Long time no see

CW: Mature themes and sexual content

Long time no see

She lets me in murmuring something like Hello and leads me through the corridor to the kitchen. The whole apartment is like a shrine. All the walls are plastered with photos of him, and I mean all the walls. It’s as if she gathered all these memories, these moments frozen in time, and couldn’t decide which ones mattered most, so she printed them all and plastered them across the walls, arranged them carefully in frames on tables, on shelves. The sight is not unpleasant, after all he was handsome, very handsome, seriously handsome, but nonetheless it is a bit disconcerting. It's just too many photos. Now he smiles at me from a photo hanging over the cooking stove. I haven’t seen him in four or five years and he’s got the nerve to mock me from eternity. What a hypocrite! Ha! What a hypocrite! My hands are trembling. I try to hide it.

She doesn’t even bother taking me to the living room. She doesn’t offer me a glass of water or coffee. She leads me straight to the kitchen and points to a chair. She remains standing. I don’t get offended, I know how things are. I meet her sometimes in the lift, I see her on her balcony and she doesn’t look good. The other day I met her sister at the supermarket. Her sister told me, that she is still griving, that she is still living in a limbo, that she still cries herself to sleep. It must be about four or five years now, I’m not sure, and indeed, she doesn’t seem to be doing well. I look at her, as she’s standing there in front of me. Her gaze is unfocussed, her hair is greasy and unkempt, her clothes are shabby. She’s given up. That’s why I’m here. I’ve waited long enough. Maybe if I tell her, she’ll snap out of it. I’d meant to tell her all along, but then he went and died. The hypocrite! If I tell her, she will see that it’s not worth grieving for someone like that, probably she’ll start over, the boys are old enough, and maybe, just maybe she could be happy again.

“So…” she says and moves impatiently. She’s not interested to find out why I am there in her kitchen, I know she isn’t. She wants me out of here, I know. She wants to get back to her solitude, to her memories, I’m not welcome, I know I’m not. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” She asks wearily. She wants me gone, I know she does. I’m surprised she can still disguise her aversion or whatever it is she is feeling for the sake of good manners and social convention. The hypocrite watches me playfully from the photo. He is taunting me. Now you’ll see. Now I’ll tell her and she will tear your little smile to pieces. Or she’ll take down the overwhelming abundance of your beautiful pictures and burn them. Because that’s what you are. A photo. A piece of paper. Nothing more than that and still you have a hold over her, because she believes you were an angel, when you gave in to the most primal human passions, ignoring millennia of evolution. This cannot go on. Now you’ll see. Now I’ll tell her what you are.

“I came to see how you’re doing. It’s been a long time.” She shrugs. She looks through the small talk, I know she does and I feel bad. She knows I’m here for another reason. She’s a smart woman, I always admired her for that. I wonder how she didn’t know. Or did she? Is this actually a secret, or am I going to rub salt in her wounds? “I’m alright, I guess, she says. The boys are at college and I’m here.” I know about the boys, everyone in the building does. The elder is studying in Bulgaria, while the younger stayed here and is studying mathematics. And I know the she’s not doing alright. Her sister told me at the supermarket. She told me that she sometimes cannot get out of bed, that she neglects her personal hygiene, that she refuses to see a therapist, that she is more in love with him now than she ever was before, that she cannot get over his demise, that she talks to him when she thinks that no one is listening, that she is stuck, that she, her sister, is desperate and doesn’t know what to do with her.

That’s what made me come. I thought that maybe a shock like the one I am about to unleash will wake her up. After all it’s not my secret to keep. I’ve kept it for a long time, maybe longer than I should have. She is standing with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s waiting for me to spill the beans, to tell her honestly why I am sitting in her kitchen while her late husband is smiling at me from a photo hanging on the wall. She’s not interested, she wants me gone, but she’s stuck with me. To what does she owe the pleasure, she asked me a minute ago. That’s a funny way to put it. Pleasure. The question is whose pleasure.

But how do I begin? How do I tell her about that night four or five years ago, when, after I put the girls to bed, I made the mistake to look out the window at the dark street below. How do I tell her what I saw? It will devastate her even more. What I saw is something moving in the car, his car. Should I begin with this? This is harmless. I know his car, I know almost all the cars of our neighbours. The car was parked just outside my window. I found it weird that someone was in there, I suspected foul play, or perhaps his eldest son, who was prone to some wild ideas. Teenagers tend to be crazy sometimes, especially boys. So I moved the curtain a bit to have a better look. We live on the first floor, so I could see clearly enough what was happening in there. How do I tell her what I saw? I sigh and look at the sink behind her. It’s filled with dirty dishes and pots. She’s zoned out. So I wait for her to come back to reality and try to find a ways to start telling her about that night. I wonder how to start.

The movement in the car had a certain rhythm. At first I couldn’t understand what it was, the roof of the car was obstructing a bit my view, the street lights were dim, but soon it became clear to me. I assumed it was his oldest son with a girlfriend in there, this boy has a reputation, he gets around, like father, like son they say. The car windows were getting fogged, so I really couldn’t distinguish what exactly was happening and who was in the car and to be honest I was shocked, I was. My girls were sleeping just a couple of meters away from me and outside their window someone was having fun in that car.

I remember wondering, how can someone be that careless, sure, ours is not a busy street, but there are neighbours, other passers – by and these things are private and it was not that late. It was around nine o’clock. I remember thinking that teenage boys will go to extremes in order to have sex, and just then, the action stopped, the two silhouettes moved around in the car, the window was lowered, a cigarette was lighted. In the short instant that the flame illuminated the faces of the people in that car, I was in for a big surprise. It was not the son. It was the father. I strained my eyes a bit more to have a better look through the open window. I was in disbelief. I wished I was mistaken, but I was not. Then the car door opened, and as this happened, I held my breath and unfortunately my suspicions were confirmed. Out came the hypocrite, smiling contentedly, then out came a girl, young, much younger than him. He locked the car, and he turned to her. She came closer, closer, closer and they kissed, there on plain sight, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, as if he didn’t have a family, as if he didn’t have a wife, as if his sister-in-law was not living in that same building, as if children were not sleeping peacefully just meters away from him betraying the values we stand for, as if the whole world would turn a blind eye and forgive him, just because of his good looks and his sparkling smile. He was there, enjoying life while the world forced upon us all these rules and guidelines.

That mischievous smile looks at me from the photo on the wall. So? Did you tell her? Ha! You didn’t! You can’t! She’ll adore me forever. Everyone adores me! I get angry at him and the position he has put me into. I’ve been keeping his secret way too long.I look at her. She is anxious to see me out and reunite with her memory of him. This distorted and hollow memory, this lie. Her eyes are red. “Both of them are studying? Oh, how time goes… I remember when they were little, they used to knock on our door and sing carols on Christmas Eve… and now, um, they’re proper men, I guess.” She nods unsmilingly. How do I tell her? And how do I explain why I have stayed silent for so long? It was never my intention to keep this secret for so long. It was never my secret to keep, but shortly after that night, he crashed with that very car I saw him in. He died in that crash. He died, and it was impossible to tell anyone what he did, what I saw. But she has a right to know. Maybe it will change her life. Maybe.

After that night, the image of him with that woman was torturing me daily, I was searching for the best way to expose him, plotting, consumed with worry over what the revelation might do to them, torn between minding my own business and unmasking a hypocrite, a philanderer, a phony. But then he went and died. How convenient! He went and died and left me here with his secret and a million reasons to stay silent and take his secret to my grave. But no, I won’t allow it. He can’t get away with it, handsome as he may be. I can’t let him win!

“Is that all?” She is losing patience and I am sweating. She wants me gone, sure she does. How can I inflict more pain on her? She’s in no state to take it. Clearly she is not. And who am I to tell her? Or who am I to keep something like that from her? Who am I to define what a grieving wife should be feeling? Who am I to soil the memory of a loving husband, a loving father, a family man? Who am I to speak ill of the dead? The hypocrite is watching me from the wall. He knows he won, the petty bastard, the handsome son of a bitch. It’s the first time that I see his face after four or five years.

He won that night, because after I saw him with that woman, giggling, kissing, touching, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I fantasized about being in that car with him doing things, I fantasized about him knocking on my door, coming in and taking me then and there on the floor, I fantasized his stunning smile close to my face, closer closer… I fantasized about his gorgeous, hard dick in me, because his dick had to be gorgeous. There were countless nights, when I laid there, aroused and wet, fantasizing about my adulterous neighbour next to my sleeping husband and feeling bad, so bad, as if the fantasies actually happened, as if I was the adulterous part. I imagined things so extreme, so impossible, they wouldn’t exist even in the most decadent pornography, and hard as I tried, I could not put a stop to these fantasies. Of course I didn’t intend to tell her these things, they don’t matter anyway, they never did, they are mere fantasies, but then he went and died and I secretly cried like a baby for months, I don’t know why. He’s won, that’s certain now. He’s gotten away with it for good. He smiles his perennial smile preserved in a photo and in my memory. He was no angel. Maybe now he is, even if people who do the things he did don't go to heaven. Maybe he tricked that system, too, maybe she’s right to adore her like a God.

“Yes. That’s all.” I say and stand up. My cheeks are red. I’m sweating profusely by now. She is indifferent, uninterested to all this, to my visit, to my anguish. She knows there is more, she just doesn’t care. Let her be. Who am I to disturb her peace, morbid and hollow as it might be? As I walk to the door, I have a strong desire to linger and scrutinize the countless photos around her apartment, I have the urge to steal one, preferably one where he is smiling, and hide it good and take it out when I am alone and... “Sorry that I came uninvited like that.” She shrugs. The hypocrite! He won. I can’t believe he won!