Читать книгу Twin Souls - Raimon Samsó - Страница 11

During the weekends I usually cook. I don’t dispose from many utensils, but I take advantage of my resources and workaround. I like to cook because it relaxes me. When my hands are busy, my mind follows them. I enter in a state of presence. That is the miracle of the here and now.

I had her cell phone number written in my electronic agenda. I called. Five, five, two, cero, one, nine, three.

-Hello, do you know who is calling?

-Sure, my hero! -answered Jodie.

-That sounds really good.

-Here we live Hollywood style.

-The Oscar for the best interpretation is yours. Prepare your thank you speech.

-Will you be my date for the gala?

Of course I would… I took advantage from that opening and invited her to dinner, and she accepted. In my studio, Thursday night. It’s decided. I would cook for her. And even though Jodie worked at a restaurant, I would arrange it. That March’s Thursday my heart knew in some way that this spring was an imminent event. It had been a long time since I felt that kind of emotion. So long that this news could turn into a press headline category.

The day we had settled, the bell rang, I opened the door and Jodie appeared, with an announcement: I didn’t come alone. True. Jodie brought, with a big red bow, the only plant that has survived time’s passing in the apartment. We chose a name for it: Meg. I never thought a plant could do a pet’s job, but truth is it gives me company. Taking care of a living being reveals a large amount of unconditional love to offer.

We checked some of Javier’s paintings and she gave me her opinion. Her words were like a bridge that takes you to a powerful intelligence. Before which, the most complex questions rumbled and acquired easy answers.

Her aspect? Radiant, impeccable. She was wearing a tight dress, a simple pearl collar and her hair pinned up. If I hadn’t mentioned it before, Jodie had heart shaped lips and eyes so shiny as if filled with little stars. Can one smile with the eyes? Well, she certainly could. She glared at me as a humming bird floating in the air. I believe the secret in her smile was that she shared it between the lips and the eyes.

Her skin had a chronic aspect of being recently cleaned, without any makeup, but then, she didn’t need it. Her compass drawn ears drew attention- perfect interrogation marks- touched by a pair of simple earrings. She used to wear her messy hair -not wild-, neither short nor long.

How did she move? She knew how to sit as a humble queen, and she moved gracefully. Without a doubt, daily exercise made her slender body move with rythm and with an amazing elasticity.

How did she cope? With simplicity and prudence. She would silence in an exclusive manner, and she was that kind of person that when she listened she was interested in others. And she never forgot to place the other’s name in the conversation.

One in a million.

Before going to the table, Jodie helped me in the kitchen while we drank a cup of Livermore Sauvignon Blanc Californian wine. The dinner? For starter, Portuguese cheese toast. Then, as the main course Italian homemade pasta, filled in with vegetables and nuts.

Part of the studio’s ceiling was an open window towards the sky. Under its clarity, I set a table for two. We had dinner by the light of thee dozen candles spread all through the apartment, and with George Benson’s Jazz.

We talked and talked. She insisted once more in my need to interiorize.

-You’ll see how, when the time is right, everything will make sense and will be clarified, without effort, as if you had the explanation. Everything has a meaning beyond its superficial appearance. Every small detail you perceive is an interpretable signal. And nothing, nothing is casual.

-Nothing? Do you really think so?

-Sure. If you make yourself certain questions you will live in a more conscious way. Try this: what do I need to know right now? What can I learn from this? Which are the consequences from this situation? Universe gets set and prepares the answers. Ask and you shall receive, this is the art of allowing.

-Ok Jodie, but tell me, where does that knowledge come from? What kind of strange intelligence are we talking about?

-It is everywhere, including you. It is making the world go round right now. And intuition is the connection device with the potential range. We are like noodles inside of a big cosmic soup called love.

-Funny. I think I understand, but you know well that when things are going wrong, it seems everything is going worse. Who thinks of all those things when desperation consumes you?

-Precisely. When problems come, in a way in which they literally pile up, your attention should be drawn to something that isn’t working. Not out there, but inside of you. Focal attention power acts.

-To look for the solution inside… the problem?

-Exactly, there where it is not. To come out of a problem you have to change the mental structure which has created it. Why do we always look for the solution where it can’t be found? I mean: in others. Life tests us every day expecting a conscious answer, not an unconscious reaction.

I knew I would remember every moment of that evening. Do soul mates exist? Maybe they do, and they look for each other to get complete. Separation is the end of an episode, but worthy relationships are infinite, eternal. Where one goes, the other follows. Through a jump in time, the other one catches it; and distance shortens until they both meet. Two soul mates take part in a dance in time and space. Once I saw two butterflies flying very close, in an inseparable wing tangle. I believe it is the same way that two twin souls go together by the hands through eternity. I admit I’ve spent too much time alone, because I didn’t want to commit in relationship to the lack of complicity splendor. And I think I’ve always missed someone, who I had not yet met, that wanted to fly with me.

Jodie sipped the wine that remained in her cup; her glare passed through the night and came back. Astronomers would relate in the morning: «Eyes like little stars go up and down the Great Bear». In her silence she always seemed to be asking something deep.

Right after that she cleared:

-I think that when you don’t hear a signal, sooner or later you will receive another one, this time disguised as a problem. And so on until you understand which the next step is. Problems are projections of judgment misunderstanding. That is what I believe at least.

-A mistake can provoke a new way’s exploration, which at the end is what proves to work. Every misfortune hides an opportunity, isn’t it that is said? - I interrupted Jodie.

-That’s right, Victor. Just for survival I’ve had to learn to find the good from the bad. An answer and a question are the two sides of the same coin. Without one of them, the coin would not exist. In the same way, a problem couldn’t exist without the perfect solution at the right moment.

-…And in that instant- I interrupted her- something you had never paid attention to, acquires meaning.

-Yes, -she continued- there is a brief moment in which the solution is no one’s and an instant later the mind describes it with words. And in that moment the good idea belongs to us, do you understand?

Yes and no. I wasn’t sure. Jodie was turning around my old manner of perceiving the world, and this baffled me. I was an answer seeker, of technical solution in the painting environment. Never the less, I was so obsessed with looking for answers that when they appeared, I had already forgotten the question. And information vanished. I had spent far too long worrying about what I didn’t know that I forgot what I already knew. I had always believed that some of my questions didn’t have and couldn’t have answers. And it was the other way around: my answers didn’t have questions anymore.

I served the main course. I didn’t let her get up to help me. She was my guest of honor.

-From the month…? -she asked smiling, after reading my mind.

-Let’s say, from the semester. I must admit that my social life is discrete and I don’t cook for many people -I confessed.

We commented the dish and its ingredients. I gave her detail. She asked if she could include it in the Sea Palms restaurant’s menu.

-With one condition: that you name it after me, ok?

-Ok.

-Victor’s style filled pasta. Sounds great -I raised my glass.

We toasted to that.

The candle light made the shadows tremble around us. Above us, up there, the universe, maybe accomplice of the moment; or maybe it assisted only as a curious spectator. The transparences from that March night forebode an unappealable spring.

Jodie repeated the main course. She said on tree occasions that it was exquisite. One, two and three. I set the coffee maker. Through the window you could sense where heaven meets the ocean. In that moment I wished we both were like that ocean and sky, which are always together. I wished life were blue like the sea and long as the horizon. We remained silent for a few minutes. I know happiness is made of moments such as that. I didn’t want the night to end, nor to admit that time would wrap it as yesterday’s paper, as it always did, to be put away in an attic -called memory- filled with nuisance -called memories- where everything is yellowish and backdated.

The coffee pot whistle sounded all through the studio, bringing us the just made coffee’s aroma, and after serving it, we drank a cup of that delicious mixture from Colombia and Ethiopia.

The night refreshed next to the Pacific, she explained to me that was the way it happened. Jodie shivered, and I put my jacket over her shoulders -in the morning it still kept her fragrance-. Later on, before midnight, Jodie had to go back to the Sea Palms. Work matter.

-Do you know what time it is? -said Jodie.

-Are you asking or exclaiming?

When I was with her I didn’t think about looking at my watch. Next to her, my world would stop and my heart accelerated. When she looked into your eyes, it made your heart beat fast, very fast.

-I must leave Victor, it is late. I managed to escape a few hours, but I must go back to the restaurant. I am really sorry, because this is so nice…

-Please, allow me to take you -I proposed.

-No, really, don’t worry. I’ll take a taxi. You need to recover from the last jogging session. Your whole body must be hurting -she joked. Then she added:

-Good night Victor, thank you for this wonderful evening.

-Thank you, Jodie… and don’t worry… I’ll take care of the plant.

I got her a taxi. We said goodbye the car’s window. A second later, she vanished as a modern Cinderella. After closing the door from the studio, everything got filled with her absence. The word goodbye leaves a long silence after itself. To all that silence joined the guilt feeling for noticing another woman after Clara. Although I had lived a long time alone, I was not a loner. Those are very different things. Well, at least now I had Meg, the plant I placed in an ideal place in the studio. I picked up the table and finished my glass of wine. The music wasn’t sounding anymore, the candles were out, and over the table cloth reined an infinite silence. That is a scene I know too well…

I was about to go to bed, when the wind made the studio door rumble. Behind it was Sam with a contorted look on his face asking for my help. He had just received a phone call from Mercy Hospital: Lorena has been admitted after suffering a strong car accident near Malibu. Her condition was serious and her companion, the driver, a young man, had died.

We climbed down the stairs as an exhalation. We got into my car and went at full speed toward the hospital. Sam, at my side, behind sobs, he didn’t stop whispering prayers all the way.