Samuel 90 - Three meters
to the door of the hall had been a mistake - Samuel when he had already realized the image had crystallized into the eyes and the illusion he had stopped breathing in the stillness bloodless, almost marble.
Yet it had been an automatic gesture, a simple step forward. His fingers tightened on the door frame and a name just formed on the lips - a name that had become everyday now: comfort and warmth and tenderness.
Vivian.
Vivian who had hair so blond it seemed snow - so long to fall on their shoulders in soft clumps. Just rolling hills.
And the back of the sofa to cover his body - the angle of view to hide her face.
was not the first time this has happened, but Samuel would never have become accustomed to the vertigo of appearance on the threshold of a room. Launch a look inside - look distracted. E find it there, Björn.
was standing near the window or left on a chair - find out how her hair can become clear in the light of day or how much pain cause images to boy. Its presence felt in the air like a cold wind. Salt fog. And remember with clarity
crippling everything has always been for him - for him the house, the wooden beams of the ceilings and pillows on the couch. For him, the flame of the candles, the aroma of tea. Every word whispered in a low voice, printed on paper.
A lifetime.
for him.
Without that nothing is able to protect him while growing up and maturing consciousness while the blame for not meeting him soon enough.
Without that nothing has been able to protect it later when it became already a misdemeanor crime. When Samuel had raped with words as with the hands, without stopping once to listen to its silence. Away from the religion of blind sound to reach into the void of snow - to hear his story. In the breath.
Vivian is there.
against the illusion - perhaps with more violence. Definitely.
But he remains motionless, looking at this, like a thousand times it has happened in the past. As always happens, in all likelihood. An absurd vice. And there
remedy, because at times seems to be of fundamental importance to understand if the shoulders of Björn appeared so fragile, he was young. At times the need to approach with closed eyes is a physical need - imagine being able to sit still in front of him, offer him a cup of hot tea. Looking at his lips that open and strip the image of each poem is left. Of each metaphor.
pages of the novel are still scattered on the desk in the living room - for months he does not come close to that corner of the room.
He worked at the kitchen table, the desk of the hall. On the chair, too. Often.
But there, in that narrow space between the window and the fireplace, the time has stopped in the afternoon in which he had tucked the blanket on his chest and receiving Björn looked asleep. And he turned on the stereo, because the voice of Cohen could not embrace him as he could do. Without touching it. Without
.
hurt him.
Samuel lower lashes - lowers his head. He imagined
to stop at that point, some nights - far enough to be confused with the lightness of the air and close enough to touch his living space like a caress touch the skin. Björn is not coming back, knows this well.
Yet the heart contracts as if the balance had been sought for so long finally reached, when Vivian feels his presence and turns slowly. It sinks in her eyes that look of glass - Kite. Of sky and ice.
Three meters.
Three feet away to be heard without the body becomes a wall and the intention violence - three feet to hear the breath of Björn without breaking it, to learn to tap it in a different way.
three meters, and do not need it anyway.
is useless, because the blood pulsing ostinato in the veins - because just one look and Samuel again has a high fever. Just one look. And Björn
fingers ran down the traces of wounds, the smell of her skin intoxicates the senses as poison. And his mouth is so close that it hurts - the mole on the neck becomes the vanishing point of each perspective.
has not learned anything, it found. None.
no alchemical formula for changing the body in the wind, no prayer and no blasphemy.
might have to beg when Mark was still time - to force him to tear the flesh with the scalpel of his lips and let it burn out of his hands as if even the ashes were to witness anything.
He could do it for friendship, for pity's sake. Would not have mattered.
How now does not matter still remain there, why do not those three meters separate it from Björn. But Vivian. And Vivian
is already frowning, is tilting his head. The fold of the lips - so poignant, always, and remote - is bending under the weight of a concern indefinitely. Anxiety rising.
"Sam?" He calls softly.
Moving a step forward has never been so painful, never so heartbreaking. Nor difficult.
"Is there a problem? It was your editor, on the phone? "
" Edward Logan. Yes, "replied Samuel, while the face of the boy redraw the boundaries that are proper and he finds himself having to whisper faster than you would like, quell'addio. Locking her fists to keep from reaching out to meet to blur the vision and the void of screaming do not go away, please. Not again.
would be useless.
"Bad news?" Vivian is asking, and Björn is already far away. Dissolved in motes of light, perhaps, or in the smoking hot cup abandoned shortly before the table.
A cup of tea rose.
It makes no sense, in that repetition of nostalgia. Rituals that appear unnecessary loss of values, stripped of life. Prayers unnecessary.
"I have a week from today, to send him the draft of the novel," he murmurs, sitting on the edge of the chair. "And he wants the first three chapters, too." Plan, passing a hand over his forehead. "Complete."
"You're still at a standstill, instead?"
"I do not ..." Pause. "I have not even started, Vivian. I have nothing to give, "she says.
is the first time he admits it out loud the first time forcing himself to remain there. Dealing with that node.
Instinctively, I look across the room to touch the contours of the desk - the white patch of leaves that Björn has to take into his hands, he must have let fall on the floor while the world was collapsing around. While the kettle was boiling on the fire.
And he was not there, not even once.
Even if they would be close enough - just over three meters to avoid yet another pain. The latest violence.
He was a post it, attached to the dashboard.
His name written in small letters - symbols too sharp and too fake. Black ink on yellow background. For a moment
nausea closes the stomach, the thought of what all this must have seemed strange to him. Grotesque, perhaps.
"There are only notes," he says, enunciating the words slowly. "Notes unconnected, pieces written to jet without any order of continuity. Nothing could be structured. "
front of him Vivian's eyes when he is listening carefully - when studies pauses between words to find a deeper meaning.
"Non mi hai mai parlato molto della storia…" mormora, come se non fosse sicuro di avere diritto a fare quella domanda.
Esitando cambia appena posizione - porta le ginocchia al petto. Le circonda con le braccia.
E Samuel ricorda d’improvviso quanto l’avesse sentito fragile , la notte che hanno dormito vicini. Ricorda il sollievo di abbracciarlo, il senso di pace che veniva dal sentir battere regolarmente il suo cuore sotto il palmo della mano.
Vivian è stato l’unico perdono che sia mai riuscito a concedersi – l’unico momento.
Ed è ora di chiuderlo, quel cerchio – radunare il coraggio. Sono mesi che ci pensa.
Mesi che attende il momento right, the opportunity to build a bridge between their loneliness, and finally let him meet them - even just to say thanks. Or to show the place where you can always find it, the sound of the name Björn. The center.
of himself.
"He was wearing a dark jacket that night," begins quietly, as if he were reciting a sacred formula. Or the lines of a poem learned by heart - something very intimate.
"He sat among the people," he adds, "She listened. In silence. "
The hardest part, then:" I thought that there should be a crack in the fabric of the world, if his skin was so translucent. And his shoulders so solid, however. His hands. "He closes his eyes. "So big."
not really a surprise, the vertigo that opens in the chest when the echo of the words bouncing between the walls. When load reaches the ears of the images of that night, and Samuel back to feel the impact of the look of Björn. Sunk into her - for a short moment. That breath broken.
"Him?"
From his corner of pillows, Vivian is staring at him uncertainly.
"She had your own eyes, an identical blue ..."
Or maybe just more transparent - think. As soon as colder.
does not matter. Why
say certain things, however, stops the heart, in front of those irises. It must be strong, not to ask the boy to turn around, not to ask him to lower his head. Lower eyelashes.
"I sought the North all my life, Vivian," he murmurs, while the voice is a little weaker. While the rapid growth, expanding as always. "Him, had it in his eyes," he adds. "It was automatic, find his features in my novel. It was all too easy to confuse fact and fiction. Confusing myself. With him. "
" He would him, then? "Question the other, with the usual caution." The man who got gone? "But
answer is not simple, because that house Björn has never really moved away. It has always been in every object - every corner. Inside every night.
It will always be there, in those pages that are still abandoned on the desk to keep him chained in a cage like an animal rare. How can something that is not free to leave, because it's part of you too far. 'Cause I always will be.
"I have to burn that novel," she whispers.
"Bruce?"
" I have to burn that novel, "repeats. He knows he has to.
He also knows that he would never find the strength, though - that can get rid of guilt be frightfully difficult when the faults, the only thing that remained. The only link between his life with that of Björn.
faults.
Like all the nights that he imagined his skin - the light wind on the back of his hands and the nakedness of bodies wrapped in blankets. How many times he wanted to move slowly - slowly. Slowly, under him, to see him turn his head on his chest and feel like dying. Inside.
"There are too many things," he says, shivering slightly.
the couch, Vivian is watching him carefully.
"Things that are not so free."
"What happened?" is then the question. Inevitable.
"He had found his balance," Samuel whispered, his eyes moving from one point in the room. Wetting their lips - looking for words. "He worked in the library, and I think he liked it. He had his brother here. I've moved away from it all, instead. "Lacks the force. "I," he repeats, however, because we need to remember it forever. I remember well, that he was able to get him.
ask for forgiveness would be too simple, too ugly.
"Sorry, Samuel," Vivian whispered, but he's grateful is not to add more. Not to make any acquittal, leave them all on my shoulders. His responsibility.
"You have not heard from him?" heard him ask, however, after a brief hesitation.
"I know he's in New York now," he says. "And it is alienating, imagine a skyline of skyscrapers. That he was silent. Imagine in a city as chaotic. "
Slowly, Samuel backs away on the back of the chair.
Vivian looked away, and for a moment that blue is blowin 'in the absence of a nostalgic yearning heart.
"In New York?" being repeated, thoughtfully.
He abandons his head back, swallowing. "Central Park has beautiful colors in the fall. The leaves are spread on the grass warm rugs, carpets of light. Sometimes I pretend to forget that summer in the world this year. "
Pause.
"Either that car engines do not dirty the snow, when he falls. That Björn can get lost in the white. "
And the white really seems to lie, at that time. On words, on that image. In the room, with a smoky veil of silence. Silence still. Inhale
floor, Samuel closed his eyes.
not really painful, the necessity of having to delegate to other actions that feels deeply his hand: Björn wrap the body in a slight contact of arms, runs her fingers through his hair. Feel the tension of its muscles is released under the palms. And protect it.
He could not do it anyway.
This is comforting, in some nights, hoping that it may be reflux of the sea to make music - to whisper those poems that his lips would become embarrassed. Or imagine that the wind direction, to stroke his hair. What is the fog to hug him.
Would you say that, too, to Vivian: to dress a body can be terrible, when you love some people. Whom I thank heaven every day to melt in the rain, or to blow air on your face impalpable. He would like to ask him to lend him for one day only, that his bones by bird. Or those eyes as clear as water, slender wrists.
intangible than physical.
"Björn?" question, however, the boy in a strange tone. The tone is hard when running away from something - a sudden alarm. Irrational. And Samuel
raises eyebrows shooting - raises his head. Feeling the chill
born in the stomach, just leans forward.
"Yes," he repeats.
front of him, Vivian became immobile.
"Sam," he says, very quietly. "When did this happen? Please, answer me clearly."
"All this?"
"When you met, Björn? When he went to New York?" For some strange
reason, for a moment, he has practically no voice to answer.
"Earlier this year," can we say, very slowly. Very slowly, as if something irreparable happens as a result of those words. "It was this winter," explains.
It is as if Vivian had expected, because he closes his eyes for a moment and nods.
gulping air, without answering. Without moving, either.
But the next moment is already fired up - is already across the room toward the door. Is closing the fingers on the handle - grabbing his jacket.
"I have to go out for a moment. I swear I'll be right back, but I need a moment," says quickly. Before disappearing. After
, leaving just the mess of pillows on the couch to testify that something really happened. Something that Samuel is still unable to process - something final.
David.
thinking deviates in the direction of his name out of habit, perhaps, or maybe just because suddenly reminded of his words. The opposition proved that day, when he had announced that he wanted to speak to Vivian's novel. The distillate
more nauseating your egocentricity, he said.
It has never been so - has never been true.
Yet there must be something wrong by force, in that intention, if the boy's reaction was so violent.
If this gesture has frustrated all about sharing, instead of facilitating it - now if he is measuring the room nervous and Vivian steps out into the night. Farther than ever, perhaps.
Samuel remembers the first time he must stay in that house, his need for dark. The horror in her eyes, and told him of the assault.
There are people with whom you have to use a different language - something quieter and more intact. Looks dumb, maybe. Only.
Or only the innocent sweetness of chocolate, maybe.
"Vivian," she whispers plan, when the door closes behind him cool night air stings the skin as a siege of pins.
There are fireflies in the woods - known.
For a moment, suddenly, the nostalgia of David is so intense that it almost tears a groan. A breath broken.
"Christ ..."
is sitting on the wooden railing, Vivian. Samuel
not realize it at the time, when the eye moves from side to offset the cat ankle. When the darkness starts to become less alien, less dense.
"Viv," he repeats. Moving a step in this direction.
"Why do you say that was your fault, if he had leave? "
There is something unreal in the evening: Vivian's voice faded into the night - the inability to focus on the intentions. And distances are stretched like rubber bands, with no apparent logic. uncontrollably.
"I should not have to tell this story," he mutters, blocking the movement. Stopping the arm in the air, letting it fall on its side.
The other spoke softly, without even raising his head. Without turning.
And strange that they are still three meters, those that divide every need of relief from physical contact of a caress. From the desperate need to be forgiven.
again.
"I Sorry, "can only say. In a low voice. But Vivian
repeats his name, enunciating the letters one by one. "I need to know what happened," he adds. Almost with irritation.
And he does not just have to gather our thoughts - to impose itself in order to put an emotion to be able to really give it to him, what he is asking. What should the bottom at this point, because if anything it was a mistake now you can not go back anyway. Vivian has drawn a single direction, in front of them. An obligation.
And no matter how hurt Björn talk that way - let go of his name in the cold. In explanation almost too hard to make.
"I started writing the novel before you know it," he murmurs slowly, with a sigh longer. "The main character had a difficult childhood behind - there were heavy episodes. There was a present to be rebuilt, and there was his physical traits. His silence. They were so similar, Vivian ... I superimposed to that the reality of a boy who was seriously wounded him, and I foolishly believed I could save only with words. Only ... "Her voice breaks
and resumed with difficulty.
"Just writing it, his salvation ..."
"And then?" the other insists, Aton. "Do not you hurt someone, writing his salvation. "
" And then he read the novel, "is the answer, just whispered. Syllables that are lost in the voids of breath, white clouds of condensation. In the dark.
Samuel does not know why Vivian's is doing this .
only know that the cold of the night has now made of glass bones, the voice must have been lost in some of the shady corners between the door and the railing. And his eyes burn as if they slept for centuries, that weigh the words in my mouth like boulders.
"I know it was bad after," he adds, lowering her eyes.
The beams of the portico are impregnated with moisture - in some places, the paint is peeling off.
"Then is gone. "Silence. "I never see again," finishes. And
pressed his shoulder against the wall unit, as if suddenly lacked the strength to remain standing. As if so needed support - any one - but think back to past months to find the first time I felt so weak. So tired.
Everything is too confused in his mind.
He can only remember the smell of David - his hands closed on the wood railing and his body down on his back. His arms.
around his waist.
would like to find the strength to bring it back in, Vivian. Or turn on the lights to make sure I've worn the jacket - who has not abandoned his usual somewhere.
It would also call on the night if Bjorn is feeling cold, whether the blind has the same taste in New York. If you can still breathe, his love.
If you still feel ...
"He's fine now," comes the reply, unexpected, and for a moment the relief is so intense that Samuel felt the tears sting your eyes - be as light as the head of breath condensate.
Smoke slim.
"Or, well ..."
He always loved the voice of Vivian.
It flows between the words with the lightness of the wind caresses and remember that you imagined as a child, when it melts in the silence of low moments like that.
moments of absolute stasis.
"Going to New York was a good idea," adding he feels it, almost unconsciously, as the body detects a need for oxygen that has never experienced before. Something abnormal. "Or maybe it's just a good idea to leave or ..."
The heart has stopped, but only Samuel realizes it now.
And only now realizes that in the meantime look hooked the shadow of Vivian, who is probing the darkness of her eyes desperate.
How can become intense, desire, and what can affect the clarity the desperate need of something? How much pressure can stand the mind before falling forever into madness - the silence?
not know how to achieve responses. From his corner
Vivian still speaks - slower still - and he clearly feels the tears run down cheeks.
down her cheeks.
"If you were the one to convince him to go, you did a good thing. He needed a boost, I think," the boy continued to whisper. In the night.
And there is a sense, no logic. Only his voice.
His voice and the vital need to hear it again - let it take shape around the reality and abandon the desires behind any heaviness. He has already done it once, this error. Now, no.
Now the illusion is not enough, a truth to measure. Not just anything like that, for Björn.
"Vivian," and then scans, breathing deeply. Granting even a moment of silence, the last one.
"What are you talking about," he says, without even giving the words the tone of question. But there is no irritation in his voice, only a firm duty.
The will of the brave.
"That night, after having read your novel ..." Vivian is silent for a moment, and he slowly moves away from the wall. "He had a great crisis, as not happened for years. I thought it was my fault, because he had known of the things ... "A nervous movement in the shadows - the back of the hand rubs his eyes." He never said to have known you. And you were talking about this story as if years had passed , Samuel ... I never imagined that it was him. "
" Di ... him? "
It's like lifting a veil, suddenly.
Samuel would never have believed that reality could be so clear, that could overcome all of a sudden every possible fantasy. Blurred.
The truth was right before his eyes all the time - similar gestures, the tilt of the head at close look. And the color of the irises, the same blond hair. The constant presence of Björn, always - whenever Vivian entered the house.
"Sir, you are ... He's your brother ... "she whispers. The breath broken.
And maybe that's had to go - maybe deep down he always knew him as well.
Maybe.
But now it does not matter because there is something in that revelation, which is more terrible than any lack of reality - of any error. Icy panic in his throat.
nausea.
"Have I not kept hidden on purpose," says Vivian suffered and those three meters become intolerable. "Really, I had no idea. As long as you did not say his name." The boy
is still talking but he ends up holding in my arms without even realizing it - without understanding. As if the need to wrap it was stronger than anything - to know that at that time nobody in the world could touch him. None.
closes his eyes, breathing in the plan.
"Okay, baby. Okay so ... "the repeats, while pressing his lips on his forehead. And the temples, hair. There is nothing that is fine, however.
Samuel had not believed that there could be a bigger pain when the story of Björn had emerged in its full load of horror. He had thought the limit was there - that was reached. He was wrong. Why
Vivian is still different picture, surrounded by certain dynamics. Because his body is too thin - too fragile shoulders. And doubt is charged with a visceral discomfort at the thought of how massively Björn love that kid. How much you love him.
is not thinking.
is not thinking about anything, while holding it: the space for the relief seems to have dried up along with the tears and call into question the fate lack the will - lack the strength to break the embrace.
remains only one word in mind, which is attached to the wires of the memory. Modeled in the warm voice of Björn, the center of his silences.
Ljus.
And he repeated softly, that nickname because they can be Björn whispering with his lips. Order to give them their arms and their hands - at that time.
And hold him one more time, Vivian. A moment alone.
Before that night, like every other night, dissolve in light.
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