Anamnesis by Zorina Alliata (red queen free ebook TXT) 📖

twists their minds. She taught me to recognize the numbers - shallow, cowardly hiding behind one another.

“Don’t you know”, said Dante, “there is no such thing as evil. There’s only the absence of good.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Wow – you are very deep today,” I said.

“Look to your left. There’s a cute guy,” Dante pointed out to me. “I think he’s checking you out.”

He was. I smiled back, coldly. Dante and I played this game all the time – observing who looks at the other one when we were in public. We needed each other for this; none of us could figure out by ourselves who likes us and we would never notice any sign of interest if it bit us.

“What’s wrong with this one?” Dante wanted to know, seeing my glacial face.

“What, you wanna see me married or something?” I snapped back. “I am not looking for anybody, that’s all. I want to be alone.”

Love was so simple to me; I had always seen right through it. Getting it was easy enough. Very common pattern, love; found everywhere in shameless directness, waiting to be looked at and awakened; its numbers, always naïve and brave, likeable and joyous, worked in many liberal combinations; even clueless people had a good chance of getting it right.

For years, I had been looking for a love pattern of my own; especially created for me and my hopeless situation; at first, I thought it could be leading me to a man-creature forged in magic fire. But then it became clear that I was looking for something that didn't exist in Nature; she had taken care of that. She had made sure what I was missing was not to be found in this world.

“I have never seen you with any guy, ever,” Dante continued. “I know you like guys ‘cause I see how you look at them sometimes. I even know which type you like – the tough ones who don’t talk much.”

I laughed. “That’s, like, so not true.” I said. “They’re all an open book to me, no matter if they talk a lot or don’t talk at all. I see right through them. People bore me.”

“How can you not like any of them?” Dante asked. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

“Nope,” I lied. “Never. And I am pretty sure it will never happen either. You see, I was not built for it. I was built for other purposes.”

“What are you talking about?” Dante dismissed me. “Life has no purpose. We’re here by mistake and we just wander the Earth and then we die. There is no bigger plan. Nobody built you for anything.”

“How about you?” I asked. “Have you ever been in love?”

“Long time ago,” he confessed, sighing. “I had a fiancée, Vicky.”

“Really?” I marveled. “I never thought you’d be the type to get married.”

“I was young,” he said. “I still miss her terribly sometimes.”

“Why did you break up?” I asked.

“She just left one day,” he answered. “I woke up and she was gone; she left a note saying she was leaving me. I never heard from her again. I asked everybody and I looked everywhere but she was gone for good. I heard she might have gone back to Italy where her family was. I don’t know. It took me many years to get over it, you know, because I didn’t understand why. It’s better when you know why, when there’s a reason, you know.”

It was hard to imagine Dante in love; at the time, he must have had substance, emotions, opinions and answers. He was born a whole being then, and not a transparent shadow as he appeared to me now.

“Did you have a fight the night before?” I asked, because I sensed he wanted to talk about it.

“No, we had a nice dinner at my mom’s,” he answered. “My mom got out the expensive china, the one with the yellow roses. Mr. Saccas was there, he played the piano for us. It was very peaceful, you know. Like a family. Although Vicky didn’t like my mom’s rose sorbet – which, I have to admit, is an acquired taste. She felt a bit sick and we had to leave early. But she seemed okay by the time we got home.”

“Aaaahh,” I said. Mr. Saccas, the usual suspect, had made his apparition again. Amazing how he was there for every worthy event in Dante’s life. “First your dad, then your fiancée,” I continued. “Don’t you think it’s suspicious how people keep disappearing on you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dante asked confusedly. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Honey,” I said, “It seems to me that two people you loved disappeared and your buddy Mr. Saccas was there every time it happened. I don’t know the guy, but that’s how it looks from the outside. You should have a chat with him, that’s all I’m saying.”

Dante looked at me incredulously. “Mr. Saccas is, like, 85 years old,” he said. “He spends his time reading the paper and gardening. I doubt he had anything to do with Vicky leaving me. That is just ridiculous.”

“Does he live alone?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dante confirmed.

“Family?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Friends?”

“Just my mom, as far as I can tell.”

“The guy is a fake,” I concluded. “Nobody lives absolutely alone for 30 years. What, did he fall out of the clear blue sky? He must’ve come from somewhere; he must know somebody. He practically saved your life when that truck almost hit you. How come he was there? This is all highly suspicious to me.”

“He saved my life a couple more times when I was a kid,” said Dante. “I was pretty dumb and got myself in all sorts of trouble. One time I almost hung myself playing with this other kid; thank God, Mr. Saccas saw what was happening and took me away before I completely fainted. He had to give me a mouth-to-mouth and I still remember the smell of his breath – because it smelled faintly of lavender. That’s not weird, is it?”

“What? That you remember a man kissing you?” I joked.

“Oh c’mon,” Dante smiled. “I was, like, 6 years old.”

“All I’m saying is, why don’t you talk with him,” I said. “He was there all your life – maybe he is the one to ask about your father.”

“But I think he moved in after my father was gone,” said Dante.

“Maybe he knows some things. Maybe your mom talked with him. Ask him anyway, what do you have to lose?”

“I guess,” said Dante. “Although all this memo thing was just a mistake and my dad has nothing to do with the Company. That nice lady who was knitting sweaters was wrong.”

But he was not going to give it up; it was clearly marked above his forehead; a path was there, new, shiny, awaiting, with the marks of destiny written on it. He would take it, I had no doubt about it.

“There,” I said. “Blonde behind you has had her eyes stuck on you since she came in.”

“I’m looking at that guy,” Dante pointed to the left. “He’s completely smitten by you.”

None of us turned. We both laughed, finishing our beers. Passing blondes, brunettes, tough guys and shy guys, we walked slowly towards the bar exit door – two beautiful people with amazing skin, hair, eyes and teeth, shattered into a million pieces inside.

*-*-*

When I was with him, the voices stopped. The pain, the memories, the dull familiarity of every situation – gone. I was innocent; fresh; silly; blank and easy to surprise. I didn’t know anything. Life would expose itself to me petal by petal, scent by scent, sound by sound. The world was smooth and right and I would feel it in my body, in my limbs, and not solely in my mind.

I met Dan at a party in college; my roommate, a well-intended, clueless girl, had set me up and dragged me to a rented barn at the margin of Iasi, where I found all my classmates drunk and loose, banging their heads to the heavy metal music. The barn was near the Ciric lake, in the middle of a frightening dark forest that whooshed with disgust when it felt me near. I rushed to the middle of the dance floor, on solid cement, where I was safer. I smiled; I banged my head up and down with the others. Metallica music was good; was urban and steely, and protected me from the angry sounds of the grass outside.

I gathered some numbers, a few, arranged the patterns of my escape; memorized the paths I could take back to the car, the times when the forest had to breath and did not pay attention. And then I saw Dan and he saw me, in one of the few unplanned moments of my life. Before I could rationalize it, I was in love. The numbers had fallen into place naturally, effortlessly, building an almost physical link between us before our eyes even met. I can still see it; 10 years later, from the other side of the world, the link, the bridge, the channel between us looks exactly the same: the diameter of a young tree; the flexibility of a bamboo; the lightness of aluminum, the duress of iron; it is the color of flesh; it starts from my chest and it ends at his chest, a straight line, wherever we are. I can follow it and it would lead me right to him. I know where he is and I know when he hurts. I am chained to him forever, and grateful for it.

Dan was a true son of Nature. Physical, athletic, he measured the world by his body’s sensations. He took the day as it came, rain or shine, forest or asphalt, walk or drive, with the same joy of living. He ate and drank with a passion, and Nature fed him the best it had. He was everything, strongly anchored into the tree of life, laughing at the easiness and beauty of it all.

He came to me, reached for my hand. It fit into his perfectly. He was my match in every way, my hero, my hope for salvation. When we danced, I forgot who I was – for the first time since I had been born. I saw myself in his eyes: so young, so beautiful, so right; his future bride. I looked good; I looked normal; I looked like a woman, like a human being. My aching body was a whole and not a painful recollection of sick cells and faulty blood vessels. My eyes were not hollow any more.

I loved him beyond any limits. I still remember his large, warm hands holding me that night when we danced. I felt a fire in me that I had never felt before; I wanted to melt into him, to become a part of the wonderful entity that he was. He asked me if I’d like to get some air; sure, I said, let’s have a cigarette. We went outside on the porch overlooking the lake and the waters didn’t mind; the wind was gentle and it played with my hair. The forest had quieted down; when I was with him, Nature was kind. I lit a cigarette and offered him one too; we chatted; we laughed; we kissed. You know, he said, I don’t really