The Symmetry Teacher (22 page)

Lili kicked off her sandals like it was her living room floor and started scrambling up the dune. Urbino followed right behind her.

The sand rained down on his head, kneaded into motion by the fine soles of her feet. He found it rather pleasant, truth be told. The landscape that opened up to him from his vantage point underneath was worth any number of sunsets … Extraordinarily slender legs, and nothing more (under her skirt, that is).

Lili was used to the trek, and she made her way to the top with ease and grace. The heavier Urbino was falling behind. He kept getting stuck in the sand and dropping down on all fours (possibly not so much from the difficult climb as from the desire to see more of the “landscape” from below). In any case, he had hardly reached the pinnacle, puffing and perspiring, when he realized that this, too, was worth the effort.

The sun was sinking down to the horizon. It seemed to elongate, and the red deepened to crimson as it approached the nadir. All of a sudden it seemed to flatten out and then drop into the sea.

“Strange that the sea doesn’t sizzle,” Urbino said, mouthing his own tried-and-true phrase.

“That surprises me every time, too,” Lili agreed.

The sun sank ever deeper. The upper part of it stuck out, looking more and more like a ship floating on the horizon, its searchlights ablaze.

“There’s another ship that will founder.” Urbino, don’t be so eloquent, he berated himself silently.

“Tomorrow it will come back on the other side, over the bay.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m here to greet the sunrise every day.”

“Strange,” he said. “I suddenly realized that I have watched far more sunsets than sunrises in my life. But surely they are equal in number?”

“Don’t be so pessimistic. It’s just that you are a social being and a poet.”

“Should I be offended by that?” Urbino said coquettishly.

“Why? You are most likely a night owl.”

“Most likely. And you?”

“I’m a lark.”

“That means we’re birds of a different feather.” Urbino sighed.

“But the sun belongs to both of us,” Lili said, proprietarily. “Look there, above and to the left. The Moon! That’s truly a thing of beauty, isn’t it?”

“Never a truer word. Would you like something apropos?”

“Certainly.”

Urbino sighed more deeply and focused his gaze on the last crimson ribbon, no longer blinding. Then he began to recite:

The sunset was not aware of its own beauty.

The mirroring sea did not dim for its own sake.

The wind did not see itself ruffle the calm surface.

The tree did not watch at all.

They stood, imprisoned in the night,

invisible to themselves, ablaze, at play.

Neither wave of sound, nor wave of light,

did they discern, though they possessed them both.

The sky did not know that the Moon had risen,

that the sun had hidden. The darkness thickened.

All around, ignorance abounded—

no one knew. And that was the point.

What is there on this shore for myself?

A bird in the sky shows crimson—what is it to me?

Where have I fled to? I tripped on the run,

I stand here alone, remembering nothing.

The dogs yelped. Lying prostrate before the

pitch-dark sea, a shadow trembled,

and mutely merging with the songs of birds

my soul reflected immortality.

The shadow of clouds, the hum of pines, the rustling grass

and harnessed wind—the evening sensed them with its skin.

And died away. And “conquering death through death,”

arose again. And again did not revive.

Who rejoices in one’s own creation?

Whoever does believe, he holds the keys to Heaven.

And the wind just ruffles the hair of the fool

playing with a tiny mirror.

Whoever builds a house is not the one who lives there.

Whoever created life does not look for meaning there.

Thought from above does not understand itself.

Take to the road, and on it, overtake yourself.

“Beautiful!” Lili gushed, grabbing his hand. “Did you compose that just now?”

“I can’t lie,” Urbino demurred. “But I happen to like it more than the others.”

Bashful and flattered at the same time, he kept hold of her hand.

*   *   *

As carefree as children, as though on swings or taking giant steps, they tumbled down the dunes toward the sea.

“Let’s go for a swim,” Urbino suggested without any guile.

“Not after sunset,” Lili said.

“Why not?”

“You might catch fever.”

“As you wish. I’m the imperialist of water. I have to dunk myself whenever I arrive at a place for the first time.”

He stripped down, then, working his broad shoulders, his small, pale buttocks gleaming from behind (he knew what he looked like from the back), he dove into the water like a torpedo and swam toward the horizon, doing a furious crawl. When he was completely spent, he heard a gentle splash behind him: Lili was swimming silently in his wake, like a little fish, easily keeping up with him.

“Why are you so afraid of the water?” Lili said, grinning at him.

“Me? Afraid?”

“Yes, it’s like you’re afraid you’ll swallow some.”

Urbino was unmasked as the boy he no doubt still was.

Just as silently, she yielded to him in the strip of surf. Her meekness confused and aroused him.

“My sweet little fish,” he murmured, licking salty droplets from her shoulders and nipples. But something held him back from any bolder caresses; he didn’t want to risk it (though she seemed so compliant and willing). He hesitated at the stage of stroking her silken
(bah! —trans.)
pubis.

“What do you think she’s singing about, this little bird?” Lili said, countering his “little fish” with her “little bird.”

“It’s a he. And he’s calling his mate.”

Oh, that timidity, that chagrin, that discomfiture, the seeming inaccessibility, like the very first time … and for you, you alone … it is a pause, an intermission … Yes, that’s what it is, a pause—what people later call love, when they’re searching for what has been lost—Urbino thought, relaxing in the intermission, smoking and looking up, now at the sky, now at the ceiling of the attic berth that had been assigned to him for his creative isolation.

“So you claim that I have a fear of water. Perhaps I am afraid, but not like you think I am. Yes, I’m afraid of drinking it: it’s alive! I might not be able to swallow it all of a sudden. I’m less afraid of the sea. I haven’t had much luck with ships. True, I forced myself to cross the equator, but so what? A convention, but not a goal in itself.”

He embraced Lili to prove to her that she was not the equator, that she was a goal, not a convention. Lili responded in her own unique way:

“To each his own … Have you ever wondered about that? Why different people get different things? You know, poor and rich, beautiful and ugly—that’s understandable. Talented and ungifted, that’s more complicated. Intelligent or dull-witted—that’s just altogether unclear. Or, say, a man and a woman—why? Why are you a man, and I am a woman, and not the other way around?”

“Well, do you want to swap?”

“I didn’t ask which of us is which, did I?”

“What about cats and dogs?”

Pondering the sequence of his subsequent actions, and the ones after that, reentering the realm of his previous experience and discovering in it a certain unity of principle, Urbino became aroused again merely by the thought that a wonder was lying next to him, just as insensate and immobile as he, but already warm … The wonder of another human being!

Honestly, you’re just like a child, he thought, surprised at himself, as if for the first time discovering that another person could be another body, too: other breasts, another stomach and hips, another … Precisely! Not this awkward little tail of his, Urbino mused complacently. His “little tail” took offense and pouted, swelling until it resembled an old cannon on wheels. And Urbino took possession of the submissive Lili again and again. He even wanted her to conceive … Just then she peeped feebly, like a little mouse.

“Did you finally come?”

“How could you say such a thing! You—a poet! Never use that terrible expression with me again.”

And she turned to the wall, sobbing softly.

“It was an unfortunate word choice, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. It won’t happen again.”

And this pleased him. And he made use of it: licking the tears off her cheeks touched him, and he
reiterated
(and she, it seems, did, too).

In the morning, now on the other shore, he greeted the dawn, which was rare for him. The sun peeked out, by now no longer crimson, then rolled out above the horizon on its golden rim, for some reason far more slowly than it had set. Urbino was overcome with feeling …

Lovely sun, so round and yellow,

are you shining for this fellow?

Yesterday she called me dear.

Did she think I wouldn’t hear?

Water’s blue, the sky is, too,

The sun shines bright, and I love you.

Sunlight, moonlight, sand and sea,

Life’s a mystery to me.
*

“When did you write that?”

“Never.”

“Whom was it meant for?”

“You.”

“When did you manage?”

“Just now.”

“Then let’s go swimming!” Lili cried.

“So it’s all right to swim at dawn?”

“Everything’s all right at dawn.” She threw her arms around his neck.

And they were as naked as the first day in Paradise.

*   *   *

Then they did crosswords together. It turned out that Lili was a crossword puzzle buff. She dragged out a huge pile of them, most of them already completed.

“They’re often rather dull, but on occasion the words and phrases are exceedingly curious. Look … what are
maps in a binding
? Five letters.”

Urbino thought hard.

“Atlas!”
†
Lili called out gaily, before he had time to venture a guess.

“I should have known that!”

“And this one?
Where do fools fall to Earth from
? Well? Four letters…”

“The Moon?”

“Good show! Moon. Where did you fall from so you could be with me?” Lili embraced him. “You can’t imagine how boring and tiresome it was here without you … What finally got me was
a psychic current
.”

“Me, you mean?”

“No, of course not! Nine letters.”

Urbino had been about to give way to vanity, but his spirits slumped.

“Well, and what is it, then?”

“Emanation. I really had to struggle over that one. Here, help me out now!
Gas that blows its top
.”

“Explosion!” Urbino bellowed.

“No, no
x
in this one.”

Urbino was stuck. There was no such gas …

“Do you memorize every single crossword?”

“Not every single one. Just the ones where I dispute or concur with the author. Sometimes there are really cool
*
ones.”

“Did you say ‘cool’?”

Lili laughed out loud.

“There are cool ones, you’ll see. ‘Cool’ is a word that Marleen likes.”

“Do you work on them together, too?”

“Sometimes. Here’s one, for example—
the most beat-up thing on a nail
. Don’t even try, you’ll never guess! It’s a hat.”

“True,” Urbino said, casting a sidelong glance at his fellow wordsmith. “But that would be for a woman. For a man it’s a head.”

Lili blushed.

“Here’s a nice riddle I had never heard before:
Accepts the hand of all who come in and go out
.”

“I have no idea what that might be. The hostess of a salon? A debutante receiving her suitors?”

“My, what a ladies’ man you are! A doorknob, of course.”

Finally, she found a fresh crossword that she hadn’t tackled yet, and they began to work on it together.

An occurrence that elicits surprise
—this was phenomenon (Lili guessed it, and Urbino disputed the phrasing in every possible way, then started quibbling about
ph
, and why the sound wasn’t just spelled with an
f
, and finally concluded that in our crazy times the phenomenon is in fact the norm).

He did know without thinking twice that
politics with bloody methods
was terror. Lili showed no interest in that one.

The crossword certainly was a “cool” one. Urbino was especially proud of knowing that
ascent in ancient Greece
was descent. So he easily forgave himself for not knowing
ancient Greek goddess of fate
. Who knows who Moira is nowadays? They talked a bit about differences in mentality, then took a little breather. They were happy about descent. They needed the
t
for the next word:
time-pusher
. They thought of all manner of ways to measure time: calendars, watches, chronometers. They measured, but didn’t actually push. History was too long, birthday even longer. And the letters didn’t match up.

They thought of piston—a piston would have been far-fetched, but it did speed things up. Still, there were two letters too many. Last? No, no, that was for shoes. Shoes are timeless (though not as timeless as bare feet). Pram? No, the
t
was lacking.

Planet in the solar system
 … If Urbino could excuse himself for not knowing
satellite of Uranus
(they had to leave that one blank), he couldn’t afford to be so sanguine about a planet in our solar system. No siree! He combed his memory, trying to dredge up the dormant contents of his schooling; but Uranus, Saturn, and Pluto were no go.

“Perhaps they recently discovered another one?” Lili ventured to say.

“Perhaps,” Urbino said glumly. “I’m trying to finish one of my many unfinished novels. It’s called
Back from Earth
. It’s about an unfortunate Russian scientist who’s always a step behind in his breakthroughs. On top of that, he’s also an astrologer. He’s convinced that directly opposite Earth, behind the Sun, there is another planetary system, exactly like ours. We never see it, because its period of rotation around the Sun is parallel to that of Earth’s. So it always remains invisible to astronomers. It has a planet that is exactly like Earth, and it’s at the same distance from the Sun, but it’s always hidden behind it. Whether there is life on it or not we don’t know, but, astrologically speaking, we are linked to it and dependent on it. All of our disasters, our whole history, could depend on the state of affairs of that unseen planet.”