When Men Are Planning...

WHEN MEN ARE PLANNING…

Blessed are the obsessed, for they see the face of their God.

While the rest will always be searching for meaning, reason, truth, and proof, they don’t need any of it. Living in the now, they create their meaning and truth at their will, as they go.

I’m one of those, and I was blessed with the obsession twice: first with Music, then — with Love.

If the first blessing will be with me until my dying breath, the other one is eternal only in my mind. In real life, it is as whimsical and fleeting as a mirage in a desert. A moment ago, I was immersed in it, moment later — was it ever there?

The problem is — that mirage makes my life real. And without it — my life is a mirage, an empty shell of nothing. And I don’t want it.

So, where should I start our almost Greek Drama, somewhere in a middle, the beginning or the end?

***

It was my last recital in Milan, and just in a few days it would be only us in an unbelievably turquoise waters. We both felt exhausted after five months of nonstop practicing, practicing, recitals, rehearsals with orchestras, concert tours, planning Summer School, and more and more practicing. Chancel was complaining about his right-hand strained condition, so, we already decided when we’d take a break, and already booked our “Heaven on Earth” — two weeks’ vacation in Indonesia in Raja Ampat — no piano, even if you want it!

We started chanting this name on the phone several days ago, not even sure if we pronounced it right. The destination promised to venture us to the “of-the-beaten-path heaven”. Who could desire anything more?

But you know what Gods are doing when men are planning, right?

I was so happy when after the recital, I made it to the last train for the night to Paris. The original plan was for the first train in the morning, from which Chancel was going to pick me up. He came to Paris two days ago, to check on his parents, meet with his agent, and, as he told me, cut the time of waiting for me.

It was early morning, and I even didn’t consider calling. I hoped to get him, still in bed, warm, cozy, squealing with surprise. I opened the door quietly and already felt his lips on my mouth and his demanding hands all over my body. Feeling impatient arousing lifting in me, I started exhaling quietly, “Ba-a-by, ba-a-by.”

The door to the bedroom was half-open. And before I, still smiling opened it completely, I already knew exactly what was behind it: it’s how the passion and sex sounded like. I wanted to close it, but my hands acted against the brain signal and opened it for my eyes which didn’t want to see but couldn’t resist seeing. In my mind, I already imagined it a few times, but now I had a chance to see it for real. “Seeing is believing, seeing is believing” — a sticky phrase glued to my brain like chewing gum to the bottom of the shoes, while I was backing up with my eyes still on them. Then, finally, he saw me, and screamed like in pain, “Marsey, Marsey!”

His scream woke me up. I finally managed to turn around and would be gone in a few seconds, and maybe as usual, like an ostrich hiding my head in the sand, successfully pretending what I saw — never happened. But he jumped off the bed and crying “Marsey, Marsey!” still aroused, tried to get me into his arms.

I couldn’t let him hug me with his penis erected not for me and with the thought that if I was a few minutes later, he now would cry not mine but Oliver’s name. So, I protected myself from his body touching me and slightly pushed him away. But since his hands were still covering his erection, he fell like a tree in a forest — without any resistance, straight on his back, hitting and shattering glass-top table. That was a picture from a nightmare I had never seen, but it happened in real life.

As soon as he was on the floor, I knelled next to him, cutting myself on those million pieces of glass that was all around and covering him, hugged his limp body and said, “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right. Everything is going to be okay.”

He didn’t respond and kept his eyes shut, so I repeated, “Look at me, baby. It’s over. We’ll be okay.”

I wanted to clean his eyes from his hair, and I took my hand hugging his head and at this point, I saw that something was wrong — my hand was bright red. The first thought was — how did I manage to get so many cuts? Did I hit the vein?

The next was the sight of Oliver, with his phone jumping in his hands and his voice raised two octaves higher , “We need an ambulance right away!”

Another sticky phrase, you can’t un-ring the bell, burrowed the way into my brain, but I killed it, yelling, “Shut the fuck up!”

Oliver took it personally and cautiously disappeared behind the bedroom door.

I saw Chancel’s eyes were still closed, and his lips were getting blue. To warm him up, I hugged his head again and on the back of it, I discovered something sharp that didn’t belong, sticking out of it. I wanted to see badly what it was, but I saw on a beautiful parkette of our living room pool of blood reaching me. And my mind said No to it and quietly left my body.

Somewhere in Paris Hospital

First — sounds: something whirling, lightly clicking, somehow comforting.

Then — sight: pitch dark, just a bluish monitor on the left, slightly disturbing.

Then — a touch of pain: my right hand is handcuffed to my steel bed. What the hell? My left — with two fingers in splints. Again, what the hell? Both of my hands being disabled for me, as a pianist,who uses them to live is a shocking discovery. I raise them in front of my eyes, trying to understand, and it’s when it hits me: the recent reality crushes with the force of a thundering waterfall of images firing through my brain, bumping into each other, competing for attention, none of them are good:

­­­­I clutch Chancel’s limp body, with his eyes closed in my arms.

— My eyes are not on him but on the pool of blood that is getting bigger, reaching me.

— Somebody is screaming in an annoying, drilling voice

— “Don’t you dare! He is okay!” Couldn’t it be me, could it?

— The sharp pain is too much to bear, and the last snapshot flickers in my shutting down mind:

— My hands with his blood on them — now empty…

I’m not ready for whatever might come next and start begging, praying silently: “O God, or whoever is up there, send me a dream with him in my arms, send me a dream.”

***

Mozart found its way through the cosmic static and the maze of my mind and crystalized in the crisp air, setting the perfect background for our idyllic scene. I was chasing Chancel, who jumped from cloud to cloud in a graceful, slow motion His long hair, in the shades of ripe wheat, swept by the wind circled his head like a magic halo. His slim body looked almost as white as the clouds surrounding it.

The sun blazed right in my face, but I just winced from time to time, not taking my eyes from his silhouette because I chased my Holy Grail, my Promised Land, my Galatea. I got annoyed with myself for being too slow, always a couple of moments behind. But then he turned around, beamed with a smile, and his open arms invited me to my Paradise called Chancel. Finally, I caught up with him, and we melted into each other.

A strong wind came from nowhere, picked up our cloud, and sent it into a whirlpool motion down, down, with a force that sounded like a ringing bell!

***

The sharp sound of the phone right next to me wakes me up.

Christina’s face is so close to mine that I can hardly see it. Only when she is moving away to answer the call I see it drenched in tears. She whispers to me, “It’s from Chancel’s hospital”

She is on the phone, listening and kissing my handcuffed hand, swaying a little up and down. I’m desperately trying to read her face. After she hangs up, I’m begging for mercy, “Please, don’t! I don’t want to hear it.”

She cleans her eyes and tells me, “The Little Devil — “

I closed her lips with my hand, but she kissed it, and moved it away from her mouth saying, “— he’ll be okay. He survived. They were concerned about huge blood loss and concussion. But the Little Satan is indestructible! He came around and was coherent, recalled everything in detail, only got too agitated and started screaming your name so they sedated him back to sleep.”

I closed my eyes. Only now I’ve got a sense how tense, frozen my body was. An instant relief flooded my every cell. He is alive. I didn’t need any details. It was the only thing that mattered. I started breathing again. For some time, I felt nothing but that relief. But then, garbled, rumbling fragments of my dislocated thoughts started to surface, and one of them startled me as unreal, the one which couldn’t belong to me. I tried to disregard it as nonsense, but my sweating, shaking body made me admit it.

The same cells of mine that celebrated his life, now screamed, protested, and refused to consider embracing that life with him again, to continue the story of Us, as impossible, “Forget about it! No way! To survive it, you must be not that wounded, crushed, emptied man you are now.”

I pulled the blanket to cover my head, grounded my teeth, swallowed nausea coming too close, and roared at those thoughts aloud. I was cornered: I couldn’t not to be in this world without him and couldn’t be there with him! Oh, God why have you forsaken me? But I only heard a Greek Drama chorus that sounded strangely familiar, “Forget all hope. Now you are doomed forever!”

Christina gently pulled the blanket off my face, looked into my burning eyes, and asked, "What is it, my love, are you in pain? I will call the nurse, yes? Do you want me to close the shades?”

I asked, trying hard to handle my cotton mouth, “May I have a water, please?”

When Christina returned with water, I realized I needed her help to drink it. I lifted my hand with fingers in a cast and looked at her for the explanation.

“Well, when paramedics tried to take Chancel away, you came around, didn’t want to let him go and hold his body so tight that they had to break your fingers. You probably should sue them for this, it’s a crime to leave you out of commission for months! But it was a crucial measure: he was losing too much blood.”

Lifting my handcuffed hand, I asked, “What is this nonsense?”

“Oh, the police arrived almost together with the paramedics. They couldn’t get a picture of what happen, Oliver was hysterical, you were drenched in Chancel’s blood, and didn’t make any sense. So, they did whatever they could. But now everything is okay. Oliver gave his testimony that it was an accident, right? Is it the way you remember? All your charges were dropped, and you would be released. The detective is on his way to get your statement and uncuff you. I’ll wait here for him and then I can drive you to Chancel’s hospital. Is it what you want, yes, my love?”

She chattered nervously, non-stop. “Tell me you are okay. Do you remember anything? Why are you so quiet? Say something!”

I had so many questions that my head was spinning, but all of them had to wait until Christina would answer the first one: what happened to her always flat stomach? I knew it wasn’t the case of non-complimentary dressing or overeating. I carefully put my handcuffed hand on her now rounded waist and asked, afraid to breathe, “Are you —, is it ours?”

She smiled and became very quiet. And her answer made all my urgent questions not important at all, “Since I’m not a Virgin Mary, it’s supposed to be yours.”

MY LETTER TO CHANCEL

My love!

I know you are furious with me, but before getting into a frantic state, please, listen and try to understand what I want to say.

Do you remember, a long time ago we watched together a documentary about wildlife of the North Pole?

A mother bear with her two newborn babies, to survive must travel with them long and treacherous way to the sea. The babies are still tiny and not well equipped for this challenge. One cub is keeping up with her, while another — is getting more and more behind. She is checking on him, looking back, waiting. But then she glances over her shoulder one last time at him, the baby who will not make it, and proceeds, without looking back with the one — who will. The mother makes her choice between three dead and just one. Such a brutal natural selection reality wakes up all your senses.

You tried to hide your bitter tears, and said, hugging me, “I know you’d never abandon me like that! Whatever happened!” And you were right, I knew then — I never would! Whatever happened!

Never say never. Because now I’m finding myself almost in a position that mother-bear was facing: I must make an unthinkable choice: between my already big boy and my still not born child.

Yes, my love! In the short few months, you and I might become fathers. Just saying this makes my head spin. It’s my dream come true the way I never expected it. It’s hard for me, as usual, to dissect you from myself, so it doesn’t matter who is father is in a strictly physical sense.

It was conceived by both of us, and I wouldn’t love that little girl more, or less, knowing the truth. She’ll always be OUR child to me. But I assume all the responsibilities and the legal side of it.

You don’t have to worry about anything.

Now, the hard truth, unbearable truth. I got scared, reexamining my life before this life-altering event. Because I realized I’m not ready to be the father our little daughter deserves. From now on, I can’t live with my eyes wide shot, I can’t deceive myself and gamble, playing Russian roulette with my life.

It means — I can’t be with you anymore. How, otherwise, I would be able to teach her self-respect, self-sufficiency, resilience, honesty, wisdom, and truth if I don’t have it in me?

You know, I will love you for the rest of my days for who you are and who you always will be.

You are my eternal Casta Diva. This will never change, but my priorities and responsibilities must, because I don’t belong only to myself anymore. If something happened and I’m gone, who would protect my little girl, who would teach her all those things that only father should?

My time is up.

So, now, like that mother bear, already from a distance, last time I give you a glance over my shoulder. It hurts to breathe, but I know that I’m making the right choice between potential three victims. and just one.

I’m making this choice only because I know that, unlike that bear cub who was left behind, you’ll be able to make it, you’ll survive. Because you are the strongest and the most resilient person I know.

So long, my love. I hope the time will come and you’ll understand and forgive me.

PS: In the name of our love and respect for each other, please don’t try to find me.

Yours, Marson.