Where Light Becomes Silence. Tom 2

Everything else remained.

“What now?” Dmitry asked.

“Nothing from the list.”

“That is not an answer.”

“I have no other yet.”

He closed the notebook but laid the pen on top, as though the plan might be needed at any minute.

Breakfast stretched out. They talked not about work and not about the two of them, but about a man in the house opposite who came out on his balcony at exactly the same time every morning and studied the courtyard for a long while through opera glasses.

“Perhaps he watches birds,” Ksyusha said.

“There are three pigeons in the courtyard.”

“Perhaps he has feelings about each one personally.”

“Then he knows more about constancy than we do.”

“Why?”

“Because he comes out every day, and the pigeons do not.”

Ksyusha laughed. The conversation moved on to the habits of the city that two people notice day after day and never discuss. By the time the dishes were cleared it was almost twelve.

“Shall we go?” she asked.

“Where?”

“Downstairs.”

“A most substantial route.”

“Enough to begin with.”

They went out without the equipment cases, without the bag with the family album and without a goal that would have to be achieved. At the front door Ksyusha suggested walking to the nearest stop and getting on whatever came first.

The first to come was an old tram.

“Where does it go?” Dmitry asked.

“We shall find out.”

“We could look at the route map.”

“We could.”

She did not.

The tram passed through the familiar centre and turned into a district where they rarely went. Beyond the window stretched the brick blocks of former workshops, small courtyards and the long fence of the railway. Little by little the carriage emptied. At the terminus an elderly woman with a shopping trolley got off with them, and a young man holding a dismantled desk lamp.

“Where now?” Dmitry asked.

“There should be an old park here.”

“So there was a plan after all.”

“A memory. I am not sure the park has survived.”

It had survived, though it had grown smaller. Part of the grounds had been taken by a new road, and where the summer stage had been there now stood a gym pavilion. Deeper in there remained an avenue of lime trees, chess tables and a round paved area with a fountain that did not work.

They walked to the end of the avenue. Ksyusha recognised only one turning.

“I used to come here with Mum,” she said. “The park seemed enormous to me.”

“You were shorter.”

“Very funny.”

“Geometrically correct.”

By the fountain they were selling pastries and hot berry drinks. They each took a cup and sat down at a chess table. Scratched initials could still be seen on its surface.

Dmitry ran a finger over the squares.

“We could film a short fragment here.”

“No.”

“I was only saying.”

“In your head you have already set up the camera.”

“One.”

“Today the park is not our material.”

He put away the phone he had not yet had time to take out.

“All right.”

A few minutes later Ksyusha did photograph the empty fountain after all.

“So you are allowed?”

“It is for me.”

“A convenient system.”

“You can take one for yourself too.”

Dmitry did not. He watched the wind chase a few dry leaves across the empty basin. On an ordinary day such a shot would almost at once have demanded a continuation: a rhythm, a text, a note, a title at least. Today Dmitry let it end inside his gaze.

The phone vibrated.

The sound engineer wrote that after three he would be alone in the studio. If Dmitry sent the material now, they could quickly check it on the new equipment and not wait until Tuesday.

The opportunity was useful. There was no urgency.

“Work?” Ksyusha asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you need to answer?”

“I do.”

He typed: “Thank you. I shall not send the material today. We keep Tuesday.”

“You will not even ask how long it would take?” Ksyusha said.

“If I ask, I shall start working out whether there is time.”

“And is there?”

“Certainly.”

“Then why not?”

Dmitry put the phone away.

“Because we have already chosen this day.”

“A choice can be changed.”

“It can. I do not want to.”

Ksyusha accepted the answer without thanking him. He was not giving her a present and was sacrificing nothing. He was simply refusing to exchange time already being lived for a more convenient work schedule.

They walked back. A few blocks on they found a bookshop set up in what had once been a chemist’s. Dmitry chose a study of the history of writing, Ksyusha a collection of essays on stage speech. At the till it turned out that the shop had a small reading room.

They spent more than an hour there.

Each read their own book. Now and then Ksyusha marked a paragraph in pencil and turned the book towards Dmitry. He ran his eyes over the text, nodded or quietly disagreed. Then he went back to his own page. Time together did not require an unbroken exchange. It was enough to know that the other person was a few steps away and that their attention belonged not only to you, but did not shut you out.

They got home after six.

Ksyusha opened the wardrobe and looked at the choice of clothes for the performance.

“Half an hour,” Dmitry reminded her.

“I do not want to any more.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow will be tighter.”

“It will.”

“You could have sorted out the questions for the studio today as well.”

“I could.”

They stood before the price of their own choice. It was not dramatic: no one had lost a contract, let a team down or broken a promise. A few things had simply moved to the next day and made it more crowded.

“Let us not blame Sunday afterwards,” Ksyusha said.

“Or each other.”

“Especially each other.”

She did not choose the clothes in the end. Dmitry did not open the folder of drafts. They cooked supper, each told the other about a few pages of the book they had bought, and after ten they checked the calendar for Monday.

The morning demanded precision.

Dmitry got up earlier to prepare the questions for the studio before ten. Ksyusha chose an outfit for the performance between two work calls. At eleven her mother asked whether the scans were ready. Ksyusha answered that she would send the first part by Wednesday — and at once put the date in the calendar.

At half past twelve Dmitry discovered that one of the drafts he had put aside was needed for an afternoon conversation.

“I could have sorted it out yesterday,” he said, looking through the folder.

Ksyusha was fastening an earring in front of the mirror in the hall.

“You could.”

“And it would be easier now.”

“It would.”

She did not say that it was he who had chosen to stay. Dmitry did not remind her that the idea of setting off without a route had been hers. They knew where this rush had come from and did not use it to keep score.

“Shall I help you with the files?” Ksyusha asked.

“No, I shall manage. And you?”

“So shall I.”

At one the work conversation began. In the third minute the sound engineer asked him to open the draft with the notes on the second part of the arrangement.

Dmitry found the folder, but the file he needed turned out to be named with a date and nothing else. Inside there were three almost identical versions.

“I shall need ten minutes,” he said.

“We agreed to go through this now,” came the answer from the studio.

“We did. I did not prepare the file. In ten minutes I shall send the right one and ring you back.”

He did not plead the day off, the outing or the need to rest sometimes. The other man had taken no part in their Sunday decision and should not have to pay for it by waiting.

Dmitry ended the call, opened the versions one after another, compared the dates of the changes and found the right one. It took fourteen minutes. He came into the second conversation with the answer ready and began with an apology for the delay.

Ksyusha heard only part of the conversation. Meanwhile she was comparing two stage outfits. One required shoes that she had yet to find; the second was made up entirely of things already in the house.

A suitable pair could not be delivered in time for the rehearsal.

“I shall take the second,” she said after the call.

“Because of the deadline?”

“Partly because of that.”