Love Is Never Past Tense...

by Janna Yeshanova

  Serge was dumbfounded and stared into his cousin’s face, which was dimly lit by a street lantern.

  “But …”

  “Then take a folding bed.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Let it stand in its own place,” thought Serge, and he quietly slipped through the door.

  “You will sleep here.” He brought Janna to a trestle bed standing in a corner. “Settle down. The bathroom is next to the kitchen. Let’s go, I will show you, because you won’t find it.”

  “Let go, I’m bright.”

  Talking in whispers, they crept into the kitchen. Serge got a piece of kielbasa from the refrigerator, found the bread, and divided it into two parts. She greedily attacked the meal and sat down on the edge of a stool. With full mouths, they tried to communicate somehow, but instead of words, only crumbs and suppressed laughter came out. Once done with the meal, Serge wiped his lips with his palm and plodded away to make the bed …

  Janna was already lying down when Serge approached and kissed her. The warm female scent tickled his nose and forced him to sit down beside her.

  “Your cousin knows that I’m here?”

  “She knows.”

  “And what does she say?”

  “Nothing, everything is all right, sleep easy.”

  “And you?”

  Instead of an answer, Serge embraced her and clung to her full sensual lips. They shuddered and slightly opened. From each touch, they swelled and breathed with heat, but her breath was deep and even. It seemed as if she knew that now it should happen, and waited for it, not with submissiveness, but with determined resoluteness. Serge began to shower her with kisses, enjoying her pliable, damp body. The blanket stirred, and he threw it on her legs. Janna immediately clasped his neck and pressed him to herself. Serge felt her breast rise like a wave and buried his face in the hollow between her two spheres. The smell of her sun-kissed skin made his head spin. His lips caressed the curve of her breast. They came across her firm, pointed nipple. He grabbed it with his teeth and gently pressed it. Suddenly, he heard a firm whispered, “Go, your cousin! …” Serge got up, covered her with a blanket, wished her good night, and disappeared behind a door …

  When he lay on the folding bed, he thought, “You need to love a woman very much in order to overcome such a perfect opening,” and he plunged into the dream of a righteous person.

  ***

  Several days passed. Janna was going home. They sat at the buffet at the railway station, slowly sucking down warm coffee.

  “It is only six days since we met, and it seems like an eternity has passed.” Janna’s voice sounded sad. She rotated the teaspoon in the glass, and spoke more to herself than to Serge.

  “I will leave, and you, probably, will go to the beach and get acquainted with some other girl.”

  “Possibly.” Serge grinned, trying to give the word a playful tone.

  “We’ll depart and will never meet again.”

  And this, to tell the truth, was not what Serge desired.

  “Why? You in fact often visit Moscow.”

  “No, Serge, in Moscow we will not meet.”

  “I do not understand, what can prevent us meeting?”

  “Hell knows what she was hammering into her head. Actually, if we won’t meet, then we won’t meet …” At this moment Serge thought that he was engaged in autosuggestion. He filled himself with indifference, though he was actually very melancholy that she was leaving. And this melancholy would develop in full force when the train dragged her to Kishinev. But, he would remain on the platform by himself, without her, and would slowly go out in the now deserted city because for the entire six days in Odessa there was She, who filled the whole world with herself.

  “What is the time?” Janna was obviously nervous.

  “Almost an hour until departure.”

  “Do you have any cigarettes?”

  “Yes, but smoking is not allowed here.”

  They went to the station building and sat down on a bench. Janna inhaled deeply; her look was thoughtful and serious …

  “Listen!” Suddenly, her eyes lit up. She became animated, and she began to glow from the idea that came into her mind.

  “You come with me!”

  “Did you think this through?”

  “It’s not important. You will come with me and that’s it!”

  “My things are not packed. My family will worry. Soon my parents will arrive,” reasoned Serge.

  “This is not a problem.” Janna did not give value to his words. “You will send a telegram. You will calm them down. You will spend two or three days and leave. You will see Kishinev.”

  “What does Kishinev have to do with this? What a reason …” thought Serge.

  “And your Mom, when does she arrive?”

  “Mom?” Janna rummaged in her memory. “On the third, or the fourth. She will also call on her friends. In any case, I’m going to buy a ticket.”

  “Wait, where will I go in these clothes?”

  Serge pointed at his shabby jeans.

  “And the money that I have with me—it’s only three rubles.”

  “Money, we will get there. I should receive an advance payment.”

  “But I need to take something with me,” protested Serge.

  Janna looked at the face of the clock.

  “There are thirty-five more minutes. We’ll take a taxi, we’ll be on time.”

  She jumped to her feet. Her fervor carried her away. Serge began to consider an excursion to Moldavia, but the voice of common sense kept him back. In truth, it gradually faded, being replaced by the spirit of an adventurous undertaking. Janna waited, frozen in front of him. He looked at her widely spread, straight legs, raised his eyes to her firm hips, then above—to her chest heaving from impatience. Then his eyes slipped to her long gentle neck, and for a second, stopped on her full, compressed, sharply outlined lips—and at last, met her eyes which had become greener from an internal pressure. In them, there was a mix of despair, determination, and entreaty, and the multitude of feelings were now turbulent in her heart. “Perhaps, if I was only a toy, she would not look like this. To be with this woman, even for two or three more days. Ahh, why am I sitting? Fool!” Serge imagined Janna’s empty house … and jumped from his spot. They rushed to a taxi, and in half an hour were at the station again. The train departed in four minutes. Serge held a small bag in his hands where he had put his trousers and a second shirt. In three days, he intended to return, just before the arrival of his parents. But then he did not yet know that the passion to travel would fundamentally change the rest of his life.

  ***

  The old man took a swig from a bottle of water. Then he bent and moistened his grey-haired balding head. Then, he got more comfortable on the boat’s bench and looked at the sky. The sun still was high in the sky. In a few more hours, it would bend around the earth, slowly releasing its place to darkness.

  It is strange how one moment can change your whole life. The old man thumbed through the pages of his own life, flying through the years. He suddenly remembered how he skidded on a spring road22 and the helpless car pulled directly towards a quickly moving truck. At the last second, he plowed into a snowdrift on the roadside, and the multi-ton truck swept past, the driver gesturing crazily and growling the engine. Serge was lucky to survive. He got lucky once more when a car driving in front of him suddenly made a U-turn and ran sideways into a pickup truck. The car smashed its front-end into a safety barrier, and passers-by had to pull out the blood-stained bodies of the young guys still writhing in agony. In one instant, everything grew dim. What if the pickup had not been there?

  But if Serge remained on the platform, and watched the train leave, everything would be different. How? Nobody knows how. Different, that’s all. Nevertheless, they lodged in the train car together, across from each other. The train squeaked with all its wheels and it rolled them into a life full of riddles, many of which the old man could not solve in the years that fo
llowed.

  ***

  The train was a suburban type with bench seats. There were not many passengers sitting there. At once, you could smell kielbasa, boiled eggs, fresh cucumbers and other food. To fill your stomach while on the road is a ritual action impossible to remove. Like before travel time, everybody was painfully starved.

  For Serge and Janna, though, no supplies existed, and contrary to their custom of eating, they expected a forced three-hour fast. As if to spite them, a well-fed man sitting beside them tried to fill his chubby boy with cutlets.23 The boy shook his head side-to-side like a brat, and the man, not getting upset, placed the next piece into his own mouth. Janna and Serge had no strength to observe this procedure for long, so they went to the end of the train car. Wheels were tapping out kilometers. Serge leaned against a shaking wall and smoked. Janna stood opposite. Her face was concentrated, and her brow was furrowed. She looked very adult, and to Serge communication with this woman seemed ridiculous. What forces prompted him to go with her now? Far from places he had known and held dear, and in the end, far from his favorite sea. He goes to strangers, with another stranger, in effect, a strange woman. “Who is she to me? Who is she in at all?” thought Serge, glancing at his sputnik. Janna slowly lifted her eyelashes. Her sight was tired, but not full of pity. It belonged to a woman used to exhaustion, struggling and winning. To tell the truth, at that moment, Serge did not yet understand this. He followed his natural instinct instead, not being able to separate from his object of desire. He was ruled by unsatisfied passion. He did not look any further at the impending night. How could he know that Janna already separated from him, and looked into the far future?

  They returned to their seats and asked the big man for his copy of Ogoniok.24 He gladly gave them the magazine, mainly because he did not know what to do with it. Janna found a long article about Delacroix and started to read aloud. Serge listened. But her voice hardly reached through the noise of the moving train. So as not to lose the idea, he began to read it himself, and successfully reached the end of the article, but still did not comprehend the entire plot. Janna understood it, and began to explain conscientiously to Serge that Delacroix represented a chapter of the Romantic movement in painting. Popularity came to him in 1822, when he exhibited the large painting Barque of Dante at a Parisian salon. He was the master of the color scale and influenced Renoir and Van Gogh … Serge listened, but only understood one thing: that to become infatuated with art, it is necessary to try to absorb art into yourself. To feel it, not in the mind, but in the heart. But this can’t be done on a train.

  He played along by dropping general phrases, and then dipped into vast demagogy about how your profession influences the formation of your worldview. Janna said that there are certain important things, and not to know about them is simply impossible, no matter what a person is engaged in. Serge felt reproached, became isolated, and went the rest of the way in silence. He tried to justify his ignorance somehow, but unfortunately, could not.

  ***

  Around ten o’clock in the evening the electric train brakes began to squeal in the capital of Moldavia.

  The weather was excellent. Warm evening air filled the lungs, and the smell of summer was striking the nostrils. People tumbled out of the station, dragging backpacks and suitcases with different belongings inside. The crowd was forming lines, but the approaching trolley buses cut pieces off, and carried them into the city.

  Janna certainly wished to go by taxi. But the line for a taxi was long too, and to wait for a long time could not be helped … until they noticed Valera. He stood at the front of a line. Janna, with her characteristic ability to never miss a moment, rushed towards him.

  Valera, having seen Serge, was not as glad for this meeting. But, he gave them a lift to the house, naturally at his expense with undisguised arrogance.

  “Isn’t Valera a sweetheart, even though he has some eccentricities?” Janna said when they left the car. But Serge didn’t care: Valera was uninteresting to him. Much later he learned of Valera’s untimely death from an overdose of drugs …

  Janna’s habitation25 was a small one-story house on a scrap of ground. Small fruit trees, currant bushes, and some other vegetation grew around. However, no one tended to it, and it was given over to the arbitrariness of destiny. A lop-sided gate with a rattling chain closed the entrance to the yard. From the windows of her hut, light streamed, and with the clink of the chain, an elderly woman came out. Serge understood that this was Janna’s mother. Mom had a loud, hoarse voice. She was not able to speak quietly or slowly. As soon as she saw her daughter, the garden was filled with enthusiastic exclamations. From depths of the foyer came one more character—a thin girl. She began to jump around Janna (who towered above her), trying to hang on her neck. Serge appeared to be forgotten and, remaining in the shadow of the trees, observed the greeting scene. At last, it was his turn, and he was presented as George’s cousin—the inveterate tourist who needed to get familiar with the capital of Moldavia.

  After that, Serge was forgotten again, and left to himself.

  From nowhere visitors began to arrive. They came in pairs, or alone, and soon the small room became crowded. Not to cause a commotion, Serge nested in a corner. He put an absent look on his face, but kept an interested eye on everything. By their appearance, the way they behaved, and their conversations, the people were local bohemians. They were talking about the cinema, news, theatre, who arrived where, who they met, what was new in the philharmonic society, and so many other things. Serge didn’t have the slightest clue about what they were talking about and was afraid that they would ask his opinion.

  Mother rattled saucepans in the kitchen, someone helped her, and from there fragments of phrases and laughter filled the air. This pandemonium worked unpleasantly on Serge. He had counted on silence, a wide bed, and Janna’s closeness. He felt tired, broken, and terribly hungry.

  At last, in the chaos, some organization started to loom. On the table, products of culinary art began to appear: fried eggs with bacon, cut sausage, bread, and … a decanter with vodka. Serge was not attracted to the vodka, but he could eat all the food by himself. He became gloomy that he needed to share with everyone. However, the bohemians considered eating a lot of food plebeian and Serge had an opportunity to snatch a bigger piece, but the alcohol (in the bottle there was pure, high-proof alcohol) was gloriously consumed by them.

  They also poured for Serge. The alcohol burned his mucous membranes, choked his throat, and the company became repugnant to him. He swallowed often, trying to rescue his throat, but nothing helped, and tears welled up in his eyes. To hide his indisposition, he left for the porch and lit a cigarette. A thin chatterbox ran out to him, and started to shower him with questions: “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you with Janna? What is your relationship?” Serge answered evasively. He had a devilish desire to send her to hell, but did not want to insult her. However, all this receded into the background, because as the nausea was driving up his throat, his language dried up, and his only thought was how to keep from vomiting.

  It was already late. The “high society” poured into the courtyard and intended to leave for their homes. Janna spun among them. She listened and spread compliments, and kissed everyone at parting. When the crowd was past the gate, Serge looked with disgust at the narrow-shouldered, deformed figures of the "patrons of art” and spit between his legs. Janna stood at the gate and exchanged a few last sentimental phrases. Serge switched his view to her bronze legs which had been snatched out from the darkness by a shaft of door light, and with a malicious greed wanted her. He imagined how he would sadistically seize her, but immediately dropped this idea because her mother appeared on the threshold.

  “Janna, are you smoking?” she cried out.

  “No, Mom.”

  “Watch it, do not smoke. I am going to sleep.” At last, Janna remembered about Serge and sat down on his lap.

  “Give me a cigarette.”

  “Take one.�
� Serge leaned on the warm wall of the house. Janna took a drag.

  “How do you like my friends?”

  “So-so, I didn’t get a taste.”

  “They are charming. True?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Kiss me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Kiss me, I said!” She imperiously looked at him and pouted with her lush lips.

  Serge touched them.

  “You are able to kiss better.” She tenderly leaned towards him.

  “Well kiss me; your lips are so soft.” Serge felt like some narcotic substance went to his legs, and rose up higher, into his head. He embraced her …

  “Behind the house, in the garden, there is a bed. I will go and get a mattress …” Janna whispered to his face.

  “Here it comes. She is mine. Now she does not lie, she really wants it.” It seemed to Serge, that this already happened some time ago, and that it occurs every day, and here again he would be in bed with a woman, so close and so familiar …

  Janna came out, covered by a mattress, a blanket and pillows.

  The bed was narrow, rusty, and had a sagging grid. They sat down on the edge, not daring to start for the sake of what they came here to do. Through the half-naked garden the street was visible, and shadows of passers-by occasionally flashed. Serge wearily tumbled down on the pillows and closed his eyes. He was not rushing. But weariness prevailed. Falling asleep, he felt a descending weight. The bed took the form of a hammock, and it became very uncomfortable. Serge tried to move, but the bed was too narrow. Janna seemed to be very heavy and inappropriate in the hanging space. He wanted to push her out from here and plunge into a sweet dream. But his desire from all the previous days woke up his body. Serge took off his shirt, threw off his trousers and covered himself with a thick blanket. Janna immediately pressed him to herself. She had wide hips, and she accepted him. She quietly and languidly waited, for the time when he would do what he so aspired to all these days. Serge tried to stir her, to excite reciprocal passion, but he lost control. From his throat, a hoarse groan was pulled out. The delightful wave lifted him, with a violent forceful whirlwind, immersing him in an abyss, and then rolled away leaving him, soft, exhausted, and barely trembling …