I turn a few pages in Crime and Punishment, jot down a few sentences in my notebook. From time to time I look up, especially when I saw some movement behind the glass door of the adult section. I deliberately chose a spot in the reading room where I could see it. I’ve been sitting here for an hour, but only a few students and librarians make up the sparse traffic. When I arrived, I went in to get this book to analyze and some fantasies to take home – but he was nowhere to be found.
What if I’m in the wrong section?
Go in and look again!
No. I have to concentrate on my essay. At least I’m not depressed by Mum’s presence here.
Only Devin’s.
I chew on the end of my pen. What if he doesn’t work today?
Come on… If he wanted to dump me, he’d have done it by now. Anyway, he said he was looking forward to Monday.
I’m looking forward to it too. In fact, I couldn’t wait for it. That’s the real reason I came here, while I pretended to Mum that I was going to the mall with Mandy.
I write a few lines.
A black and white silhouette drifts across the edge of my vision and I immediately look up. Our eyes meet. I wave at him, but he’s carrying books, so he just nods with a smile and walks away, his white hair floating like a veil behind him. My heart leaps from my chest to my throat.
I’m sure he’ll come out to see me soon.
My teeth chatter on the plastic.
The hand of the wall clock clicks quietly.
Why isn’t he coming?
I want to go after him… But I don’t want to hold him up. He must be busy…
What if he’s not?
It was too much to come here. Especially today, when I know he’s working. Like a pushy, annoying bitch who has a nervous breakdown when she has to spend three whole days without her boyfriend.
Concentrate on the essay!
I’m reading the labelled paragraph, but the words don’t make a sentence. Why am I torturing myself? Even David’s sweatshirt can’t protect me from this madness. I should go home.
And deprive myself of hope?
“Can I help you?” Oh, the voice that touched my soul.
It still does.
A shy voice answers, but I don’t understand what it says. The girl is shifting from one foot to the other. The curve of her eyes and the way she was dressed made it clear that she is a foreign student. She is probably being directed to someone who can speak to her… But Devin spontaneously switches to her language, the girl’s face lights up and she follows him into the bookshelf maze.
There, she can walk behind him… smell his perfume… admire the way the light plays on his hair…
My nails, bitten short, whiten on the pen, dig into the stamp, leaving a permanent mark.
He is so kind to her… Because it’s his job. I wonder what they talked about? What did he tell her?
What if he invites others to coffee too?
Maybe I should really listen to my mother and lose a few kilos…
Soon he reappears on the other side of the glass wall as his colleague at the counter stands up and waves him over. A young woman, her face freckled, her blonde-brown hair is tidy, her blouse and skirt are loose but cut to accentuate her slender body. She looks lovely, more than that, she just glows. She looks familiar from somewhere. Maybe because she’s served me more than once. Why had I never noticed how beautiful she is?
Probably because she wasn’t talking to Devin. She wasn’t smiling at him, blushing at his words. The way Devin looks at her… It’s as if he knows exactly why she’s so enthusiastic and doesn’t mind. In fact, he enjoys it. The gestures, the way he moves, the tenderness when he pats her on the back…
I can almost see them laughing together in Once Upon A Time.
I stare at the paper as if I could immerse myself in it. Whatever he’s doing, I don’t want to see it.
Dostoyevsky and the polyphonic novel.
Light, elegant steps, the smell of cinnamon and cardamom. Too close.
“Did you miss me?” He squeezes my shoulder. For a moment I forgot to breathe.
Am I dreaming or has he really come to see me?
“I like studying here. When I manage to trick Mum with an alibi.”
“Dostoyevsky?” When he leans over me from behind, a few white tufts fall on the notebook, but he immediately adjusts them.
“Yes…” I groan in confusion. Now I definitely look like a geek.
“May I?” He reaches for the book and the chair next to me at the same time.
He sits down and carefully runs his long fingers through the book. What beautiful, well-groomed hands. Most girls go to a manicurist for such almond-shaped nails. But there’s something unusual about them… It took me a few seconds to notice: they weren’t divided into white and pink, and there was no crescent at the base of the nail bed – it’s all a uniform ivory. I wonder if are they real? It’s hard to imagine him doing fake nails…
“Maybe it’s time to read it again,” he says quietly, so as not to disturb the other readers in the room.
“Do you like it?” I raise an eyebrow.
“It used to be one of my favourites. How was it?”
“Pretty good, for compulsory literature.”
“That didn’t sound very convincing,” he smiles.
“It starts slowly… And while I like psychological descriptions, putting all the character’s rambling thoughts down on paper is a bit much.” I scribble a flower on the edge of the paper. My hand is shaking.
“I think that’s what makes it real. I can get so involved that I almost become one with the protagonist.”
“I don’t know…” Am I really starting a debate about his favourite book? Yes, I am. Only because he made me wait. “I often found Raskolnikov’s thoughts so odd. He killed a loan shark, did he really think he can get away with it? With a clear conscience? In fact, he tells himself that he has done a noble deed because he is ‘extraordinary’.”
“Do you condemn him?”
“I can understand his circumstances, his misery, his reasons, but still… to kill someone, and then a completely innocent person too… Of course, there was nothing else he could do at the time, but no wonder he was “punished” for it.”
He put the novel down, his hand going to the stole lying on the corner of the table. My freshly borrowed books, all dark fantasy, full of eroticism… My face burns. I should have put them away a long time ago.
“Lorian Ain’Dal: A Taste of Mortality”, he turns it over as if reading the blurb, but from his tone I suspect he knows the story of the cruel fae king. “You seem to like murderers after all”, his thighs brush against mine under the table, his height preventing him from sitting comfortably. My cheeks glow, just like down there. I cross my legs.
“I-I love dark characters. It’s fascinating to try to analyse why they are the way they are, to imagine what it would take to change them…”
“And what did you find?”
“It is often loneliness, trauma, misunderstanding that brings them to a low point. But if they find someone worthy, they can change for the better.”
“So… all bad guys can be fixed?” His mouth smiles, his eyes don’t.
“I think so.”
“What if they are irredeemable?”
“There’s no such thing. Just lack of motivation, time, untreated problems like depression…
Dad… Could he have recovered?
I’ll never know.
“Raskolnikov’s character also develops a lot over the course of the story. How does he differ from the fae king?”
“I don’t know… He’s so… human. Murder is different in fantasy. And different in reality. I think.”
“You find it scary.”
“A little bit. It’s one thing to taunt, to beat, to torture, to blackmail, it’s another to take a life. It’s something… irreversible.”
“I know what you mean”, the peaceful, innocent depth of his black eyes draws me closer. I want to fall deep into them.
He stands up, a sad smile on his face.
“I promised my colleague I’d help with the inventory. Have fun with the polyphonic novel and the fae king!” He adds: “Let me know if you get stuck, I’ll be in there”, as if he knows that this offer will dispel the jealousy that has been building up inside me. I can always go to him, so he has no secrets from me…