Monogamy Book One. Lover: This is one love for life and beyond time

by Victoria Sobolev

  So I channel all my energy into fulfilling the task at hand, giving Alex all the love and care I have. In those toughest months of my life, I wasn’t his wife, I was his mother.

  It is a painstakingly slow process, but, with time, he does start to recover. After a week, Alex is allowed home. He has stopped sending me to a hotel and now not only tolerates me, but even obediently does everything required of him.

  He has trouble moving around, but stubbornly refuses to use a wheelchair. And since he is still too ill to travel to the hospital and flatly refuses to stay there, I quickly learn how to do all the injections and insert his drip. I also change his dressings: there are three small wounds on his back – one directly on his spine, and two small incisions that were made to drain the fluid from his lungs. They need to be treated with hydrogen peroxide and a concoction that smells like iodine.

  Alex is on a special diet for cancer patients and I prepare his food, blending a mixture of raw fruits and vegetables as instructed by the doctor. The most important vegetable is broccoli, and it’s my aim to get him to eat as much as possible. So I invent new recipes where the main ingredient is the same, but prepared in different ways so that the patient at least has some variety in his diet. Getting him to eat is a problem, however. A big one. He was never known for his healthy appetite when he was well, but it’s much worse now. It’s not that he’s fussy, he just doesn’t want to eat, although he does make the effort. He tries to help me and not hurt my feelings as a way of thanking me for looking after him.

  Most of the time, Alex sleeps, but when he’s not sleeping, he does everything I say. Such obedience is heartening and gives me strength and confidence.

  After another week, Tony tells us during a check-up that Alex is ready to start treatment.

  ‘I wasn’t wrong to count on you, Valeria. What you have managed to achieve has exceeded my expectations! It’s fantastic, because we now have a much better chance of getting rid of the cancer completely! Alex, you owe your life to this lady!’

  ‘I know,’ Alex replies, his voice barely audible, and stares out of the window indifferently as if he’s somewhere else and has absolutely no interest in what we are going to do to him.

  Tony looks at him disapprovingly but gets on with his job.

  ‘We’ll start the treatment with one course of chemotherapy and one of radiotherapy. I think that should be enough. But it’s going to be rough, Alex. You will feel nauseous, and there might be vomiting and headaches. And your hair will fall out, of course, but it will all pass as soon as the treatment is over, which I have every reason to believe will be successful. You’re almost there, just a bit more to go. I believe in you!’ He smiles, but only at me.

  I feel much more positive and optimistic, but Alex remains apathetic.

  *** ‘Yamaha’ by Delta Spirit ***

  Once the treatment begins, he starts losing all the weight we have worked so hard to put on, eats almost nothing, and spends almost all his time being sick. I am filled with worry again and call Tony several times a day, but he knew it would get this bad and patiently answers my calls and my questions: it’s all to do with Alex’s earlier pneumonia and his lack of strength. He survived what very few can. Cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to pneumonia; it kills them ruthlessly, mercilessly, cruelly.

  A month into treatment, Alex stops eating completely because he just can’t keep anything down. He is wasting away before my eyes and losing what little strength he had left, and I’m now afraid that it won’t be the cancer that kills him, but starvation.

  Tony prescribes nutrients to be administered intravenously, and now the man I love is being kept alive by glucose and synthetic vitamins. Instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner, we have drip bags, and I sit next to him each time, holding his hand and praying that they give him enough strength to stay alive until this nightmare is over.

  Alex’s hair falls out and I shave his head, but even this doesn’t ruin his good looks. His features are so delicate and regular that neither pallor nor hair loss affect his beauty: it is now somehow sharper, clearer. There is a raw beauty in his eyes, his cheekbones, the outline of his sensual lips.

  We almost never speak and communicate with looks, long and full of emotion, saying far more than words ever could. I am moved by his submissiveness, and his lack of fear and shame that once forced him to send me away. Alex seems to have come to terms with the situation, and I think he’s secretly pleased that I’ve stayed with him. Suddenly, and quite out of the blue, I realise that he has no one besides me. There is Maria, of course, and she comes to see him often, bringing groceries, medicine, food she prepares for her brother that he doesn’t eat, but that she makes anyway to show she cares. But Masha, as he calls her, can’t be with him all the time like I can. She has children, whereas I have abandoned mine. Abandoned with a capital ‘A’. She is a good mother and I’m a bad one: my children are no longer the most important thing in my life.

  Everything I do could be done by a nurse, of course, and Maria often pushes for one, but it’s unlikely that a professional nurse would feed Alex with a spoon, or come up with different ways just to get him to eat, or hold him when he’s feeling bad, or give him words of support when he needs them most, or give him their warmth, tenderness and strength, or stand guard over his life, or keep a close eye on his treatment and insist on calling the doctor every time his condition worsens to make sure he’s still within what the medical profession calls ‘normal range’. How can I explain to her, his cousin, that, at moments like these, it’s not a nurse Alex needs, but someone who loves him? That with a disease as cruel as cancer, he needs warmth, care and support, not the kind of help that is coldly laid out point by point in a service contract?

  And I give him all the tenderness in me, every drop that went unused living with a husband I don’t love. I wasn’t stingy with it; it just wasn’t needed. Another man is swimming in it now, drowning as if in a soft white cloud. He is healing in my arms.

  It is a dark, rainy evening and Alex is feeling a little better. His nausea has finally abated for a while and, much weakened, he is lying in his bed, naked to the waist, thin, shaved. For the first time, I pluck up the courage to lie down next to him, although not touching, and we spend a long time staring into each other’s eyes. His are filled with exhaustion and something unreadable, something deeply moving, haunting.

  Everything we have been through over the last month has brought us so much closer together that, despite my usual reticence, I am overcome by a sudden urge: I touch his shoulder where the tattoo starts and stroke it with my palm. Alex closes his eyes and smiles weakly at the feel of my careful caress.

  This is what he needed all along – affection. For such a cold woman like me, it comes as a revelation. I move so close I can hear him breathing and feel the warmth of his male body, realising how desperately, and now consciously, I love this man. Without opening his eyes, he suddenly embraces me in such a tender burst of longing that my eyes fill with tears, and it’s not pity or pain. No, it’s love.

  Alex is so weak that, even at such an emotional and long-awaited moment as this – the first time we have been affectionate with each other in years – he soon falls asleep. I close my eyes and drift off with him.

  That evening was the first time we touched each other, not counting all the injections and the dressing changes. The moment we shared was the tenderest of my life and its special significance for both of us stayed with me forever. It is also when Alex’s tired, exhausted brain came to a decision both monumental and cruel.

  *** ‘Everybody Hurts’ by R.E.M. (Live at Glastonbury 2003) ***

  I knew how much he needed me back then and, although my mission was unbearable at times, there were often moments that were unimaginably precious. Emotional and warm, they taught us a lot and really opened us up to each other.

  Alex tries to get up off the bed and I ask, ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘I want a shower.’

  ‘But you don’t n
eed one. You had a shower yesterday,’ I say, trying to be gentle, although it doesn’t come easy.

  ‘People should shower at least twice a day,’ he objects, lifting his eyes to mine.

  ‘I agree, but not when they’re in your condition. You’re mostly asleep, which means you’re hardly moving. There’s nothing to wash off. Honestly, you’re fine.’

  ‘But I really want one.’ Alex tries to get up again but still can’t manage it. Sometimes he gets so dizzy that he just can’t stand upright.

  ‘Okay. If you want to wash that badly, then you have to let me help. I don’t want a repeat of last time!’ I snap, starting to lose patience.

  Last time... Last time was just the same, stubbornly wanting a shower and being completely incapable of doing so. In an effort to be understanding and respectful of his wants and needs, I allow him some privacy and sit just outside, feeling anxious and fearful that he’ll somehow manage to kill himself by accident, all alone as he is.

  Last time… I sit listening to the sound of the water for far too long. Eventually I call out to him, he doesn’t answer, and my heart breaks. I throw myself into the bathroom, rip open the shower door and see him lying unconscious on the floor. Lifting his head into my lap, I slap his cheeks a few times, a mess of tears, panic and nerves: I honestly have no idea if he’s already dead! But no. Slowly, he opens his eyes and tries to focus, sees me crying and pressing his head to my chest, and says calmly:

  ‘I’m okay. Just got a bit dizzy, that’s all...’ His voice is very soft, affectionate even.

  Then he realises how humiliating the situation is for his masculinity – the same masculinity that dictates ‘to be a man, you have to be strong and physically developed’ – and pleads desperately, ‘Go away, please...’

  ‘No! There is absolutely no way I’m leaving you in here on your own, Mr Independent!’ And, forcing myself to stop crying, the fear gradually subsides because he is alive and that is all that matters for today.

  This man used to carry me in his arms as if I was as light as a feather, I used to bury myself in his broad chest like a small defenceless kitten, and just the sight of him, his smile, used to get me excited. But now he’s so weak that he can’t do the simplest of things: he can’t wash himself without losing consciousness, can’t walk to the car unaided when we go to the hospital, can’t eat, can barely dress himself, and can’t stand up to me, almost always doing what I say. Not now, though.

  He is looking at me imploringly, his eyes filled with anguish, and says again, ‘Leave! Please, I’m begging you!’

  And I realise how important it is to him. In that second, that instant, there is nothing more painful to him than me seeing his physical decline, his weakness and helplessness.

  And so I give in, just like in Paris when I agreed to the coat.

  ‘Okay. Can you stand up on your own or would you like some help before I go?’

  ‘I can do it...’

  ‘All right, all right. I’m going, then.’

  I immediately turn around and get up, knowing that he’s watching me, but I deliberately don’t look at him and sit back down in his bedroom, nervous, afraid. Suddenly, a thought occurs to me and I run to the bathroom door again.

  ‘Alex!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I enter the bathroom and he is already out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, so thin that it tugs at my heart. I haven’t seen him completely naked yet, the most has been without a t-shirt on, which didn’t look quite so bad.

  ‘I know what we should do,’ I say.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Well, why shower when you can have a bath? I know you love showers, but it won’t be forever. Baths will be so much better, trust me!’

  ‘Okay. Next time...’ he agrees finally.

  And so here I am, running him a bath. Well, a Jacuzzi, actually, so big that it’s like a mini swimming pool. Wisely, I add some bubble bath. I know he’s not allowed to overdo it with the toiletries but, in this particular instance, it’s a necessity. He won’t want me to see him naked, but I have to be in the bathroom with him: I’m worried – terrified, in fact – about leaving him in the water on his own because he could still drown accidentally.

  ‘Go and get in and I’ll come and help you,’ I tell him.

  ‘No need, I can do it.’

  ‘I’ve filled it with bubbles.’

  He stares at me for a moment, then understands and agrees.

  *** ‘Midnight’ by Coldplay ***

  I go in and Alex is already in the Jacuzzi. Everything is perfect because he doesn’t need to stand. It’s like lying in bed, but with water. I take a seat next to him and, as I don’t like sitting idle, I pick up a sponge and start washing his arm. Alex looks at me, his eyes a mix of pain and sadness, and I suddenly understand why: I washed him like this once before, but he was younger then, healthier. He had laughed and pulled me into the water fully clothed, covered me in hot kisses, and whipped me into a frenzy with his caresses. Then we had made love tenderly, passionately, many times.

  But he’s different now, I’m different, our lives are different, everything is different.

  Quietly, very slowly and very gently, I promise him, ‘It’s going to be fine... You’re going to get better... The pain will go, will be forgotten. You’ll be strong again, masculine; the strongest, most masculine man of them all. You’ll drive women wild with your beauty as always,’ I smile. ‘Trust me, you’ll see...’ My voice is soft and affectionate. It envelops him, calms, caresses, soothes.

  And these words have an extraordinary effect. Alex closes his eyes and, to my astonishment, allows me to wash all of him and actually enjoys it. I abandon the sponge and my hands slide over his skin, following the contours of his body, still beautiful, still alive. Alex breathes deeply, my hands on his chest feeling his heart beating. At this very moment, he is as happy and fragile as a child. Yes, he is my child now, but unlike children, who take your care for granted and hastily grab kisses and affection without realising how lucky they are to have such love, Alex knows its value as no one else. He drinks it in with his whole being, seizes the moments, loses himself in them... and in my touch. For the first time in months, perhaps years, he feels good, really good, and it’s mesmerising. I have a desperate longing to climb in and press myself close to him, but I don’t dare because I’m unsure what his reaction would be, how he would take it. Even though, at this point, I have spent so much time with him and it was so special, I have no idea what’s going on in his head. Although close enough to touch, he is still too far away.

  CHAPTER 20. PRAGMATISM

  *** ‘Where Is My Mind’ by Maxence Cyrin (Pixies Piano Cover) ***

  On a cold October evening, Mark turns up. He doesn’t come often. Visiting dying people, which everyone stubbornly believes Alex to be, can be discomfiting and painful, and men generally find it too difficult. But of all Alex’s friends, Mark is the only one he’s willing to see. They speak often on the phone discussing business matters, mostly whatever needs Alex’s opinion or signature.

  And now Mark seems completely different from how I remember him in Paris, more serious, responsible, business-like. He is Alex’s partner, deputy and assistant in all things work related and his best friend in life. But even this very best friend spends a long time asking me about Alex’s treatment, about my own well-being, about my family. Anything to put off seeing Alex for as long as possible, because the shock of his heart-breaking emaciation, paleness and hair loss makes it impossible for Mark to control his emotions. But he has to hold them back, he just has to! He has to be strong and not show how bad things are, to avoid humiliating Alex with pity, hurting his feelings.

  Last time, Mark came back down the stairs sobbing, so this time, I try to prepare him.

  ‘Mark, Alex has lost even more weight, but don’t worry. It’s not forever and he’ll soon start putting it back on. It’s just that he’s not ea
ting right now, only the drip bags are keeping him alive. But that’s okay, because it’s not the illness, it’s all the radiation and chemical drugs. So as soon as he finishes the treatment, he’ll start to gain weight. And the doctor says that every day, his body is getting rid of more and more of the cancer, so the most important thing is to see it through.’

  ‘You know, I don’t want to disturb him. Maybe we should let him sleep? You can give him these papers to sign when he’s feeling up to it and I’ll pop by and collect them tomorrow, okay?’

  ‘No, it’s not okay, Mark! You’re going to go in there with a big smile like nothing’s wrong, tell him he’s looking better than last time, that he has more colour in his face, that you’re snowed under without him and can’t wait until he’s back at work! Understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘Just imagine him even thinner, get yourself accustomed to the idea, then go in. Oh, and don’t try and move him, I’ll do it myself. Just leave the papers on the floor. I’ll get him up later and help him sign them. You can pick them up tomorrow. And work out things to talk about so he doesn’t think you can’t see the point in discussing anything like he did last time! And don’t you dare cry – you’re a man, remember? Why do you have biceps if you can’t hold back the tears when a friend is ill and needs support?’

  Mark has had enough of my lecturing and looks annoyed, but that’s exactly what I want. If he’s angry, then he won’t cry. It’s easier for me because I see Alex every day, he’s changing before my eyes. But whenever despair and exhaustion do get the better of me, I have a quiet cry in the bathroom when Alex is sleeping and, by the time he awakes, I’m usually all smiles again.

  *** ‘Live Forever’ by Moby ***

  Mark isn’t up there for long, about twenty minutes is all he can endure. I offer him a coffee and he replies, ‘Something a little stronger would be better!’