Morphine the phantom of love. Ром Амор
you like some wine?’ I stood up for the bottle, which was on the table behind me, but then it dawned on me. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t, you’re probably too young to drink.’
Without looking up at the girl, I poured some red wine into a cup. When I was done, I was feeling awkward as she was staring straight at me in silence.
‘Is anything wrong?’ I said at a loss.
‘Yes, something is wrong.’
Valeria got up from the table. I thought I had hurt her, but she confidently came up to the kitchen cabinets and, as if knowing the location of the dusty wine glasses that I never used, took one wineglass. She rinsed it under cold running water, and came up to me, put the glass on the table and poured the wine herself.
‘I am seventeen already, and wine is the last thing that can harm a person at my age’.
She was seventeen. She said it so proudly. But she was only seventeen.
‘Well, to our meeting!’
Valerie raised her glass to my cup to clink, but I moved my cup away, took a sip and said: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t clink glasses.’
‘Why not?’ she asked puzzled.
‘I’m not used to it.’
She took a sip, sat down at the table and began to eat.
I do not know what confounded me so much about her, but I just sipped my wine slowly and watched her. “Can all schoolgirls be so carefree at this age?” I wondered.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she said noticing my gaze.
‘No, everything’s just fine.’
We went on with our lunch. To break the silence, I decided to ask her a few questions: ‘How long have you been painting?’
‘Two years. And you?’
‘About seven.’
She looked surprised but did not bother with the figures.
‘So, what do you paint with, Valerie?’
‘Watercolours, oils, pastels.’
‘Have you taken any painting lessons before?’
‘Yes, as a child, my parents enrolled me in an art school. I used to really like it. Then I quit, and only five years later did I get back to this hobby, which can become my vocation.’
‘Wow!’ I said as I nodded. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, if someone were to ask me what I’d like to do for the rest of my life, I would definitely say paint.’
‘That’s an interesting aspiration,’ I said and started cutting the second piece of meat.
As if not eliciting any real understanding from me, she looked down at her plate with the potatoes and steak and after having a small piece of the meat, said: ‘You’re not a bad cook.’
‘I don’t cook at all.’
‘Oh, then I’m very lucky that you decided to reveal this side of you on the day you were going to meet your new pupil. I will remember this dish.’
‘I cooked it for myself.’
She felt the nervousness in these words and changed the subject to one which was even more inappropriate.
‘Do you live here alone?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly, tossed the last piece of meat into my mouth and started chewing energetically.
‘Why?’ the girl asked naively. She probably did not even realise that she was rubbing salt into my wounds with these questions.
‘Valerie, it’s none of your business.’ I placed my fork on the plate and stood up from the table. ‘Have you finished?’
‘Yes,’ she answered changing the tone of her voice.
I put my dish into the sink and was about to remove her dish, but I noticed that her plate remained mostly intact.
‘But you haven’t touched it?!’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she pushed her plate away and took a sip of the wine.
‘Well…’ I put her plate aside, took my cup of wine and invited my pupil into the studio.
‘Can I take my glass with me?’
‘Yes, you can. But I hope you won’t turn into an alcoholic during our lessons.’
She smiled again and followed me out of the kitchen.
‘How many hours a week would you like to attend?’
‘Vladimir, I have to fulfil some entry requirements to the Academy of Arts mid-summer. I hope to improve my skills greatly by that time and I think I’ll need at least one lesson per week. What do you think?’
I disregarded her question and asked whether she had brought any of her works along. Valeria took out her phone and showed me photos of her paintings. I was pleasantly surprised. This seventeen-year-old girl was definitely talented.
‘I believe you are perfectly capable of meeting those requirements without my help.’
‘No, Vova, you don’t know how strict selection is to this Academy. A hundred applicants per place, and all of them paint no worse than I.’
‘Well then, let’s make you the best applicant! How is the selection process conducted?’
‘There are certain criteria. We have to present our works, drawn from nature. They will be evaluated and only then I may be admitted to the competition, where I’ll have to demonstrate all my skills and painting technique.’
‘Then we should focus on painting from nature,’ I noted and lit a cigarette.
‘Right.’
‘Do you mind?’ I pointed to the lighted cigarette.
‘Not at all, go ahead.’
Valeria looked around.
‘So, this is your studio.’
‘Yes.’
‘And is this your latest work?’ She walked up to the table with the canvas with the blue sky and a field of poppies. ‘That’s strange, this painting is nothing like the ones I saw yesterday on the descent.’
‘You’re right. Do you like it?’ I asked her with dubious indifference.
Valerie was silent for a moment, then said: ‘It is different…’
‘How different?’ I said as I puffed out smoke.
‘It lacks that depth of sadness which I noticed in your other works. It is warmer but, at the same time, superficial, so to speak.’
I took the cigarette in my mouth again, came up to the girl, turned around the canvas and looked at it myself again. She was absolutely right.
‘I was painting it to make money to pay my bills.’
‘What about the other paintings? You didn’t paint them for the money, right?’
‘Right.’
This time she did not try to find out the details, apparently, she learned her lesson from the previous experience of questioning me.
‘So, how many hours would you need to spend with me to pay all your bills?’
‘It depends on how many hours I’ll be able to stand you.’
The corners of her lips crumpled into a smile again.
She was very pleasant and uninhibited as company, but her numerous questions have from day one either thrown me off balance or revived my ability to smile. I thought she was a cute and goal-oriented schoolgirl, who did not lack care on her parents’ part and was probably spoiled for choice with boys’ hearts. It was not surprising: Valeria was a beautiful, fit girl with already developed breasts and good posture. Her thick golden hair would charmingly change shades as it caught the light.
We