High Tide

Under Shifting Skies

“Have you ever been outside of yourself?”

“Outside myself? Sounds like an illness to me.”

“What kind?”

“Schizophrenia. Like one minute you’re one person, but someone else the next.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s not an illness. It’s… Alright. Imagine you’re you. You’re with yourself at all times. You’re inside yourself, somewhere. I mean… Well… I don’t know where people normally go when they’re inside themselves.”

“Probably not to their feet.”

“But maybe there are people who do go into their feet.”

“Could be.”

“Of course. Nothing but the feet. A person could be in their big toe, too.”

“Or somewhere bigger — the knees, the hips, the ribs.”

“Higher.”

“The heart, then.”

“Sometimes the heart… Yeah. But for the most part I think people are within themselves around the eyes.”

“Not the ears?”

“It’s pretty much the same thing. On the border between the eyes and ears. At the temples. You’ve been there, somewhere, within yourself the whole time. The whole time you’d call your life. For a while I used to be in my fingertips. When I was a baby, before I could walk.”

“Yeah. That was a long time ago.”

“But we were talking about how I’m outside myself.”

“So talk.”

“I used to be very much inside myself. Inseparable. I was one with my actions.”

“Remember that time you slit your wrists?”

“I do. It was pretty bad.”

“Pretty bad? That’s putting it mildly — it was horrifying. It was pouring that night and the water blacked out the windows, the streetlights, and the roads. Mom brought you to the hospital… It was a nightmare.”

“I was completely inside myself then. But now it’s even worse.”

“What’s worse than a car full of blood?”

“There are things. Trust me.”

“Like?”

“Like… I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“Try putting it simply.”

“There’s nothing simple about it.”

“Then try details.”

“Details… So you know what it’s like right before it rains?”

“Like now?”

“Like now. And hear that bird cry? We’re in the city but we can still hear it. A rainbird. The trees are rustling, the treetops shifting. You don’t want to touch anything because it’s all sort of muggy. Painful.”

“Right, so anyway! Now you’re talking about the weather and some bird, but you wanted to talk about you.”

“But it’s all the same. It’s about that feeling, some kind of out-of-body feeling.”

“Experience — the right word is experience.”

“I don’t care which one’s right.”

“Then you risk saying what you don’t mean.”

“I often wonder if it’s even possible for others to understand.”

“Explain.”

“See, it’s as if I’m always somewhere outside myself. Watching myself from the sidelines. Take love, for example. Watch how love takes over your body. It kisses, hugs, makes others happy, makes them sad. Your body changes shape, you’ll have a kid, then more kids, or maybe none at all. You’ll have a home somewhere, warm nights under a melting sky. Arguments, fear, gentleness. But none of it happens to you — it happens to a body you call yourself. The body you’re watching from the sidelines.”

“You’re sick.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

“Your forehead’s hot.”

“It’s always hot.”

“So what are you saying — that even now, while we’re talking, you’re… So that’s why you’re looking at me so sadly? I noticed that strange look in your eyes a long time ago.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“I thought it was like the calm before the storm. I’m not sure if I should be worried or not. Maybe I should be.”

“How do I look? Describe it!”

“Like… Like you’re trying to absorb everything around you… Through your eyes. Yeah, like you’re trying to come back, into one piece. It’s in your eyes. Like you need to anchor yourself to something. That’s what you look like — like despair.”

“And there you have it.”

“Maybe you need to see a doctor.”

“What for?”

“Because you feel split in two, even around me.”

“Split in two! My god, don’t be ridiculous!”

“What? You’re the one who said you were split in two.”

“I never said that, Pāvils! You weren’t listening.”

“Sorry, but—”

“I’m not split in two! I’m outside of myself, alright? Outside myself. It’s not so bad when I’m talking with someone. When I’m talking with someone it’s always… detached.”

“What do you mean?”

“When two or more people are talking, they contemplate, speak, discuss. They’re someplace slightly outside themselves. Like in a shroud of thoughts. People tend to use phrases like ‘Remember when…!’ or ‘Next summer I’d like to go to…’ They converse. They’re detached, see? They’re back in that memory, or they’re in next summer. You can see it in their eyes, or how they twirl their hair around their finger as they daydream. They’re traveling. They’re outside themselves and there’s nothing strange about it.”

“I’ll be honest — it gets harder and harder to talk to you as the years go on. You make people uncomfortable. For example — no, don’t get offended — but I even feel uncomfortable talking to you. The look in your eyes is so tense. So heavy. You’re wrong, you know. When you and I talk, I tell myself life isn’t like that. Life is about life, not useless and continual concentration. It’s bad to be so serious! Why do you want so badly to get back into your eyes when talking to me?”

“Because I can’t anymore.”

“Can’t what?”

“Get back inside myself. When we’re done talking, Laura will toddle over with a ball and say ‘Daddy, let’s play!’”

“And I’ll go.”

“And you’ll go and you’ll be you — Pāvils. Pāvils who’s kicking a ball, who’s Laura’s father, who loves Vita, who’s writing his doctorate.”

“And you?”

“I’ll wait somewhere far outside myself, until everything calms down.”

“You’re afraid of responsibility.”

“Oh fantastic! What else — any more genius insight?”

“Well what do you want me to say?”

“Did I ask you to say anything in the first place?”

“If we’re having a conversation I have to say something.”

“Oh please. The problem is you don’t believe me.”

“It’s not a matter of believing or not. It just comes off sounding stupid. And even offensive.”

“Offensive how? Are you offended? If you are I’m sorry, I’ve never wanted to offend you.”

“But you did. And in a really strange way, too. Everyone is inside themselves, in their bodies, but you, you’re outside yourself. Like you’re a princess, something special. It’s terrible. And so weird — like Pulp Fiction or something.”

“I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. But you’re right to say it, thanks.”

“So now I’m capable of saying something right after all!”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not! Did I say something wrong? The way I see it, you have to live free and easy, in a single breath. And if you’re having thoughts like these there’s a glitch in your system. Something’s gone wrong. I don’t get you.”

“Fine, you don’t get me. I can’t force you to understand if you don’t have the capacity to in the first place.”

“So, what will you do?”

“Well finally! The king of questions! What will you do? Amazing! Think about these words. What. Will. You. Do. They’re like the salt of the earth, but at the same time so simple.”

“Hey, don’t overanalyze everything — be it breathing or language. It’s not productive, it’s an obstacle. It was a serious question, pragmatic and realistic — what will you do? Are you going to pine away like this forever?”

“But hold up, these words! Listen—what will you do? In that specific order, with that hierarchy, and not the other way around. Not what do you will? The will always comes first and the doing always follows. If you look at it the right way, you could pave paths to a better world.”

“Great. And what kind of world do you want to discover? One without pain?”

“When Monta was little, her favorite story was about the Golden City. In the Golden City, wolves and sheep are friends. The Golden City doesn’t need night to understand what day is. It doesn’t need death to value life. It’s a world without contrast. You know, Monta almost had me convinced. ‘You’re sad,’ she told me. And I knew then that she’d be perfectly willing to trade knowledge for ignorance if only she could be in a world without pain.”

“Without joy and hate? Without sorrow and passion, without desire?”

“That would be a boring place, bored-to-death boring… and useless. I said this to her. She argued with me that death is something grown-ups invented so they wouldn’t be bored. Grown-ups are sad, grown-ups do all kinds of stupid things just so they can understand something.”

“A dead boring world is a paradise.”

“Paradise?”

“Or a hell.”

“Something solitary is dead boring?”

“Something solitary is death itself.”

“And so listen, my little deity, who just a minute ago wanted to create a world sans the shadows of evil — listen! The mind of man is small and his dreams are within reason. They’re only the safe, good, and painless ones. It’s not worth wasting any energy.”

“Evil takes care of itself.”

“Wasting energy for evil is even dumber.”

“Then what’s left? Watching how life lives my body?”

“Yeah, better to chase after events like a bloodhound. This endless clash of black and white is colorful.”

“Why did you say that being outside yourself was worse than slitting your wrists?”

“Back then, when I was with Aksels, love justified everything we did. Even the most horrible and incomprehensible things.”

“You needed justification? Who were you trying to justify yourself to?”

“Not like that. That’s not what I meant. The sense, y’know? The sense.”

“Sense. Strange word.”

“Well yeah. Now I do everything with consideration, I try to be precise and guided by experience, but all that sensibility goes to waste. It’s a calculation! Correctly calculated empty accomplishments and losses. It’s all trivial. Once it was high tide. Now it’s low tide. I’ve been washed away from myself.”

“I’ve started a path, but I don’t know if it’s for my benefit or not. But I can’t stop or turn back. It’ll be a test, hey! — it’ll be an interesting experiment — will I be able to take my idea and create a path? You can write your final dissertation on it! I’m in two. It’s the only thing that fascinates me and keeps me alive! Me and my body.”

“Maybe it is the onset of some kind of psychological disease. Maybe we can still do something about it.”

“You could, but only if the goals of both of me line up.”

“What’s your body’s goal?”

“Love, laugh, stay sane, be as strong as a mighty oak for myself and for others.”

“And what’s your goal?”

“To not be here.”

“Maybe you’re confused. Maybe your goal is to observe.”

“Observe?”

“Observe. If you’re destined to be outside yourself anyway. Maybe your joy comes from observing your physical body and the physical bodies of others, to observe life, fate, how they come together and part, and come together again. Observe and believe you understand something when something becomes clear; that it might be the answer to at least one question.”

“Thanks, brother. You’ve got some highly flattering opinions of me.”

“You look that arrogant, by the way. You would be the one to come up with something like that.”

“When the essence of things reveals itself, you stop doing them automatically. That’s what I meant. But maybe something else, though, I don’t know. No one is themselves in conversation. It’s what does exist that talks through us. A million mouths, a million eyes.”

“Don’t get mad, but seems to me you can’t love.”

“That’s it?”

“Only love.”

“That’s almost too simple.”

“But it’s true. Everything else is trivial and made-up.”

“Why?”

“Love isn’t in your control. It comes to you. There’s no other way. You’re whole again. You don’t question anything.”

“But I do have questions! Okay, so it turns out I don’t have love. And I can’t answer any other way in the face of a logical confession. And here we are.”

“And so you want me to pity you?”

“No. No need to pity, to be sad for me, to express your opinion, nothing. I’m glad that you met me for lunch today, that you sat here, drank black tea. Thank you for carefully picking the bones from your trout and putting them on the fish bone plate. Thank you for convincing me to order this delicious cod. Fish contains phosphorus, which promotes thinking. Thank you for not talking. Thank you for saying a few things that I can spend a lifetime thinking about if I wanted to. Want is at the center of everything. Simple, straightforward want. So everything happens because we want it to. It’s the world we live in. It’s so important! You know… Sometimes I need this more than anything, for you to be sitting there, across from me, drinking tea. It’s like your eyes are a chair I can sit and rest in for a while. Thank you.”

“Such lavish thank yous. And thanks for that!”

“You going to call Laura over?”

“Yeah. Laura, honey!”

“Laura!”

“Laura, sweetie, we have to go, say bye-bye to Auntie Ieva!”

“Bye-bye!”

“Bye, Laura, you lively little girl! Laura is beautiful.”

“Yep.”

“When Monta was little, she used to always say that too — yep.”

“Little kids are whole. I already said it, but take care of yourself. Go see a good psychologist.”

“That would just be more schooling, not the truth. It’s not a solution.”

“Truth doesn’t exist. But somewhere there’s a solution. And you’ll find it. You’ve earned it. Don’t look so creepy. Life is good. You’re good. Everything’s good.”

“Thanks, brother.”

“Bye!”

“Bye!”

“Pāvils!”

“Yeah.”

“Be honest — do you think I avoid taking responsibility for my life? But that someday I’ll learn how? Someday I’ll get back into myself? But you know I can’t rush it, it has to happen on its own.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”

“You make everything sound so unrefined. Everything that’s secretive and beautiful, everything that makes sense.”

“You can do so much with words. Lie a lot. Embellish. Make mistakes. It’s a giant avalanche that crashes over you if you so much as move a word. It starts to roll and picks up other words along the way, and there you have it! You can’t even lie with words — but that’s giving it too much meaning. Pointlessly passing the time instead of doing something.”

“For example, going to elections. To vote.”

“Right, for example.”

“Rake the yard. Take off nail polish. You’re naïve.”

“Call me what you want. But I have my convictions.”

“And that’s why I respect you. Thank you for that.”

“Are you back inside yourself when you say that? Where’s the thank you coming from?”

“The universe.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire… Laura!”

“She’s getting antsy.”

“Go. And God bless!”

“What an old-fashioned farewell! But I’ll gladly accept it.”

“Do you think God is in one piece?”

“Everyone knows that God is a trinity. At least the Christian God. I don’t know. They’re stupid word games. See, at times form is enough. To live together. People live together, so there has to be some sense in it. Raising children or writing dissertations, novels, cookbooks, screenplays, even making pancakes! Earning money. Spending it. Expressing an opinion. Fighting for something. Something like that, right?”

“Exactly. Alright, I’m going.”

“Go.”

“Hang on! How come you thanked me for being quiet for a while during lunch? Were you observing me?”

“No. I wasn’t doing anything special. We were sitting. Talking. Time was passing. That’s almost the only thing that still brings me joy. The fact that time goes on. Cars drive down the street. It’s about to rain. Ducks are nibbling the grass. Nothing makes sense, but the water keeps flowing. Beautiful.”

“Beautiful.”

“Tell me, Pāvils — are you in one piece?”

“I don’t think about it. And I won’t. This illness could be contagious.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me, I don’t have that much free time. I can’t afford to.”

“What?”

“The same as before. Don’t look at me in such a scary way.”

“You can tell Laura not to do that. But not me.”

“Don’t smoke!”

“Hm. Take care. Write your dissertation.”

“Thanks. You take care, too.”

“Pāvils!”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes. You love me, the earth, the light, slugs, these tiny green leaves here, you love the past and present, children, strange, old and mean women, horrible fates, wavering stares, new buildings, the sea, clouds, God, and goddesses. Total chaos. It’s impossible to love you because you love too much. You love, and at the same time don’t know how to, you don’t know what love is. You’re afraid of life and death, and you desire both of them. You celebrate sadness without really knowing what sadness is. You advertise joy without feeling it. You advertise an empty life without knowing what life without nothing is. Lower your barriers, sis. A dog only becomes a dog when you fence it in.”

“I don’t have barriers. Aksels was a barrier. And he was taken away from me.”

“Maybe you’ll get him back.”

“He’s dead, remember, Jesus!”

“Is there life after death and/or love?”

“There are people who are meant to have only one great love in their lifetime. How do you save yourself for the next one?”

“Do you know who your one great love is?”

“I don’t.”

“Do you know what tomorrow will be like?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Then stop it. And don’t look at me like that.”

An Open Ending

Surveying the crowd in the Berlin Art Academy café, she was unable to hold back and asked loudly:

“So that’s the end?”

The sea of voices drowned out the sound, but a few people sitting closer to her heard. Elias, from Cyprus, leaned his head of black curls toward her:

“What did you say?”

“So that’s the end.”

“Yes, that’s the end.”

He smiled over his glasses, his brilliant smile. The Berlin seminar was almost over. Tomorrow — her suitcase and the flight home.

Ieva looked around her: Roberta, Neil, Gojel, and Eduardo were at one table. She, Peter, Elias, Barbara, and Marijka were at another. That day the preview of Sybille Bergeman’s photography exhibit had taken place in the exhibition hall, and the café overflowed with attendees. They drank coffee, chatted, smoked. Sybille herself was supposed to show up! — the excited faces of those present read. They’d be able to ask her questions. So close they could touch her. Get her autograph and a smile. The way Sybille would use her lens to capture a smile, a caress, the disappearing shadows and lights in the fluctuating daylight. Now they could get these in excess in person and, when parting, even kiss her hand.

The crowd a single, hundred-fingered hand.

Peter was discussing something with Gojels and the young architect in the red shirt — what was his name again? Marcelle? Mario? — from Berlin. Next to Peter, the otherwise businesslike architect looked like a baby. Noticing Ieva’s fixed, introverted stare, Peter turned toward her and waved a glass of white wine under her nose. She broke free from her thoughts and back into the bustling world around her.

“Isn’t 2 p.m. too early for wine?”

Peter smiled meaningfully.

“I know what too late means, but not what too early means.”

Ieva laughed:

“But I don’t know what too late means.”

Peter stared at her for a moment and in his typical careless manner flipped his dark hair over his shoulder. Then he said:

“Yes, it could be that it’s too early for you to know what too late means.”

The small, dark theater slowly filled with students. How many movies were there left to see — two?

“Peter, please!”

Elias’s smile! Gojels’s, Mario’s, and Barbara’s profiles. They were all so nice.

Except Peter. When he presented at yesterday’s readings Ieva had felt a childish and long-forgotten desire to be protective. He had immediately upset the audience. But those were the rules of the game. Peter had to be edgy by definition. Strange how the truly edgy are rarely crass or confrontational — this type subconsciously calls out for love, sometimes rather violently. Peter was fragile and ironic, there was plenty of love in him, he wanted freedom. “In these bittersweet pages you’ll find the fall of a regime and the past two decades of Eastern Europe”—that’s what Rolling Stone had written about his play. “Simply a polymath vagabond for the needs of New Europe,” Lawrence Norfolk had flippantly added. How could they all place the European label on Peter! Like a bunch of kids who are just worried whether or not they’ll be able to hear their mothers calling for them.

In contrast to Germany, people in Hungary had never believed in Communism, so to them the regime was straight-up fact, Peter had pitched during his presentation. Exactly — pitched. With a broad stance, his frail shoulders thrown back, always flipping his dark hair. With an easy smile on his face. Sometimes you want to slap such unshakably ironic people, just to see if they can feel anything.

Shows in six of Germany’s biggest theaters. His first piece translated into fifteen languages. Multimedia performances with his participation in over twenty countries. A monthly column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He knew how to play his cards right. The kid had scored a ten on his first shot. And he even looked the part. What’s more — he looked like a loner who couldn’t be really surprised by anything in the world anymore. Often full of a slight disdain. That’s what happens to public entertainers. Just like professional party planners hate partygoers.

But Ieva knew that Peter’s disdain was purely symbolic. He was used to looking at the world cynically, he shrunk from anything forced on him. Such imposed, positive emotions are usually just for connecting a writer to his audience. Like Paulo Coelho, who went out in front of hundreds of readers at book fairs — and both sides came together in a convulsive overflow of love. Just yesterday Ieva had overheard some students at the café laughing about Coelho — about his habit of drinking freshly squeezed carrot juice with freshly made warm cream. About housewives who, upon meeting him, jump at the chance to tell him about their troubles with their husbands while the author would listen and offer love-filled advice in a fatherly manner.

But Peter’s stare was a warning.

Be careful — his eyes seemed to say as they moved over the audience. But not for my sake. I grew up with the dangers of Hungary. So I warn you — be careful for your sake. The audience sat silently and tried to decode this mysterious message called Peter.

In closing Peter read a fragment from his play in English, but the audience sat in icy silence. Then he asked a translator to read the same fragment in German, saying, “Usually I’m used to seeing more smiling faces!” But the people decided he was trying to work them. There were a few older men in the audience who were more directly caught up by the young Hungarian’s overt provocation. One person stood up indignantly and shouted—“Stop translating, all Germans understand English!”

Peter answered that understanding and hearing a text are not the same thing. This led to a lengthy discussion. Ieva saw that Peter was growing helpless in the face of aggression.

Ieva asked:

“Peter, irony is meant to create distance, isn’t it?”

Peter turned his attention to her. He looked at her warily.

“In order to talk amongst themselves, Hungarians were forced to use subtexts — to read between the lines and beyond the jokes. By the 80s irony had become the official language in Hungary. If someone spoke seriously, it meant he sided with the regime — meaning he was lying… It’s hard to joke around. If I tell a Russian a dirty Transylvanian joke, he’d laugh for an hour. A Hungarian would laugh for half an hour. A German — for five minutes. It’s just that the joke would be foreign to someone born in the Carpathian forest, where everything smells of blood and death.”

“And now, when you travel the world? Do you maintain your cynical view of things?”

Peter shrugged.

“No choice. I grew up with irony. It’s my second skin.”

“And distance as well?”

He nodded.

Barbara pushed her way through the crowd with a CD in hand. She looked at Ieva, and Ieva smiled encouragingly and waved.

Barbara studied at the Konrad Wolf Academy for Film and Television under director Hans Foses, and Hans practically put the girl on a pedestal. Every time she’d met Ieva, Barbara tried to speak Russian. She gushed about Russia and her dream of traveling to Moscow. Ieva was too lazy to keep reminding her that the Baltics and Russia were two different places.

Once they had talked about Latvia.

“What’s Germany to you!” Barbara had cried out. “Compared to the massive area of your country!”

When she saw Ieva’s surprised face, she explained:

“I mean the steppes!”

Ieva had laughed, but said nothing. In the eyes of the international community Russia was irrational, but the romanticized idea Germans had of Russia was sometimes even more so.

Small and lithe with short-cropped hair, Barbara reminded Ieva of a teenager. Hans said she had style. And her film was amazing, Ieva would see for herself. That’s how a director was supposed to act, Ieva thought — like a jackrabbit. White against the pale winter snow and brown against yellow summer reeds. So the world is never closed off to them. So they can get inside a foreign world and observe.

Meanwhile Barbara was presenting her movie:

“Last summer the cameraman and I filmed in Romania — in Bucharest. It was really tough, not so much physically, but spiritually. You’ll see… Some scenes were staged — the ones filmed in the youth center — but the rest are documentary. We made friends with the Bucharest street kids. They live in heating ducts. We gave them a video camera and had them film themselves, in their world. For them it was a game, entertainment. For us — it was valuable footage. You’ll see… What else can I say? Roll film!”

Peter sat down next to Ieva with a glass of wine and whispered into her ear:

“Thanks for the support!”

His shaggy hair fell forward onto her shoulder and tickled her neck. She drew back and laughed:

“Don’t mention it! Have you been to Romania?”

Peter simply nodded his head in response.

“Japan?”

“No! Japan is the exception. And I never lie.”

They were both overcome by fits of laughter as the rest of the hall grew silent and suddenly very serious.

The movie started.

It was powerful. Even for the students who had learned to emotionally distance themselves from the material used and evaluate a film’s professional qualities.

Shaky scenes filmed with a miniature camcorder moved in time with the observer’s breathing and heartbeat. Barbara was like a meticulous follower of Dogme 95, the so-called final film manifesto of the 20th century presented in Paris in 1995 by Danish director Lars von Trier and his peers. This manifesto, or “Vow of Chastity,” envisaged the creation of works that went against the manufactured glamor of Hollywood by:

— filming only in a natural setting;

— never recording the sound separately from the video, or vice-versa, and without using music unless it was actually in the scene being filmed;

— using a camcorder;

— making the movie colorful and prohibiting special lighting effects;

— forbidding the use of optical tools and filters;

— not having any actions in the movie that were impossible to realistically show (such as murder);

— prohibiting the alienation of time and geographic setting — the movie had to take place in the here and now;

— prohibiting genre movies;

— using only the Academic 35mm movie format (this rule was the first the new group themselves broke, by starting to use digital filming techniques);

— refraining from taking credit — the director’s name would not appear in the credits.

Everyone knew that von Trier’s self-irony was intact, and that the “Vow of Chastity” was more like a parody of a manifesto, but the scandal succeeded. Even though such bans were like a red cloth to a bull, they still encouraged them to consider the level of lies in filmed material: what’s colored in by computer, cut out, lit up, made over, and then fed to an audience — like the whole thing had been calculated down to the last teardrop and dollar.

Ieva didn’t think there was any need to discuss the topic. Everyone could tell plastic from glass and, if someone liked plastic, it was a matter of preference and knowledge. She enjoyed professional cyber-movies for their stylistic purity, but purity of style could hold your attention for ten minutes, no more. Even mistakes, if there were any, were interesting. In all other ways these movies were unbearably boring and predictable — like the human mind. They’re for the viewers’ entertainment.

No manifesto can make an artist out of a person. In turn, no artist can strictly adhere to a manifesto if he is truly an artist. Even if it’s the one you’ve written yourself.

Barbara is undeniably talented. And she has a good cameraman. A delicate light stretched from the depths of the hall toward the screen.

The scenes revealed what was usually hidden from those who walked the earth — a shelter made of pieces of insulation covered in rags, faces stony from hunger and drugs — all of which light draws out from the darkness, like carving them from nothingness with a rough chisel, the naïve commentary of children. It was a physically visible hell.

The story slowly unraveled, highlighting the main protagonists. One of them was a boy who filmed the underground world. When he himself showed up on camera, people gasped — he was only eight years old, but he constantly smoked while talking to his counselor at the youth center. His opinions were rational and wise like those of an eighty-year-old man. It was terrible seeing this little person, this primordium of all mankind, who was destined to grow up in literal darkness.

But Barbara hadn’t made the typical beginner director’s mistake — pitying and adding emotion to what could already be seen. She gathered the teenagers and brought them to the seaside, filming their reactions to this never-before-seen element. The camera was and remained an observer. Letting the viewer think for themselves.

The movie also had a proper dramatic climax — it ended with documentary scenes in which some boys in the underground were judging the death sentence on one of their own — for some unclear, but in their belief, unforgiveable crime. A sawed-off barrel is aimed at the captive teenager, who at first squirms like a worm in fear of death, but then stands tall, puts his hands in his pockets and stares in challenge at the person taking aim…

. . Ieva grows hot, and for a second she thinks she’s going to faint. She doesn’t know which tiny detail it is that suddenly rips open the storeroom of memories — the accused boy’s stance, his sweater, the look in his eyes, or the barrel being aimed at him. But a scene of her and Aksels is there in her mind, clear, clear as day.

Aksels!

What kind of name is that?

It’s so common!

Aksels and Ieva! She’s the one taking aim. On the sunny day of January 15th.

Ieva realizes that it’s been years since she’s thought of Aksels. She remembers his face. See his eyes, but without any expression in them. Notices the small, birdlike silhouette at the end of the barrel. It suddenly seems to her that January 15th never happened to them. That it was a story about two other people in another life.

She lets out a low cry and rubs her hand over her face as if trying to wake herself up. Peter grabs her arm in concern, she pushes him away, gets up, and heads toward the back of the hall, where there are tables set with lunch refreshments. In one long gulp, Ieva drains a bottle of mineral water, then another. The movie has sucked the energy from her; she feels like all that’s left of her is an empty shell.

The movie ends before the trigger is pulled. An open ending.

There are a few seconds of dead silence, and then there is applause. Barbara takes the CD out of the player and goes to her seat, searching for Ieva’s face, but Ieva doesn’t even wave. She’s standing alone at the back of the hall by a white, cloth covered table, wolfing down some brown cake with whipped cream. She’s cut off a huge chunk, loaded it onto a plate, and is wolfing it down.

Peter catches up with her at the park. He’s standing in the wind — gasping for breath and his hair blowing around him.

“Maybe we can have dinner together tonight?”

Tonight, Ieva thinks. She’ll pull herself together by tonight.

“Sure.”

“I’ll call your room…”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. I was going to take a walk.”

Peter shakes her by the shoulder.

“Then call me — room 311, on the third floor. You’ll call? Around seven, eight? Promise? I’ll be waiting.”

He hurries back. Probably back to the café for yet another glass of wine to celebrate Barbara’s movie.

It’s still a beautiful January day.

The Spree River. Some school. Benches. The sun. Children shouting.

Wind and leaves. The anti-autumn. This is what April could be like in Latvia. Or Indian Summer.

I could be happy just to be happy, Ieva thinks. Happy about the river, or Berlin. Look, Möbelhaus Kern — such pretty, light-colored sofas and dark leather cushions! Except something has jolted her heart with such unease that she can’t enjoy the cushions.

A Deutsche Post boy rides up to the furniture store on his bike with its yellow mail pouches.

“What’s the date today?” she asks him.

“January 15th,” the boy answers, and with one look Ieva sees herself like in a mirror — standing bewilderedly in front of a shop window with her dopey, lost-in-the-past eyes. She steps aside as if in apology.

Aside. Aside. Aside.

More than anything right now, she wants to be in this moment and in her skin.

She stands on the Alt-Moabit Bridge. The Spree flows under it dark and fast, but can’t pull out to sea the handful of ducks and geese stubbornly fighting the current. On one of the bridge pillars, someone has written in graceful lettering—Alla heisst Gott.

The fresh air gives her strength to exist. When she gets back to the hotel she’s exhausted, but calm. She spreads out on the bed and lays motionless hour after hour, enjoying the hotel’s anonymous emptiness, the fact that there are so few of her things here, so little of her life.

To be alone. To not think of anything. To extract these hours from the flesh of her being.

Evening slips in unnoticed. She had dozed off from staring at the ceiling. She takes a cold shower, gets dressed and calls Peter. He doesn’t pick up. After fifteen minutes she calls again, then decides to go down to his room. What if his phone just isn’t working?

The soft, red hallway swallows all sound. Ieva knocks at 311. After a moment Peter opens the door — half naked. A towel wrapped around his hips.

“I was asleep,” he said. “Didn’t hear your call. Come in!”

Ieva clearly senses the hidden advance in his lithe, tan back, the crease in the material of the towel around his waist, and the provocative look in his eyes. The nature of woman is to inspire man. And what then? When there’s nothing left to inspire, to satiate them?

The blood quickly rushes to her cheeks. She lowers her eyes.

“No, thank you! I’ll wait in the restaurant,” she says briskly and heads for the stairs.

It is what it is. A glance and a disarming spark that either happens or doesn’t. And sometimes that spark flares up in a moment shared between two people.

But she doesn’t need that anymore.

Peter clinks his glass against hers. The glass wall of the Arus Hotel restaurant extends along the edge of the river. The restaurant looks out onto the rushing Spree, the dark depths of which catch hold of as many reflections as there are stars in the sky.

He opens a packet of cigarettes and offers them to Ieva. She declines.

As he lights one he idly says:

“I’m not addicted to cigarettes! I just smoke them for pleasure.”

“And pleasure? You’re not addicted to that?”

They laugh again. It’s easy to spend time with Peter because he is so damned confident, so bright and ironic.

And then he grins wickedly.

“I was in Latvia once.”

Ieva asks:

“What did you think?”

“It was five years ago. I was looking for a translator for my book. I only found one Hungarian translator in the entire country — some old guy about a hundred and thirty years old, a complete Methuselah. I flat-out told him not to translate my book, and went on to Lithuania. You’re like an Indian tribe — locked into yourselves, resolved to be withdrawn.”

It’s not exactly flattering. Ieva decides to fight back.

“Writers are more of a tribe,” she laughs. “But you look pretty meticulous. You took care of the translations for your book yourself? You’re your own manager, right? Y’know, Peter, I’d like to know — doesn’t your life as a writer suffer from your life as a performer?”

Peter’s dark eyes narrow.

“How do you mean?”

“I watched you when you read the fragment from your play. You calculate how many smiles each of your jokes will get. And if the audience doesn’t react the way you’re used to, you break down, feel out of place in your own skin. Don’t you become the dependent one, then?”

Check.

Smiling, he draws on his cigarette and leans back in his chair.

“There isn’t any writer’s life or performer’s life. There’s only one life. Mine.”

Then he serves up an unexpected question:

“What about you? I’ve been watching you all week. Are you happy with your life?”

And mate.

Ieva can’t find the words.

“You’re an amazing woman in everything you do. How come whenever you tell a story you always finish it by saying you wish it had been different? Does someone else make your decisions for you? And if not, why don’t you do what you want to do? It just seems that the whole time you’re living this life, you’re thinking about a different one instead. So tell me, are you happy with your life?”

Luckily, Ieva’s phone rings, granting her some time to think of an answer. It’s Monta. Missing her mother and not at all surprised to hear she’s in Berlin. They talk for a good half hour. Screw the roaming fees.

When Ieva looks back at Peter, her doubts have subsided. She won’t stitch black and white together anymore. Only white with white. And black with black. The answer can already be seen in her face when she speaks:

“What was it you asked?”

“Are you happy with your life?”

“Y’know, our Latvian tribe has this poet, Ziedonis, who once said: Happiness is only the order of all things. I’d say that happiness is an open ending.”

“Well put, and even a bit ironic. But how come your eyes look so sad?”

“Because today’s January 15th. That’s all. Let’s take a walk along the Spree.”