The Gaze (23 page)

Actually there were two different hills. Because one hill started where the other finished, from the middle it looked as if it was a single hill. And right at the point where one hill finished and the other began, there was an old fountain that had dried up who knew how many years ago. It was completely covered with bills that had been posted on top of one another, and spray-painted slogans and darkened obscenities. But the fountain was still there; even if it was no longer functioning as a fountain, if you looked at it closely, you could see in time, and with a little effort, what it had once been. The strangest thing was that I’d passed this way every day without seeing it, and that I only noticed it when I was struggling to feel my way step by step through the fog.

Below, the fog was thicker, and it was more difficult to walk. I made my way with great difficulty. Finally I made it to the bottom of the second hill, and sat on a wall to catch my breath. Once again I was tired and covered in sweat. A little further along, the bus stops were waiting for me. Today, because of the fog, buses were few and far between, and the traffic was badly jammed. Suddenly, I made a decision that until now I’d been afraid to make. I was going to resign. I wasn’t going to go to the nursery. I was going to return to the Hayalifener Apartments right away, and I wasn’t going to go out unless I wanted to.

As I was climbing the stairs on my return, the downstairs neighbour hurriedly opened her door to put out the trash. Then she thrust a huge bowl of pudding into my hands.

When I got home I found B-C sitting on the bed with a long face. He complained about not being able to find any new material for the Dictionary of Gazes. ‘Why are you in such a hurry? You can take a break.’ I said. He looked at me angrily, then lay his head down and slept. Whenever he was distressed, he fell asleep.

In any event, the fog didn’t last long. One morning when I woke up, the painters were gone and the fog had lifted. The Hayalifener Apartments had been painted from top to bottom in a cherry colour.

The building supervisor had chosen the colour. I was quite happy about the change; B-C didn’t seem to care. He’d started getting up and going out quite frequently again.

At times like these I didn’t wonder where B-C had gone or what he was doing, because a feeling told me that he couldn’t go very far from here, and that he couldn’t stay out of the neighbourhood for long. Whether or not it was because of my presence, a deep bond tied him to this place, to the hill that was so difficult to climb and to descend, and to the area around the Hayalifener Apartments. He himself said something like this in the days before he devoted all of his time to the Dictionary of Gazes, when he used to love to chat with me.

‘It’s just like a murderer returning to the scene of the crime,’ he said. ‘There are places that get stuck in our memories. Whether because of our dreams or because of our past lives, there are places that keep drawing us back.’ Then, in a frightened voice, he confessed: ‘Do you want to know something strange? I’m already in the place that I visit in my dreams. In my dreams I’m always wandering around near the Hayalifener Apartments!’

I didn’t worry because I knew that in the end he would think of coming back here. In any event I was starting to get over my anxieties. When B-C was out I bought a huge sunshade for the terrace. A loud, purple sunshade. With a chaise-longe of the same colour underneath it. Because, except for a few small shopping trips, I hadn’t gone outside since I left my job, I hadn’t had to be strangled by other people’s eyes. It was so nice not to be seen by anyone! I was in good spirits! I no longer chewed my cuticles, and I was no longer constantly seized by anxiety. And, strangely, but pleasantly, I was daily drifting deeper into indifference. On top of this, I was also losing weight.

When B-C finally came back days later, he squinted his bitter-chocolate eyes at the terrace. He came to my side. He didn’t say two words to me. He turned on the computer and went to work on the Dictionary of Gazes at once. Not a sound came from inside. I was aware that he was struggling, and that he wasn’t able to write the way he used to. But since he didn’t want my help, I wasn’t going to try to help. Let him thrash about inside while I lay comfortably in my small world of pleasure. Under my purple sunshade, stretched out on my purple chaise-longe, I watched people going up and down the hill; I slurped diet cola and tried to guess which of my three bellies was melting faster. I constantly calculated how much weight I’d lost. I kept calculating as if each time I calculated there would be a few grams less. To tell the truth, my stomach heaved when I saw boiled squash, and I tired more easily than before, and I was very, very hungry, but so be it. I was determined!

When I saw his eyes I knew that something bad was going to happen. He stood there in the terrace doorway, looking at me in a way I’d never seen him look before. After he’d been sitting at the computer for an hour without being able to work, he started to shout in order to relieve the frustration of the word he hadn’t been able to find, or the sentence he hadn’t been able to finish, or the story he hadn’t been able to tie together. He didn’t drink the tea I made him, and wrinkled his nose at the things I said to try to calm him. I went back out to the terrace and didn’t pay any more attention to him. For me it was still a pleasant day. I had no intention of going inside and sharing his misery. The edges of the purple sunshade were playing sweetly in the evening breeze. Quite some time had passed. Suddenly, a strange shiver passed through me, and when I turned my head there was B-C. He was standing in the terrace doorway, watching me. Who knew how long he had been standing there watching me, knowing how much I hate being watched.

‘I see you’re in good spirits,’ he said in a hazy voice. I tried to smile but couldn’t hide my uneasiness. I couldn’t take my eyes off his eyes. His eyes were so strange… His eyes had always been strange, but now…now they’d become unknowable. His eyes were like a dim curtain that had been drawn between us. And this curtain allowed me neither to see him or to see how he saw me. I waited for him to stop talking and go back inside. But he stayed, and continued talking. ‘As if your huge body didn’t already attract enough attention. With a sunshade of this colour I’ll bet you can be seen all the way from the bottom of the hill!’

Sometimes the heart turns upside down. As it makes it’s own way slowly, it bumps against the cage of the chest. It feels itself badly broken somewhere depending whether it managed to rise or not. It will examine itself but will not be able find a wound that is apparent from outside. It will shout at the top of its voice. ‘I have to get out immediately. I have to get out!’ Weeping and moaning it will shake the bars of its cage. And when finally it succeeds in breaking free of the cage of the chest, it will stand looking at the roads stretching in front of it, uncertain of which direction to take; ground as yet not trodden. The roads will become confused with one another. The waters will become cloudy.

The heart is a diamond eye. If it is scratched once, it will always look at the world through a mother-of-pearl-like crack.

B-C went inside, and I stayed out on the terrace. With my enormous body, under the purple sunshade. I watched the sunset, and the death of the clouds, and the rising of the moon, and the thickening of the stars, and all the while I wondered how I had managed to still be motionless. I was burning up. The Lodos was blowing. As the Lodos grew stronger my fever raged. It was our pledge to each other that was burning up.

B-C and I had made an unspoken pledge to each other. What we would say about each other’s appearance was decided the day we first saw each other. From that moment on B-C hadn’t said a word about my appearance. From that moment on I hadn’t said a word about B-C’s appearance. Neither of us said anything more about the subject because we had no reason to. And both us found the privacy of our house pleasant, despite the unpleasantness of the roles we were burdened with outside. And whatever the forms of our bodies, we were as fluid and as mutable as water in each other’s eyes. For this reason I had never once troubled myself about how I looked to B-C. On the top floor of the Hayalifener Apartments I’d found a peace I’d never found elsewhere; I was free of the weight of the letters f-a-t-t-y. I became lighter here. And perhaps this was why, for the first time in my life, I’d actually succeeded in losing weight.

I finished my diet cola and struggled out of the chaise-longe. In the blink of an eye I was in front of the refrigerator.

I opened the door. The light came on. With the light came the smell, a smell that was a mixture of cold and food, and that stroked my face. The refrigerator was smiling warmly.

‘Where have you been all this time?’ it asked reproachfully.

‘I’ve come,’ I said. ‘I’ve come back.’

On the first shelf there were several kinds of cheese. There was a big, unopened container of white cheese, a fat wedge of aged
kasar
, a half package of fresh
kasar
that was getting hard around the edges, a tub of cream cheese, and some
tulum
. I took out all of the cheese and lined it up in front of me. On the same shelf there was also some olive paste. I cut a loaf of bread lengthways down the middle and spread lots of olive paste on it. I ate alternately of the bread and olive paste in one hand and the block of white cheese in the other.

When I ate I had to be alone, and away from people’s eyes. It was an intimate crisis, or rather a dirty secret between me and what I ate. I squatted down next to the refrigerator. I finished the bread very quickly. I ate the rest of the white cheese without bread. I didn’t really want the
kasar
or the
tulum
but they too were consumed before long. On the second shelf I found half of a spicy sausage. I finished this and the rest of the cheese. I was eating so quickly that my stomach, which had shrunk from weeks of dieting, didn’t even have the chance to be taken aback. While my stomach was still trying to understand what was happening, my eyes fell upon some stuffed grape-leaves. The rice had all dried out and the leaves had turned a pale colour. I left them all half-eaten. Suddenly, I noticed a bowl at the back of the fridge. This was the pudding the neighbour had given me. I hadn’t eaten it because I was on a diet, and B-C must have forgotten about it.

A crust had formed on top of the pudding. When I lifted the crust, I saw the chick-peas, and rice, and figs, and pomegranate pieces, and beans. There were a lot of them, but not too many. When I’d finished the pudding, there was nothing but grapefruits left in the refrigerator. For weeks the grapefruit had been my main staple, and at the moment it was the last thing I wanted to eat. I got up and started to empty the kitchen cabinets. I found a half-eaten packet of crisps in a corner. They were stale, but this didn’t matter. Next, I came across two tins of tuna fish. One was for people who were dieting; low fat. I finished both of them. I was stuffed. From time to time I stopped and washed down the food in my throat with milk.

As I ate I felt nothing.