Twenty Years of Waiting. Dating story no. 25

When I first agreed to this project, I had no idea how extraordinary it would turn out to be. Working from twelve personality types and the possible compatibilities between them, I had 48 different stories to write. They are a kind of 48 manifestations of love, which depend on the features of a person's character, on activity, fears, defences and a great deal else. What is more, each of these stories needed at least one real-life example — that is, a couple of the matching characters who had managed to build a successful relationship.

And while things were simpler with the so-called “maximally harmonious couples*” that we match up through the Dating Club, the second-best** and the extremely rare utopian unions*** had to be tracked down among relatives and acquaintances, and then, despite the change of names, every one of the people involved had to be asked for permission to publish.

People often react to these stories by saying that the characters are mad, odd or plain idiots. More often than not that comes from the difference between the “critics'” characters and those of the people in the story. And yes, in some cases the characters' actions really may look strange or neurotic, but in fact they could not have acted otherwise — that is simply what their characters are like. The most interesting thing is that some couples can look like complete neurotics and yet be in harmony and be happy. Others came together only thanks to intervention from outside. And there are those who stay together in spite of everything and everyone who tries to part them. Thomas and Eva are roughly of that kind.

Thomas was a fairly “difficult” child: haemophilia made his parents watch all the more closely to make sure the boy did not run about the yard once too often or bump into anything. That did not stop him from misbehaving energetically and, with all his childish naivety, confessing his misdeeds to the priest at the local church, who in turn cheerfully broke the seal of confession and reported everything to his parents. When Thomas turned into a tall, slightly angular man who looked very much like the not-yet-born Daniel Radcliffe, he seemed to have forgotten to grow up. With childlike enthusiasm he took up any hobby going, from painting to cross-stitch. While studying at teacher-training college he followed one of his professors into an enthusiasm for Hinduism and dragged home a huge statue of Hanuman — the monkey god, son of the god of the Wind — brought him offerings and told everybody fanatically what a fine fellow Hanuman was and how much he had got up to in his time. The children in Thomas's junior classes worshipped him, because he was that rare teacher who spoke their language and understood them as nobody else did, and his friends were amazed at his reserves of energy and enthusiasm. He was such a bright firework of ideas, rude jokes, tall tales from life and general merriment, with eyes entirely unclouded by any excess of care. Life was beautiful and wonderful — until he met Eva. After that meeting life became more beautiful still: in her he found a purpose.

Eva was a teacher too. She approached her work with complete responsibility and saw it as her mission, a kind of service to humanity. Always immaculately dressed, with a perfect posture, as though she had been tied to a rod, she never showed a single unnecessary emotion and approached every task logically and thoroughly. She was one of those people who always saw not the problem but its solution, and who always knew what had to be done. The children adored her for her devotion to them, her readiness to listen and her fairness; her colleagues, on the other hand, thought her too stubborn and categorical, too involved — and besides, next to her they risked looking worse than they thought they were.

They met at some professional-development seminar. It took Eva a while to believe that this youngster with the ecstatic gaze and a heap of ideas nobody needed was in fact a fellow teacher and not a student on placement. Thomas, for his part, gazed in delight at this magnificent, self-assured and incredibly intelligent woman. Eva had almost resigned herself to the role of the outsider whom hardly anyone understands; she was used to defending her principles alone and running into irritation and rejection, so Thomas's reaction astonished her. Mouth open, he listened to her reflections and grew more and more inspired.

“Yes, yes, that is exactly how it ought to be done in every school!” he exclaimed when she allowed herself one more remark. “We absolutely must write a letter to the relevant authorities! I will come to our next date with a notebook and a pen and we will write it all down in detail! By the way, where would you like to go?”

“You talk as if I had already agreed to a date with you...” Eva observed.

“Oh, have you not? Then agree at once, otherwise the letter with your brilliant proposals will never be written!”

“And how old are you, exactly?”

“Twenty-three!”

“Oh dear... And I am thirty-seven... A date, really...”

“I want one! You are the perfect woman, beautiful and sexy!”

It was an utterly sincere, childlike insistence that did not admit even the possibility of refusal. Thomas looked at her wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He did not give up; he went on persuading her and romantically winning her attention. And in the end Eva gave in and agreed to the relationship.

Thomas was beside himself with happiness. He worshipped her, supported her, was incredibly romantic, gave her flowers, painted her portrait and did everything in his power to please her. She had never had so wild and ardent a lover. And at the same time he hung adoringly on her every word when she started “being clever” and “lecturing”, always put her opinion first and admired her for being so sure of herself, for knowing what she wanted, and for all the other qualities she had grown used to being embarrassed about.

“He is young enough to be your son! Have a proper child by a proper man instead...” her colleagues advised, which only made her more stubborn.

“He is a proper man!” she declared proudly, reflecting that so far no other “proper” man had ever understood and supported her so well. Other men had tried to subdue her, to shut her up, to prove where and how she was bound to be wrong, and only Thomas admired her ideas and agreed that she was right. And why was he the only one who could see the obvious?

Meanwhile Thomas was having no easier a time of it. Eva was accepted neither by the friends he had grown up with nor by his parents. All of a sudden that same reckless Thomas, so far from growing up, felt more grown-up and more responsible than all his friends: he had the highest treasure, his holy Grail, his muse and his inspiration. And he was ready to fight for her — unlike those frivolous jokers who had no idea what Love is...

“Mother, I want to marry her, give us your blessing.” Thomas knew his mother was against it, but he hoped to the very last that he could reconcile her with Eva.

“As long as I am alive she will not set foot in this house, and you will not marry her!” his mother snapped. There was no point in arguing.

But does legal status matter when it comes to love? Thomas and Eva talked it over, and Eva agreed with a heavy heart to wait. She had never believed that things could simply go well for her — nor that they could go well for a reason, come to that. Everything could not possibly be settled just like that. So, in the name of their love, they would have to be patient. At least they had each other. And the waiting lasted almost twenty years.

Thomas dashed about like a scalded cat, torn between his mother and sister, his friends from his younger days and Eva. At her prompting he worked out a kind of timetable of which days he spent where. Sometimes he played to the gallery that he was rather afraid of her, sometimes he revelled in the role of the henpecked man, and sometimes in the role of the henpecked man in revolt — but not for anything, under any circumstances, would he have given Eva up.

In time his mother and sister realised that the more they criticised Eva, the more firmly Thomas held on to her, and they stopped mentioning her at all. That suited Thomas perfectly. He was learning self-confidence from Eva, learning to keep his promises firmly, learning a less emotional and more logical approach to life. Eva, for her part, never ceased to be amazed at how fragile and feminine she felt beside Thomas. In twenty years neither his delight nor her care for him diminished in the slightest.

And after almost twenty years Thomas's mother died. And Thomas, having waited out the proper period of mourning, asked Eva to marry him.

They approached the wedding preparations with the utmost responsibility: the preparing and the panicking took a year, with Eva doing more of the preparing and Thomas more of the panicking. A place was chosen for the ceremony (a beautiful monastery in the mountains) and another for the wedding dinner. Eva spent three months looking for a suitable dress, then gave up and designed one herself, watching closely to make sure the seamstress got nothing wrong. All the trial hairstyles and make-up, the choosing of the witnesses, the search for musicians, all the breakdowns when something did not work out first time... Thomas was in the devout conviction that the devil himself had for some reason set out to stop them legalising their relationship and saving themselves from hellfire after twenty years of living in sin. Devil or no devil, the closer the wedding day came, the more often and the more loudly they quarrelled and rowed. That did not lessen their determination, though. Having fallen out yet again and while still sulking at each other, each of them would still ring the florist about the decorations and the copy shop about printing the invitations, and would still lug boxes of hand-addressed invitations to the post office to send them out to everyone they knew. And only on the eve of the wedding did it all fall away as if by magic. Suddenly they both grew calm, and quiet descended.

On the wedding day they went their separate ways from early morning to get ready. While Eva was having her make-up, her hair and her dress done, Thomas nervously clutched at his electronic cigarette, driving everyone mad with his whining about what would happen if, when asked whether she took him as her husband, Eva said “No” — after all, they had quarrelled so much while preparing for the wedding. There was no convincing him that after twenty years together there could be only one answer. Thomas had always been emotional, but now his emotions were thoroughly off the scale. He sweated, fussed, ran back and forth, took off and put on his formal jacket again and could not settle anywhere, checking where the old cassette video camera had been set up, whether the witness's computer was working, whether the musicians were ready to play, whether the photographer had enough battery...

“She has decided not to come!” Thomas whimpered.

“I saw the taxi,” I objected,

“Go and call her... No! Stay here! Hey, miss! Where is Eva? Call her… Please..” In the end Thomas sent the hired photographer for his bride. The young woman turned out to be Australian and spoke only English. Off she went and, strangely enough, did not come back either. Thomas was turning pale before our eyes, and his shirt looked as if he had taken a shower in it.

“I will go!” Without waiting for objections, the groom's witness shot off.

When he came back, everyone came back. The photographer, who had told Eva that everybody was already in the church; Eva, who had decided she was being informed that everything was under control rather than being called to come; and even the bride's witness, trying to fix the veil in place as she went. The music struck up, Eva walked gracefully into the church, and the Australian photographer clicked away at a furious rate, taking as many different pictures as she could.

And at the decisive moment Eva said “Yes”.