Olga Grushin - Forty Rooms

“I thought you knew.” She continued looking at him. “He—apparently he was in some kind of accident last winter. At first they thought it was drinking or drugs, but it wasn’t. He just lost control of the car. Drove into a tree. A branch pierced his lungs… Sorry, that was gruesome, I shouldn’t have—”

She set her glass of wine on the table, lowered herself into the chair.

“Apollo’s arrow,” she said quietly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” She stared out the window. Streetlamps were beginning to glow in the green twilight. Do you not imagine sometimes, when dusk wanders through the house, that here, alongside us, lies another plane, where we lead entirely different lives… She felt cold, so cold. “Paul. Do you ever feel that there is more to life than we can see, near us but just out of reach?”

“You mean like ghosts? Or… angels or something?”

“No, nothing so obvious. Just… I never tried putting it into words before, but… When I was younger, I sometimes felt that, just below the surface of ordinary things, there was another, secret layer of—well, not magic exactly, but forces of the universe ran deeper there, or things were brighter and had their true names, or… or something like that. And if you were special enough to see into that other, hidden place through the veneer of here and now, a little of its light would be yours to keep. Sort of like wishes being granted if you found the secret words with which to ask. Except sometimes you forgot it wasn’t just a child’s game, sometimes you wished for things that weren’t…”

She stopped, inarticulate with guilt, confused by the remnants of a half-remembered dream. The silence between them swelled with the gauze of curtains blown into the kitchen on the breath of a sudden light breeze. In the street below, a blushing rain of petals fluttered down to the sidewalks.

“I’m not sure I follow. Everyone is special in some way. And—forgive me for being blunt—but I don’t believe in mystical mumbo-jumbo. Here is here. Now is now. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. End of story.” He sounded almost hostile. After a pause, he added, his tone softening, “I’m sorry about John.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, not looking at him. “I don’t really know what I’m saying. You just took me by surprise. It’s… very sad. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Of course. Here.” He splashed more wine into her glass. “Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

They talked of other things then, professors whose classes they had both attended, his job, his parents, her recent translation contract, but she was not listening to what he told her, or paying attention to what she told him, speaking mechanically, for a dark, superstitious voice muttered with increasing insistence inside her. All gifts have their price, whispered the voice. If you are indeed one of the chosen of the universe, and not just a poor deluded sap with an inflated sense of self-worth, what you ought to feel is not flattered but frightened half to death. And she knew that she was indeed frightened, deeply, irrationally frightened—frightened to leave this well-lit, solid, modern place with its polished expanses of stainless steel and its smells of good living, frightened to creep back to her underground, out-of-time life, the damp, the dark, the stillness, the solitude, the three-legged rat whom she had named Long John Silver in a reckless moment of despair, the feet always passing by her blind, naked windows, the growing gaps of silence in her telephone conversations with her parents, the unwritten poems whose ghosts haunted her nightly, the written poems she no longer mentioned to anyone at all, the memories of her lost love shooting through the dreary fabric of her days like threads of brightly colored silk, which turned brittle and hard and drew blood if she ran them through her fingers. Hers was a small and lonely life, a rigorous servitude in preparation for a bigger life, as she tried to see it; yet now, just beneath the thinning fabric of her existence, she sensed an invisible roiling of vast, terrifying, dangerous things—things that would play with you if you pleased them, things that would kill you if you proved a disappointment.

And night after night she was alone with them.

“Voilà,” Paul announced, stepping away from the stove and sweeping his hand in a theatrical gesture. “Sea bass in champagne sauce. Wait, don’t get up, I’ll serve us. Or we could move to the living room if you prefer—”

“No, please, let’s stay here, I love the view. Do you know what I find so likable about you? You’re so sensible.”

“Sensible, huh. Not a very sexy quality when you’re trying to impress a girl.”

“Are you trying to impress a girl?” she asked, startled out of her thoughts. “I somehow thought you were… aren’t you with someone?”

“There was Tiffany, yes, but that’s over now.” He carried the plates to the table. “As a matter of fact,” he said, and sat down, but instantly stood up again to retrieve the bottle of wine from the counter and refill her glass; his was scarcely touched. “Cheers. So. I was thinking, you know. Maybe, you and I—do you think we could—ever—”

“Oh,” she said, putting her fork down on the table. “Paul. I’m not good at romance, it always ends badly, they stop talking to me, or I stop talking to them…” Or they die, screamed a panicking voice inside her. “I just really like having you as a friend. I have very few friends, and… and I’m counting on tasting that Casanova’s Delight someday—” She attempted a laugh, inwardly wincing at the dessert’s unfortunate name, hoping that he would make some joke in return. He was silent, and for an instant she imagined that his face bore the same look of mixed apology and hurt that she remembered having glimpsed on it six years before, in the library stacks, when he had sported longer hair and a Grateful Dead shirt. Stricken, she went on rambling. “Or… it doesn’t have to be you cooking, I can cook something for you too, though I should warn you I’m not a very good cook, in fact I’m dreadful, my rice always comes out lumpy, and I wouldn’t want you to see my place either, it’s a bit…”

“Hey,” he said, briefly covering her hand with his. “It’s all right. I’m not asking you to marry me, you know. It was just a thought. Since we are both single at present. Not a big deal.” He speared some asparagus onto her plate, at ease again, a friendly giant who could whip up a three-course gourmet meal as readily as do your taxes. “Let’s not mention it ever again. Shall we dig in?”

She picked her fork back up, took a bite.

“It’s delicious.” She felt obscurely but deeply ashamed.

“Just wait till you taste the crepes. Grandma taught me. My mom’s mom. A waif of a woman, but boy, she was like a force of nature in the kitchen. She had such a beautiful name, too—Cecilia. I don’t think there are many Cecilias nowadays, I guess it’s too old-fashioned or something. She died two years ago.”

“Tell me about her,” she asked.

While he talked, she looked out the window. It was dark now, and her reflection floated in the glass, pale and stark-eyed, distorted by slashes of shadow into a semblance of some mad medieval hermit. Beyond it, confetti of stars dotted the skies, while below, townhouse windows shone with the warm, tranquil glow of domesticity, trees rustled gently, and pavements gleamed white and soft with drifting blossoms. She remembered reading somewhere that people on mountaintops—people who enjoyed great, sweeping views—were supposed to live longer. Perhaps, she thought, if you lived in a place like this, you would get to live longer too, and you would then be more willing to forgive yourself any mistakes, any spiteful wishes, any wrong turns along the way.