Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  You, Marisa thought, gazing into his eyes. The thought just clicked but did not surprise her. It filled instead each empty corner of her mind and of her heart. You. And overflowed. She left his eyes and began observing him from that new perspective, which was not so different from the perspective a few minutes ago, just more complete. Complex.

  She observed how Marco laid his elbows on the table, projecting the strong arms toward her. Marisa got distracted at the sight of the dark hands with long fingers—while they moved, his hands showed accuracy, and in a resting position, like now, they were comforting. She imagined what their touch would be like, the warmth of those hands on her body. Maybe in a dance, slowly sliding on Marisa’s waist and back, welcoming her with a stroke from top to bottom… from top… to bottom… to top… until crowning her queen with the diadem of a caress on her hair.

  Marco smiled encouragingly, kindling her imagination further—what it would be like to feel his mouth, his kiss… maybe in the bedroom, tracking every inch of her, the dress asleep on the rug while Marco awakened the female in her against the wall. The world spinning and spinning out of control…

  Marisa bit her lip and tried to concentrate on the conversation. Marco offered to send her a list of professionals who would be able to help her define a vocation. He asked for her email, which she spelled out as he typed in his cell phone.

  And little by little the world went back to normal.

  “Be cool,” he said, dropping the phone on the table. “Once you are on the right path, the Universe will make things happen and all pieces of the puzzle will fall into place.”

  There was a pause. Be cool? Marisa no longer knew what that meant. The twinges of disquiet created small scars that kept merging and spreading and covering all of her. Then she tried to ignore the disquiet and pretended everything was fine in the hope that the world would convince her of that. It didn’t.

  “You’re quite mature for a seventeen-year-old, you know?” Marco said, breaking the silence.

  “I just turned eighteen last month,” Marisa rectified quickly, and blushed at his intent gaze.

  “September.” He reflected for an instant. “So you’re a Virgo?”

  “Libra. Now I only need some balance. What about you?”

  “Scorpio. Maybe I could use some balance too.”

  They exchanged a smile.

  “Anyway,” she added, “I probably look older because I’m an only child raised among adults and books. My dad was a bookworm. He used to read stories for me as far as I can remember.”

  “And you live with your parents, Marisa?”

  “No, it’s just me and Mom. My dad is deceased.”

  Marco nodded and said nothing. Marisa was grateful that he would spare her of the embarrassment. She hadn’t even attended the funeral. It had been six months since her father passed away, and the last time she saw him, he was perfectly well. He even joked about mosquitoes: If one bites you, my dear, don’t kill it or else ten more will show up for the burial.

  The day Marisa received the news, it was a shock. The empty hours went by like a surreal dream. Her mother wouldn’t say it, but she clung to the details evoking his presence. The blue robe and the toothbrush in the bathroom. The unfinished crosswords on the desk, next to a half-empty cup with cold coffee. None of that could be touched: the objects came to a standstill, as if in wait for him to return. Then Marisa, unknowing, washed the cup and put it away, causing her mother to have a nervous breakdown…

  “Hey, would you like another cup of coffee?”

  It took her a few seconds to understand what Marco was saying. She acted as if trying to decide.

  “Yes, please. Now tell me about yourself.”

  He signaled to the passing waiter and ordered more coffee. Then he lit up a cigarette before answering. He was the third son in a family of mixed Italian and Lebanese roots, quite Brazilian at that point after three generations. His mother possessed Calabrese blood and a big personality that rivaled his father’s stubbornness. That triggered huge, sometimes even comical quarrels, but in the end they would always work things out. Marco had many aunts and uncles. His favorite, Uncle Jamil, owned three farms, where Marco and his brothers spent their vacations when they were boys. Marco had been raised in the countryside, catching blind cave fish, riding horses, and eating jabuticaba berries from the tree until he almost burst. He moved to the capital on his own at eighteen to study letters: he loved literature.

  “They’re playing your song,” said Marisa, as she listened to the delicate chords coming from inside the bar.

  “Which song?”

  “Bebel Gilberto’s Jabuticaba.”

  And the atmosphere of the music involved them.

  If you were a fruit, it would be jabuticaba…

  A small sphere of soft honey the color of the night, a summer whiff to be savored under the stars.

  “Jabuticaba eyes. Dark and shiny like yours.” She smiled. “What else?”

  “Ah. I married a college mate, then got divorced, completed my Master studies here in São Paulo and went for my PhD in San Francisco.” He recited the list as if handing a resume, then proceeded to the current occupation and relaxed. “After I returned from the US earlier this year, I moved to an apartment close by. I like the stories the old downtown buildings tell. And I love walking to the second-hand shops to dig up classic jazz albums. Do you like jazz?”

  Summer breeze in the sweet fruit, and in your gaze the stars…

  The day slipped away quietly. Their cups emptied, the bar filled up and the waiter became slightly annoyed that the two wouldn’t leave. It was not summer yet, but up above, way beyond the strings of lights intersecting on the streets—the stars were glowing.

  3. What’s Up With Sartre

  “Four hours… thirty-one minutes… nine seconds… That is when… the world will end,” Sam muttered pensively.

  “What are we gonna do?” Rachel swallowed up her own desperation.

  Sam did not respond straight away. He needed to think. Massaging his temples, he kept his eyes fixed on the implacable Control Room chronometer. The countdown continued: eight seconds… seven… six…

  Rachel glanced at the door.

  “We better leave before the guards show up, Sam.”

  “Wait a minute. I think I know how to cancel the attack.”

  Sam pressed a blue key on the control panel. Then he suddenly hesitated. Right below it, there were a yellow key and a green key. Which one validated neutralization? Now that he had initiated the command sequence, if he stopped the alarm would go off.

  He couldn’t fail. The fate of mankind rested on the next key.

  Lean and tall, Sam had trained in martial arts for the past decade. His body translated into pure muscular mass, but all his strength was useless now. He scratched his well-trimmed beard, and his dark eyes sparked. Noticing his frustration, Rachel stared at him with a pair of eyes as perfect and blue as snips of autumn sky. Since the facial reconstruction to change her identity, she felt like a Barbie doll. She missed her old face, more asymmetric, more like herself. It was the price to stay alive, though.

  “What if you tried the red key?” she risked.

  “I don’t know which command it activates. I thought of the blue and green keys because the secret code mentioned jungle and sea. Now I recall it also mentioned a great sun…

  As Sam and Rachel studied the keys on the black panel, the speakers built into the ceiling hummed a Mozart sonata, muffling the guard’s approach. He sneaked behind them and drew his gun…

  Rachel’s scream echoed through the Control Room.

  Marisa woke up with a startle and paused the film streaming on the computer screen. She had dozed off with her head on the physics text book, next to a plate holding the mortal remains of a bunch of jabuticaba berries. Dizzy, Marisa rubbed her eyes and checked the clock: almost half
past ten. She reached out to turn the computer off, and then remembered…

  The mouse cursor steered away from the Shutdown button and, with the eagerness of a sniffer dog, advanced through fields of folders, bypassed flowery shortcuts and trotted to the canopy of tabs in the browser. There, it finally burrowed into the inbox and gave her another startle upon finding a message from Marco Aurélio Fares to Marisa Constant.

  Hi, Marisa,

  As promised, attached is a list of recommended professionals.

  This period of life can be difficult, I know, but you’ll overcome it. Here’s another phrase to inspire you. In Existentialism Is a Humanism, Sartre quotes Descartes: Conquer yourself rather than the world.

  Good luck!

  Marco

  Now, how should she respond? Talk about writer’s block. She would begin a line, change her mind, and erase it. It had to look casual, but not that casual… Hmm. Perhaps she should deliberately include a typo to convey spontaneity. Hmm. Better not, or Marco might think she couldn’t spell. One thing was certain: she wanted to impress him.

  Marisa quickly checked out Wikipedia and learned that, according to Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophical system, existence preceded essence. What did it mean? People began to exist at birth and only then their essence formed, so a person had total freedom to mold their essence as they wished, through actions and thoughts. Hmm. Freedom. At last, Marisa came up with a reply that satisfied her.

  Hi, Marco,

  Thanks a lot for the list and the words of encouragement. I really liked the quote by Sartre.

  The quote you mentioned earlier, “Hell is other people,” got stuck in my head. Other people can really make our lives hell with their demands. We shouldn’t become slaves to that, but mold our essence according to our rightful freedom.

  Regards,

  Marisa

  Would Marco write again? Only then it occurred to her she should have asked him something in the email, that way he would be compelled to reply. Marisa hurried to undo the sending of the message, but to no avail. Her words were already swiftly sailing through cyberspace.

  Now she was wide awake…

  There were only three hours left to the end of the world. Three hours. And then the Earth would be cremated with no right to a funeral wreath or memorial service. The future of the planet lay now in the hands of two improbable fugitives.

  After disarming the guard and locking him in the Power House, Sam and Rachel burrowed in the tentacles of an underground tunnel complex. Suddenly, the alarm bawled with a continuous siren and the lights went out. Then an eerie silence reigned.

  “They found out we’re here!” Rachel flattened herself against the wall, trying not to panic.

  “They’re gonna kill us to make sure we don’t ruin their master plan. We need a place to hide,” said Sam.

  He turned his cell phone on to illuminate the tunnel, and the metallic walls shimmered under the device’s cold light. As the pair advanced, the darkness kept devouring the dim clarity and regurgitating more shadows. Sam’s experienced eyes, however, located a door ahead. Taking Rachel by the hand, he rushed to it.

  “Sam, where are we—”

  Rachel tripped and fell onto the stone floor. She grimaced and bit her lip to avoid screaming. Tears rolled down her face.

  “Are you okay?” Sam helped Rachel stand up, while she shook her head.

  “I twisted my ankle… It’s really hurting. I can’t walk.”

  “Hold the cell phone to shine the way.”

  Rachel did as told, and Sam lifted her in his arms with ease. They reached the door and entered a weaponry storage room with piles of crates up to the ceiling. Sam found a niche in the back and carefully laid Rachel on the floor, sitting next to her.

  She uttered the question he didn’t want to ask himself: “So this is how it all ends?” Her face glistened in the dim light. “We’re gonna die here like rats?”

  A silence charged with meaning followed.

  Sam held Rachel’s hand while more tears welled up her eyes. They were cornered. Inside the mousetrap.

  In that moment, desperation fueled the mutual attraction they had felt since the beginning. The warmth of their bodies was like a balm, a reaffirmation of life in the deadly setting around them.

  In the quietness of the storage room, they sought each other’s lips…

  The close-up of the impending kiss froze on the screen when Marisa interrupted the film again. Her inbox tab had just highlighted incoming messages: a Facebook friend inviting her to watch a movie, a petition against the use of fur forwarded by Valentina, a dance class promotion and… yes, Marco Aurélio’s reply!

  Marisa,

  I’m happy you’re interested in Sartre. That’s a quote from No Exit. Its interpretation, however, is a bit different from what you’ve imagined.

  Let’s start with a couple of basic philosophy concepts: subject and object.

  The subject is that who observes. The object is the observed thing. In other words: when you look at another person, you are the subject and they are the object of your gaze. But the opposite is also true: if another person looks at you, they’re the subject and you become the object. That’s when things get tricky.

  As a subject, you’re the center of your own subjective world and are able to control it. As an object, you lose control and thus your freedom of choice: you cannot control the subjective world of who’s looking at you nor can you choose how the other person sees you.

  Hell is other people because it’s unsettling not to have control over what people think about us. A typical example of this would be racism, as well as prejudice in general.

  Another line from No Exit illustrates this idea:

  Now I’m going to smile, and my smile will sink down in your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

  M.

  Marisa felt embarrassed for delivering such a simplistic interpretation in her previous message and decided to research the matter more extensively. While reading a long article about the existentialist theories by the French philosopher, she was introduced to the being-in-itself, the being-for-itself and (as if there weren’t already plenty) the being-for-others. Her brain, knocked out in a dark alley by a gang of physics formulas, did not stand a chance and shuffled it all… Oh-oh, she shouldn’t follow that route or she would write some larger-than-existence nonsense. Marisa decided to call Valentina for an emergency consultation.

  “Check out Marco’s email that I forwarded to you, Val. Tell me what you think.”

  “He has already emailed you?” asked Valentina, who was aware of their encounter at the library that afternoon. “Wait a sec. I’m gonna read the message thread… He’s repeating that hell is other people. What’s the big deal?” Her skepticism would discourage even a stony statue.

  “What’s the big deal? In the last quote he’s smiling at me!”

  On the other end of the connection, Marisa heard her puff… or maybe it was the TV on.

  “My dear, your imagination never ceases to amaze me. Marco is talking about Sartre. There couldn’t be anything less romantic. Hellooo, do you remember Sartre, the guy who wrote Nausea?”

  “I was the one who told you about that book. I tried to read it during my last vacation and couldn’t stand it.”

  “That’s it, say no more. You took Nausea to read at the beach. It’s the glaring proof of your lack of discernment.”

  “I was curious, is that a crime?” Marisa retorted in a resentful tone. She defended herself: “Don’t forget, later I downloaded that Gabriel Emerson book.”

  “Okay, it’s all in the past. It doesn’t change a thing, though. Only you could find romance in a discussion about hell and nausea.”

  Ignoring her remark, Marisa insisted—what should she reply? Desperate, she had resorted to a quote website. She found, respectively, two phrases fro
m Nausea and one from Being and Nothingness. The first went like this: “It’s quite a job starting to love somebody.” A bit negative… The second was “I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.” Too dramatic… The third affirmed, “The sole power of the past lies in the future” (that one she didn’t quite understand). Marisa talked and blabbered and insisted so much Valentina interrupted her with a lament.

  “Ma, please, no more. It’s past midnight, and I can’t take this talk of love, nausea and power any longer. Why don’t you lighten up? Choose some different author to quote.”

  Marisa’s eyes gleamed.

  “Which author, Val?”

  “I don’t know. Try something from Jonathan Livingston Seagull—”

  “Seriously?”

  “—or The Little Prince—”

  “Val!”

  The conversation went on like that, and it would have continued for considerable time if Valentina hadn’t broken the dire cycle: “Listen, if you want to flirt with the teacher, it’s no use buttering him up with saccharine. That way you’ll only succeed in giving him diabetes. You know very well with which head men think. Be bold.”

  Marisa was going to ask for a proper clarification when there was a knock on the door.

  “Wait a sec, it’s my mom,” she said in a low voice. Then aloud: “Come in.”

  The mother’s head popped in—pale face, brown hair tied in a bun. Her body, wrapped in a faint pink robe, followed. She leaned against the door frame with one hand on the knob, her suspicious eyes roaming the room.

  It was her daughter’s territory, where she kept her secrets. All white, with sparse furniture consisting of a built-in closet, bed, nightstand, and bookshelf with a desk. That laconic whiteness, colored only by the books squeezed on shelves, offended the mother’s aesthetic sense. She glanced with instinctive hostility at the only occupant of the bare walls: a black and white poster of a shirtless Jim Morrison opening his arms above the bed.