T W O K I N G S
This is a novel. And as all novels it has an introduction. It's a gay novel, in spite of the straight-like beginning. But just read on and you'll find the both characters: Richard and Arthur
It's not a very short story, and I'll try to send the chapter periodically. Please e-mail me with ANY comments, good or not, at whitefog@globo.com. Txs a lot, get some tissues and have fun.
chapter one
RICHARD
first of march - fifteen of august
The rain hit strongly the window. It sounded like a thousand demons screaming on his ear that she wasn't there. He tried to concentrate on his reading, but it was hard to accomplish. To the sound of a thunder, he moved his eyes from the book, anxious. He kept looking at the rain for some seconds and turned back his attention to the book to find himself lost, not knowing what he was reading or on which line he was.
It was first of March. It had been a month since Felicia had left. He knew that the next time she did that, he wouldn't take it. He loved her so much! But she didn't seem to care about him very much. She loved the stage, her lines, her characters. Not him. Richard didn't know what to do, it was impossible to compete with theatre for a woman's heart.
He decide to stop reading, because it just made his anxiety increase. He swore to himself he wouldn't do it, but he put a chair in front of the window and stayed there waiting for Felicia, with this forehead touching the glass and cursing the London weather. And also Felicia's career. But he had to accept it, he knew she was already in love with theatre when they first met. Ironically, in a theatre.
Richard liked theatre a lot too, at least before he married Felicia; now he was jealous of it. He had gone there to watch a play that was making a little success in the West-end and it was where he first saw Felicia. Blond, gracious and beautiful showing herself on the stage, emotionally undressing for him. He felt like the person who knew her best, in every aspect, so fantastic was her performance. Her character was American and her New York accent was perfect. He met her in person when he asked her for an autograph, innocently. He smiled at her after seeing her hand-written like and inclined writing, matching her so much. She signed Felicia Cat, and he fell in love with the name too.
She was the feline who took possession of his ego. There could not be a better term that "took possession", so intense was Richard's unconscious submission for Felicia. He adored her crazily, and that passion drove him unreasonable. He watched her play other countless times more. She was incredible, each performance of hers was different from another. He knew by heart all of her lines and delighted himself with her voice. After every presentation, he asked her for another autograph, wishing she noticed that he had been there repeated times. But she barely looked at him in the eyes. She just smiled her saint smile when he approached her and she wrote her name in a petulant way. That unconscious unknowing for Richard's love made Felicia more divine and more out of reach.
When he approached her to ask her for the autograph once more, in one of the thousands times he went to the theatre, Richard noticed that there was another man who had come first and was flirting with her. His eyes were half-opened and looked to be full of lust. Richard's blood boiled. Everything around him felt to move faster and in a second he was already stuck on the man's neck, punching him. Felicia startled very much with the scene, but she didn't tell Richard to stop nor screamed. Maybe she was enjoying it.
After the confusion was ended, Felicia approached him and spoke with her sweet voice.
"I shouldn't thank you for what you did, it wasn't pretty, but I must confess that I like it. The man had been bothering for a quite long time and I couldn't tell him to leave" she paused. "What about you? Why do you always come here? You must already know my lines better than me myself. And you bedroom's walls must be full of my autographs"
Her question didn't ask for an answer, she just wanted to hear what she already knew to massage her ego. But at least she had noticed that he had been there a lot of others times. Richard had dreamt with the moment when he would declare his love for her, but everything just slipped out of his head and he just told her:
"Because I love you, Felicia Cat."
She showed him a smile that shook his heart. A proud and selfish smile. Right after that, she opened a huge and satisfied one, and sighing like her character she said:
"Then I love you too, my admirer!" and kissed him.
It was the best moment of Richard's life. He thought he might die. She kissed him deeply but he hesitated, as if she was a forbidden fruit, an untouchable statue. But finally he hugged and kissed her strongly. Felicia was exultant. Romance finally! She wouldn't need theatre anymore to fill her life with romantic scenes so beloved by her. Now her life was her stage, and that man was her lover. How many times she had read about it: secret admirers who adore their goddesses. She was that man's goddess, he idolised her as a goddess. And she felt invaded by a warm feeling of peace. I'm done searching, she thought, I found romance. She kept staring at that man's face smiling. It seemed to her there was something missing, but she couldn't specify what. She felt like forgetting something. Suddenly she remembered.
"How did you say your name is?"
They went out some times in banal and ordinary dates. It didn't take him long to ask her to marry him and she promptly accepted. They got married a week later. The only present person on the wedding besides them was the director of Felicia's play, Henry, who was a close friend of hers. The first weeks of marriage were marvellous. Richard was in seventh heaven for finally having what he wished for such a long time. Felicia felt complete, because now romance wasn't just part of her life on the stage, what made her leave theatre completely during all this time. But time went by fast, lost among Richard's kisses, and she finally noticed that romance didn't satisfy her totally. She felt disappointed and bored with the beginning of the routine in the couple's life and she ended up going back for the stage, where she felt more pleasure and where the world was better and more pleasant. Where romance was present with total strength and eternally.
And there Richard was, lost while he counted the water drops running through the glass, waiting for Felicia to come back from her endless tour through the country. It was still the tour of the same play where he met her. What united them now put them further from each other. It would be ironic if it wasn't sad.
All of sudden, he heard someone trying to turn the key in the door, but the door was opened. Felicia came in like a hurricane through the door carrying a lot of bags. Richard looked like he had just fond a vaccine for his disease while he looked at her. He walked slowly to her with his eyes wet and with a foolish smile on his lips.
"Felicia..." he murmured happy.
"Richard!" she exclaimed with a surprised tone. "Good to see you, I have so many things to tell you. The tour was great, the play has gotten excellent reviews and from famous critics. I'm so excited, it's what I always dreamed of. Ah! in Dover's presentation someone even threw me a rose. A rose! Henry is very excited too, he's thinking about so many new things, new plays even. He wants me to be the protagonist in every each one! Did you hear that, Richard? Every each one! The best thing is that he's trying to take our play all the way to Broadway! Wouldn't it be fantastic?"
"New York?"
"Perfect, isn't it? I'm so excited, Richard. I've said that, haven't I? Each show was better than the prior. But what I like the most is the show we did in Scotland, an amazing public, very warm."
"Scotland? You've been in Scotland?"
Richard couldn't believe it. While he was deathly missing her, she was in Scotland! And right now she was there, talking endlessly, not even stopping to catch her breath or to let him speak, or to kiss him hello, nothing.
"Yes" she said imperturbable. "Edinburg. Didn't I tell you? But we did go. We've been in Ireland too. I found Dublin great."
There was a brief silent moment, while Felicia was looking for something inside of a bag.
"Hello, Felicia" Richard said, finally.
"Hello, Richard" she replied still imperturbable while she was still looking.
"I missed you so much. When..."
She interrupted him suddenly.
"Found, here is the paper" she said looking for something through the pages of a wrinkled newspaper. "I want to read this review about our play for you. Listen."
"No, Felicia!" he shouted.
She got frightened.
"No? Why not? Why are you yelling at me, Richard?"
"Because!"
"You should be happy for me. You know I've always wanted that in my life."
He kept silent staring at her face. He wanted to explain to her everything he had been through and everything he felt, but his body was taken by a supreme impotence. His eyes started to get wet fast, then he just turn around and left the living room. She followed him to the bedroom, where he was found sat on the bed.
"What's wrong, Richard?" she said a little impatient. "What's with you? You should be happy for me" she said once again.
"And you should be sad for me! Can't you see? Do you like humiliating me or are you really that dumb?" he stood up and got closer to her. "I love you so much, Felicia. When you accepted to marry me I thought you too liked me. But I can see you just wanted a distraction."
"Don't say that, Richard. That's not true. I married you because I loved you."
"Then you don't love me anymore! Do you know how long have you been out? A whole month! A whole month and you didn't ring me once, I didn't even know you were alive. And that one was the fifth tour you did, and do you expect me to be happy for you, when you're in NY, that far from me? I should never have watched that play of yours. Ever! Then I wouldn't know you, I wouldn't love you and neither miss you."
Felicia kept the silence for almost a whole minute.
"I'm sorry, Richard. I never really knew how large your love was. But I love the theatre. You know that, and I won't give it up for anybody, not even for you, Richard. Not even if the Pope came to me saying that my play is diabolic and that the world could end if I went on, I wouldn't stop. I wouldn't stop for anything."
"Consider me at least a friend, then. And as a friend stay by my side more that you do now. For charity, Felicia."
"I can't, Richard. I'm in love with someone else."
"With whom?"
"With Jessica."
Jessica was Felicia's character on her play.
Richard spent the rest of the night locked inside of his bedroom. Later, she told him carefully that she would leave the next day to New York. She kissed him on the face, wished him luck and promised that she would come back. Richard barely slept that night and suffered with the unavoidable awakening without Felicia.
Richard had to work that day. It was hard having to leave the bed and the warmth his house already had. He worked in a not so big company's office that wasn't far from his house. A lot of people worked with him, but he didn't have any work mate. His world was only Felicia. And hers was only the theatre. Richard, because of his shyness, had never tried to make friends and kept lonely in his timeless depression. He spent the hours without Felicia looking out the window, reading or writing weak poems with poor rhymes. He tried, sometimes, even with no success, to put some rhythm on his rhymes trying to make his life happier, at least in the paper. But it never worked. Now his wife was thousand of miles away and he didn't have any way to communicate with her. At all. And even if he could, something, some voice or some inexorable force took possession of his body and whispered by his ear in a masculine and obscene voice that Felicia would never be back again.
So he decided, that day, that his only concern would be work and that he would forget Felicia forever, no matter how much he loved her. It wouldn't be easy, but he needed to try. He was walking down the street, freezing inside and outside, going to the office, where he would be distracted for the whole day. During a break, he found one of his colleagues in front of the drinking fountain.
"Anthony, isn't it?" asked Richard.
"Huh?" muttered the other while he lifted a glass of water to his mouth.
"Your name is Anthony, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. Why the sudden interest? Richard, right?"
Richard nodded yes.
"No special interests. I was just wondering why, since I've been here, we've never talked."
"Because you never wanted to."
"Really?"
"Really. I even thought you were mute. Or deaf."
"Neither of them. Are you married?"
Anthony kept silent looking at Richard quizzically.
"Why do you want to know?"
"No reason, I'm just trying to make conversation."
"No, I'm not. I don't have a girlfriend either. What about you? Are you married?"
"I think so."
"I know now why we've never talked" Anthony said stepping away.
"Wait. Sorry, I'm not a mad man. It's just that our relationship isn't very stable."
"Ah! And what do you want right now?"
"Friends. The only person I know in the whole city is her."
"Impossible! In this huge city, you only know your wife?"
"Reality is hard."
"You must love her much."
"Very much. Shall we turn back to the subject? Excuse me if I'm going too fast straight to point: do you want to be my friend?"
Anthony laughed out loud.
"Yes. And I'll make you have more fun, I'll make you stop being this neuroses hole."
"I thank your intention, but I don't a clown, okay?"
"That's fine. So to make our sudden friendship official, I invite you to stop by in a very good pub I know after work, what do you say, Richard?"
"Sure."
The "sudden friendship", in spite of the unusual beginning, grew stronger quickly and Anthony and Richard soon became best friends. Anthony started to frequent Richard's home and they spent much time together, talking about banal things. Richard got used with Anthony coming in and out his door and with their long conversations where both got theirs insecurities out of theirs chests. After those he surrendered to his verses that, after ready, left him alone again in the hole of his depression, where he spent the rest of the night contemplating Felicia's picture of the Comedy and the Tragedy.
Sometimes Richard asked Anthony to listen some of the poems he wrote. Anthony laughed at Richard's sentimentalism and silliness. But Richard didn't feel offended, he could never loose that friend of his who helped him so much. Actually, he wouldn't know what to do if he lost Anthony.
"Do you read the news?" Anthony asked once, when they were at Richard's place.
"I do, why? Can't I? What's the problem with not wanting to be a punk like you?"
"Hey, not punk. Look, do I happen to have green hair?"
"I'm colour-blind" said Richard turning his attention back to the paper.
"I know you're not. I still think you should stop reading these newspapers that much."
"Why?" Richard asked finally, casting the paper aside. "What's the problem with reading the newspaper? Is that one more of your theories?"
"Exactly. Reading the news is something very neurotic, paranoid, sedentary even."
"Sedentary?"
"Sedentary. Like television."
"I still haven't heard your theory's arguments."
"Okay, then. My theory is based on very simple arguments: while you're reading things that has nothing to do with your own life, but with other people's lives, you don't try to solve your own problems and keep on doing absolutely nothing."
"Which you love doing."
"Don't get me started on 'nothing theory' right now. Otherwise, you'll listen for the next five hours."
Richard didn't know how, but Anthony seemed to fill almost completely the empty space Felicia had left in his life. But he couldn't help admitting to himself that he still loved her very much, even she being so far away. It was like loving a dead person. Felicia's picture of the Comedy and the Tragedy, signed with one of her many artistic names, could be found hung behind the bathroom's door, so Anthony could not see it and not find out that his love for her wasn't dead yet.
Once, on fifteen of August, on a day Anthony was at his place, Richard went to bathroom and looked behind the door as always to admire Felicia's picture for one more instant. But it wasn't there. It was on the floor, with the glass turned to the ground. He hesitated, afraid of something he didn't even know what it was. He leant slowly and turned it over. It was cracked. The fissure crossed the glass from the top to the bottom, cutting Comedy's face e leaving the Tragedy intact.
Richard started to shake uncontrollably. He didn't know why, but he felt an omen drawn on that cracked glass, and on Tragedy's diabolic look to stare at him disdainful. He began to scream while he fell sat on the floor, pushing himself away from the picture using the legs. A bass and strangled scream.
Anthony heard and showed up in the bathroom promptly with the face alarmed.
"What happened, Richard? Why are you screaming?"
"She's dead, Anthony. Dead" his voice showed panic and his eyes were lost.
"Who's dead?" Anthony asked confused while took Richard off the ground. He took the picture from the ground before Anthony led him to the bedroom.
"Felicia. She's dead."
"Where did you get that from?" Anthony asked sitting Richard on the bed.
"Look" said Richard showing the cracked glass. "It's cracked, the Comedy dead. The Tragedy more alive than before."
"Richard, that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean she is dead. The picture only fell from the wall and cracked."
"No. I know she's dead. She promised she would come back, she promised she would come back."
Richard took a long time to get back to normal again. Anthony took care of him every day and Richard always said that Felicia was dead in America. With Anthony's physical and psychological help, Richard could recover completely.
Convincing Richard to go out of his house for the first time was a challenge for Anthony, but he made it using one of his theories. It was a cold day when they went out, what helped to make Richard's depression even worse. But Anthony was speaking enthusiastic about the vantages to live in a cold place:
"I don't know why people talk so much about the tropical countries, it's not so good as they say. The heat is unsupportable and you don't have disposition to do anything. Besides, the coldness stimulate several things. Intelligence, for example. That's probably why tropical countries have the smallest alphabetisation rate. I've been in one of them, it's horrible. So we should be happy we can be cold now and you shouldn't be complaining."
"This whole speech of yours sounds like a dissertation. Actually, the coldness can't worsen my animation. At least, not more than that."
Anthony opened his mouth to say something, but in that instant Richard pointed to a black woman who was walking down the corner in their direction.
"Look! It's Renee! She used to be a great friend of Felicia's. It's been such a long time I haven't seen her" screamed Richard and ran to her.
Anthony didn't like much. Richard should be away from Felicia's memories.
"Hi, Renee" said Richard when he got near her. "What a long time we haven't seen each other. How are you?"
Her face didn't look very amiable.
"I'm fine, thanks, Richard. And you?"
"I'm fine too. This is my friend Anthony."
They shook hands.
"I wasn't able to talk to you until now since the incident. It was horrible, wasn't it? My condolences, my friend. I can imagine how hard it must be, you can see on your face, you look horrible" she said to Richard.
"But what are you talking about?" he said still smiling. "Nobody's dead."
"Nobody?! Felicia died a month ago in NY. It was in every newspaper, didn't you read?"
Richard just remembers seeing everything spinning around him before his vision darkened completely.
END OF THE FIRST CHAPTER
Any comments please send me and e-mail to whitefog@globo.com, I'd love any kind of critics.
The second chapter is going to be posted soon, I just need to rewrite it and translate it (that's all?!) and I hope you like you and you have patience. The second chapter is going to cover the same time interval of time: from 1st of march to 15th of august, but now Arthur's story is going to be told...