Chapters of the Beginning IV

The only difference between the Being and the Void is just one left turn.

“Just go on. Without me.” She said.

It was yesterday, or last week, or maybe years ago, Vladimir couldn't remember. There were beautiful girls, thin and smart, shaking their fillets at the clubs. There were clever girls, who are really interesting to talk with. There are noble girls, like the equestrian girl standing next to him. She had deep, clear brown eyes, a roman nose and raven-black hair of a true Roman equestrian. They talk smart, they look strong and healthy, they are the personified Roman Empire. But all these types of women are bleak next to Her. Because She was the one.

Vladimir met Her in a library of his university. She was reading Griboedov, he was reading Dostoevsky. A conversation started itself. She said life was beautiful and wonderful. He said life was just existence. She said it was filled with sense. Pisetsky said that human made up the sense to justify their living. He said: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?”, and She said: “Happy people don't care about time”. And at that point he thought that life might not be as dark and unfair as he used to think. But he didn't know then it was even worse.

“Just go on.”

It was just a random conversation, Vladimir had dozens of those a week, but he couldn't help thinking about that one. He thought about her vision, he imagined the world seen through her eyes. And this world was beautiful. Troubles are temporary, happiness is permanent. He had never noticed the green trees around him before, the blue sky above and smiling faces of passers-by.

That was the spring, and that was the love.

He had met her several times since, only after that he had the courage to ask her out. They went to a cinema for a film he couldn't even remember. The only thing that mattered that day was him holding Her hand for the first time. That was what all those beautiful girls, smart girls, noble girls lacked: they were fake and She was alive. And She made him feel alive with her, on the long evenings when they were sitting side by side, drinking tea and just saying nothing, enjoying being together. They first met in early March, they were holding hands by April, they first kissed at the beginning of May. There was no spring that could compare with this one. Vladimir never felt so much a happy person in his life.

Later on, She moved in with Pisetsky. Now he felt as if he had a family of his own, which utterly destroyed his loneliness. It was no passion storm of romance, that was the care and the sincerity of a family life. Every day he could come home, knowing she would wait for him.

It was the summer, the summer of tranquility.

The days were timeless, pure paradise as he imagined it. She would patiently wait for him, always caring and nice, always the way he loved Her. The vivid feeling of life became even stronger with those family mornings, and family evenings, and family nights. He could drown in Her eyes, her love and caresses. It was the only thing he cared for and he took the risk to think he could never live without her.

September brought cold winds and sudden changes. She started to forget things. Little things at first, he joked at her girlish memory until it was no longer funny. The dementia was growing day by day, mercilessly, inevitably. The day before She just forgot She needed to go shopping, that was alright. The next day She could forget the name of a color or the fact that doors could be opened not only by pulling them. By the middle of the autumn She could forget his face and she screamed and cried for him to go away, and so he did. He went away every time and got drunk. When he became sober, he would come back and she would embrace him and apologize through the weeping. He would embrace her back, telling her it was okay.

That was the autumn of the really bad news.

And then came the winter.

Doctors couldn't help, neither Russian, nor Roman. Vladimir's love couldn't help. Nothing could help. The dementia got worse every day. She never left home and he would sit by Her side, reading Ostrovsky and Griboedov to Her, hoping She would remember anything. She had flashes of memory, days when She was just all right, and he lived for such days. On the others She was no more than a child.
It was the day of her clear memory when She left Vladimir's flat. She left a message where he could find Her. When he got to the Krimskiy Bridge, it was night and She was sitting there, crying. When She saw him, She smiled for the last time and said:

“Just go on. Without me.” And then She leaped into the river. The ice was thin enough for Her to break through it and disappear forever to live as a ghost in Vladimir's head.

That was the winter, the winter of Death.