Front Matter - Part 04

I even feared his furious footsteps on the stairs, when they clattered on the concrete, and his loud banging of the doors. Every time he came into the house he immediately looked for a reason to fight. And if he found nothing else, he would drag his finger along the furniture, hoping to find traces of dust on it, so that he could then shove it under my nose, or a book that was out of place so that he could throw it out the window.

To whom should I have gone to complain, to cry? My son was too small to protect me... Should I have gone to my sad mother...? To make her suffer even more like I was suffering in those bitter days of my life...? Or... should I have gone to my father, who would have

been more than happy to see his little girl find enough strength and determination to break with all those fake, petty-bourgeois things that blinded her to him, that made her stay in this terrible situation which she chose for herself... Father, I know that only in this way would I be worthy of you. I know your little daughter let you down. Perhaps, father, you would forgive me when you realize that I am making these sacrifices for my child, like you always did for me, even more, and most of all on that terrible day when you came to my rescue, when... you remember, when he came to see you, you remember during that cynical visit of his when you victoriously uttered those wonderful strong words, standing up to him... Yes, father, when you showed me that you were more than a father, that you were my father... my great father!

Swimming in this murky vortex was difficult for me but I hung on, I didn’t relax, not even for a moment, because I knew very well that if I did I would drown.

We moved and lived at my aunt’s place. His mother got married, sold the apartment and went to live with her new husband in a smaller town, renting a separate small ground floor house with a large garden. We maintained relations with her, although rare. Sometimes she came to visit us at our place, just to see the children, or to take them and look after them for a few days.

Our relationship had not changed in any way. He didn’t mind insulting me even in front of my aunt, making fun of me, and even more so when she went to sleep.

If he didn’t find a specific reason, he would go back far into the past, dig something out and torment me with it... He did this most often when he wasn’t on duty at the hospital, usually at night, when the children were asleep.

One night he did everything possible. It was like he intended to reach a peak in our already quite long, turbulent relationship.

My upbringing, the upbringing my parents had given me, was again on the agenda. In his interpretation, it was a bourgeois and spineless

upbringing mostly because they allegedly forced me to live in some kind of fictional world, and didn’t teach me what real life was like.

Was he talking about my “real life or his...?” What was his real life like? He learned what life was like from his parents before they divorced. Unfortunately they did divorce. So, what was his real life like after that? I remembered what “real life” was for my school friends a long time ago…

The real beautiful life, the one that was filled with beautiful colour tones and with joy, love, tenderness and humanity, was actually unknown to him. It was inaccessible to him, but I recognized it wasn’t entirely his fault. Unfortunately this kind of life was completely unknown to him. They took that wonderful world away from him during his childhood and made it impossible for him to know any better... They punished him terribly, perhaps even unaware that they were doing so…!

Then, that same evening, he started talking about my past. He used big words with offensive meanings. He wanted to distort things, to dirty things... He was talking about my past... a girl’s past... It was funny that he was unaware that he was taking a path strewn with crystals... stars... What was impure in him were the tears that rolled down his cheeks for a girl who he allegedly loved?

And again he wanted to go further and further, to defile me again so he again mentioned “that thing” like it wasn’t the first time, and not with him... and that it had happened before him... before him...

He shouldn’t have touched that... it was insulting... Why was he going there, at least that was where he belonged? Even more so because he came later and clouded it all, he tainted it. Everything... everything would be much better if there weren’t people like him...

I heard myself say:

“You should be ashamed of yourself for meddling in such things. You know very well how things were!

“I don’t know, I will never know... And actually... I don’t care,” he laughed ironically.

Then I spoke a few sharp words in revolt, defending that purity and chastity of the girl before his touch... defending the blue and red poppies.

Losing control over himself he continued to insult me with his insolent words. He increasingly provoked me to tell him some truth that he wanted to hear. He wanted me to tell him how unworthy I was and that I’d done nothing in my life. But instead I told him that he’d robbed me of my happiness... he had lied to me... and that there was no love in my life... No tenderness... and then I yelled out loud “Where are you love…?”

I shouted it all with fanatical determination, demanding that he be what he had never been, and what he could not be... he could not be...

In a terrible fury he started coming towards me to strike me... but he immediately moved away and, opening the outer door, quickly went out.

In a sort of calmness of body and spirit, it became undeniably clear to me that these were really large spaces that separated us, tearing apart our worlds, mine and his, like two terribly different essences...

I wanted to leave and go to my parents immediately... I was sure they would take me in. But at this time of night...?! No... I wouldn’t go...! I wanted to be that your daughter of theirs again and be happy. But now? All I did now was inflict more pain on them.

I wouldl look for and perhaps find a better way for me and my children to live. Going to my parents like this would be too much for them to handle...

I heard his footsteps. I knew he would be back soon. He was coming. I had tried leaving before and as I knew from experience, I was incapable of leaving him or going anywhere.

I decided to go and see if my son and daughter were sleeping. They were sleeping peacefully so I decided to lie down next to them.

The only thing that could have helped keep us together was my complete withdrawal into myself, into my world, and his more and more frequent escapes to the hospital, in general, and for him to stay out of our house... Maybe that was the only possibility for us to stay together...

...God, it was dawn! I was stiff from sitting in my armchair. This armchair was one of my white knights, upon which I used to sit and read or rummage through my books like an old man… He hadn’t come back home. Maybe he was on duty at the hospital. He didn’t even find it necessary to tell me that he was going to spend the night away from home. When I got up, I noticed that my aunt was sleeping in her armchair... as was her habit when he didn’t come home.

* * *

Why was I startled by the sight of those green eyes, on the balcony of the new building nearby, across the street, which was being populated with tenants in those few days? I would have turned away if in them, in those eyes, there wasn’t something long forgotten, innocent... pure blue.

Then I noticed that I was blushing, although I knew that no one but me and him could notice this meeting of our eyes. I tried not to look at him... I was even mad at myself for not closing my eyes... But, as it turned out, his eyes didn’t want to leave mine and mine didn’t want to leave his.

However, I did find the strength to look away and get inside the house but soon realized that this was only temporary. I knew I would be back outside sooner than I thought. I was anxious to see him again. My superficial reason for going outside would be to do some job like sweep the balcony or water the flowers, etc.

I went outside and began to look for him... for those bright eyes.

Much later, on the second or perhaps on the third day, I noticed that he was a large, tall man with black hair and with perfectly matched locks that fell down to one side, almost down to his wide, black eyebrows.

I found out that I couldn’t resist looking at him. He was right there in arm’s reach but I had no idea who he was. He was close… I couldn’t resist the bluish glow in his eyes, those twinkling and unattainable caressing eyes... eyes that are sought and found to fall in love... that would surely fall in love.

I couldn’t control myself. Everything in me was buzzing... At first I discovered and was surprised by how much I’d neglected my whole appearance, how my hair looked and how I was dressed.

I walked briskly around the house. Nothing was difficult for me anymore. I was excited by the knowledge that at any moment, just when I raised my hand and stepped over to the balcony, or just to the window, I would see him... Him... he would see me. Immediately, even before I showed myself, he would know that I was there... And at the same moment his face would break into a beautiful quiet smile, just for me... Me. There would be a magical gleam in his eyes... because of me.

I didn’t know what expression I had on my face when I looked at him but I felt a perfect trembling which, I was convinced, had never been more pleasant.

The feeling, the knowledge that someone had noticed me, separated me from others, that it made him happy to see me, and that he was able to stay on the balcony for hours and hours, just to see me… just for a moment, gave me wings… It was returning me to life.

I had a feeling that everything was returning to me again, my self worth, my qualities... of course. He was indirectly reflecting them to me through him.

Because he had singled me out, he appropriated me as some kind of special value. The following days he kept up the usual expression on his face, so as not to betray his feelings for me. It seemed to me that

my joy, my happiness too, despite all my efforts to hide them, burst forth from every part of my being. It was a salutary circumstance that my husband was absent from the house almost around the clock, and even the little time he stayed home he didn’t devote to me.

I found myself becoming passive to everything my husband said; insulted me... ridiculed me, belittled me.

Could that be important now, when warmth slowly but surely penetrated into my life, which really came to me from far away, but so close, so mine?

The best times were our “dates” during the nights when my husband was on duty at the hospital.

When the moon traveled behind the poplars, according to its old habits, passing first by one then by another, with a trembling glow as it passed by the branches.

He, the man I didn’t know, would turn off the lights in his apartment and stand on the balcony in the moonlight, tall, beautiful, like he was sculpted in a dream... unattainable... With his face turned towards me, with a wondrous gleam in his eyes, I felt he belonged to me. I sensed it in his silence, in his stillness due to my presence. It was like he was afraid to disturb something in such a fantastic unreal dream world.

That night, that glow... that moon between the tall dark poplars… there was only he and I, in that silent silence and the endless eloquent beauty.

This went on for hours and hours... until it reached exhaustion...

Then I would go inside the house, with a definite decision not to go out again, to lie down, to sleep... But then I would again go out... to see if he was still there. And when he really was, with that expression on his face, which only I and he understood, I would want to tell him, I would want to ask him to go to sleep.

Then, in my room, for a long time in the darkness, I would imagine the expression on his face, remember his eyes, lips... his stature, appearance… so close to me.

This went on for quite a long time.

Sometimes I would be startled when my husband randomly and inquisitively looked at me. When he did that I would immediately make myself look busy doing something to avoid him. As soon as he left the house, I would feel free like a bird and would fly quickly to look for his gaze, which in some sense became a necessary thing for me, an integral part of my life. In those moments I would feel like I was alive again.

Everyone was sleeping again. Again, my husband was on duty all night at the hospital. My aunt was asleep long ago. The night was so quiet that indeed everyone was content, both the moon and the stars... and the crickets and the flowers in the field...

I felt something special in our eyes meeting that evening... Some invisible force pulled us inexorably towards each other. The muscles of my face trembled... all of me trembled... I knew, and him, and all of him.

I stopped thinking about the things that worried me; that someone might notice us looking at each other, perhaps one of our neighbours. I felt like the earth and this beautiful night existed only for the two of us, because of the beauty that came from heart to heart... along with some invisible threads, incomprehensible even to us.

Suddenly he decisively and quickly went back into his apartment. Immediately I knew that he would be heading down the stairs, down the street towards my house, towards me...

I was convinced that that was exactly what he was going to do. I couldn’t wait. I even felt my hands extending to him in anticipation, as well as my lips... and all of me.

I was trembling terribly... uncontrollably... what was happening felt unreal like it was taking place in a fictional world, it was inevitable… fate...

I had unlocked the door and heard his quick steps, like the beats of my heart... I didn’t even remember who opened the door, me or him. I remembered every detail after that... the beauty of his determined strong and loving arms. They were extended towards me and ready for a long, tender and warm hug. Then I began to doubt if this was even possible or real.

I wasn’t standing on my own two feet. He’d carried me away... I was carried away by the warmth and wonderful thrill of his kiss. I had forgotten that the touch of lips, loving lips, could be so beautiful.

We looked like a couple of love-crazed apparitions, lost in a tender, barely real embrace.

I don’t know how he’d found the strength to tell me.

“I couldn’t wait any longer...” he whispered, and I, not listening to the meaning of his words, enjoyed the tone, the color of his voice, sounding like someone whom I’d known so long ago, who was very dear to me. What would this bring into my life next?

What was it that made me trust this man so quickly, to feel him being so close to me? Well, I almost didn’t know it! But it was his eyes… the expression in them… his facial expression. All these things interested me and mine interested him. Because of some unprecedented intuition, subconscious for me and probably for him too, some invisible flow of kinship from one to the other... the sameness attracted me to him and him to me.

This unattainably pure first touch didn’t push me away but fatally possessed me, forever.

He told me his first and last name and what he did for a living and where to find him, and then he left... For an instant I had the feeling that he would disappear.

And then I cried and laughed with joy, with foolishness, with happiness, with beauty.

It was like I was coming back to life again. And I don’t think it was because of the possibility that I was going to date him. But because I knew he existed, that he loved me, that I loved him and that was enough to help me overcome everything else.

I didn’t hear his steps when he left. I didn’t see him passing in front of my house. I lay in the dark with his embrace on my body, the warmth of the kiss on our lips. He existed, he was real, he wasn’t a dream!

I was amazed that I didn’t feel guilty, not even for a single moment. Like it was something that was expected to happen and that it was completely natural, and that it couldn’t be any different; I couldn’t act any differently.

That night I wanted to wake up my aunt, or find someone to whom I could tell how it was... how much... everything. I wanted to talk out loud to someone, even to myself, or at least to the darkness... which was the only witness to this spark in our eyes.

During our next meeting he told me that he was an engineer working on a hydroelectric plant project. With what enthusiasm, love, he spoke to me about his work! Every word of his radiated something human, something warm, something rich, which made you want to be better than you’ve ever been. There was something Slavic, broad and joyful in him. All that, and much more, we discovered in each other every time we met. It made my life completely different, something very different from what it had been before, full, meaningful.

Then began our struggle with the real cold world and its public morality and the only way to avoid its sharp teeth was to hide.

That didn’t weigh too much on me. I might have been in a constantly tense state but I wasn’t afraid of anything.

Our bond encompassed us more and more. We were in love. We began to realize that our worlds, our lives were coming together and growing. That is, it wasn’t a merger but a perfect identity.

One time when we met he asked me about my studies and scolded me for not pursuing them, for having stopped taking exams, for having given up on finishing college. After that conversation I was worried and at the same time was happy - he believed in me, in my abilities, possibilities! And even more than that – he soon asked me to take courses and set deadlines for me to finish my assignments! Would I be able to do it now, after so many years…?

My husband was very surprised when he noticed that I was studying almost every day and, even more, that I was taking college classes. Would I be nervous when I took my first exam? Would I pass, for his sake, for the sake of my beloved, for my own sake, and also to prove to my husband, who for so many years persistently and cynically made fun of me, that I was capable?

My first success set me free, it pulled me forward and I no longer felt anxious in connection with my learning. My husband had no idea that I was doing this, not for me, not for him but for the man I loved. I was now able to completely ignore my husband and not feel his existence in my life, even though he was there right next to me, like some kind of mechanical inevitable presence, determined by law.

While talking to my beloved about theater, opera and the arts, I discovered, with bitterness, that I was completely out of touch with that world, which once was my way of life. Also, I hadn’t read any of the new books because I was so immersed in that narrow, too narrow world, that he, my husband, had built for me.

My loved one often spoke about the plays he’d seen, about the operas he’d heard both here in our city and in other larger cities where he went on business. He also told me about the various wonderful films he’d seen and the feelings they unleashed in him, both joyful and sad, which I had once loved so much. And each time we met I admired him even more, with my eyes and heart, and he

began to take the shape of the image of the ideal man I had created in my soul.

He wasn’t just telling me his stories and expecting me to passively listen to them like an immature person. He always pulled me into the conversation and asked me for my opinion. He sought confirmation and verification of his understanding of things from me. He was often delighted with my reasoning... he would excitedly draw me near him, the real me, and I knew that we were together as one...

I was also proud of him, especially when he spoke about the people at work, about himself, about his place in that busy world of his. I dreamed, no, I longed for such a place, working on my own, outside these four walls, and for which I’d already fought by taking exams at the college.

I felt like I had been raised from the dead.

However, with each passing day it became clearer to me that I had really made a fatal mistake in my choice to marry and condemn myself to an imitation of life, and not to real living. Maybe because of that, my attraction to this man I love and my connection to him was the result of my bitter realization that it wouldn’t be easy for me to change things; because of that fact I would only occasionally rise above the torrent, to which I had surrendered myself, but I would never completely free myself from it.

The more serious and deeper our love became, the more we feared for it, we protected it from even the smallest dangers.

Seeing each other from a distance was still necessary for us because we didn’t have favourable conditions for close contact. Although I knew that he often stayed away from me out of caution it was still difficult for me if I didn’t see him for a long time. I would often wonder where he was, and why he was gone! I was afraid even of the slightest possibility that he’d met, found another girl, younger and unattached, without any annoying problems like mine, and had fallen in love with her... Well, he wasn’t married after all... He had the right to do that...

He had mentioned to me once that he’d had some kind of relationship from before, with a student, but that it was something that wasn’t based on feelings... love... Because I had never seen that girl, nor did he go anywhere after he came back from work, I had almost forgotten what he’d told me. Now he belonged to me both day and night ... With his whole being. He was always there for me and me for him.

Our greatest mastery was our ability to avoid the curious looks of our neighbours, to deceive them. But many times we didn’t exercise maximum caution.

The hardest times for both of us were when my husband was at home. Sometimes, but not too often, I would sneak up to the balcony or to the window to look for him, risking being found out by my husband. My God, I would make up any excuse to go to the balcony or I would simply open the window to let fresh air into the room and stand there so he could see me and I could get a quick glance of him. My husband always had a sarcastic remark looking at me hanging by the window in my pajamas where our neighbours could see me. But I expected that from him. I didn’t allow his frequent mockery to affect me.

My husband and I rarely went out together. Maybe he was doing it on purpose to tell me that he didn’t think I was not good enough for him, or maybe because he was too busy at work. I don’t even know if he had any company, except for his godfathers and a doctor with whom he’d studied together.

One evening, however, looking like he was honouring me, he took me to our godfather’s son’s party.

I dressed nicely and so much wanted my lover to see me when I was leaving the house. I believed that he’d already seen me through our open living room window and based on how fast I was rushing, he expected me to be outside soon.

We went out. I let my husband take a step in front of me so I could raise my head and look up at him. He stood discreetly at the window. He looked sad. I had never seen him so sad before.

I didn’t have the courage to turn around but I was aware that he was looking at my half-turned face and knew that it was turned towards him and him alone.

It was a pleasant birthday party. A lot of people had come to our godparents’ place and I got a chance to talk with many of them. And because I didn’t want people to pry into my life I tried to be well groomed and to give the impression that I was a completely satisfied woman.

We were returning home. He was silent. I always considered his silence a consequence of something he’d noticed in me, or invented to have noticed.

I looked at his balcony from afar hoping to see him even though I knew it was too late in the night and he would have gone to sleep long ago. He was probably tired of waiting for the many hours I was away. But I was sure he waited a long time.

Then I noticed his silhouette on the balcony in semi-darkness but I thought I was really seeing things, precisely because many times I had seen him waiting for me, longing for me, when he wasn’t there.

But this time he really was there and I made sure to let him know that I’d seen him. I raised my face up to the light and made a facial expression and a small movement, the kind that he would immediately recognize. I saw him react... and I knew that he was happy because of that. Infinitely happy, as if we were on a date... in love... well, it was our biggest date.

...How could I not go out on the balcony, or peek out of the window, after my husband and I returned, entered the house and turned on the light, when I knew that he’d been waiting for me for so long, so much just to see me pass by the house, though together with my husband.

I wanted to go out on the balcony, even though it was so late in the night and my husband might make some sharp remark, or something more, suspect me of being up to something.

However, after getting dressed in a hurry, I took my husband’s suit and a brush and quickly went out onto the balcony to brush it so that I could immediately put it away.

“Was that necessary now?” I heard his impatient voice coming from our room.

I didn’t care what he said because I wanted to see my man, the one I loved, he was the only one who mattered to me. I wanted to let him know... Well, I couldn’t possibly fall asleep without telling him that I was there... at his place... with him...

After hearing my husband’s remark, like I’d heard it in a dream, I thoughtfully replied:

“Okay, if you don’t mind, I’ll do it tomorrow, I thought I’d put it away now.” I went in and closed the door. My husband was pleased.

Days and nights followed, more beautiful and more painful.

I will never forget that one terribly tense and risky night. It was similar to every other night, yet maybe not quite...

That night I ran over everything that was considered to be the established order of life... Everything that was “moral”, and even determined by the right written in the laws.

I was alone in the house. Their grandmother had taken the children to her place. My aunt was long asleep. And my husband called and told us that he would stay in the hospital until the morning.

With a few words, I told my beloved about all that when I briefly met him on his way home from work.

I watched the lights squint away across the city for a long time.

I stood hidden behind our bedroom window curtain, and he on the other side, lonely and attracted to me more than ever.

He was calling me with his whole being, with everything that only we two understood... everything was pulling me to him... I was floating in that space between him and me, so close, yet so far...

I was in tears because I wanted to run to him but felt I shouldn’t. I had to restrain myself. Doing that would be terribly dangerous... And what if something changed and my husband came home?

It was getting close to midnight. My brain was boiling...

I suddenly realized... My common sense was being defeated… My emotions were stronger and winning. I loved him... him... was there a greater imperative in life, a stronger truth – I loved him... I couldn’t think of anything but that.

I waited for the lights in all the neighbouring windows to go out. I had to go there... I could feel him calling me... love was calling me...

I walked very quietly, first down our stairs to the street and then like a ballerina tiptoeing and disembodied, barely touching the ground, truly floating like a ghost, I quickly ran across the space that connected my building to his.

My beloved carried me into his house with his strong but gentle arms. I could feel the thousand tones of different vibrations in his touch. These were tremors known only to love. Every part of my body existed only for his trembling hands and quivering lips. He could express his love only with them and with his infinitely deep, tender and warm eyes... My soul couldn’t ask for a greater means than his eyes to express his feelings.

His face overflowed with infinite gentleness, his eyes turned bluish... completely blue and his lips were filled with infinite desire...

There were no real touches... they were my love breathing on me, through his lips in my hair, on my face, eyes, lips...

Then he asked me to put my hand under his head and hold him like a child, a big child and stroke his hair to put him to sleep... and slowly

go away, so that he didn’t hear, didn’t see me leaving. This way I left him with the impression that I was always there with him... and that I was his...

When I left to go home it was already deep into the night but I wasn’t in a hurry. I felt dull and indifferent. I wasn’t worried at all about what might happen if my husband had come home

There are those moments in life which are so infinitely perfect and so full of meaning that you want to stay in them, to continue to experience them, without any care as to what would happen next, it didn’t matter at all what the consequences were, you just didn’t want them to disappear.

I opened the door quietly so as not to wake my aunt. I saw that he, my husband wasn’t there. Maybe it would have been better if he had been there. Then I would have told him once and for all that I couldn’t live like this anymore... living a fake life... and that I’d had enough of his imposition and bullying. I would have told him the truth that I was in love with another man, which at this moment I really couldn’t hide. I would have said for once, let’s look at things realistically, without this established, long-standing hypocrisy.

Maybe my husband was gone for good. It might be better for the sake of the children... I would never disturb their carefree childhood, perhaps mostly because of my own beautiful childhood, which I carried in my soul.

I slept in a kind of stupor that night, half asleep.

My aunt had planned to rent out the one room, which had a separate entrance, because it really wasn’t used. We placed an advertisement in the newspaper.

The idea of my boyfriend coming to live in our apartment, in my aunt’s apartment, scared me. He was a tenant where he lived.

How could I resist, but also how could I agree? Such a decision entailed great responsibility for both him and me. And how could I

miss the only opportunity to be by him, side by side every day... to rejoice and suffer endlessly.

One day, holding a newspaper clipping in his hand, he rang our doorbell.

I went out to open it. My husband was sitting in the hall reading a newspaper.

“Please forgive me,” he said, “I’m looking for the lady of the house...” and named her by first and last name. It was my aunt. He then said, “I’m here in connection with the advertisement for an apartment.”

“Come in,” I said, fearing even the slightest tremor in my voice, and led him into my aunt’s room.

I closed the door and, struggling to remain perfectly calm, entered the children’s room. I found them dragging the kitten on the floor, one by the ear, the other by the leg. I scolded them both.

They both looked at me with a serious look and immediately let the kitten go. Then I listened intently to hear when he was leaving.

My heart was pounding when I heard my aunt introduce him to my husband in the hall and said:

“This gentleman here will be moving in with us, in the apartment. I’m renting him the empty room.”

My husband dryly told him our last name and gave him a conventional “welcome”. I also knew that my husband would never bother to talk to him and would expect him to address him as “Sir” when he spoke. My husband took special pleasure in keeping people at a distance, certainly to emphasize his special value.

That was the least of my worries at this point. So, an even more beautiful and even more difficult part of my life would begin when he moved in. I had the feeling that we were like bullfighters entering the arena aware of the possibility of being gored to death, yet not

retreating because of the perfect attraction we had in the game of life and death.

Life, why do you torment me so much…? Do you have to, so mercilessly, show me the clearly different nature of these two lives of mine, impossibly different, yet both necessary and both existing?

I knew that for me, and even more so for my beloved, that all this would be just one great daily torment. We’d taken serious steps and put our lives in jeopardy.

It would be a conventional good morning... or good morning my... dear, and everything in it, and tenderness and warmth – these were the two possibilities from today on for both of us depending on the situation.

A quick silent hug, full of risk and danger... or a long caress... short-lived and endless...

Music was playing in the hallway, the kind he wanted to hear and he was listening to it through the half-open door, knowing I had picked it out for him... I wore a dress that he liked… The flowers in his room... red flowers... were just for him...

* * *

...I saw her for the first time here, in this apartment, shortly after he moved in. The first time she came to visit him she was quite reserved and serious. She greeted everyone timidly. Then she quickly left.

I asked him, “What’s with you and her? Is there room for her here, between you and me?”

“She doesn’t have a place to stay,” he replied. “Look at it like this… it’s something completely insignificant.”

And so I did...

And then I wondered why I’d said that to him? Why had I allowed myself to do that...?

...At the same time I questioned myself and wondered how bitter he must have felt sleeping next door to me and my husband sleeping together... And yet he loved me endlessly... Not once did he show resentment... Why did I object to that, almost innocent visit, which for him, as far as I could understand, was some kind of obligation from before.

But no... I couldn’t bring myself together... he wasn’t tied to her like I was tied to him... However, was engagement something that was established by right?...

The next time she came over to see him she stayed overnight and slept here. I slept in the same room as her, at my request, so that she wouldn’t sleep in his room. I barely got over that. But even then, right after he left, I didn’t love him any less. When he returned he was mine again, the very moment he held out his hands to me, after he took her to the train station. After that life returned to normal once again... How could I possibly continue to exist without his hands, lips, eyes…?

* * *

We were sitting in the hallway, me, him and my aunt. He treated us with chocolates because he’d won a prize in a library project competition. I knew all the details of the project, both when he’d started working on it and when he’d finished it. The two of us were eagerly waiting for the result of the competition. I was very happy that he’d won.

Someone rang the doorbell. My aunt and I were having a conversation. He went to open it.

She came in slowly and quietly. She greeted us kindly and immediately headed for his room. He obediently followed her, quite confused.

It was evening. My aunt stayed with me a bit longer and then went to her room. Where was I going to go?

My dear, maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible if the door to your room wasn’t left half open and I wasn’t sitting in the hallway next to the radio playing sad music.

First, my dear, you know, I was only happy to watch your reflection on it, on the glass of the radio with the names of the capitals written on it. I watched you on it... I knew you were there somewhere, beside me, even though she was with you... I was happy to watch you! I witnessed the moment when she held out her hands to you gently, eager for you. First she caressed your hair, your face then she drew you to her. You stood motionless for a while, seeming like you were struggling with yourself. Then you kissed her, stroked her hair...

I watched you both in that, to me, horrible, caressing. I followed every little change in your facial expression, the movement of your hands, your lips...

Why didn’t I get out of there right away, dear, why didn’t I get up and leave... run away...

No... I couldn’t, I couldn’t, dear. I stayed, knowingly, deliberately running into the knives that were thrusting deep into my heart... and I went and went at them more and more, deeper and deeper, until I completely bled out...