In the morning, you haven’t yet had breakfast when you call Patricia.
“Good morning, Vadim, it’s Radhika. Dobri den.” She laughs at her attempt to say hello to you in your native tongue. “How are you?”
“I’d like to see you, both of you. Is that possible?”
“It’s difficult.”
“I have the verses Patricia wanted.”
“I’ll be honest with you, it’s very difficult. The fact is that Patricia is feeling inspired and she’s painting day and night.”
“That’s terrible …,” you let slip. It’s terrible for you. Radhika understands that perfectly.
“No Vadim, it’s not terrible.” Radhika says this brief sentence in a cold, distant tone.
“I worked on these verses all night, so that she could have them as soon as possible,” you stress this, to emphasize the urgency of your going to the white house. But, for all your efforts, you forget human psychology. And you are instantly rewarded for your lack of tact.
“Yeah, sure. I understand, but there’s nothing anyone can do,” Radhika says dryly.
“I don’t have much time. I’ll have to go back to Russia soon,” you say, as a last resort.
Radhika, on the other end of the line—probably laughing, thinking, “How clumsy you are!”—says into the receiver:
“So, come and see us next year. And if you have something that can’t wait, send it by mail.”
* * *
The following day you don’t call, but on Tuesday you can’t hold back any longer. This time you call in the afternoon, hoping that Radhika will have gone out. But she answers; she lets you know that Patricia can’t come to the phone.
“How is she?”
“Who?”
“Patricia. And how are you?”
Idiot, this is the stupidest possible question that you could have asked. Can’t you see that they are building tall barricades across the path that has taken you so long to open up?
“Patricia’s fine. But she doesn’t want to see anybody. Not even you!” she adds with relish.
“Can I call tomorrow?”
“Of course,” the woman replies, with cold courtesy.
To console you after giving you the bad news, Radhika wishes you a good afternoon with plenty of sun, after a cloudy morning.
On Wednesday you call back.
“It’s not possible, Vadim. The fact is, Patricia … Anyway, it’s just not possible.”
“But look, I have the haikus that Patricia asked me for. Why doesn’t she want to see me?”
“Don’t be a bore, Vadim.”
“And if I call tomorrow?”
“That’s up to you.”
And you know that her “that’s up to you,” said impatiently and this time without a trace of courtesy, means that another call from you would not be desirable.
You promise yourself that you won’t call back, ever again. You feel like an insect with a huge ball of manure. But on Thursday your restlessness makes you pick up the phone, anxiously and with reluctance. You desire is stronger than your self-respect.
“Wait, I’ll go and ask her,” Radhika says on the phone after your timid question. Hope leaps up in you like a little flame from an abandoned lighter. You wait, trembling. But you don’t hear any steps, any sound.
“I’m sorry, Vadim. Lately Patricia doesn’t want to see anybody. She’s inspired and she’s working. If you want, we could meet up on the beach and talk, you and I.”
You agree. It’s your last chance. And, on the way to the beach, you know that you have been a fool, as well as ingenuous, for having fallen for this trick. You sit on the beach in front of the Terramar hotel and get angry with yourself for having agreed to this meeting. The sand is grey, the sky is black, even though the sun is shining and burning. And the people, today, are covered in dust, the sea is black and white; you find yourself in a silent movie that you have come to see out of obligation and that is of no interest to you. You know that only Patricia’s shining hair could illuminate this summer beach setting.
You wait without wanting to, you play with the sand, and you watch as dark Radhika, who is wearing a tight, white T-shirt, approaches you across the grey sand. Voluptuous, with her hair down, she sways her hips and breasts with every step she takes. The men devour her with their eyes, even the gay men. Radhika has the body of an Indian goddess, you think, like those depicted in statues: wide hips, voluminous breasts, a waist that is barely there. When she reaches you, she stops, smiles, looks around, and in one quick movement pulls the T-shirt off her naked body, like when Don José takes out the dagger on stage and stabs Carmen with a single, rapid thrust. Radhika lets the T-shirt swing in her fingers, pretends that she’s looking at the sea, but deep down she is savoring the effect she has caused. You fall silent, and with surprise you notice that the black and white movie is acquiring colors. Radhika stretches her body out like a hammock on the burning sand next to you.
“You’ll put some suntan lotion on my back, won’t you, Vadim? It’s in the bag.”
You cover the goddess’s body with a layer of oil … What is the celestial wife of the great Shiva called? Parvati. Immediately, you also rub the lotion over her shoulders, her waist, her legs; then Radhika rolls onto her back and you go on covering her with that oily cream … her belly, her hips, her waist, and you hum a tune as you do so.
“You forgot my breasts,” you hear her saying, and you also put cream on her full breasts. You want to keep on singing … but suddenly Don José’s dagger cuts you off. You lie down on your belly and feel Radhika’s fingers spread the oil over your back, your legs, further down.
“Hey, turn over!”
“No need.”
“Sure there is! You’ll get burned, you’re white.”
“You’ll use up all the lotion on me,” you say, and you have a feeling that Radhika is putting cream not only on the exposed skin, but also under your bathing suit. Quickly, you turn over again so that you are face down.
“I like you.” You hear her voice.
“You wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”
“Do you like me?”
“Everybody likes you. Can’t you see that? What did you want to talk about?”
“I’m asking you if you like me, I don’t care about the rest.”
“I’m not important.”
“You’re obsessed with Patricia. But you won’t get anywhere with her. She can’t stand men. Can’t you see that?”
Radhika massages your neck and shoulders. Everything else in the world loses its importance in this sea of delicious sensations. The sentence “Patricia can’t stand men” floats lazily in the sea’s waves. Occasionally, the sentence sinks, and then reappears on the surface. But then Radhika’s fingers press your skin more intensely and drown the sentence completely.
Once you are sitting together on the café terrace that looks onto the sea, you drink a gin and tonic and confess your idea to Radhika—your stupidity and ingenuousness goes as far as this—of organizing a costume party in which Patricia’s friends would go dressed up as characters from her paintings.
“Good idea,” she says, casually.
“Isn’t it?” you ask, with enthusiasm.
“Mmm …”
“You mean it?”
“What I mean is that you’re wasting your time and energy. You’re wandering along paths that don’t lead anywhere.”
“My path leads to you. To Radhika and Patricia.”
“Exactly. And that’s precisely why I’m telling you that your path doesn’t lead anywhere.”
You try to protest, but she cuts you off. She tells you about what she does: in America she runs an institution for children who’ve lost their parents. You hear her words and the names of the countries—India, China, Rwanda, Ethiopia—and you look out over the surface of the sea; you see boats there, and you see sentences inscribed on their sails: “Paths that lead nowhere” and “Patricia can’t stand men.” But, after all, none of this has anything to do with you! All you want is to write a monograph about Patricia, nothing else! Sure? All at once, you feel Radhika’s hands on your knees and hear her saying emphatically that you too must find a reason for living.
“Such as?” you ask.
“Humanity. Justice. Changing things.”
“Humanity. Justice … A better world! How many of these empty words have I heard throughout my life! You know what you do? You forge medals from other people’s bad qualities, and pin them to your chest.”
“Life only has meaning if we dedicate it to others, if we fight to help others.”
“For me, life only has meaning if I sit in the shade of a tree and do nothing, just be; in the evening, I stretch myself out under the tree and while I sleep, I look forward to the next day because I won’t have anything to do. And so on, day after day, and my only concern would be not to miss out on the feeling of the sea breeze, which brings tenderness and relief.”
“Your life is a path that doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“Only the paths that don’t lead anywhere are worthwhile. And pleasant! Those paths that stretch ahead between two fields, between two trees. The paths on which you can stop, look around you, savor the shade of a tree, the song of a sparrow, or the smell of a harvested field.”
“We have to change the world, and you’re talking to me about a harvested field. Can’t you see how terrible the world is?”
Radhika says this with her hand on your knee.
“If there’s anything I want to change, it’s myself. The world? I don’t think it’s so terrible. This evening, when you get home, sit for a moment in the garden and listen to the cicadas and the crickets.”
Radhika, with a hand on your thigh, says, “This evening I don’t feel like going back home.”