a mole staring at its reflection.
This is often how it feels when you find yourself
deep in discussion
with a smiley face, or a photograph,
or a small green telephone icon.
And below this, the words,
which often have no real meaning
other than the fact that they have been sent;
there’s no point trying to read between the lines
because there’s nothing there but white space; what’s meant
is only to be found beyond the lines,
in the fact of their origin,
in the motivation behind them. But what is that?
so
any plans for your birthday?
no not really
it’s not an important one anyway
The pencil began to move again. It’s true
that this pencil could drive you crazy,
but at least it seems to care about you.
It knows it has a mission to fulfil,
this little pencil,
and it does its bit
to make sure that you know
that you are not alone.
Which is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?
The pencil soothes our abandonment anxiety,
our dread of desertion.
Its existence, symbolic of someone else’s presence,
allows us to see
the fingers of the other person, touching the keys of their
keyboard. We know, at least, that somewhere
someone is writing something
for our attention.
i’m sorry for my silence
Eugene
it was just that I had to concentrate on my departure
you know what i mean?
The word departure was a dart in his heart.
no no I understand
said Eugene, who did not, of course.
Then he added:
you know you can just tell me
if there’s something going on between
you and your supervisor
Pencil. Pencil pencil pencil.
FFS would you give it a rest
there’s nothing going on with Leprince
why are you so obsessed
ah OK
sorry i’m just an idiot sometimes
i get all worked up about nothing
i put two and two together and get five
but I already told you
yeah but it’s hard to believe
i just have the feeling that there’s something else
i ought to know
well
maybe there is
Blank
Eugene i keep thinking about something
you told me once
what?
something you said to me on the stairs
ten years ago
what did i say?
Another blank
you don’t remember?
no, i forgot all that stuff
i don’t even know who i was back then well enough
to guess. so what did i say?
Pencil. Eraser. Pencil again.
you really don’t remember?
no, Tatiana, not at all
you don’t recall
the day when you came up to me
at the top of the stairs
and you said
what did I say?
that’s so like you, you know,
to ruin people’s lives like that, and your own
at the same time, and to forget it all a second later
you said
Eugene you told me
you said that we’d be bored together
He contemplated those words, and suddenly
a scene returned to his memory,
a scene acted out by someone else,
like a solemn soliloquy heard long ago
in a theatre,
in the almost-dark,
lines spoken with an actor’s art,
perfect for the part,
admittedly,
but without any poetry
or any heart …
6
… in which a character a bit like him had said:
EUGENE
You wrote to me, Tatiana, there’s no point saying you didn’t. You wrote to me and your message was actually quite well-written.
It had a sort of rhythm, a certain poetic feel, of which I approved. In fact, I was even quite moved. You know that I like you. You’re like a sister to me, or maybe even … yes, maybe even more than that. So yes, we get on well, and if I was looking for someone, then, sure, I’d wait until you weren’t a child anymore, but I would have no difficulty thinking of the sweetness of shared moments, here in Paris – or even somewhere else – with you. Why not, after all?
But I’m afraid that is not the case. I am not of a disposition that encourages affection. I rarely even think about such things. They don’t really interest me, in fact. When you have had as many love affairs as I’ve had, you’ll understand. It’s interesting to begin with, but you soon grow weary of it. The khandra crushes you in its tedious grip. Even if I was in love with you, after a while I’d get bored.
We’d get bored.
Tatiana, we’d be bored together.
Maybe that sounds sad, but it’s the truth. I still haven’t found a remedy for the ills of existence, but if one does exist, I suspect that love is not one of the main ingredients. I hope you won’t be upset if I tell you this: that you’re still a kid, and that I know – unlike you – what love is, and what it’s not. And even if your feelings were what you imagine they are, they’re not worth a lot. You don’t fall in love like that just because fate presents you with a handsome face glimpsed over a garden gate.
Thank you for your message. However, love is not what it seems. The truth is we’d be bored.
We’d be bored together.
Exit Eugene.
7
We’re such idiots in our teens.
Well, no. Not all of us. Not them. Not Tatiana or Lensky.
Just me, Eugene.
Lensky was in love he was right
Tatiana was in love she was right
They were mature
beyond their years,
while I, so elegant, blasé and decadent,
so damn incapable of sentiment,
I was nothing but an idiot.
Lensky and Tatiana understood;
I thought they were naïve, but in reality
the naïve one was me –
I loved you both, you know,
even though you sometimes did bad things
– and I who didn’t love anyone, I who needed so badly
to be loved,
I drove them away, one after another.
I let them abandon me.
Oh, Lensky,
oh Tatiana,
all along
you were right
and I was wrong.
I thought I was so mature;
I felt sure
I couldn’t go wrong as I planted
the flower of my future
in the most arid soil I could find,
the least fertile, because
I didn’t want my life to be too easy
or too beautiful …
shit, I was blind!
I was wrong all along
and they were right,
and they did their best to make me a better man.
I mean,
I was seventeen!
Why did I have to take everything so damn seriously?
Why did I have to ruin all the good things in my life?
Why did I have to be so dogmatic, so joyless,
so me?
What was stopping me from leaning in and kissing Tatiana
before the inevitable apocalypse
(I’m sure I would have adored her lips)
or from telling Lensky that he was right
to believe i
n his dreams
(or even from sharing those beliefs)?
Lensky. If he was here now,
it would make him laugh
to hear me soliloquising the way he used to do,
simply, plainly, without frills,
and with a few swear words thrown in too …
Fuck, Lensky!
If only I’d had your heart, your ambition …
how I wish
you could have been a ventriloquist
and spoken through me to Tatiana so we might have kissed …
how I wish that you had laughed
at all my colourless, closed-minded convictions
instead of always being in thrall
to everything I said, and imagining that I, this loveless lout,
was the one who knew what he was talking about …
oh, the two of you, idiot savants,
why did you believe all my rants?
*
ME Not bad. Sounds almost like Lensky. So you can
be lyrical when you try …
EUGENE I guess it comes with age.
But listen, I need your help.
What should I do? What should I say?
Should I tell her about all my regrets?
Tell her that I’ve changed, deep inside myself?
ME I’m sorry, my dear, but I think
that bird has flown.
She has changed too, you know.
She and I are very different, it’s true,
but I understand her point of view:
the life you’re offering her is not
what she wants.
She’s found her own way in life, without you.
EUGENE But I love her!
ME And she loves you too.
EUGENE Really? How do you know?
ME What can I tell you?
I’m psychologically astute
about things like that, and besides,
I feel like I’ve heard a story a bit like yours
once or twice before.
EUGENE What should I tell her?
ME ‘Tatiana, I’m so sorry.
I’ve been an idiot – will you please forgive me?’
Start like that.
Tatiana, i’m so sorry
i’ve been an idiot – will you please forgive me?
listen, there’s no point in getting into all this
i’m not angry
the way you rejected me still chills me, even today,
but you didn’t act badly
you could have taken advantage of me, and you didn’t
in a way you were quite gentlemanly
i ought to thank you
no no please don’t thank me
i was wrong! i know it now
Tatiana i have to see you somehow
Silence.
No little pencil.
The silence goes on so long
that for a moment
Eugene thinks he’s been abandoned.
And then she starts to write again:
if you want we can meet for coffee before i leave
the day after tomorrow i’m free in the morning
my flight is at 5 a.m.
p.m. I mean
no
The pencil shivers.
Erases, then scribbles
again.
ok then never mind
can I see you now?
asks Eugene.
Blank.
no
Blank.
Pencil. Pencil.
i can’t right now
i’m at the library
which one?
the National?
no at sainte geneviève
i’m really busy i’ve got a deadline to meet
i’m free in the morning the day after tomorrow
take it or leave it
Eugene’s telephone turned orange. Which meant
Absent.
*
Tatiana slammed her MacBook shut,
opened it again, closed it,
ope … no, just halfway,
shut it, and then
thought about opening it once again …
calm down, sweetie, it’s a computer, not a fan
or an accordion.
So … back to work?
no? oh, you’re going home?
I don’t know. Leave me alone.
But you can’t leave yet –
you haven’t finished taking notes.
who the hell are you,
my thesis supervisor?
no
then leave me the hell alone
ooh I see, a little touchy …
well, it was kind of a disaster, that conversation, wasn’t it.
What exactly did you hope to get from it?
I don’t need your
hang on, don’t forget
your library card.
Are you upset?
Do you want to talk about it?
Not just yet?
Poor, poor Tatiana.
Her face aflame,
she looked adolescent,
even more than she did ten years before,
if you can imagine that;
what I mean is that, although her face had grown,
of course,
not only in size, but in beauty and elegance,
yet it was possible to detect, beneath its refined features,
flashes of maroon and purple like the blushes
that flush across the skin of octopuses
and other sensitive sea creatures;
you know as well as I do how it feels
to have those sudden hot red weals
spread across your face, this blaze
that time extinguishes, but can never quite erase …
oh God he screws me up
Oh dear, here we go again.
Skype and long-lost loves don’t mix.
He turns my life upside down, he devastates me.
Hardly a surprise – I always knew it.
From the day we first met, my fate
was sealed; I was bewitched.
Hey, me too!
What do you know?
I should have realised that I would never
be able to rid myself of him – ever
Same for me.
He sticks to me like glue, and because of him,
I stick to the kid I used to be,
when I was young and naïve,
a pathetic little nothing …
I really was nothing back in those days.
You’re hard on yourself.
Maybe it failed back then; maybe you were
small and weak, but not anymore.
Maybe now you’re big enough to do something great.
Look how filled he is with remorse
and regret. It could work this time, I bet.
No. We were always fated
to pass each other by.
Back then I was passionate
and he was apathetic;
he never even thought of tomorrow while I
wanted all of eternity.
Now I feel that the opposite is true.
He needs someone in his life, and I don’t.
Yeah, right.
What?
Nothing, sorry. Go on with what you were saying …
I want to be free, so this would never work at all.
I don’t want to end up like Olga, with her love so banal.
Eugene’s the one stuck in a rut now;
he’s changed his life story;
truth is, we’ve always had opposing trajectories.
Okay, if you say so.
It’s strange though,
because to me, it seems
like he’s headed straight in your direction.
What do you mean?
He’s on his way.
On his way?!
He’s coming up Rue Soufflot
towards the library as we speak.
What? Right now?
>
Yep.
And he’s entering … with an old library card,
which surprisingly has not expired.
How do you know?
I know everything.
He’s climbing the staircase.
What are you going to do?
Pick up my stuff and go.
Then you’ll bump into him
at the top of the stairs.
I’m trapped.
I’m trapped.
(She sighed.) Typical. I’m trapped
just like I always was.
Oh give me a break – you’re not some tragic heroine.
Go and talk to him.
You know, if I were you,
I’d cover him with kisses and hug him till he’s blue.
Tatiana looked up at the lacy arches
of the library’s ceiling,
perhaps searching for someone who could hide her,
but all the other students’ heads were buried in their books,
multi-coloured earplugs shutting out the world,
a row of identical spiders
spinning webs of knowledge,
vacuum cleaners hoovering up philosophy
in handy bite-sized quotes,
perfect for college.
Go on, Tatiana,
the sole fly among all these arachnids,
unplug your ears and spread your little wings,
leave these nodding heads far behind …
go on, buzz off
and fly into his arms.
No one’s paying any attention to you
(except me)
so let go of your qualms.
You poor deluded girl
(she says to me – can you believe her nerve?)
there’s absolutely zero chance of that. We’re not on TV.
Thankfully I have a little dignity.
Okay then.
At least I tried.
Go ahead, I’ll watch you being dignified.
Tatiana met Eugene at the top of the stairs,
she holding her computer to her chest like the breastplate
of a knight,
he with eyes wide open, head spinning and light
after running all that way, climbing all those steps, dizzy
with the thought of all he still had to do,
and he, who I understand so well
(much better than Tatiana, in truth)
In Paris With You Page 18
