Veronika Decides to Die: A Novel of Redemption Read online

  Father and son sat down in the living room.

  "Your mother's very worried about you," said the ambassador. "Your marks have gotten worse, and there's a danger that your place at the school won't be renewed."

  "But my marks at art school have improved, Dad."

  "I find your interest in art very pleasing, but you have your whole life ahead of you to do that. At the moment the main thing is to finish your secondary education, so that I can set you on the path to a diplomatic career."

  Eduard thought long and hard before saying anything. He thought about the accident, about the book on visionaries, which had turned out to be only a pretext for finding his true vocation, and he thought about Maria, from whom he had never heard again. He hesitated for some time, but in the end, said: "Dad, I don't want to be a diplomat. I want to be a painter."

  His father was prepared for that response and knew how to get round it.

  "You will be a painter, but first finish your studies. We'll arrange for exhibitions in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Sarajevo. I've got influence, I can help you a lot, but you must complete your studies."

  "If I do that, I'll be choosing the easy route. I'll enter some faculty or other, get a degree in a subject that doesn't interest me but that will help me earn a living. Painting will just recede into the background, and I'll end up forgetting my vocation. I'll just have to find a way of earning money through my painting."

  The ambassador was starting to get irritated.

  "You've got everything, son, a family that loves you, a house, money, social position--but as you know, our country is going through a difficult time, there are rumors of civil war. Tomorrow I might not even be here to help you."

  "I can help myself. Trust me. One day I'll paint a series entitled Visions of Paradise. It'll be a visual history of what men and women have previously experienced only in their hearts."

  The ambassador praised his son's determination, drew the conversation to a close with a smile, and decided to give him another month; after all, diplomacy is also the art of postponing decisions until the problems resolve themselves.

  A month passed, and Eduard continued to devote all his time to painting, to his strange friends and to that music apparently expressly designed to induce some psychological disorder. To make matters worse, he had been expelled from the American school for arguing with a teacher about the existence of saints.

  Since the decision could be put off no longer, the ambassador made one last attempt and called his son in for a man-to-man talk.

  "Eduard, you are now of an age to take responsibility for your own life. We've put up with this for as long as we could, but now you've got to forget all this nonsense about becoming a painter and give some direction to your career."

  "But Dad, being a painter is giving a direction to my career."

  "What about our love for you, all our efforts to give you a good education. You never used to be like this, and I can only assume that what's happening is some consequence of the accident."

  "Look, I love you both more than anything or anyone else in the world."

  The ambassador cleared his throat. He wasn't used to such outspoken expressions of affection.

  "Then, in the name of the love you have for us, please, do as your mother wants. Just stop all this painting business for a while, get some friends who belong to the same social class as you and go back to your studies."

  "You love me, Dad. You can't ask me to do that, because you've always set me a good example, fighting for the things you cared about. You can't want me to be a man with no will of my own."

  "I said, 'In the name of love.' And I have never said that before, but I'm asking you now. For the love that you bear us, for the love we bear you, come home, and I don't just mean in the physical sense, but really. You're deceiving yourself, running away from reality.

  "Ever since you were born, we've built up such dreams of how our lives would be. You're everything to us, our future and our past. Your grandfathers were civil servants, and I had to fight like a lion to enter the diplomatic service and make my way up the ladder. And I did all this just to create a space for you, to make things easier for you. I've still got the pen with which I signed my first document as an ambassador, and I lovingly saved it to pass on to you the day you did the same.

  "Don't let us down, son. We won't live forever and we want to die in peace, knowing that we've set you on the right path in life.

  "If you really love us, do as I ask. If you don't love us, then carry on as you are now."

  Eduard sat for long hours staring up at the sky in Brasilia, watching the clouds moving across the blue--beautiful clouds, but without a drop of rain in them to moisten the dry earth of the central Brazilian plateau. He was as empty as they were.

  If he continued as he was, his mother would fade away with grief, his father would lose all enthusiasm for his career, and both would blame each other for failing in the upbringing of their beloved son. If he gave up his painting, the visions of paradise would never see the light of day, and nothing else in this world could ever give him the same feelings of joy and pleasure.

  He looked around him, he saw his paintings, he remembered the love and meaning he had put into each brushstroke, and he found every one of his paintings mediocre. He was a fraud, he wanted something for which he had not been chosen, the price of which was his parents' disappointment.

  Visions of paradise were for the chosen few, who appeared in books as heroes and martyrs to the faith in which they believed--people who knew from childhood what the world wanted of them; the so-called facts in that first book he had read were the inventions of a storyteller.

  At suppertime, he told his parents that they were right; it was just a youthful dream; his enthusiasm for painting had passed. His parents were pleased, his mother wept with joy and embraced her son, and everything went back to normal.

  That night the ambassador secretly commemorated his victory by opening a bottle of champagne, which he drank alone. When he went to bed, his wife--for the first time in many months--was already sleeping peacefully.

  The following day they found Eduard's room in confusion, the paintings slashed, and the boy sitting in a corner, gazing up at the sky. His mother embraced him, told him how much she loved him, but Eduard didn't respond.

  He wanted nothing more to do with love; he was fed up with the whole business. He had thought that he could just give up and follow his father's advice, but he had advanced too far in his work; he had crossed the abyss that separates a man from his dream, and now there was no going back.

  He couldn't go forward or back. It was easier just to leave the stage.

  Eduard stayed in Brazil for another five months, being treated by specialists, who diagnosed a rare form of schizophrenia, possibly the result of a bicycle accident. Then war broke out in Yugoslavia, and the ambassador was hastily recalled. It was too problematic for the family to look after Eduard, and the only way out was to leave him in the newly opened hospital of Villete.

  By the time Eduard had finished telling his story, it was dark and they were both shivering with cold.

  LET'S GO in," he said. "They'll be serving supper."

  "Whenever we went to see my grandmother when I was a child, I was always fascinated by one particular painting in her house. It showed a woman--Our Lady, as Catholics call her--standing poised above the world, with her hands outstretched to the earth and with rays of light streaming from her fingertips.

  What most intrigued me about the painting was that this lady was standing on a live snake. I said to my grandmother: 'Isn't she afraid of the snake? Won't it bite her on the foot and kill her with its poison?'"

  My grandmother said: "According to the Bible, the snake brought good and evil to the earth, and she is keeping both good and evil in check with her love.'"

  "What's that got to do with my story?"

  "I've only known you a week, so it would be far too early for me to tell you that I love you, but since
I probably won't live through the night, it would also be too late. But then, the great craziness of men and women is precisely that: love.

  "You told me a love story. I honestly believe your parents wanted the best for you, but their love almost destroyed your life. If Our Lady, as she appeared in my grandmother's painting, was treading on a snake, that indicates that love has two faces."

  "I see what you mean," said Eduard. "I provoked the nurses into giving me the electric shock treatment, because you get me all mixed up. I can't say for sure what I feel, and love has already destroyed me once."

  "Don't be afraid. Today I asked Dr. Igor for permission to leave here and to choose a place where I can close my eyes forever. But when I saw you being held down by the nurses, I realized what it was I wanted to be looking at when I left this world: your face. And I decided not to leave.

  "While you were sleeping off the effects of the electric shock treatment, I had another heart attack, and I thought my time had come. I looked at your face, and I tried to guess what your story was, and I prepared myself to die happy. But death didn't come, my heart survived yet again, perhaps because I'm still young."

  He looked down.

  "Don't be embarrassed about being loved. I'm not asking you for anything; just let me love you and play the piano again tonight, just once more, if I still have the strength to do it. In exchange I ask only one thing: If you hear anyone say that I'm dying, go straight to my ward. Let me have my wish."

  Eduard remained silent for a long time, and Veronika thought he must have retreated once more into his separate world, from which he would not return for a long time.

  Then he looked at the mountains beyond the walls of Villete and said: "If you want to leave, I can take you. Just give me time to grab a couple of jackets and some money. Then we'll go."

  "It won't last long, Eduard. You do know that."

  Eduard didn't reply. He went in and came back at once carrying two jackets.

  "It will last an eternity, Veronika; longer than all the identical days and nights I've spent in here, constantly trying to forget those visions of paradise. And I almost did forget them, too, though it seems to me they're coming back.

  "Come on, let's go. Crazy people do crazy things."

  That night, when they were all gathered together for supper, the inmates noticed that four people were missing.

  ZEDKA, WHO everyone knew had been released after a long period of treatment; Mari, who had probably gone to the movies, as she often did; and Eduard, who had perhaps not recovered from the electric shock treatment. When they thought this, all the inmates felt afraid, and they began their supper in silence.

  Finally, the girl with green eyes and brown hair was missing. The one who they all knew would not see out the week.

  No one spoke openly of death in Villete, but absences were noted, although everyone always tried to behave as if nothing had happened.

  A rumor started to go from table to table. Some wept, because she had been so full of life and now she would be lying in the small mortuary behind the hospital. Only the most daring ever went there, even during daylight hours. It contained three marble tables, and there was generally a new body on one of them, covered with a sheet.

  Everyone knew that tonight Veronika would be there. Those who were truly insane soon forgot the presence, during that week, of another guest, who sometimes disturbed everyone's sleep playing the piano. A few, when they heard the news, felt rather sad, especially the nurses who had been with Veronika during her time in the Intensive Care Unit, but the employees had been trained not to develop strong bonds with the patients, because some left, others died, and the great majority got steadily worse. Their sadness lasted a little longer, and then that too passed.

  The vast majority of the inmates, however, heard the news, pretended to be shocked and sad, but actually felt relieved because once more the exterminating angel had passed over Villete, and they had been spared.

  When the Fraternity got together after supper, one member of the group gave them a message: Mari had not gone to the movies, she had left, never to return, and had given him a note.

  NO ONE seemed to attach much importance to the matter: She had always seemed different, rather too crazy, incapable of adapting to the ideal situation in which they all lived in Villete.

  'Mari never understood how happy we are here,' said one of them. "We are friends with common interests, we have a routine, sometimes we go out on trips together, invite lecturers here to talk about important matters, then we discuss their ideas. Our life has reached a perfect equilibrium, something that many people outside would love to achieve."

  'Not to mention the fact that in Villete we are protected from unemployment, the consequences of the war in Bosnia, from economic problems and violence," said another. "We have found harmony."

  'Mari left me this note," said the one who had given them the news, holding up a sealed envelope. "She asked me to read it out loud, as if she were saying good-bye to us all."

  The oldest member of the group opened the envelope and did as Mari had asked. He was tempted to stop halfway, but by then it was too late, and so he read to the end.

  "When I was still a young lawyer, I read some poems by an English poet, and something he said impressed me greatly: 'Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.' I always thought he was wrong. It was dangerous to overflow, because we might end up flooding areas occupied by our loved ones and drowning them with our love and enthusiasm. All my life I did my best to be a cistern, never going beyond the limits of my inner walls.

  "Then, for some reason I will never understand, I began suffering from panic attacks. I became the kind of person I had fought so hard to avoid becoming: I became a fountain that overflowed and flooded everything around me. The result was my internment in Villete.

  "After I was cured, I returned to the cistern and I met all of you. Thank you for your friendship, for your affection, and for many happy moments. We lived together like fish in an aquarium, contented because someone threw us food when we needed it, and we could, whenever we wanted to, see the world outside through the glass.

  "But yesterday, because of a piano and a young woman who is probably dead by now, I learned something very important: Life inside is exactly the same as life outside. Both there and here, people gather together in groups; they build their walls and allow nothing strange to trouble their mediocre existences. They do things because they're used to doing them, they study useless subjects, they have fun because they're supposed to have fun, and the rest of the world can go hang--let them sort themselves out. At the very most, they watch the news on television--as we often did--as confirmation of their happiness in a world full of problems and injustices.

  "What I'm saying is that the life of the Fraternity is exactly the same as the lives of almost everyone outside Villete, carefully avoiding all knowledge of what lies beyond the glass walls of the aquarium. For a long time it was comforting and useful, but people change, and now I'm off in search of adventure, even though I'm sixty-five and fully aware of all the limitations that age can bring. I'm going to Bosnia. There are people waiting for me there. Although they don't yet know me, and I don't know them. But I'm sure I can be useful, and the danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort."

  When he had finished reading the note, the members of the Fraternity all went to their rooms and wards, telling themselves that Mari had finally gone insane.

  Eduard and Veronika chose the most expensive restaurant in Ljubljana, ordered the finest dishes, and got drunk on three bottles of 1988 wine, one of the best vintages of the century. During supper they did not once mention Villete or the past or the future.

  I LIKE THAT story about the snake," he said, filling her glass for the nth time. "But your grandmother was too old to be able to interpret the story correctly."

  "Have a little respect for my grandmother, please!" roared Veronika drunkenly, making everyone in the r
estaurant turn around.

  "A toast to this young woman's grandmother!" said Eduard, jumping to his feet. "A toast to the grandmother of this madwoman sitting here before me, who is doubtless some escapee from Villete!"

  People turned their attention back to their food, pretending that nothing was happening.

  "A toast to my grandmother!" insisted Veronika.

  The owner of the restaurant came to their table.

  "Will you please behave!"

  They became quiet for a few moments but soon resumed their loud talking, their nonsensical remarks, and inappropriate behavior. The owner of the restaurant went back to their table, told them they didn't need to pay the bill, but they had to leave that instant.

  "Think of the money we'll save on that exorbitantly expensive wine," said Eduard. "Let's leave before this gentleman changes his mind."

  But the man wasn't about to change his mind. He was already pulling at Veronika's chair, an apparently courteous gesture intended to get her out of the restaurant as quickly as possible.

  They walked to the middle of the small square in the center of the city. Veronika looked up at her convent room and her drunkenness vanished. She remembered that soon she would die.

  "Let's buy some more wine!" said Eduard.

  There was a bar nearby. Eduard bought two bottles, and the two of them sat down and continued drinking.

  "What's wrong with my grandmother's interpretation of the painting?" said Veronika.

  Eduard was so drunk that he had to make an immense effort to remember what he had said in the restaurant, but he managed it.

  "Your grandmother said that the woman was standing on the snake because love must master good and evil. It's a nice, romantic interpretation, but it's nothing to do with that. I've seen that image before, it's one of the visions of paradise I imagined painting. I used to wonder why they always depicted the Virgin like that."