RED: A Love Story [Featured List]

Part 2: Black 5 - The number 1

Fortunately June was coming to a close. He needed a vacation. He needed to disappear. He paced relentlessly like an animal in a cage. His mood had been awful, and not even the long sessions at the gym helped. When he wasn't lifting the weight of the world along with the training gear, he'd burrow in downtown shops until he lost track of time, searching and searching-for what he didn't know. That nervous energy found no escape. With great difficulty, Marco dissimulated his state of mind. At school, Belvedere tried to be friends, taping him on the shoulder and initiating small talk to established a male cumplicity that didn't intererst him in the least. What he felt like doing was punch the director in the face: Celeste, the rejected librarian, now took to weeping in the corners. It was heartbreaking.

That day, when Marco was with the librarian at the cafeteria, he made an innocent  comment about the weather. It looked like it was going to rain, that's all. Celeste nodded and, suddenly, poured a deluge of tears into her coffee mug. She feigned it was a mote and he, pretending to believe it, offered her a napkin to dry her face.

Marco hated playing the fool. Besides, women's tears always made him nervous, with their flood of indecipherable emotions. Not to mention the accusations. It was no coincidence that the ancient Greek had created a female archetype associated with the instability of waters: Aphrodite, conceived in the ocean foam, the goddess of Love and mother of Fear, beautiful and seductive, unpredictable and willful-and probably a crybaby too.

At the sight of the sobbing librarian, Marco thought of Marisa. Of that rainy afternoon, the interior of the car filled with Vetiver fragrance, her face marked by weeping, the text books spreading on the floor... before things changed. In the cadence of memories, the recollection also stemmed somewhere in his chest.

It had been a long time since he felt that way. With a void that he was unable to fulfill. He needed to see her. When Marco went home, he grabbed his cell phone and made the call. It rang repeatedly as he could hardly keep his impatience at bay. Marco heard next the answering machine's recorded message.

He hung up, pensive. Then he paid a visit to the bookcase in the office and reached for one of the books he was reading (a study by Giles Deleuze on the works of Sacher-Masoch), but changed his mind and picked up the first copy that came into his hands, opening it randomly: We are two abysses-a well staring at the sky. Marco uttered a faint laugh. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. That was all he needed: the Universe sending him ironic messages.

Marco pulled out another title without looking. Nietzsche. Good, philosophy never failed to relax him: If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you...Now this was getting utterly ridiculous, thought Marco. And then dropped the book, which landed on the chair with a resigned rustle.

Reaching for the cell phone once more, he tried the number again. This time she answered on the second ring, slightly breathless.

"Can you come here?" he asked straightforward.

There was an imperceptible pause on the other end of the line.                   

"When?"

"Tonight. The usual time."

"I can't. It's my mother's birthday and there's no way I'll be able to escape it... Tomorrow night?"

 "Tomorrow night then."

Another pause. When she spoke, her voice faltered just a bit.

"Did you plan anything?" she probed.

"Not yet. How about I make a surprise?"

"I love surprises, Marco."

"There you go. I'll do something special for you." 

"I can't wait."

At those words, Marco smiled and looked absent-mindedly at the urban landscape outside the window. His tension began to ease.

She, on the other hand, let out a contrived laughter. She wanted to show him she had everything under control. Sensing Marco's smile, she wondered what he had in mind and restrained the wish to be with him in that very moment.

"I'll stop by tomorrow night then," she said in a nonchalant tone. "I need to take care of a few things, but I think I can make it on time..."

As soon as he ended the call, Marco became agitated again. She no longer filled the void. In the beginning it was different. But was it? Perhaps he couldn't see. Perhaps he didn't want to. Marco closed his eyes. No, he didn't want to see. He had hope. He ignored the fact that she was fading. Not even her name visited his thought. It was simply "she".

Marco felt guilty. That wasn't fair with a partner. He decided to concentrate on the plans for the following evening. After all, he had promised a surprise, right? Marco then went to the kitchen, seized the die from the counter and sat at the table, fixing his eyes on the ivory cube in search of inspiration. It was a classic piece indeed, he thought. It must cost far more than the ridiculous sum he had paid. He wasn't superstitious but could swear that the die sometimes pulled pranks on him. It had been like that from the beginning.

He was with his friend Jeff in Las Vegas for the weekend. That would be his first and last visit to the city: he wasn't impressed with what he saw - a shiny trap lulled day and night by the howling of jackpot. In their first night there, the two had dinner, headed for a casino and, when it was eleven o'clock, decided to return to the hotel but got lost. They entered a narrow gallery with bars and fast-food restaurants, planning to take a shortcut; the gallery, however, had no exit. What they found in the other end was an antique shop. In its window, between an old camera and a Provençal teapot, Marco saw the die.

The place was open, and they entered a dim room covered in walnut bookcases darkened by time. It smelled of old paper with a faint trace of camphor. There was no one to assist them, so they inspected the shelves brimming with objects that represented various decades, from vintage atlases to statuettes of Baroque angels. Marco clapped his hands and called out without a reply. After a few minutes, he couldn't resist and picked up the die from the display.

"That piece is on sale," informed a voice at his back.

Startled, he spun around to face a woman with very white skin and very black hair and eyes. She wore a dark, long dress with sleeves down to her wrists that didn't match the July heat. She drew closer, limping slightly.

"It's a handmade replica of a two-thousand-year old Roman die used as an oracle. Elephant ivory. A beautiful ornamental piece. Notice that each dot is a spiral, a symbol of life's mysteries, which are formed in circles: the planets and their orbits, the cycles of creation, destruction and re-creation, and time itself, which twists between the present, past and future."

"Interesting. So it's used for divination games," said Marco.

"In principle, yes. But the second die is missing from the set and the oracle turns out incomplete. Sometimes that generates strange results."

Marco thought of Lorena and tried to ignore the twinge in his chest. He gave a smile that mocked itself. An incomplete die for an incomplete man. That should serve him right.

They arrived at the hotel a half hour later, Jeff empty-handed and him with a small box wrapped in green paper. They were both tired but still made a stop at the lobby bar. Amid the reds of the curtains and stools, with their arms propped on the dark wooden counter, they made a toast. It wasn't long before she showed up-spiraling the night, spiraling time.

Marco felt the circle of vertigo and pushed her away from his thoughts. The preparations for that evening entailed his attention. He concentrated, shook his hands and tossed the die. It seemed to float in slow motion, describing a mortal leap that propelled it toward the edge of the table. A few more fractions of an inch, and it would have fallen onto the floor. When Marco saw the result, he reached out to roll the die again. He stopped with his hand in midair.

The rule was to accept the result established by whichever number turned up first. That was the beauty of the game.

Marco stared at the lone dark circle on the surface of the white square.

He rolled the die again.

____________________________________________________________

So what is Marco up to? Want to know?  More to come...