Imperfect Delight

by Andrea de Carlo

  She nods, but with an air of not finding his answer completely comprehensible. She takes a hit, holds in the smoke.

  “And you’re doing this child thing, with your friend?” The words he finds are as imprecise as his thoughts; if he had to write a song right now, it would end up frighteningly muddled and meaningless.

  She blows out the smoke. “With my partner.” There might be something almost interrogative in her tone, or maybe not.

  “I meant with your partner.” His mental image of her partner is purely hypothetical: inexplicably, she’s dressed in gray, with short hair and glasses, a serious expression on her face, as if in wait.

  She passes him back the pipe. “It’s complicated.” She looks at him, from the old chair where she sits in graceful balance. “And you two?”

  “We two who?” He feels a chill pass through him. Or maybe it’s the room that’s cold, maybe the stove is no longer able to heat it. Yet, just before, it was so warm: they were both covered in sweat, their skin burning.

  “You and your future wife.” She also seems to be having trouble finding the words and pronouncing them properly; but then she isn’t speaking in her native tongue, unlike him. “You don’t want children?”

  He blows out the smoke, shaking his head. “I’ve already got five of them, and they give me enough problems.”

  “But you don’t have any with her, do you?” Her curiosity is so transparent, so free of implied judgments, so disarming.

  “No. I don’t.” Again a chill passes through him, as if he’s still naked.

  She looks at the stove; maybe she’s as cold as he is.

  “How do these things get created?” He feels the need to ask, though he doesn’t really expect an answer.

  “What things?” She continues to seem so incredibly familiar, even now: so simple and so complicated, so calm and yet so full of worries.

  “The permanent bonds between two people.” He’s hearing his voice with the same detachment as when he hears it back over the mixer after a recording session: imprecise, the intonation in constant flux. “When the best reasons that kept them together have dissolved, and all that remain are the worst. When what’s keeping them together is habit, fear, and regret.”

  She sucks on the mouthpiece of the pipe, though it’s no longer lit. “Do you believe in the idea of twin flames?”

  “What’s that?” He shakes his head; he’s suddenly afraid of being in the dark about some fundamental notion of the universe.

  “Two parts of the same soul?” Yes, her tone is interrogative here, like she isn’t completely sure he’ll be able to understand. “They separate and then pass through a long series of reincarnations to gather experiences, and at a certain point are reunited.”

  “Ah, like soul mates? The two halves of the apple?” He smiles: he wrote a song about that five years ago, “Twin Soul Reunion.” Wasn’t bad, the maximum soppiness you could hope to get out of the Bebonkers without provoking a mutiny among their fans.

  “And each of the two halves is a complete soul, but with a different polarity.” Now she’s speaking with a sort of charmingly didactic intent, at once wise and naïve, mysterious. “Two complementary opposites that meet and recognize each other again, and are irresistibly attracted. The fusing of the sun and the moon; total and perfect understanding, with no need for explanations.”

  “Doesn’t everyone think it’s like that when they meet someone new?” Her honesty pushes him to be honest, too, but the sound of his own words causes an inner pain that stabs at his heart and stomach.

  “Maybe, but they’re almost always wrong.” She speaks like she’s intent on offering the most accurate reconstruction possible. “Because a true reunion between twin flames is extremely rare.”

  “And because their illusions are quickly contradicted by direct experience, and by time.” Nick Cruickshank certainly doesn’t want to be cynical, but he feels like the search for truth comes at a price.

  It’s unclear whether Milena’s expression is one of disappointment, or profound thoughtfulness. “Not if it’s a true reunion.”

  Nick Cruickshank looks off to the side; he’s suddenly afraid that his insensitivity and impatience have just ruined something incredibly precious.

  They’re both silent, listening to the sounds of the stove.

  “What now?” Nick Cruickshank feels a sort of desperation rise within him and doesn’t know how to stop it.

  “Now?” Miraculously, Milena is still there with him; she truly seems to want to understand.

  “I mean, what do we do now?” Nick Cruickshank couldn’t say exactly what that now was referring to: To the now of the next few minutes? The next few weeks? The next few months? The next ten years? To the two of them? To him and Aileen? To her and her partner? To a universal, neutral now?

  Milena moves her foot, pointing at the cooler on the floor. “You want some more gelato?”

  “Yes!” His relief is so intense that he reacts with a totally not-mature, not-appropriate enthusiasm, which she seems to share completely, inside their safety zone on this side of the now where it might still be possible to find refuge.

  She grabs the yellow-, red-, and pink-flowered cooler, pulls out the white container, then sets it on the table, takes out one of the two little cardboard boxes, and from it two little wooden spoons. She drags her chair up to the table, sits down, then sticks one of the spoons into the white of the fior di latte, brings it to her mouth.

  He does the same with the persimmon: the same movements, the same timing. The gelato seems even more surprising than before, sweet and acidulous, only slightly viscous: a cold, delicious distillation of all that’s wonderful to discover and taste in the world.

  She slowly draws the spoon out from between her lips. “It’s strange, don’t you think?” She gestures to indicate the floor above, the room where they are now, the two of them.

  “It certainly is.” He thinks that “strange” doesn’t even begin to define what’s happened, and what, while it lasts, is still happening.

  “Yes.” With her spoon she reaches back toward the gelato, sticks it decisively into the orange of the persimmon, and brings it to her mouth. There’s an aching gluttony to her movements: the woman of sun and moon who continues to be delighted by what she finds here on earth.

  He takes a spoonful of white fior di latte: calming and satisfying, with all the connections to shapes and thoughts that it stimulates. He looks at her, and in him grows the desperate desire that this moment not end. “Can we try to stop time?”

  Her eyes in the lamplight are full of colors, like the first time he saw her two days ago; a lifetime ago. “Yes.”

  They eat the fior di latte and persimmon directly from the container with insatiable pleasure, as if each spoonful is their last, and the next one their first. On and on they continue, in the uncontrollable need to replicate the wonder and joy that have surged through them time and time again, as if this moment that contained them could go on forever. One spoonful after another, they finish off the entire tub: suddenly they’re there, scraping the bottom like a couple of famished children. They look at each other and laugh.

  Then she turns to look out the window, and he does the same, and they realize that time hasn’t stopped: darkness has fallen.

  THIRTY-ONE

  WHEN THEY COME out of the cottage in the woods it seems like night more than evening. She thinks about getting her phone out to check what time it is but changes her mind. He tries to lock up but has trouble doing so, fumbling around with the key in search of the lock. Time has flown by, with all it contained, and now they’re like two survivors of a natural disaster who don’t have the slightest clue how long their luck is going to hold out. She’s bewildered at the idea that it’s become so late without them realizing it, but incredibly it doesn’t seem to make her anxious: the waves that have crashed into them and tossed them around have left her permeated with well-being, under her skin, in her heart, in the pit of her stomach, in the back of
her thoughts. She doesn’t even seem to feel guilty: try as she might to rewind, she can’t think of a single squalid or petty thing they’ve done, not a single word or gesture that wasn’t beautiful. Is this her way of absolving herself? Of pretending not to be jointly responsible for an episode that could have disastrous consequences?

  They pause in the clearing, then he turns toward the heavier darkness of the woods. “Shall we go?” It seems like an actual question, as if they could decide to stay here instead, go back inside, to the shelter of the cottage, hide out in there indefinitely. But he’s moving, and she follows him, with the strangest alternation of fluidity and clumsiness, her right hand gripping the cooler that contains the empty container that contained the gelato, the reason or pretext of her coming here. He holds her left hand, in a protective way she’s not at all accustomed to, stroking it as they walk. Protective for how much longer? Ten minutes? Five? What then? They don’t say a word to each other, maybe because they don’t know what to say, maybe because they’ve already said far too much.

  The dense darkness of the woods wraps around them, with the smells of damp wood, rotted leaves, moss; they feel the path beneath their feet, more than see it, but he goes forward with such confidence, he knows the way. Every so often they stop and breathe each other in, shoulder to shoulder, temple to temple. They start walking again, but slow down as they gradually move forward, as if trying to prolong the time they have left: and of course they can’t, time slips away from them one step after another, one pause after another.

  They come out of the trees, and all the lights of the big house are there: more numerous and closer than she expected. He grips her hand even tighter, but still they say nothing to each other. They walk alongside the paddock, where by now the little dark horses are almost invisible but their snorting can be heard when they approach the fence.

  When they’re about fifty yards away from the house he lets go of her hand; his fingers slip away, the warmth of contact disappears.

  An emptiness passes through her, makes her waver momentarily.

  He must realize it, because he stops again, leans over to kiss her on the side of the head.

  She feels the warmth return and it calms her, though she knows it’s absurd; she smiles, in between the darkness and the light. And no sooner does she marvel at being able to calm down than the dormant alarm inside her awakens and takes possession of her: it makes her heart race, fills her head with anxious anticipation and incessant questions. If his future wife were to see them, would she know what’s happened between them? Just by looking at them, without any need for conjectures, let alone questions? And even if she doesn’t see them, what are they going to do now? Will they say good-bye and that’s it, go their separate ways? With what internal consequences? What doubts that will never go away? Or will they both be able to forget about what happened, once the swirl of sensations still enveloping them has dissolved? Will they be relieved when this afternoon becomes just another piece of their past? Will they be sad? Will they perhaps feel a small pang of guilt every now and then? Of perplexity? Of nostalgia?

  By now they’ve almost reached the house; with each step their physical closeness to each other seems less sustainable, yet between the darkness behind them and the lights ahead she isn’t even sure how close they really are, because it seems like she’s almost touching him and instead when she turns there’s far too much space separating them. But it’s certainly not a question of physical closeness: it’s the traces of what’s transpired, on their faces and in their ways of moving, as much as they might try to pretend otherwise. Not that they’re trying very hard, though. Their states of mind change every second, without one being able to prevail over the others long enough to control the situation. She now feels much worse than when she arrived here with her van, and at that point she already felt like a thief. One moment she feels like what’s happened was so magical that it was worth any risk; the next that it was the stupidest thing in the world; the next that it was the most ridiculous. One moment it seems like she did absolutely nothing wrong; the next she feels like a criminal. She turns toward him, to tell him something or grab his hand or even just to look at him before leaving, but a violent beam of white light accosts them.

  “It’s him!” An enormous black silhouette is in front of them, a high-powered flashlight in his hand.

  “Of course it’s me. Lower the light, you’re blinding me.” Nick Cruickshank uses a hand to shield his eyes.

  The enormous silhouette complies, and it’s the Italian bodyguard who stopped her the other day at her arrival; now that his face is visible, he looks embarrassed.

  Just beyond is Nick Cruickshank’s future wife, illuminated by the lights from the windows and sliding doors and the lower garden lights and the ones higher up; behind her are several men and women, all in a state of obvious tension.

  Nick Cruickshank gives her a little wave. “Hey, Aileen.” Incredibly light, incredibly out of place. Is this the provocation of a rock star who ignores conventions and the rules of cohabitation and even other people’s feelings, or an absurd show of loyalty? To her?

  Milena Migliari would like to sprint around the corner of the house, get to her van, jump inside and turn on the engine, drive away as fast as she can; but she already knows that it would be a very undignified way to go, as well as being useless, since they’d certainly stop her at the gate. It would actually be so undignified and pointless that just thinking about it makes her want to laugh. She tries to restrain herself, because she knows that laughing would be even more unacceptable than Nick Cruickshank’s attitude, but she can’t; she laughs.

  Nick Cruickshank turns to look at her, with an expression that’s so comic it makes her laugh even harder; and he laughs with her. He tries to look serious, tries straightening up but can’t. He walks chuckling and slightly bent over toward Aileen and the others.

  Milena Migliari follows him, since she can’t come up with any acceptable alternatives. Even though she keeps on laughing it feels like her feet are glued to the ground, each step forward requiring a conscious effort.

  They meet in the middle of the lawn: Nick Cruickshank, she, and the bodyguard on one side, Aileen and her little group on the other. Just beyond a small army of men are planting, hammering, assembling, setting up arches, lengthening walkways, widening cupolas in the shafts of light.

  “What is so amusing?” Aileen makes a visible effort to restrain herself, maybe because of her two friends or assistants standing at her sides, the other people standing just behind her. But she’s so tense it looks like she’s about to snap: you only have to look at her dilated nostrils, her hands, her nervous legs.

  The enormous bodyguard points the flashlight toward the darkness behind them, possibly to make sure there are no other intruders ready to pop out of the woods. Then he makes a gesture of disengagement, awkward like his other gestures, and goes toward the men working in the distance.

  “Well?” Nick Cruickshank looks at his future wife, as if he isn’t that sure who she really is.

  “Would you mind telling me where you’ve disappeared to all this time?” Aileen’s very white teeth sparkle in the lamplight, but certainly not in a smile.

  “Ah.” Nick Cruickshank turns, gestures toward Milena Migliari standing two steps behind him. “She brought me some gelato to taste.”

  Milena Migliari feels a bit thrown in at the deep end, but she lifts up the empty cooler, confirming that at least this detail is authentic, demonstrable.

  “Some gelato?” Aileen looks at her like she’s just now becoming aware of her presence, which clearly isn’t possible. Or maybe it is. Who knows?

  Milena Migliari thinks that if this woman attacked her now she wouldn’t know how to defend herself. Should she play dumb? Take responsibility, salvage a little dignity? Very little, after being caught like this, the thieving Italian seductress/gelato maker who slinks into the life of the woman who only two days ago came to her rescue with the largest order she’s ever receiv
ed.

  “Yes. Fior di latte and persimmon. They were extraordinarily good.” Nick Cruickshank gives his voice that theatrical emphasis, as if convincing Aileen that the extraordinary goodness of the gelato could cancel out all the guilt and suspicion, dissolve all the tension.

  Aileen tightens her lips in another nonsmile, which must require an enormous dose of self-control. “I bet they were, if you spent hours tasting them.”

  “Hours?” Nick Cruickshank seems genuinely surprised, turns to look at Milena Migliari, as if to ask her how much time has actually passed.

  Milena Migliari shrugs; if she had to guess based on how she feels, she’d say that an entire day and evening and night have passed, or just a few minutes, bursting with incredibly unmanageable gestures and sensations.

  Aileen shifts her gaze from her to him, scans their expressions in the lamplight. “Are you high?”

  “Naaah.” Nick Cruickshank tries to look serious, but once again starts laughing. He snorts, hunching slightly forward like before.

  Milena Migliari is immediately infected, though she tries desperately to restrain herself. She bites her lip, but it takes her whole seconds to stop.

  Aileen excludes her from her visual field, goes back to focusing on her future husband. “And where did you do this pothead’s tasting? We’ve been looking for you everywhere, inside and out.”

  Nick Cruickshank gestures toward the woods behind him, maybe because he knows how unrealistic it would be to claim to be coming from anywhere else.

  “The damn cottage in the woods?” Aileen makes one of those incredulous faces so common in Hollywood comedies: her eyes and mouth go slightly sideways.

  “Well, there’s an invasion force here.” Nick Cruickshank points to the men still intent on every sort of preparatory activity on the illuminated lawn behind her.

  Aileen glances over her shoulder, as if to verify that there truly is no way of saying a word or making a gesture without being observed by dozens of people. She tries giving another of her nonsmiles, but she’s so incredulous and indignant that it cracks immediately. “Here we’re preparing the party for our wedding, Nick!”