as if he wanted to cut her out of the picture;
Lensky waves at him wildly what does he want?
with the ladle from the sangria tub.
‘Hey, man! You turned up!’
(It chills me to see Lensky with that look
in his eyes,
so happy that Eugene had changed his mind.
Fuck,
I didn’t think it would be so heart-rending;
I thought I’d be able
to describe it objectively, but seeing him again,
waving with that stainless-steel ladle …
it’s tough.
And his best friend does not return his wave.)
Why is he blanking Lensky, Tatiana wonders,
and why is he blanking me too, and then, all of a sudden:
‘You want to dance?’
Eugene asks
Olga.
Tatiana shudders.
Olga, a little surprised:
‘Sure, if you like!
It’s funny, I thought you’d have despised
the Black Eyed Peas.’
Well, obviously he does. This is Eugene.
Of course he hates that pap-rap cheese.
What the hell’s he doing?
Tatiana wonders, sensing the danger
of Eugene’s behaviour
tonight, and aware that whatever he’s up to,
it has little to do with Olga.
Lensky, completely unfazed, claps and whistles
at the sight of his friend dancing with his girlfriend,
their bodies entwined;
he dances with another girl, and the two couples
join together, switch round, then split up again.
It’s hard to tell if Eugene is enjoying himself:
his face is like a book
in a language you can’t read.
The way he dances is weirdly broken:
cold, but full of jolts and tremors,
smashing his heels against the ground
as if he wanted to crack it open.
Tatiana watches him dance with her sister,
and a vague sense of imminent disaster
is rising insidiously
inside her, when suddenly
‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE.
I WOULD LIKE TO PAY TRIBUTE
TO THE QUEEN OF THE PARTY!’
Tatiana turns, horrified. It’s a loud kid from her class,
Patrick Triquet,
who’s grabbed hold of a microphone
connected to the stereo …
God, what a dickhead!
‘So I searched on the Internet and found a song
that’s perfect for the occasion,’ he says,
then starts to bellow some stupid tune, echoed
by the other guests:
Oh let us contemplate
The beauty and charm of the girl
Who we’re all here to celebrate,
The sweetest girl in the world!
Oh look at her radiant face
Spreading joy like Lady Madonna!
Let us praise the amazing grace
Of glorious Tatiana!
Fantastic. This is just what she needs.
Tatiana hates being the centre of attention, and here she is
surrounded by a conga line of drunken teens
wrapping her up in this godawful tune
like a mummy in bandages.
… the amazing grace …
Through gaps between dancers behind the
laughing faces she glimpses something
strange but what’s happening?
of glorious Tatiana!
just get out of my way
over there in the shadow of the trees she sees
Olga and Eugene dancing
without music a slow dance in silence but
where is Lensky?
oh
he’s just seen them too
what’s going on?
Tatiana elbows her way through the crowd
of swaying singing fools
towards Eugene and Olga. What are they doing now?
Tatiana tenses, suddenly seized
not by jealousy but fear.
Lensky’s over there, a smile a mile wide
plastered across his face, a smile he has to feign,
the smile of someone in terrible pain.
‘Hey man,’ he says, and laughs. ‘Everything okay?
Not bothering you, am I?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ laughs Eugene.
‘Really? Okay, glad to hear it.
‘Calm down, Lensky, it’s fine,’ chirps Olga.
‘We’re just having a bit of fun.
God, you can be so possessive and uptight!’
(Allow me to add that this is totally unfair;
Lensky is not possessive at all; the poor guy’s
so convinced of Olga’s love that it’d never cross his mind
she might be led astray by lust.
That’s not possessiveness, it’s trust.
And if he’s jealous tonight, then it’s the first time ever,
and you can hardly deny that it’s justified,
given that Eugene has his arms round Lensky’s girl
and his lips are only three inches from hers.)
Olga’s expression is odd:
contemptuous, cold,
even a little cruel,
although I don’t think she’s too proud of herself tonight;
you can see it in the writhing of her feet.
Even now, I still wonder
what went through her head that night, Olga,
why, when everything was going so well,
when she wasn’t even drunk
as far as I could tell,
did she let herself be seduced
by Eugene?
who she didn’t even like, really,
Eugene, who she thought arrogant and gloomy,
why him, why tonight, why why why?
Maybe it was already coming to an end
with Lensky, I don’t know,
I never paid much attention
to what was going on between the two of them,
but I think that when people do something like that,
it’s not just a mistake; I think that Olga precipitated
a break
that she saw coming, sooner or later.
‘Wait,’ says Lensky. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing, I told you. Leave me alone!’
He slumps like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
‘What’s wrong? Are you tired of me?’
Olga rolls her eyes.
‘Lensky, chill out! You’re overreacting.’
‘Well, maybe. Maybe this is an overreaction,
but I’m sorry, seeing you rub your miniskirt
against his erection …
I’m sorry but, to me,
that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing
that I should take lightly.’
Tatiana tenses as this idea fills her head
(an idea she would never have had herself),
and Olga, as if to give her boyfriend a real reason
not to take things lightly,
kisses Eugene on the mouth
suddenly,
joylessly,
and, annoyed by this row
and the gesture it provoked,
Eugene bites her lip, his own mouth
twisting over hers, his tongue
fighting her tongue like two sumo wrestlers,
so to anyone else, they appear to be
locked in a passionate embrace,
when the truth is, this kiss
is sad and cold and empty;
it tastes of Olga’s watermelon lipgloss
and the failure of this birthday party.
And when those lips separate at last, they
each make an O
as if to award a score of zero
to each other.
Only Lensky watches; Tatiana, wise,
closes her eyes,
and when she opens them again, she sees
Olga and Eugene shamefaced beneath the trees,
and Lensky, looking like he’s been struck by a bolt
of lightning,
repeating,
‘This isn’t real, is it? Tell me it’s not real. You’re not really
dumping me?’
and Olga muttering,
‘Oh calm down.
Stop acting like it’s the end of the world.’
And Eugene: ‘Mate, it’s fine, no big deal.
Here, take her back, your girl.’
Their bodies unlock, faces registering faint disgust,
a smear of pink gloss
under Eugene’s nose.
‘Come on mate, I was only messing.
You kept going on about how good she was at kissing,
so I thought I’d find out for myself.’
Tatiana notices that Lensky is leaning on her,
or she’s leaning on him. Well, anyway, they’re
leaning on each other silently,
in mutual understanding,
the two of them losing all their petals, like peonies,
my favourite flowers,
so fragile that when the sun shines on them,
warm, and the breeze gently parts
the petals until they are gloriously open,
in a snap of the fingers they just fall apart;
plop, and nothing’s left but one small bald head
and a little hill of confetti on the ground below.
Lensky and Tatiana are like those peonies, so sad,
all their joy gone, all their love lost,
after the briefest summer bloom.
I suppose
some people are so dazzled by the day
that when night comes, they just aren’t ready.
Tatiana, suddenly cold, just about holds herself together,
her thin arms hugging her chest tightly like a nut
around a bolt;
Lensky is too weak to even stay on his feet;
he crumples
to the ground, repeating
you’re dumping me?
you’re leaving?
Olga gets annoyed: ‘Lensky, you’re pathetic.’
Lensky: ‘But Olga, do you love me?’
Olga: ‘Listen, stop getting so upset.’
‘But do you love me?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with that.’
‘But why did you do it? I don’t understand.’
That’s what he says – I don’t understand,
in a quavering, half-broken voice,
a voice that devastates Tatiana;
it’s the desperate, despairing I don’t understand
of someone who understands all too well, in fact,
and what they understand is this: no one is safe;
no one is protected from the attack
which comes just like that,
without warning,
pitiless,
merciless;
and you are absolutely alone
when the suffering begins.
Eugene, of course, has known all this for years,
and has made his feeling clear many times before
to Lensky, who really ought to thank him through his tears.
Eugene thinks:
It’s over for Lensky: no more illusions,
no more sweet hugs or whispered sweet nothings.
God knows, it was about time that he finally faced reality.
And so, not without curiosity,
Eugene observes Lensky
as he falls to pieces before his eyes.
He breaks nicely,
this Lensky
who increased the world’s beauty;
he makes a good crunch as he’s crushed underfoot.
It might have ended there.
Lensky, hands trembling,
chin down, lips wobbling,
coughing and sobbing,
throat hard as iron,
gets ready to leave.
From here, there are two possible scenarios.
Either: Or:
Tonight Tonight
Eugene will pack his bags Eugene will pack his bags
and return to Paris. and return to Paris.
This won’t be He will feel,
the first time for the first time,
or the last and probably the last,
that a friendship slightly guilty
has ended like this. and bereft.
They will sulk After a few days
into a stony solitude, Lensky will call:
testy, with a taste of tears, you wanna go to Mackey D’s?
missing and over their Filet-O-Fish
each other they’ll feel happy,
though too proud to admit it. though too proud to admit it,
And after they leave school to see each other again.
they will almost forget Sometimes one of them will
each other and make a reference
when they talk to that evening,
about that evening, because, y’know, girls
they will say that it was are girls, but mate,
an unpleasant but necessary what really matters
lesson in life; are friends,
it cost me a good friend don’t you reckon?
but it taught me it’s friendship that oh shut
that in friendship up
as in love, and eat your chips
nothing lasts a lifetime instead of talking crap
and you’d have to be dumb that Eugene, what a shit
to think it could. Lensky will think
Anyway, there are plenty more although, y’know,
girls and friends out there. he’s still my best friend
Two possible reactions to this slap in the face;
in either case, thinks Eugene, heartless as always,
at least something will have happened;
it will be interesting.
So he considers with a surgeon’s curiosity
this friendship laid out, guts exposed,
pinned down like a dying butterfly:
either it will be a museum piece one day
or it will survive, miraculously,
this brutal dissection.
But while he examines the pink flesh and pale intestines,
fate intervenes,
or rather the mob of partygoers does,
gathering round, a few shouts, a few shoves;
they’re not singing anymore, as you might expect,
because the mob,
unlike Eugene or Lensky,
knows exactly what must happen next.
*
And what must happen next does not correspond
to either
of the two scenarios.
Jesus man what’s wrong with you?
you just gonna let him do your girl like that?
you a pimp and she a ho?
The mob has no intention of letting these two
just walk away or yield.
Look how proud they are! Look at their prides:
a pride, when visible, is bright red, it glistens
like a blood orange; it has to be peeled
to its raw flesh as soon as it’s ripe
man if he did that to me I’d smash his fucking face in,
someone shouts
what a shame it would be to let these juicy prides dry out
when they’re weighing so heavy
on the branches of those dark looks
that stretch across from Lensky to Eugene.
you queer or what man
it’s fucking obscene, you know you gotta
fight him man you
just gotta the mob urges gotta
the branch is hanging lower you
gotta man
the air is growing hotter you just gotta fight him
fight the intense scarlet that everyone can feel
must lie inside the prides of Lensky and Eugene fight
fight just beneath the cracking rind, the thin peel. fight
They’re far too fine for the mob to let them just
shrivel on the vine, these two ripe prides:
at least one of them must burst open tonight
you gotta fight fight fight
So Lensky and Eugene stubbornly walk away,
buckling like mules under the crushing weight
of their swollen prides while their fates
dance impulsively before their eyes,
and the mob watches them, entranced,
because kids are always thrilled to see
what happens when you trap a wasp and a bee
in the same jar.
And now? What next?
After that, it will all happen very fast;
one of them will be at the top,
the other at the bottom
of the house next door. What went on?
Tell me everything.
What happened on that roof? O Eugene,
sing us the song of Lensky’s rage,
the fateful rage that led to his fall;
sing us the final moments,
but the truth this time;
not what you told the police that night:
‘I arrived too late, there
was nothing I could
do, no, nothing
at all. I just
arrived
and
then
I saw
him
fall.’
Eugene, ten years later; a new interrogation
by a new interrogator –
yours truly.
What really happened that night, exactly?
EUGENE I didn’t push him,
if that’s what you’re suggesting.
ME I’m not accusing you.
EUGENE You’re insinuating
that I haven’t told the whole truth.
ME I’m not insinuating anything.
I’m just asking
you to explain.
EUGENE We left the party. When we got back
to Lensky’s house, he said: meet me on the roof.
He went up there, and I followed soon after.
Up on the rooftop, he told me:
my life is fucked up, it’s all over,
and then he jumped. There was nothing I could do.
ME Start again. Add more details.
None of this makes any sense to me.
Dig into your memory, Eugene,
this is important. Take your time
and try to explain.
EUGENE We left the party. When we got back
to Lensky’s house, all was silent.