The Manchurian Lover

"Hark! my beloved knocketh: 'Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.'"

Song of Songs

14.

Our trip to the village proceeded in the spirit of great merriment. At the morning rehearsal, her attempt to give a cue with a subtle sniff eventuated a very unladylike snort. The coach, Kurt, always very proper, tried his best to keep a straight face but couldn't help it, and all five of them proceeded to howl hysterically for the remainder of the session. It took Alina a long time to tell the story as she still kept breaking into laughter. This set the tone, and we proceeded walking side by side and chatting merrily and drinking our beverages as two people with a lot of affection for each other would. After careful consideration, I judged bringing up the status of our relationship unwise.

Later at the party (there was one every night), instead of drifting away like she did the day before, she crossed the room to join the circle where I was pretending to be engaged in a conversation about one thing or the other. After we both pretended for long enough so as not to appear rude, we sneaked out and walked downhill, towards the pond. We sat down on our bench, frogs performing their rendition of Stairway to Heaven under the glow of the wrinkled moon. We kissed and kissed, while my hands did their best to not let down my nickname. Someone walked past along the path. The frogs paused for a second to catch a breath, then carried on. She had her first orgasm when I was fondling her nipples through her shirt, the second when I slipped my hand under her bra, and then some more when I unzipped her pants.

"I'm helpless with you around," she said afterwards, pulling up her jeans and buttoning the shirt.

I didn't see much of her during the day. Everyone and their mother wanted to play music with her, and she didn't think of suggesting to include me. I was a bit jealous. Not that I couldn't get my fair share of playing, but whenever someone invited me to join a group, I always asked whether they could use one more fiddler.

She didn't come for drinks that night, so I headed to her room, on the second floor of the women-only dorm. I was able to enter the building with my keycard and stood in the empty lobby, listening. There was some coughing and shuffling, so I counted to fifty before proceeding up the stairs. The bathroom door was half-open onto the rearview of heavily pajamaed Alina brushing her teeth. Her room was unlocked. I went in and sat on the bed in semi-darkness, not bothering to turn on the light. The bed was narrow, with a flimsy mattress wrapped in smelly plastic. On the bed was a copy of "The Unbearable Lightness", spread open onto the page where Tomas makes love to a woman who looks like a giraffe and a stork. The door opened. Alina came in, made a few steps before noticing a silhouette on her bed, opened her mouth to scream, then realized it was me and started to soundlessly laugh.

"You really scared me", she whispered, pounding her fists on my back while I kissed her.

"Careful, my breasts are still tender after yesterday", she said.

"Oh, sorry", I said. "I'll go easy on them, promise."

"Why were you so rough?"

That was not the moment to reflect on the strangeness of this question. "Got carried away. Why, what other reason could there be?"

"I don't know", she said. "How would I know?"

Not sure if I was able to keep my promise. Her mouth smelled of menthol, her armpits of girly armpits that haven't been washed for a day, and the mattress of tetrachloroethylene. The bedsprings made screechy noise, the wobbly frame banged against the wall kicking the incandescent lamp perched on the windowsill down onto the bed, the windows were wide open, the air hot as hell, the neighbors coughed in their rooms, and Alina was having a period. None of that was of a slightest importance.

Afterwards, we cuddled for a while ("And you haven't even met my sister yet!" was another strange thing she said), but staying the whole night was out of question: the bed was too narrow, and the nearest men's room was in the building across the courtyard. The next day, running past a small standalone lecture hall on my way back to the dorm, I made an intriguing discovery. In the back of the building there was a large porch facing the frog pond. A balustrade in front and the two L-shaped entrances, one on each side, made it completely secluded, so someone crouching or lying flat on the porch was hidden from view. Inside, there was a long built-in wooden bench along the balustrade, a couple chairs and a small round table with a dirty glass and an empty wine bottle on it.

"We'll always have Paris."

Rick Blaine in Casablanca

15.

Later in the afternoon I went shopping to the local Walmart and came back with an electric fan, a rose bouquet, a twin-size mattress foam pad and a queen-size air mattress. I dumped everything except the air mattress by Alina's door and hurried to my free play session for which I was already late.

"Let's take a detour - I want to show you something," I said when Alina and I were walking back to the dorms. She immediately took to the porch, as I hoped she would. After some kissing on the bench, I explained my plan. On the warm nights, we could bring the bedding from our dorms, pump up the mattress, and cuddle under the stars, lulled to sleep by the frogs' serenade.

And so later that night we converged on the porch, saddled with pillows, blankets, bedsheets, air mattress, floor pump and wine¹. No one took any notice: it was not unusual for someone to move from one dorm to another. After some excited giggling, kissing and wine drinking, I took the mattress out of the box and inspected the valve. I didn't like what I saw: the opening was a gaping hole over an inch wide, so my bicycle pump was as well suited for the job as a rabbit was for fucking a horse. (I did give it a try, with just as much success). There wasn't anything left to do other than a bit more drinking and necking and schlepping our cargoes back to our separate rooms.

The next day I splurged on the proper electric pump, and this time things went smoothly. The mattress plumped out nice and firm, and we crawled under the blanket, me almost naked, she bundled up in enough layers to survive a Siberian winter. The mosquitos were done for the season or maybe temporarily away debating the novel approaches to bloodsucking at some mosquito symposium. The stars danced to the frogs' tune around the full moon draped in cloud muslin and winking at us conspiratorially. It was magical, just like van Gogh's Starry Night. We were talking in whispers. Probably it was van Gogh's fault that I started to reminisce about Paris, trying to remember how we first met, what she was wearing, what did we say to each other. Suddenly Alina stiffened, turned away from me, and started to cry. What rubbed her the wrong way as it turned out (took a while: prying the whys out of her had never been easy) was the fact that when we first met, I was in love with someone else.

"Who knows," she said, sobbing, "maybe seven years from now you'll be with another woman, having all but forgotten me, recalling how you two met here at the camp!"

Seven years from now, I thought, I'll be so old I'd be lucky to remember my own name. But I didn't say that. I said other things instead, about her being the love of my life, the one and only till the end of time. After a while, she put her arms around me, and we fell asleep.

"Having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame."

Peter 3:16

16.

Sleeping out in the open, with a man not one's husband, was very much against the rules. But somehow, she didn't mind at all. More, she was thrilled. That it was rather chaste owed less to her modesty and more to my anxiety about having sex in the public space. If I tried, I'm pretty sure she would've went along.

We did get spooked twice, the first time when some kid felt an urgent need to check his email in the computer lab next door at 2 am, and the second when a security guard came by. He went inside to inspect the auditorium but fortunately missed the porch.

At the crack of dawn, we woke up, rolled up our blankets and bedsheets, stashed the mattress inside the hall, and headed back to the dorms unnoticed (or so we hoped) to get a few more hours of sleep in our separate beds. And on the nights that were rainy or cold, we made love on the narrow bed in her room.

Every night since, we've been together, except one. Having climbed the stairs to Alina's room, I found her terribly upset. Her friend Katherine, a plump woman with a rather silly round face, having noticed that we were spending a lot of time together, decided it was her duty to issue a warning. The story she told Alina was that seven years ago I had not only suggested we do the Paris workshop together (Paris again!), but offered to pay for the trip.

"And you believed her?" I said, furious². (A rhetorical question: she obviously did). What really happened was this. I was looking for a cellist to preform a quartet for the Paris gig, and Katherine was one of the people I asked. She thought it a good idea to seek advice from her Facebook friends, some of whom offered wisdoms such as "the gentleman invites, the gentleman pays." Whether her subsequent lie was inspired by wishful thinking, jealousy or spite, I could only guess.

Neither could I tell what disheartened me more, that even after my explanations Alina continued to be upset and asked to be left alone, or that she won't put it past me making a move on a woman like Katherine.

Another day, Alina pulled a tendon in her left hand while attempting some impossible double stop in Shostakovich, and was miserable and out of commission for the rest of the day. I rushed to the pharmacy. When I got back with instant ice and ibuprofen, I found her in possession of an impressive stockpile of medical supplies contributed by compassionate fellow musicians, mostly men. Some were still in attendance, showing grave concern and dispensing advice.

(The best time of my tempestuous romance with Ewa was when she broke her wrist cycling, and for about a month stayed at my place and allowed me to take care of her. I even got a "thank you" note from her mother.

"Yeah, right," someone might say. "Everyone knows that men are barefaced jackals preying on the vulnerable and the weak." Maybe. But when one brings a bird with a broken wing home to nurse her, is that too morally repugnant? Perhaps if we all of us were less embarrassed to show our vulnerabilities, it would've made it easier to love one another? And once the wing is healed, is it always wise of the bird, flying away to meet her fate?)

On the last day of the camp, we hiked past the lake to Robert Frost's cottage, a humble stone house with a little museum inside displaying some photos and the poet's manuscripts:

The bridegroom came forth into the porch

With, 'Let us look at the sky,

And question what of the night to be,

Stranger, you and I.'

The woodbine leaves littered the yard,

The woodbine berries were blue,

Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;

'Stranger, I wish I knew.'

Within, the bride in the dusk alone

Bent over the open fire,

Her face rose-red with the glowing coal

And the thought of the heart's desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,

Yet saw but her within,

And wished her heart in a case of gold

And pinned with a silver pin.

When we came to the spot where two trails diverged in the wood on the way back, we took the one less traveled by and were rewarded by getting attacked by yellowjackets who made a nest on the picturesque wooden bridge across the creek. Having chosen to model your life on literature, don't complain about getting stung.

"Number seven: The man in the sky who controls everything decides if you go to the good place or the bad place. He also decides who lives and who dies.

Man #4: Does he cause natural disasters?

Mark: Yes"

Ricky Gervais, The Invention of Lying

17.

My first visit to Baton Rouge was timed to a hurricane, the Almighty's natural disaster of choice whenever He felt like messing with my romantic life. It worked with Irene: the day after it struck, Ewa broke up with me. But this time I was not going to throw in the towel without a fight.

Still a tropical storm in the middle of the week, Barry was expected to become a hurricane by the time it hit Louisiana coast, which was Saturday. We were to converge on New Orleans on the same day, which might not have been an issue from Barry's perspective but certainly was from the airline's.

"Can you change your flight?" Alina said.

She didn't have to ask twice. Baton Rouge, to which I arrived two days ahead of schedule, turned out to be a place like no other I've seen before³. A paratrooper asked to identify what kind of a country he landed in would've mistaken it for a banana republic unless he touched down near one of the mansions on University Lake or in Trader Joe's parking lot. And if he happened to descend on the part of town where Alina lived, he would've been very confused. The proximity to the river and the presence of two sizeable research centers, the Water Institute and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency where Alina worked, made some developers think it had a potential. Ergo, Alina's townhouse complex and Riverview rental condos were built (the name no more than wishful thinking), along with some commercial space. Unfortunately, restauranteurs and businessmen failed to show up, and the new office buildings, their windows broken, stood monument to the unbridled optimism of the real estate entrepreneurs who all seemed to be named Ty.

The only successful local business venture was Tin Roof, a brewery offering beer and yoga classes for twenty-somethings. Next to it was a large empty space littered with broken glass, chicken bones, flyers and condom wrappers where a rental company across the street kept their U-Haul trucks. Hidden behind the trucks was an ugly low structure billing itself as Lighthouse Christian Fellowship Church.

Alina's home was next to the brewery, a three-story townhouse with tiny square windows and the outside walls covered with corrugated tin painted brick red. But inside it was quite nice, especially the large high-ceilinged space on the middle level. The front door was guarded by a huge disorderly cactus; one had to step over its offshoots to get inside, but Alina was reluctant to get them trimmed. I was rewarded for the inconvenience on one of my later visits when I found the annoying sprouts sporting large meaty pink flowers.

The furniture was minimal, semi-abstract two- and three-dimensional art adorning the walls, tables and windowsills. Her books were mostly of the self-help and spiritual variety including such titles as "Laudato Si'" and "The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius" which I dismissed as someone's gifts. I never thought it possible that in our days a smart, well-educated person, a scientist, could take the writings by Ignatius of Loyola or His Holiness the Pope at face value.

In the evening we went shopping to stock up on food, water and batteries. The town resembled a rabbit who spotted a hawk up in the sky. But we were happily excited, feeling like two undercover operatives in a war zone confident in their mission's success.

In the way of all evildoers, Barry hit after dark. There was plenty of water pouring down and the wind blowing like the big bad wolf in the fairytale, but the house didn't fold like a stack of cards, the levees held, and we felt safe and snuggly inside. When the power got knocked out, we made love in the candlelight.

The next morning, we went on a reconnaissance walk past the Water Institute to the pier overlooking the ugliest of all mighty rivers, flat treeless shores adorned by nothing but endless refineries, at its swollen grandeur.

After lunch, all of a sudden, she felt dizzy. "It's OK, I just need to lie down," she said, and proceeded to almost faint when climbing the stairs to her bedroom. We drove to the emergency room, deserted on the account of the weather emergency. The smiling cardiologist diagnosed Alina with atrial fibrillation and endowed her with Holter monitor "as a precaution. Nothing to worry about," he said.

Still, we got spooked enough to stay indoors for most of the remainder of my visit, in bed but also cooking, playing duets, and watching movies on my iPad (she didn't own a TV). Alina's experience with the world cinema was almost as limited as that with men, so I took it upon myself also to educate her in that department. The first film we saw was Kaufman's adaptation of the Kundera's book. Alina seemed to enjoy it but I suspected not because she felt for the main characters. (Empathy is not the only reason someone can be drawn into a movie or a TV drama, as the popularity of The Moment of Truth and other freak TV shows testifies).

As far as The Unbearable Lightness was concerned, womanizer Tomas was despicable without any redeeming qualities, and Teresa who fell for him got what she deserved. That was the case with the book, and Juliette Binoche couldn't change Alina's mind, hard as she tried.

The next on my list was "The Invention of Lying." With this movie, I was hoping for more than just two hours of lighthearted entertainment. The film paints a utopic - or rather dystopic - world just like ours in which lies of any kind are unheard of. Mark Bellison, the main character played by Ricky Gervais who also wrote and directed the film, is the first person in all human history who comes up with the concept of untruth. A series of surreal and hilarious events follow, one of which is the invention of religion. The episode where Mark ad-libs a Man in the Sky is genius.

Hence my selection. Alina's God was the elephant in the room which made me uncomfortable no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. So I recruited cunny Mark to help if not exorcise the beast then at least shrink it to a harmless size.

Alas, she didn't find it funny at all. Far from absurd, the realm of the movie where untruth didn't exist was Alina's ideal world, the world as it should be. Two of the film's key points, that fantasy is a species of lie, and religion is a species of fantasy, were wasted on her.

When people don't find something funny, it's a sign they take it very seriously.

On the last day of my visit we hung out in New Orleans, walking up and down the French Quarter, Alina trying fancy hats and elaborate feather contraptions one clips to one's hair ("When can you wear those?" asked Alina who had a thing for feathers. "Anytime!" assured the designer. "I always wear them, even when grocery shopping.")

Sometimes I had to explain things to her, such as the significance of Kama Sutra in the name of a strip club, or what was the idea behind some of the items in the lingerie store (to my surprise she actually bought one of these naughty things. I was summoned to the fitting room to opine.) At the intersection of Bourbon and St. Louis streets a huge black guy wearing a reflective west with some lettering suggesting he could be a municipal employee blocked our way and flirted with Alina for a few uncomfortable minutes, Louisiana style. We had gelato fashioned in the shape of a flower, listened to some loud music which was not jazz and took selfies while riding the streetcar. And then Alina dropped me off at the airport.

"When can I come next time?" I asked.

"Don't know," she replied. "Still have to figure out how to fit an illicit lover into my life."

1 Copulating on the back porch, eh? Not bad for a fifth-grader. D.P., private communication

2 Seems your Alina was prone to retroactive jealousy. Fairly common, and just like jealousy of any other kind, not worth getting worked up over. D.P., private communication

3 You don't say. I interviewed for a teaching position at LSU a number of years ago. "Christ the King Catholic Student Center at LSU will welcome all students to a Welcome Back Jambalaya Dinner," four more churches of all stripes further down the street, and fat sorority girls marching round the lake with their rallying cries. The lake was the only nice thing about the town, but in the prettiest spot there was a dead dog bobbing in the water, surrounded by swans. You're lucky to have escaped, my friend. D.P., private communication