Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  “When we started dating, Sérgio had a Beagle. He needed to be away for three days, so I offered to take care of the dog. Sérgio lent me his spare key and I ended up keeping it even after he gave the dog away to his sister. That Sunday afternoon I headed for his apartment to make a surprise. Oh, doctor, I wore my best lingerie and brought along a carrot cake with chocolate icing…”

  Marisa waited for him amid the silent mahogany furniture in the bedroom swept by a late afternoon sun. Sprawled on the bed with her tablet, she meandered through Pinterest checking out recipes when the front door opened. She left the tablet in the brown armchair and glued one ear to the bedroom door. Marisa recognized his voice. Then hers. Débora, the diving instructor. She heard chuckles. A silence, a smack of lips and another silence. Footsteps approaching. She looked around in a frenzy and dove under the bed. Too late, she remembered about the tablet. Marisa saw the door describing an arch as it opened to allow four wobbling legs entwined. Saw shoes skidding empty along with discarded socks, the rival’s silver anklet, clothes falling on the floor like surrendered flags, each one a symbol of her defeat.

  On one occasion at the beach house, Marisa had found two cockroaches copulating next to the pantry. Linked by their extremities, they formed a long insect with an indented waist and several paws that moved sideways, three erratic steps here, two steps there. Disgusting. But this now was even worse. The four legs entwined, three steps here, two steps there. Four, three, two. Like a countdown.

  No, no, please. No.

  One pair of jeans, two pairs of jeans, a yellow T-shirt, a pink tank top, a white bra and panties, blue boxers… a tuff! that crushed her spirit when the naked bodies tumbled on the mattress. She heard everything. Kisses, moans, thrusts. The rhythmic screaks from the feet of the bed against the wooden flooring—strident little shrills growing louder and louder, splinters of sound perforating her tympanums. Then she heard the release with its sticky smell. Suffocated, Marisa closed her eyes. It didn’t work because then she could hear better. She reopened them to the hideous mattress frame and covered her ears, but kept hearing. Conniving sighs, lazy talk, paper tissue. She was entombed under betrayal. The pair didn’t even notice the tablet that dozed in the armchair, dreaming of assorted recipes. Luckily they headed for a pizzeria after the quick yet vigorous sport. Marisa crawled out of her hiding spot, seized the tablet and ran away leaving the cake behind. Never again did she speak to Sérgio. He called her several times. She didn’t answer.

  “Sérgio ended up writing me a mile-long email, confessing he was in love with another woman and didn’t know what to do. He was afraid to hurt me. I felt like replying with a mile-long swear word, only in the end I didn’t write anything. At the time I had the bad habit of keeping quiet because I wanted people to like me.” Marisa shook her head. She had actually thought of mailing him a couple of dead cockroaches but didn’t have the stomach to do it. “Afterwards my anger subdued, leaving the trauma. Today I understand Sérgio, he was probably just a chicken… a sensitive chicken. But I never wished to see him again. God only knows what I’d been though under that bed.”

  “Hmm. It seems you used that bouquet to regurgitate all the bad words you’ve swallowed up. That’s what you needed to overcome your trauma, and now Sérgio rests buried beneath a bunch of smashed flowers.” The psychoanalyst aimed a speculative look at Marisa, nibbling at the cap of her golden pen. “Anthuriums, you say. White?”

  “Red. More or less like that flower arrangement in your waiting room.”

  Doctor Spitzer probed if they were the same shade of red. Marisa wasn’t sure, as the light shifted. The psychoanalyst insisted that she make an effort to remember. There were many types of red, and each might symbolize a different thing: ruby, coral, solferino, scarlet…

  “Blood red.”

  “Ahh,” exulted Doctor Spitzer. “Fascinating.”

  She made an annotation followed by several exclamation marks.

  Marisa forgot what she was saying and stirred with visible anxiety. The divan upholstery underlined her words with a nervous squeak. “What is it, doctor?”

  Staring at Marisa over the brim of her glasses, Doctor Spitzer closed the notebook. She motioned to the painting on the wall with a meaningful expression.

  “This is very good. Very good,” she concluded triumphantly. “Your unconscious wishes and your conscious mind are in open confrontation. The wishes want to manifest, and the conscious mind tries to repress them. Your ego could no longer mediate the conflict and collapsed.”

  Collapsed? Marisa became rigid. And why did she say very good? That couldn’t possibly be good at all.

  For a long moment, Marisa contemplated the watercolor above the divan, in search of a sign to appease her fears. The square and the circle, however, seemed to stare back at her with the impassibility of a sphinx. She anchored her gaze there and, with a shudder, had the distinct impression of grazing the black bottom of the canvas. She even caught a glimpse of the secrets hidden there. Such impression lasted only a moment, though.

  “It’s symptomatic,” Doctor Spitzer resumed, “the recurrence of black and white in your dream. We have the firefly in the shadowy forest. The moon and the night. The white house with a dark corridor (the boarded-up windows are the eyes of the unconscious refusing to see). Furthermore, we have the clear crystal tank, the ebony cat, the white paper… ” She concealed a yawn with the back of her hand. “Frankly, everything is so obvious even a child would see it.”

  “What about the red anthuriums?” Marisa avoided the word blood.

  Behind her glasses, Doctor Spitzer’s green eyes sprouted to life, discharging inflamed sparkles.

  “This is the most important part of your dream. I would even say it will change your life forever, but I don’t want to sound like a movie trailer. We’ll continue in the next session.”

  “Let me guess. Our time is up.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  7. Something Different

  Ten holds one and zero, the harmony between opposites. Nine embraces three triangles: body, mind and spirit. Eight lies down in the infinite. Seven is heaven—seven musical scales, seven colors in the rainbow, seven virtues. Six contains the two triangles of dialectics. Five adds up the senses that capture matter. Four calls God’s name with the elements of nature, the seasons and cardinal points. Three brings the synthesis of father, mother and offspring. Two is me and you. One is the genesis of everything.

  A minute point suspended in the multidimensional space, the starting point for all lines of creation: the number One.

  Marco held the ivory die between his thumb and index finger. Pensive, he contemplated the small white square with the dark dot in the center.

  The game was a living organism. The rules and number of tosses changed, combining to create from simple variables to the most complex. Each tossing affected the next. It could also happen that the first toss would be the only one, locked within itself with a categorical meaning. With no escape.

  That had been the case the previous day, before he cheated. Marco chewed on his bottom lip. No. He wouldn’t cheat. He was tired of subterfuges.

  He knew exactly what he needed to do.

  Marco put the die back in the nightstand drawer and began preparations in an elaborate ritual—the devil, as they said, was in the details. Diligence became a trance. His mind wandered, making plans and anticipating, while his hands worked in an uninterrupted flux as if someone else directed them.

  The valise with accessories remained forgotten under the bed while Marco arranged the bedroom. This time there would be no incense and port. Or whiskey, for that matter. He changed the linens and opened the window to invite in the fresh air. When everything was ready, he undressed—the odd sensation of peeling off an old skin—and stepped into the shower. Closing his eyes, Marco let the water run over his body for a long time. He felt all of a sudden exhausted.

 
Once he was done washing, he wrapped himself in a towel and proceeded to the bedroom. The ring of his cell phone yanked him out of his thoughts with a startle. He dried his hands quickly and answered it. It was her.

  “Hi. I just wanted to hear your voice… I can’t explain. You’re different this time.” She paused. “Have you started preparations?”

  “Yeah,” Marco answered in autopilot.

  “Did you stop by the sex shop?”

  “No. And I know exactly where you’re heading with this talk.” He couldn’t help a smile.

  “Hmm, coming from you, should we infer the plans for tonight involve a literary classic?” She gave a wicked chuckle.

  “I generally don’t use work material for leisure.”

  She mistook his contrived cheerfulness for amusement and tried guessing: if it wasn’t a classic, then surely it was one of those dirty books… No, no dirty book. A film? Neither. Her strident curiosity got on Marco’s nerves. When she finally gave up the guessing game, he remained quiet. And she, assuming he was too busy to talk, cleared her throat and said an awkward goodbye.

  Marco took a deep breath after he hung up. Although he didn’t like to admit it, he was anxious.

  For the first time in quite a while, expectation dominated him. He hadn’t the faintest idea of how the evening would turn out. His partner’s reaction didn’t worry him though: he knew how to maneuver and lead her where he wanted, predicting her resistances and needs, guiding her sensations to wake up dormant instincts she hadn’t even dreamt of. He carried on effortlessly. It was relatively simple to deal with the other, for he could step back and see in perspective. The problem rose when he had to predict his own reactions. Come face to face with this other that was himself.

  What he planned to do deviated from his usual procedure. Now he was the one exposing a vulnerable flank. He hadn’t done it since Vegas. But then he was drunk, so technically it didn’t count. Now, choosing that route led to a peculiar intermission: neither master nor disciple. Then what? The master dictated the rules and knew intimately their dynamics and goals, aware that he could change them any time—and there resided the difficulty of it. The disciple would trust the master and follow the rules without questioning, hence being spared from the pains of free will. It was a fair exchange.

  Safe.

  Well, not this time.

  Marco thought about the die. Would it be pulling a prank? The memory of that night in Vegas taunted him.

  He and Jeff had raised the first toast. The scotch went down, burning their throats, and the friend asked about the die.

  “Why don’t we roll it? See what happens,” he poked.

  “The clerk said the second die is missing from the set. The results are truncated.”

  “So what? It’s just for fun.” Jeff reflected for a moment, smoothing out a wavy strand of his blond hair. His blue eyes glinted. “We can improvise. We ask a question. If an even number turns up, the answer is yes. Odd number, answer is no. The higher the number, the stronger the prediction. C’mon. It’s not every day a two-thousand-year-old die shows up.”

  “It’s not two thousand years old. It’s a replica.”

  “Still. It’s antique and has a certain mysticism to it. Imagine Romans throwing a die just like that in biblical times.”

  With a sigh, Marco laid down his glass. He groped his pocket for the package and opened it.

  “You do the honors first,” Jeff said with a bow. “Ask a question.”

  Marco’s brain remained empty. The only thing that occurred to him was the same thing that had been occurring for the past year since the divorce. Lorena. A longing tainted with anger. Where would she be now? Maybe married to the rich heir that her family so eagerly applauded—with a standing ovation. Love was ironic. Before, at the mere thought of Lorena, happiness expanded within him. After the separation, he began associating her with pain, and the memory of her brought a bad aftertaste to his mouth. Psychologists stated that it was a normal reaction, that anger helps you get detached in order to survive a breakup.

  The last time he saw her before the separation was the worst. No quarrel, no indifference, and yet infinitely more hurtful. He returned early from work, and she startled. Soon Marco understood why: Lorena had packed her belongings and planned to leave without saying goodbye. She wanted to shake his hand, but he refused. The relief Marco caught on her face, which she attempted to disguise with a solemn expression, opened a gash in his chest. Lorena was relieved that she would no longer be sharing that roof with him, that her family would accept her back and life would return to normal. From then on, instead of facing difficulties, she would be able to live her dream. Behind the mask, Lorena’s face was radiant.

  “Did you ask the question?” probed Jeff.

  “Yes,” Marco lied.

  He rolled the die half-heartily, and they followed the pirouette of the ivory cube.

  “Ah, six. Then the answer is definitely yes, Marco. Satisfied?”

  Even if Marco knew what to respond, he didn’t have a chance to speak: she sat by his side before he could utter a word. Blondish straight hair, a siren’s body and brown eyes shifting into green according to the light. A deluxe escort inside a white halter-neck dress lacking many yards of fabric. She introduced herself as Stefania and started to chat. It was her night off and she wanted to have a good time. She was sick of love for rent, of old men gushing money proportionally to their impotence and spoiled brats who didn’t know what they were doing. Sick, so sick.

  The two drank the first glass together. Then another, and yet another. Stefania said she liked him. She wanted to have a good time with him. She spoke as she nibbled on his lips, one curious hand on his thigh. Oh, he was good for groping. What about the rest? Levitating in a cloud of scotch, Marco ran his index down her neck and descended until parking where the low-cut neckline ended. Between her breasts, he traced a spiral with his fingertip. Stefania held his hand, brought it to her lips and slowly sucked his finger.

  They left Jeff throwing the die with a drunken saxophone player. The last thing Marco heard was the friend attacking La Marseillaise. His room was on the seventh floor, and inside the elevator time became elastic, running slow and fast at intervals: for hours his hands felt Stefania’s body parts that mattered, and in less than a minute they arrived at the carpeted corridor. Suddenly they were in the room. First, Stefania had a good time, her eyes a green mist, a wavering striptease. Then her hands, experienced despite the alcohol, worked to remove his clothes.

  She began to ride him with might and main, her firm hands on his hips, mouth ajar, dreamy expression. They shifted, he knelt and she suspended her lower body to press her feet on his chest. Then they balanced on the TV rack, her sitting on the edge with both legs around him, and him deep into her soft inside. Maybe it had happened that way. Marco couldn’t remember the sequence of it all, only the torpid urgency and the smell of sex in the stuffy room. He recalled vaguely she’d nicknamed him hottie and praised his size before inserting it into her mouth like she had done with his finger. He returned the compliment but was almost sure he didn’t reciprocate her courtesy for lack of inclination. The images flashed and faded to black until the next scene. She spreading out like a starfish against the wall and lifting her buttocks to him. Then again on the bed, on all fours. Until the last scene. They were lying amid the upheaval of sheets and he looked at the smoke alarm on the white ceiling, his body and thoughts vacant.

  Stefania drew her lips close to his ear.

  “I really like you, Marco.”

  “Me too,” he said without paying much attention, his hollow stare still on the ceiling.

  She laughed.

  “You really like yourself?”

  “You’re right. Let’s say it properly.” Marco turned to gaze at her. “I like you too, Stefania.”

  “Oh, I guess we’re intimate enough for you to call me b
y my real name. Lorena.”

  He was instantly sober. The name invaded each fiber of his body, shaking it with the echo of a dream that carried a nightmare. The clerk’s words came back to him. The die sometimes produces strange results. He looked at the woman sprawled next to him, the perfect breasts pointing at him, the parted lips in an invitation, and didn’t know what to do with her. That was the problem of bringing unknown women into his territory. He couldn’t stand to his feet and depart. What he had left was the shower. Then a feigned sleep while the name still reverberated inside him. Lorena, Lorena, Lorena…

  Marco turned into a prisoner of the memory. It wasn’t he who couldn’t forget it. It was the memory that wouldn’t forget him: Lorena-Stefania evoking Lorena-Lorena, the contrast between the colors of an amusement park and the barrenness of an industrial park. Love ends one day, and his finally wore out. But the mark left by love, that never wore out. It remained buried in time and, when he least expected it, found the way to his heart. I’m here. Remember me. Yes, the mark was pain, and also the symbol of a dream. Marisa once told him she became attached to the pain because it reminded her of her dad. In Marco’s case, forgetting the mark was the same as betraying a dream. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t forget it—maybe that’s why the mark wouldn’t forget him, either.

  8. Miracle Fruit

  “What about the red anthuriums?” Marisa asked as soon as she lay down on the divan.

  Doctor Spitzer raised an eyebrow, and her expression became as hermetic as a vacuum-packed cigar box. Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar, like Freud would presumably say. Or was it? Doctor Spitzer acted quite enigmatic that day, plus she wore a surprising electric-blue suit. Not to mention her scarpino shoes were white.