Unwritten

The warm light of the autumn afternoon filtered through the loosely falling white curtain. N. lazily rolled onto her back in bed, casually raising her arm above her head. The light, silky blanket slipped lower on her hips, but she did not even notice. Her gaze was not searching for anything, merely moving slowly from one object to another; she looked around contentedly, like a traveler returning home after a long time. She looked at the globe they had begged the shop assistant to sell them in a small bookshop in Paris, where it had been sitting on the shelf as a bookend for years. At the brass curtain rod she had ordered online, which matched exactly the little brass lamp beside the bed that she had brought home from a Moroccan market.

G. lay beside her, watching her quietly.

N. could feel his gaze on her. Perhaps he was looking at her, it flashed through her mind, the way she was looking at the objects surrounding them: slowly, curiously, rediscovering something that had always been there. In this rare moment, when they did not have to go anywhere and did not have to do anything, when they could simply be, the two of them, N. knew: G. was not only looking at her, he was seeing her too. And desired her. Her hand involuntarily slid to her breast as she was suddenly filled with the realization of how good it was to be a woman. A woman who was looked at, who was desired. The globe and the brass lamp disappeared from her thoughts; G. filled them all.

N. stopped scanning the room and smiled at the man.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I tried.”

“And?”

“Someone is thinking too loudly beside me.”

N. smiled.

“I’m not thinking.”

“Ha-ha. Your brain is constantly spinning on something. Let’s buy pillowcases the color of sunlight, let’s rearrange the bookshelf, is the globe in the right place…”

N. laughed.

“The globe is in the right place. That’s why I put it there.”

“That’s why you put it there…”

They said it at the same time.

“Jinx.” G. grinned.

N. adored this face of his. The posters did not know it; it could not be seen on the red carpet or in street selfies. There G. shone: the movie star.

But N. also saw what no one else did: the way his eyes changed from brown to green when he was angry, the smile in his gaze when something genuinely amused him, and the dry little crease that appeared at the corner of his mouth when he looked at himself from the outside.

G. leaned over and planted a light kiss on her nose.

“I release the Jinx. Wouldn’t want you to die from not being able to speak for half a minute.”

“I really was thinking.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“After all, here you are lying naked beside me, looking at me…”

She fell silent.

“Like?”

N. smiled.

“Like a bowl of whipped cream would look.”

G. laughed.

“Soft and shapeless?”

“Idiot.” N. kissed him lightly. “Sweet and desirable.” She leaned closer. “Exactly like someone who knows perfectly well that I want to lick him…”

G. laughed. “That is a peculiar declaration of love.”

“It’s not a declaration. It’s a statement of fact. You get enough romance on screen.”

N. nestled against the man’s neck. “This here is raw reality.”

G. closed his eyes. “I love the way you know how to love me like this.”

“I love whipped cream.”

G. laughed.

“You said the same thing when I first asked you out for ice cream. I asked what kind of ice cream you wanted, and you informed me that you didn’t want any, but I should get you a portion of whipped cream in a cone.”

N. laughed. “Really?”

“Word for word.”

He leaned towards the woman and held her tightly. Their skin, their hair, their memories, their thickening waists, the fine little wrinkles on their faces touched. They simply lay there in silence and breathed.

The man put his finger to her lips. “That’s not the point.” He ran his hand along the woman’s arm. “You put the vase in its place. You keep order in the world around me.”

N. smiled, and G. continued. “You put me back in place. When I get lost in a role, you still know where I am, and you put me back where I belong.”

He kissed the woman’s hair.

“You won’t be disappointed in me…” At that moment the phone on the chair in front of the window began to vibrate. He jumped out of bed and hurried over.

“The delivery guy?” N. asked hopefully, but G. simply rejected the call. N. did not ask who had called; the man returned to the bed.

“You wanted to eat afterwards anyway…” She did not even finish the sentence before G. gripped her shoulder and rolled on top of her.

“The delivery guy will be here in forty minutes.”

“Plenty of time.”

“It’s not about the clock.” G. smiled and kissed her.

G. was still above her. With one hand he braced himself on the pillow beside N.’s face, with the other he held the woman’s waist. His kiss was familiar, and yet always new. The soft, gentle touch slowly deepened, becoming hungrier and hungrier. N. grabbed the man’s hair and pulled him closer to her.

They were in no hurry; the seconds dissolved one by one on their skin, in their touches. At other times their desire for each other flared up too, but usually a clock was ticking somewhere in the background. The woman drew up her knee, the man bent even lower, N. felt his smile against her neck. It was the final second of waiting.

“Muuum?” the door suddenly opened. N. turned around.

G. closed his eyes for a moment, then a tired half-smile appeared on his face.

“That was quick.”

N., still in his arms, looked up at him. “I’ve told him many times to knock.”

“At least a hundred times,” the little boy confirmed from the doorway. Now they were both watching him.

“You have to come and see,” he said, and it was obvious he would not move until N. did. The woman’s face softened.

The little boy thought about it. “Because it’s important.”

G. laughed quietly. “Convincing argument.”

N. finally moved. She did not rush. She accepted that the gift of an afternoon was over. G. rolled off her, and N. reached for her faded T-shirt lying beside the pillow. She pulled it on, then looked back at the man once more. G. was looking at her with exactly the same gaze as three minutes earlier, and although their skin no longer touched, their desire and intimacy remained palpable.

The little boy stepped closer to the bed, and N. automatically held out her hand to him. G. watched quietly. He saw the same woman who only a few minutes earlier had been lying in his arms. The woman who knew what he had left where when, exhausted and with an aching back, he simply dropped everything and two minutes later no longer knew what was where. Who kept order around him and inside him. N. felt his gaze and glanced back at him.

G. smiled. “You’re beautiful.”

N. suddenly turned away, as if something had got into her eye, and walked out holding the little boy’s hand.

“Cut!” someone shouted. “Five-minute break, everyone!”

The room was quiet; most people had taken advantage of the unexpected break and disappeared. The same room that only a few minutes earlier had been their home, filled with light, memories and desire, suddenly became a set again. The autumn light filtered in behind the white curtain just the same, the globe stood in the same place on the shelf, the brass lamp glowed just as warmly beside the bed, but G. now noticed the cable on the floor again, and the quiet clicking of the spotlight crept into his ear.

“We’ll start again from the food order in a minute.” The assistant director appeared beside the bed. G. looked up at her, then nodded. “Understood.” He laced his hands behind his head, leaned back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, as if he might find the road back to the previous minutes in the lines of the pale paint. He was not annoyed. Over long years he had learned that the gears kept turning even when something in the system got stuck.

When N. returned a few minutes later, for a moment the same light still shone in her eyes that had illuminated them barely a quarter of an hour earlier.

“We’re taking it from forty-seven,” the director said.

N. lay back down beside G., and no one else noticed that the Sun had gone down on her face; only G. saw it. The woman pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. G. moved closer and brushed her hair behind her ear with the same tenderness as before. The movement was the same; the moment had become different, permeated by the sounds of footsteps behind the set wall, the soft rustle of the blanket, the hum of the air conditioning.

“Ready?” G. asked quietly.

N. looked up at him. “Yes.”

Clapperboard, camera.

“You’re beautiful.”

N. knew perfectly well that it was not only the role making G. say it. As the man ran his hand along her shoulder, she was again filled with the feeling that he had draped a magic cloak over her—only her foot was sticking out from underneath it. They said what they had to say, moved as they were told—while N.’s feet were cold the whole time.

N. sat up and pulled on a robe someone had brought her. G. was still looking at her.

“What is it?” N. asked.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that. When I say that, you always drag out of me what’s really bothering me.”

G. smiled. “I’m just thinking about how precisely your son senses when to come in.”

N. laughed, but there was something tired in her laughter. “He has a gift for it. Must have inherited it from his father.”

As if by magic, the assistant director was standing beside the bed again.

“Dad’s here,” she announced.

Something passed across N.’s face; G. noticed.

“I’ll be right there.”

G. stood up. “I’ll go get dressed.”

N. looked at him. “G….”

“Yes?”

For a moment it seemed she wanted to say something, then only:

“Nothing.”

“Meaning there is something.” G. smiled. “Say it.” But N. merely touched the back of the man’s hand and shook her head.

G. left. The woman looked at the pillows for another few seconds, then she too stepped out into the corridor, where a tall, dark-haired man was waiting beside her little boy.

“Mum…” the little boy ran towards her, and N. bent down and hugged him.

The man stood beside the props table, his phone in one hand and the child’s hat in the other.

“Don’t you remember where I left the Ford key?” he asked irritably. “I had to come by taxi.”

“Hi, F.” N. looked at him. “In the pocket of your blue jacket.” And meanwhile she opened the taxi app on her phone. As they walked down the corridor, N. recognized the quiet song coming from the speakers. It was an old song, the same one she and F. had listened to more than ten years earlier, sitting in the kitchen at dawn, when they had talked about whether they should have a child. And yet, as G. receded down the corridor, a strange feeling filled N. The man who had never been the boy who bought her whipped cream in a cone after their first date, who had not known the old kitchen and with whom she had never travelled anywhere, had brought something to life inside her that she had already forgotten she missed. She did not know whether it felt good to feel this way.

“Aren’t you coming?” F. jolted her out of this mixed state, holding the door through which the boys had already run outside.

G. stood around in the wardrobe department, examining the jacket in his hand—as if he had forgotten what it was and what it was for. The crew surged around him, someone shouted his name from the other end of the corridor, someone else was already talking about the next day’s scene. He knew that when he stepped out of the studio, screaming teenage girls would surround him. He would smile, sign things, pose for selfies, as always. He did it by routine, yet at that moment he was incapable of moving. Over the years he had perfected how to step from one world into another. How to take off one role when filming ended and put on another at home. The gears turned, things worked, and he knew exactly when to show which face. Except that what he had experienced beside N. could not be, and he did not want it to be, left between the walls of the sets. They spoke lines written in advance, other people adjusted their clothes, the lights, their movements. But what had happened between the two of them in the meantime had long since ceased to fit on the pages of any script.

N. was the one he did not act for. N. was the one who did not act for him.

Except N. had gone, and for the first time in his life G. did not know how to walk through a door if N. was not waiting behind it.

At the other end of the city, N. was meanwhile peeling her little boy out of his coat while F. slipped into his slippers.

“What did you say, where’s the car key?”

“In the pocket of your blue jacket.” It was there. F. hung it in its place and went to wash his hands. When he came out of the bathroom, he ruffled the little boy’s hair and kissed N. on the cheek.

“Thanks.” He sat down on the sofa and reached for the remote control. “When are we having dinner?” But he was no longer paying attention to the answer. He put on a cartoon; the screen sucked him in together with the child.

N. went into the kitchen. Clean dishes in the dishwasher, plates on the sideboard. She automatically straightened one of the mugs on the shelf because its handle was not facing the same way as the others. She opened the fridge to take out and heat up the precooked dinner; meanwhile her gaze fell on the cheese, and suddenly her chest tightened.

She always bought extra cheese so there would still be some left for Friday dinner even if G. picked at it during the week.

F. entered the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” N. closed the refrigerator.

F. smiled. “You always say that.”

G.’s voice sounded so sharply inside N. that she had to force herself not to turn around and look behind her. If you want to, you’ll tell me what’s wrong. I’m here.

F. peeked under the lid, then cut a slice of bread. He always did this. Ten minutes before dinner he was about to die of hunger, so he gobbled down a few bites of whatever was within reach. He did not get impatient, always thanked her for dinner, and often did the washing-up afterwards too. He could be relied upon. He set the table, paid the insurance, organized family trips, and played pirates with his son.

N. watched him spread butter on the bread and swallow the bites almost without chewing. As he had done almost every evening for more than sixteen years. At first she had seen passion in it; she had thought F. devoured life with the same enthusiasm. Then she realized he was incapable of slowing down: he was so wound up at work that even sitting at the table he was rushing. For a long time she had tried to convince him that it was not good for his stomach; later, the way he ate merely irritated her.

And yet there had been a time when F. too had known her tiny details. He knew how she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking. When she smiled in the middle of a sentence because something genuinely touched her. Which socks were her favorite.

F. noticed that she was looking at him.

“Shall I do something?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine,” N. replied, stirring the cabbage. “Ten minutes and we can eat.”

F. no longer heard. He put in his earphones and listened to something on his phone, as he often did.

“Help your mother set the table,” he called to his son, and although the child grumbled, he picked up the plates.

“How was filming today? What’s wrong with you?” F. asked at the table.

“Nothing,” N. said after a moment’s silence.

“Can I go again tomorrow?” the child asked his father eagerly. N. was already opening her mouth, then closed it without a word. F. answered something. The two guys carried on talking to each other, and no one asked her anything anymore. The two guys talked to each other, laughed, and N. laughed with them. Her laughter rang hollow, as if she were playing a role that did not fit her. The boys noticed nothing, and before this it had never even occurred to her this way. F. put his hand on hers; N. flinched.

“What?”

“Earth calling Mum.” F. winked at the boys. “Third time I’m asking whether you want some water.”

“Yes, please. That’s kind of you.” F. stood up and took a bottle out of the fridge. “The other one,” N. said automatically.

“Does it matter?”

“Take the opened one. I only just put the new one in, it isn’t cold yet.”

F. put one back, took out the other, poured her some, and smiled at her meanwhile.

“Where would I be without you?” he said, as he had so many times before, with genuine appreciation in his voice.

F. meant it seriously, which was why it hurt so much. He loved her; N. had never doubted that. She saw it in the way he looked at the boys, the way he repaired the dripping tap, the way he organized the summer holiday every year. Only somewhere along the way he had stopped asking further questions. “Nothing” and “everything’s fine” had slowly become complete answers between them. F. sat opposite her, their son enthusiastically explaining something about school. She asked questions, laughed, reached over to free the napkin from beneath the child’s elbow. Every movement was familiar. The same movements with which she had kept their life running for sixteen years.

At night N. quietly got out of bed and stood in the bedroom doorway, looking at the man with whom she had once fallen in love. The boy who used to walk across the city to her at night because he did not want to wait until morning. The man with whom she had planned a child sitting on a kitchen stool, and who could tell from a single glance when he needed to move closer to her.

She looked at his place, for he had disappeared long ago. There was no exact date. He had slowly faded as they wandered through everyday life. Which came first, neither of them knew anymore: work, bills, the child, things to do, exhaustion. With one unnoticed step after another they strayed from the path they had wanted to walk together, until finally they had gone so deep into the thicket that they could barely even hear each other, and had long since stopped seeing each other.

This made her think of G. again, which she did not want. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that did not help either; G.’s voice, gaze, touch vibrated inside her with crystal clarity.

“When I get lost in a role, you still know where I am, and you put me back where I belong.”

It was a script written in advance, of course. And yet something had been born within it that neither of them could have acted. The rehearsed role suddenly became raw, naked words. Words in which they themselves were there. And perhaps that was why they wanted to say them again and again: because at last they did not disappear into the air, but reached someone who truly heard them and answered them.

Over sixteen years N. had learned to preserve her family, the order, everything around them that worked. The small things their life was made of. And they had not spoken about the big things for so long that she no longer even knew how to begin. Whether there were still enough words, desire or strength left in them.

Her finger hesitated above her phone. She did not know whether she wanted to write at all, and if she did, whom the words would be for. Perhaps him. Perhaps only herself.

The cursor blinked patiently on the small screen. One word that would change everything. The word still unwritten.