Director's Cut (7 page)

Everyone crawled around wearing blankets and lengths of fabric, whipping up clouds of dust that hung over the candles and incense pots like stuffy halos. While a circle loudly formed, Maxim opened one of the wooden skylights. When he turned back, he saw Gala lying on her stomach beside Mannequin 2, who rested his head on the small of her back as if he had just received his first birthday present. Maxim had to brace himself and urge three people to move along a little before he succeeded
in sitting down next to Gala, determined to do everything in his power to stop Mannequin 2 before he started unwrapping.

When the hash was passed around, Maxim considered joining in. It would have fitted his idea of living a life that teemed with forbidden pleasures and sensual abandon, if only the dope smokers he had known hadn't seemed so small. They didn't smoke because they, like him, wanted to experience something unprecedented, but because they had already abandoned all hope of anything unprecedented ever happening in their lives. Mannequin 2 sucked back like that as well. The way he enjoyed himself was flaccid and listless. He passed the joint to Gala. She took it and studied the filter through her lashes, as if reluctant to give in without a struggle. Then she pursed her flaming red lips, sucked, and closed her eyes. She handed the joint to Maxim and, keeping her eyes on him, opened her lips to let the smoke spiral up out of her mouth.

Maxim played his role as best he could. Since he had never smoked, the usual slapstick ensued—mouthing the joint, sucking, holding in the smoke, coughing and trying to hide his choking—but by the fourth or fifth toke, he had the knack of it. He held his breath until Gala looked at him. Then he opened his mouth the way he had seen her do it. A little later she seemed to dissolve behind the smoke escaping from his lungs.

He came to because Gala was shaking him. Urgently. A couple that had been going at it in the corner quickly gathered their clothes and rushed off. Mannequin 2 leapt around over the cushions.

“What kind of idiot opens a window?” he shouted while throwing a bucket of water onto a length of tulle that was being consumed by flames. The wind had blown one of the curtains too close to an incense pot. The Pole noticed it first and attempted to douse the flames with her whiskey. Finally she was forced to sacrifice her fur, which Mannequin 2 now used to attack the smoldering cushions. He had almost conquered the fire, but he was no longer in the mood for a party.

Outside with Gala, Maxim realized that this time he wouldn't even make the night bus. Gala ran in the opposite direction, toward the water at the end of the lane. She stepped onto the dock and took a few deep breaths.

“I'm dizzy,” she said. “I have to lie down.”

“We shouldn't have smoked.” He put his arm around her shoulders. He was shocked by how suddenly the smile that always lingered around her lips disappeared. She wobbled and grabbed hold of him.

“I'll take you home,” he said, although he could see that it was too late for that.

“It's not the smoking.”

All at once Gala's knees buckled and she lay down flat on the planks. Maxim looked around, as if expecting to find someone standing by with instructions. A stiff breeze was blowing over the water and pushing up cold and damp between the planks. All Gala had on was a thin skirt and a sleeveless T-shirt. He sat down next to her.

“Come on,” he said gently, “this is no place to lie down.”

“It's fine.” Her voice sounded clear. She knew what she wanted. “I'll just rest a little, then I'll be okay again.” She scooped up some water and splashed it on her face. Startled, she sat up. “Although … headache,” she said, “you need to be careful not to hurt yourself.”

“Always,” said Maxim with growing uncertainty, “and everywhere.” Now he
really
wanted help. He would have gone to fetch some if he hadn't been so scared that Gala would tumble into the canal if he let go. She looked around. She tried to see what was hidden in her blind spot, and when she turned her head far enough, the advertising boat appeared, in the same place where it had been tied up the whole time.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, beaming like a child, “the diamond!” The discovery seemed to revive her. “Yes, the diamond, how beautiful!” She wanted to get to the boat and tried to stand up, but when that was too much for her, she crawled over on all fours. Her skirt caught on a nail and tore. Maxim jumped up and tried to stop her, pulling her up onto her feet. She reacted like an angry child and lashed out with both hands, as if he were trying to keep her from a treasure she had spent years searching for.

“I have to go there. I have to go there now!” she shouted, and Maxim, having no idea what to do, let her go.

It was only a small boat with a glass superstructure. The cheaply mounted panes of glass were designed to imitate the shapes of a cut stone, ending at a blunt point where the name of the factory was written
in glittering letters. The pane that served as a door hung on rickety hinges. Gala had no trouble jerking it open and sat down on the floor of the glass cage, sheltered from the wind.

“And now we set sail,” she shouted.

“Yes,” Maxim answered to accommodate her. “It's just like we're about to set sail.” The boat almost shot out from under him when he stepped into it.

“No,” intoned Gala, as if the adventure ahead demanded her utmost concentration, “not
like
we're about to set sail. We're going.”

“We can't,” Maxim tried, and, when she insisted, he added, “We'd need the ignition key!”

Gala stood up impatiently and started untying the thick rope with her small hands. “Now. Now.” He helped, and while they disentangled the hawser their hands touched. Finally he put a foot against the dock and pushed off. They shot off toward the middle of the canal, where they were picked up by the sluggish current caused by the nightly opening of the locks around the city. Drifting on the fresh polder water that was flushing the canals, they passed under a high brick bridge on their way into the old city.

“They always make me mournful, these houses.” Gala was lying on the bottom of the boat with Maxim beside her. The imposing facades along the side of the canal were only partly visible and distorted by the glass panes of the diamond advertisement.

“Mournful?”

“The way they'll be in three hundred years, the broken windows, the crumbling walls.” She squinted. “The damp has got under the canvases and in the wind they crack even more. Rooms stripped bare, only the marble mantel still in place. I can't stand it.”

“Why should they fall apart? They've been here for centuries.”

“Can't you see?” Baffled, Gala sat up and pointed at the sky. “There, what's left of a chimney. Splinters of broken rafters against the moonlit sky!”

Maxim was still hoping that it would turn out to be a game, something like shapes in clouds or, for his part, a Strindberg monologue, but when her voice started to quiver and he noticed a fat tear in the corner of an eye, he knew he was in deep trouble.

“And the quays, crumbling, caving in.” And sure enough, now she really was crying. “Slowly the sand is carried off to the sea.” She stared at him again with that bizarre, intense look, the way old people can stare at a child, as if they'd like to suck the life out of it.

“I thought everyone saw that.”

Maxim shook his head cautiously.

“No,” she went on, “how could they? Those girls on bikes there … They're already being eaten away. Like skeletons, people sit in their regular spot behind the window. The advertisements have blown off the walls. The neon lights shatter on the shop fronts. Only a few old, thick cables are left hanging, dangling in the wind. They could fall any minute now. Dear God, why doesn't anyone see it? I always thought everyone could see that.”

“Yes,” said Maxim. “Oh yes, now I see it.” But of course he couldn't see anything. His heart was in his mouth. He deeply regretted the whole adventure. Living life to the full placed exaggerated demands on people. Wasn't there some way of plunging in one foot at a time instead of immediately going under?

To his relief, he discovered a paddle under the seat. They were bobbing up and down in one of the widest canals, not far from a houseboat that was within paddling range. But just when he was about to get up, Gala turned around to face him and laid her head on his chest. Suddenly calm, she briefly raised her upper body so that he could wrap his arm around her.

“It won't be long now,” she said. “Take care of me. You'll take care of me. Promise? Promise you'll take care of me!” He promised and she grinned, open, radiant. “It's going all right, isn't it? I'm still talking. I am, I can hear myself. Maybe it'll drift over.”

The floating home was already behind them when the advertising boat threatened to get caught behind one of the basalt titans bearing the piers of a bridge from the thirties. While a nest of grebes stared at them, Gala and Maxim bobbed up and down in the filth that had gathered in the backwash. But finally they caught a faster current away from the center of town and passed the tall somber figures with their heads bent under their heavy load.

“I'm only scared when I'm alone,” Gala said, slurring her words,
“but I'm not alone, am I? Weird, isn't it? Alone, alone, alone, alone.” She laughed. “What a strange word it is, alone, simply ridiculous: alone, alone, alone …”

“Not at all,” Maxim said, “I'm with you.”

“Yes.” Gala beamed like a child that has been given a present. “Yes.” She pointed at her mouth and said, “Spri bilissiti?” Since he didn't understand, she pursed her lips and pointed at them. Her eyes were now locked onto his. Her eyelids were drooping. She looked at him urgently from under her lashes, fragile.

“Spri bilissiti!”

She opened her mouth and pointed at her tongue. Maxim knew that something was about to go seriously wrong. He tried to free himself to paddle, but Gala wouldn't let him. Her fingers clawed at his chest, as if she were afraid she was going to fall. Wailing like a frightened animal, she signaled that he mustn't let her go. He felt tension, but no panic. Perhaps because Gala herself relaxed as soon as he lay down again. More than anything else, he felt flattered that she dared to let herself go in his arms. Because she
was
going. Slowly she slid away, Maxim felt that clearly. And while she slipped away from him, he rose up on the wings of her trust. He grew calm. These were the moments that mattered, when everything could be decided in a single second.

She pointed at his mouth, more urgently.

“What is it, darling?” Maxim asked, and it was the first time he had heard himself say the word. But was he talking to a woman or a child? “Just relax, what do you want me to do?” And he was intensely moved that someone dared to put herself in his hands.

“Are you thirsty?”

Gala shook her head. She pointed at his mouth. All he could think of was to kiss her on the forehead. And again. She shook her head and pointed at her mouth. Her mouth! She could no longer speak, but made little groaning sounds, weeping deep within about not being able to make him understand. Then he kissed her, not making a fierce and exaggerated show of it like on the stage, but carefully. First their lips touched without any pressure at all, as if passing by chance and only briefly lingering, but when she opened her mouth to him and he felt her breath in the back of his throat, he naturally went further.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in admiration, beaming.

Maxim moved closer with his legs wrapped around her, the way he'd sat behind her on the bicycle, and when he saw her widely dilated eyes roll back at the start of the epileptic fit, he held her tight with all his strength.

“Let it go, Gala, I'm here, sweetheart, I'm here, aren't I? Gala darling, dear Gala, Gala darling, it'll be all right.”

They could have been wrestling with passion, catching each other and then slipping away from each other again, the way new lovers raise each other's body only to press it down again. Shoulders, feet, arms, and legs banged against the bottom of the boat. Sweat began to flow and heavy breathing sounded in the night. If people had been walking along the quay, they would have smiled or felt a pang of jealousy, thinking back on the hours in which they themselves had been snared by that kind of love. The jolting of the young bodies spread over the water in circles that grew until they broke against the banks.

On the bottom of the boat, Maxim measured his strength against Gala's. He was stronger, but for the first few minutes she had the advantage of a madness that stopped at nothing. Even her fiercest swipes seemed involuntary, as if controlled by something beyond her. Over and over he was caught out by the erratic way her muscles contracted, hitting and kicking. Her movements were unpredictable. Dangerous. As if determined to inflict injury. Again and again her head bashed against the ribs of the boat, and whenever he leapt in between to cushion the blows there was always an arm or leg that lashed out with wood-splintering power, cutting and grazing itself in the process.

But finally her body came to rest and rolled back. The muscles that had gone through such contortions relaxed, still quivering from the strain. Maxim leaned back with relief and gently let her slack body sag against his. Now moving only to the rhythm of his breathing, she lay there heavily. One by one, he dislodged the black hairs stuck to her forehead. He stroked her cheek and wiped the drops of blood away from the corner of her mouth. He spat on his thumb to wash away the smudged mascara under her lashes. Then he wrapped his arms around her, felt her breathing, and, for a few moments, felt so intimately linked to this woman that he thought they would never be separate again.

When he became aware of the chafing and burning of his own
injuries, he rested his head. For a long time, he lay there like that with Gala's head on his chest, looking at the moonlight, broken by all the facets of the diamond, differently every time, sparkling and unpredictable, falling inside the boat in countless rays and colors.