Intermezzo

For a moment he considers this question: whether it is a good idea for them to see each other again. Is it different, to want something, and to think the wanted thing is a good idea? Yes, it could be different, he thinks, if the long-term consequences of the event were foreseeably worse than the short-term gratification involved.

Dinner together in the evening, maybe watch a film afterwards, his arm around her shoulders. All the unhappiness that life has visited on them both: dissolved however briefly in that feeling, shared image of that quiet contentment.

Yes, I was looking for you, but I only wanted to see and be near you, and actually it wasn’t going to matter what either of us said as long as we could be in physical proximity to one another, making eye contact, breathing each other’s breath for a while, how does that sound.

To watch a person you care about become very sick, right in front of you, just getting worse and worse, and there’s nothing you can do

beauty belongs to God, and ugliness to human beings

Yeah, I used to pray sometimes. That my dad would get better. Which never worked either, obviously. It does put a question mark over the whole thing, the way people can get sick, and God does nothing to help them. It’s hard to understand. But I don’t think it means there’s nothing there.

Ivan now also picks up the menu and looks at it, although he already had plenty of time to decide what to eat before Peter arrived, and in fact he had already decided before then by looking at the restaurant website.

His interest in everything about her: did she have a happy childhood, was she popular in school, was she always so beautiful or did she grow into her looks more. To reconstruct her life for him, the story of her life, her personality, to make herself interesting to him, to become in the process interesting even to herself.

What does he have to tell him anyway. I just want to say, I’m on your side. I know I’ve never done anything to help you, Ivan, but in principle, in spirit. I’ve been on your side all along.

You know, life can be sad. It’s no good pretending to be happy all the time.