Our paper crowns, p.14
OUR PAPER CROWNS, page 14
We continue with our kisses. This time as if we were consoling ourselves after crying, only we haven’t cried; quite the opposite. We have been at the peak of the dreamed joy. Every space in my body colonized by him.
“Did you like it? I have done it well? Has it been like you dreamed? Sorry, there are a lot of questions,” he tells me, his hands intertwined with mine.
“Well, just so you know, there is no need for questions, because it has been wonderful.”
“I love you, Rob Hilsen.”
“And I love you, Zilé Thorn.”
I will never be able to describe the calm that seeing him asleep produces in me. After doing so we spent a while eating strawberries and chocolate, joking and hugging each other and making a mess with the fountain under the pretext of kissing each other again. That’s how it went until we fell asleep.
Now, we have arrived in Rome.
We said goodbye to Venice with a brief visit to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. I had read comments that it was the equivalent of the Sistine Chapel and that Tintoretto had decorated its walls and ceilings for around twenty years. When I toured it, I knew very well why this unforgettable work is held in such high esteem. The tone of its gold, the contrasts in its luminosity; everything produced indelible amazement in me. I couldn’t help but think of Zilé as a presence coming from a miracle.
On the plane to Rome, I tell Zilé:
“Now I understand why couples have been found doing it on airplanes,” I confess. I know he can tell what I mean just by looking at me. To the memory of our first time, to the urgency of our bodies, to so much pleasure overflowing and coming to us.
It is impossible to forget me among him.
It is impossible to ignore the fever, the urgency to be like this again, counting the minutes, because I have never felt so ecstatic, so close to heaven as on our first night.
“I’ll think I’m corrupting you... Or I’ll be thinking,” he whispers to me, “that we did it unforgettably well.”
We both fell into a brief doze until the plane landed.
You could call the attraction I have with him an addiction, but it goes beyond that. It is the tranquility, how safe he makes me feel, the dream that is fulfilled second by second while he makes me his own. It is an adrenaline dressed as a dream that is experienced with eyes open and with emotions more alive than ever, bursting out like beasts about to enter a battle.
In Rome the surprise that he has in store for me awaits me. Now I am the prey of his beautiful intentions. Will there be anything more surprising than what we have already experienced? I think about the possibility and my skin crawls.
Any surprise with him is an infinite world in its possibilities, I have learned it all this time.
“It is a concert? Whose is it?”
“You’ll see soon. It doesn’t take long to come out. I just know that you like her a lot and she is one of your greatest inspirations. You told me so on a date.”
And he didn’t forget it. My God. How grateful I am that he never forgets the smallest detail about me. I had never believed myself so deserving of being remembered. And he remembers me without the slightest effort. Forgetfulness can be a universal plague and he would be invulnerable: he would never forget me.
The expectation leaves me sordid. We are in one of the first rows. I know that when the artist appears I will burst into tears of emotion. The curtain rises and we all start screaming with excitement. A chocolate-colored piano is seen in the center of everything. Finally, none other than Regina Spektor comes out.
Regina Spektor, who inherited the family piano at age seven.
Regina Spektor, who at nine years old faced exile from Russia to the United States and found it exciting.
Regina Spektor, who with her melodies accompanied me in my moments of greatest loneliness and when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. That my calling for music was something imposed and would never live up to my passion.
There she is, opening a beautiful concert with songs that feel like blood in my veins. So many memories coming suddenly combining with the joy of this present overflowing with light.
It is a beautiful contradiction.
I don’t want to forget any second of this sublime show.
In the break between one song and the next, I see Zilé pointing at me and almost lifting me above the entire auditorium.
Regina Spektor sees me and says:
“There you are! Come play with me!”
Her invitation drives me crazy.
So this has been a surprise within a surprise. The surprise of coming to one of her concerts and the surprise of playing the piano while she sings.
I cannot believe it.
I feel inside a dream.
I run towards her, security guards pushing my way.
The first thing I do on stage is hug her and inhale her cherry perfume. What a beautiful way of hugging she has. She whispers in my ear the instructions to play her piano for this song and we sit down, she looking at the audience and I at the staff. I take the longest sigh of my life. I start playing.
The lights get off.
Her voice begins to pulsate and I follow its cadence, the wonderful rhythm concentrated on the tips of my fingers. I have this melody with me. I know it by memory. I pour all my passion into those minutes, Regina’s dedication intertwined with mine. My heart stops for that time. A strange spell surrounds us all equally.
The song ends.
I meet Zilé’s gaze, who applauds me vigorously like the crowd, dissolved in cheers, which I attribute entirely to Regina’s genius.
Before leaving the stage, I give her one last hug. She tells me that I did excellent, that it was a pleasure to have played for her. And I respond that the pleasure is all mine, that throughout my life she has been a wonderful inspiration and guide and that I will never stop listening to her music. She thanks me once again and I am overjoyed. I can’t believe that I have been able to face an idol and confess my devotion to her. And playing the piano at one of her concerts while she sang.
I think that if you are able to talk about inspiration to another human being (about the inspiration that that same person has produced in you) you have achieved one of the best things in life.
I spent the rest of the concert in a kind of unreality. It was a back-and-forth between remembering in wonder what had happened and returning to the present, to the new songs she was playing, to the new connections and to Zilé, who seemed just as amazed.
“It’s my first time listening to it live. I think I know very well why you like it,” he told me.
“How did you get me to come up and play?” I asked while still holding his hand.
“Let’s say because of the dance company. Once she came to Denmark, my teachers and I took care of the choreography and from there I got to know her. I loved her attitude. Once, while you were sleeping, I saw all your vinyl records of her in one of your bureaus. I knew that I had to urgently bring you to one of her recitals and that you should play for her, because you deserve it. If she is your idol, she should also know what kind of geniuses worship her. The rest was pure cooperation of fate, I swear.”
“I love when you get methodical. I love that destiny cooperates in our plans, Zilé. It’s lovely. Just for that one detail I want to be with you, I don’t know, all my life.”
“If you talk to me like that, you’re going to make me a conformist. I want to surprise you forever,” he told me, holding my hand more firmly.
“Well, then I’ll let myself be assaulted by all your surprises. As if I were seeing life for the first time.”
And so, with that promise, we left the auditorium, with a flow of songs behind us, being the prelude to something beautiful and unpredictable. Maybe the surprises we unexpectedly create between the two of us were the best in the world.
During our first night in Rome we ordered dinner to our room.
We are face to face immersed in the warm water of the jacuzzi; the smell of lavender hypnotizes me. Every time I touch any part of his skin my heart races. Who knows where the champagne is going in my body or if I’ve already had more than what’s allowed because, my God, my senses can only focus on one thing.
“Maybe the pheromones in these flavorings are playing a trick on me.”
“Who said it had to be bad?” he answers, colossally insinuating, with a fire in his eyes that I know too well. Damn.
Without a second thought, I let him pull me against his beefy body. I have a fleeting vision underwater and those few seconds are enough to disarm me.
I stir some of his foam and he goes up and down with his eager hands on my back. Between the softness of their caresses and the charm of the water and the foam I feel in a kind of paradise from which I do not want to leave. It has me captivated again: all my reason is gone. Right now, an impulsive, wild part of my soul is under his will. And I don’t regret it. I will never regret. This will never be uncomfortable. This will never be something you think twice about. This will always be safe, pure and beautiful. As long as it’s him, it’s us.
I can’t believe the universe is capable of containing so much love, so much devotion.
Our skin says it.
Our kisses, too.
The push of his body against mine, the hunger of his hands, the fury of his throat. And all my answers.
I didn’t know someone could have so many answers in so many ways.
I didn’t know my own body was capable of producing all this.
So much madness, so much longing, venting the soul of another.
I rub my face against his. I open my lips without knowing what sound exactly escapes from so much lack of control running through me. I kneel on his shoulder as the screams climb up my throat. And he smiles blinded by pleasure, exclaims my name and the only thing I know from then on is that the light floods us, that we swim in it and we are part of it.
Then, dry between the sheets, we watch something on the television and plan tomorrow with a series of guides spread out on the bed.
“These days have been as if all the songs of The National had been mixed together and had the appearance of our hours.”
“I wish everyone appreciated my diligence in preparing trips like you do, darling,” he tells me, touched. “Starting with you, I don’t see myself traveling with anyone else. I’ll live within four walls forever if I have to, but I wouldn’t travel with anyone else, you know what I mean?”
“Are you sure you haven’t told that to every boy you knew?” I whisper, somewhere between serious, curious and joking.
“Very sure. I never even went out to the corner with them. Not even to the ice cream parlor. You do not believe me?” he exclaims, throwing a pillow at my abdomen.
“Of course, I believe you. Just kidding. It’s just that I took it for granted: with a boy like you everyone would kill to show you to the whole world.”
“Well, for now, only my favorite pianist has that guarantee. It is a lifetime guarantee.”
“You better be serious, Zilé, because we’re in a city that doesn’t take such statements lightly, huh.”
“You said it.”
“And if one day you go with someone else, I will compose the most desolate melody. So devastating that the music itself will not be prepared for it.”
“Do you know what you are not prepared for?”
“For what?”
“For an epic pillow fight.”
He opens the fray, taking me by surprise. I counterattack as quickly as I can, with the agility that my long arms allow me. My first pillow is the first to burst. A dense cloud of feathers is interspersed between our loud laughter. Zilé laughs so uncontrollably that she swallows a feather and then my laughter increases. I cannot control myself. When I no longer have a single pile of feathers left inside the sheath, the fight ends. It is clear that I have won.
Below us the feathers decorate the entire bed.
I fall down laughing, my stomach clenched and my jaw aching.
There I notice something.
I have a slight erection.
Although I think not so light because Zilé has noticed it.
“I think those feathers were aphrodisiacs or something like that.”
Zilé laughs again.
“Have they ever made love to you on a cloud of feathers?”
He knows that question is the most laughable thing in the world.
“No, no ballet dancer has ever done it to me on a cloud of feathers. And it would be great if you did it now.”
The euphoria runs through us again.
In the morning we took advantage of the fact that we got up early and went to the Trevi Fountain. With the morning sun rays, both the water and the statues take on a more divine air if possible.
We ask a passerby to take a photo of us.
They say that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain it is a guaranteed return to Rome.
If that were absolutely real, then I would throw away every penny I have to get back with Zilé. Just to experience so much awe again.
After the fountain we went to have breakfast. After breakfast we entered the Sistine Chapel. Seeing so much beauty is a privilege. My heart beats quickly seeing each canvas, being aware of how much history we are capable of capturing. It’s something surreal. Zilé points a finger at me which are his favorite passages.
As we leave there with our hearts pounding, we walk along its wide roads and I see a piano in the distance. It’s meant to be placed there as some kind of social experiment for people to sit and play, so I line up and wait my turn.
I start playing a song by The National to a moved Zilé. I know this is one of his favorite songs. I know that this song has a special meaning that one day he will tell me. I know his heart softens when he hears me play it, because it is for him and always will be.
At the end, he has an expression of absolute astonishment. As if he saw me for the first time.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t record you because as masochistic as I am, I would watch that video for the rest of my life and cry with happiness every time,” he tells me after kissing me on the forehead. Thanks, Rob.
“You have nothing to be grateful for, darling.”
In his arms I feel like a melody that only he will recognize among the millions of inhabitants of the world. Like a discovery that has been destined for him since the beginning of humanity. There is so much magic and coincidence that I cannot explain it, except with my music, my talent and, perhaps, my soul. A soul that only he can read and open and caress. How do you explain that to someone? The amazing ability of someone else to explore you in a way you had never known or thought possible. That someone is capable of looking at you that way, as if they didn’t care at all about your accumulation of insecurities and all the things you don’t know about life. As if I wanted to take on—without thinking about it—the difficult task of helping you overcome all your abysses and help you find yourself with all the rubble that your wounds have caused. Someone who would enter your soul without any kind of fear, without the unknown making him take a step back, the other way around: astonish him, tempt him, encourage him, convince him.
I feel like I’ve accomplished all of that with him, and the mere thought makes me levitate.
Levitate like every time I sit at the piano and hear the crowd sigh into my palms.
We ended the evening with a boat ride on the Tiber River. This is an absolute marvel.
The sun has set a few minutes ago and we believe we are immersed in an impressionist painting with the lights of the lamps spilling over the walls, St. Peter’s Basilica in the distance and the Janiculum. We eat some raspberry tartlets while the tour makes us sigh in amazement.
The water surrounds us with its poetic charm, with all the light shed on it, as if it were another canvas among the entire gallery that is this magnificent city.
In a burst of inspiration, I take out my notebook from my bag where I have been writing down the scores that have occurred to me, but perhaps due to the vertigo of so much beauty my hands shake, the notebook flies away and submerges in the vast river.
Zilé, as if this were an action movie—which in my mind is more of a horror film—throws himself into his search without hesitation for a second.
I see him dive and then my heart leaps.
I lose worry about the notebook.
It’s my boyfriend who is in these uncharted waters.
I want to scream at him to get out of there right now, that it doesn’t matter at all, but nothing comes out of my throat. I am paralyzed by fear.
I visualize the ripples on the surface. The boat stops. I’m considering jumping in too, but that would be too foolish.
I swear my heart stopped the moment he sank until, finally, his head rose to the surface with his hand raised showing my notebook. He takes a few strokes in the water and gets back on the boat.
The trip continues as normal.
“You wouldn’t have bothered, I’m stupid.”
“Don’t say that. It is important. I know how much you value them. They are your creations. I don’t think you’re stupid, honey.”
I burst into tears.
I don't want to ruin our day with my sentimentality, but I can't help myself.
“Don’t worry. Here you have me,” he tells me, retreating against his wet body.
“Are you cold?”
“It’s no big deal.”
My breathing slows down listening to his heartbeat. I’m terrified that I’ve put him in danger, but now he’s here: nothing has happened to him. Soon we will go to the hotel and everything will be under control.
