by Pavel Kostin
I knock quietly on the bathroom door. I hope she’s not too hysterical. It’ll be better if she’s not.
“Oxana. It’s Max. Open up. Quickly.”
The lock clicks. The door opens a bit. Behind it is Oxana’s terrified, tear-stained face. There’s make-up smeared all over it. But she’s all in one piece. I take her by the hand and drag her to the door. It’s lucky it’s summer, or we’d have to try and find her jacket and all that.
We run quickly down the stairs. Behind us upstairs there is some commotion and shouting. Suddenly there’s the sound of broken glass. Sod it, we’ve got to get out of here as quickly as possible.
As we drive out of the courtyard, Oxana starts crying again.
I ask her how and why, but she doesn’t reply, just cries very, very bitterly. My heart freezes. She sobs the whole way home.
• • •
“Are you a good artist, Gray?” I ask.
Tactless? No.
“I don’t know,” Gray replies. “Sometimes.”
“How did you become one?”
We are leaning against a big wall. The wall’s down an alley and miraculously untouched. A blank canvas. Not a single painting or even any tags. Even though it was painted ages ago. It was Viktor who told me about this wall, because he’d photographed it, and I told Gray about it and he dashed here straightaway. Like it was on fire. I barely kept up with him. As he ran he was talking about an idea he had had, saying it was the best idea he’d had all year, and that it was a new, a fundamentally new idea, with some really deep meaning.
We ran like madmen. Chucked down the bags with the cans in.
And when we got there, it turned out that Gray had completely forgotten his idea. He stood there with a stunned look on his face and started to whisper that “what, it was so important, I can’t have forgotten, I can’t have, come on now, I’m bound to remember…”
He kept repeating that for about five minutes, that he’d remember any minute now, that this never happens, that it was a real flash of inspiration. Then he nestled his forehead against the empty wall, screwed his eyes shut and fell silent. Then he started to walk back and forth along the wall.
He was a pitiful sight. White as a sheet. It looked like he was about to burst into tears.
So I tried to take his mind off it. Sometimes to remember something which is hiding in your head you just need someone to take your mind off it. And it’ll come to you.
“How did you become one?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t become anything special. Have I told you about the lemmings?”
“Many times.”
“Aha. Right. At first I painted something on a wall. Something simple. A little plane, or something, flying upside down over the city. And then it started. It gets hold of you and doesn’t let you go until you paint something. Ach, if only I could remember…”
Gray suddenly grabs hold of his head with both hands and bends over, as if he’s been hit. Maybe he remembered? No, he’s groaning, as if he’s been hurt.
“Nearly, nearly, nearly, nearly…” Gray whispers, “Was just nearly there. Almost. I almost remembered.”
“And a style? Do you have your own style?”
“Not a style exactly. I work with the paint in a certain way. My tones aren’t absolutely pure.” Gray is distracted from the forgotten idea that was bugging him.
“And what do you think, could I do street art?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“Who knows. Maybe it’ll be street art that does you…” Gray replies thoughtfully.
And then his eyes widen. He starts madly unzipping his bag. He shakes a can and runs over to the wall. He traces a long wavy white line. I watch him with interest.
“Listen, Max,” Gray says guiltily. “Right now I can’t have someone watching. You know, normally it’s all fine, but right now I just can’t.”
“OK, don’t even mention it,” I reply cheerfully. “Bye, see you!”
I wave and leave. Gray immediately forgets about me and returns to his canvas. To the wall, that is. He’s an artist, come what may. I’m not offended at all. You can see that it matters to this guy. And it matters when something matters to you. It’s serious.
• • •
The situation: me, a pack of cards, the roof of my factory. The weekend, quiet, no one around. I’m doing something strange: I’m chucking cards face down and calling them out loud.
“Seven of clubs!” I announce for all to hear.
I turn the card over. Jack of clubs. Almost. I guessed the suit. Next one.
“Queen of diamonds.”
It turns out to be the two of hearts. It’s red...
“Ten of spades!”
Jack of diamonds. And we just had the queen. Funny coincidence.
This is my strange way of trying to fulfil Gray’s strange idea – searching for magic in the real world. So far it’s not particularly working. In half an hour I’ve guessed one card, and for that one I peeked a bit.
I chuck cards for another ten minutes or so, but then I get bored. What else...? I look for a motorboat on the river. Aha. So now I’m going to close my eyes and it’ll disappear. I screw my eyes shut. Come on now! Disappear boat! God, what am I doing…? This is completely childish. I’m not ten years old. Maybe I’m mentally retarded…?
“Magic…” I laugh.
“Are you trying to discover your superpowers?” Lady F asks with a smile.
“It’s not about that,” I reply. “Hi. Good to see you…!”
“Likewise. Then what is it about? Guessing cards – what’s that? Clairvoyance? And moving ships with your mind… Telekinesis!”
“Nah, I just hooked on this idea of Gray’s. An artist I know. I didn’t really get hooked on it. Just got interested. I really want it too.”
“What?”
“I want magic to exist. I want magic to really exist. I want there to be more than this.”
“What’s this?”
“Oof… Real life or something. Work, relationships, friendships, the daily grind. It probably sounds cynical. Or maybe the opposite, maybe it sounds childish. But it’s not enough for me. Just not enough. I want more.”
“More what?”
“I want more… More than there is. I want to know that something else exists on the other side of reality. Outside the laws of science, our social ties, the patterns of life. Something like… I don’t really know if I’m honest… The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
“Sometimes, Max, sometimes… it’s hardest for people to see magic when it’s right in front of their noses!” Lady F notes.
I smile.
“I get the irony, Lady F. Or the joke…? I realise your advice also goes beyond the… the everyday. Is it magic?”
“Decide for yourself,” Lady F says. “You’ll decide for yourself.”
“I’ll try! Are you going to tell me… are you going to tell me anything else?”
“Mmm? Ah… OK, well give me three cards!”
I give them to her. The cards lie face down. Nothing happens yet.
“What next?”
In reply there is silence. I turn round. She’s already gone.
I turn over the cards. AAA. Three aces. A clever trick. Did she not touch the pack? Or did she? I shuffle, thinking about her.
In the distance a white motorboat sails away.
• • •
Sometimes I feel that there is such a thing as happiness. It exists somewhere. It’s waiting, burning red like coal, shining in the sky. For some reason I feel this best when there’s rain or slush. I’m feeling it now.
I’m sitting under the roof of the doorway to some block of flats I’ve never seen before. Rain. Just what I wanted. I drove and drove, watching the city t
hrough the windscreen, then parked the Torino and sat in the nearest doorway.
The rain water flows down in streams. All around there is water and dampness and the sky is gloomy, but I feel brightness inside.
I feel surprisingly good. That blessed sense of peace which is so hard to capture. Like the waves. Not when the sea is becalmed, but the ordinary surf by the shore, wave after wave. It’s so relaxing when you really look at it. It’s not about the sound of the waves. But the fact that after one wave there always comes another, and then a third. And so on forever. Infinitely. That word always calms me down. Infinity. What do my problems mean next to that word? Next to the infinite waves of the sea.
It’s strange. Logically speaking the infinity of space and the immensity of time should get you down. For me it’s the other way round: they make me feel happy and calm. We’re so tiny. All our problems, our disasters, our hopes mean nothing. We are nothing. Which is good. Whatever happens it’s really not that important. That thought always makes me feel good.
I watch a thread of drips. The eternal water cycle. The same rain as yesterday. As a year ago. A million years ago.
• • •
“Gray,” I ask, “tell me. Emptiness in your heart – is it a good thing? When there’s nothing there but calm.”
“It’s not great. But it’s comfortable.” Gray’s hair is standing on end, as if he’s had an electric shock.
In fact the reason is we’re hanging upside down off the bridge. On ropes tied to lampposts. Beneath us is the river. Above us – the noise of the city. The sounds seem strange. Maybe because they’re bouncing off the river, or maybe because we’re upside down. Gray’s painting and I’m handing him the cans. He’s hurrying a bit – you can’t hang upside down for long.
“But why isn’t emptiness good?”
“Because emptiness doesn’t make you do the impossible. It doesn’t make you keep going forward, paying no attention to anything. It doesn’t give you inspiration. All that can destroy you… but emptiness can destroy you too, and it can’t inspire you.”
“And if it doesn’t destroy you? You said yourself, it’s comfortable.”
“It’s good, if it doesn’t destroy you. Then you gradually get used to it. You can even take pleasure in life. Find happiness in simple pleasures.”
“Well great. What more do you need?”
Gray concentrates on drawing a line.
“Each to their own. Anyway, it’s not fair for me to preach about this. I don’t make any decisions myself. I’ve told you about it hundreds of time, Max. I got the kick, I got up and I set off. I don’t ever worry about whether there’s emptiness or not…”
“So you got this kick,” I continue explaining, “but you still make some decisions for yourself? You could not go and paint. Or you could do the opposite and paint every day, not just when you want to.”
Gray stops painting and looks at me stunned. The wind shakes his hair. We swing slowly above the abyss.
“There’s something you’re really not getting, Max,” Gray says to me. “If I didn’t go and paint it’d be like not drinking when I got thirsty. Yeah, I could only cope up to a point then. Nothing bad’s going to happen for now. But why torture yourself? And if I did what you said and painted every day, then I wouldn’t be painting but just applying paint to concrete. And there’d be no painting at the end. You see?”
“I see,” I say. “What you’re saying makes sense. It works out nicely for you. You don’t decide anything yourself. But what about aims, achievements, aspirations? Creative heights and new horizons?”
“What have heights got to do with it? Say you just apply paint to concrete every day. That process isn’t going to create any new artistic heights. But anyway, to hell with heights. You could talk about this for ages, I’m telling you…”
Gray kicks his legs, does a somersault and spins round, leaning back on the bridge support. I try to repeat his manoeuvre, and kick. The world starts turning and I lose sense of where’s up and where’s down, basically where reality is. I don’t manage to spin round and I’m left hanging with my legs in the air again, swinging above the river and looking grumpily at Gray. Gray’s upside down. Although really it’s me who’s upside down.
“So, look, this is what I reckon,” Gray continues. “If you’re going to specially apply paint to concrete and still keep thinking about the artistic heights which you can hope to achieve thanks to this process, then, for sure, you won’t manage to paint a single thing.”
“But what about being single-minded, sticking to it, working hard?”
I make several unsuccessful attempts to do a somersault, and, finally, nearly banging my head, turn the right way up.
“But what does working hard mean?” Gray watches my attempts to get to grips with the rope with wry amusement. “Working hard means not being lazy when the time comes. And banging your head against a wall isn’t work.”
“And how do you tell the difference between working and banging your head against a wall?”
Now I’ve got him. Gray is about to open his mouth with some confident reply, but instead he says nothing and thinks. Then he closes his mouth and thinks again.
“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head and laughing. “You just know. Take me: I know. Or you believe. In your self. And you keep painting.”
“So how is that different from banging your head against the wall?”
“Because… Well, because… because you’re doing what you’re doing not ‘for something’ but ‘because of something’. You see?”
I freeze in amazement.
“Yes. I see. Tell me, Gray, who did you hear that from, that stuff about ‘for something’ and ‘because of something’”?
“Not from anyone. I thought it up myself. Just now. Or maybe I thought about it before, I don’t remember. I’m surprised you understood, if you did understand. I barely understand it myself.”
“Nothing surprising about that, Gray.”
• • •
Night, silence, the outskirts of the city.
We’re breaking the law.
“Why do you have to do this? Why?!” Oxana whines. “Max, I only dragged myself here ‘cos of you!”
“Patience, my dear!” Linda says with a grin, not turning round. “And point the torch up a bit.”
“Quiet you two…” Torte says. “But, yeah, point the torch up a bit.”
Stop ordering me around,” Oxana snaps, but raises the torch.
We’re down a side street. Gray’s with us too. The guys are painting. Me and Oxana are sitting to on side watching.
They’re ‘bombing’ a wall, painting a huge piece together. It’s illegal. If they catch us, there’ll be serious problems.
“If you were painting, I wouldn’t be giving orders,” Linda retorts, “but since you can’t, you hold the torch. When’s Max going to start painting again…?”
“Shut up!” Oxana suddenly shouts; I look at her in surprise.
“What’re you on about?” I tell them softly, “I’ve never been able to paint.”
“What do you need the torch for?! You can only do it with a stencil. You can do that in the dark. Put it up by touch and then paint it.”
Torte giggles, still holding up his can. Gray mumbles something unhappily under his breath.
“Listen, you,” Linda spins round. “What can you do anyway? You can’t even paint!”
“Oh I really, really want to!” Oxana announces. “Though I could ask you the same question by the way!”
“Please, shut up!” Gray mutters tensely.
It’s like he’s trying to hug the wall, wanting to concentrate on his piece while the girls’ pointless argument is really distracting him. Torte’s laughing. You get the feeling he’s enjoying the bust up.
“That’s my style,” Linda says furiously. “I can paint!”
“Of course!” Oxana says lazily. “And that’s why you work in a phone shop. ‘How can I help you?’ ‘We have some great deals today!’ ‘Dear customers…’”
“Stop it!” Gray hisses.
“What do you know about it?!” Linda jams her arms into her sides. “Who are you anyway?! That’s my style, got it? Can’t you understand that? You do know the word ‘style’, don’t you, hmm? I’m an artist! And an actress! I’m an artist! And you’re not!”
“Oh I’m so jealous!” Oxana replies lazily, waving the torch. “All artists are psychos!”
“Shut up!” Gray throws the can to his feet and shouts, unable to stop himself. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, you dumb, stupid girls.”
“You see,” Oxana says flatly.
Torte laughs, bending double and holding his sides with his hands. The wall is forgotten for now.
A bright light at the end of the road blinds us. A car.
“It’s…” Torte peers at the light. “Cops! Scram!”
The car turns on its flashing lights and moves towards us.
We run for it. The Torino’s round the corner, we need to get to it.
Oxana whispers plaintively, “Wait for me, wait for me!” She takes off her shoes and runs barefoot.
“Leg it!” Linda yells at her as she runs by.
Linda’s in trainers. We run through the night. We leave shouts and sirens somewhere behind us. A cool breeze on my face and a smile on my lips.
• • •
I’m walking along the harbour road, turning round every minute. I’m looking for FridayZZ. Big distances, big dimensions. A little lane, far from the noisy central streets, but there are lots of big, like, huge warehouses, factories, industrial buildings. In the distance are the colossal giants of the shipyards, so huge you can’t make sense of their size, so they seem smaller and closer than they are. You can only feel their true size with the parallax effect as you move, when all the scales shift and your head starts spinning.