Fresh Mint with Lemon Read online

  Meanwhile, you are overtaken by a taxi that is heading for Patricia’s house; you glimpse a dash of yellow, or is it only your imagination?

  Look at the chrysanthemum … you hear inside yourself when, at exactly six thirty, you ring the bell at the main gate, and, along a path flanked by cypresses, you enter the shady garden.

  The yellow chrysanthemum!

  PHOENIX SPREADING ITS WINGS

  Shadow, an aroma of incense; the bell shapes of the flowers in the paintings displayed on the walls, red gladioli in a ceramic vase in front of the fireplace … On the sofa, a dark-featured woman was sitting, or rather lying, with a book: Radhika. Showered. Perfumed. Immediately, Vadim forgot the existence of everything and every event outside that room.

  “It’s so hot, I can’t even get up. Take whatever you want from the fridge. There’s fresh mint tea with lemon,” she whispered lazily, then stretched herself out and went on reading. As if they had met today for the first time.

  Vadim served himself a cup of the mint tea, adding a slice of lemon. Slowly, he savored the taste of the delicious drink, and, standing in the middle of the room, looked around. Among the objects that he could make out above the fireplace, one in particular caught his eye: a round piece of pottery. A piggy bank. In the form of a feminine head. Then he looked at the paintings, one by one; the shade bathed them in a halo of mystery. That one, for example, was it a daisy or an African woman with a large vase on her head? And that other one … the branch of a mulberry tree in bloom or a pair of naked slaves?

  Someone pressed against his back. He felt Radhika’s firm arms. A lazy she-cat, he thought. He smiled at her in a slightly melancholy way and sat down on the sofa.

  “Who’s there?” It was Patricia’s voice, calling from upstairs.

  “Good afternoon, Patricia, it’s me,” Vadim answered.

  “You speak to Patricia with such respect,” Radhika said, scornfully, “like she was a goddess.”

  “I’m in the temple,” Vadim said.

  “Is that you? You’re here really early, aren’t you?” Patricia shouted.

  “In a temple dedicated to whom?” Radhika asked, now without a trace of sarcasm.

  “To Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom. That’s Patricia. And …”

  “Yes? Why did you stop?”

  “And to the other Pallas Athena, the warrior. That’s you. The one who helps warriors and brave men. And women, of course!” he added, quickly.

  “I’ll be right down!” Patricia shouted from upstairs. “I’ll be right with you.”

  “Relax. Absolutely no need to hurry, honey,” Radhika said with a snicker. “She doesn’t have to hurry, does she?” She sat next to Vadim and put her hand on his knee. She looked at him dreamily.

  What a comedian! Vadim thought, although he wasn’t quite sure what kind of comedy it was.

  Radhika went on, while rubbing his knee lightly, “You’re ashamed to say it in so many words, but the goddess who helps brave people is the goddess of war.”

  “Well, it’s more …”

  “The goddess of war. Well, well. Me, a warrior. That’s certainly new.”

  Vadim thought she was a warrior most of all because of the way she conquered male hearts.

  “But yes, I like it,” said Radhika and challenged Vadim with a look to ask her what it was that she liked.

  No, Vadim corrected himself, it was nothing to do with hearts. Bodies. Radhika is a warrior because she conquers male bodies.

  As she wasn’t getting a reply from him, Radhika curled up against Vadim’s left side, without taking her hand off his leg.

  “You know what my favorite place for making war is? Guess …,” Radhika whispered.

  “In this heat, you have to have a shower ten times a day!” exclaimed a clear voice.

  Patricia. She entered the room, dressed in a short, white dressing gown; her hair was wet. She was moist all over, and her skin gave off the scent of a fruity summer perfume. She was limping and carrying a folder under her arm.

  Vadim quickly stood up so as to get rid of Radhika’s hand. He sat down at the far end of the sofa.

  “Pat, I’m the goddess of war. Did you know that?”

  “Of course you are. Can I sit next to you, Vadim? I wanted to show you what I’ve been doing these days.”

  She opened the folder. Vadim had before him a dozen drawings of couples and love triangles busy playing erotic games. The colors were clear, spring-like, in pastel tones, and the whole ensemble exuded joy and well-being. At once, Vadim remembered his failure that same afternoon. Quickly, he immersed himself in the pictures.

  “How fragile, and full of light! They look like the threads of a cobweb in a summer forest.” Vadim exclaimed, enthusiastically.

  “I don’t like them,” said Radhika, “If you’re going to have sex, it should be with reckless passion. The only thing missing here is that these little men, who seem to be on an end-of-school outing, aren’t singing ‘La Cucaracha.’”

  Vadim laughed. One of the couples was making love in the same way Radhika had tried to with him that afternoon. That afternoon? Hardly any time had gone by since then! He had the feeling that it was days ago.

  “I want to give you some homework,” Patricia looked at Vadim, “That is, if these drawings say anything to you.”

  “They’re like a dream,” Vadim said, quietly, and blushed, because he had the feeling that Patricia, who was now looking out the window, could see his amorous failure of the afternoon. His failure, and what was more, his betrayal. Yes, his betrayal of her.

  “Look, Pat, he’s ashamed!” said Radhika, triumphantly.

  Vadim was about to tell her to stop acting like a clown. But she went on:

  “Look how red he is. Maybe in Russia they don’t do it like that. Tell us all about it, Vadim!”

  “Where was I? Oh, yes. If these drawings say something to you, I would like to give you a task,” Patricia continued. She was sitting with her head bowed, and her hair, now almost dry, was falling onto the folder and covered her face.

  “I will carry it out with the greatest of pleasure, whatever it is.”

  “You write … No, don’t interrupt me, now, I know that you only write about art, but that doesn’t matter. Look: I’d like you to think up some titles to accompany these drawings. They should be poetic, and at the same time they should express the action you see in each picture. And, if possible, a little verse to go with each drawing. The other day I heard you improvising.”

  “When I recited that haiku?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll find you some haikus to accompany the drawings.”

  He spoke in Russian. Seriously, with interest. He felt more relaxed when Radhika was reading, sunk into an armchair, as she was now. What was she reading, in fact? On the cover of the book he managed to make out the author and the title: György Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. The little girl likes playing with guns, he thought, smiling; he told himself that later he should take a look at that book. History and class consciousness he repeated to himself and felt a weight in his stomach. He remembered his father, his grandfather, and the dozens of years when, at school, they were force-fed this kind of concept.

  “Would you like to try?” Patricia asked quietly.

  Vadim knew that Patricia had seen the expression of nausea that had appeared on his face, but also that the painter would never have connected his discomfort with the title or the subject matter of Radhika’s book. In her eyes, no doubt, that title, that book, was not only something completely innocent, but also correct and good. For him, the words “class consciousness” evoked prison, forced labor, ruined lives. Injustice and horror. The same words that horrified Vadim and his fellow countrymen filled those who had been born in the West with a sense of dignity and justice.

  Vadim forced himself to concentrate on the drawings Patricia was holding out to him.

  “The first title, the one that might go with this acrobatic position, could b
e: Phoenix Spreading Its Wings. You meant titles like that?”

  “Phoenix Spreading Its Wings? Beautiful. It would never have occurred to me. It’s poetic and descriptive at the same time. Perfect!”

  “And this drawing? Let’s see … The Flight of the Dragon. Do you like it?”

  Patricia nodded in silence. She crouched over the drawings as if she couldn’t quite see them properly.

  “And this one?” she asked in a faint voice.

  “Let’s call it … Tiger on the Lookout. Yes. OK. And I love this drawing, the woman is sitting on the mat as if she can’t see the man in front of her, because she is busy looking at the autumn wood through the window. We could call it Deer Testing the Ground with its Horns.”

  “Who’s the deer?”

  “The man. What do you think?”

  “Splendid. I think it’s splendid.”

  Her hair trailed over the ceramic tiles on the floor; Vadim couldn’t see her face.

  “And this one?” she said in a muffled voice.

  “Wait … Now: Feeding the Fish.”

  She stared at it: the whites of her eyes were yellow, her eyes were moist.

  She was smiling like an athlete who has just finished an obstacle course.

  She breathed out, relieved. “I don’t suppose you could come up with a haiku that would go with one of the drawings, or even all of them? That way we would have the poetry of pictorial and verbal expression together.”

  Patricia seemed to have returned to her normal self … almost. Once again she was (or was playing the role of) the artist who spoke to Vadim only because he had let her know that he needed her. Professionally. Staying calm, always, in any situation, is an art, Vadim thought, admiringly. And then, he immediately qualified the thought: staying calm is the art of the great masters.

  “Hmm, what you want is a haiku to go with each drawing. Hmm … We could adorn the drawing of the deer horns with these verses:

  In the wood,

  at midnight,

  a plaintive moan.

  Deer

  in heat.

  Patricia applauded. Radhika looked at them like a math teacher about to lose her patience. Or, rather, like a teacher of Marxism, Vadim thought, smiling sadly; yes, that bored, severe, and elevated manner was exactly the one adopted by his teachers of Marxist-Leninism when he was a boy. He looked over at the piggy bank above the fireplace. It must be the work of a village craftsman, it’s obviously hand-made, he thought. This object calmed him down. His irritation disappeared.

  Patricia looked at him with moist eyes. But she immediately lowered them and hid them under her hair. Nonetheless, he kept on seeing them: they floated around the room, they sat on the red gladioli pushed into the vase, they flew up to the ceiling, up to the cobweb in the corner, they watched the spider and its victim, and then floated around the room, listlessly, before finally returning to their place amid her black lashes.

  “I’ll show you my pictures, you still haven’t been to my studio,” Patricia said. “It’s a pity you can’t see the ones my dealer has in Chicago.”

  “I don’t need to see them. I can see you.”

  “What did you say?”

  She blinked like a little girl who has just been given some skates and realizes she doesn’t know how to use them.

  Vadim fell silent, unable to believe how daring he’d been. And, with his silence, what he had just said was confirmed in a way that was far more intense than if he had used words.

  Patricia knew he wasn’t flirting. It was a little truth that formed part of another one, a larger one, that was hiding deep inside this man.

  Radhika raised her eyes from her book and took off her glasses.

  “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous, and futile, Pat, to go drawing these absurd things that nobody needs. Don’t you remember Warhol’s phrase ‘sex is so nothing’?”

  Now Vadim looked at her, not understanding a thing. Once again, that same phrase. And it was her, of all people, who quoted it?

  Radhika went on, ignoring his perplexity.

  “Why don’t you paint the malaise of the world, all the unforgivable things that happen in it? Why don’t you encourage people to rebel? I happen to be reading about that just now. György Lukács, who you also hold in high esteem, says: ‘Comrade Lenin emphasizes how the objective development of the revolution must press on the insurrection (war, starvation, the peasant movement, the wavering of the upper classes, the revolutionary development of the proletariat), in order for the insurrection to be successful, and how this development affects the attitude of the working class.’”

  “The goddess of war!” Vadim said, laughing so as to rid himself of the growing sense of oppression he felt in his stomach.

  “Yes, I want war. War for justice!” Radhika preached, in a voice that was even more nasal and drawn out than usual. “In your country you’ve already had social justice,” she looked at Vadim, “Now it’s our turn to think about the downtrodden.”

  “Social justice …” Vadim had thought that Radhika was avenging herself for his failure in the afternoon. But no. She looked at him unblinkingly, with a firm, convinced stare. The veins stood out on Vadim’s temples. “Don’t make me talk about all the deaths in the gulag, or about the executions. Let’s take an example from everyday life: can you imagine that, for months on end, there was no fruit in the market stalls?”

  Vadim talked excitedly, unable to stop himself, although he sensed that his anger was stopping him from thinking things out logically so that he could explain to these two women, in a coherent fashion, the cause of his indignation. He hoped, nonetheless, that a few furious shouts might have the same effect, or a greater one, than some well-constructed sentences. He went on, “And that happened when the trees in the countryside were full of fruit that was falling and rotting on the ground because no one was picking it. Do you know what it is like to be a mother, when your children need fruit and vegetables to grow, and you stand on line for two hours at the grocer’s and when your turn comes, wham!, the handful of rotten apples crawling with maggots have run out? Can you imagine that? And having to go back home, to the children, empty-handed?”

  “If it was the same for everyone, then it’s OK,” Radhika said, calmly, sure of herself. “Yes, I think that would be absolutely OK,” she repeated and then, with the kind of interest a psychologist might show, she looked at the veins standing out on Vadim’s temples, and his red face. She smiled, amused. Vadim needed to leave. He couldn’t breathe.

  Patricia, who before had looked like a scared little girl facing a teacher of political correctness, now appeared not be listening to her. She said, in a very quiet voice, in her Russian full of long vowels, drawn out much more than was normal:

  “If you want, I’ll show you my studio …”

  Radhika jumped up. Vadim imagined that this was how a tiger must look when they open the door of its cage. The Indian tiger. The Indian tigress. The clip that had kept her hair down on the back of her neck had fallen off and her hair, thick and prickly, spread around, caressing her body down to the waist. She was splendid. Now she was standing between the two of them, ready to leap again, if necessary.

  “I’d better go, it’s late, it’s starting to get dark,” Vadim said. His anger was fading away.

  “Don’t forget the drawings, so you can think about the titles and the verses,” Patricia whispered, with lowered eyelids. The beautiful, brand new roller skates have been taken from the little girl; only the empty box is left.

  “The originals?” Vadim asked, also in a low voice. “No, I might damage them. They’re engraved in my memory.”

  He got up slowly.

  “I’ll make some quick sketches of them, wait.” Patricia was already running upstairs.

  Radhika sat back in the armchair with a book in her hand. Then she opened the lid of her laptop, went online, and set about looking for something. Timidly, with a furtive gesture, Vadim caressed her hair. She didn’t show signs of having noticed. Or
rather … in fact, she did. Yes, there was a reaction. Her arm muscles relaxed. The prickly hair smoothed itself out obediently, following the shape of her head and neck. Radhika slid back into the armchair, like a fish that stops leaping from one wave to another and sinks comfortably into the sea.

  Vadim didn’t want to come between the two women. He was afraid they would stop inviting him to this house. And, what’s more … now he looked at Radhika not with anger but with tenderness, as if he felt compassion. He caressed her bare shoulders, her arms. She stretched out in pleasure, like a cat. Vadim passed his fingers over her face, her neck … She leaned her head back, closing her eyes. Vadim’s palm slid into her deep cleavage.

  Bang-bang-bang! Patricia was coming down the wooden staircase. Vadim was obliged to pull himself together. What am I doing! he thought, alarmed, as he recoiled his hand as if he’d been touching a snake. It must be the heat. August, it’s August’s fault, he repeated to himself.

  “Here is everything, a sketch for each of the drawings!” said Patricia, laughing, with her sketchbook in her hand, but her laughter immediately faded. She must have sensed something was floating in the air. Radhika, her eyes closed, languid, lay in the armchair and was breathing deeply.

  “Have a rest, Radhi. I’ll walk Vadim to the door.”

  Radhika opened her eyes, fast, but, as if she’d promised them she’d leave them in peace, she closed her eyelids again. The two of them went out by the door.

  Once in the garden, Patricia watched Vadim’s face carefully. Apparently, she was satisfied with what she saw.

  “You know, with Radhika …,” she said with a sigh and looked at a few leaves that had fallen onto the lawn, “Radhika … how can I explain this? She has an unstable personality. She seems to go through life with extreme intensity. Deep down, I think she suffers a lot. Do you mind me talking to you about her like this?”