Читать книгу Around the heart in eleven years - Epp Petrone - Страница 8

Djellah and I have met five times for this coming feature and each time I have had more and more questions. Of course, five times less would have been sufficient for a story, but in my own way, I’ve completely fallen for her. She is me in the future! That’s the life that waits for me: always on the go, just a touch melancholic and exciting at once, captivating. Except I’ll be a new and improved version of Djellah, an evolutionary step, for not only will I experience all the rough edges of the rocky path through life, I’ll write about them too. If she feels stressed just writing postcards about how she’s doing, then I’m equally suffocated by not being able to write. This is the only major difference I’ve found between her and me.

Djellah wants to meet me too, time and again. She seems to have developed a maternal or older sister kind of sense of responsibility towards me. For me that is baffling, yet endearing.

“Epp, I don’t think that Marco is serious about you,” she keeps telling me. “Do you know what he calls you behind your back? La rusa! The Russian girl! He can’t even get your nationality right! Don’t trust him. I’ve seen so many of his affairs...”

Djellah and Marco have known each other for a long time, their relationship goes back to when she was a hippie chick with long braids and he was a white-capped marine school cadet. It was back in the 1970s, that Djellah first arrived at the fishing village of Arguineguin. She was on a trip and just passing through, but Marco was actually from here, his roots on both sides of the family firmly planted in this island and in this village. From what I gathered, these two, who were the most important people in my life at that period, had also partied together back in the day, because Marco used to hang out with members of the local hippie community. Djellah stayed at the hotel that is owned and operated by Marco’s father and mother. Later on, Marco sailed the world seas as the captain of a ship, but he still came back from time to time to visit his mother, meeting Djellah sometimes, too.

“By the way, have you seen what kind of a conservative witch his mother is? How can you even picture being in a serious relationship with a man who has that kind of a mother?” Djellah rhetorically asks. I don’t know what to think of that. Somewhere on the top floor of that hotel, in an apartment with the best view of the sea is where Marco’s mother Maria lives: an old woman wearing a head scarf, always dressed in black and walking along the very sides of the stairways. She always bares her teeth to me in a way that’s left me puzzled as to whether she’s smiling or growling a warning. I also have no idea how much she knows about the relationship between her son and me. But that doesn’t matter to me – I smile at Maria and I’m happy that life has introduced me to this type of person.

“My mother has always said that Djellah is not right in the head,” Marco tells me. “And the more time goes by, the more I see that my mother is right. My mother warned me about her a long time ago already! A long time ago... well, I kind of had a thing with Djellah.”

When I ask her about this the following day, Djellah only laughs. “That was really nothing even worth mentioning! I’ve never been Marco’s type and he’s never been mine. Marco collects interesting, international, young specimens, who are never lacking on this island. Before you he had a Norwegian girl.”

I guess that makes me Marco’s type... but is he mine? He’s of a medium build, with black, slightly curly, short hair, a dazzling smile and a strong, sharp manner of speaking. I don’t know if I’d like him just from seeing his picture. But I like the scent this strong man gives off, because my own world right now is so dangerously feeble and insecure.

I have the hardest time choosing between Marco’s or Djellah’s company, they both have their friends on the island and their own events where they keep inviting me. These are two separate worlds: one day I’ll go to Djellah’s fake wedding that she’s putting on to generate gossip among the villagers for her amusement, with the whole expat community in attendance. The next day I’ll go dancing with Marco and his friend at a salsa club meant for middle-aged Canarian locals. Harri, the third most important person for me on this island, thinks that Marco is a “person of unfortunate genetic inheritance, with lacking intelligence”. However, Djellah does get a break from Harri. What’s more, he even gives Djellah work: she joins us walking around the markets in the morning, carrying around handfuls of fans, hats and necklaces. In the evenings, she plays the piano and sings in the restaurant of an expensive hotel: in her low, raspy voice she performs songs in an unbelievable style: a mix of Latin American rhythms, Indian melodies and French chansons, topped off with Djellah’s own personal brand of jazz. I think she’s divinely talented, but fate just hasn’t given her the opportunity to become a world famous singer.

In the afternoon, we like to sit by the window in her hotel room.

Both of our eyes on the horizon, sitting on the windowsill, we’ve suddenly started talking about relationships. It’s funny how Djellah seems to be the type of person who should appreciate the allure of unattainability, but in reality she’s extremely straightforward in matters of the heart, sharing her words of wisdom with me as well. “It’s so not true that men love women who are hard to get!” she says. “They love women who have enough courage to approach them and get to know them! It’s also not true that distance makes the heart grow fonder! Most men forget. Very fast. Period.”

“But... what’s the problem then?” I’m searching for the right words, trying to figure out how to ask: why did the dozens of relationships that you’ve had all fall apart and why are you still alone?

“Look!” she starts to laugh. “I’m the one who needs unattainability!” The laughter then stops, sharply cut off. All of a sudden Djellah is sitting there like a broken doll, head sunk to her chest.

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you... There’s this American guy. Michael... Wait!”

I’m waiting. Djellah has decided to spend the last of her money on a bottle of red wine and returns a few minutes later from the store downstairs – yes, Marco’s store. The wine and Djellah’s story start flowing... first to the 1960s.

Once upon a time there lived a romantic young man whose name was Michael. The propaganda worked and he volunteered for the war in Vietnam, where he tortured and killed Vietnamese people, and where his best friend was killed right in front of his eyes. For two decades, Michael succeeded in stuffing his nightmares far into the corners of his subconsciousness and lived a proper life, but then snapped. At the time when Djellah met the man, he’d lay in bed for days on end, without wanting to even move a muscle.

“Look at him!” The photos show melancholic eyes in a manly face and a slack pair of lips.

Djellah is squatting on the hotel floor, next to the mound of photos she’s dug out of the chest of drawers and her long blond hair makes her look like a helpless child. “I still feel this incredible passion! See... there have been many times when I’ve severely fallen for severely difficult types, I want to help them in their severe turmoil and depression, but I usually end up in even greater turmoil and depression myself. When I realized just how deeply in love with Michael I was, I told myself, stop! Think about it! Do you really need this complicated relationship?”

“I think complicated relationships are interesting...”

“You don’t have to tell me! I’ve lived with a writer going through the pain of birthing a novel, had to mother his fluctuating creative spirit, I’ve had to live with an unemployed alcoholic, hid his bottles from him...”

I’m looking at the photos, the wine and the stories still flowing. So Djellah ended up severing her budding, but complicated relationship and ran away from the US, from Michael. A year and a half have passed, but the passion that wasn’t allowed to properly burn won’t give her peace. “It’s my masochistic nature, it yearns for adventure and pain! I suppose it comes from my childhood of moving around.”

A succession of photos slips through our hands, full of memories and men, while Djellah runs her fingers through her hair and continues. “Talking to Michael makes me feel the weight of the world. I like dangerous and unstable characters... But when I’m with him, I can’t laugh! That’s one secret that I’ve discovered over the years: if you can freely laugh in a man’s company, it means that you can be happy with him for some time. With Rolf I can laugh!”

I look at the pictures that have slipped to the floor: the dark-blooded, mystical Michael between beige sheets, and the light-skinned, smiling Rolf in a sailboat, with the blue sky as his background. “Rolf is this simple and fun type! It’s just that... when I’ve looked into those sincere, light blue eyes for a couple of weeks already, I’m really sorry that those eyes are just so transparent.”

Yes, I know, Djellah, I think while listening to her stories. I too have a man with transparent eyes, waiting for me at home, but unlike you I have not had the courage to be honest with my man. Yet. Maybe tomorrow!

Meanwhile, Djellah has arrived at a new topic, or rather circled back to an old one.

“What were you asking before? Why do my relationships break up? See, there are too many experiences and nationalities inside of me. Men can accept only the part of me that is closest to what they are. But I’m a mix of all of them! I can only suppress my other aspects for so long. With Rolf, I’m a proper, work loving, punctual German. The same way with others I’ve been a loud Spanish woman or a reserved English woman or a coquettish French lady... When I change languages, I even change my mode of thinking. Sometimes I try to figure out who I really am, but I can’t, and that scares me.”

I listen to her and realize that it is a real problem, even though at first it may sound a little boastful.

Another story and the accompanying stack of photos slip through our hands: in these pictures, Djellah’s features have become almost Asian, her eyes slanted like a Chinese woman’s. These photos are of a time when she lived in London among a Chinese community. “One time these English guys came to a party there. They all stopped and stared at me with gaping jaws: what is this tall, blond girl doing here among all these Asian people? Laughing and gesturing like they do, chirping their language, just a head taller than the rest?” And you know, the strangest thing was that I was staring back at them and I saw the Englishmen as strangers, white people, distant creatures. So who am I really, huh?”

“Hey, is Djellah alert?” I ask Harri once. I like the way my employer puts people in categories without hesitation. Sometimes, for example, we are taking the bus from one Gran Canarian market to another and chatting away loudly in Estonian: he’s diagnosing his fellow passengers, determining how alert each of them is.

“Well, let’s say that Djellah’s intuition is stronger than average,” Harri says, a bit flattered – of course, he likes it when I ask for his opinion on the ways of the world. “But your instincts are better than hers. And her rationality is very strong – but not as strong as yours. The only thing in which she is stronger than you, of course, is self-discipline! You’re really weak in that. Well, just take a look at your life, see for yourself!”

I’m a little surprised that Harri launches into this comparison straight away, but as usual when it comes to his speeches, I don’t argue and prefer to just listen.

“You see,” he says, “a person has to have all three parts equally developed. Your problem is that your self-discipline can’t compete with your intuition and rationality. Therefore, the goal of your life should be to learn to control yourself!”

“But Djellah?”

“Well, I mean, she’s got everything more or less in place. She may have her problems, but she has them in a balance, her vitality is equally spread to the three whales: intuition, rationality and self-discipline. Besides, she’s already been toughened up by her past. If there was another great war, Djellah would be among those who’d manage to stay alive.”

Indeed, Harri knows how to measure people. I’ve watched him do it for sometime already.

“But me?” I want to know. “Would I survive a war?”

“Well... your years of toughening up are still ahead of you! You still have time.”

Harri’s still looking at me, squinting his eyes, and again it feels, like many times before, that he sees much more of the future than he’s willing to tell me. But maybe I’m just imagining things. The next instant he’s just another neurotic, raving, useless, long-haired old man, on whom I’ve developed a dependence for some strange reason and whom I follow around from market to market, despite the fact that we don’t seem to be earning a thing...

A new morning. I’m sitting by a dusty road and waiting for a bus to go to Puerto de Mogan, a sweet little tourist trap in a harbour town, where they have an outdoor market. Hopefully I’ll find a good place for selling: out of sight from the cops, but right in the middle of the tourist beat... I can dream, can’t I?

What was it that Harri said yesterday – “Just look at the mess in your life!” Yes! But I don’t have enough energy to look at it right now. I dig out my notebook: let’s rather escape into my magazine story about Djellah.

“Djellah can’t have children. In her twenties she had an accident and an operation. It seems that just as with her mother’s death two decades ago, Djellah has also not managed to come to terms with the idea of infertility. She loves children so much. In the fishing village of Arguineguin in the Canaries, the children of boat-dwellers follow her around, “Hey, let’s go make sandcastles! Let’s go play with your synthesizer for a little bit!”

But there’s one special girl, who is almost always at Djellah’s side, even if it’s a salsa party that lasts until dawn. “She’s better off with me than with her grandparents, they pay absolutely no attention to her,” Djellah says. This girl is Salma, a thirteen-years old love child born to a local woman.

Djellah met the two-year-old girl when she was living in a boat at the port with her Portuguese boyfriend. “We noticed this little curlyhaired girl running around the port and nobody was ever looking after her,” Djellah recalls. She started feeding the girl, playing with her, taking her in their boat to sleep. By that time, Salma’s mother had become a prostitute in the harbor and a junkie to boot, so she had nothing against having a babysitter.

A few years later, Djellah came back full circle to the same place and started living in a commune of musicians in the mountains near the village. Salma remembered her! Once again Djellah took the girl in almost as her own. Her travels found her coming back to Gran Canaria more and more often.

Salma’s mother is dead now. The teenage girl looks like an angel, but she’s prone to wild mood swings. “The things she’s seen,” Djellah sighs. “Her own mother having sex with different men. Junkies in stupors... She has a heavy burden on her heart. I try to help her as best as I can. We talk and discuss the ways of the world. Sometimes when I see her get downtrodden by it all, we go into the woods together and sing in Spanish at the top of our lungs, “La bella vida!^[1.] ”

Djellah smiles. There are times when she speaks with a maternal pride about Salma, like how she finally learned to use a knife and fork.

“Djellah, why don’t you adopt this girl?”

Her face becomes somber. “Her grandparents have nothing against that. But I don’t have a place to live. I live in hotels, one day at a time. Where would I go with her? Soon enough I’ll roll my dresses up again, pack my synthesizer and head off... Where to, I don’t know, but I’ll be back and I’ll see her then.”

I listen to her explaining this to Salma as well. The girl pleads: “I’ll come anywhere in the world, as long as I can be with you!” – “No, you have to go to school. Anyway, I’ll write to you this time!” Djellah promises.

“Everything has its price,” she says to me later in that dry way the British Djellah speaks. “My sister is jealous of me because I can travel and move around, go wherever I want. Many of my female acquaintances have said: “Oh, our Djellah’s life is a never-ending vacation! She gets to sunbathe all day!” They don’t think about the fact that all I have in this world amounts to about twenty kilos of clothes and books, and a musical instrument. I’d say that’s not much for a middle-aged woman. What do you think?” She squints her eyes as if she’s about to break out laughing. And then she adds, “But that’s all you need to live. Some clothes, books, an instrument, air and freedom... Or maybe there is a little girl missing from that list, huh?”

I put the notebook aside and stare off into the distance. Children, that topic again. How much did my own “unborn children” push me into coming here? And where is Djellah pushing me now?

The bus is coming!

1 “The beautiful life!” in Spanish. [ ↵ ]