Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

'I don't know. Maybe I don't understand.'

'I don't tell lies,' he said. 'I promise I will never lie to you.'

They had intended to spend the whole week at the borrowed cottage. They were together for five days, day and night. He wasn't used to that kind of closeness, and on the fifth day he was overcome by exhaustion, or perhaps it was anxiety. He felt trapped, locked in a cage, in a prison cell again, even though her tenderness made it easier for him. By the sixth day his need for change, for another voice and different company had become too great. He got up at dawn, when she was still asleep, and gazed at her face for a while. All at once it seemed alien and unfriendly. Her limp hair was stuck to her forehead, her sensual lips had become

chapped and dry in sleep and marks left by his mouth were still visible on her slender throat. He tiptoed out of the room and fled, leaving not a whisper behind, only an unmade bed and an unfinished bottle of wine.

He ran across the dew-covered meadow and suddenly felt free.

What did it mean to be free?

It meant to have the right to define the space for our own actions.

Who conferred such a right?

We were born with it. He had believed that when he first tried to escape across the border, but they had denied him that right. He had let himself be deprived of it.

He finished fixing the tap, turned the water on and off several times and, when he was satisfied, he put the tools away, buttered a roll for his mother, made her tea and returned to the sitting-room.

'Did you bring me breakfast?' she said, surprised.

'Dinner. It's already evening.'

'What makes you think so?'

'Just take a look,' he said, pointing to a large clock on the wall.

'It always shows the same time.' His mother stared at the clock with a vague, confused look. 'A quarter to twelve?' she guessed.

'A quarter past five.'

'There's no difference. It's always dark outside.'

It was already getting dark and had started to rain when he returned to the cottage. He was drunk, drunk enough to walk jauntily, but not enough to be unaware of the wretchedness and the boorishness of what he had done. He saw the light in the window from a distance. She was still there. She hadn't gone, she was waiting for him. He didn't even know whether he was pleased or not. But at least he would have somewhere to dry his clothes and somewhere to sleep.

She was sitting on the floor, her knees hunched up under her chin, looking into the flickering fire. Her eyes were red from smoke, or from crying.

'Forgive me,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

She was wearing black trousers and a shaggy white sweater with black horizontal streaks that made it look like birch-bark. She seemed beautiful to him, and he longed to put his arms around her. 'Forgive me,' he said again. 'I had to leave. I love you, but I had to see some new faces.'

'You don't have to explain anything to me.'

'I brought you something.' He reached into his pocket, but it was empty. All he could feel was a hole. 'Forgive me,' he said a third time.

'Why did you come back?'

'Because I love you.' He sat down on the bed and took his shoes off. 'I thought I'd be back before now, but I couldn't get away. There was this fellow there, he looked a little bit like my father.'

'Were you tired of me?'

'I guess I was.'

'And you say you love me?'

'I needed a rest. There's something strange and persistent about you. I can't relax beside you.'

'You don't need to explain anything.'

'Or perhaps there's something strange in me. I needed a change. I feel this need to escape whenever I feel hemmed in.'

'We can leave. Or you can leave by yourself, if you want.'

'No, it's all right now.' He stretched out on the bed. 'I'm glad to be back with you again. I just needed a break. You didn't feel anything like that?'

'If I had, I would have left too. Only I would have told you before I did.'

'I'm sorry. I should have left you a message. I didn't expect to be back so late.'

'I thought you wanted to stay with me. How could you stand being with me for the rest of your life if I bore you after a few days?'

'But that would be different. Here we were too alone. Too much together and alone at the same time.'

'Do you think that later on we won't be so completely together?'

'Well, there would be other people around, and then

we'd have to go to work. And there'd be children.'

Instead of answering, she began to cry.

'Why are you crying? Christ, why're you crying again?'

'You can go. Leave, if you find it hard to be with me.'

'I feel good with you.' He got up and put his arms around her.

'You'll always go away.'

'And I'll always come back.'

'If you still feel like it.' But she put her arms around him and began to kiss him.

That evening she told him for the first time that when she was little, her mother, who was a doctor, had been sent to India. She had gone with her, and they lived for almost two years in a city on the Ganges. One morning, she ran outside and saw a lot of gaunt people lying in the street. Then some men in dirty white coats came with a cart and loaded some of these gaunt men on to it. It was only years later that she realized those gaunt people were corpses. 'Sometimes, when I think about it, I can still see that scene so vividly.'

'What made you remember it just now?'

'Maybe because I feel a great restlessness in you. Mostly I remember that scene when I see how everyone around me is in such a rush, chasing after things they can't possibly find.'

'Does that mean you think I'd be better off dead?'

'Don't blaspheme. You know I want you to be alive. It's just that I'm afraid for you.' Then she said: 'You place too much importance on things, and too little on your own soul.'

'What is a soul?'

'It can't be put into words.'

'Well, how can I devote myself to something that can't be put into words?'

'God can't be put into words either.'

'I'm not saying I believe in God. Do you think the soul can be seen or somehow perceived?'

'I don't know. Why are you questioning me like this? You're making fun of me.'

'No. You're the one who started talking about it.'

'Indians say that the soul is woven from consciousness and spirit. From life and vision. From earth and water. From lightness and darkness. They say it's what is divine in man.'

'Is that what they told you there?'

'I had a teacher.'

'Do you think that animals have souls too?'

'Yes.'

'I'm glad. I don't like it when man thinks he's superior to the animals.'

Night was coming, and it was still raining. He got up and put some wood on the hearth. The fire smelled good.

He came back to her. They lay beside each other on the wide bed. Would he spend his life with her? Could he stand living side by side with someone for years?

'Do you feel claustrophobic here?' she asked.

'Why do you think that?'

'I feel that it's claustrophobic for you here. Should I open the window or maybe turn on the light?'

'Just stay. Stay here with me. I feel good like this. I like the dark.' He embraced her. 'Maybe I've been waiting my whole life for you, waiting for this moment.'

'Life is waiting for the light, not for the dark,' she said. 'My Indian teacher told me that. He was blind.'

'I'm already old, aren't I?' said his mother.

'Not that old,' he replied, as he always did. 'Others are older.'

'And how old am I, really?'

'You'll be seventy-eight next birthday.'

'I don't understand that,' she said. 'But yesterday they called me to the office and asked me whether I'd already reached my limit.'

'What limit?'

'Mine, of course. Seven thousand eight hundred metres.'