by Rudoy, Danil
“Tied her up, poured some tequila into her mouth and sent her home. What else could I do?”
“Kill her. Weren’t you afraid she’d tell the police?”
“No. She was smarter than that. Besides, beautiful women shouldn’t be killed. Firstly, beauty is precious. Secondly, a beautiful woman will most likely have beautiful kids. Thirdly, she can become a muse of an artist and make him come up with a masterpiece. This world is too short on the good to deprive it from its last.”
“Why are you so focused on the art? You have nothing to do with it.”
“I am its active consumer. Besides, I feel for the artists who suffer the pains of unrequited love.”
“Don’t you think it’s unfair, though, that they never love actual women?”
“What do you mean?”
“Artists love only what they made up themselves and don’t care for what their muses actually are. And the worst part is that they have the audacity to blame women for not living up to their expectations, even though they never ask to be made into muses to begin with.”
“You’re right,” he nodded with a sad smile. “It must be true. Women don’t want to be muses. All they want is money, and, since our patriarchal society makes it hard for them to earn it, they prefer to obtain it through bed, in whatever form they can.”
“You seem to consider all women whores. I understand, you had a lot of negative experiences, but don’t you think you go too far?”
“I don’t, but even if I did: just an hour ago you yourself were saying how rare it was to meet a good person. The overwhelming majority of people, men or women, are below average, and then you have a small number of our diamonds who balance the world out into a functioning mechanism. Such are the rules of the game, and the only trump we have is our mortality. But that’s precisely what makes life a game in which you cannot lose. No matter what you had to endure, the end will come still, paying for the horrors you suffered with absolute absence.”
“You know that I totally disagree with you, right?”
“I do. But you belong to a rare breed: you can appreciate words even disagreeing with them. Besides, I love you too much to stop: in your presence thoughts compose in my head automatically, and not sharing them would mean leaving them to oblivion. It will happen to me after I die, but as long as I breathe I want to interact with Eternity on more convenient terms.”
“How did you manage without me all these years?” she said without any mockery. “It must have been very hard.”
“At times. Especially when I found myself in situations when I knew we’d both have thought the same.”
“You make me feel bad now. I didn’t think about you much.”
“I’m surprised you did at all. Though I must have been associated with something. Please, don’t tell me it was Socrates. I won’t bear that.”
“I don’t even know. Maybe… archaeopteryx? I did think about you when I learned what it was, I thought you looked just like it.”
“So, you thought about me in paleontological museums? At least it explains the frequency.”
“I thought of you thinking about college. But that didn’t happen too often.”
“Why not? Haven’t you accumulated enough pleasurable memories? But what am I talking about, it takes to be bored in the present to think about the past, but how could you be bored with all those publishers and masters of Columbia? Some of them had to be attractive enough to keep you busy.”
“Richard, you’re unbearable.”
“No, it’s your conscience. But if you feel remorse you’re not hopeless. You know, I actually think that, if hell and paradise existed, you’d end up in the better of the two.”
“But that means we’ll never meet in afterlife.”
“You can barely tolerate me in this world, why would you want to see me in the other? But rest assured: the wardens of both heaven and hell would do everything to keep us apart: we’d simply destroy either place if we met there.”
“Do you really think we’re such an ideal couple?” Eleanor said after a pause.
“Yes. Together we’re invincible. We can be only killed, not disproved.”
“Even though I don’t love you? Don’t you think it undermines our invincibility?”
“Not the intellectual one anyway. But perhaps you’re right,” he said after a pause. “I must have read too much romantic literature and began thinking like one of its pathetic heroes.”
“And blaming the cruel woman! Oh, literature!” She exclaimed with a sly smile. “A solace for the author, a moral test for the reader.”
“This one I failed. Completely.”
“At least you didn’t become one of those who spend their lives juggling words, trying to compose them in such a way that everyone who is patient enough to get to the end of the sentence would understand how right they are about everything.”
“But I still have pity for those scoundrels. Even though you’re right about one thing: if I came to you in the rank of a poet, you’d kick me out before I’d finish reciting the first sonnet dedicated to you.”
“We’re arguing in the end of the trip again. It’s a bad habit.”
“Something tells me we’ll cut it here,” he said, driving into the street where their trip began. “So, my precious,” he added casually when the engine stopped. “Do you think I can count on another cup of tea from you?”
“Why not?” Eleanor said with a charming smile. “Now I even have a proper cup.”
“In that case you take care of it, and I’ll deal with the luggage.”
A minute later a mysterious couple of shades, the white and the blue, detached from the red Cadillac and swam through the quiet autumnal dark like two spirits watching over the night and guarding the languid calm of the cool air, so thick one could taste it. The pale dots of silver stars twinkled blindly in the impenetrably black sky and seemed to whisper to the wind that rustled over the dusty asphalt. The only missing detail necessary to turn this silent street into a stage was the Moon: she had disappeared from the cosmic dome the night before and was yet unready to remind the indifferent constellations that she was the only faithful satellite of this world, destined to eternal loneliness.
They entered the house and he put the valises on the floor, looking at Eleanor. She hesitated for a moment, unsure of where to leave the cup; then she placed it on the glass shelf in front of the mirror and met his eyes in the reflection. She was just as velvetly blue as a few hours ago in the library, but, sliding down the curves of her body with his gaze, he felt nothing but the very disappointment he had expected. He finally got what he used to desire so vehemently, but it didn’t arouse him more than the memories of the girl he lost his virginity to: almost randomly and without much satisfaction, mostly because of the concern that the next opportunity would not come around for a long time. He was about to make love to the woman whose perfection he didn’t doubt for nine years, but, instead of setting him on fire, this realization bounced in his head like an amorphous cloud of fog. He had counted on the sphere to touch him but it only wallowed between his lungs and trachea like a drunk imp who possessed a wrong body and struggled to get out. He collected all his volition trying to shake off the stupor and kiss her, but couldn’t because he knew there wouldn’t be any love in that kiss.
“Are you not well?” Eleanor whispered worriedly, still not turning around. “You’re pale as death.”
Not answering, he stepped toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, his lips lingering over her hair. She turned to face him and put her hand on his chest, her fingers sliding under the jacket’s lapels and making their way to the buttons of his shirt. When she touched his skin he realized he had held his breath for so long he was now suffocating, and inhaled greedily. It helped him. The distracting sensations started to wear off, growing more vague and distant with every moment, while Eleanor herself was consuming more and more of his attention. Her eyes were shining with the very shade of blue that made his heart stop and, inspired
by this recollection, he enclosed her in his arms and pressed his lips onto hers.
Without letting him go, Eleanor drew them toward the bedroom, simultaneously releasing herself from her dress like a snake from its skin. When they got there, he took off his clothes in a few resolute movements and - Eleanor still in his arms - fell on the bed covered with a soft squishy comforter. He pressed his body onto hers, surprised at how firm it felt on his skin, and dived into her like into the Mariana Trench, but his feelings remained stale even then. Hot waves of electrified current rushed through his body along with its movements but he was indifferent to them, waiting for Eleanor’s face to be enlightened with the most profound rapture a mortal woman was capable of. And he was prepared to wait for it as long as it would be necessary, no matter how much more disappointment he would have to endure before that.
***
He opened his eyes as he felt Eleanor slide from the bed, although, judging by the cautiousness of her moves, she tried to avoid disturbing him. A bright morning was slowly waking up behind the window, soft and clear sunrays struggling into the room through the yellow curtain. Its pattern seemed familiar, but he couldn’t understand why until he realized that similar curtains used to hang in his own bedroom, a tiny cubicle where he spent at least five thousand nights.
Eleanor was getting dressed with her back turned to him, and it seemed she was surrounded by a reddish halo shimmering in the room’s twilight. This hypostasis of her was unknown to him, but he couldn’t enjoy it fully because of the treacherous thought about all those men who had woken up just like he did without any understanding of who they spent the night with.
“My precious,” he said in a quiet voice when she finished buttoning up her skirt or something else. “Do you know that you are beautiful?”
She turned to him, slowly and shyly, not saying a word.
“I am serious. Yesterday you were a rose on the verge of blooming; now you have opened fully. Could you pull the curtains apart? Your beauty will shine brighter in the light.”
Eleanor walked to the window and did as he asked.
“You were wrong about one thing.” She sat down on the bed’s edge, staring at him as if unsure that he was real. “You are no philosopher. You like pictures better than thoughts.”
He put his hands behind the back of his neck, propping his body against the pillow, and looked at her with admiration.
“Darling, is there a woman in this world who’d be able to understand me better than you? And not only understand but also explain what I don’t see myself?”
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders.
“No, I don’t think so,” he continued. “She’d have to be similar to me, and you were the only one who managed. Which makes it even sadder that we didn’t become a couple in our freshman year.”
She leaned toward the nightstand to grab a pack of cigarettes, and he realized why the room smelled different: she must have smoked after he fell asleep. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. In fact, I will take one myself.”
“I thought you didn’t smoke.”
“Just to honor the occasion,” he said, accepting the pack and the lighter. He coughed when the first drag penetrated his lungs, leaving the feeling of a notched arrow making its way through flesh. The next instant he felt nicotine rush to his head and exhaled, watching the smoke dissolve in the air. “How do you feel?”
“A little shaky, but wonderful.” Eleanor smiled. “You surprised me. How long have we been doing it?”
“Half an hour, maybe?”
“No way! An hour and a half sounds more like it.”
“You must have thought me pathetic. A lonely sociopath who eats alone and doesn’t take his Lamborghini on a date with the woman he claims to love… what can he possibly know about sex?”
“So, you do have a Lamborghini?”
“A purple Diablo.” He watched the cigarette melt away in his hand. “A love I didn’t betray yet. Any ashtrays around?”
Eleanor pointed at the white porcelain receptacle on the nightstand.
“Can you move it closer? I may drop the ash on the way. Besides, I want to make the picture fair. You’re too much in control: you lent me a cigarette, you lit it, and you also have the ashtray.”
“You really think we should have started dating as soon as we met?” she said when he relieved the cigarette of the long column of ash.
“Oh yes. In that case our lives would have taken much better courses. You are a muse, Eleanor: your beauty is immaculate, and you are clever enough to appreciate talent. If you lived two hundred years ago, chance would have made you meet some genius who’d incarnate you in his work. But you were born too late, in the foulest of all times, which meant your beauty and intelligence had to remain unappreciated. And then you met me, your one and only chance: a poor guy who knew everything about muses and dreamt to dedicate his life to one. You could have made me a worthy man: someone who falls asleep every night a step closer to eternity.”
“You think so?”
“Well, I do. But what do you think about me? I never found it out, just as I never knew why you refused to date me. Will you finally tell me?”
“Do you really want to know?” she said reluctantly.
“Do you think I’m trying to keep the conversation up? I always thought it was a trick for those who haven’t slept with each other yet.”
“I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “Something stopped me.”
“And what could it be? But pray, don’t say you were young and silly.”
“No, it’s not that. I just thought... that you hated yourself.”
“What?” He assumed he misheard her because of the nicotine buzz in the head.
“The only time I didn’t see you alone was on the day we met. I thought you were so ashamed of yourself you hid from everyone. And then, when you told me you loved me… I didn’t know what to do because I was sure I’d never love someone who didn’t love himself.”
And then he started laughing. Everything came at him at once: the nicotine, the endorphins, the smell of her sent that she had just put on and the recollection of her face back then, at college, the expression of shy condescension which he could never understand on his own, and which now found a perfect explanation.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I just remembered the rock climber you dated in your junior year. I always wanted to ask him if he carried a mirror in his pocket: I never met a more self-enamored guy. Honestly, I was even happy when I found out about you two. I thought he’d make you realize something about the human nature.” He heard disappointment in his own voice. “You didn’t, but at least when he dumped you you had a taste of what I myself ran into all the time.”
“It wasn’t the same.”
“Not entirely, but close enough. After all, what good can you expect from a narcissus? And can you expect anything bad from you? In my eyes you always were perfection stained with nothing but childish mistakes. I just couldn’t get why you persisted in making them.”
Eleanor kept looking at him silently, and he continued:
“Why did you need it back then, at twenty? What could you get from those brats? A free dinner? Fifty bucks, if you didn’t eat the whole day. A weekend in a manor? Why, to look at the pouffes in your own living room with more contempt? Or maybe you wanted to fly to Copacabana for vacation? Well, in that case you’d have to pay for the plane ticket and the hotel yourself. Your boyfriends were all the same, seeking nothing but pleasure and unprepared to give anything in return. And do you know what was the worst? Not that you slept with them, no, but that none of those little men appreciated you. None of them gave you a fraction of what you deserved as a born muse. For them you were another one, not the only one, but it never could be otherwise.”
“What does it matter now? Or you can’t marry me without taking revenge first?”
He smiled sadly and stretched himself.
“Why do I have such a memory for distant feelings and no
t for the things I did yesterday? Do you remember where I put my clothes?”
“They’re all over the place. Check if the suit got dirty, you may need another one.”
“I won’t,” he said, rising to his feet. She scrutinized every detail of his costume while he was dressing, but the image he produced in the end was as immaculate as that he presented on the porch of her house, save the face which became somewhat hollow.
“Tea?”
For a second he stared at Eleanor in disbelief, then he shook his head.
“OK, then. What are we doing now? Where is the ceremony taking place? And do I even need to pick a wedding dress?”
“Don’t you mind the wedding again.” He was standing motionlessly, like a grave monument, moving nothing but his lips. “I will never marry you, Eleanor.”
She looked at him perplexedly, and for a moment he felt pity for her.
“Did you really think I would let you make a fool out of me for the third time? That tomorrow you’d wake up and say “Richard, I have to go?” No, dear, you’ve already sucked too much life out of me.”
“I’m not going to divorce you.” Eleanor shooked her head, looking more apprehensive with every moment. “What are you talking about?”
“All the worse. At college you didn’t give a damn about me for four years and now, after some thirteen hours, you’ve already slept with me and are ready to become my wife? What exactly changed? And in whom? You sure are the same: you still jump on everyone who has more money than you. Keep in mind that now the number of such people has decreased.”
“Is that what this farce was for?” Now there was sarcasm in her voice, but she sounded shocked nevertheless. “Are you trying to save the ghost of my chastity? I always was an innocent girl for you, wasn’t I?”
“You were. That’s how a muse is known: she is the one you consider a virgin even after you slept with her. But you know why I needed this. There was everything between us except sex, which I missed to complete the picture. It seems every woman must have a male confidant whom she tells most personal things about herself and whom she’ll never sleep with. That was the role I played in your life, and I couldn’t change it. Now I did, and I paid more dearly for it than I could ever imagine.”