Vassilis Vassilikos - ...And Dreams Are Dreams

So? No dread, no dream, no drama. Nothing.

What kind of story is that? you will ask. I asked myself the same thing.

So then I started a new story: it takes place in the transit zone of an international airport. Time: the present. Characters: She and He. The voice over the loudspeaker announces: “All flights are delayed indefinitely due to dense fog.” In fact, the passengers know that the real reason is the passage of Haley’s comet. He and She begin to talk to each other. They know they will never meet again. They have separate destinations. They met by chance in the transit zone.

By using this symbol I wanted to say that our life is an airport transit zone, or something like that. We meet, we talk, we love each other, we fall out of sight. But who could these two people be? And what would they confess to each other? If I were He, who would She be? What would be her name? I had to do some searching. Whereas with the story about Don Pacifico, who lives with the heart of Doña Rosita, I had no problem: the topic was given, the facts were known, and the job prepaid. It was no use floundering in search of new stories when I already had my story. All I had to do was build on it.

So now, how did I fail? This is what I have been wanting to tell you. What stages did I pass through to reach the point of being overcome by panic at the thought of time going by and my not getting anything done? Just as during sex, when you can’t get any pop in your pickle, you start telling stories to your partner, and she listens to you, spellbound, but when you are finished talking she asks herself, “Why did he tell me all that? Oh, yes….” And it is only then that she gets the picture. In the same way I, being unable to make love to my typewriter, abandoned it and took pen to snow-white paper, as I’ve said — and here I am telling you why I can’t tell you the story I’m supposed to, the story that has been commissioned, with a signed contract and advance money in my pocket.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through such a crisis. But it’s the first time I’ve decided to record it. It is a luxury I am happy to offer myself. Because, between you and me (I can say it now), it is a frightful lie, this reader-writer pact. How am I supposed to know how a man feels with the transplanted heart of a woman? I wasn’t the patient (thank God!), much less the woman killed. However, since as I said, this kind of crisis had happened to me before, I hoped to abandon myself to the flow of events, to be carried away, to be transported.

So, from the morning of the day when my crisis began, I saw the sun shining brightly outside my window. The sky was clear blue. A spring day, in other words, while the day before had been cold and rainy. I decided to go out. I had been here three days, and it had rained nonstop. Indeed, the weather outside was radiant. I didn’t like it. But how could I stay cooped up? I sighed. How could I go back to my dungeon? I walked to the square, then crossed the river and stopped at a cafe for a cappuccino. The world was rejoicing. The cars were speeding along. The leaves were falling from the trees. The municipal officer was stopping cars without permits from entering the historic town center. And I was walking, telling myself I had to return to my dark room and get down to work.

I saw a man in a raincoat and for a moment I imagined him as my hero. With great effort, I convinced myself to turn around and, like a dog who has been walked, return to my shell.

And so it was that as I entered, I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed. An old acquaintance, an old flame.

We had split up some time ago — it had been almost a year — amidst weeping and gnashing of teeth, and I still hadn’t gotten over her. She still tormented me in my sleep, she was still taking her revenge, like that song says: “I’ll have revenge, you can be sure, I ll come to you while you’re asleep, at night I’ll haunt your dreams….” Even so, our relationship was history as far as I was concerned. Rosa — that was her name—

wanted to have a serious relationship, to live together, and maybe even get married; I was allergic to those kinds of relationships. But apart from that, I liked her a lot and I guess she liked me. At that moment I didn’t know what to make of it. She had already filled a vase with three red roses: the trademark of our love.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you get here? How did you find me? How did you get into the room?”

Her eyes, large and luminous, were looking at me with that surprise and joy they always expressed at the sight of me. Full of light, full like the moon, full bodied — fullness always came to mind whenever I thought of Rosa — I saw on her lips, which remained shut, a single drop of saliva, one of the signs we used to use to tell each other, silently, that we wanted to make love.

“Sweetheart,” I said, and threw myself on her and started to kiss her, happy that she had come to find me, but a little confused by her unexpected appearance.

“I know you’re very busy,” she said. “I won’t stay. Here’s my number. I’ll be in town for a few days.

I’m putting on a fashion show.”

“That’s great!” I said. “But stay. Stay.”

“No, I’m going. I have to go. I don’t want to keep you from your work. Besides, I have a few things to take care of before noon.”

“How you’ve changed! You look more beautiful than ever!” I was saying, totally confused.

“Away from you, everyone becomes more

beautiful,” she replied. “I had a hard time getting over it, but I made it. I’m strong now. You have nothing to fear.”

I rode down with her in the elevator and walked with her to the bar next door for a coffee. I didn’t want to part with her so soon. Of course, I was also in the mood to avoid my work, but I was genuinely glad to see her. I found out how she had discovered my hotel (“If one is interested, one can find out anything.”), how she had asked for me at the front desk, how she had slipped by the receptionist and gone upstairs, having noted my room number when the receptionist had said,

“He’s not in.” And how she had replied, “All right, I’ll wait for him in the lounge,” knowing from long ago that I never locked doors (she even remembered the excuse I had given her: “My manuscripts are of no value, after all.”), she had given a little something to the chambermaid and had come into my room where, after putting the flowers in the vase, she had waited for my return. As I listened to her, the torrents of our ancient joy began to flow again, back from when, without the anxieties and obstacles that accumulate with time, we were living the fullness of our love. Way back, before the painful twitches that start occurring in couples that have been together for a long time, when all either of us wanted was to give ourselves to one another, endlessly and without measure. She was well dressed, as always, this time in a tight grey suit and scarf, earrings like two petrified tears, fishnet stockings, and fashionable high-heeled shoes. But she really had to go once she’d had her coffee.

“You will call me, won’t you? Whenever you want. You call, so I don’t disturb you. I’ll be here for a week.” Visibly moved, she left me at the cafe, perhaps so that I wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

“What bliss!” I thought, as I saw her disappear around the corner. “What luck!” She had sworn never to see me again as long as she lived, and that had cut me like a knife. But I too had gotten over it.

Everything is forgotten with time. The fact that she had reappeared had to mean that she would agree to my conditions of noncommitment, of an open relationship, even though in the past she had told me that with such a temporary arrangement she couldn’t give herself to me body and soul. In any case, I was to find out later what had made her come to see me. At the time, I was delighted by this unexpected gift bestowed upon me in the desert. (Not that I was suffering from lack of women. In a hotel, one can find casual company. But I had loved Rosa. Her sensitivity had touched chords within me that I had forgotten; adolescent feelings buried inside me for years; the way I would cry, for no reason, when she would tell me “never again,” which was something that hadn’t happened to me in years.) I was living the joy of feeling joy, and I didn’t know where it started or where it was taking me.