Death on Behalf

by Natalia Liron

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts: 1, 2, 3

conclusion

Then there were speeches and paying last respects to the deceased.

I still couldn’t comprehend that “the deceased” was Alex. It didn’t fit him at all. A crazy asshole, yes, that was him, but deceased?

I shielded myself with the armor of important errands, so that I wouldn’t feel pain, so that I wouldn’t grieve for my younger brother. At least for now.

And this Anna, what was I supposed to do with her, huh? After all, she obviously did not remember me.

The visitation ended, and Alex, lying in a drawer, wrapped in blue cloth, dove into the fiery maw of the cremation furnace.

The speeches died down, the weeping, the clatter of dishes stalled, as did the rumbling of tires. I entrusted my mother with the care of my aunt, and...

And now, I sat at home, on the windowsill, watching this blind rattling rain, getting loaded on whiskey and mourning my stupid brother.

This impossibly long day finally ended; some digits jingled happily on the screen of my mobile phone; a brand new day loitered indecisively on the threshold, not knowing whether to begin or wait a little. But here she was, the first minute of the coming day. Time hiccupped and carried on.

* * *

Now I clearly understood why she was here: for exactly the same reason I ended up there. She would die soon. This Anna, not Anne Green, would die soon, in St. Petersburg in 2015.

A week passed, then a second one, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And I was afraid I wouldn’t catch her again while she was still alive. Here. I got her phone number from Alex’s friends and spent three days wavering, not knowing whether it would be worth it to call. What would I tell her? “Hi, Anna, I’m the late Alexander’s brother, can we meet up?” Nonsense!

She picked up the phone on the first ring: “Yes?”

“H-h-hello, Anna, I’m... I’m Sasha’s brother, who—”

“Sasha Divasov?”

“Yes. Um... can we meet up?”

“Yes, we can.” She agreed so quickly that I was taken aback. “Are you available today? It’s just, I happen to be free.”

“Yes, I am.” I still couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure?”

“Yes” — she seemed to be in a hurry — “around seven?”

“Eight?”

“Eight? Okay. We can take a walk in the Tauride Garden,” she said quickly.

“See you at the entrance?” I tried to match the pace of her speech.

“Yes, see you there.” She said it like a tongue-twister and then hung up.

* * *

It was strange, but there was no awkwardness between us, well, except for the first five minutes and a few calls back and forth to clarify who was standing by which entrance. We walked through the park, she talked about her work, friends, favorite music. We suddenly burst out laughing after figuring out we had a mutual acquaintance.

Chilled, she wrapped herself up in the sleeves of her black sweater, clearly a few sizes too big; she was just as tall and thin as I remembered, and I couldn’t stop looking at her; she seemed ethereal, an enigma come to life, she was the only one who knew the real me, back there in New York, where I had come for someone else’s death.

“Let me give you a ride home,” I said once we had left the park and paused, lost as to what to do next.

“Okay,” she agreed with relief, glad because I didn’t suggest anything further, and she didn’t have to turn me down.

We were saying goodbye to each other in front of her apartment building, and she rose slightly on her tiptoes. I bent down towards her, feeling the scent of crunching snow and rosemary, the trembling air between us, the melting of the summer day.

She lightly touched her lips to the edges of mine, weightless and passionate.

“Can we see each other tomorrow?” she asked, slightly pushing me away with her hand.

“Yes,” I saw only her eyes, which eclipsed the entire world, “yes, we can.”

“Good,” she said and slipped quickly into the building.

As for me, I was left leaning against the door, my knees weak, my head spinning. And here I thought I was a grown man.

Do you really have to die here, Anne Green? If only I could die for you. I know how to do it. I’ll never tell her that.

I knew that when she died here, she would go back to her New York, her 2012, but I wouldn’t be there.

How much time did we have?

* * *

One week later, I helped her move. And I would have been glad if it were to my place but no, from one rented apartment to another.

The move was sudden and clumsy; we piled her clothes in a heap, stuffed them in boxes and sacks; I ordered a van and was a conscientious mover. By evening, I dragged the last box up the narrow stairs to the fourth floor of the old house in Petrogradsky District.

“That’s it, this is the last one,” I noted the fait accompli and wiped the sweat of a hard day’s work off my forehead.

“You look like a real cowboy!” she said laughing, looking me over. “Blue jeans, plaid shirt. All you need is the hat.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I was aware of my own smell and didn’t like it. “Listen, does your new place have a shower? Otherwise, after this lively day of manual labor, I look less like a cowboy and more like a regular sweaty mover.”

* * *

When I came out of the bathroom, the room was lit up by a tiny table lamp, probably from Lenin’s times, and Anna was splayed out on the couch like a starfish, arms stretched to the sides.

“Well, now I look like a normal person,” I said, standing in the middle of the room and not knowing where to put myself.

She looked at me with laughter in her eyes and gently patted the spot next to her. She didn’t have to ask me twice. She scooted over, and I flopped down next to her, predictably stretching my legs over the edge of the couch.

“Is it hard to be tall?” she asked.

“Hm... I’m used to it.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, closer to me, ending up somewhat on top of me, and I froze in mid-sentence. “Anna...”

In the semi-darkness of the room, her eyes flickered like black coal. She was looking at me carefully, not smiling.

“Anna...”

I couldn’t resist any longer. I wrapped my arms around her and her fair locks fell onto my forehead.

She lay on her back and undid a button on her shirt, just one. I wound up on top of her. The shaky flickering of the table lamp lit up her long neck, the dimple between her collarbones. She pulled me towards her, her smooth shoulders fitting perfectly into my palms. I was falling into her, like into a cold river, a dark whirlpool.

“Is this okay?” I started to undo the next button.

She nodded silently.

* * *

Two days later, she died in a car accident.

I didn’t even go to the funeral. What would I do there?

“You’re already home, Anne Green, you’re already home,” I whispered, sitting on the windowsill, “and I know you remember me, though it would be better if you didn’t.”

* * *

In the bitter cold of February, through the freezing wind, I finally made it to Tamara. She lived in some bizarre Khruschev-era apartment buildings by Lomonosovskaya station.

“Things got pretty bad, huh?” she asked, looking into my eyes as I walked into the tiny kitchen of her little apartment.

I nodded silently. What could I tell her?

* * *

And then I realized how badly I wanted to tell Anne about everything that had been tormenting and gnawing at me all this time: about how I couldn’t fall asleep, tossing and turning for hours in my bed, how I missed her, with my arms, my lips, my whole body. The agonizing minutes were dragging on unimaginably long, and there was no hint of relief.

About how I’d bite my lips until they bled, because I desperately wanted to touch her lips, her fingertips, her fair curls, and how I could not forget her smell and touch, her laughter and her silence.

I wanted to tell her about how I filled my time up to its limit, spent day and night at work and, the moment it seemed like things were about to get easier, all I had to do was close my eyes and I would relive what had passed between us, over and over, as vividly as if it were real. And then I would fall out of this oblivion back into reality: concrete, cold reality which surrounded me with a joyless emptiness and the incomprehensible sterility of silence.

It was something beyond my control, something that made me lose my mind and become one big raw nerve.

And I couldn’t go on like this, no matter how hard I tried to talk myself into it.

* * *

Tamara rummaged in the depths of her kitchen drawers and placed a small vial of a cloudy greenish liquid on the table.

“What is it?” I asked dubiously.

“The elixir of oblivion,” she answered.

“What?”

“If you drink this, Misha” — there was sympathy in her eyes — “you will forget her. And your life will go on but, with this, you will eliminate even the smallest possibility of you two ever meeting again.”

“Wait, such a possibility exists?” I bristled.

“There is always a possibility.” She spread her hands. “The world is infinite and multifaceted. It is possible. Somewhere. And somehow.”

“But there is no guarantee?” A stupid question.

“There is never a guarantee.” A wise answer.

“And if I drink it—” I began.

“Then you’ll forget everything that happened both here and THERE. She will vanish from your life forever. And this cannot be undone,” Tamara continued, and her words were not cruel. “Before you drink it, just say her name.”

“Thank you.” I tried to smile and got up, “I’ll be going now.”

“I know.” She patted me on the shoulder.

* * *

Leaning my forehead against the cold class, I sat on my favorite windowsill. Next to me was the vial of greenish liquid.

I knew that I would feel better, but then I would not remember her eyes, I would not feel her smell, I’d undo what we had between us, along with the minuscule hope for what might happen, someday.

I knew that all it would take was to drink this elixir, and the pain would finally let up, but I spun the cursed vial in my hand and kept stalling, stalling.

Epilogue

I remembered him too late, just a moment before a drunk driver rolled out onto the crossing. That Michael Davis whom I loved, whom fate had bound me to so briefly. For me, he was born of fantasy, sound, wind. I, myself, could not understand: what did I see in him? A thin, hairless, dying guy. How was it that my heart had chosen him?

I got to know his core, his essence — deep, oceanic — and everything else became unimportant.

Half a year had gone by since our first and only kiss; I buried my father and found myself in a strange city with bridges and a pale night sky, living the last days of life of a girl named Anna. And I found him there as well. It was him, my Michael. Why did I only realize this right before I died? But no, now I can say for sure that I recognized him as soon as I approached him in the crematorium. My heart recognized him and responded.

That’s exactly why it was so easy with him.

* * *

I recounted our moments together both here and there like amber prayer beads: the turn of his head, his voice, his laughter, his tart marine scent. Where did you stay, Michael? In that alien 2015, in St. Petersburg? How could my hands have lived without your warmth?

What for? Why? I never stopped asking myself that question.

Without him, loneliness became a prickly void, turning my soul inside out. The days split into gray granite, dragged on with a monolithic weight, pulled me apart to threads and scraps. It was slow, unbearable torture.

I couldn’t stand it. I went to Chinatown to visit an old woman named Tamar. Back when I was in college, when I was just beginning to die for others, she came into my life and turned out to be just like me. It was an incredible relief for me at the time; I stopped thinking that I was going crazy and considering going to a psychiatrist. I remember what she told me back then, something like, if things get really hard, come see me, and gave me a business card with her address.

* * *

So I came.

Her house was crowded, loud; children swarmed about, asking her various things, tugging at each other, laughing and pushing.

“Shoo!” she shouted at them with a theatrical sternness and led me into a small room. “So, what happened?” She gave me an understanding look.

I briefly explained “what happened.”

“Yeeaahhh,” she nodded her head, “that means for some reason you were meant to meet, though... this meeting” — she thought for a moment — “was impossible.”

“Why?” I didn’t understand.

“Something inexorable is disturbed if two such people should meet.” Tamar was nodding her head thoughtfully.

“But you and I are talking!” I was surprised.

She scoffed at this: “We are just talking, Anne, not falling in love.”

I sighed, looking out the window at the gloomy sky. Nothing was clearer or easier.

“What should I do?” I clenched my fists.

“Hmm...” She left the room for a minute, returned and placed a small bottle of muddy liquid on the table. “The elixir of oblivion.”

“Elixir?” I picked it up.

“If you drink it, you will forget your Michael.” She spoke quietly and steadily. “You will forget everything that has happened to him and everything that might ever happen.”

“So something might still happen?” My heart was pricked by a needle of hope.

“Probably not, but... who knows for sure? Life is unpredictable. If you met once, then there is a possibility that it might happen again.” She looked at me: “But if you drink this, then everything that happened with this person, both here and there, will be erased from your memory. Forever. All you have to do is say his name and take a few sips. And then there will be no future for the two of you. But your life will be much easier. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” I took the vial off the table. “Thank you.”

Tamar didn’t say anything, just nodded and patted my hand.

* * *

And here I sit on a bench in Riverside Park, frost silvers around me, white snow crackles icy and new. I am remembering how we walked in the Tauride Garden: him tall and fair, his eyes the same gray as mine. I hear his laughter, smell his subtle scent of nutmeg and the sea.

In front of me there is a small bottle with a cloudy greenish liquid; I know that I should drink it, so the pain will let up. And he will be out of my life forever, along with this ghostly, impossible chance that someday, somewhere and somehow. Maybe.

But then the pain will end as well.

I spin this cursed vial in my hands and keep stalling, stalling.

Proceed to Challenge 986...