Chapter 4 Gone Dark #2
And still the hideous moth of detached excitement beat its wings inside my chest, burnt black though they were from the flames of sorrow.
Suspended in the air, circling in fascination above its impending doom, not caring how many of its peers had already perished in the fire.
I was powerless to stop its treacherous flight.
“Almost half of the world’s population gone, just like that,” Dave exhaled incredulously one afternoon.
The day outside the windows was flat and dully grey.
Rain had been pattering against the glass panes for hours, drowning out the occasional gunshots, shouts and explosions from the world beyond our confines.
A world that was starting to feel about as distant and disconnected from our sphere of existence as the world on the television screen.
Once again, we all had spent most of the day watching the news in the common area, sinking into pastel-coloured armchairs. Even the vulvar orchids seemed unexciting in the dim light.
“And to think that just a month ago everyone worried about overpopulation ...” I exhaled after holding my breath during the news report.
“Not anymore,” Kevin said grimly, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.
“I’m going to make a call,” Petr announced, getting up.
He sounded nervously distracted, like he had been paying no attention whatsoever to anything that went on around him.
He had been fidgeting with his mobile phone the whole day, almost like he couldn’t bear to look away from its screen for more than a few seconds.
Minutes before his sudden departure, it had vibrated in his hand, presumably announcing the receipt of a message.
I stayed seated for a few more minutes, lost in my thoughts and indifferent to what was being said around me.
Paying attention to nothing but the voracious worm that was carving its way through my heart, feeding off unformulated suspicions and unacknowledged clues.
It was on its impulse that I stood up shortly after and followed Petr upstairs.
He had locked himself in our room, and as I hadn’t brought my own key card, I could not get in. I could, however, hear his side of the conversation through the shut door. Confirming what I had simultaneously feared and known all along.
“Just the thought of never seeing you again, never hearing your voice, never being able to tell you how much you mean to me ... I can no longer ignore it ... not fair to anybody, even Renata ... we will be together, I promise ... I love you ...”
All those lone, long calls of the past couple of weeks suddenly made much more sense. As did his lack of interest in intimacy. The endless hours spent at work. The gaping distance between us, ugly and indecent, like a deep gash in the tenderness of flesh.
He emitted a heavy, pained sigh once he hung up, sounding much like a sob. I gave him a few moments before knocking.
“Petr ...”
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Petr ... I heard.”
The door opened to reveal his flushed, tear-streaked face, brows and lips sagging with guilt. I half expected him to berate me for listening in on him, but he just stepped aside, letting me through. We sat on the bed beside each other, breathing, neither knowing how to start.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” Petr said at last. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t cheat on you in the physical sense. I kissed her once, in the heat of a moment, but I ... tried my hardest not to wrong you.”
“I know you did,” I said quietly.
Fresh tears welled in his hazel eyes. Mine were surprisingly dry; I only felt numbed with fatigue.
“Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?” I offered. “I don’t think there is a vacant room, but I can ...”
“No, don’t worry about that.” He waved his hand. “We need to stick together now, get through this. But Renata, once all this is over ... once we get back home, and if she’s still there ...”
“You’ll want to be with her,” I finished the sentence for him with a kindness in my voice that even I was surprised to hear.
“I’m so sorry.” He was crying now in earnest, but definitely not disagreeing with me. “I tried, I really did ... I tried my best.”
“I know you did, dear.” I sat closer to him, strangely composed and detached, stroking his hair like I would a child’s.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, love.” Tears of my own finally stung my eyes, but my voice remained soothing and calm.
“Trust me, I understand. I wouldn’t want to be with me either. ”
I stared resolutely at the melee of colourful, carnivorous plants against the dark blue of the tapestry, willing myself not to start screaming.
“No, Renata, it’s not that.” Petr shook his head vigorously.
“This has nothing to do with…” He made a vague gesture in the direction of my lower abdomen.
“The reason is that with you, I always had this sense of being just a step in your plan. I ignored the feeling at first because you are so damn beautiful and I wanted the same kind of life anyway. But then, once we couldn’t make that happen, it felt like there was nothing left between us. Do you know what I mean?”
I did know only too well. How many times had I said, ‘I love you,’ doubting that I meant it?
How much time had I spent bored and unstimulated, thinking fondly of the sensible future I was building as minutes ticked slowly by?
How often had I fantasised about having something like the passionate romance of the books I translated?
“With Andrea, all we care about is being with each other. Living any life available to us as long as we’re together.”
Petr looked at me imploringly, his eyes begging me for understanding and forgiveness. How could I not grant it?
I nodded, patting his thigh lightly.
“I’m glad you have found her,” I told him honestly. “I mean it. I hope you can get back to her soon.”
With nothing left to say, I departed from the room, closing the whitewashed door carefully behind me with a click.
As soon as I did, memories flooded my mind with the roaring onrush of a broken dam.
Blowing out eighteen twinkling candles on a red velvet cake.
A bottle of champagne from the gentleman at the bar.
Yes, the tall one in the crisp, chrome-coloured suit.
A hand on the small of my back, the steely gaze of grey eyes.
A sharp, lined face leaning closer to mine.
Hair like iced butter. Fingers handing me a card with the glint of a wedding ring.
And then, countless hotel rooms, bland and uniform.
Forgettable. And a passion that was anything but.
Ruby red blindfolds and the coolness of handcuffs against my slender wrists.
The leather tip of a crop tracing the depression of my spine, the loving bite of it against my tender, young skin.
Every breath a sigh, every look an unspoken understanding, every touch a forbidden ecstasy.
No prospects for the future, none, only reckless insanity and heartbreak at the inevitably bitter end.
Reeling with shame and misery after the last words were spoken, it was then that I made the resolute decision to take all the right steps towards a nice, safe, ordinary life.
Unexciting perhaps, but secure. Higher education and a steady income.
A sensible and age-appropriate boyfriend.
A mortgage and a house. Attempting parenthood young, precisely to avoid issues with fertility later.
All sacrifices I never should have made.
And now that all prospects for the future were undeniably, irretrievably lost, could I not feel my heart beat once again with madness?
A fall can be as exhilarating as flying after years of being suspended in limbo.
The television broadcast stopped all of a sudden.
One morning, we were met with nothing but static on the screen.
We lost electricity and mobile reception just a few days later.
We gradually turned to board games, books, and conversation in the common room as a means of passing time, but time had become sluggish, slowed down by our collective restless anxiety.
Once television ceased to be our window into the world beyond the shut doors, we fixed our sights on the real windows once more and watched with mounting dismay as the number of soldiers patrolling the streets declined daily.
About two weeks after the broadcast ceased, they were all gone. Instead, the infected appeared at last, roaming freely in small packs. Their approach was customarily announced by anguished growls, their movements ferociously fast and jerky.
After a few days, we had to accept that there was nobody left on the outside to bring us food supplies anymore.
“Could you kindly get out?! You’ve been in there forever, you know.” Petr pounded on the bathroom door just as I began to wash the soaked cloth, water and blood flowing over my hands, red droplets messy against the whiteness of the sink.
Quite at odds with the tenseness of the overall situation, gentle evening sunlight flooded the little vintage bathroom.
It was hard to believe that only five weeks ago, we would have run outside to take photos of the gorgeous sunset, feeling safe in our world, if not exactly carefree.
Everything looked serenely peaceful in the deceitful light that shone down so indifferently on what may well have been the last days of our lives.
“Just give me a minute,” I called out to Petr.
“For fuck’s sake,” he swore uncharacteristically.
“There, I’m done.”
I laid the washed T-shirt to dry on the edge of the freestanding bath with copper faucets shaped like blossoms.
I opened the door, coming face to face with Petr, who then promptly retreated towards a window.
“Are you not going in?”
“No.”
He stared resolutely outside, the soft glow of the evening illuminating him like a halo.
“Then why did it bother you that I was in there?” I inquired in a tone that I hoped would not be conducive to a quarrel.