Untitled by Elizabeth Savova

He returned just for a short time in her rose and pink room. It was a late afternoon and he had called to ask whether it would be all right to come back today. She allowed him to, but only if he brought orange juice and some vodka. The only thing she was absolutely positive about was the fact that she would always let him come back. There was just no other way.

Except for the vodka, she asked him for an hour and a half. For this hour and a half she managed to smoke a cigarette, to take a shower, to smoke another one, then to dry the rain out of her hair, to make herself a coffee with which to have a smoke, to iron her cotton dress and then finally to crease it again when sitting to smoke one more.

After the last cigarette, he came. She couldn’t look him in the eye when he came in. All she wanted was to hold him tight like she did before, but they both felt too uneasy for that.

In a minute, however, everything returned to normal again. She was trying to open the bottle with a knife, and he hugged her, smiling. She asked him if he were afraid of her after everything she had done to him. Especially that she was holding a cold weapon in her hand made her even more dangerous, she said. No, he wasn’t afraid. He laughed.

The known disappeared. Before, she was the shy one. Now he was anxious. Maybe it was due her reaction, which was probably a defensive one. He spoke somewhat cynically. Laughing over rules he had made up, himself. To her these rules did not seem absurd at all, but she thought that there was no way for her to say it. She lied on the couch with her head on his knees, and although she did not want to sound cold, she did, and she did it extremely well. That makes me think that she was awfully white-livered.

He loved to watch her, but now he was a little surprised. She had become so much free and open-minded. And maybe, just maybe someone else had taught her that. That made him sad.

A few minutes later he was sitting on the arm-rest of the couch and drinking vodka, and she was holding him tight, contemplating that it all was meant to happen the way it had. When he left the empty glass, he hugged her again, and she thought that they would seem a little comical: such a strong and big man with such a skinny and small woman. Laurel and Hardy in an embrace. And she felt close to the pain again.

“You know what I would never forgive you?” she whispered.

“What?”

“Remember when it all started, you told me to not fear at all and to stop protecting myself.”

“Well, be sure that everything that went around came back around…double.”

Then she remembered how many awful things she wished him after everything was over and how miserable she wanted to see him once. And she felt guilty.

“And do you remember when I was crying for I was afraid, and you asked me what the big deal was, and whether the world was going to end?”

“Did the world end?”

“Not for me, no. It will not end for you, either. But if I asked right now whether the world ended, what would you say?”

“I don’t know, but it hurts. A lot.”

“Do you remember also when you said I had brought back the meaning in your existence?”

“Back then, you really had.”

“You took mine away later. I thought it was awfully unfair.”

“It must have been.”

“No, it must not. Because it is impossible to give or take away the meaning of life. This is nonsense. A game of words.”

He became really sad now. And yet, she wanted to comfort him, but that stupid defensive reaction made her words sound mean and scornful. And the strange thing was that in this very moment, she loved him just as much as her words were cruel and malicious.