We were in some dark deep waters. She was drowning, gasping for air. I tried to dive deeper towards her, but something prevented me from reaching her. Marina was stretching out her arms to me, but no matter how hard tried, I could not reach her. She was calling out, but I could not make out her words. Water was filling her lungs. She was going deeper and deeper, dissolving in the darkness. The water prevented me from reaching her, as if something was keeping me at a distance. I felt like my body was not responding to my mind. She was almost gone. I filled my lungs with the seawater, hoping to follow her. Something pushed me to the surface. Gasping for air, I flung my eyes wide open.
It was just another nightmare. I tried to pacify my heartbeat. Fragments from my dream would keep playing over and over again in my head. I leaned back on the sheets of my cold bed, stroking the space around me. She was not there. Never again will the woman I love lay there.
I would close my eyes and go back to her.
‘It’s only a dream’ Marina said as she stroked my head, like the mother of a frightened child, ‘a bad dream.’
‘You were slipping from me,’ I hugged her tighter.
‘I’m always here. I’m always with you,’ her lovely voice whispered to me.
‘Always with me,’ I muttered in my dream.
Chapter 5
The kitchen was a complete mess. It has been a long time since I had not cooked a proper meal for myself. Usually, I oatmeal with nuts and fruit did it for breakfast. Sometimes, I replaced that with an omelette and sausages. In short, whatever would take less time to prepare. My lunch always consisted of a sandwich and a coffee. When for dinner, I enjoyed deliveries. I loved Italian pizza and Chinese noodles. Of course, they were not brought in from Italy or China, but for the price of a coupon. These were the lavish dinners of a bachelor.
I was preparing steak with fried potatoes. Last night’s dream would not leave me. Outside the window, the thermometer had rocketed to seventeen degrees above zero, and it was only March.
“I’d love a drink,” I thought as I opened the bar. “Not much of a bar though.” There was a bottle of expensive rum that has been lying around for seven years, and a cheap bottle of wine. It was not lunchtime yet, so I left the rum there for another year or so and uncorked the wine bottle.
The steaks were starting to burn, and as if out of spite, the doorbell rang.
‘Coming!’
I quickly scraped off the pieces of meat from the pan and transferred them to a plate. I wiped my hands and headed to open the door for the uninvited guests.
‘Good day. My name is Valeria. Friends call me Valerie,’ said a smiling girl as she extended her right hand. ‘You are my new painting teacher.’
It was the same beautiful girl who had called me rude a few days ago.
‘Are you going to ask me in?’ she asked as she lowered her hand without waiting for my shake.
‘Yes, of course.’ I stepped aside letting my pupil in. ‘Rude?’ I asked smiling.
‘It seems so.’ Valerie nodded, and we both laughed.
‘To be honest, I was expecting you at three.’ The fingers of my hand reached for my eyebrows.
‘My dad was giving me a lift. He has some business today in downtown. We do not live close to the Andriivskyi Descent, so I tagged along. But if I’m too early, please let me know,’ she said as she moved slowly back to the door. ‘I can take a walk around here and come back in an hour.’
‘Oh, no. That won’t be necessary,’ I said trying to remedy the situation. ‘I’ve just made lunch. If you’re hungry, I’d be glad to share it with someone.’
‘Mmm…’ She closed her eyes and inhaled the smell of the food, adding: ‘I haven’t had a burnt meal for a while. So be it. I’ll keep you company.’
She laughed and without waiting for my help took off her coat, put it on the couch and ran to the kitchen.
‘How can I help?’
‘No need. I’ve already burnt what there was to burn.’ We both laughed. ‘Have a seat at the table.’
I served her a plate and one for myself.
‘Oh, that’s too much for me.’
‘It’s fine, you don’t have to finish it if you don’t like it,’ I reassured her.
‘You haven’t introduced yourself,’ the girl said boldly, looking straight into my eyes.
‘Vladimir.’
‘Patronymic?’
‘You can call me by my first name.’
‘You, too.’
She was probably insinuating that from the very start I was ill mannered to call her by her first name.
‘Bon appеtit!’ I said.
‘You, too!’ Valerie replied.
‘Would you like some wine?’ I stood up for the bottle, which was on the table behind me, but then it dawned on me. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t, you’re probably too young to drink.’
Without looking up at the girl, I poured some red wine into a cup. When I was done, I was feeling awkward as she was staring straight at me in silence.
‘Is anything wrong?’ I said at a loss.
‘Yes, something is wrong.’
Valeria got up from the table. I thought I had hurt her, but she confidently came up to the kitchen cabinets and, as if knowing the location of the dusty wine glasses that I never used, took one wineglass. She rinsed it under cold running water, and came up to me, put the glass on the table and poured the wine herself.
‘I am seventeen already, and wine is the last thing that can harm a person at my age’.
She was seventeen. She said it so proudly. But she was only seventeen.
‘Well, to our meeting!’
Valerie raised her glass to my cup to clink, but I moved my cup away, took a sip and said: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t clink glasses.’
‘Why not?’ she asked puzzled.
‘I’m not used to it.’
She took a sip, sat down at the table and began to eat.
I do not know what confounded me so much about her, but I just sipped my wine slowly and watched her. “Can all schoolgirls be so carefree at this age?” I wondered.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she said noticing my gaze.
‘No, everything’s just fine.’
We went on with our lunch. To break the silence, I decided to ask her a few questions: ‘How long have you been painting?’
‘Two years. And you?’
‘About seven.’
She looked surprised but did not bother with the figures.
‘So, what do you paint with, Valerie?’
‘Watercolours, oils, pastels.’
‘Have you taken any painting lessons before?’
‘Yes, as a child, my parents enrolled me in an art school. I used to really like it. Then I quit, and only five years later did I get back to this hobby, which can become my vocation.’
‘Wow!’ I said as I nodded. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, if someone were to ask me what I’d like to do for the rest of my life, I would definitely say paint.’
‘That’s an interesting aspiration,’ I said and started cutting the second piece of meat.
As if not eliciting any real understanding from me, she looked down at her plate with the potatoes and steak and after having a small piece of the meat, said: ‘You’re not a bad cook.’
‘I don’t cook at all.’
‘Oh, then I’m very lucky that you decided to reveal this side of you on the day you were going to meet your new pupil. I will remember this dish.’
‘I cooked it for myself.’
She felt the nervousness in these words and changed the subject to one which was even more inappropriate.
‘Do you live here alone?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly, tossed the last piece of meat into my mouth and started chewing energetically.
‘Why?’ the girl asked naively. She probably did not even realise that she was rubbing salt into my wounds with these questions.
‘Valerie, it’s none of your business.’ I placed my fork on the plate and stood up from the table. ‘Have you finished?’
‘Yes,’ she answered changing the tone of her voice.
I put my dish into the sink and was about to remove her dish, but I noticed that her plate remained mostly intact.
‘But you haven’t touched it?!’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she pushed her plate away and took a sip of the wine.
‘Well…’ I put her plate aside, took my cup of wine and invited my pupil into the studio.
‘Can I take my glass with me?’
‘Yes, you can. But I hope you won’t turn into an alcoholic during our lessons.’
She smiled again and followed me out of the kitchen.
‘How many hours a week would you like to attend?’
‘Vladimir, I have to fulfil some entry requirements to the Academy of Arts mid-summer. I hope to improve my skills greatly by that time and I think I’ll need at least one lesson per week. What do you think?’
I disregarded her question and asked whether she had brought any of her works along. Valeria took out her phone and showed me photos of her paintings. I was pleasantly surprised. This seventeen-year-old girl was definitely talented.
‘I believe you are perfectly capable of meeting those requirements without my help.’
‘No, Vova, you don’t know how strict selection is to this Academy. A hundred applicants per place, and all of them paint no worse than I.’
‘Well then, let’s make you the best applicant! How is the selection process conducted?’
‘There are certain criteria. We have to present our works, drawn from nature. They will be evaluated and only then I may be admitted to the competition, where I’ll have to demonstrate all my skills and painting technique.’
‘Then we should focus on painting from nature,’ I noted and lit a cigarette.
‘Right.’
‘Do you mind?’ I pointed to the lighted cigarette.
‘Not at all, go ahead.’
Valeria looked around.
‘So, this is your studio.’
‘Yes.’
‘And is this your latest work?’ She walked up to the table with the canvas with the blue sky and a field of poppies. ‘That’s strange, this painting is nothing like the ones I saw yesterday on the descent.’
‘You’re right. Do you like it?’ I asked her with dubious indifference.
Valerie was silent for a moment, then said: ‘It is different…’
‘How different?’ I said as I puffed out smoke.
‘It lacks that depth of sadness which I noticed in your other works. It is warmer but, at the same time, superficial, so to speak.’
