I have been browsing through the photo folders on my computer for twenty-seven days now, hoping that today will be the day when I will finally find a photo of me good enough to satisfy Dido’s curiosity. The browsing is irksome, and provokes nuisance after nuisance that hamper my indispensable morning routine. The coffee is now beyond burnt, and the dregs persistently nest in the burner’s holes. When the morning is quiet I usually register the boiling process without much difficulty. The noise is mild and soothing at first, it comes primarily from the gas burning, then the raging mixture of water and coffee begins to painfully outshout it, bewildered from the heat, until the boiling gurgle moves the pot that whips the iron part of the burner, signalling that the time has come. Today, this apocalyptic scene went unheard, due to the renaissance buzz of the bulldozers and concrete drilling machines under my window. The tirades to “beautify the facades and reconstruct the streets” fill the sound interspace created by the pauses of buzzing and pots smashing with a new round of coffee, intertwined with the chirpy voice of the morning radio program hostess. “The entire city will get a new glow” the hostess whoops. The holes in the streets are filled with concrete, then they are smoothed out with a large and heavy roller. I apply some foundation to my face. The motions are easy and in strictly controlled directions, from the nose to the end of the cheeks, from left to right along the chin area parallel with the mouth, and from left to right along the forehead. After the foundation had been applied, quick movements come next, like painting a wall. The facades will be plastered, the colour revived, the cracks, the dents and the bulges smoothed out. The eye shadow must match the lipstick, the nail polish and the bag. I put the cigarette out, ready to plunge my naked legs into the dust and rubble among the heavy construction artillery. Damn it, I still can´t manage to find a photo of me good enough to satisfy Dido’s curiosity.
Our first online conversation started almost magically. Almost four hours passed from the moment the red light had trembled for the first time, announcing the new chat, to the return in the alleviatingly firm green circle. Four hours in which Dido never asked for any information that would uncover the colour of my hair, the length of my legs and the width of my hips. Instead of the usual exchange of general information, Dido spoke of a small grassy hill near his apartment where, on a snowy day, he would slide on nylon bags. I spoke of the holes in the soles of my boots, the cats that lived in the basement of our building, the library garden where we would steal green plums and the never-ending fights with the fat librarian. Since then, we have both been online every day at 6 pm, ready to share our pasts in an exciting three hours of keyboard tapping. A window in Dido’s room looks out on the back of a small apartment building, donated by Russia after the catastrophic 1963 earthquake. He lives on the second floor. He says that the height is quite decent, letting him hear the children gathering around the old benches to skip rubber bands, to play hopscotch or to secretly smoke cigarettes, yet preventing the noise from getting on his nerves. The window of my room on the sixth floor looks out to the top of Vodno , and puts in focus the Millennium Cross, which creates an undefined light stain on the glass, that spites the darkness. He never cranes his head out of the window. Neither do I. Dido once threw a cigarette butt out the window and felt very ashamed of himself afterwards. I’ve done that a couple of times, but I was more scared of my neighbours finding out than embarrassed. Dido smokes a pack of Boss Classic a day, and I smoke West Light in the same amount. His coffee is latte, white and sweet, while mine is black, thick and bitter.
His dreams usually transpire in big buildings accommodating more people. It is quite magical to meet a person whose dreams transpire in the same locations as mine. I dream of different situations happening at similar locations. Children’s resorts, hotels, local communities, meeting centres. This may sound weird to you, but Dido and I are convinced that our dreams have transpired at the same place at the same time on a couple of occasions. For example, one chilly night, when the streets were quiet (it must have been a work day or Sunday, but definitely not a weekend) I dreamt of a scene so mixed up that I find it exceptionally difficult to articulate it through reflective unities, but I remember perfectly where that scene took place. A big grassy garden enclosed by a rusted white fence, further narrowed with a few trees at the corners, with a giant grey-white building in the middle that resembled a children’s resort or an orphanage. On one such night, Dido dreamt of knight duels between him and his physics teacher, and the duel transpired in the exact same space. It is truly astonishing that we didn’t meet each other then. Dido thinks it’s because of his engagement with his adversary and my obsession to sort all my impressions logically. And this is not an isolated case. We know of a few such dreams, like the one in the mountaineering club, the abandoned school and the glass factory, and thousands more that we don’t know of. Anyway, it was indeed magical to explore one another, Dido and me. To discover our encounters in the past, our accidental touches left unnoticed, the possible mutual friends, lovers, neighbours, used taxis, bus seats, slime left on the fountain, banknotes that had passed through my wallet and his. For the first time in my life, it was easy, without any apprehension, shame or stiffness. Simply easy. As if I was certain. No uncomfortable pauses, no visible trembling of the hand and annoying breathing sounds. There was one button that offered a magical exit from all the complexity of the created relations, not that we needed it for the time being. It was just that, it felt somehow soothing to know that it existed. But what is even more exciting is the fact that even though it existed, neither of us wanted to use it. It is the twenty-seventh day since I started spending my free time on our conversations, counting time before and after logging in. When I’m online and when I’m here. When I’m present and when I exist. When I am and when I become.
So here I go again, I have been browsing through the photo folders on my computer for twenty-eight days now, hoping that today will be the day when I will finally find a photo of me good enough to satisfy Dido’s curiosity. The nail polish on my toes is starting to peel off. I will have to correct that imperfection before I leave home. Some raspy male voice on the morning radio programme presumptuously promises that they are “patching the holes in the road infrastructure, which are a big problem in our municipality”. For God’s sake, these people have managed to paint, polish and perfume the entire city, while I can’t even reconstruct my own face, finish putting my feet in order and restore my own body. Browsing through the photos is taking me far too much time, and my concentration is again interrupted by the concrete drilling machines’ smashing and the excavators’ buzzing occasionally pierced by the construction workers’ deep shouts. A famous actor speaks on TV: “Remember well what the capital’s centre looks like today. It will never be the same again”. The anchorwoman continues with a solemn, but calm tone: “The presentation took everybody’s breath away, some 200-300 people were present in the hall. Some of them were delighted, commenting that they felt as if they were watching another, prettier city…”. I feel the entire world has gone on an almost mystical beautification mission and all that clamour, spasm and effort won’t subside until all the bulges have been flattened, all the holes patched, until each sign of old age, endurance and resistance has been animated with subdued colours. The surface must be absolutely smooth and firm in order to be pleasant to the public eye. I don’t know how people manage it. I find it almost impossible to complete this mission in the interval between waking up and leaving home. I had just finished doing my toe nails when, in the mirror, I noticed the tweezed stray eyebrow hairs had burst through the pores and arrogantly peeked through the skin. I have two options. Tweezers or waxing strips. The second option is quicker but less precise and with a greater risk of deformation. Suddenly I’ve got it. There is a third option. I let my hair fall freely and I let the front part cover my face. With scissors I cut the hair right above the eyelids. Niiiiice. I flatten the loose shirt over my jeans and I tighten it at the waist line with the sleeves, tying a strong knot. The size of the hips has now been masked. It’s not a perfect reconstruction yet, but I’ve already confessed that I haven’t so far managed to fix my surface well enough. It’s hot outside. I feel like the people passing me by in the narrow street are looking at me reproachfully. It is absolutely inadmissible to spoil the view of the others with such an aesthetic flaw. But what can I do about it? I look down, I direct my gaze toward the asphalt and I count the steps. That deforms my body even further. Being conscious of my feet moving makes my stride clumsy and ridiculous. I try to reach the office silently and imperceptibly, like an animated caricature, so I can enjoy my freedom again, throwing myself at the papers, the invoices and the payment orders and trying to sooth the agitation caused by the unwanted encounters with the unknown and known passersby. Nevertheless, I’m still pressed by the commitment to find a photo of me good enough for Dido.
I knew, even at the beginning of our online conversations, that the damned day would come when Dido would ask to see me. I wasn’t sure whether he’d ask for a photo first, a video chat or to meet me in the flesh, but I knew that the encounter was imminent. As much as I feared that invitation, as secretly as I hoped that he, too, shared my fear of being seen, something deeply sensible within me was still told me to start preparing for that battle in good time. Dido did not ask that from me during our first conversation. To be honest, he didn’t ask in the next few conversations either, but I opened the photo folder and started the tedious search from the very first day. It turned out I was right. On the seventh day something occurred that opened a new perspective in our relations. Completely unexpected, literally in the middle of a sentence I was sending, I received a long kiss ******************. Never before had I been kissed that lovingly. I brought my two forefingers closer to the keyboard. I placed the first softly over the Shift button, and with the other I passionately pressed the Eight. I closed my eyes and I pressed Enter. A swarm of beetles started buzzing in my head. Together with my eyes I also opened the smile with the right brackets :))))). Dido returned my excitement and asked me: Can I see you? I tried to throw him off topic suggesting other themes, explanations, experiences, but I knew the question was hanging in the air, waiting for the answer to tie it in an anchor and balance the logical asymmetry. Ten minutes had barely passed when Dido made his final choice. He asked me for a photo. It was indeed more than useful that I had prepared for this moment beforehand. I was certain of my answers, ready for the request. I knew how to answer without having to lie, but at the same time without raising doubt that Dido would ever get a photo of me.
To avoid sounding resolute, even now, I hope that perhaps today, or tomorrow, or next Friday I will stumble upon a photo blurry enough and clear enough to show how I look, but not avail me to the eye. I truly hope so, but I don’t exclude the possibility that such a photo simply doesn’t exist. I wanted to meet him halfway the very moment he had requested it from me. I tried to take some new photos on the webcam. In vain. I was struggling for nearly two hours, taking photos while I was exchanging all kinds of stuff with Dido. At last I grew tired with the failure and turned the camera off. I wished Dido good night, not forgetting to promise him that I would e-mail him my photo as soon as I found one.
I have been browsing through the photo folders on my computer for twenty-nine days now, hoping that today will be the day when I will finally find a photo of me good enough to satisfy Dido’s curiosity. The commotion on the street broke out earlier today and is far louder. The elimination of the rubbish and the ugly bumps on the streets is complete, the colour of the facades is refreshed with youthful tones, defying the old paleness and wrinkles. The space will be adorned with fountains, sculptures and monuments. The inauguration will take place tomorrow night. My make-up is not very effective, as a matter of fact, I’ve been noticing lately that it refuses to even participate in the battle against age. I wrap my neck in a long scarf and I put hefty earrings on. It’s hot outside, but that’s a price my neck will have to pay. I’m starting to sweat already. I opt for a long wide grey skirt instead of trousers, and a blouse of a muted tone and a simple cut. I look like a giant concrete cylinder. Though aesthetically poor, miserable even, to point out the anomalous shape would certainly have been a far bigger failure in the eyes of the crowd. It is essential today to avoid leaving any kind of impression. The people on the streets are more numerous than usual. They are satisfied with the results of the city’s plastic surgery. They want more. They want to see the entire city go under the knife. They are happy. Happier and chattier than usual. The noise crawls into my home too. “Splendid! Perfect! We should be proud!”. Enclosed shoes and hair falling over the face. That’s the plan for today. If there is enough time to complete the reconstruction and restoration, success could burst out on the horizon, after a long time. Experience has taught me that muted black, brown and grey tones in a wide regular cut are least likely to attract attention and gazes from people. When they don’t see me, I’m free. Free to smile in their presence, to walk with heavy and clumsy steps that can quickly carry me to the desired destination, to lift my chin and save myself from the pain caused by my stiff neck.
Free to breathe without trembling, unburdened by the lump in the upper part of my belly, the twinge in my muscles has subsided. Only when I’m at home do I feel this freedom, when I’m alone or in the company of a small circle of people I’m certain they would never look at me that way because they’ve known my flaws for way too long, they’ve grown accustomed to them to a sense-numbing point. I try to prolong these moments of freedom, on the account of the moments of anxiety and agitation. I often succeed. I reduced the contacts with the world only to the connecting paths of one free territory to the next. From work to home, from home to work. My peace was only disrupted by the walks along the few streets in my city that I have always taken these past few years, that is, since the world started looking at me and noticing the spots that needed restoration and reconstruction. Dido is at the same time a vent, a connection, emotion and happiness, yet still, another obstacle, another angst, another crack in my personal freedom. Perhaps it could’ve been different had he not wished to see me, had he tried to feel me, smell me, hear me, touch me, get to know me in a different way, to perceive and conceive me, not just see me.
It is a true pleasure remembering my first conversations with Dido. Though, lately, the chats have become shorter. Their frequency has remained the same, but the duration has altered. I feel a need to be done with it sooner and turn the computer off. I keep fabricating all kinds of chores, pending tasks and fake deadlines. Damn it! We’ve been negotiating an encounter in person for days. The stress is killing me. If I haven’t managed to procure a photo of myself good enough for almost a month now, God knows how much time I will need to create a good enough version of myself. I want to unveil myself to Dido. I want to uncover his eyes, to feel the touch of our looks too. I sincerely long to exchange looks with Dido. But can there be looking without looking through, knowing without getting to know? Could I skip the long early phases of seeing somebody or something? Dido and I, we could look at each other after our senses have grown sufficiently numb, challenged by habit and familiarity. I stall as long as I can, but the encounter is imminent and scheduled for tomorrow. I decided to give in, for tomorrow people will come out on the streets in large crowds, to celebrate the new look of the city. The possibility to notice and examine one another decreases when the normal everyday passing through public space amounts to euphoria. In an ecstatic atmosphere, the gazes of people are usually dispersed over the horizon or pointed towards the men in suits, which on such occasions are always giving speeches prompted on some high stage. I should and must make use of this indifference for the individuality, and that is exactly why I’ve chosen tomorrow. Still, one big personal failure remains. There is the opportunity to save myself from the attention of the others and I shall take it, but there is no way to save myself from Dido’s gaze. Not even my perverse torso and limbs wrapped in fabric will shield off Dido’s piercing gaze across my face, my hair, my skin, my nose, lips, eyes. I could never and by no means defend the strategically most important part of my body. My face is angular, uncovered, naked, conveniently exposed to gazes, judgment and critique. Unprotected from wrong deductions, unforeseen reactions and emotions. Untied for all possible interpretations that I can’t discover, correct, categorize in a logical manner, control.
Here comes the thirtieth day, when I refuse to face the arduous browsing through the photo folders. Instead, I try to photoshop myself well enough. I’m meeting Dido in twenty minutes. I’ll put myself on display for him and give myself up to his gaze. There is no make-up, lipstick, mascara or eye shadow good enough in this world to hide my vulnerability. There is only one option left. I find my raincoat in the old suitcase safely stored under the bed. The width and length are perfect. It hangs from the shoulders and falling freely demonstrates indifference all the way down to the ankles. I hide my feet in simple enclosed black shoes. These black shoes have been living in my home for nearly a year now. They summoned me from a shop window with their simple and humble shape. They looked like two shy children between the bewildered high heels. They had one flaw though. A silver sequin in the middle was glistering crudely and unexpectedly. It looked like a tumour attacking a calm soul. I decided to buy them even though they had a defect. I fixed them at home. I bought black nail polish and I painted the lump. I’ve accepted them as mine and I’m not dispensing of them now. I only have the head left, including the hardest part - the face. I pick out a long and light grey scarf. I put it over my head, one end over my face all the way to the eyes, and I lower the upper part on the end of my forehead. Almost perfect. Only the eyes remain, but I leave theme exposed to danger for practical reasons. Doing them is a piece of cake. The gaze fiercely and painfully penetrates the inside through the bits of skin. It is excruciatingly painful when someone is rummaging through you, and you are helpless. The eyes have something other body parts don’t. A control mechanism. When you close them or when you turn your gaze away, the defence is strengthened and the attack is seldom successful. I lock the door, put the key in the pocket of the raincoat and dash down the stairs, then through the front door.
Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Both my face and my body are concealed. I’m a free woman. I walk the streets freshened with new asphalt and inhale the vapour of the painted facades. I’m finally free to smile, to stick my tongue out, to move my feet giddily, taking inarticulate steps. People look at me but can’t see me. Curiosity draws them in, the challenge to witness the other, the different. I see pity in occasional gazes. They must be thinking it is too hot for this poor girl to be wrapped up like this. Spitefully I thrust my tongue out at them, hidden safely under the scarf on my face. They don’t know. They can’t see me. They can’t criticize, disapprove, judge. They simply don’t know. They can look at me as much as they please, I’m no longer afraid. I lift my chin high, and after a really, really long time, I’m walking through the streets with my eyes on the horizon, not the asphalt. Every attack on my interior is impossible. I’m so impenetrable that I can feel the tickling of the gazes sliding over the fabric through my body and falling defeated on the pavements paved with new tiles. I feel as if my chest will explode any second from the deep breathing. I’m not accustomed to this being-free situation, so, in some parts of my body, I still feel pressure from old but burdens disappeared. It is marvellous. So good. So commitment-free, easy and graceful. Dozens more metres separate me from the fountain where I’ve arranged to meet with Dido.
There’s a crowd of people around me and I’m not scared even for a second. I’m not trying to hide my face, turn my look away, fix my hair or my make-up. I am standing erect, with Dido by my side. He checks his watch often and looks left and right. We’ve been standing next to each other for about ten minutes now. Occasionally, we are separated by the passersby moving towards the square, expecting the announced fireworks, but that’s only for an instant. Dido slowly grows impatient. He starts pacing back and forth, heaving sighs of agitation and exasperatedly casting his look over his left shoulder, then over his right one. I sneak up from behind his back and I allow myself to inconspicuously touch his short sleeve shirt. My caress will later transfer itself through his body. When he leaves, perhaps upset or disappointed thinking I’ve stood him up, the vibrations from my touch will disperse over his waist like a soft embrace that will console him. God, how beautiful Dido looks with his back turned to me, pensive and nervous. As always, our meetings are magical because we are not aware of them. Maybe Dido doesn’t know that now, but he will. I skip around him. I’m thrilled. We are standing here, together, in a secret that no-one knows. We are together. Our scents mix together, our sighs embrace, somewhere over all these sweaty bodies. I close my eyes from time to time, in an attempt to remember and keep this state with all its peculiarity. After some time, Dido leaves our meeting place and heads towards the bus stop, visibly disappointed. I also head home. Exhilarated. Free. This has been the best date of my life.
Translated from Macedonian by Olga Petan
Olga Petan graduated from the Faculty of Philology “Blazhe Koneski” in Skopje in 2012, with a BA in English Literature, Translation and Interpreting, minoring in Spanish Language and Literature. In 2011 she translated a number of books as a part of the government project 130 Volumes of Macedonian Literature. Apart from translating literature, she also works as an interpreter at various conferences and seminars.
