Fresh Mint with Lemon Read online

“No, Patricia, go on.”

  “More than once, she’s tried to kill herself. After the last attempt, I invited her to come and live with me. That was four months ago. Sometimes I get scared, she frightens me. I’m really worried she might try it again.”

  The sun’s rays, peach-colored and now almost horizontal, were caressing the trees in the garden. A few birds had started to sing. Were they cuckoos? Are there cuckoos in the Mediterranean? He would have to check later. I’ll have to get a book about Mediterranean birds, he thought. The information that Patricia had just revealed upset him somewhat. He would never have guessed! And why did she reveal it to him, now?

  “Why?” he asked.

  “It’s like this: she’s a looker, she attracts men like a magnet … and she is a man-eater. But afterward … after … Say, let’s leave it for another day. Don’t forget the drawings. That’s why Radhi doesn’t like looking at pictures of erotic themes, do you see? Do you get me? No, you don’t get me. How could you if I still haven’t told you anything …”

  Patricia was talking more to herself than to him. A bird had begun to sing on the branch of … of a mulberry tree. Was it a mulberry tree? He would have to look it up in his book. Could it be that mulberry trees had such twisted, knotty branches?

  “She is quite the opposite of me in that respect,” Patricia said with a voice as thin as a linen thread. “With men, I … I have a slight allergy to men.” She shrugged her shoulders as if asking him to forgive her. She smiled vaguely, ashamed. “Although …” Slowly her gaze slid up to Vadim’s forehead.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  Vadim would have given the entire garden with all its fig trees, with its shade and the perfume of the cypresses, to be able to hear the end of the sentence. He knew, however, that the painter wouldn’t finish it.

  “You’re looking at the mulberry tree,” Patricia said, to say something. She wasn’t interested in his reply. Her imagination had conjured up a little fair-haired boy, Vadim, who was walking, one Sunday morning, along a path flanked by mulberry trees that led to a village with a church, decorated with large golden cupolas that shone in the sunlight; the fair-haired boy was accompanied by his parents, in their Sunday best: the mother with a pearl necklace, as blonde and slim as Vadim, and they were all having fun and looking forward to reaching their summer mansion, where they would sit down to a table laid with the silver cutlery used on Sundays. But … in Russia at that time, going to church was frowned upon, even dangerous, and what’s more, who knows if mulberry trees grew there, and who knows if the details of the pearl necklace and the mansion were true … Patricia remembered the documentaries she had seen about the Russia of that period … no, indeed, you couldn’t even talk about pearl necklaces and mansions. Patricia realized that she was seeing Vadim’s childhood through the prism of her own childhood, and that she didn’t have the faintest idea of what life was like in Vadim’s country at that time. And, while this film of hers played, behind the images, Patricia heard Vadim’s voice …

  “I imagine this mulberry tree in the winter: covered in snow, with crows on its branches, the wind blowing furiously and Patricia and Radhika taking out their skis and waxing them … But there’s something you wanted to tell me, and you didn’t finish the sentence. You will tell me, won’t you?” he asked.

  “Here it almost never snows. And skis don’t have to be waxed any more. In the winter, there are no gales like there are in Chicago …,” Patricia said automatically, her mind on other things.

  What did Vadim’s father look like, and his mother? the painter asked herself. She imagined the father of the brothers Karamazov, and also the mudjiks of Chekhov, and then her imagination conjured up the thoughtful nobles of Turgenev, and then the twelve revolutionaries of Alexandr Blok’s poem … no, no, no! That’s not it. What nonsense! Her silly images made her laugh. If he wasn’t like that, Vadim’s father, how was he, then? Patricia’s mind was full of darkness. For the first time in her life, there was something that the painter couldn’t imagine one bit, even though her grandparents had told her things about life in their Russia.

  “What did I want to say?” she said, returning to reality when she saw his questioning, begging expression. “Well … I wanted to say that you shouldn’t leave the drawings behind. I would’ve liked to give you a lift to Sitges, but I feel that I should be with Radhika. You understand, don’t you?”

  And she added, quickly, “Come back soon,” and ran her fingers over his cheek.

  Vadim hadn’t expected that caress. He stood paralyzed, as if someone had just poured boiling water over him. Without knowing why, he felt sad. Melancholic.

  “One day I will draw you,” she said, smiling.

  Vadim wasn’t altogether taken with the idea. He didn’t want to be an object in her painting. Just to feel those fingers … His melancholy increased. To hide his sad expression, he turned to go. Little by little, he lifted the columns of iron and cement his legs had become. Why such melancholy? What can’t be painted doesn’t exist for Patricia, he thought. All the same, he wasn’t sure that this statement was correct. But he felt her fingers against his face. He staggered, swaying through the warm, perfumed twilight, and the only thing that felt alive was his left cheek, where the smooth touch of Patricia’s four fingers remained. The other parts of his body were dead.

  TWO WOMEN, TWO GODDESSES

  In the evening, you sit in a noisy restaurant and can’t help feeling the traces of those four fingers on your cheek. The racket made by the other diners and the deafening sound of the radio lets you convince yourself that everything is in order, that you are enjoying your beer and that you are not waiting for anyone, that you are not eyeing the door, that you don’t tremble every time a new customer enters wearing yellow. How she would stand out here! you think, among the red faces of the sunburned vacationers … You see her in your mind’s eye, Radhika in her yellow dress, the Radhika from this morning and from this afternoon. How … once again you are reminded of the words of a poem, and you know that, taken out of their Japanese context, the words conjure a tremendously cloying image that anyone with good taste would tease you about, but there is nothing you can do about it. You imagine a yellow chrysanthemum swaying before you, to and fro, here and there: here I lick the foam of the beer, there I sip some sour wine from an old glass.

  The yellow chrysanthemum, Radhika in the dress she was wearing today.

  You have another beer, and a third, and before your eyes appear the two women you have caressed today and who have caressed you, like two mythical goddesses: an exotic woman whose hair is the color of a summer night, her body brown and feline, her eyes shining in the dark: Radhika. And the other with her hair and skin like a blazing hot summer beach on which you want to rest and do nothing, just be, her dark eyes full of fragility and strength, willpower and uneasiness, all of life’s contradictions, all of its complexity, life as a whole. You now understand: two women, two goddesses are offering you a golden apple. Do you have to choose between them? You know perfectly well which of the two you want, you can still feel the touch of her fingers on your cheek. But, you think, why must I inevitably choose only one of them? All at once, you feel rich, so rich that you don’t know what to do with so much wealth. You pay, leave an exorbitant tip on the bar, and go out onto the street …

  On the way back to the boardinghouse, you take Patricia’s drawings out of your pocket to admire them. The wind also wants to see what’s on those sheets of paper; a gust whips them out of your hands and you follow them the way a dog would a piece of sausage. Three are still missing. At the far end of the street, a lady who wants to help you picks them up. She smiles at you, and then glances at each drawing. When she hands them to you, she gives you such a look of contempt that you actually feel ashamed, although there is no reason to be. You quickly distance yourself, fleeing from the good woman’s indignation.

  You check your mail, both postal and electronic. Absolutely nothing. Fine! Perhaps everything is in order. Which mean
s that … that your father is well, or as well as can be expected. And that they don’t need you at work, for the time being.

  * * *

  That day Sergei was sitting on the upper part of the tank. They had stopped in front of a monumental building, at the end of a boulevard, of that Prague version of the Nevsky Perspective. On the wall of this building, Sergei could see countless bullet marks. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, a whole mosaic. Each bullet mark was indicated by a flake of paint that had been pushed out of place and a little hole. Shots fired from machine guns. Why … No, Sergei didn’t understand anything. He hadn’t understood anything over the last few days. Prague … incomprehensible. Rage, hatred, desperation. All of this had been rubbing off on the liberators who lived in their tanks.

  Sergei sees a few tanks. The machine guns stick out of the windows of each of the tanks; they aim at the wall and they shoot. And not only at the wall. There are those bloodstained flags, those bodies lying dead in the street. The hand with a stone, raised in the air. The child. The eyes wide with terror. Maybe someone threw another stone, at the child. No. He sees a tank advancing, unstoppable. Like an avalanche, like a flood. Like in a Greek tragedy. It covers everything with its metallic thunder. The officer orders the machine gun to be withdrawn, through the window, back inside the tank.

  Sergei feels exhausted. He sits on the tank. The tank has come to a halt; it is still. Sergei’s eyes are burning. They become moist. And he sees, through the mist, a crowd of people. He wipes his face and his eyes with his sleeve. Now he sees them. It is a group of young people. They are arguing. Someone says something to him, Sergei. Another attacks him in an irritated voice, but Sergei doesn’t understand him. Everyone is talking in Czech and Sergei only catches one word, which is repeated constantly: “Proc.” With a languid melody. With a questioning look. “Proc.” Do they want to find something out? What? A blonde girl looks at him, Sergei. She stares at him with wide eyes. Brown eyes. And she also says, “Proc.” “Proc?” A few young people yell at him. And Sergei slowly begins to understand. They, the Russians, are not the liberators. They have done something wrong. Sergei doesn’t know what. They have destroyed something. Some building that will never be reconstructed. No, they are not liberators, Sergei can see that quite clearly now. And he also sees the stone in the hand.

  A moment later, the hand ceases to be there. There is just a melee of people who are howling. And crying. Inside Sergei, something breaks.

  No, he mustn’t cry, the blonde girl is looking at him. He turns a little to wipe his nose with his fingers. Mitya, sitting next to him, hands him a handkerchief. Sergei wipes his eyes. Now he can see her better. A very short miniskirt, a tight, short T-shirt. Hair down to her waist. She looks like … she looks like Zlatovlaska, from the Czech fairy tales. The nymph with the golden hair. He hears the girl’s voice one more: “Proc.” Now Sergei is sure that the arrival of the Russians has brought nothing good. He feels like the father who, with a single kick, demolishes the tower that his son has spent the whole afternoon making with his building blocks. Once, years later, Sergei himself did that at home. Just so. Little Vadim had built a medieval castle with dozens of towers, out of the colored pieces that came with his construction set. He, his father, stamped on the castle with his boots, as if he hadn’t seen it. And not only that, but he also kicked it. Violently, with anger. When it was over, his three-year-old son spent the whole night in tears and didn’t say a word to him for days.

  Now this girl is looking at him with her eyes full of resentment and stubbornness and asks “Proc?” “Proc” … Why? Sergei has understood what the word means. He tries to explain. He puts together some shaky sentences. He chokes. He feels frustrated, because he knows that he won’t be able to convince the girl of anything. Nothing is true, except death. Right now, even he isn’t sure of anything. He doesn’t understand anything, everything has lost its meaning. In his head, his thoughts are all mixed up with the images of what he is seeing here, in Prague. Chaos is buzzing in his head, just as it is here, in the streets.

  The fists of the people in the crowd are raised, tight and tense. People are crying over the dead bodies covered in flags. The blonde girl is his salvation, Sergei feels. He keeps looking back at her. He has the feeling that they are connected by an understanding that goes beyond words. If Sergei speaks, it is only to feel her eyes on his face.

  The young people who are surrounding him say something in a threatening tone. A couple of young people embrace. With passion. They almost make love in front of Sergei. Mitya whispers to him that he can’t take much more of this. He wants to get inside the tank but in the end he remains seated. He observes the crowd around him. He knows that they are putting on that show of passion just for him and Sergei. But Sergei’s eyes are fixed on only one place. On the blonde girl’s face. Now it is she who is saying something to him. She is gesticulating, moving her head forward and backward, moving all the muscles of her face. She wants Sergei to understand clearly what it is she has to say. Now she makes a hysterical gesture of desolation. Very slowly, Sergei nods his head. Then he shakes it as if he can’t understand a thing. And then, finally, he nods again.

  One of her Czech friends grabs the blonde girl by the hand. He turns her toward him. He kisses her, almost violently. He brings her body close to his. He puts his arms around her. He caresses her body all over. He follows the line of her body under her T-shirt. He raises her miniskirt. And while he embraces and kisses the girl, he observes the two Russians with cold, wide-open eyes. With eyes full of hate. He wants to see if he has hurt them enough. If he has had enough revenge. Sergei retreats, little by little, into the tank. Mitya sees—and later tries to explain it to his friend—the blonde girl’s look when the young man lets her go. Her adoring eyes. On the other hand, the young man, without showing her any more interest, turns to his friend. The blonde follows him with a passionate look. Mitya also lowers himself into the tank. Sergei says to him, “Do you know the tale about Zlatovlaska? It’s a Czech legend. Today I have found my Zlatovlaska. With tearful eyes.” Tearful, like his, Sergei’s. Mitya, however, doesn’t idealize reality. He doesn’t know how to. Mitya sees, and later tries to communicate this to Sergei, that they, the Russians, have attacked a foreign country. Just like Napoleon did with Russia. Like Hitler. The Russian invasion has been a disaster for the foreign country. The Russian invasion has caused Sergei’s happiness. He has found Zlatovlaska. She has been kissed by the young man she has been fond of for a long time. If it hadn’t been for the Russian invasion, that young man from Prague would never have kissed her. He wouldn’t have done so, because he is homosexual. Mitya knows it. He has seen it. He had to tell Sergei.

  * * *

  In the shadow of the shack, Sergei sighs. His wife raises her head and asks him what’s wrong. Nothing, don’t worry, he says and gets up. He goes over to his wife and strokes her withered cheek with the palm of his hand, and then sits down again. He starts to sew another purse. Click-click-click …

  PATHS THAT LEAD NOWHERE

  In the morning, you haven’t yet had breakfast when you call Patricia.

  “Good morning, Vadim, it’s Radhika. Dobri den.” She laughs at her attempt to say hello to you in your native tongue. “How are you?”

  “I’d like to see you, both of you. Is that possible?”

  “It’s difficult.”

  “I have the verses Patricia wanted.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, it’s very difficult. The fact is that Patricia is feeling inspired and she’s painting day and night.”

  “That’s terrible …,” you let slip. It’s terrible for you. Radhika understands that perfectly.

  “No Vadim, it’s not terrible.” Radhika says this brief sentence in a cold, distant tone.

  “I worked on these verses all night, so that she could have them as soon as possible,” you stress this, to emphasize the urgency of your going to the white house. But, for all your efforts, you forget human psychology. And
you are instantly rewarded for your lack of tact.

  “Yeah, sure. I understand, but there’s nothing anyone can do,” Radhika says dryly.

  “I don’t have much time. I’ll have to go back to Russia soon,” you say, as a last resort.

  Radhika, on the other end of the line—probably laughing, thinking, “How clumsy you are!”—says into the receiver:

  “So, come and see us next year. And if you have something that can’t wait, send it by mail.”

  * * *

  The following day you don’t call, but on Tuesday you can’t hold back any longer. This time you call in the afternoon, hoping that Radhika will have gone out. But she answers; she lets you know that Patricia can’t come to the phone.

  “How is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Patricia. And how are you?”

  Idiot, this is the stupidest possible question that you could have asked. Can’t you see that they are building tall barricades across the path that has taken you so long to open up?

  “Patricia’s fine. But she doesn’t want to see anybody. Not even you!” she adds with relish.

  “Can I call tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” the woman replies, with cold courtesy.

  To console you after giving you the bad news, Radhika wishes you a good afternoon with plenty of sun, after a cloudy morning.

  On Wednesday you call back.

  “It’s not possible, Vadim. The fact is, Patricia … Anyway, it’s just not possible.”

  “But look, I have the haikus that Patricia asked me for. Why doesn’t she want to see me?”

  “Don’t be a bore, Vadim.”

  “And if I call tomorrow?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  And you know that her “that’s up to you,” said impatiently and this time without a trace of courtesy, means that another call from you would not be desirable.

  You promise yourself that you won’t call back, ever again. You feel like an insect with a huge ball of manure. But on Thursday your restlessness makes you pick up the phone, anxiously and with reluctance. You desire is stronger than your self-respect.