Grey's Journal:
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| ``I
brought home gammon meat for you to cut for our dinner.'' ``Gammon?'' I asked. ``What's that?'' ``Grey, I never before met someone who doesn't know so many words in their own language. Just cut the meat.'' ``I'm not cutting it until I know what it is.'' Zornitsa gave me a strange look and went into her room to change out of her work clothes. ``Oh,'' I yelled to her. ``Wikipedia says gammon is a cut of bacon. I guessed it was some Eastern European animal I'd never heard of -- like a small furry pig or something.'' She emerged from her room. ``Oh God, Grey. Where do these things come from. And...!'' she jumped into her fighting stance: body sideways, legs apart and one arm pulled back with her hand in a fist. ``...And you didn't tell me how beautiful I looked when I came in!'' I stood from behind my computer and approached her. ``I'm sorry,'' I said. ``You looked beautiful.'' I leaned in to give her a kiss and she squinted her eyes at me to let me know who's the boss before letting me touch her lips. ``OK. Now cut the meat. I'm starving.'' Dinner, wine, and pretend fights. It was a content night for us in our little London flat at the turn of the new year. * * *
Until Zornitsa got the email. ``Oh shit,'' she said. ``What is it?'' ``Oh shit oh shit oh Christ,'' she continued, looking from her screen to me and back again. I'm bad at reading Zornitsa's emotions, but it was plain that big news had arrived, though good or bad, I could not tell. Zornitsa had been uneasy lately. ``I feel like it's the calm before the storm,'' she told me when I got back from the States. ``Things have come one after another in my life, but, right now I have nothing that is next. There is no decision for me to make. A hard decision would be better than this nothing.'' ``What's your email say?'' I asked again. ``We should talk about it tomorrow.'' The use of `we' made me feel sick. ``I'd rather know now, if it involves me.'' ``I haven't had time to think...'' she trailed off. ``Zornitsa, please tell me.'' We went back and forth this way for some time -- her startled and worried, I anxious and concerned -- before she took a deep breath and relented. ``OK.'' A long pause. ``You will remember that I like my Grey?'' I knew then -- I knew I was losing my Zornitsa a second time. ``I will remember.'' Back when we worried she wouldn't be able to stay in London past January, Zornitsa made contingency plans to fall back on if she had to leave. But, when the UK Home Office extended her visa, she thought about them no more. Now, one of those forgotten plans had come back to find her. The European Commission, the governing body of the European Union, wanted Zornitsa to work for them. For six months. In Brussels. Starting February 16th. * * *
When trying to write this journal, I looked back over the archive and for the first time reread the entries about Zornitsa. I had the impression that all of details of our lives were on display for the world to see, but I discovered this was not the case. ``Wow,'' I said to her after I finished. ``I never realized that most of these are stories of me being an idiot.'' Zornitsa raised her eyebrows and nodded in slow, but complete agreement. I was struck by the disparity between the large a role Zornitsa played in my life over the past year and the little I have written. She was my best and closest friend. She helped me with things I have not the courage nor the skill to write of here, and all I could tell were trivial stories of clothes shopping or chicken cooking. * * *
The email presented a non-decision: Zornitsa should go to Brussels. The position offered to her was highly selective and prestigious; to pass on it simply to remain in London for five months working at a part-time job would be madness. Though I wanted her to stay, I could think of no logical reason for her to do so. She cried, I cried. I've know since we became friends that Zornitsa would eventually have to leave me, and as we grew closer over time I planned for that day. Before the email, she would have remained until the end of my teacher training at King's College. By then I would have a teaching post to prepare for in September to distract myself and when she left I would move out of our flat to make a clean psychological break. Now those plans were useless. I had to find a new flat or a new flatmate, both unpleasant options. The flat is so strongly our home that remaining without her would be hard emotionally. But I've moved so many times in the past few years I couldn't stand the thought, especially knowing that I will move again when I get a job. I hated myself for thinking it but I secretly wanted something to go wrong with Zornitsa's job -- for the position to have been filled, the email a mistake, or her visa to be rejected. I hated myself because I know how deeply unfair that is, as I was on the other side of this situation two years ago. When I was with Darby, I remember one morning sleeping in late with her in my college apartment and hearing the mail delivered. I snuck out of bed and found an envelope from London Metropolitan and inside my acceptance letter. I collapsed onto the corner of the bed out of relief and happiness. A warm, comfortable Darby pulled me back into bed with her. ``Did you get accepted?'' she asked. ``Yes.'' ``Congratulations. I'm so happy for you.'' And then she cried. She curled up next to me in our flat and cried against my chest for a long time. I lay with her feeling neither sad nor happy nor anything -- just a great blankness. I was going to leave my family, friends, and the best relationship I'd been in to study a subject I was barely familiar with in a city I hardly knew for reasons I could not articulate. I cannot now remember if Darby asked me to stay with her or not, but I knew I would go to London regardless. Such thoughts are easy when you are the one leaving. I did not now ask Zornitsa to stay. I told her I loved her and that she should go. * * *
Our last month together was strained for Zornitsa and I. In many ways, it would have been easier if she left immediately after getting the email. But, instead we had a long, drawn-out goodbye over the weeks. I wanted our last time together to be special and memorable and good, but it was precisely that desire that prevented it from being so. I often ended up just staring at her in the flat, with a sad, unfair, puppy-dog look on my face, trying not to think of when she would not be there. I don't know how it came to be, but somehow I decided that the only proper way to say farewell to Zornitsa was to fly the London Eye together. Many times I planned to go on it with friends, but it never worked out. Slowly, the Eye became Zornitsa's thing to me, something me must do together. Last time when we were worried about Zornitsa leaving, we planned to go on the Eye together, but missed the closing time by a few minutes. But this time was going to be different, I was sure. We met at Westminster station early and walked to the Eye. This would, for me, somehow bring closure. Our tense past weeks would be forgotten and we would have a last moment together above the city she had made so special for me. But, as we approached, a sign outside the ticket office revealed that today was the start of the annual maintenance of the Eye. There would be no easing of tensions nor photograph of us together at the top. We spent awkward time walking to London Bridge and had dinner at the Anchor Pub on the Thames, alternating between talking of nothing much and long silences. Then, the dinner was over, we went home and Zornitsa packed her things. The following morning when I awoke her door was open. The room was empty. A note remained on the table. And my Zornitsa was gone. |
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Copyright © 2005 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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