He’d asked for some paper and been given a whole ream.
Right at the top, her name; and then a single line. Nothing else. One line. He stared at it.
How do I not miss her?
It was a peculiar formulation. He underscored “how.” How do I not miss her?
Underscored “not” as well.
How do I not miss her?
Even more peculiar. The longer he stared at the question, the more telling the implications became; not the opposite, which would have been more reasonable. He smiled, concentrated, and did not let go for even a second, neither with his eyes nor his thoughts. Way back in his unconscious, the answers had already begun to form.
In the same way as I don’t miss the past.
In the same way as I don’t want things that happened in the past to happen now.
When I am found not guilty, or let out on parole, he thought, I shall go to her grave and sit there. Sit there with cigarettes and wine.
Guilt, punishment, mercy. Guilt, punishment, mercy. What did it matter if you were punished for something else?
Sentence me! Sentence me harshly, but be quick about it!
He threw the pen away. Curled up on the bed again, with his knees drawn up and his hands tucked away, just like a little child. He closed his eyes and the images came floating into his head.
June 25, a Thursday.
“Do you know what happened to me today, Janek?” she’d said. “I had a proposal.”
His blood had stood still. His smile was in cement.
“Yes, a man I didn’t know came up to me while I was waiting for the bus and asked me to marry him. Some people certainly know how to seize the moment.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d think it over.”
She had also smiled, but he knew that her womb was wide open and there was blood between her teeth.
“Let’s get married, Eva.”
And that was that.
He pressed his forehead against the wall. It felt good. At any moment he could choose to be completely normal; it was an act of the will, nothing else-to choose the thinnest and most durable and grayest of all the lines of thought and cling to it like a blind priest.
How did he not miss her?
In the same way as you don’t miss the unbearable.
As a young tiger doesn’t miss its own death.
This man.
Who existed. Who didn’t exist.
Who kept phoning but replaced the receiver when Mitter answered. Time after time.
Whom she spoke to when Mitter was not at home.
Who didn’t exist, and about whom she used to have nightmares. Who made her say, “If I die soon, please forgive me, Janek! Forgive me, forgive me!”
Whom she renounced over and over again.
“There is no man. There is no man. There’s only you and me, Janek. Believe me, believe me, believe me!”
It was so damned theatrical that it must be true. For it had to be the blood and the pain and her death that was the truth. . not the lie. And when she welcomed him between her legs, that could be nothing but the truth. There were no questions. It must be strength, not weakness. Guilt and punishment and mercy had no place and no name in all this.
Forget me! Let us forget each other when we’ve gone!
Could we ever make love if there were no such thing as death?
What was your quarrel about?
What did you talk about out there on the balcony?
He thumped his head against the wall. Roared with laughter and wept.