The Superfluous Man

by Botyakov Anatoly

  “You know, I would like to tell you a story of one young lady, a story that will allow you to understand how drastically mistaken you’ve been when lining between us these strict borders,” Mariam was now in an extremely alarmed state, and Victor, who was listening to her attentively, could not think of anything else, as if his only mission was to memorize her in this rare state. “This girl came from the middle of nowhere, from a small town. Since childhood she was perfectly familiar with physical work, she knew about such things, about which others heard only through hearsay, she understood the price of things, which made her proud because she would never accept anything without paying for its full price, no matter what need she would be in. Back then, she also knew the price of her own word, but by mistake, she thought that everybody saw the world the same way she did. After leaving school, she, as well as many before her, went to a big city to enter a university there, to get an education, to become a real independent person, someone useful in this world. Nevertheless, things do not always go as we would like them to…” Mariam became silent for a moment, looked down, but soon anew gained strength for the continuation of the story of her life. “It must be admitted that I was not ever worried about romantic relations, did not search for love, starting my own family seemed to me something highly improbable. And exactly because of these childish thoughts that I had, my parents succeeded in convincing me to marry a man. I cannot make myself blame them for it. The thing is that when I was born, they were not young. My father had a hard time thinking that I would remain absolutely alone, when they were going to leave me evermore, so once he presented me my future husband, who was a son of his old friend. My mother kept herself from taking part in all this, but it was that exact case when silence gives consent. I think that she would have agreed openly too, if it had come to this, however she was a genuine woman and completely concurred with the head of family. Now they both are gone. They are gone and along with them are gone the only people who ever knew the only real version of this story. You are the first and the last person whom I’ve told it. I need this example, I need your response to all this in order to never torture myself with the question, ‘And what would be, if I told somebody about it…’ Therefore I beseech you, Victor, do not tell me that we are different solely because your clothes look cheaper than mine,” after saying it, Mariam completely calmed down, although it was not difficult to imagine what storm she was suppressing in her soul.

  “It seems, Mariam—” Victor smiled with a twinkle in his eyes “—it seems I’ve just fallen in love with you. Just do not be frightened, please; it is a special love, my personal invention. It has nothing in common with what is implied by this word usually.”

  Mariam only interrogatively raised her eyebrows of the ideal geometrical form in response to this unexpected declaration, but decided not to resort to words.

  “I’ve wanted to tell that I love you not for your beauty, but I love you for the person you are,” Victor began to look through words, seeking after the most appropriate ones to express his thought, but the more he strove, the more nonsensical he sounded to her surprise that kept growing bigger and bigger correspondingly. “I am afraid, it’s beyond my power to explain how I feel,” he gave up at last, “I think it may even be something absolutely new.”

  “I think you should forget all that I just told you,” Mariam suddenly made up her mind to leave literally as far as possible from this conversation.

  “Did I offend you somehow?” sincerely worrying, Victor placed his hand on hers, and they saw their own reflections in each other’s eyes.

  “We should not meet again,” she answered, then carefully removed the hand and clenched it in a fist.

  “Well, I respect your decision,” Victor uttered, still with agitation. “If you really do not wish to see me anymore, then from now on, I will not bother you. However, before you leave you are simply obliged to explain the reason of this hasty decision. Do you see something bad in me? Have I done anything indecent?” he insistently tried to glance at her eyes, attempting to find there an answer that her lips could not give, but she looked away, depriving all his attempts to reach the truth.

  “It is not about you, it is absolutely clear that you are a good person, just…” and she became silent again, but as well as Victor before it; she could not leave without having complete understanding of the situation.

  “What is it then? Do I have to be bad in order to make you change your decision? So be it!” Victor agreed suddenly. “If you do not want to see me, then so be it, but I ask you, let us finish this conversation with positive emotions!”

  Mariam finally raised her eyes, and there was the answer that he looked for. About five minutes passed and they were sitting silently, deciphering a calm that was prevailing between them and gradually uniting from two halves into a whole. Later, having waited sufficiently, in his opinion, Victor decided that the time of words came again.

  “I understand your feelings,” he began carefully with the most inappropriate phrase.

  Mariam tore her eyes away from pointless studying of passers-by and cars, and looked at him in perplexity of such force that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would decide that it was the end of the conversation. But Victor was the only person who was sure about the converse, or rather, he provoked the exact reaction that he wanted to see. It was his plan; he wanted to deliberately raise doubts in order to get rid of them subsequently and to insure himself thereby for the future.

  “It is not facile,” he aggravated the tension even stronger. “It is not facile to come across with the truth, it is always hard to unbosom oneself. It is of no importance, whether it is your family or someone whom you wanted to make your significant other. In such situation, you wait for understanding with your whole heart because it cannot be otherwise. How can it be otherwise? Nevertheless, it is nothing but self-delusion. The only thing that does a person who has decided to go for broke is creating his own puppeteer out of his listener. And if the puppeteer may fail to dispose of his new doll, he will never fail in hurting its feelings.”

  Mariam was remaining silent, but it did not mean that Victor’s approach was wrong. She was listening to him and it was the most important thing now. She simply could not help feeling the sincerity and the pain with which Victor was filling his words, letting her know that he really understood everything she felt.

  “I am truly grateful to you, Mariam, for the fact that you consider me worthy for this revelation. It is very important for me. Even if this conversation marks our last meeting, this day will be preserved in my memory forever, I will be hoping, tremblingly, that maybe in this world there is at least one person who also stores only good memories of me.”

  “And what’s with your family?” Mariam asked without noticeable emotions, as if refusing the role that was just offered, but at the same time keeping it for herself. “Do they not have any good memories of you?”

  Victor did not expect to hear this question and stumbled over his own consistently built thoughts at the same moment when he heard it, having littered them around. He had no answer to give.

  “Are you a native here, or just a visitor?” she changed the question facilitating his problem.

  “Yes, I mean no, I arrived here a month ago and I had never been in this city before,” he responded quickly, relying on the truth – the best assistant he has in any difficult situation.

  “It is interesting… and what exactly brought you here? What is your story?” Mariam kept wondering. “Is there a special person here you wanted to see?”

  “It is not about who I wanted to see, it is rather about whom I did not want to see anymore.” Victor corrected the inaccuracy tactfully. “I left my home behind, I left my family behind and I left my bride behind. And to be honest, I do not think that I will ever cross the threshold of that house again,” Victor was trying to keep his feelings in as hard as he could but scarcely might be called highly successful, for his voice quavered every time when he inhaled deeply, and hi
s eyes began to shine with melancholy.

  “Is everything really that bad?” Mariam inclined the head because of surprise. “And what is about your previous statement that you are insufficiently brave to start your own family? Did you deceive me again, Victor?”

  “Most likely,” Victor made a short pause, “most likely I deceived myself when I decided that I was capable of leading such life.” he did not want to talk about it but he could not be silent either anymore because their conversation, apparently, was hanging now by a thread, and even one awkward moment threatened to destroy everything once and for all. “Here lives one friend of mine, a very old friend. He had offered me the contract I told you about two days ago. So not counting him, I have nobody in this city. You know, Mariam, I do not want to frighten you with my words again, but today I felt as if you were my only kindred spirit in the whole world.”

  Victor did not dare to raise his eyes, knowing that she would fail to fully understand him, if he distracted her even for the shortest moment. Therefore, seemingly he was telling all this to himself, letting her know thereby that there was no need to answer.

  “I am not intimidated by your words, Victor. Do you want to be my friend?” Mariam offered suddenly with perceptible estrangement and grief, as if she were the last person on the Earth who deserved a friend and correspondingly could not wait for an affirmative answer. “If, of course, you believe in friendship between the man and the woman…”

  It was the second time in a row when Victor did not know what to respond to this woman. And at this exact moment he let inside himself that seemingly absolutely insignificant fear for the first time, which yet seemed both faceless and innocuous. He had to prevent her from seeing him reached a deadlock by all means but all the same was standing on the very brink regardless of his will, and she was ready to push him down in the abyss at any moment. Right after this realization of the inevitable, he felt a sudden nervous tremor and his heart beat muffled up all other sounds. It is how everything began: deprived of speech, with no control, he was sinking in this whirlpool of words, thoughts and feelings, unavoidably approaching the bottom. Even steady breathing was a challenge for him now…

  She did not hurry him with the answer, looking indifferently and slowly mixing up in her black eyes incompatible feelings, alternately replacing grieve with joy, anger with amiability, and scorn with love. And it was impossible to define whether she was taking pleasure in it or desperately trying to follow her own rules.

  At the last minute, Victor suddenly saved himself by recalling the words of Tumenov, who had told him about the scathing look of his wife, which virtually demented him and deprived of sober reflection. Henceforth these words did not seem to Victor solely a figment of imagination that had grown on fertile soil of jealousy and paranoia.

  “Do you feel unwell?” having waited enough, Mariam asked.

  “It is all your question,” Victor exhaled, redoubling his effort to return self-control. “I did not know how to answer it so you could correctly understand my position concerning such mystical phenomenon as friendship between the man and the woman.”

  Having tried to vindicate himself by pointing at some deficiency of her perception, Victor used one of the most primitive techniques, but it gave him an opportunity to gain some time, to gather his thoughts, and also to warn her against confirming the obvious suspicions that she could affect him the same way she did Tumenov and quite possible somebody else.

  “Be so kind to explain me anyway!” Mariam demanded childishly, having a strange twinkle in her eyes. “I truly enjoy listening to you explaining your standpoints.”

  “You see, Mariam,” Victor smiled cheerfully, encouraging her excited state. “I believe in this sort of friendship!” he continued to smile, being ready to burst out laughing.

  “And that’s all?”

  Mariam asked in wide-eyed astonishment.

  “Please!” Victor hissed, having put the forefinger of his right hand on his lips. “I have not even begun yet! I believe in friendship between the man and the woman, but my point of view does not matter much, for I am only one half of what could animate this friendship. And if you want me to assume overall responsibility for the second half too, then you will hear the opposite opinion. No, actually I do not believe that a woman is fully capable of realizing the essence of this word.”

  “But…” Mariam made a vain attempt to interpolate.

  “And it is not even the most important thing,” Victor continued without any attention to her wasted effort, gathering the speed of narration, “the point is that we can recognize such feelings indeed, but we will never be able to materialize them. Success in such large-scale undertaking would turn our very existence upside down. If we only could become true friends, Mariam,” he was staring at her with wide-open eyes, without blinking, “then I could not avoid loving you. And I am talking now not only about the love that I mentioned earlier, it was but an insignificant part that I could afford. I am bearing in mind the true love, feelings that I have not experienced yet, but I am aware of its existence because it was given me by the nature itself. And if I love you,” Victor looked at her with the same mixture of happiness and melancholy, “then you by all means will be for me the best friend I can possibly dream about.”

  Mariam was absorbing his thoughts motionlessly, as if being afraid to frighten them off with a superfluous movement or a word of the same type. Victor seemed to have managed to skirt her eternally doubting mind, which was on guard of her feelings round the clock, carefully checking each word she heard in order to identify if it had any signs of deception, and when everything unnecessary or just doubtful was eliminated, something absolutely lifeless and almost completely senseless headed for her heart.

  “Here is how my opinion concerning friendship between the man and the woman looks,” Victor summed up chilly.

  “Everything is very clear,” Mariam smiled contentedly. “May I get one printed copy to reread now and then?”

  “Tell me, Mariam,” Victor began slowly.

  “I am all ears!”

  “Tell me, Mariam, are you not late anywhere?” he shook his head interrogatively. “Last time, let me jog my memory, you hurried somewhere at this particular hour.”

  “And what time is it now?” Mariam grew frightened for one short moment and quickly began ransacking her handbag in search of the cellular phone, which, incidentally, she did not touch even one single time during the conversation. “And what are you doing it for?” she frowned after having glanced at watch. “Why are you trying to frighten me?”

  “Please, forgive me, but I am not ready to shamelessly steal your time yet, especially if it can imply emergence of any notable consequences,” Victor confessed in all honesty.

  “Frankly saying, I have taken a day off today,” Mariam answered seriously.

  “A day off from what exactly?” Victor asked her, feigning that he was not aware of the place.

  “From work, of course! Do not you really think I attend school?”

  “And your work is?” he kept playing his role without paying attention to her sick joke, hoping to receive confirmation of what he already knew directly from the primary source.

  “I teach the violin at one music school not too far from here. I seriously doubt that you have happened to be in that area, for it is very deserted, but anyway, that school is the only one in the district, so if you all of a sudden decide to learn something new, you are welcome.” Mariam offered listlessly, running counter to her cheerful mood.

  “Wait a moment! Do you want to tell me now that you’ve come here early in the morning solely to keep your promise?”

  “No, of course, not only because of it,” she answered without conviction. “By the way, I am eager to learn about your meeting with the husband of that poor thing. I cannot help holding an interest in what your conversation was like,” her eyes flared suddenly, and she impatiently bent forward to Victor, anticipating a detailed retelling of the conversation that had taken plac
e in her house, and the main subject of which had been doubts concerning her fidelity.

  “Well…” Victor stared before him stupidly. “It was the most remarkable meeting indeed.”

  “Stop tormenting the lady!” Mariam rushed him, “I quickly lose my appetite for things that I do not receive too long. Have you given your consent or not?”

  “Frankly speaking, I still do not know what exactly choice I’ve taken. I did not refuse flatly, but at the same time, I do not really think that I want to do what I am asked to.”

  At this moment, Victor recalled, to his shame, about the advance payment that he had taken virtually without thinking, although he was not in need of it.

  “If you do not want, then you may keep the story for yourself,” Mariam allowed him mercifully.

  “Oh, my dear Mariam, please, do not judge a thing from the outside,” Victor asked her emphatically, having accompanied his mysterious thoughts with a troubled look. “It is a very dangerous game, which I cannot allow you playing.”

  She did not react to his words and seemed now indifferent about the subject that had interested her just one minute ago.

  “Believe me, I would willingly tell you everything if I only could be sure that this story would not spoil our friendly relations,” Victor did not know what to say, and even his beloved truth refused to rescue the situation.

  “If you want to know my own opinion, is not about your doubts. As I see it, your unwillingness is very likely to be the main reason. However, I do not force you, silence is not exactly a lie after all,” Mariam defiantly took out from her handbag one banknote and put it on the table.

  “Are you leaving?” Victor asked meekly.

  “Yes, I think you will agree that the promised meeting can be considered successful.”

  Victor remained silent in response. He did not want to recognize the obvious, nor to make another appointment in the same blunt way as he had done for the first time. Instead, he fondly hoped that she would understand his feelings and would give him a hint or a tiny sign. Nevertheless, she did not understand him or, what was more probable, did not want to understand.