lying in my
bed. sick leave: 4 days of freedom from my corporation – a gift from the
surgeon. white walls, bed linen, strong spring sunlight, gulls from the
riverside and distant echoes of the train calling. it all makes me think of a
text by Renata Litvinova: Finally, I laid
down in a clean ward with flowers in a jar on the window sill, they brought me
some porridge and put me on an IV - I found peace and went to sleep.(...) Probably
that is why I like hospitals so much – they create an illusion that you've been let go for a while.1
after the worst pain is gone, I forget about my job and begin to hear my real thoughts. I write to Z., we buy the tickets to Romania, we make plans. I order a guide – almost 700 pages. feels like I’ve bought a Bible. I cannot imagine how Romania might look like. I read “Bucharest. Dust and blood” and I know it’s only someone’s experience that can tell me a lot or can tell me nothing about how it will actually be like to me.
in the
evening, before I go to sleep, I watch “Вечное возвращение” by Kira Muratova. I
have goosebumps when I hear Zemfira singing the Duke’s song from “Rigoletto”. the
scenes with Natalia Buzko – so ripe and heavy, like a late summer fruit. noble gestures
of Litvinova, about whom I’ll have a dream later that night. I wish I had
managed to see the movie in the theater back in October when I was in Kiev.
every few
days I meet A. in the flat. I cannot make myself communicate with her in any
way. my body and mouth are closed for her – it’s beyond my control. meanwhile,
the red carnation she gave me has come into full bloom on the kitchen window
sill. I remain silent. inside me, all the words, pictures and sounds explode
and transform. I love life with its bitter overwhelming weight – but I just
cannot let it show.
the weather
breaks, the temperature starts falling, the wind pushes against my windows, I
close my eyes and I feel as if I were in a lighthouse in a middle of a storm. I
clean the flat. the order brings me mental peace.
I put my
blue rubbers with yellow shoestrings on, people on the street always look at
them when I pass by, and I go to the theater to see “Only Lovers Left Alive”.
when I enter the building and the door closes behind me, it starts raining and
the sun shows up at the same moment. there’s still a quarter before the movie
starts, so I go upstairs and sit to read a few pages of “Bucharest”, but I can’t;
behind the window there are old tenements with bullet holes, the bricks dark with
dampness, the March sunlight in the windows, in the puddles, in the mirrors.
the world demands attention.
and then
the movie – like a beautiful, perfect dream. Jarmusch, who always introduces
order of things that I accept so gladly and to which I always surrender. Tilda
Swinton – oh, everything about her performance – I could almost worship her.
the music of nighttime. what a perfect dream.
although the
movie theater is near my home, it’s so cold I can’t walk and I tremble; on my
way I need to buy some warm coffee. I get back and I write to Ol. that she
definitely should go and see the movie. she says, there is no way to see it
here, in Berlin, without the German dubbing. I imagine German feminine voice
instead of Tilda Swinton’s accent and although I’ve never experienced the
popular instant dislike for German, I feel so sorry for Ol.
before I go to bed, I swallow the painkiller and wash it down with carrot juice from a wine glass. A. is not at home. I buy “Only Lovers...” soundtrack and I watch my thoughts like a photo album.
Sadness came when they delivered my test results and I was discharged – with my skin white, looking healthy. Deep down I felt like clinging to the headboard of my iron bed, as I was leaving the old hospital wing. 1
Tomorrow I get back to office.
1 Рената Литвинова “Она влюбилась во вторник... Как я похудела” (translation attempt mine)
