How Myron Learned to Look Again

In the evening Myron told his wife he wouldn't write anymore. Solomiia rinsed the green cup with the white whiskers. "Ever again?", "Ever again", "All right". He waited for another word, but it never came. At two in the morning he was woken by the clatter of a typewriter. The old machine had stood in the storeroom under a cloth for twenty years. In the kitchen, working at it, was himself - only twenty years old.

"What are you doing here?", "Writing", "But I don't write anymore". The young one shrugged. "That's you. I still write". The young one pressed a key. The kitchen lamp went out. Outside the window snow was already falling. A reading room. Solomiia warmed her hands on a white cup and tucked back her hair. This was where Myron first saw her. "Do you remember?", "Hardly at all". He opened the notebook. It was all there. Solomiia's smile. The crack in the saucer.

How she burned her lip on the tea. "Why did I write even that down?". The young one smiled. "Forgot? You were afraid to walk over and speak to her. So you sat, and looked, and wrote". Solomiia set the white cup on the table. Myron blinked, and the table was already the kitchen one. Their first flat. One table for the two of them.

Solomiia was training to work in the children's intensive care ward; Myron typed through the nights and put the machine away before her breakfast. Once they bought a hideous green cup and painted white whiskers on it with nail polish. Solomiia cheated, painting more on her side. Myron held her by the elbow so she wouldn't spill the polish. They laughed until the polish dried. The laughter broke off on the stairs of another house.

After their first big quarrel Myron shut himself in the kitchen, because he didn't know how to say "forgive me". That night he wrote six pages and in the morning brought them to Solomiia. She read to the end and pressed the sheet to her chest. "You could have just said you love me", "I couldn't". The young Myron stood before her. "That's why I wrote". Myron saw a crease in the paper and remembered her thumb, with its forever bitten nail, and turned the sheet over.

Instead of the next line came a baby's cry. They had almost no money then. The overdue bill was pinned to the fridge; in the evenings they left the light on only in the kitchen. Solomiia fell asleep after her shift. Myron sat by the crib and listened to his daughter's breathing. One line remained in the notebook: "Strange, how much room can be taken up by a person who can't yet hold up her own head". "I don't remember this", "That's why it's written down".

The light over the crib went out. When it flared again, his father's coat hung on the back of a chair. After the funeral Myron cried a great deal. At home he filled three pages about the wet wool on the collar, the rain and the smell of tobacco. "I thought it was about the coat", "It was easier for you that way". Myron closed the notebook. "Enough. I'm tired.

I want it to be quiet in my head at last". The young one looked at him for a long time. "All right". In the morning the typewriter stood in the storeroom again. And it truly did go quiet in his head. At first Myron liked it. Rain became just rain. The tap of a stick on the fence was simply annoying. He slept, paid the bills, cooked supper. A few weeks passed. Solomiia cut her hair. He didn't notice. She bought a dress. He didn't notice. She cut her finger.

He asked where the plaster came from. In the evening she sat down across from him. "You've stopped looking at me", "But I do look", "Only with your eyes, Myron", "I just don't make literature out of everything anymore", "I'm not talking about literature, my love". In the dark of the night the typewriter clattered in the kitchen again. The young Myron sat in silence. "Give it back", "What?". Myron seized him by the wrist. His fingers closed on cold air. "What you took".

The young one shook his head. "I took nothing. You renounced it yourself". He nodded at the green cup. Before his eyes its rim became chipped. The hand that held it grew covered with wrinkles. Myron raised his head. Solomiia sat across from him already grown old. Grey-haired Solomiia warmed her fingers on that same cup. "Remember the white whiskers?", "A little", "Those pages after our quarrel?", "Not really", "What did I say to you on our wedding day?".

Myron searched and found nothing. Solomiia didn't wait for an answer. She slid the cup closer. "Nothing. For now I remember for the two of us". She took a sip of tea. Myron looked at her and suddenly understood that he could no longer recall her young face. "Why did you show me this?". The young Myron answered after a pause. "What did you do when she tucked back her hair? When your daughter breathed in her crib?

When your father's coat smelled of rain?", "I wrote", "First you looked". Myron glanced at old Solomiia. "How do I get it back?". The young one shrugged. "I don't know, I'm only you at twenty". He really had come to look like an ordinary boy. Then he nodded at Solomiia. "Try looking one more time". A spoon clinked. Myron woke up in the kitchen.

Solomiia stood by the window in an old house shirt. A grey strand touched her temple. In her hand was the green cup with the white whiskers. With her free hand she tucked back her hair. Myron looked. "What?", "Nothing". She smiled. "It's been a long time since you looked like that". Unhurried, he took out a clean sheet and a pen. First he waited for her to finish her tea. And only then he wrote: "Today, for the second time in decades, I saw my wife".