the scene.
His umbrella suddenly came to life, slipping slowly off the table, and fell on the carpet with a thump. The gentleman looked at it languidly, without moving. Then he felt that someone was standing next to his table, someone with a tiny fragile body, cloaked in a mass of hair. An odd-looking woman with a baby in her arms, the unlikely silhouette of an outcast about to extend a begging hand? His fingers were already reaching for his pocket, when he heard “Good evening” from an equally unexpected voice that made him freeze. A lower class, yet educated voice aware of its power over the listener. His professional curiosity was piqued just as he began to realize that this incongruous figure might be the woman he was waiting for. He immediately jumped to his feet and his arms opened in an overly dramatic invitation to sit. Unembarrassed, the woman alighted like a bird on the sofa next to him. He had not yet replied to her greeting when he met her eyes, the color of fog. There was none of the “oh” and “ah” he had imagined, nor any other signs of communication. The woman, having emerged from the numbing cold, sleeping baby in her arms, simply sat next to him as if her place had always been there. Her presence, impossible to reference or classify, transfixed him.
The gentleman grabbed his teacup as if it were a life preserver, and tried to smile.
It wasn’t you I spoke to on the phone, was it?
His ability to draw connections between things was slowly coming back.
No, it wasn’t.
Her voice embraced him again, annihilating his willingness to speak. She is unreal, he thought unwittingly, such creatures exist only in fairy tales, and fairy tales, too, are unreal. Then a relieving possibility — could she be a gypsy?
He tried to examine her discreetly, which didn’t seem very difficult because she was looking straight ahead, with an unhurried expression, as if not expecting anything at all. And what was there to see? Her dark hair shrouded her body so closely that only her face remained open, glowing with an opalescent light, with the baby’s head blending into it. There was a supple movement and from her hair emerged pale fingers holding a lit cigarette. The woman drew on the cigarette, breathing in softly, and set her eyes on his.
Oh God, he thought.
You wanted to see me regarding your divorce?
They spoke for about ten minutes, which gave him the opportunity to understand that, thankfully, fate had been merciful and the woman’s case was quite simple. If, naturally, one could call these facts simple: she had twenty-year-old twins from a previous marriage; her present husband and father of the baby was about thirty, known as one of the best minds in microbiology; she herself was about forty, owned significant property, and had a prenuptial agreement. The young husband did not contest the divorce, he had already left the house, and she was the one filing the necessary forms.
The gentleman handed her the simplified form used in such cases, the woman hid it somewhere in the rustling folds of her skirt, and said she would send someone to pay the fee. Both she and her husband, of course, would appear in court.
Meanwhile, the gentleman had offered her tea, or perhaps something else, but the woman had ignored both his question and the waiter’s expectant pause. There was no contact between her and the overall system that made the café function, as if they were meeting on a cloud, beyond time and space. The gentleman never managed to draw her attention to anything beside the object of their meeting. It was agreed that he would be paid for his services through a bank transfer after the case was closed. The amount of money was never discussed.
Throughout this exchange the baby remained asleep, and refined chatter purled around them but never reached the gentleman’s ears. The woman’s voice consumed all space, displacing everything else. If she had but wished for anything, he would have rushed to satisfy her, or would have died on the spot. He silently thanked fate again that she had never wanted anything more than an outline of the routine procedures, which he described to her in some sort of semi-automatic trance.
At one point, he caught in his peripheral vision her silhouette standing up by the table. He heard an ineffable “Goodbye,” and the creature disappeared as unexpectedly as she had arrived.
The gentleman rubbed his stiff neck and, with some vague feeling of shame, began to regain his senses. The beautiful couple at the neighboring table was still there, but now they didn’t seem extraordinary at all. Beauty had become plain and bearable.
21. Backward
Margarita had not left her room for two days. Prickly cookie crumbs and whole or half-eaten apples were strewn among the sheets on her enormous bed. Piles of clothes carpeted the floor, upon which Margarita’s bare feet now softly descended. She could hear indistinguishable noise from the bathroom, whose open door was throwing light into the encroaching darkness of her room. She had reached the state where taking a bath and getting dressed, or going to the kitchen, were becoming possible. The big table lamp from her grandmother attracted her attention and she flipped the switch. The lamp came on, reflecting back eyes from the past, looking. She turned on the tap to fill the bathtub and, with the temerity of an anaesthetized patient, opened the door to the hallway. There was no sound, none whatsoever. She shuffled her feet around a couple of corners and came into the kitchen. No one here, either. Maria, or rather, her mother, no — their mother — was out. Her big blue mug was on the kitchen table, but it was clean, no traces of coffee. Margarita headed for the baby’s room. The crib was empty, except for a few toys. It smelled like baby.
Being alone, she relaxed into her typical dazed, free-floating state of mind. There was no need to worry whether she appeared ridiculous. Whether she could frighten someone. She would take her bath at leisure and go out to look for Valentin. Where? Somewhere by the university. Yes, that was what she was going to do.
A little later, her enormous bag on her shoulder, Margarita was scuffling along the little streets by the Czech Club near the university. Her long black coat fluttered behind her like a cloak. She approached a group of people in front of the club, stamping their feet in the cold under the glimmer of the lantern above the door. The place was still very popular and too small to accommodate all who wanted to get in.