Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  “That was a fantasy,” he forced himself to say with a gesture of contempt. “The myth of ideal love exploited by mass culture. Then, when couples realize daily life is not made of perpetual fireworks, comes disappointment. And they ask themselves what went wrong: why can’t they have a relationship like those in the movies and soap ads? Why, because it’s just an idealization impossible to sustain. How could you possibly love me? You don’t even know me that well.”

  Marisa sat up, on the brink of anger. She bent her knees and hugged her legs, taking a deep breath. When she spoke, it was in a soft tone.

  “Are you sure? I know that you enjoy you meat rare but won’t tolerate grease, that you’d rather go to the countryside than to the beach, that you never miss a Woody Allen film. I know that you and your brothers were so naughty, you had to be set straight with a quince stick on one occasion. That your uncle used to tell stories around the bonfire while he roasted corn and, to this day, when you smell roasted corn you remember those stories. I know you sometimes have insomnia and get introspective and don’t feel like talking…”

  “It doesn’t mean you really know me. It surely doesn’t mean you loved me. You had an infatuation and will have others. Love is too strong of a word, Mari. You didn’t have enough time for that.”

  “What I didn’t have was a chance. You wiped me off your life just like that.”

  Marco sat up too, the sheet sliding down to his waist. He grasped it in exasperation—in his memory he saw again the relief on Lorena’s face, the crack in the gaze of Marisa’s mother. All he could do was move in circles without touching the center.

  “Do you really want to talk about love? We can comb through an endless list of authors who devoted themselves to this subject. Comte-Sponville, Marilena Chauí, Octavio Paz, Bauman, to name just a few. Bauman shows that today love is liquid because everything changes too fast, and so it runs through our fingers like water. Everybody wants immediate pleasure for filling their own void. What you call love is that lack pointed out by Comte-Sponville: the passion that makes us think day and night about an object of desire because we need to consume it in order to be fulfilled. Does it even deserve to be called love? It’s a self-centered feeling that won’t stick around nor withstand the first storm.”

  Here, he smiled with an edge of bitterness, then went on: “Take Roland Barthes on the tautology of love, this tautology seizing us when we try to describe the object of our desire: adorable. That person is adorable because is adorable because is adorable… We can’t escape this definition, and if we tried to explain it, we would need an infinity of adjectives, all incomplete, until we reached a standstill again: adorable. A pretty word that says everything and says nothing. Then one day we notice a tiny mole on that person’s nose, a mole that in our blindness we had never noticed. Our object of desire is no longer perfectly adorable. And that’s the beginning of the end.” He folded his arms, shoulders slightly rounded. “It’s not worth it, believe me.”

  “What are you talking about, Marco?”

  “I’m talking about your passion for me. Hollow as the wind, although you swear it’s eternal, sublime, deeper than deep.”

  “So I’m a liar?”

  “All I’m saying is you haven’t lived long enough to know better.”

  “I haven’t lived long enough to read all the authors you just quoted.”

  They remained silent. He averted his eyes to the barely touched food on the table. It exuded a sweet smell. A shiny strawberry jam trail on the white porcelain. Like a razorblade gash.

  “After we broke up I went into therapy, you know?” Marisa insisted. “And my therapist said I was just going through some sort of cold turkey. Then I researched the hormones that act upon the brain in order to manufacture love… Testosterone, which activates the sexual urge, dopamine for stimulating passion. Oxytocin and vasopressin, responsible for the maintenance of the relationship. See how many agents intervene in the body system to create love.”

  “Exactly. All of that serves to ensure the survival of the species. When the offsprings grow up, the reproductive cycle concludes and the biological tendency is for love to end.”

  “That’s it? Love is just a hormone cocktail, an addiction that leaves you cold turkey?” Marisa shook her head, reflecting. “No, there must be more to it. A spiritual side. Each of us is a matrix, with a path to follow and a learning curve to complete. When we encounter someone with a matrix that resonates with ours, we start walking side by side. So we learn to love in depth, with more understanding and respect for differences, with more generosity… being each other’s mirror, sharing, teaching and learning.”

  She stared at him resolutely but her hands trembled when she said: “We’ve lived that, Marco, even if for a short time. And I ask again: what is time? Some people spend years half-heartedly with their partners in autopilot. Our time together was intense and whole. What we had was special. You know it. I went through a lot of pain with our breakup, and it would be easier to justify my feelings based on biochemistry. It would be reassuring. But it wasn’t that… it wasn’t only that.”

  “It’s a natural reaction. When you start a relationship, you stop being an autonomous entity to structure yourself as part of a couple. After separation, you go through the pain of having to restructure yourself again.” As Marco spoke, a shadow clouded his eyes. The words now stirred up memories. “And there’s grieving too. Igor Caruso said with separation we die little by little in the mind of the other person, and it’s a two-way process. You’re no longer the brightest star in their constellation and begin to fade… It’s death in life. Can you imagine anything worse than that? To be metaphorically buried alive—”

  Marisa placed her index finger on his lips, imposing silence. “Let’s forget the theories, otherwise we’ll end up walking in circles. I know what I’ve lived. I know with my heart. Now answer this: were you happy with me?”

  He opened his mouth, then his lips sealed up again without a sound. Of course he was, Marco said at last.

  “And are you happy with me now?”

  “Mari… Yes, I’m happy. More than I should.” He fixed his eyes on the ceiling. “I missed you, I craved to be with you but thought it would be best to spare us. We went our separate ways when we were at the summit, and we’ll always remember good things. A flower cut in full bloom is better than a dry plant with its roots clutched to a grave. That’s the most depressing thing.”

  “So to break up is less depressing than to think of all wasted possibilities of a relationship? Do you know what I think? You’re afraid.”

  “No, Mari, I’m not,” he responded, stiffening almost imperceptibly.

  He remained quiet. So quiet, she inquired what he was thinking. Then she laughed self-consciously for asking such a typical woman’s question. Marco ran one hand on his hair and said he was trying to remember the time of her flight. Eleven, Marisa replied. He checked the clock on the nightstand: they still had a few hours, it was only half past three. Marisa remembered to call Mrs. Stevenson, as her hostess thought she had spent the night at Valentina’s.

  Ah, the same old excuse—Marco curved his mouth with a smile that did not reach his eyes. He hesitated and enveloped her in his arms, regretting she must leave that evening. Marisa hugged Marco by the waist and interlaced her legs in his. Resting her head on his shoulder, she listened to his heartbeat. The soothing evidence that he was close again.

  “We can meet when you return to Brazil,” she murmured. “Your flight is in a couple of days, right? Wednesday.”

  Marco nodded with feeble conviction and stared at Marisa. His expression was somber. He cupped her face in his hands, entangling his fingers on loose tresses while his thumbs caressed her temples. Then he slid his lips on hers very slowly and deepened the kiss with a gentleness tinted with an emotion she couldn’t quite define. Melancholy. They kissed for a long moment. When they parted, Marco cradled Mar
isa’s hands in his and continued to gaze at her.

  “What’s the matter, Marco?” she asked, alarmed. “You look disturbed.”

  He pressed her hands, exhaled a sigh, released them.

  “Mari, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Marco now twisted the end of the sheet with an absent air. Marisa felt each fiber of her being petrify. The room grew cold as they stared at each other and time dragged in endless silence. Both vacillated: he reluctant to speak, and she reluctant to listen. Amid that glacial silence, the cell phone on the nightstand rang with the eloquence of a scream. They startled. In a reflex, Marco reached for it without averting his eyes from Marisa. When he answered the call, she heard him say a name.

  Yarina.

  17. Two Ships Sailing the Night

  The curtains remained shut, keeping the gray afternoon away. But inside it was gray too, and the vertical stripes on the wallpaper drew the bars of a prison cell. The prison of her own anguish, Marisa thought as she listened to Marco talk on the phone. She observed him from the corner of her eye, trying to guess the emotion moving him. Marco was tense and only muttered monosyllables. On the other end, Yarina seemed to be narrating her adventures with a friend in the restroom of the Devil’s Lair until the police rescued them.

  Finally she asked him a question and Marco made a pause.

  “Yeah, I saw your message but I didn’t have a chance to reply… Sure, sure… Don’t worry, everything is fine.” He shook his head as she told him something. “Tonight I can’t. I’ve promised to help a friend tidy his apartment.”

  Yarina resumed talking and Marco restarted delivering monosyllables.

  Marisa consumed herself. She took a seat at the table and pretended to read a brochure with San Francisco’s attractions and a million ads. The Golden Gate Bridge, a burlesque show at Fort Mason, restaurants, diamond rings. Colorful photographs paraded before her eyes while her numb hands flipped the pages and she tried to guess what Marco wanted to tell her. Maybe he was involved with Yarina? What a silly question. Of course he was. Marisa had noticed the way they stared at each other. The way Yarina touched him. She wondered where the two had met, how long ago…

  Beep. Her conjecturing was interrupted when Marco said goodbye and turned off the phone.

  As much as Marisa consumed herself, when he shifted to face her, she feared that moment. It was a black well sucking in all colors until everything turned into darkness. How would it feel to lose his love for the second time? Theoretically, she was stronger now. But was she? The weight in her heart became unbearable. She had found, lost, and found Marco again. In that reencounter, she was struck with the certainty of the love uniting her to him. The love that, in a minute, she would lose once more. Marisa sensed it in her heart and in the way Marco gazed at her. She didn’t want to believe it. She could fool herself, but there was no denying—his gaze was one of farewell. Gathering courage, she inquired what he had to say. Marco asked her to sit next to him and waited for Marisa to settle down.

  “Mari,” he began in a restrained voice, “I can’t see you anymore.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?” Marisa clenched her hands on her lap. “You’re in a relationship with Yarina, is that it? Then why didn’t you just leave me alone? Before it was already hard enough, and now…” She found no point in finishing the sentence and silenced.

  Marco knew he was responsible for the pain he saw in her gaze, and the pain became his too. For an instant, he wished he had never reencountered Marisa. So to never see that gaze.

  He shook his head.

  “She’s just an acquaintance that I’ll probably never see again. I don’t know what to say. Of course I’d love to meet you. But I won’t be going back to Brazil. At least, not straight away.”

  “You plan to extend your vacation?”

  “It’s not that, either.” He averted his eyes, as if in search of words, then stared at her. “I have a business meeting in Toronto.”

  It took Marisa a few seconds to assimilate the implications of what he had just said. She expected anything but that. He’d never manifested an interest in Canada. The news unsettled her in such a way she detached herself, like it wasn’t happening to her and she was only a spectator. She watched her own incredulity as Marco admitted his surprise at the turn of events. On the first day at the congress, he had met the director of a much-respected Canadian school. They needed a head coordinator urgently, and his preliminary interviews with the director and later through videoconference had gone quite well. So Marco changed his plane ticket and, before going back to Brazil, he would be travelling to Toronto to visit the school and discuss the contract.

  “You’ll be moving to Canada, then,” Marisa concluded as she straightened herself up, her body icy cold.

  “That’s the idea. I’m tired of the school politics and Belvedere. Even though they offered me a seat on the board of directors, I had already considered resigning at the end of the year to start a business. And then I was offered this opportunity. A unique experience that will help open doors for me on many levels. Besides, I’m already living far away from my family.”

  He had no ties to São Paulo indeed, Marisa conceded with an apathy that failed to conceal her hurt. Maybe he never had. Now she knew exactly what it was like to lose his love for the second time. Like bleeding.

  Bleed.

  Bleed.

  Bleed.

  Each breath a drop. Until it aches so much you get numb. Or not. Or else. Then it throbs and throbs. Then you wish blood red would become oblivion black. Colorless death. White despair. Until one day it’s gone.

  But the scar remains there—always there.

  She started to rise to her feet. Marco retained her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “You’re upset with me.” His tone revealed regret.

  “It’s going to pass, Marco, like it did the first time.” Marisa cast a stern glare at him. “My mom was right: at the first difficulty, you’ve discarded me like an old toy. And now you’re discarding me again. You know what? I don’t need any of this.”

  “Mari, you know very well why I retreated,” Marco countered firmly. Yet he sounded weary. “That ‘first difficulty’ triggered a family crisis. And I told you I didn’t want to wreck your life. Can’t you see? I tried to protect you.”

  “You abandoned me, Marco. That’s not protecting.” She stood up and barely refrained from snapping. “Since you’re so fond of quotes, check out Laurie Anderson’s My Right Eye. It’s about the eyes and their tears. Tears of love in the right eye. Tears of hate in the left eye.”

  It wasn’t clear whether hate or exasperation. Despair. Disappointment. Maybe all of it, thought Marisa. For everything that hasn’t been. For the nothing it had become. Tears held their own logic in contradiction.

  She sighed, feeling suddenly empty. Her eyes wanted to cry. They didn’t dare.

  “Thanks for your help yesterday. I mean it. Now I need to go.” And, without giving him a chance to reply, she proceeded to collect her clothes.

  Marco quickly slipped into his sweatpants and went after her. In consternation, he paused at the bathroom door while Marisa slid the dress over her head with a jerky motion. She picked up the torn pantyhose, started to fit them and changed her mind, tossing them in the trash. Her hands struggled with the fastener of her sandal.

  “Mari, you’ve got to understand I didn’t plan any of this. The trip to Canada had been scheduled before I even met you yesterday. I’ve never imagined we…” Marco made a helpless gesture. All the reasoning he had so carefully built disintegrated. It was fragile anyway, and he knew it. “You think I’m made of stone? I have feelings too, in case you haven’t noticed. This situation is harder for me than you can possibly imagine. Things got out of hand in the first place because you invited me to bed.”

  “Y
ou insisted that I stay, and I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep in that chair.” She stood upright. Her defensive mode switched to accusation: “Then you asked me to undress the robe.”

  For a moment, he said nothing.

  “Why did you kiss me, Marisa?”

  Silence.

  Why did he insist and accept and request, why did she stay and invite and caress? The answer was simple yet complicated, for now between the answer and the question there were two continents.

  “You’re happy in college and have plans for the future… and you finally get along with your mom,” Marco said. “It would be beyond selfish to expect you to give up everything and embark with me on an enigma. I may never move back to Brazil.”

  Marisa became rigid. Marco’s hesitation to mention her mother had not gone unnoticed. That was the real problem, just as she’d suspected. Words were not enough. Marco could come up with as many excuses as he wanted and pretend to be concerned about her well-being. But he didn’t care. It was her mom that had bothered him in the past and still bothered him now. Marco wanted a relationship free of complications. He wasn’t even willing to give it a try—and that betrayed the exact measure of his feelings.

  “It’s okay. I get it.” Marisa quickly braided her hair, ignoring the mirror. “Good luck with your meeting.”

  “Please, let’s not say goodbye like this.”

  She didn’t want to wait any longer, she already knew all she needed. Marisa signaled for him to give her way, but Marco did not move. She tried to push him, holding back the tears. She would never see him again. Would never hold him nor feel the warmth of his smile. What Marco had said about death in life during a separation was true. In that instant, she was already dying within him. Marisa swallowed a sob and pushed him once more.