by Неизвестный
“Do I absolutely have to answer? I’m not sure I see any link between you and me and your question. I’m here, you’re there, and the question is floating between us—and I don’t see any reason to change anything about that situation. It’s like the rain falling without a thought for the dog’s feelings.” I looked down, running my finger over the spots of paint on my clothes.
“The rain falling without a thought for the dog’s feelings.” He repeated the words quietly to himself. Juju threw his head back and yawned. “I think you could say that that’s a perfect response, and I don’t need to bother you anymore. We’ll be going now. Goodbye.”
The man bowed politely, and a moment later the boy gave a quick nod. Then they disappeared into the rain. It was a straightforward departure, without fanfare or a lingering farewell. For a minute, I stood there wondering why they had come and where they were going, but then I remembered my painting and I thought no more about it. As I closed the door, I noticed that there were two puddles where they had stood.
I hung a spice rack on the wall in the kitchen, waxed the floor in the hall, and planted a flower bed in one corner of the yard, and before I knew it several days had passed. I moved around the house doing my chores in silence. There was so much to do and, moreover, the wedding was so close that I wasn’t a bit lonely, despite being alone. Still, now and then, when I needed a change of scenery, I took Juju out for a walk.
We wandered about looking for the things we would need for our life in the new house—a bank, a salon, a drugstore. The neighborhood could hardly be called lively, but it had all the basics. From time to time, we’d pass an old person, out for a quiet stroll.
Early one afternoon, after making our way through a maze of narrow streets, we climbed a slope and found ourselves on a sunny embankment that ran along the shore. Beyond the bank, a thin line of sea blended with the blue sky. Freighters dotted the horizon. Juju broke into a run, and his chain snapped taut, glistening in the sunlight. Everything seemed to be bathed in a peaceful warmth.
As we walked along the bank, the sea gradually spread out before us. Seagulls flew by, so close that it seemed I could reach out and touch them. A red mail truck passed us, moving slowly. At the base of the embankment there was an elementary school. It was an ordinary three-story building of reinforced concrete, with a gymnasium attached, the usual boxes for the students’ shoes by the door, and a rabbit hutch in one corner of the playground. Juju suddenly dashed down the grassy slope, heading straight for the back entrance to the school. I had no choice but to follow him, and that’s how I found them, standing by a window at the gate.
Except for the raincoats, they looked exactly the same. Holding hands and standing very still. I was sure that they wouldn’t remember me, but the man seemed to make the connection right away.
“Sorry to have bothered you the other day,” he said with the same polite bow.
“Not at all,” I said, bowing quickly in turn. Juju was pacing between us, rattling his chain in excitement. The boy couldn’t take his eyes off the dog. “Are you working?” I asked, wondering whether “work” was the right word.
“No. We’re taking a short break,” the man answered.
I hadn’t been able to tell from their raincoats, but they were extremely well dressed. The man wore an elegant dark-green suit, and the boy wore a pure-wool sweater and spotless white kneesocks. For the early afternoon and in such an unlikely neighborhood, they were quite conspicuous.
“That’s a nice dog.”
“Thank you.”
“What is he called?”
“His name is Juju. Your son is pretty cute, too.”
“Thanks.”
“How old is he?”
“Three years and two months.” After that exchange, there seemed to be nothing else for us to talk about. Silence blew in like the wind, and I was reminded that the only thing that remained between us was “anguish.” I was tempted to make my escape before he said the word again, but the fleeting shadow in his eyes held me there.
The area around the back gate of the school was awash with noise: a recorder-and-organ ensemble was playing in the music room, children were running on the playground, a teacher was whistling, and the faint moan of a ship’s horn rose from the sea. I looked down at the ground and tried to separate each individual sound from the others. Juju had found a spot that suited him; he was curled up by one of the gateposts.
“Can I pet your dog?” the boy asked suddenly. It was the first time I had heard him speak, but his voice was strong and clear.
“Of course,” I said, relieved that someone had broken the silence. “He likes it if you stroke him here,” I added, rubbing Juju’s neck. Juju closed his eyes and licked my cheek with his pale-pink tongue. The boy let go of his father’s hand and reached out timidly to pat Juju’s hindquarters. His chubby little fingers disappeared into the spotted fur.
“Do you have business here at the school?” I asked, turning back to the man.
“No, we were just looking at the cafeteria.” He pronounced the word “cafeteria” slowly, as if it had special significance, and he glanced at the large window next to us.
“The cafeteria?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
The window clearly belonged to the cafeteria. Lunch had apparently just ended, and the dishes were being washed. Large birdcage-like baskets crammed with plates and bowls and spoons were moving along conveyor belts at an easy pace, like horses on a carrousel. Along the belts, there were various stations that resembled the disinfectant showers at swimming pools. When a basket reached a station, it would disappear for a few seconds into a haze of liquid spraying from nozzles on all sides and then reemerge on the other side, wet and shining.
“For some reason, it fascinates him. He would watch it all day if I let him.”
“I wonder what he finds so interesting?”
“I don’t know. Children get obsessed with the strangest things.” The man smiled for the first time in my presence—not the smile of a cult member, of course, but something much simpler and more natural.
“I’m not sure I see the connection between a sweet little boy like this and a cafeteria.”
“Perhaps it’s some strange complex circuit that’s impossible for us to imagine,” the man murmured. The boy had quickly grown comfortable with Juju and was now pulling his tail and draping himself over his back. Juju was patiently tolerating this treatment.
In the cafeteria, workers in white uniforms, masks, and caps made their way back and forth among the conveyor belts. One of them adjusted the direction of the shower nozzles while another took the clean dishes from the end of the belt to the dryer. They hurried about in silence, and the whole place—the machines, the floors, the windows—seemed to sparkle with cleanliness. It looked more like a small, efficient factory than a school cafeteria.
“In fact, it’s much more interesting to watch in the morning,” the man said.
“Really?” We were lined up now, leaning against the window.
“Of course. They have to prepare lunch for more than a thousand children— a thousand rolls, a thousand fried shrimp, a thousand slices of lemon, a thousand cartons of milk. Can you imagine?”
I shook my head.
“When such vast amounts of food are spread out in front of you, even a grownup can’t help being impressed.” He rubbed at the fogged window, and as he did his hand came so close to my face that I was afraid he could feel my breath. His fingers were long and slender. “A thousand onions, ten kilos of butter, fifty litres of vegetable oil, a hundred boxes of spaghetti. Everything is perfectly calculated, and it runs like clockwork. They’ve got all the latest equipment; they just have to program the computer for fried shrimp—I think the control room is on the second floor—and the machines start making it. There’s even a machine to devein the shrimp. Amazing, no?” He glanced over at me and then looked back at the cafeteria.
“The shrimp are all lined up lengthwise on a conveyor belt, and at a cer
tain point a blade comes out and slices straight down their backs. It never misses by even a hair. If you stare at it too long, it makes you dizzy. Then the shrimp move on to other stations, where they’re rolled in flour and eggs and bread crumbs; it’s all perfectly arranged so that they get evenly coated without anything being wasted. At the end of the belt, they drop into the oil, as meekly as if they’d been hypnotized. And, finally, they’re lifted out at just the right moment so that they’re done to a perfect golden brown, never over- or undercooked.”
The man closed his eyes for a minute. The dish-washing continued, and no one seemed to pay any attention to us. From the music room now, I could hear the sound of castanets and triangles.
“You describe it beautifully,” I said. “I can just picture them—a thousand fried shrimp coming down the line.”
“I’m glad,” he said, running his hand lightly through his hair. I caught a faint whiff of cologne, like the fresh scent of the sea.
“But how long does the washing go on?” I asked, as basket after basket passed by.
“Until around the time the children get out of school.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” I said. “A real cafeteria expert.”
“Not at all,” he said, smiling timidly. “We’ve been making the rounds in this neighborhood for almost a month, and we stop here every day. We come when my son is in a bad mood, or sometimes when I need a break. There was no cafeteria at the school in the neighborhood where we were before this, and it seemed a little sad. Of all the cafeterias we’ve seen, this one is definitely first class.” Unable to think of anything to say, I just nodded. I had never given any thought to the idea that there might be different classes of cafeteria.
“So you go around to different neighborhoods and canvass or do missionary work. Is that it?” When I did speak, I chose my words as carefully as I could.
“Well, yes, something like that.” As soon as I mentioned his work, he became less talkative; it was as if he were more comfortable with the word “cafeteria” than with “anguish.” Tired of petting Juju, the boy came and stood between us. Strands of the dog’s fine hair clung to the front of his sweater.
“Daddy, what are they having for lunch tomorrow?”
“Hamburgers, I’d say.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw them bringing the meat grinder from the storeroom, the one that looks like a big snow-cone machine. So I’m pretty sure.”
“Great!” the boy said. The man wiped the window again, and for a few minutes I just studied their two profiles reflected in the glass.
Little by little, everything was being arranged. Some friends sent a quilt as a wedding present, our white dishes were lined up on the shelves, and the washing machine was installed. All these items waited quietly for our new life to begin.
My fiancé came one Sunday and extended the porch to make a drying rack for clothes. He had found some cheap lumber for posts, which he embedded in deep holes in the yard. Then he sanded down bamboo poles until they were smooth and ran them between the posts. When he had finished, we sat on the porch for a while and admired his handiwork.
We couldn’t afford a phone, so we had to send telegrams when we wanted to get in touch with each other. Some of them were about important matters— “Wedding rehearsal at church, next Saturday, 10 a.m.” or “File for change of address A.S.A.P.”—but others were simpler. There was one that was only two words long: “Good night.” This one came just as I was getting into bed, and that made it especially sweet. Standing in my pajamas in the dim light of the hallway, I must have read those two words fifty times. Each letter seemed to sink into my mind. Juju, who had been roused from a deep sleep by the delivery, watched me disapprovingly through half-open eyes.
After our meeting, I made a habit of walking along the embankment above the school whenever I took Juju out. But I didn’t see anyone at the gate again. Nor could I see into the cafeteria window from the top of the bank, no matter how much I looked. It seemed to be covered with something opaque, though I could never tell whether it was steam or spray or what. Once, I saw a truck with the logo of a chicken company on its side parked near the gate. As I walked along the bank, I pictured the birds, splayed out on the conveyor belt, eyes staring vacantly as they moved through the various carefully designed steps that would convert them into fried chicken.
I finally met the man and his son again one afternoon ten days later. They were sitting on some boxes that had been left under the cafeteria window. The boy was wearing a warm wool cap with a pompom. His legs dangled over the edge of the box. The man was staring off into the distance, his chin resting in his hands. Juju saw them first and ran tumbling down the hill, his tail wagging furiously.
“It’s Juju!” the boy called in his clear, piercing voice as he jumped down from the box. The pompom bobbed on top of his cap.
“Hello,” I gasped, breathless from having been pulled along behind Juju.
“Hello,” the man answered with the same ambiguous smile. The box they’d been sitting on had held carrots: on top was a picture of a fresh, bright-orange carrot. The other boxes in the stack had held frozen squid, pudding, corn, and Worcestershire sauce.
The schoolchildren had already gone home for the day, and the music room and the playground were quiet. The yard was in shadow, and silence filled the school like stagnant water. The rabbits huddled together in a corner of their hutch.
The cafeteria, too, seemed empty. The window was clear now, and I could see all sorts of details that had been obscured before: the shine of the stainless-steel serving counter; the cut of the collars on the white uniforms hanging on the wall; the color of the switch on the conveyor belt.
“They seem to be done for the day,” I said, sitting down next to the man.
“Yes, they just finished,” he answered.
Juju ran around in the last rays of sunlight, dragging his chain, while the boy ran after him, trying to catch his tail. Beyond them, the sun was sinking into the sea, dyeing the water a deep amber that seemed to swallow up the waves, the boats, the lighthouse, and everything else. Seagulls were flying among the masts in the deserted marina.
“I’m sorry he keeps pestering Juju.”
“Not at all. Juju seems to love it.”
“How long have you had him?”
“It’s been ten years. I’ve spent almost half my life with him, so he’s part of all my most important memories. It’s like those photos that come with the date printed on them—all I have to do is remember how big Juju was or what kind of collar he was wearing and I can figure out when something happened.”
“I understand,” he said, kicking at a pebble with the toe of his plain brown shoe.
After that, we talked about dogs for a while. I told him about discovering a dog zoo in a hot-springs resort in the mountains, and about the hysterical pregnancy suffered by a Maltese that used to live next door to me. He asked various questions, nodding solemnly at my answers, and from time to time he even smiled.
“When I see a cafeteria in the evening, it makes me think of a pool in the rain.”
We had exhausted the subject of dogs and fallen silent for a minute when he introduced this new—and apparently inscrutable—topic. The line sounded as if it had been plucked from a modernist poem or else from some old nursery rhyme.
“A pool . . . in the rain?” I repeated, trying out each word.
“That’s right—a pool in the rain. Have you ever been in a swimming pool in the rain?”
“I’m not sure.”
“When I think about a pool in the rain, it’s almost more than I can stand.”
The clouds had become striated with pink, tinting the sky a deep rose color. Evening had overtaken us as we talked. His face was close to mine, and I traced the outline of his features with my eyes. I could feel his breath, his pulse, the heat from his body. He coughed quietly and rubbed his temple with his forefinger before he spoke again.
“I didn’t know how to
swim when I was in elementary school, so the time my class spent in the pool was painful for me. You could even say that I learned everything there was to know about suffering right there in that pool. First, there was fear. The water in the pool seemed to bear down on me with a terrible crushing force. It was horrible. And then there was shame. Children who couldn’t swim had to wear special red bathing caps to make them stand out among the black-and-white striped ones that all the other children wore. Since we couldn’t swim, we’d just bob on the surface at the shallow end. I was determined to learn to swim and prove myself, but what I really wanted was to avoid attracting any attention at all. That’s another thing I learned from the pool: determination.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Juju, having exhausted himself, lay down and rested his muzzle on his front paws; the boy wrapped himself around the dog’s neck as if he were curling up on a sofa.
“And when it rained the pool was even more depressing. The rain that fell on the deck left dark stains, and the surface of the pool boiled with drops, as if a school of tiny fish were waiting for their dinner. I always lowered myself into the water slowly. My classmates would be swimming by on their way to the far end of the pool. In those days, I was quite delicate. My ribs and collarbone seemed to poke right through my skin, even my hips and thighbones. My swimsuit wrinkled up on my backside. I was cold when it rained, even in summer. During the rest period, I shivered behind the faucet we used to rinse our eyes, and every bone in my body seemed to rattle. When swimming class was finally over and I could take off my cap, my hair was always dyed red.” He was quiet for a moment, picking at the tape on the box, and then he concluded, “I know this can’t be very interesting for you.”
“No, it is,” I said, quite honestly. “But you still haven’t got from the pool in the rain to the cafeteria in the evening. You can’t stop until you do!” We looked at each other for a moment and laughed. One of the rabbits in the hutch was watching us as it chewed on a cabbage leaf.
“I was never teased because I couldn’t swim. At least, I don’t remember anything like that. In the end, it was my own problem. I think you have to go through some sort of rite of passage, at least once in your life, that allows you to become part of the group. This one just took me a little longer than usual. I’m sure that’s what it was.”