The townhouse

There was nothing left to do but to return to the city before I sank into a heavy sadness as I stood before the open door. The little girl’s faintly visible face peered at me behind the azalea at the end of the garden, her gaze carrying an unspoken judgment. It was a hardship to confront her with a passive welcome as if I knew that doing so would shut her into sulking. Her presence unsettled me - a solemn white face, stark as linen, her eerie, unblinking gaze on me. She struck me as a solid old soul- one of a middle-aged woman, I suspected, who is a law affectionate. Also, she seemed excessively hard to please. Instead of acknowledging her, I turned towards the living room, sat carefully on the couch, and rifled through  Zerta’s purse. It was noon, and the midday sun slanted through the large window, lighting up my face.

I tried to listen for a moment, but there was silence, a deafening void in complete dissolution. I inclined my head attentively inside the bag with anticipation, hoping to dig out something like a secret loot under the piles of receipts and little things like lipstick, a small mirror, and handkerchiefs, when a small leather notebook caught my attention. The pages were bare and unwritten; only at the back was a list of names with their email addresses and numbers, names I barely knew but wasn’t scared to be threatened by any of them.  Besides, I hoped that our last discussion would only be mentioned fleetingly and indirectly when she returned from her sudden errand, which I suspected had come up. Ten minutes later, she called me on my phone, and my suspicions became real. She apologized for leaving without notice, but a dear friend of her mother asked her to help hang some drapes. Zerta is indeed a very handy woman; sometimes, her skills are taken advantage of quite frequently by not-so-friendly acquaintances or neighbors. She wanted to urgently continue my discussion about the blue man and the restaurant, precisely the type of porcelain the food was served in, and the quality of the meat. She was also curious about what was said. Her questions were voiced with that annoying intonation, and it felt like a blade deepened inside a raw wound. I suddenly became very defensive, but discreetly, she could see what was underneath; just a distant, avoidant expression. I call it being and staying unmovable; it’s a strategy of a mouse being threatened with death. 

I recalled when the blue man asked me to join him for a walk in that park in the middle of the Hague while you and Patrick were browsing chalkboards. It was a shrouded afternoon, with the smell of pungent coal smoke; the roads were weirdly empty for a weekday, even though the blue man reassured me that it was always like this time of day. With a nod, I followed him to a tranquil pond that mirrored the streak branches of winter trees. We stood at the curved stone path while he took a sketchbook from his jacket and started writing notes. I got curious and asked what he was writing, and he said he was writing nothing except numbers and important dates for the upcoming month. Important numbers? No, he answered important DATES. He emphasized that I was visually irritated and didn’t get it as quickly. The light was still visible in the sky, filtered into a blueish hue by the thick clouds, which seemed to radiate everything around me, as if I were in an underwater world. I decided to step back and stop myself from asking more questions, so I stood farther back and watched him, standing with assurance, recording his thoughts on his phone. I couldn’t hear everything he said, like a few words coming out and abrupt gestures accompanying them. He repeated the word ‘curve’ and discussed having a haircut next Monday. That peculiar task was disrupted by your call: you were done browsing for useless stuff and waiting for us to go back, so we hurried through the winding pathways out of the small park, where we had to ask the security guard to open the wrought-iron gate for us. We found you outside a closed, dark shop, alone, moments later. You grasped the blue man’s hand without saying a word, holding my breath at the seriousness of the moment, as I stepped behind you onto the tram back home. At the two-story townhouse, I got lost on the second floor with the much lower ceilings. The skylight window got my attention for a while - the seagulls’ thudding on the glass made a lot of noise before I crashed into a room full of blankets. I curled into that small space for the rest of the night, staring at the only light source, the small orthogonal window. I curled up and didn’t think of anything important except reenacting the feeling of something missing, wondering what that could be.

All in all, this litigation seems dead and uneven, and the moments that accompanied me as I drank my coffee in the morning had a quality of steel, touching every surface of your home. I couldn’t pinpoint what triggered this particular sensation, which was neither unpleasant nor enjoyable. Your home was another cave of mechanical workings, another device of chronometrical quality. In exchange for the cottage, the sound of the tram every day often measured the layered atmosphere - the starting point for every direction. To my understanding, listening carefully to what the blue man had to teach me was essential. His experience in a field I’m unfamiliar with intrigued me more than the shy, silent movements of your body as you crossed through corridors and opened doors from one room to another. We didn’t say much these days, and my presence was barely noticeable. I focused on my heavy training and running on the beach daily, and you sometimes joined me. After that, I usually buried myself in my documents and dived headfirst into work.

Love always carries a hint of cruelty. “ My stay at your cottage is ending,” I announced to her while she stepped in, loaded with bags at the hall. Zerta paused momentarily with a frozen look, seemingly looking at a ghost, not me. She got upset by my decision and insisted that I could stay one more night at my much-preferred guestroom instead of hers if that bothered me. I thanked her for her consideration, but I had to leave. No, her presence wasn’t the reason. I found myself saying that I had my first crash course in writing at the university tomorrow morning, which I forgot to mention. Her angular face got excited, and with a beaming smile, she hugged me with warmth;” I will miss our discussions,” she whispered to my ear, and I stroked her hair gently .“ I will return as soon as possible,” I reassured her. Then, without another word, I turned and headed for my suitcase.