LIFE IS FOR NOTHING

“Life is for nothing you imbecile!” I heard her scream.

“You crook, you villan, pest of a human-being. Away from me!”

I loved this girl, crazy about Schopenhauer, maddened by life and grief and forever alone in her apartment, at room 209.

“What happened?” I asked her.

This seemed to infuriate her even more, and with a shriek, she took out the scissors from the cabinet and approached me. There were tears in her eyes, she was like a possessed animal, hunting its prey.

“Helena, put those down, dear, you don’t have to be so angry!” I cautioned her.

She put them down on the counter table and her gaze brushed the carpet. And for a split second, I could sense indecision in her eyes. Then swiftly, she lurched at me with the scissors and I didn’t have enough time to stop it, she sliced one close to my face and cut my cheek.

I caught her by the arm and there she was lying on the floor.

 

“You owe me nothing! Not your love, not your freedom, you’re a sick man, full of lies, a thief, a merchant of poor futile goods! You mean nothing to me. As I lay here each and every day, waiting for an unspeakable hero to rescue me from my wrath. The ill fates have chosen you to be part of my systematic failure. No wonder I grieve, no wonder I’m full of hatred…”

Then she was crying. I didn’t  know what to feel: contempt or repulsion. Then I remembered her gaze as we walked through the forest three summers ago. Her hauntingly beautiful smile and the way she sneered at me when I made bird noises. “Careful, they might try to mate with you, those crows.” Then I left her by the path, pretending to be unhappy, when I returned hours later, I didn’t even expect to see Helen. But there she was, standing in the same place, looking over or through the dark green bushes. She lifted her chin and started saying words I could never forget:”Here you are, my darling! But what about me? What about the fairy you left behind? Am I not just a shadow of the trees? Perhaps my place is there, within the hummingbirds. I have been dreaming a blissful dream, I don’t remember anything about it, except for the emeralds, those everlasting and conquering forces of nature, thay defended me from myself.” I didn’t know what to make of it.

 

Then there were the moments at the seaside, when we were taking long walks at night and she would gasp my arm and fiercely shriek. I didn’t even have time to ask her what was wrong, because there she went, running on the sea front and never looking back. Then she would peer at the waves through the pilasters. “I am not a dark queen, I am neither friend or foe to the absence of luminosity, I am the wind, in the winter, or in the summer, or in May and I never look back for sunshine. And I take care of my children, for my children are the waves, blissfully enchanting me with their smiles, my kin, my prophets!

Oh how I linger, just a drop of your water and I will remember it all.”

This was the moment when I had to catch her from behind or she would do something stupid. Nevertheless, it got me thinking: what was so peculiar about her? Why did she say those things? I knew she only did them around me, but sometimes I wondered if she did them when she was alone too.

 

Now she was trembling at my feet, soaking my shoes in tears, I knew she was so sorry about her scissors incident that it made it futile for me to even think about getting mad at her. Somehow, it always felt to me, like Helena was suffering more, even when she made me suffer.  This got me to the conclusions that I should hide her books at once, she never protested, because there were so many of them around, but I knew that if I took Schopenhauer away, she’d get me in my sleep.

“Do you love life?” I heard her say.

“Yes, I said.”

“You fool! Only a suicidal loves life…only a suicidal…”

And then she went to sleep in my arms, there on the living room floor, until I wrapped her in a blanket and took her away to her bedroom and put her in bed. She had the nicest look, sleeping with her mouth open just a little bit and her right hand gently pressed upon her cheek.