The Final Meeting

In a café corner her world was beginning to take shape. A thick grey fog shrouded her eyelids, while he was floating in shadows as dark as night. They both seemed to have gotten tired of chewing words. Either that, or else they had both come to the conclusion that words could no longer convey meaning the way they normally do, so they had turned as cold as icebergs.

Silence spread listlessly across their eyes. Her lips looked colorless, dry, pale, and vapid, and even showed some wrinkles.

“You look very ordinary to me now. . . . I wasn’t expecting it. I thought you’d always be something unusual, something valuable in my life, but now. . . .”

He was busy watching a customer who was invading their private space inside the café. He was tall and handsome.

“Men’s outward appearances are always fake,” she thought, as she stared at the fizzy juice in front of her. Picking up the glass, she drank it with relish. As the bubbles went up her nose, she felt a little awkward. Sensing that she had made an abnormal gesture that infringed norms of etiquette, she felt almost unconsciously upset.

Her boyfriend was indifferent to the fact that she was sitting there in front of him; he was deep in thought and sipping his coffee slowly.

He had taken off his clothes and stayed there naked. That’s how she imagined him—naked, without a stitch on.

“Why are we always so fake? Why do we only meet outside? Before we met and got to know each other, you were something wonderful, a man I thought all girls would yearn for, but now you’re nothing at all. There’s dust in your eyes, and your lips are just like two pieces of rubber.”

As she turned over such thoughts in her head, she lowered her thin left hand with its long fingers to the table. He put a hand on top of hers, perhaps involuntarily, and left it there long enough for her to feel the need to pull hers away. For her now, his hand felt as cold as his eyes, his lips, his tie, and his coffee. . . .

“You’ve changed a lot, lady angel.”

“Daydreams don’t last.”

He took a sip of his coffee, a gesture loaded with palpable bitterness and sorrow. Her feminine intuition told her that he was far from happy.

“You look sad,” she said in exasperation. “Are you?”

“No. You’re the one who’s sad.”

“No, I’m not. It’s you. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Why should I be sad? Doesn’t the entire world belong to me?”

She put her hands on the table again, and he repeated his previous gesture—putting his hand on top of hers. This time she didn’t pull hers away, but remained as stiff as a marble statue in a museum. . . . Now she felt warmth, not coldness.

“But what a shame! It’s too late now. A single moment’s warmth can’t make up for countless cold ones. Your eyes may gleam with affection now, but later they’ll look crafty and deceitful.”

She stared at his blue tie. It reminded her of a particular occasion. She tried vainly to remember when it had been, but her head was swimming in a chaos of confused thoughts. She kept begging the tie to remind her, but it refused to respond. Instead, it just lay there on his chest, hanging neatly from his pink shirt collar.

(“He shows good taste in his clothes; no one can rival the way he looks. He may not be actually nasty inside, but he’s still a bit boring.”)

“Do you remember the first time I followed you?” he asked affectionately.

“Why do you ask? You’ve done it many times.”

“Because I like to remember our first meeting.”

“You’re a . . .”

She stopped talking, unable to muster enough courage to criticize him and discuss his personality.

He didn’t give her any time. “A what?” he asked.

“I can’t come up with the words.”

“I want our final meeting to be completely frank.”

“You know I’m frank.”

He looked at his watch; its dial looked somehow strange and unfamiliar. He wanted to tell her that, but was afraid she would give him her normal response: “You only bother about trivial things.” He had never felt trivial; instead he felt he was observant. Even so, his comments often aggravated her.

She had withdrawn her hands from under his. She felt that they’d spent as much time as possible at the café, but now they had run out of all the phrases they had prepared to use at this final meeting.

“We have to separate, and that’s it.”

She was the one who had taken the initiative. She had concluded that their love was absurd. He had tried to convince her otherwise, but all his efforts had come to nothing. Eventually, they had settled on this meeting which was supposed to be the final one.

When she moved her chair, he realized that she wanted to leave. He got ready to walk out with her.

They crossed the main street without saying a word. Both their heads were brimming with a host of unorganized thoughts. Her head was covered with long, soft black hair, while his hair was short and coarse.

“So,” he told her as he adjusted his tie, “you’re the one who’s decided we should take this course.”

“No, not me.”

“Then who? Me?”

“Neither of us. Just pure chance. . . .”

“Nonsense.”

The evening breeze was playing with her hair. As they walked close together, some of her tresses brushed his face, and he felt a painful shiver course through his body.

“During our love,” he said, “we’ve stayed faithful to each other. So why part?”

He had wanted to say that to her, since the same idea kept echoing in the recesses of his mind. But he noticed that she kept up her resistance; even though it was all meaningless, she was still determined to see it through.

“You used to say our love was unusual,” he said, “something above and beyond nature and human beings. Romantic dreams like those can easily seduce a young girl like you. You change your mind so often. You are both flippant and beautiful, and yet you don’t understand the way things really are.”

Her thoughts were running along similar lines. Neither of them could share genuine feelings with the other. So, even though both of them had decided that this would be their final meeting, they couldn’t move beyond the obstacle that had always blocked their path during their relationship. It was clearly time for her to be frank with him. She felt she was about to say a final farewell, and so did he. That’s why they slowed down. Eventually he stopped. She held his hand and kept staring at his cold eyes.

“All these deficiencies are of no importance to me . . . that you’re flippant means nothing. . . . We each have our own shortcomings, but what’s most harmful and important is . . .”

She wanted to tell him frankly what was most important.

“Do you think this is really going to be our final meeting?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to regret it.”

“No, never. The one thing I haven’t discussed with you since we first met is your wife. . . . As long as you’re married and a father, I don’t think I’ll regret it. You can be sure of that.”

For a few moments they said nothing.

“She never got me to talk about my wife,” he thought. “Women’s feelings are difficult to fathom. If only she’d brought it up, we could have dealt with it calmly. But what can happen now when it’s all coming to an end?”

“Let’s try meeting once more,” he begged, “so we can talk it over.”

“I can’t. My mind’s made up, and that’s it.”

He tried to convince her, but in vain. She said goodbye with a certain determination. But for his part, he hadn’t made his mind up yet. He found himself facing a problem that he had yet to resolve, not least because he knew he was still in love with her and was convinced that she was still in love with him as well.