Dhumavati. A Voice in the Smoke

She was silent for a long time. Then she asked:

“Does Ma think I’m ready?”

“Ma thinks you may be ready.”

“You two and your wording again.”

“Now do you see why it drives me mad?”

The girl smiled.

“A bit.”

“There you are.”

“And do you want to?”

The question was much quieter. Dmitry did not answer at once.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

She looked him in the eyes.

“Is that a reason for a practice?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

He thought about it.

“Because I want to go further. And I want to try going further together with you.”

She nodded.

“Then I want to as well.”

“Don’t answer now.”

“Why not?”

“Because five minutes ago I said I love you.”

“And?”

“That has an effect.”

“Of course it has an effect. We’re not strangers.”

“That’s exactly why you should think about it.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

She sighed.

“Sometimes you’re terribly annoying.”

“I know.”

“Can I say now that I want to, and confirm it tomorrow?”

“You can.”

“All right.”

She stood up, came over to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“Then I’ll confirm it tomorrow.”

“A very independent decision.”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Ma was silent. For some reason Dmitry was sure that she was pleased.

* * *

The next evening the girl came earlier than usual. Without her exercise book – that had never happened before.

She took off her jacket and went through into the room. Dmitry waited for her to begin the conversation herself.

She sat down.

“I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“What if I say you can still refuse, right now?”

“Still yes.”

“What if I say it has no effect on your training at all?”

“You’ve already said so.”

“On our relationship?”

“That too.”

“And still?”

She looked at him.

“Dmitry.”

“What?”

“Stop it.”

He smiled.

“All right.”

Ma said:

Now her decision has been made.

Dmitry answered in his mind:

“I understand.”

No. Commit it to memory. This is important.

He stopped smiling.

“Committed to memory.”

* * *

The preparation took several more weeks, and it was this that became the first test. Ma did not allow them to hurry.

Several times Dmitry asked irritably:

“Are we ever going to start?”

When you stop treating the beginning as the goal.

“And what should we treat as the goal?”

The completion.

That phrase would come back to him many times later. At the time Dmitry took it almost as just another methodological formulation. Later he would understand how literally it had been meant.

They carried on with their ordinary lessons, conversations and evenings together. Sometimes they practised separately from each other. Ma watched.

Gradually Dmitry stopped asking when.

And it was precisely then that she said:

You may.

* * *

The first stage turned out to be almost disappointingly calm. Dmitry had expected something far more noticeable.

Ma had warned him beforehand:

Do not hunt for sensations.

He hunted for them anyway.

For the first few days there was nothing unusual. Then small things began to appear.

Once Dmitry was about to write to the girl and picked up his phone – but a message from her had already arrived:

“Were you just about to write to me?”

He looked at the screen and replied:

“Yes.”

A few seconds later:

“Somehow I knew.”

Dmitry put the phone down.

“Ma.”

What?

“Has it started?”

Possibly.

“Did you do that on purpose?”

Do what?

“Nothing.”

Another time they were sitting side by side, each busy with their own thing: Dmitry was reading, the girl was writing something down. At some point he felt a sudden irritation, entirely without cause. He raised his eyes – she was sitting there frowning.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re angry.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“A little.”

“With me?”

“No.”

“Then with what?”

She explained. The problem really was hers, but Dmitry had felt the irritation before he saw the expression on her face.

He drew no conclusions. He simply wrote it down.

A week later it happened the other way round. The girl suddenly asked:

“Have you got a headache?”

Dmitry looked at her.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

His head really was beginning to ache.

“A little.”

She thought about it.

“Strange.”

Dmitry thought so too.

* * *

Over time the coincidences multiplied. They stopped being amusing – they were too systematic.

Sometimes Dmitry woke with a sense of her anxiety, and a few minutes later a message would come. Sometimes she rang at the very moment he was thinking about her.

Once he was sitting at work and suddenly felt such strong anguish that he put the document aside. There was no reason for it.

A minute later he understood: not mine.

He wrote at once:

“What’s happened?”

The reply came almost instantly:

“How do you know?”

He looked at those words for a long time. Then he wrote:

“Tell me.”

That day the girl admitted for the first time that it had been hard since the morning and that she had spent several hours trying not to tell anyone about it.

After work Dmitry asked Ma:

“Is this it already?”

Part of it.

“How far can it go?”

Further than you would like just now.

“Why wouldn’t I like it?”

Because for now you are glad of the chance to feel the good. Later you will understand that the bad comes closer too.

He fell silent.

Quite so. If the structure is shared, it is impossible to open the door only to what is pleasant.

* * *

The next stage changed everything far more. Dmitry could not have described the moment precisely: there was no click, no flash.

One day he simply realised that he perceived the girl’s presence even when he was not looking at her. Not hearing her. Not touching her. She was in the kitchen, and he still knew when she stood up, when she stopped, when she was about to come back.

At first he tested it. Then he stopped.

She began to notice too.

“Were you just about to call me?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Very informative.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Another time she was sitting with her back to him. Dmitry looked at her. Simply looked.

She turned round at once.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You called me.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Not with your voice.”

They both fell silent.

“This is getting a bit strange,” she said.

“A bit?”

“All right. Very.”

Dmitry smiled.

“Do you want to stop?”

She looked at him seriously.

“Can we?”

He stopped smiling too.

“Not any more.”

It was the first time they had both truly felt the meaning of Ma’s warning. The practice had stopped being an experiment – it already existed between them.

* * *

Along with the closeness, comfortable illusions disappeared.

Dmitry had once believed that he knew how to hide his irritation. It turned out that he did it badly.

The girl might walk into the room and ask at once:

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You’re angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

A pause.

“All right. Irritated.”

“With me?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, then.”

Before, a conversation like that could have taken half an hour. Now a few seconds were sometimes enough.

But it worked the other way too. The girl might say:

“Everything’s fine.”

Dmitry would look at her.

“No.”

“It’s fine.”

“No.”

“What makes you think so?”

He could not always explain. He simply knew.

At first this annoyed her.

“A person ought to have the right to keep something to herself.”

Dmitry answered:

“You do.”

“Then why do you still feel it?”

“I don’t do it on purpose.”

She fell silent.

That evening Dmitry asked Ma:

“Where’s the boundary here?”

Where it was before. In respect.

“But if I can feel her state?”

Feeling does not mean having the right to demand an explanation.

This thought proved important. The shared structure did not cancel a separate will, and closeness did not turn into permission to pry into everything. If the girl did not want to talk, Dmitry could understand that something was going on – but the question “tell me” and the demand “you have to tell me” remained entirely different things.

He remembered it. He did not always keep to it perfectly. But he remembered.

* * *

After several months, practising together began to feel quite different.

They could start work in different states and fairly quickly arrive at a single rhythm. Dmitry would speed up – she would take it up. She would hold the steadiness – and Dmitry felt that it was becoming easier for him too. If one of them lost concentration, the other would sometimes literally pull the shared structure along for a few minutes while the first found the way back.