Love Is Never Past Tense... (8 page)

There comes such an easygoing feeling, and not because you are in love and you have love in return, but because you are not burdened with anything. The brain is free from cares. And you too are free, and you can choose to leave at any minute. And you can choose to stay …

Serge remained. Like a cavalryman, he straddled a bench and … My God! His excellent Azerbaijan trousers burst directly on the seam, actually splitting his trousers into two pants legs. Janna, hearing the sound of ripping fabric, roared with laughter. And when Serge showed her the ripped butt, she slipped off the bench, and filled the silence with loud laughter. Laughing, they tied her suede handbag to his waist so that it hung behind and covered the breach.

Certainly, to dangle in the streets in such attire was not desirable. Serge looked at the time, and it was half past two in the morning.

“Do you intend to go to your George?”

“Why not?”

“So do you feel like going there?”

“No. What are you offering?”

“To go to my place.”

“Then, let’s go …”

Serge was stupefied. Actually, he did not count on such an answer, and now the thoughts in his head were chasing and replacing each other: night, a bed, a sofa, two rooms. In one room, his cousin slept with a child. In another one—him. There was one bed, and on it he slept—that means …

They stood at a dark entrance, and Serge, thief-like, slowly opened the doors. In the apartment, there was a dead silence. The only sound came from the kitchen faucet, where water dripped like the ticking of a water clock. On tiptoe Serge made his way to his room, through it—to the room of his cousin and approached her peacefully snuffling body. He put a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. His cousin woke up.

“What do you need?” she asked in a whisper.

“Excuse me, I am with a girl. Would you obje …”

“Here, take the pillow from the armchair.”

“What for?”

“Because there is only one there.”

Serge was dumbfounded and stared into his cousin’s face, which was dimly lit by a street lantern.

“But …”

“Then take a folding bed.”

“Yes, okay.”

“Let it stand in its own place,” thought Serge, and he quietly slipped through the door.

“You will sleep here.” He brought Janna to a trestle bed standing in a corner. “Settle down. The bathroom is next to the kitchen. Let’s go, I will show you, because you won’t find it.”

“Let go, I’m bright.”

Talking in whispers, they crept into the kitchen. Serge got a piece of kielbasa from the refrigerator, found the bread, and divided it into two parts. She greedily attacked the meal and sat down on the edge of a stool. With full mouths, they tried to communicate somehow, but instead of words, only crumbs and suppressed laughter came out. Once done with the meal, Serge wiped his lips with his palm and plodded away to make the bed …

Janna was already lying down when Serge approached and kissed her. The warm female scent tickled his nose and forced him to sit down beside her.

“Your cousin knows that I’m here?”

“She knows.”

“And what does she say?”

“Nothing, everything is all right, sleep easy.”

“And you?”

Instead of an answer, Serge embraced her and clung to her full sensual lips. They shuddered and slightly opened. From each touch, they swelled and breathed with heat, but her breath was deep and even. It seemed as if she knew that now it should happen, and waited for it, not with submissiveness, but with determined resoluteness. Serge began to shower her with kisses, enjoying her pliable, damp body. The blanket stirred, and he threw it on her legs. Janna immediately clasped his neck and pressed him to herself. Serge felt her breast rise like a wave and buried his face in the hollow between her two spheres. The smell of her sun-kissed skin made his head spin. His lips caressed the curve of her breast. They came across her firm, pointed nipple. He grabbed it with his teeth and gently pressed it. Suddenly, he heard a firm whispered, “Go, your cousin! …” Serge got up, covered her with a blanket, wished her good night, and disappeared behind a door …

When he lay on the folding bed, he thought, “You need to love a woman very much in order to overcome such a perfect opening,” and he plunged into the dream of a righteous person.

***

Several days passed. Janna was going home. They sat at the buffet at the railway station, slowly sucking down warm coffee.

“It is only six days since we met, and it seems like an eternity has passed.” Janna’s voice sounded sad. She rotated the teaspoon in the glass, and spoke more to herself than to Serge.

“I will leave, and you, probably, will go to the beach and get acquainted with some other girl.”

“Possibly.” Serge grinned, trying to give the word a playful tone.

“We’ll depart and will never meet again.”

And this, to tell the truth, was not what Serge desired.

“Why? You in fact often visit Moscow.”

“No, Serge, in Moscow we will not meet.”

“I do not understand, what can prevent us meeting?”

“Hell knows what she was hammering into her head. Actually, if we won’t meet, then we won’t meet …” At this moment Serge thought that he was engaged in autosuggestion. He filled himself with indifference, though he was actually very melancholy that she was leaving. And this melancholy would develop in full force when the train dragged her to Kishinev. But, he would remain on the platform by himself, without her, and would slowly go out in the now deserted city because for the entire six days in Odessa there was
She
, who filled the whole world with herself.

“What is the time?” Janna was obviously nervous.

“Almost an hour until departure.”

“Do you have any cigarettes?”

“Yes, but smoking is not allowed here.”

They went to the station building and sat down on a bench. Janna inhaled deeply; her look was thoughtful and serious …

“Listen!” Suddenly, her eyes lit up. She became animated, and she began to glow from the idea that came into her mind.

“You come with me!”

“Did you think this through?”

“It’s not important. You will come with me and that’s it!”

“My things are not packed. My family will worry. Soon my parents will arrive,” reasoned Serge.

“This is not a problem.” Janna did not give value to his words. “You will send a telegram. You will calm them down. You will spend two or three days and leave. You will see Kishinev.”

“What does Kishinev have to do with this? What a reason …” thought Serge.

“And your Mom, when does she arrive?”

“Mom?” Janna rummaged in her memory. “On the third, or the fourth. She will also call on her friends. In any case, I’m going to buy a ticket.”

“Wait, where will I go in these clothes?”

Serge pointed at his shabby jeans.

“And the money that I have with me—it’s only three rubles.”

“Money, we will get there. I should receive an advance payment.”

“But I need to take something with me,” protested Serge.

Janna looked at the face of the clock.

“There are thirty-five more minutes. We’ll take a taxi, we’ll be on time.”

She jumped to her feet. Her fervor carried her away. Serge began to consider an excursion to Moldavia, but the voice of common sense kept him back. In truth, it gradually faded, being replaced by the spirit of an adventurous undertaking. Janna waited, frozen in front of him. He looked at her widely spread, straight legs, raised his eyes to her firm hips, then above—to her chest heaving from impatience. Then his eyes slipped to her long gentle neck, and for a second, stopped on her full, compressed, sharply outlined lips—and at last, met her eyes which had become greener from an internal pressure. In them, there was a mix of despair, determination, and entreaty, and the multitude of feelings were now turbulent in her heart. “Perhaps, if I was only a toy, she would not look like this. To be with this woman, even for two or three more days. Ahh, why am I sitting? Fool!” Serge imagined Janna’s empty house … and jumped from his spot. They rushed to a taxi, and in half an hour were at the station again. The train departed in four minutes. Serge held a small bag in his hands where he had put his trousers and a second shirt. In three days, he intended to return, just before the arrival of his parents. But then he did not yet know that the passion to travel would fundamentally change the rest of his life.

***

The old man took a swig from a bottle of water. Then he bent and moistened his grey-haired balding head. Then, he got more comfortable on the boat’s bench and looked at the sky. The sun still was high in the sky. In a few more hours, it would bend around the earth, slowly releasing its place to darkness.

It is strange how one moment can change your whole life. The old man thumbed through the pages of his own life, flying through the years. He suddenly remembered how he skidded on a spring road
²²
and the helpless car pulled directly towards a quickly moving truck. At the last second, he plowed into a snowdrift on the roadside, and the multi-ton truck swept past, the driver gesturing crazily and growling the engine. Serge was lucky to survive. He got lucky once more when a car driving in front of him suddenly made a U-turn and ran sideways into a pickup truck. The car smashed its front-end into a safety barrier, and passers-by had to pull out the blood-stained bodies of the young guys still writhing in agony. In one instant, everything grew dim. What if the pickup had not been there?

But if Serge remained on the platform, and watched the train leave, everything would be different. How? Nobody knows how. Different, that’s all. Nevertheless, they lodged in the train car together, across from each other. The train squeaked with all its wheels and it rolled them into a life full of riddles, many of which the old man could not solve in the years that followed.

***

The train was a suburban type with bench seats. There were not many passengers sitting there. At once, you could smell kielbasa, boiled eggs, fresh cucumbers and other food. To fill your stomach while on the road is a ritual action impossible to remove. Like before travel time, everybody was painfully starved.

For Serge and Janna, though, no supplies existed, and contrary to their custom of eating, they expected a forced three-hour fast. As if to spite them, a well-fed man sitting beside them tried to fill his chubby boy with cutlets.
²³
The boy shook his head side-to-side like a brat, and the man, not getting upset, placed the next piece into his own mouth. Janna and Serge had no strength to observe this procedure for long, so they went to the end of the train car. Wheels were tapping out kilometers. Serge leaned against a shaking wall and smoked. Janna stood opposite. Her face was concentrated, and her brow was furrowed. She looked very adult, and to Serge communication with this woman seemed ridiculous. What forces prompted him to go with her now? Far from places he had known and held dear, and in the end, far from his favorite sea. He goes to strangers, with another stranger, in effect, a strange woman. “Who is she to me? Who is she in at all?” thought Serge, glancing at his sputnik. Janna slowly lifted her eyelashes. Her sight was tired, but not full of pity. It belonged to a woman used to exhaustion, struggling and winning. To tell the truth, at that moment, Serge did not yet understand this. He followed his natural instinct instead, not being able to separate from his object of desire. He was ruled by unsatisfied passion. He did not look any further at the impending night. How could he know that Janna already separated from him, and looked into the far future?

They returned to their seats and asked the big man for his copy of
Ogoniok
.
²⁴
He gladly gave them the magazine, mainly because he did not know what to do with it. Janna found a long article about Delacroix and started to read aloud. Serge listened. But her voice hardly reached through the noise of the moving train. So as not to lose the idea, he began to read it himself, and successfully reached the end of the article, but still did not comprehend the entire plot. Janna understood it, and began to explain conscientiously to Serge that Delacroix represented a chapter of the Romantic movement in painting. Popularity came to him in 1822, when he exhibited the large painting Barque of Dante at a Parisian salon. He was the master of the color scale and influenced Renoir and Van Gogh … Serge listened, but only understood one thing: that to become infatuated with art, it is necessary to try to absorb art into yourself. To feel it, not in the mind, but in the heart. But this can’t be done on a train.

He played along by dropping general phrases, and then dipped into vast demagogy about how your profession influences the formation of your worldview. Janna said that there are certain important things, and not to know about them is simply impossible, no matter what a person is engaged in. Serge felt reproached, became isolated, and went the rest of the way in silence. He tried to justify his ignorance somehow, but unfortunately, could not.