Loves of Yulian (6 page)

“Be very careful in the water,” Sra. De la Vega was saying now, “because there is a very strong current.”

I had been taught to face anyone addressing me, and I automatically turned back toward the senhora. But the senhora had seated herself on the reclining beach chair, and I saw that the bottom half of her suit was as limited in its coverage as the top, ending a good distance below her brown bellybutton. Had these same body areas belonged to the beanbag lady, and had they been similarly displayed, I would have feasted my eyes for as long as I could manage. But, things being as they were, I only turned away in embarrassment.

“I. . . I. . . I am not s. . . s. . . supposed to go in the w. . . w. . . water so soon after ea. . . eating, S. . . s. . . senhora,” I said, looking toward the water.

“So sit down next to me,” she said, patting the blanket. I sat down, still examining the ocean.

Sitting beside the senhora and facing the huge expanse of ocean, I realized that what I was hoping for from that other lady’s bathing suit top had scant chance of happening. She had, undoubtedly, played this beach game many times before and was well familiar with the limits of her equipment. On the other hand, I reasoned that, on this beach, there must be other ladies, more youthful than the senhora, but similarly reclining and similarly exposed. And if I were to equip myself with a pair of sunglasses, like the senhora wore, I could wander this beach, harvesting all those sights, without fear of embarrassment.

But the moment I thought that, I realized that sunglasses would be an unessential drain on our precarious budget. I could tell Mother that the sun hurt my eyes very badly, and then she would certainly buy me a pair. But, in my self-appointed role as sentinel against unnecessary spending, I could not justify such a subterfuge to my own conscience.

“You are so quiet, Julien,” the senhora said, breaking into my reverie. Suddenly I was embarrassed. I knew that there were certain people who could read minds, and what if the senhora was one of them?

“Are you missing your home and your little friends in Poland?” she asked.

“Y. . . Y. . . Y. . . Yes, S. . . S. . . S. . . Senhora,” I said. I tried to think about Warsaw and Kiki to cover my shameful thoughts from her sight. And I was stuttering terribly. The senhora would certainly tell me to stop and think of what I wanted to say, and then to just to say it, as everyone else did.

“Give me your hands, Julien,” the senhora said suddenly.

“M. . . M. . . My h. . . h. . . hands?” With both my hands in hers, she would be able to read my thoughts even more thoroughly. Or was it so that I wouldn’t be able to get away?

“Just turn to me and give me your hands,” she said.

I turned to face the senhora in her beach chair and saw that she had sat up and turned her shoulders and those long breasts squarely towards me. A cigarette was dangling from her lips. She held her palms up, and I carefully laid my fingers on hers.

I felt her fingers draw my hands until they had a solid grip on them. She was looking into my eyes, and I didn’t dare turn away. Her eyes were very dark brown, and she had thick, black eyebrows.

She was looking inside my head now. I tried to picture myself and Kiki walking to the park in an effort to give a benign image to my thoughts.

The softness of Sra. De la Vega’s hands surprised me. I had expected the feel of leather.

There was a black disk in the center of each of the senhora’s eyes, but now they seemed to be receding so that I felt that, maybe, I was looking inside
her
head too, even though there was nothing to see. But I didn’t have the power to read minds. I wonder if, in my eyes, she could see me and Kiki, walking along the street to the park, as I was visualizing us.

“I want you to say after me,
My name is Julien, and I don’t have to stutter
. And say it without stuttering.” I felt the Senhora’s tight grip on my hands.

“My n. . . name is J. . . julien, a. . . and I d. . . don’t have to st. . . tutter,” I said, trying hard not to stutter, but it not working.

“Pay attention,” the senhora said severely, and she shook my two hands for emphasis.

“Say,
I used to live in Warsaw, but now I am in Rio de Janeiro.
”

I stuttered my way through her sentence.

“Look deep, deep into my eyes,” she said.

I tried to look more intently into her eyes. I opened my own eyes as wide as I could, and now her black ones were beginning to rotate in little, tight circles. “
I used to live in Warsaw
,” she repeated, her voice seeming to come from further away now, as though our arms had stretched several meters. “
I used to live in Warsaw
,” she said again. “Say that!”

I had made her impatient with me. I wanted desperately to say it correctly for her. I watched her eyes describing their circles. “I. . . used to l. . . ive in W. . . arsaw,” I said, dragging out the first sound of each word, but not stuttering.

“Say it again, quicker.”

“I used to live in Warsaw.” I said it without stuttering.

“But now I am in Rio
,
” the senhora prompted.

“But now I am in Rio,” I said.

“Rio is a magic place
.
”

“Rio is a magic place.”

“That’s good. That’s very good. Now go play. You won’t need to stutter anymore.” I felt her release my hands, and her eyes stopped circling. The senhora had picked up her book and was reading again, her head tilted to avoid the cigarette smoke.

I was in no mood to go play. Sra. De la Vega had cured my accursed stutter. I wouldn’t have to stutter anymore. Of course, if she had the power to cure my stutter simply by looking into my eyes, it was very likely that she had also read my mind, which must, surely, be easier than curing a stutter, just as
looking
at a picture is much easier than drawing one, and so she must have seen my embarrassing thoughts. But she hadn’t said anything about them or looked upset about it, so it was best to just leave it alone.

I didn’t want to disobey the senhora, after all she had done for me. If she didn’t see me playing, as she had told me to do, she might think that I wasn’t grateful or something, so I began digging a hole in the sand with my hands.

The feeling came gradually, but I was, now, aware of being filled with the thrill at being able to speak, again, like normal people. I wanted to savor the thrill more intensely, so, with my back turned to the senhora, I began to, silently, mouth the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be
The Lord’s Prayer
. I had no difficulty with it.

At the same time, I was also aware of the appropriateness of this particular text—that the first normal words out of my mouth were a prayer. Contrary to my zeal of a few months earlier, I was no longer totally sure, anymore, that there even was a God who listened to prayers, but, if there was, then I had scored some points with Him.

How surprised Mother would be when she heard me speak!

Ordinarily, I would have grown quickly bored with an activity like digging a hole in sand that kept pouring back in to fill the hole. But my mind was playing a film in which I come back to our room, Mother asks how the beach was, and I, casually, begin telling her about the people playing with the feathered beanbag, and I don’t stutter anymore. And then I run into Mrs. Kosiewicz on the street, and I say, “Good morning, Please Missus,” and she says, “Oh Yulian, you don’t stutter anymore. How wonderful!”

Then there was a scene in which I’m walking along the street with Mother, and I see Mrs. Kosiewicz about to cross the street, but she doesn’t see a bus that’s about to hit her, and I shout, “Irena, watch out for the bus!” I address her as
Irena,
because it’s a faster way to get her attention, and then she says, “Oh Yulian, you saved my life.” At one point, I even found myself mouthing the dialogue.

After quite a while, the senhora looked down at her wristwatch and said that I had had enough sun for my first day, and should go back to the pension. Since I didn’t see her make any move to get up, I realized that she meant for me to walk back by myself. I had never been allowed out on the street by myself—to say nothing of crossing the thoroughfare, but I did not say this to the senhora. And, suddenly, I was quite nervous about surprising Mother with my new speech.

I thanked the senhora, ostensibly for bringing me to the beach, but implying her curing of my speech impediment. Careful, lest I stutter again and shatter the new reality, I spoke very slowly and deliberately, dragging out the first sound of each word.

The senhora patted my cheek, and sent me on my way.

When I got back to the pension, M. Gordet was finally gone, and Mother was sitting cross-legged on our bed, playing solitaire. By the expression on her face and the way she laid the cards down—almost throwing them down—I could tell that something more than the solitaire had gone badly.

“Did you have a good time at the beach?” she asked. Her tone made it almost an accusation.

I took a breath in preparation for my stutter-less performance. But, with a stack of un-played cards still in her hand, Mother suddenly swept all the cards together, spilling some onto the floor. “Well, it turns out,” she said, “that M. Gordet is no gentleman.”

Each time Mother brought the word,
gentleman
, into play, I would find myself cringing inwardly a little. Over the past months, Mother had found a number of men—as well as myself, with my dirty fingernails—to fall short of that designation. And, except in the case of my nails, the reason for this demotion was always rather unclear, but charged with angry emotion.

“The only man that I can trust is you,” Mother said. “You are my knight in shining armor, aren’t you?”

She had called me her knight before, and, while I had, at first, felt complimented, I had soon come to identify it as an appeal for either my support or my collaboration in some impending crisis. And, in the end, it had never turned out well.

“This is something you want to remember, Yulian,” she said, but sounding as though it was I who was being accused. “Remember it for when you grow up. A woman will give anything to a true gentleman.”

“D. . . d. . . did h. . . he t. . . take y. . . y. . . your r. . . ring?” I stammered.

Mother didn’t seem to have heard me. But I could see the ring still on her finger, and breathed a sigh of relief. On the other hand, I had had no idea how insecure our possession of that ring actually was. Apparently, had M. Gordet been a true gentleman, she might well have given it to him.

On the one hand, I couldn’t imagine Mother giving away her ring—really
our
ring, now that it represented our joint security—to someone just because he was a gentleman. On the other hand, I well knew how many incongruities and contradictions to my vision of the world were presented by life all the time. And, perhaps, what Mother was really telling me was to be on my guard against the eventuality that she might meet a true gentleman and be inclined to give those twin diamonds away.

“Tomorrow we’re moving out of this
pension
,” Mother went on. She had gotten down from the bed and was packing our suitcases again.

“M. . . M. . . M. . . Moving?. . . ” And I stopped before finishing, because I was, again, aware that whatever it was that the senhora had done for my stutter, had just come undone.

“Yes,” Mother went on. “It seems that this
pension
is where M. Gordet likes to bring his lady friends.”

It was clear that this was not a time for us to be moving, since I, evidently, needed another session with the senhora. “W. . . W. . . Why is that a r. . . reason to m. . . m. . . move?” I asked.

Mother put her fingers to her forehead, “Will you please stop that stuttering!” she said.

I knew that she knew that I could not do that. What she was saying now was out of exasperation. She was upset by whatever it was that M. Gordet had done, and, when she was upset by something, my stuttering disturbed her more. . . just the way that my stuttering got worse when I was upset.

Mother must have realized something of the sort as well, because she sucked in her lips and raised her hand in a gesture that seemed to imply an apology.

With a great effort, the kind of effort that I hadn’t needed when speaking to the senhora, I repeated my question, “S. . . o w. . . hy is th. . . at a r. . . eason to m. . . ove?”

“It just is,” Mother said.

I knew that Mother didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “W. . . here w. . . ill w. . . e m. . . ove t. . . o?” I asked. There was more than just curiosity to that question. It just might, I hoped, make Mother realize that we didn’t know any other places. “We d. . . on’t kn. . . ow anyone else i. . . in R. . . io.”

“I’ll find us another
pension
.”

That remained to be seen.

CHAPTER III

I had forgotten about Mr. and Mrs. K. I had seen Mother exchange addresses with Mr. K. before disembarking, so now it was him that she called the next morning, and, that same afternoon, we were unpacking again, this time at the Kosiewiczes’ hotel, in a suite right above theirs.