Chapter 14 — Almost

The problem with things you almost did was that they didn’t exist enough to be dealt with rationally.

You couldn’t file them away.

You couldn’t undo them.

You couldn’t say they had happened.

Still less that they hadn’t changed anything.

But I didn’t know that yet.

That evening, I only thought the week had a strange texture.

Liora’s championship had entered my calendar.

My exhibition was progressing, which meant it was becoming more real and therefore more alarming.

The balcony was secure.

Eugène had lost access to his international career.

The rabbit continued to live in a state of calm alert, as though he knew things about all of us but refused to cooperate with the authorities.

And I was trying to work.

Trying.

Important word.

On the screen, the exhibition images had finally been chosen.

Finally.

More or less.

Five files in one folder.

Three I almost stood behind.

Two I looked at with the feeling that I had let someone into my apartment while I was asleep.

The drawing of the studio was there.

The one Liora had said belonged in the exhibition.

I hadn’t included it because she had said so.

Obviously.

I had included it because she had been right.

An extremely unpleasant distinction.

I zoomed in on the light beside the couch.

Too yellow.

I cooled it down.

Too cold.

I undid the change.

Then saved.

Once.

Twice.

The third time, Eugène jumped onto the desk.

He placed one paw on the drawing tablet with destructive precision.

A black line cut across the image.

I remained still.

“You just contributed to the exhibition.”

He blinked.

The black line ran directly above the couch.

Like a crack.

Like an artistic decision made by eighteen and a half pounds of fur and complete absence of remorse.

“No.”

I undid it.

Eugène sat in front of the screen.

“You are not my art director.”

He moved his tail.

“Not even on a volunteer basis.”

He looked toward the glass door.

The Plexiglas panel faintly reflected the lamp.

He had stared at it frequently since its installation, with silent resentment. I knew he hadn’t given up. He was only waiting for the humans to lower their guard.

Which, statistically, would eventually happen.

A sound rose behind the wall.

Not loud.

A door.

One voice.

Then another.

Liora.

I recognized her immediately.

But there was something else in her voice.

Not the end-of-shift exhaustion.

Not the physical exhaustion of the stadium.

Something tighter.

She was speaking quickly.

Too quickly.

Even for her.

I removed my headphones.

There was no music playing through them.

As usual now.

A shameful habit.

Her voice crossed the wall in fragments.

The words were impossible to understand.

Only the rhythm.

A sentence pitched higher.

A deep reply.

Her father.

Then Liora again.

Shorter.

A silence.

I looked at the wall.

There was nothing to see.

That was the principle of a wall.

Eugène turned his head too.

“Don’t pretend this interests you.”

He continued staring.

The conversation on the other side remained low for a few seconds, then moved away.

Footsteps.

A door.

Nothing else.

I left the headphones around my neck without putting them back on.

The file on the screen stared at me.

I closed the program.

Very professional.

I could continue later.

I stood, refilled Lapin’s water bowl, picked up a strand of hay beside the bookcase, then stopped in front of the guitar.

It was on its stand.

In its place.

Silent.

Since Liora had told me she could hear me, the guitar wasn’t quite the same object. It hadn’t become public.

Not really.

But it had gained another opening.

A leak in the wood.

I wasn’t playing for her.

I kept clarifying that to myself, which made the sentence less convincing every time.

I picked up the guitar.

The couch was still warm from Eugène, who had decided to return to the desk and supervise a more strategic area. I sat, rested the instrument against me, and played a few notes without choosing them.

Nothing constructed.

Simple chords.

The beginning of a melody.

Then the one that always returned.

The unfinished passage.

The gap in the middle.

I played quietly.

Not to fill the apartment.

Not to cross the wall.

To put something back in order inside my hands.

The beginning passed.

The silence.

The return.

Since the other evening, the gap bothered me less. It no longer looked like an error.

More like a place where I had to accept not forcing anything.

An irritating thought.

I played it again.

The silence held better.

I tried a variation.

Too clean.

I deleted it.

Mentally, at least.

The guitar didn’t save mistakes, which made it superior to many professional tools.

I began again.

The melody was almost there.

Not finished.

Not presentable.

Not useful.

But it held.

Someone knocked.

I stopped immediately.

The strings continued vibrating beneath my hand.

Eugène lifted his head.

The rabbit froze.

So did I.

Two knocks.

Less precise than her father’s.

Less lively than Liora’s usually were.

I placed the guitar on the couch.

Not on its stand.

Mistake.

Then I opened the door.

Liora stood there.

Dark sweatshirt, open jacket, hair half tied back, bag over one shoulder. She looked as though she had left a conversation too quickly and hadn’t managed to leave herself quite fast enough.

Her cheeks were slightly red.

Not from the cold.

Not from running.

She smiled as soon as she saw me.

Reflex.

The smile almost worked.

“Hi!”

“Hi.”

I looked at her face.

Then her bag.

Then her face again.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

Too quick.

“Okay.”

“No.”

She closed her eyes for a second, then exhaled.

“I mean, yes. Well. Complicated question. Bad start.”

“Do you want to come in?”

The question escaped before I could examine it.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

The hallway seemed to be listening.

“Two minutes,” she said.

“Of course.”

She stepped inside.

The door closed softly behind her.

Eugène immediately appeared in the middle of the studio, as though his name had been added to the agenda.

Liora looked down at him.

“Hello, diplomatic prisoner.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

“He looks dignified.”

“He’s preparing legal action.”

She crouched slightly, but not too far.

Her allergy was beginning to learn caution, even if her admiration had made no progress.

Eugène moved forward, then stopped a foot away from her.

They looked at each other.

“I almost miss him,” she said.

“He is literally standing in front of you.”

“Yes, but he used to have access to a clandestine life.”

“He lost an illegal privilege.”

“Great figures are often brought down by reform.”

I smiled.

So did she.

Then her smile faded more quickly than usual.

She stood and looked around.

Her gaze fell on the guitar lying on the couch.

Not put away.

Visible.

Traitor.

“Were you playing?”

I tensed.

Not much.

Enough.

“A little.”

“Did I interrupt you?”

“No.”

“Aurèl.”

“Yes?”

“I interrupted you.”

“A little.”

“Sorry.”

She said it simply.

Without a joke.

I didn’t know what to do with her apologies when they weren’t wrapped in energy.

“It’s fine.”

She placed her bag beside the door, then remained standing with her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt.

Her gaze returned to the guitar.

“You can keep going.”

I looked at her.

“No.”

Immediate answer.

Solid.

Predictable.

She nodded.

“Okay.”

No insistence.

No negotiation.

No provocative smile.

Okay.

It was obviously the worst possible response.

Because she respected the door too well.

And a badly organized part of me would have preferred her to push a little, so I would have had a reason to resist.

She looked at Eugène.

Then Demitrius.

Then the glass door.

“Can I just stay here for a minute?”

I didn’t know why that sentence did more than the others.

Maybe because she wasn’t asking for anything entertaining.

Nothing active.

Not coffee.

Not a drawing.

Not a conversation.

Only to stay.

“Yes.”

She sat on the edge of the couch.

Not against the back.

As always.

Ready to leave.

Or ready to pretend she was.

The guitar lay between us on the cushion. She looked at it but didn’t touch it.

I remained standing for a second.

Then sat in the chair beside the desk.

Too far away.

Liora said nothing.

That silence was new.

Not heavy.

Not empty.

Simply present.

I watched her without really watching.

Her shoulders were lower. One hand rubbed the fabric of her sweatshirt near her wrist. She wasn’t trying to fill the studio with her voice.

That worried me more than her rapid sentences.

“Practice?” I asked.

She gave a small, humorless laugh.

“No. Well, yes. This morning. But just now it was more... family, regionals, organization, work, calf, ‘you should be careful,’ ‘you should perhaps reduce your hours,’ ‘you should sleep more,’ ‘you should listen to your father when he says you should sleep more.’”

“A lot of shoulds.”

“A lot.”

She ran both hands over her face.

“And the worst thing is, they aren’t wrong.”

“Always the main problem.”

“Yes.”

She lowered her hands.

Her eyes looked tired, but not with sleep.

More with accumulation.

With too many things being carried at once.

“My father is worried about the championship,” she said. “My mother is worried about my sleep. My coach is worried about my start. I’m worried I’m not worried enough about the right thing.”

“That’s a lot of worry inside one person.”

“I’m versatile.”

She attempted a smile.

It didn’t travel well.

I looked at the guitar.

Then her.

“Do you want tea?”

“No.”

“Water?”

“No.”

“A lettuce leaf? Demitrius recommends them.”

She smiled more successfully.

“Tempting.”

From his corner, Demitrius moved one ear, probably objecting to the use of his stock for diplomatic purposes.

The silence returned.

I stood without entirely knowing why and picked up the guitar.

Liora followed the movement with her eyes.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“Really.”

“I know.”

I sat again, this time on the couch.

Not very close.

Not far either.

The guitar across my lap formed an acceptable barrier.

An object between us.

Practical.

Reassuring.

Temporary.

“It isn’t a song,” I said.

“Okay.”

“It isn’t finished.”

“I know.”

“And if you comment too quickly, I’m throwing the instrument off the balcony.”

“The Plexiglas will get in the way.”

“I’ll find an angle.”

She raised both hands.

“I won’t say anything.”

“That’s worrying too.”

“I can’t win.”

“Welcome.”

A real little laugh escaped her.

Not for long.

But enough.

I placed my fingers on the strings.

My whole body suddenly seemed intensely aware of itself.

The position of my hands.

The breath inside my chest.

The couch beneath me.

Liora less than three feet away.

The fact that I had just refused, then agreed without her insisting.

I played.

Not loudly.

The beginning.

A few chords.

The melody.

The silence in the middle.

The return.

I didn’t look up.

Especially not.

I stared at my fingers, the sound hole, the wood, the small mark beside the bridge.

Useless details that kept me from watching Liora listen.

I stopped before the end.

There wasn’t really an end.

The final notes died inside the studio.

Eugène didn’t move.

Neither did Demitrius.

Liora said nothing.

Nothing at all.

It was unbearable.

I raised my eyes.

She was looking at the guitar, not me.

Her face had lost the quick expression that answered before the world had finished asking its question.

She looked calm.

But not calm like me.

Calm like someone standing at the edge of something so she wouldn’t damage it.

I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I spoke.

A frequent mistake.

“You said you wouldn’t say anything, but this is almost excessive.”

She looked up.

“I didn’t want to break it.”

Simple.

There.

Again.

I looked down at the strings.

“It wasn’t breakable.”

“Yes, it was.”

I didn’t answer.

She didn’t add anything.

This time, the silence didn’t make me want to pick up the guitar again.

It made me want to ask a question I didn’t have.

Or perhaps I had too many.

I rested the guitar against the other end of the couch.

The barrier disappeared.

Major strategic error.

The space between us revealed itself immediately.

Not enormous.

Not intimate in any official sense.

But less protected.

Liora tucked one leg beneath herself, then appeared to remember she wasn’t at home and placed her foot back on the floor.

“You can get comfortable,” I said.

“I am comfortable.”

“You’re sitting like someone waiting for evacuation clearance.”

She looked at her position.

“It’s your couch. I’m being careful.”

“Since when?”

“Since I became highly respectful.”

“So, tonight?”

“Exactly.”

She finally slid farther back against the couch.

The movement brought her closer.

Not much.

Enough for me to know.

I kept my eyes on the coffee table.

A very beautiful coffee table.

Interesting construction.

Flat surface.

No apparent romantic threat.

“Do you often play when you don’t know what to say?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Does it work?”

“It depends. Not particularly well right now.”

She smiled.

“Sorry.”

“You aren’t entirely responsible.”

“Only partly?”

“You brought an atmosphere with you.”

“An atmosphere?”

“Yes.”

“That’s vague.”

“You don’t have the face of someone who came to ask about Eugène.”

She looked at the cat.

Sensing his name, Eugène opened one eye.

“That was my excuse, though.”

“Increasingly unconvincing.”

“I need to diversify.”

“Probably.”

She rubbed her hands over her jeans.

“I don’t think I wanted to go back to my room.”

I didn’t answer too quickly.

“Why?”

She shrugged.

“Too many things inside it. My bag still unpacked. Notes I haven’t reviewed. My shoes still damp. The schedule on my desk. My time written on a sticky note because I had the very bad idea of recording it. And my calf continuing to exist even when I try to ignore it.”

I looked at her leg.

She noticed.

“It’s fine.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your eyes did.”

“They’re poorly behaved.”

She smiled, then her face settled again.

“And if I go back, I’ll either sleep or fail to sleep while thinking I should be sleeping. Both annoy me.”

“So you came to your neighbor’s apartment.”

“Perfectly rational choice.”

“Obviously.”

“Your studio is quiet.”

The sentence passed through me differently than expected.

I looked around.

The studio wasn’t actually that quiet.

Eugène was breathing too loudly.

Demitrius was chewing.

The fridge was humming.

The downstairs neighbor had probably just sneezed hard enough to alter the atmospheric pressure.

But yes.

Quiet existed differently here.

“People tell me that often,” I said.

“That your studio is quiet?”

“That I am.”

She turned toward me.

“You say that like it isn’t true.”

“It isn’t false.”

“But?”

“There’s always a but with you.”

“I’m an athlete. I like obstacles.”

I looked at my hands.

“People hear calm and sometimes translate it into anything they like.”

She didn’t answer.

I continued because the guitar had opened something, and now my sentences were escaping with less control.

A very bad instrument.

“Sad. Cold. Shy. Indifferent. Repressed. Afraid. I don’t know. As though not making much noise meant there was nothing inside.”

Liora was still.

Very still.

“And you?” she asked.

“Me what?”

“How do you translate it?”

I hadn’t expected the question.

I hadn’t prepared an answer.

Endangerment.

“I translate it as... I pay attention.”

She looked down at my hands.

Then raised her eyes.

“Yes.”

One word.

Again.

But this one didn’t close anything.

It only held the sentence with me.

The silence returned.

I heard her breathing.

Not loudly.

Not close to my ear.

Just enough.

She was looking at the coffee table now too.

“It’s the opposite for me,” she said.

Her voice was low.

“People tell me to slow down, but it often sounds like they mean something else.”

I turned slightly toward her.

She wasn’t looking at me.

“Too loud. Too fast. Too intense. Too exhausting. Too spontaneous. Too ‘Liora, breathe.’ Too ‘Liora, think first.’ Too ‘Liora, not now.’ Too much of everything, sometimes.”

She gave a small laugh.

Not a funny one.

“Even when people are right, it annoys me. Because they say slow down as though I’m calibrated wrong.”

The sentence remained inside the studio.

I thought of her on the track.

Her body wanting to attack.

Her face when the coach said not yet.

Her father, her mother, everything she carried quickly because perhaps staying still too long felt like letting things catch up with her.

I said none of it.

It would have been too much.

I only said:

“You aren’t calibrated wrong.”

She finally turned toward me.

Her face changed.

Almost imperceptibly.

“You aren’t absent,” she answered.

I remained still.

The sentence contained no dramatic verb.

No promise.

No confession.

It reached me anyway with indecent precision.

I looked into her eyes.

Mistake.

Or not.

They were darker in the studio’s low light.

Slower.

She looked at me without passing through me, without trying to make me speak faster, without filling the distance.

She was there.

Simply.

My body understood something before I did.

The space between us had become too small to remain neutral.

I felt the warmth of the couch.

The edge of my knee a few inches from hers.

Her hand resting on the cushion, fingers slightly curled.

The sleeve of her sweatshirt pushed back from her wrist.

A strand of hair beside her cheek.

The silence no longer felt like silence.

It felt like waiting.

I thought about kissing her.

No.

Too articulated.

I didn’t think first.

I understood that it was possible.

That the movement existed somewhere between us before either of us made it.

Liora lowered her eyes for a second.

Toward my mouth?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

My brain had no business turning itself into an expert on micro-movements at that particular moment.

It did anyway.

She raised her eyes again.

Her breathing changed.

Or mine did.

Maybe both.

The guitar lay beside us, silent.

Eugène was asleep.

Demitrius probably was too.

For once, the world seemed to possess the tact not to interfere.

I moved closer.

Very slightly.

Or she did.

Or the couch illegally reduced the distance.

I no longer knew.

Liora didn’t move away.

Her gaze lowered again, then returned to mine.

The room was too small.

Or exactly small enough.

I felt my heart in a useless place somewhere inside my throat.

Fine.

So this was it.

The moment when everything we had avoided, diverted, and filed under practical categories, neighbors, animals, noise, stadium, exhibition, guitar, suddenly lost its cover.

I raised my hand.

Not all the way to her.

Only a movement.

Enough for me to know I was about to do something.

Liora didn’t move.

She was close.

Too close for me to pretend I didn’t understand.

And then Eugène jumped.

Not onto us.

No.

Obviously, that would have been too simple.

He jumped onto the guitar.

The instrument, resting crookedly against the couch, produced an appalling sound.

A crushed, metallic, enormous chord.

Something between a wardrobe collapsing and the complaint of a prehistoric animal.

Liora startled so violently that her knee struck the coffee table.

I made an absurd movement toward the guitar, then toward her, then toward Eugène, without managing to help anyone.

The rabbit bolted into his cardboard tunnel.

The tunnel tipped onto its side.

Eugène remained standing on the strings for one second, perfectly shocked by the sonic consequences of his own weight.

Then he climbed down from the couch with the dignity of a misunderstood musician.

Silence.

An enormous one.

Then Liora covered her mouth.

Her shoulders shook.

“Sorry,” she said.

She burst out laughing.

Not loudly.

But completely.

The laughter folded her in half, slightly nervous, slightly exhausted, entirely impossible to contain.

I looked at her.

Then the guitar.

Then Eugène, already settling beside the glass door as though he had never been involved in anything.

Eventually, I laughed too.

Not for long.

But long enough for the tension to break.

No.

Not break.

Shift.

It was still there.

Beneath the laughter.

Different.

Liora wiped the corner of one eye.

“He really chose his moment.”

“He’s experimenting with music.”

“That was extremely experimental.”

“It was sabotage.”

“Did he save you from something?”

The sentence escaped inside the laughter.

Then remained.

Liora almost stopped smiling.

So did I.

The studio caught its breath.

I didn’t answer immediately.

“Maybe,” I said.

My voice was lower than expected.

She looked at me.

The laughter had left her eyes shining.

Her smile returned, but with less certainty.

“Or he stopped me from doing something stupid,” she said.

The sentence was light.

Almost.

Not light enough to become a complete joke.

I looked at the guitar.

“It wouldn’t necessarily have been stupid.”

Silence.

This time, the interruption had passed.

What it had interrupted remained.

Liora lowered her eyes.

Her smile barely trembled.

“No,” she said.

Then her phone vibrated in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

She closed her eyes.

“Obviously.”

She took it out.

Checked the screen.

“My father.”

I straightened.

Too quickly.

She noticed, and another laugh escaped her.

“Don’t make that face. He doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know what?”

Catastrophic question.

She looked up at me.

I understood.

She understood that I had understood.

Fine.

The phone vibrated again.

She answered.

“Yes?”

Silence.

“Yes, I’m at Aurèl’s.”

Another silence.

“No, I’m not touching the cat.”

She looked at Eugène.

“Well, not actively.”

Silence.

“I’m coming back.”

Another silence.

“Yes, I know. Good night.”

She hung up.

“‘Not actively’ was a poor choice,” I said.

“I panic under paternal interrogation.”

“You’ve had practice.”

“He varies his angles.”

She stood.

The movement immediately placed distance between us.

Too much.

I remained seated.

The guitar was crooked, its strings still slightly out of tune after Eugène’s intervention. Demitrius was beginning to emerge from his overturned tunnel with the caution of a victim of a cultural event.

Liora picked up her bag beside the door.

She seemed to have become herself again.

Not entirely.

Something in her face remained less certain.

As though she had left part of herself on the couch and didn’t know whether she ought to come back for it.

“I should go home,” she said.

“Yes.”

A reasonable answer.

Terrible.

She placed one hand on the door handle.

Then stopped.

That moment.

Again.

But this time, it had a different shape.

She turned toward me.

“You should tune your guitar.”

“That’s Eugène’s fault.”

“Of course.”

“He has a brutal style.”

“Very contemporary.”

I smiled.

So did she.

But the smile wasn’t enough to completely cover what had just failed to happen.

She looked at the couch.

Then me.

Not for long.

Just enough.

“Thank you for playing,” she said.

“It wasn’t much.”

“Maybe not to you.”

She had said that before in another form.

This time, she didn’t let me answer.

“Good night, Aurèl.”

“Good night.”

She left.

The door closed softly.

The studio remained open inside me for a few seconds longer.

I didn’t move.

Eugène crossed the room with complete nonchalance, then rubbed himself against my leg.

“No.”

He looked up.

“You don’t get immediate forgiveness.”

He purred.

Opportunist.

I picked up the guitar.

One string was slightly out of tune.

I tuned it.

The action was simple.

Turn the peg.

Listen.

Adjust.

Return.

I played the chord his jump had massacred.

This time, it sounded normal.

Much less interesting.

I rested the instrument on my knees.

The silence had returned.

But it no longer resembled an absence.

It didn’t feel like my usual quiet, or the quiet Liora had come looking for when her room contained too many things.

It felt like something stopped at the edge of itself.

A movement held back.

A step not yet taken.

I looked at the place where she had been sitting.

The cushion slightly indented.

The sketchbook displaced on the table.

The guitar on my knees.

Eugène pretending to be innocent.

Demitrius slowly pushing his tunnel back into an acceptable position with his nose.

Everything was there.

Evidence of an event that had not taken place.

I rested my fingers on the strings.

I didn’t play.

On the other side of the wall, I heard her door.

Footsteps.

Slower.

Then a voice, probably her father’s.

Then Liora’s.

I couldn’t make out the words.

I didn’t need to.

I lowered my eyes to the guitar.

The song was still waiting for its passage.

So was the silence.

And for the first time, I understood that waiting did not always mean avoiding.

Sometimes it meant almost.

And almost, apparently, could already leave a trace.