Sun Alley

by Cecilia Stefanescu

  ‘Do you think I don’t know? We will change the moment we walk out this door,’ Emi said, dragging Sal out of the room by the hand.

  And the air inside rarefied.

  IV

  THE LONELY PLACE

  The food slipped down their throats in tiny, hurried waves: the hors d’oeuvres on plastic, trident-shaped spears, the dumpling soup, the second course – an avalanche of mashed potatoes and pork steak pieces stuffed with thin wedges of bacon – and, finally, the apple cake, wrapped in caramelised sugar. They all sat in layers inside their stomachs, fuelling the thought factory. In the end, Emi sat up in her chair and decreed that if she took another bite, she would throw up. Her mother signalled discretely that she should mind her language in the presence of her guest. The wind had started blowing outside, after a voice with impeccable diction had announced high temperatures toward the end of the radio newscast.

  ‘If the weather is nice, we can go to the outdoor cinema and watch a film,’ Sal said, using the tip of his tongue to remove a piece of sponge cake from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘You are so smart! And if Mum will give us some change, we can get two ice-creams,’ Emi said lightly.

  ‘When I was your age, I would play hopscotch,’ her mother sighed, voicing a sensible yet bitter thought, for she knew too well that time worked in favour of the hidden desires she wasn’t really willing to speak about, when the soul had just begun to ripen and the body was listening to other voices.

  Emi was drumming her fingers against the doorjamb, calling Sal to part with his second piece of cake and hit the road. Sal, as in all the afternoons over the last three years, grabbed Emi’s skirt and let himself be dragged slowly among junipers, among huge poppies bordering gardens enclosed by amber fences, by the roots of marigolds with plucked wings that grew back fluffier and more colourful. Sal was deeply inhaling the smell of dead plants and, page by page, leafing through the herbarium of the days they had been separated. Why would she, of all people, appear there, outstretched, like a raped odalisque, sprawled for contemplation?

  ‘Do you think love is meant to be pure? I know that’s what you believe.’

  He thought more than that: love had to be concealed, never confessed, just lived. The aspiration for love was the only thing that really kept you at the surface – not even the aspiration for fulfilment, but the kind that is unaware of itself, like smelling out prey in the air. How could he have said that to her without irritating her and estranging her forever? Would she have understood that, by telling her those thoughts, he would unveil his most ardent wish: of staying together until their last gasp?

  ‘Sal, where is your mind wandering?’

  He dreamt of being able to snuggle on the bedcovers with her and of being forgotten, for a week or so of eating yoghurt and peanuts, telling stories, never visited by sleep. Since he had seen her lying on that table, pale and silent, he couldn’t let go of her image and, even when they were together, he felt that longing grabbing his stomach like a claw.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘You.’

  Emi stuck the tip of her tongue out through her moist lips. ‘I am not a what.’

  The luminous trees, in the sunlight, were soldiers marking the way. It was a long time since they’d seen such splendour, for it lay enfolded in that boredom which was deaf and blind to all surroundings. The park gates opened in front of them.

  ‘And how do you think when you think of me?’ She was sitting on the kerb, stubbornly refusing to step inside the gardens until she got her answer.

  ‘I think with fear.’

  ‘Are you afraid of me?’ Emi marvelled.

  ‘No, I’m afraid something might happen to you.’

  ‘Oh, Sal!’ she burst out. ‘You sure are a coward! You love to avoid difficult answers! Never mind.’

  And she set out serenely, swirling the leaves around her. She hopped on the pied back of a butterfly, and they rose about thirty feet in the air above the giant grass. Emi combed the hair out of her eyes from time to time; Sal grabbed her waist and buried his face in her beautifully curved nape, on which the transparent fluff stood unravelled in expectation. On the ground, flowers clapped their petals upon seeing the two travellers. If only they could stay as they were now, embracing easefully, loitering and flying. Sal suddenly found himself philosophising again out loud,

  ‘If you knew how many times I have been thinking about you, how many times I have seen you lying naked on the starched white sheets, sleeping after I had examined you and satisfied all my cravings and navigated, like a submarine… Why should I be lying to you?’

  Emi leaned her head back. ‘I have been thinking of you, too, but differently. I love you, but in another way…’

  Children were playing on the lawn, shrieking with sharp voices that prodded the air from all directions. They looked happy and free, at any rate untended, for there was no eye concealed by thick lenses to admonish them. But their faces had a dull air, as if temporary freedom meant nothing, as if it were forever. One of them, a nine-year-old blond, a chubby and angelic imp, rushed to another and knocked him down in one motion, squeezing him under the white pads of his tender flesh. The fallen child tossed under the angel’s weight, moaning and coughing, which brought happiness and delirium to the others’ faces. One by one, they all jumped on top, making a tower of bodies. They laughed and thrashed about, as if swimming in a sea full of lather and ducklings and mothers whose extended arms were reaching out to catch them. The child at the bottom was lost under the cries of the riotous crowd. Emi was staring agape at the swarming construction.

  ‘What are they doing to him?’

  ‘Nothing, Emi, let’s move on. Let’s get out of the commotion.’

  She followed Sal, who advanced along the park alleys like a rattlesnake. She could almost hear his hissing next to her ears.

  ‘If your friends had jumped like that over me, crushing me under their weight, would you have saved me? Would you have taken me out of there? I think you would have let me suffocate.’

  Sal started to tell her that she was wrong, but he stopped. Above their heads, trees were whispering with entwined branches. The alleys were empty, and from the balconies of the houses adjacent to the park they could even hear voices, music and Sunday noises. Sal sniffed the air like a hound. In front of them, a fat beetle was crawling slowly on the concrete, heading for a bench. Upon reaching it, it stopped, wagged its legs a couple of times, then disappeared in the thick greenery stretching up to the lake.

  ‘I will never leave you. Why can’t you understand that?’ Sal’s voice had come out faintly. ‘You force me to make these phony-sounding statements. Do you really feel nothing of what’s going on?’

  Emi turned to him without answering. She measured him with her round, full gaze that could sometimes look so naïve. But Sal knew it wasn’t naïveté. It was something else, undefined, a thought of hers that she never voiced; the same thought or different versions of it, blacker or more detached. She felt nothing of what was happening to them, just as he didn’t manage to comprehend either, for things were terribly intricate. On a green-painted bench, he saw two bodies that were moving slowly, their faces melted together. From a distance, they looked like shadows thrown by the trees on the wooden beams. Sal took a few steps toward the two, but Emi remained still, admiring the lake.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful? How about getting a boat and going for a ride?’

  Sal turned around and threw her an impatient gaze. ‘It’s sunny. If we get a boat, the sun will beat us senseless.’

  Emi smiled. ‘You have started to hate me already! And it’s been so little time compared to what lies ahead.’

  Sal lunged forward and knocked her down in the grass. The girl tossed under his weight and her laughter mingled with the gurgles of the kids on the nearby lawn. He was touched; he felt he was melting above her with love. The boats were passing peacefully on the lake, and the grass rustled under the short gusts of wind that reached them
from time to time. From far away they could hear the cries of a bird signalling to its sisters. While Sal’s mouth was pacing the girl’s neck, her body lay limp, periodically shaken by a shiver of pleasure.

  ‘You won’t change, will you? Promise me.’

  And to carry on with his exploration down her neck, he promised.

  ‘I won’t change. And even if I were to change, I will only do it for you. Because you will ask me to. I will be altruistic and careful to guard against the things that could harm you. Is that all right?’

  ‘What does altruistic mean?’

  ‘Altruism is when you would die for someone and stand by them no matter what.’

  ‘Huh. I thought it was something else.’

  ‘No, that’s what it is,’ he lied, and nestled his face in the scoop between her neck and her collarbone. There was such a great smell there, a mix of fresh sweat and deodorant traces. He was pressing her with all his body; he had grabbed her hands and they were now swimming in the grass with generous motions, preparing to take wing. Soon, very soon, they would again see the park unfolding beneath them like an old map, animated by minuscule creatures.

  ‘It’s strange, but you should know, Emi, that all your worries are unnecessary.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ she piped.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Why do you think your parents don’t like me?’

  Sal blinked a couple of times, tickling her cheek with the tips of his eyelashes. ‘It’s not that they don’t like you. I believe they just don’t understand what’s going on. That’s what I think is the matter.’ After a pause, he continued in a dark voice: ‘They don’t see the point of such a friendship. They’d rather see me spend more time with the boys, having more fun. They probably wish I made the same mischief as Max, for instance. As for you, they just can’t figure you out.’

  Emi sat up, letting Sal slide slowly into the grass. ‘You sound as if something bad is going to happen.’

  ‘It will. Not now, right away, but after some time.’

  ‘What?’ Emi sighed with a gloomy face.

  Sal rolled on the grass until he was close to the border of the lake. He stretched his hands to the shiny surface and placed the tip of his index finger on the black mirror. The beetle was now advancing on the cement ledge, stopping from time to time and kicking his hind legs. Sal remained still, his face in the grass.

  ‘Can you see those two people sitting on the bench to the right?’

  Emi turned around and looked the way Sal had indicated. On the bench, the two figures sat estranged, with a small distance between them.

  ‘I’ve seen them before. Yesterday. Actually, not only yesterday.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Today, when I came to your place, I wanted to tell you about it. I’ve been bumping into them lately. I seem to know her from before, though it may only be a resemblance. They seem to be fighting, although they are always silent as they are now.’

  Emi remained staring at the two. ‘Do you think they are lovers?’

  Sal rolled face-up. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know, the way they act. They seem to be afraid, like people who love each other, but they can’t show it. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘You are so smart, Emi! You are right. And you put it very nicely. The fact is, I keep bumping into them. Actually, after I come across them, I get so sad the whole day.’

  Emi got to her knees. Her body was swinging slowly from left to right. ‘Let’s follow them to see if I’m right.’

  Sal closed his eyes, shaking his head. He no longer felt like following them; he felt great just lying on the spiny grass, with his ears tickled by the pleasant sound of the water rippling near his head and the breeze carrying the girl’s smell to his nose from time to time. ‘Wouldn’t you rather stay here a little longer?’

  But Emi was already on her feet far from him, mesmerised, like a butterfly noisily flapping its wings and spreading a coloured powder around him.

  ‘Emi, come back,’ Sal whispered and then fell.

  But Emi was already lying in wait.

  The man took her hand into his. He was relaxed and didn’t appear to be thinking about what he was doing. He had made the gesture like a robot would, and now he was sitting with the inert hand in his lap, playing with the fingers that were falling, one by one, on invisible keys. She would look at him from time to time, scrutinising his face.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  He shivered. ‘Nothing. Actually, it’s something stupid. From our kitchen, you can see the kitchen of a woman living right across the street. We’ve been living there for six years, but I still haven’t got the slightest clue as to what this woman even looks like. Her windowsill is full of flowers: cacti, geraniums, Zanzibar violas. Recently, she’s also bought a Monstera deliciosa baby. I watch every day as its aerial roots grow more chaotically. She waters it incorrectly, more often than she should. But the baby plant is stronger. If it had been mature, it would have rotted right away, but young as it is, it sucks the water and laughs in the sun.’

  She pulled her hand from his, and chillness set between them.

  ‘What now? What have I said?’

  ‘You didn’t say anything. It’s just that talking about your neighbor – about the kitchen from which you can see her flowers – seems very cruel to me. Have you thought that, although I try my best not to care, I don’t like to hear things like that? About your house and about your neighbour?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you!’

  The man stood up and took a few theatrical steps. Her face had coarsened; it had become edgy, and her cheeks had hollowed in an unhappy grimace.

  ‘If I were to judge by appearances, I would say that you’re very unhappy with me.’

  ‘How come?’

  He noticed her uncommonly striking contours.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We both knew from the beginning how it would be.’

  The woman released a sound, something between a sigh and a cry, stirring the leaves around her. She doubled up and pressed her head between her arms, burying it in her lap.

  ‘Will you please look at me when we talk?’

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to. Monstera deliciosa: that’s what he had said a while before, serenely and detachedly, throwing his aerial tentacles toward her. She wanted to snuggle in the past and freeze time at a certain moment.

  ‘You’ve changed a lot – I can barely recognise you! You have your own life; you haven’t stalled, you have moved on, you have someone to work for, someone to earn and save money for, someone to make future plans for. While I… And you promised… I was stupid enough to believe you!’

  He appeared to ponder her words. He stood in front of her with his arms hanging limply alongside his body, slouching in a helpless pose. He wished he could run off, disappear in a second and be spared having to confront her, with all her fury and her incriminations that he had no answer for. They had both known it from the start. Unlike her, he also knew that this moment would come, when all the words they had ever said to each other would turn against them.

  She stood up and approached him, her eyes welling with tears. She grabbed the tips of his fingers, but they slipped away and she threw herself in his arms like a tragedienne. They were standing in the middle of the alley in a ridiculous and clumsy embrace. From behind them a beggar popped up, scrounging for some change; they parted uneasily and the man rummaged in his pockets for coins. She got herself together and fixed her clothes. Things were back to normal. She smiled at him half-heartedly. She didn’t like scenes, but she couldn’t help it. These were her last attempts, because she felt she was melting into thin air and he could not see her anymore. He was no longer willing to accept her and, even worse, he had developed some kind of defense against her foreign body.

  ‘Forgive me, please… ‘

  She tried to embrace him again, but he kept his distance.

  ‘Ple
ase…’

  ‘I can’t keep defending myself all the time. If you are so unhappy, maybe we should break up.’

  ‘No!’

  How could he say words like these so easily? ‘I don’t want us to break up.’

  ‘I think you haven’t got the slightest idea what you want.’

  He walked away, and she went after him, crying. All eyes were riveted upon them; everybody was watching them, some with an all-knowing grin, others feigning concern so as to feed themselves remorselessly on that amusing agony. She grabbed his elbow and clung to him in haste, imploring him to stay first in a low voice, then louder and louder, regardless of anything else.

  ‘I’m not unhappy. That’s nonsense. I swear I’m very happy.’

  He looked at her as you would watch the grass from above, harbouring an abstract compassion for all the insects hiding below that you know nothing about. Love has a rough side that tramples on sophistication and shame.

  In her haste, she lost a shoe and tripped. She made a few tiny steps forward in an attempt to keep her balance but eventually lost it and fell flat on the ground, then remained lying on the alley as if she had suddenly died. He walked along, leaving her behind. To see her like that was beyond anything that had happened between them so far. It was more important to understand how she was going to withstand the lonely nights, pondering and unwinding the film that would alter her common sense little by little. If he had looked, even for a split second, he would have seen a Monstera deliciosa drowned in too much water. But he wasn’t cruel enough to leave her there, so he stopped and turned back, then helped her up by her arms, struggling to repress his urge to slap her smooth face, covered in pearly pink makeup that was glittering in the light. With his sweaty hands, he whisked the dust off her clothes as if she were a child and arranged her hair behind her ear before they continued to walk slowly along the alley. He was holding her elbow as if he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t escape. They walked like that for a long time – drawing circles around the park, girdling it with magic rings – in silence, for the mere sound of words would have disturbed the already precarious equilibrium of those afternoon hours.