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Authors: Guillermo Erades
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lounge compilation she liked to play when I was around. I had picked up a book from
the pile on her bedside table, a cheap paperback on compassion, written, according to the back cover, by his holiness the Dalai Lama. I thumbed through the pages, many of which were dog-eared,
reading the bits that Lena had underlined and trying to decipher the comments she had scribbled in the margins. It struck me that the Russian word for compassion, sostradaniye, derived from the
word suffering, stradaniye, and literally meant co-suffering. A compassionate person was, in Russian, a co-sufferer. Considering this a valuable insight, I jumped out of bed and grabbed the red
notebook I was carrying in my backpack.
I lay on the bed writing about the word compassion. Lena was staring at the ceiling in silence – her fingers fiddling with her golden chain, her perfect breasts swelling and ebbing with
each breath, like waves in the ocean.
We hadn’t had sex. At least not sex sex. We had never talked about this but, as far as I understood, Lena didn’t enjoy the most primal aspects of human sexuality. For her, it
wasn’t about gathering momentum and losing control. Lena approached sexual intimacy as a flat sensory experience, as a slow succession of caresses and kisses, which often remained at the
level of touching. It wasn’t shyness or prudishness. Lena felt comfortable with her body. As soon as we were alone in her bedroom, she would often take her clothes off and go about her tasks
in complete nakedness – making tea, lighting incense, moving piles of clothes from one bed to the other, fully aware of the powerful effect her naked body had on me. But once my own clothes
came off, she would immediately apply herself to me, with precision, without pause, as if deactivating a ticking bomb. On the rare occasions when she had allowed me to get inside her, she had
insisted on keeping the lights on and staying beneath me, her blue eyes fixed on my face. A few times, at the beginning, in the heat of the moment, I had tried to wrestle her on top of me, to give
her more control, to fully appreciate the weight of her breasts, but she had always climbed off right away; and once, when I’d tried to stay beneath her body for a few seconds, she had
abruptly jumped out of bed and run off to the bathroom – to return a few minutes later, her eyes red from crying. On that occasion I’d asked her what was wrong. Nothing, she’d
said. But ever since that day, I always followed Lena’s lead, her tempo, her moves, adapting my own expectations to whatever she was in the mood for – afraid to cross a line that, I
suspected, originated in some obscure episode of her life.
I circled the word compassion in my notebook and dropped the pen. I turned to Lena, grabbed her golden cross. ‘What’s this?’
‘From grandmother.’
‘Beautiful.’ I found Orthodox crosses aesthetically interesting, the slanted lower crossbeam breaking the symmetry of the design.
‘Do you believe in God?’ Lena asked, staring at the ceiling.
I was aware of Lena’s spiritual side, but it had never occurred to me to raise the question myself.
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘You?’
She thought about it for a few moments, as if she were considering God’s existence for the first time. Then she turned to me. ‘I believe there is good and there is evil.’
‘What about God?’ I said. ‘You know, the all-powerful creator.’ I extended my arm and grabbed the New Testament from the pile of books on her bedside table. ‘The
God from your Bible.’
‘There is no God,’ Lena said. ‘The Bible is a beautiful fairy tale – a skazka.’
‘Why do you wear the cross then?’
‘You don’t need to believe in God to be a good Christian.’
I dropped the New Testament next to the pillow, leaned over Lena’s body, kissed her stomach, then her breasts. ‘A good Christian?’ I said.
Lena burrowed her fingers in my hair. ‘I believe in the values of
the pile on her bedside table, a cheap paperback on compassion, written, according to the back cover, by his holiness the Dalai Lama. I thumbed through the pages, many of which were dog-eared,
reading the bits that Lena had underlined and trying to decipher the comments she had scribbled in the margins. It struck me that the Russian word for compassion, sostradaniye, derived from the
word suffering, stradaniye, and literally meant co-suffering. A compassionate person was, in Russian, a co-sufferer. Considering this a valuable insight, I jumped out of bed and grabbed the red
notebook I was carrying in my backpack.
I lay on the bed writing about the word compassion. Lena was staring at the ceiling in silence – her fingers fiddling with her golden chain, her perfect breasts swelling and ebbing with
each breath, like waves in the ocean.
We hadn’t had sex. At least not sex sex. We had never talked about this but, as far as I understood, Lena didn’t enjoy the most primal aspects of human sexuality. For her, it
wasn’t about gathering momentum and losing control. Lena approached sexual intimacy as a flat sensory experience, as a slow succession of caresses and kisses, which often remained at the
level of touching. It wasn’t shyness or prudishness. Lena felt comfortable with her body. As soon as we were alone in her bedroom, she would often take her clothes off and go about her tasks
in complete nakedness – making tea, lighting incense, moving piles of clothes from one bed to the other, fully aware of the powerful effect her naked body had on me. But once my own clothes
came off, she would immediately apply herself to me, with precision, without pause, as if deactivating a ticking bomb. On the rare occasions when she had allowed me to get inside her, she had
insisted on keeping the lights on and staying beneath me, her blue eyes fixed on my face. A few times, at the beginning, in the heat of the moment, I had tried to wrestle her on top of me, to give
her more control, to fully appreciate the weight of her breasts, but she had always climbed off right away; and once, when I’d tried to stay beneath her body for a few seconds, she had
abruptly jumped out of bed and run off to the bathroom – to return a few minutes later, her eyes red from crying. On that occasion I’d asked her what was wrong. Nothing, she’d
said. But ever since that day, I always followed Lena’s lead, her tempo, her moves, adapting my own expectations to whatever she was in the mood for – afraid to cross a line that, I
suspected, originated in some obscure episode of her life.
I circled the word compassion in my notebook and dropped the pen. I turned to Lena, grabbed her golden cross. ‘What’s this?’
‘From grandmother.’
‘Beautiful.’ I found Orthodox crosses aesthetically interesting, the slanted lower crossbeam breaking the symmetry of the design.
‘Do you believe in God?’ Lena asked, staring at the ceiling.
I was aware of Lena’s spiritual side, but it had never occurred to me to raise the question myself.
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘You?’
She thought about it for a few moments, as if she were considering God’s existence for the first time. Then she turned to me. ‘I believe there is good and there is evil.’
‘What about God?’ I said. ‘You know, the all-powerful creator.’ I extended my arm and grabbed the New Testament from the pile of books on her bedside table. ‘The
God from your Bible.’
‘There is no God,’ Lena said. ‘The Bible is a beautiful fairy tale – a skazka.’
‘Why do you wear the cross then?’
‘You don’t need to believe in God to be a good Christian.’
I dropped the New Testament next to the pillow, leaned over Lena’s body, kissed her stomach, then her breasts. ‘A good Christian?’ I said.
Lena burrowed her fingers in my hair. ‘I believe in the values of
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