But I couldn’t gather the energy to move. I was fixated on the white gravel around the grave stone. Then I saw the bench at the boundary between the rows of plots. I dragged myself to the bench. It was metallic and cold. There was a paper bag next to it with a used can of coke. I looked at the big chestnut trees spread randomly in the wide space with plots between them. I thought I would never be able to stand up and walk out of that place. I thought of a cup of coffee, but those were the good days of talking and having coffee and discussing ideas and now I had been denied all that. I was just moving around doing the routine; that was me these days. What happened to all those passionate debates about science, responsibility, eternal martyrdom, feeling guilty? Kate’s stone was looking at me a few metres away. So I was a martyr in this entire affair. She had gone but presumably I was to stay, and not only for a couple of months; It was a matter of years I suppose. Would I come here again? ‘Don’t be silly,’ Kate would have said, ‘I am gone. I don’t exist any more. Do you understand? Don’t even think about it.’
‘But if I think about you and some feeling stirs in me, then it means that you do exist.’
‘Do you really think so? Then let’s go for a coffee. Do touch me. I feel cold today! What absolute rubbish you say.’
‘You know what I mean. We talked so much about Nietzsche and others, they were alive to us.’
‘We were just enjoying ourselves with stories. Once someone dies, he is gone. We create stories and love our stories. This is also to console ourselves. This is the choice of the weak, the resigned, the benevolent! They create stories to show how considerate they are. Where were you when I was lying in bed counting the minutes? Have you smelt the hospital ward in an evening when it rains outside? You were strong then. You didn’t want to see me and you didn’t; now you are weak. I am glad I am not there to see you like that!’
‘I was weak then. I didn’t have the strength to see you then and I am weak now because I cannot face this. But the only thing left for me is our dialogue. I can talk to you and you are answering me back!’
‘You are convincing yourself. How can you be sure that it is me and it is not you talking to your image?’
‘I know. I can feel your hand, your warmth, your skin, no matter what you say.’
There was no debate any more. There was a cold breeze going through the open space, over the lawn, whirling through the branches of the chestnut trees. It had started to drizzle again. I stayed on the bench for some time.
Between Cups of Coffee Page 23