The Hemingway Game

Chapter 2-3

“So I shouldn’t wear a beard?”

“Oh, do what you want! But don’t you see what I see? You’re looking in the mirror! Are you pleased with that? I mean… take a good look, your face is a cross between a sea captain and a musketeer. And you know what a cross between sea captain and musketeer is – a fool! A pretentious fool, actually.”

“Sanya, it grows in patches for some reason, I just wanted to try it… that’s all. Once we get to wherever we’re going, I’ll shave it off. Don’t worry so much.”

“So let it grow in patches, it grows the way it grows. Otherwise, shave the whole thing clean, so there wouldn’t be anything. But these mustaches, goatees, various sideburns are just strange. They’re simply awful. Think about it, a person has a face, and thank God for that! A nose or mouth, whatever it may be, it’s there and that’s that. But then some so-and-so grows a mustache and fusses over it, and when he looks in the mirror – he is pleased. Understand? Pleased. If he weren’t pleased, he would shave it off and change its shape. But no! He likes this exact one, and therefore he likes himself. Seriously likes himself, no willy-nilly. The more self-important and serious this so-and-so is, the better groomed his mustache and beard. But these sea captain little beards… As in, I am so intelligent, but romantic and free. All these perverted goatees… Imagine, they dye them, Max, actually dye them. f*****g Conquistadores!” As I spoke, I was becoming more incensed and drove faster. “And what about those comb over people. They grow their long sweaty feathers on one side and start brushing them across the bald spot. It’s sick! Sick! And because of this, their bald spot looks like some grotesque boil with a little powder on top. I can’t stand it! Just trim it short and forget it… Worst thing about it, they actually look at themselves in the mirror! And stay pleased. It’s incomprehensible!”

“If I said I’ll shave it, then I’ll shave it. I am not arguing. You don’t think I get it? Beard, no beard – same s**t. I just wanted to have a little fun. But I guess jokes like this don’t pass in Moscow.”

Max was smiling, he wasn’t upset, but for some reason I was really wired.

That’s when my phone rang. Here we go. A workday giving its first signal. Except for the past month, each phone ring made my heart flutter with hope… What if it’s Her? What a shame that She knows my number. Meaning, not that she knows it, but that she has it… Or had it. Either way, I had given it to her. Why did I do that? As soon as I gave her my number, right away I started to wait for her to call. It’s awful! And that’s on top of the fact that I also wanted to call Her. The fiery digits of her number burned inside my brain…

When I met her again, there, at the opening of a beauty shop… she saw me first. I was talking with someone and then looked sideways and saw her smile. She was already looking at me and smiling. And then… we simply said hello, recalled the time we met back in the summer. Meaning, we simply said something to each other about that time. Then somebody distracted me and she stepped away to talk to someone else. That entire time I’d use any excuse to come up to Her or the people She was speaking with. I searched the place carefully, but didn’t find the man who was with her back in the summer. If he wasn’t there, I had to find out who she came with. She couldn’t have been alone.

I still clearly remember how casually, even sensibly, as in not without good reason, I asked for her phone number. Right away she gave me her business card, stretched it out, then, saying she was sorry, pulled out a pen and wrote her cellphone number on the other side. I did the same… And, from that very moment, was waiting for her to call.

That night she was alone. Then somebody called her, she said: “Yes, yes, I am on my way out.” It happened that I helped her find her coat, helped to put it on and walked her to the exit. She looked back for a moment, made a kind of half turn, smiled and gently rolled her hand. The result was an almost imperceptible gesture of farewell. She walked out. With fine, fine little skips, she ran up to the car parked outside. A man came out, not the one from last summer. He’d been sitting behind the wheel and came out to open the front door for her. She got in, he shut the door, went back to the driver seat, and there, inside, it looked as though they briefly kissed. And left. The man was dressed in something dark, perhaps even black. A jacket or a short raincoat. It was a nice car, though not the kind that comes with a driver. A man driving a car like this had to be its owner. Of course, who else?

What a woman!

I had Her business card. I brought it up to my eyes. It had Her name!

I was so afraid it would have the name of some modeling agency, or to find out that she was a designer. It would also have been terrifying to glean something about diet food or something to do with the law. She couldn’t have been a journalist. That much was obvious.

No! She worked at a travel agency. Large and impressive. She was in charge of flights. I was delighted. Airplanes – how wonderful! I kissed the business card.

Now it was possible to quickly find out who invited her to this event… to get more information…

By the time I was on my way home, I knew enough about her. She was friends with one of the owners of the beauty salon, as well as a buddy of mine who worked on the place, he also knew her a little. They said that she was very nice, unmarried, that she had an eight or nine year-old daughter. They also said that she was very, very kind.

An eight or nine year-old daughter. Imagine that. To me she seemed both youthful and mature at the same time. It was something I felt, that she was older than me. Although that probably wasn’t the case. My son is ten. But she seemed older than me. Because she was so beautiful. To me very beautiful women seem… older. And she was magnificent...

I called her in three days. How I survived those days isn’t all too clear. One must not call sooner than that. Even that was too soon. But I couldn’t stand to wait any longer.