Читать книгу Fairground Magician - Jelena Lengold - Страница 9

Love me tender

1

Elvis smelled fabulous! And his hand did not sweat, despite holding mine in his for two whole minutes. He wrapped his other arm round my waist. Firmly too. Quite firmly. I could feel all of him. The sequins on his high collar tickled my nose a bit. Amazing man, that Elvis! As though he was singing only for me, while we danced. He was whispering, but everyone heard him. OK, he had a microphone, but still.

Love me tender, love me sweet,

never let me go …

Who would ever want to let you go! You can keep twirling me round like this forever, as far as I’m concerned. Or until we fall into this pool, whatever.

You have made my life complete,

and I love you so …

I believed every word. And I really wanted to tell him that. But there was no time, and it would not have been right. The man was singing, everyone was watching him, and, which was worse, they were watching me too, and the microphone was there, between my lips and his, which were dramatically close, and who knows what might have transpired in some other situation. And that was just what I wanted to tell him, that I believed everything he said when he was singing. And that he ought to abandon that microphone, flutter his glittering silver cloak and carry me away from here, first down onto the beach, onto the sand, and then who knows where.

Love me tender, love me long, take me to your heart. For it’s there that I belong, and we’ll never part …

And as he sang that, as he promised that we would never ever part, Elvis took me back, tenderly, but unambiguously, to my table, swirled his cloak one more time round my head and aimed for the next middle-aged tourist whom he would take for a minute or two, just as he had me, away from her tanned, smiling husband.

That was it. No one was looking at me any longer, all the heads at all the tables round the pool were once again fixed on the false Elvis, although, since I had never danced in the arms of the real Elvis, this was most definitely the most elvis-ish Elvis I had ever felt beside me. It would probably be this one that I would think of from now on when I listened to the real Elvis; that is what I was afraid of.

Elvis was already dancing with a small, stocky German woman who was squeaking somewhere under the level of the microphone, trying to sing a duet with him, but she was too short for that, so that all that could be heard from time to time was a hissing sound, like when you let off a firecracker at New Year. But Elvis covered all that with his sumptuous elvis ish voice, he did not let it put him off, he twirled the German woman round her two circuits of the pool and then returned her elegantly to her husband.

I was afraid that I might burst into tears. Suddenly. Here, in the middle of my forty-sixth birthday, at the seaside, in the middle of this evening that had started perfectly nicely. What is wrong with me, I thought, if all it takes for me to completely lose my mind is for a pretend Elvis to twirl me twice round a swimming pool? My husband was sipping his drink, with its paper umbrella stuck into its wide-rimmed glass and cheerfully toasted me with it when I returned to the table.

I tried in vain to catch Elvis’s eye.

I could not accept it: one moment we had been embracing, here, in front of everyone, he had whispered all those words to me, and the very next moment he would not so much as glance at me. There was no way that Elvis could be like all other men. Elvis must not disappoint me, I felt. Because if even Elvis disappointed me, then what was this whole world coming to?

Just once, swirling past our table, he did glance at me and blew me a kiss. I gulped down my Martini and returned his smile.

2

My husband was already asleep. I was standing on the balcony of our hotel room and looking down at the pool. There was no one at the tables round the pool any more. Just a lad in a neat yellow uniform slowly removing ashtrays, folding table-cloths, closing the remaining umbrellas …

The water in the pool was almost motionless. Only the moon was reflected in it. And the lights of the surrounding hotels. It was already completely quiet everywhere around. The gardens were closed, the tourists who had wanted to prolong this night had already gone off to some night club or other. Although that seemed a bit unlikely to me. After Elvis, where on earth would you want to go? Apart, perhaps, from … to Elvis?!

I turned and looked into the room. He was sleeping, soundly. There was no way that he was going to wake up before morning.

Quietly, as quietly as could be, I went into the bathroom and looked at the mirror. Yes, I was forty-six, but I was also tanned and in love. And it is a well-known fact that this makes women suddenly and inexplicably beautiful. I sprayed some scent here and there over myself, more on those places where I was hoping for Elvis than in the places where perfume is usually sprayed, and slipped out of the room with my sandals in my hand. I did not put them on until I was in the lift.

The polite duty receptionist, probably just a few seasons away from retirement, did not at first believe his own ears. However, presumably accustomed to all manner of things in his line of work, he eventually accepted a symbolic banknote, and told me which room Elvis was in. He watched me anxiously as I returned to the lift. I heard him say, more to himself than to me:

‘Best of luck, madam!’

3

As though he had been standing right beside the door, Elvis appeared right in front of me the moment I knocked. He was not wearing his cloak or the glittery collar any more, but it was him. No doubt about it. That faultlessly black hair, slicked back, with two or three locks falling onto his brow; those sideburns that reached almost to his lips; the brilliant gleam of his teeth which appeared the instant he saw me. His face was so perfectly tanned that it almost looked like a mask: high cheekbones standing out and those same inimitable lips and smile which pulled slightly to one side. Something between a real smile and a look of contempt.

He was still holding the door handle with his left hand, while his right hand was hovering somewhere in the air, somewhere at the level of his face. It stayed there, almost forming a question mark, as though it were that arm, rather than him, that was asking me who I was, how did he know me and what was I doing here at his door?

We stood like that for a few seconds and it seemed that neither of us was going to speak any time soon. I felt that my mouth had gone suddenly dry and I was a bit breathless. I could hear my own heart in my ears. It was pounding regularly and hard. It got in the way of my thinking. Although, even if I had not heard my heart, who knows whether I would have been thinking anything coherent, then, at that moment. I was simply gazing, and it seemed as though that gazing was going on forever. Because, in those few seconds, I saw every detail that could be seen. Behind Elvis, part of the room was visible: there was a large bed with crumpled sheets, there was also an enormous armchair with tasteless arm-rests in the shape of lions’ heads with his sparkling jacket thrown over it. I noticed the dressing table beside the bed and I thought it was amusing that there were little bottles and boxes on it, as though this room belonged to some ancient, powdered lady, rather than to a man. I also saw two suitcases near the door, one huge and green, and a smaller one, with the outline of a silver guitar stuck on it. I saw all of that in those few seconds. And the fact that Elvis’s shirt was partly pulled out of his trousers and that he was wearing ordinary checked slippers, just like the ones my husband wore round the house. Those slippers were probably the most extraordinary thing of all.

It was clear that Elvis was not going to say anything soon. That arm was still making a question mark, and all that had changed was that he had raised one eyebrow and slightly turned his neck, lowering his head. That was all. That was his question. I would have to speak; there was nothing else for it.

Softly, so softly that I could hardly hear myself, I said, ‘May I come in?’

For a fraction of a second Elvis seemed to hesitate, but then, slowly, moving like a large old tomcat, he stepped back and let me pass. He still didn’t speak. He pointed to the armchair with his jacket thrown over it. It didn’t look as though he intended to move it. I slipped past Elvis, feeling his gaze on me the whole time. I picked up the jacket, placed it carefully on the bed and finally sat down.

Elvis was standing beside me. I thought that such things probably happened to him all the time. Women knocking on his door after midnight. He was either too surprised, or not surprised at all. There was no halfway house. That was the first thing I wanted to ask him, but there was no point.

It was only then that I noticed, behind the door, a miniature bar. Elvis moved towards it and when he got there, behind that little counter, he finally spoke,

‘You were drinking Martini, if I’m not mistaken?’

My heart leaped. Not only did he remember me, he knew what I had been drinking!

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘thank you, I’d love another Martini.’

Some kind of total calm had come over him. If he had been surprised for the first few moments, it was clear that he had now completely regained control. In one hand he was holding a glass of whisky for himself, in the other my Martini. As he handed me the glass, he said,

‘Martini sometimes gives me insomnia, too.’

I almost shouted at him,

‘No! It’s not the Martini, the insomnia! You …’

But I could not say any of that. There was a horrible, gigantic, lump in my throat. That same lump that had settled there when I finished my dance with Elvis beside the pool. That humiliating feeling when you know you are going to burst into tears beside a man you do not know at all; and you know that he knows and you know that the tip of your nose has gone red like a very small child’s and tears are beginning to well up in the corners of your eyes.

Nothing seemed strange to Elvis. He sat down on the arm of my chair, as though he had mounted one of those lion’s heads, stroked my hair and said very gently,

‘Oh, my dear! Why, you’re really sad …’

I simply nodded. Just like a child who has given in and decided finally to cry.

4

Somewhere between his third and fourth whisky, Elvis told me that one night, to his own surprise, he had married a Bulgarian lion tamer. She was a bit wall-eyed, but she was a dab hand with a whip. And he liked that. They only lived together for two years, during which time they mostly quarrelled about whether he should follow the circus or she should follow the Elvis-band, and when they eventually tired of this, they simply went their separate ways. She, to crack her whip and stand tall in front of wide-open jaws, and he to whisper to ladies on the terraces of European resorts.

‘You were wise,’ I told Elvis. ‘People should always follow their dreams. Whatever they are. Marriage is a great killer of dreams.’

‘Surely it’s not that awful, my dear?’

‘No, it’s not, it’s not awful. But … it can be a bit dismal. For instance, I catch myself in this kind of thing: he’s sitting in his room, working on some stuff of his. I’m sitting in another room, trying, in vain, to concentrate on something. Then I think I might go to him and grab him, at least for a bit, for some kind of sex. He would be up for it. He’s always up for it. And I’m just on my way, really, I’ve already got up, set off towards his room … But then I glance towards a little table and see that there’s a cup there full of steaming cocoa which I’ve just made –good, warm, sweet cocoa, just the way I like it and – I change my mind. I don’t want to let it get cold. I tell myself, OK, I’ll drink my cocoa first and then I’ll go to his room. But even while I’m thinking that, I already know that nothing will come of it. I know I’m fooling myself. You understand, at that moment I prefer my cocoa to him. And what are you supposed to do then? What?’

Elvis looked at me as though he really understood.

‘One night I dreamed about God,’ he said. ‘God had no form; he was not a human being. He was a kind of creeping plant that wound round a stick or a tree, or something … Before my eyes, that plant grew and climbed in a spiral up that stick, and in my sleep I knew that this was God who was showing me the meaning of time. I don’t know whether I can explain it. That stick in the centre - that was me. The plant was God in transient time. The speed with which the plant grew was the speed with which my life is passing. Something like that …’

Elvis and I must both have been fairly drunk by now, because it seemed to me that I knew exactly what that climbing plant looked like. I could feel the small white flowers of bindweed growing all over me and wrapping me up. Tender, but merciless tendrils, whose shape adapted to the shape of my body. Little leaves that merged with my skin. I could feel all that here somewhere, at the height of my chest, moving towards my neck and it was only a matter of time before it would wrap round my neck and begin to throttle me.

5

We were floating on the water, both of us. Each on our own lilo. My husband had pulled his peaked cap down over his face, and lay with his arms under his head. The late afternoon sun nuzzled our bodies agreeably. A slight hum from the beach merged with music from three different cafés. And the cries of children. And an old man carefully entering the water, slowly wetting his skin with his hand, bit by bit, as though any speedier action might have cost him his life. Maybe it would, what did I know? And a young couple, not far from us, kissing in each other’s arms in the water, and I could only guess that her legs were wound around him, and he was holding her by her arse. For a moment all of that seemed to me perfectly clear. Meanwhile, I was lying motionless and waiting, for something.

I knew exactly what each of those people whom I had already left a little behind me would say at that moment.

And I knew what I would reply.

The climbing plant was still just under my throat, waiting.

I glanced at my husband again. I knew every millimetre of his body. And there was no part of him that I particularly disliked. It was all in some inexplicable way mine, forever. Those fine hairs on his thighs, that youthful fold of his hip, those tended hands, those nipples which for some reason could not tolerate kisses. I knew it all by heart, including what could not be seen, what was lying on the lilo, covered by his swimming trunks; I knew his firmness that sometimes liked to press against me as soon as we woke up, I knew the smell of his breath, and I also knew that in his wildest imaginings he could not guess what I was thinking about just then.

The moment the sun finally disappeared, he felt cool and lifted his cap from his eyes. Squinting a little, he looked at me.

‘Shall we go?’

I smiled at him and nodded.

Just today, I told the climbing plant. Just this one day, be patient.

One tenderly green branch, I could see it clearly, had sprouted at just that moment and was waving at me in a cold wind, in front of my eyes, threatening me. Orwas it just that nightwas beginning to fall. I am not entirely sure.