chapter forty-nine
I am seated in an armchair, next to Gloria, facing the machine that breathes for her. Night has come over the city. The air is mild and I open the window because I don’t like the smell of the medications.
I write in my notebook.
The time of miracles is over. My mother, Gloria Vassilievna Dabaieva, is only forty-one years old, and yet she is dying. I fear that I drained her of what little energy she had left by reappearing in her life, forcing her to remember the past. Dr. Leonidze says that it is not so. He says that her illness dates far back. He says that if she was able to survive until now, it was because of me. He may be right. Maybe Gloria waited to see me again, as Nouka predicted. She was keeping so many secrets inside her! It was her burden: a kind of invisible gear that kept her going, kept her moving forward. Now that she has unburdened herself, Gloria Bohème is free to cross the last border.
My mother’s eyelids are closed. She reminds me of Fatima, who refused to look at the world, to see the violence in it. What has become of her? And Emil? And Stambek, Maya, Suki, Hoop Earring, Mrs. Hanska, of all those whose paths I crossed? In life there are so many promises never kept.…
I write some more.
Is there a difference between a lie and a made-up story?
The lights of the machine blink in the dark, and I have no answer to my question. The only thing that I am sure of is that Gloria loved me.
I put down my notebook and get up to lean on my elbows at the window.
The wind is balmy. The town is spread out under my eyes, its many lights like the reflection of a starry sky. People bustle back and forth. They follow their destiny, coping with life’s hazards, worries, sorrows, and the Kalashnikovs in a Caucasus that continues to waver between war and peace. And here I am, almost twenty years old. I have a father who may be waiting for me in this town, a girlfriend in another town, and a heart that is spread wide between the pages of the atlas.
I turn around. Gloria is nothing but a body stretched under a sheet now. I guess that she will not see the light of another day.
I come close to her. I lean down to kiss her forehead. In spite of the immense sorrow that overwhelms me, I smile and squeeze her hand. Among all the things she gave me, I know there is a foolproof remedy against despair: hope. So as my tears run down my cheeks, I promise her that I will live my life the way she taught me to. I will always walk straight ahead toward new horizons.