Bowl of Fruit

by Panayotis Cacoyannis

  ‘But if it does happen, it’s likely to happen over time.’

  ‘Likely, unlikely, it’s all wishful thinking.’

  ‘Because you’re trapped in a permanent cycle of writing and shredding,’ says Anna. ‘If you’re to break the Kafka mould, you’ll need to be able to build on the first sign of even the most insignificant crack.’

  ‘Anna, I hear you,’ I say. ‘I just don’t think it’ll happen.’

  ‘Then why are you writing at all?’

  ‘It keeps me sane.’

  ‘It sounds to me like it’s driving you insane. That’s why you’re shredding, to purify yourself of your sin.’

  ‘It’s hardly a sin.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘It’s like four of those brick walls you talked about earlier. Four walls, no windows, no door, but no roof either, just so the sky can look down and laugh at me.’

  ‘No one else has ever laughed at you, so the sky must be you.’

  ‘So then I’m laughing at myself. And if I think I’m laughable, does it really matter what anyone else thinks?’

  ‘But if the sky can look at you, it means that you can look at the sky, and if the sky is really part of you, then that part of you at least must’ve always been free of the four brick walls.’

  ‘One delicious flan and two large espressos,’ whispers our favourite waiter. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I didn’t want your coffees to get cold.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Anna absent-mindedly, and oblivious to the arrival of one delicious flan and two large espressos, she turns from brick interpretations to more urgent straightforward advice: ‘I’m just saying you should cut yourself some slack, because unless you do…’

  ‘I might go crazy,’ I say.

  ‘One day you’ll make the wrong call.’

  ‘And lose the thread completely.’

  ‘Possibly,’ says Anna.

  ‘That implies there’s a thread to be lost,’ I say.

  ‘You’ve not noticed any changes at all?’

  ‘Mm, yum, try the flan,’ I say.

  ‘In the names, for example?’

  ‘Really, try the flan,’ I say.

  ‘In The Ledger you’ve used names that Kafka himself might’ve used. And only references to imaginary places that Kafka himself might’ve also made up. It’s as if you set out to deliberately write a Kafka story.’

  ‘I always set out to deliberately deviate, but the names are ambivalent, you’re right, so maybe I’m being timid. And once I’ve started, the story just takes over and takes its own course.’

  ‘So why wait until you’ve finished it to shred it? Why not shred it as soon as it’s taken control?’

  ‘Once I’ve started I can’t stop.’

  ‘You can’t stop because you’re writing someone else’s story,’ says Anna. ‘Which isn’t what you say you want to do.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘Then find a different way of starting,’ says Anna. ‘With something unambiguously your own, like Jack and Picasso, or the mythology of the beautiful stories, or Leon Cheam and Federico’s eyebrows, or Billy and Karl Marx’s grave.’

  ‘Or Leon and Anna Tor,’ I say.

  ‘Or Leon and Anna Tor. There are so many different places you can start. And if you can’t, then don’t start at all. It’s better the stories you shred aren’t written at all if they’re going to be shredded. But what you should or shouldn’t do is up to you. I’m just suggesting ways of doing it differently, of nudging it in the direction you want. Mm, this really is delicious, I love the way it melts in your mouth.’

  ‘I’m not so good at nudging,’ I say. ‘I think part of being able to do what I do is that I can’t be good at anything except as someone else.’

  ‘Stop writing then. Stop writing or stop shredding. Or…’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or learn how to enjoy being the sky. I know you feel frustrated, but it doesn’t really matter how you think you feel, you still have a remarkable…’

  ‘Please don’t call it a gift,’ I say.

  ‘Let’s just say a remarkable talent,’ Anna says. ‘What’s important isn’t what we call it, but that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact it exists, and that it actually makes you unique. Can’t you see? You’re already unique, and you’re already unique as yourself, not as someone else.’

  ‘Freaks are also unique.’

  ‘Then quit trying to do what you know you can do better if you do it as someone else.’

  ‘But I don’t want to do it better,’ I say. ‘I don’t really care if it’s crap, as long as it’s my crap.’

  ‘You say that, but I’m not sure it’s true.’

  It isn’t true, nor is everything else I’ve told Anna the whole truth, and there are many things I haven’t told her at all. I have found a different way of starting. I have stopped shredding. But what is true is that I can’t be good at anything except as someone else, not at writing any more than at painting. And equally true is that I do care that everything I’ve written not as Kafka is crap. I just don’t want to admit it to Anna, because I don’t want the sky to be her.

  ‘When you were painting Picassos, would you rather you were painting something else?’

  ‘Painting really wasn’t my thing. When I was painting Picassos, I wished I wasn’t painting at all.’

  ‘Then you mustn’t give up writing, definitely not. Right, we should ask for the check, and tonight is my treat by the way. Are you tired?’

  ‘Wide awake,’ I say. ‘But please let me pay.’

  ‘Invite me back to yours for a nightcap instead.’

  ‘My God, a nightcap, isn’t that what they say in the movies?’

  ‘So you really do go to the movies,’ laughs Anna.

  ‘And I’ve actually remembered Dirk Bogarde.’ I say.

  Shock and awe

  ‘Now it’s my turn to ask you something not indirectly,’ says Anna. ‘How come you’re not with someone?’

  ‘I wasn’t joking,’ I say, ‘I’ve never been with someone. And I’ve never been with anyone either, if there’s a difference. One kiss, that’s as far as I ever got.’

  ‘That’s almost unbelievable,’ says Anna.

  ‘I’m forty years old,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it sounds much worse than just “almost unbelievable”. I’m probably officially a sociopath – and something even worse in the vernacular. It’s not surprising I’m known as the neighbourhood freak, although apparently that’s nothing to do with my celibacy.’

  ‘Doesn’t celibacy imply a decision?’ Anna asks.

  ‘Then I’ve used the wrong word. It’s just never happened. I was always busy, or distracted. In my case it was never a priority, through reticence and ignorance probably. Don’t look so worried, nothing hideous happened to me in my childhood. And I have felt desire before, it’s just never been intense enough to act on, I guess.’

  ‘But you’re not exactly shy. At least you’ve not been shy today.’

  ‘Today I’ve surprised myself,’ I say. ‘Or maybe it’s the day that’s surprised me.’

  ‘I think the day surprised both of us,’ says Anna.

  ‘I promise you I’m more surprised than you are,’ I say. ‘And I’d say it’s something more than surprise.’

  ‘Shock and awe,’ Anna says.

  ‘Shock and awe is about right,’ I say.

  ‘I feel it too,’ says Anna.

  ‘But it must frighten you,’ I say. ‘This lack I have, it makes us unequal.’

  ‘We’ve just come from different places,’ says Anna. ‘But we’re both here now. Things have happened unexpectedly today. And it’s not because I’m thinking of the story.’

  ‘Or how it should end,’ I say.

  ‘Or how it shouldn’t end,’ says Anna.

  ‘That’s the best thing about today,’ I say. ‘That it isn’t over yet.’

  ‘Let’s walk back to Tufnell Park,’ says Anna. ‘In the cold fresh air.’
/>   Just as we get up the music is again forlorn, and the female voice has returned as if to warn us that the unspeakable fate awaits us more urgently now, and its demand of us is still nothing short of an abject surrender. The special kind of sadness fills me again with a joy of disproportionate demands, fragile in their dogged resolve to resist any attempt at rebuff. What that same unmistakeable crackle in the voice reveals to me, if it reveals to me anything – the dual effect of the wine is at the same time to enhance and negate - is that whatever is left of the night is likely to mark out the course of the rest of my life.

  In spite of our obstinate spurning of olives, our first two waiters both make a point of crossing our path in order to thank us in person, while the third is already at the door. After bidding us goodnight he follows us outside to take the cold air in with a single deep breath.

  ‘My last cigarette break,’ he explains. ‘Would either of you like one? Ah, you’re not smokers, so I don’t have to pretend.’

  ‘You don’t smoke?’ Anna asks.

  ‘I just light up and I look at the sky. And the moon is quite incredible tonight, have you seen it? I think it must be… There it is!’

  The three of us look up at the sky, and he’s right. The moon is prodigious and startlingly red.

  ‘Quite incredible and full,’ Anna says. ‘And so bright that it’s unspoiled by the light of the city.’

  ‘I like the light of the city,’ I say.

  ‘We are the light of the city,’ adds our friendly waiter philosophically. ‘I’m Ivan, by the way.’

  ‘Hi, Ivan, I’m Anna,’ says Anna, shaking his hand.

  ‘Leon,’ I say, following suit.

  ‘I hope it’s not a rude thing to say, but neither of you looks very English,’ says Ivan.

  ‘Both our mothers were Chilean,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, beautiful country,’ says Ivan. ‘And your mothers must have both been very beautiful too.’

  ‘Our fathers weren’t bad looking either,’ Anna laughs.

  ‘But you’re not related,’ says Ivan. ‘And you haven’t known each other very long.’

  ‘Are you asking us or telling us?’ jokes Anna.

  ‘Tell me if I’m wrong,’ says Ivan.

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ says Anna.

  ‘You seem very compatible,’ says Ivan. ‘Very sympathetic as a couple.’

  ‘Early days,’ answers Anna noncommittally.

  ‘I think it’s possible to know from the very first moment,’ says Ivan. ‘But I must go back to work. Make sure you make the most of the moon.’

  Sunday nights, when they are ending, are bland. The streets - darker now and more abandoned - have already lost their teetering edge, and that air of anti-climax and shortcoming that pervaded them earlier seems to have dissipated almost entirely. It’s a matter of self-preservation: giving way to the practical necessities of Monday, thoughts of promise unfulfilled must once again be suspended, and by the end of the week all but forgotten, so that the cycle can resume unimpeded, disregardful of the weighing up of odds.

  But my Sunday night isn’t ending, and when it does end it will not end in the street. How will it end? Of its own accord, I answer my own question equivocally. Out of pleasurable dread I must erase it. I feel intensely the physical need not to know and especially not to anticipate.

  Anna has been holding my hand. We’re already in Chalk Farm, walking not in the direction of Tufnell Park. I want to look at my watch, but Anna swings our arms back and forth. The wide pavement ahead of us is empty. The night has thickened, and when I turn my head around, the view of the city behind us is dazzling; in one disparate whole the innumerable pockets of light are holding their own as though in a candle-lit vigil, grateful to the night for its contrast, even when the moon is full. As we climb further uphill towards Belsize Park, still swinging our arms like children discovering closeness, tonight we are the light of the city.

  ‘Still feeling wide awake?’ asks Anna joyfully.

  ‘Wide awake and sober,’ I say. ‘Where are we going? Tufnell Park is that way.’

  ‘Tufnell Park can wait, it isn’t going anywhere,’ says Anna. ‘We’ll catch a cab to it from the top of the world.’

  ‘And where’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s where we need to be to make the most of the moon.’

  It’s possible to know from the very first moment, said Ivan. So many moments have crowded this single, singular day that I struggle to remember the first – what comes back imprecisely is not an image of the very first moment but rather an enormous confusion of being taken aback – a lightning apoplexy of the heart. Perhaps it is this comic imprecision that with hindsight constitutes knowing.

  The key to the top of the world

  Belsize Park station is already closed, and shortly after we’ve passed it we turn left, then right after some distance, then almost immediately left, and then right again. After that I lose track. Anna seems to know exactly where the top of the world is, and I’m happy to follow.

  Halfway along the curve of a crescent we turn into a deserted cul-de-sac. On the left side a short Victorian terrace is adjacent to an iron-gated garden that straddles both sides at the end, overgrown and wanly lit by electrified lanterns at odds with their modern replacements in the rest of the street. On the right, on its own and rather shunned, presumably deprived of any claim to the green, a featureless apartment block stands incongruously tall. We make our way to its entrance, and Anna buzzes 22.

  ‘Anna, it’s late,’ I say.

  ‘Not for Ruth,’ Anna says.

  ‘Hello,’ says a voice.

  ‘Ruth, it’s Anna,’ says Anna.

  ‘Anna!’ says Ruth. ‘Are you here to see me or have you come for the moon?’

  ‘For the moon,’ says Anna.

  ‘It’s spectacular tonight,’ says Ruth. ‘I’ll buzz you in.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Anna.

  ‘I’m alone, by the way, just in case you fancy dropping by when you’re done with the moon,’ says Ruth as she presses the buzzer.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ I say, hesitating at the threshold.

  ‘You’re spooked,’ says Anna.

  ‘A bit,’ I admit. ‘I mean, how could she have known?’

  ‘I have a key to the roof,’ says Anna. ‘Ruth lets me use it. Now come on, let’s take the stairs.’

  ‘Ruth lets you use it for what?’ I whisper between Floors 2 and 3.

  ‘You don’t have to whisper,’ says Anna.

  ‘People must be sleeping,’ I say.

  ‘The walls are solid concrete,’ says Anna. ‘We’d have to scream for anyone to hear us.’

  ‘So?’ I ask between Floors 4 and 5.

  ‘I like looking at the sky,’ says Anna.

  ‘That’s what Ivan said,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve not looked at the sky with Ivan,’ says Anna.

  ‘One more coincidence,’ I say.

  ‘Even the moon chose tonight to be full,’ says Anna. ‘Just for you and me.’

  ‘And for Ivan,’ I say.

  ‘The moon chose Ivan to tell us it was full,’ Anna says.

  ‘You’re always making fun of me,’ I say.

  ‘Because you’re funny,’ says Anna.

  We’ve climbed a few more stairs after Floor 8, and we’re standing in front of another locked door, while Anna looks through her bag for the key.

  ‘You carry so much in that bag,’ I say.

  ‘I carry everything I need,’ Anna says. ‘Here it is, the key to the top of the world. And I don’t think I’ve been here on a full moon before.’

  ‘But you’ve brought other men here,’ I say.

  ‘So that’s why you’ve been gloomy,’ Anna laughs. ‘Would it really matter if I had?’

  ‘It’s none of my business anyway,’ I say.

  ‘Now you’re sulking,’ says Anna. ‘We’re about to make the most of the moon and you’re sulking.’

  ‘It just feels odd,’ I say. ‘Doing things
together now that you’ve done with other people before. I mean I know you have a past, and it’s my own fault that I haven’t, but this is what I meant about us not being equal. And I know you said it didn’t bother you…’

  ‘But it bothers you,’ says Anna.

  ‘It frightens me,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve only ever been here with Ruth or alone. It clears my head and helps me think. You’re the first man I’ve brought here. Now just give me your hand.’

  The world for the moment is London, and the view of the world from the top of the world is the view of a different kind of world altogether. When the moon is full, as it is tonight, it illuminates this altogether different world fantastically, as if willing it to fly in the face of perception. As I take in slowly the shimmer of this blanket panorama, the darkness begins by degrees to encroach on the light, reasserting itself, but then abruptly it gives way before it appears once again somewhere else. While I adjust to the disorienting effects of this continuous optical recalibration, Anna locks our arms together so that we are joined on one side but facing in opposite directions, and then she starts to spin us around on the spot. As we gather speed the world becomes an amalgam of superimpositions, and any sense of distance is lost. London is everything at once – the untidiness of roofs, the glorious Hampstead Heath defiantly deflecting the moonlight, the buildings in the City, the movement of traffic, the stillness and disorder of the signboards and streetlamps, and above it all the moon and the stars and the vastness of the sky. With one’s feet on the ground, the darkness of night is experienced more densely, fraught as it is with an inborn sensation of imminent danger. Experienced from the top of the world, with the city’s luminescence painted on the earth and the moon bearing down on it fully, the air of the night penetrates the skin with a feeling of being intimately bound within something profoundly complete.

  As Anna and I collapse into one another’s arms, laughing and warm in the cold, like two youngsters exhausted by insisting on interpreting the world wholly from their personal perspectives, I wonder how inadequately I would have rated the top of the world in her absence, and I realize that I simply can’t imagine it without her – she is as present in the air as the night. And when we kiss, I feel the air begin to spread inside me.