Olga Dies Dreaming(55)
“Okay,” Matteo said, poking his head out the door. “Come on in.”
The warm light, Olga realized, was the result of the four to five light fixtures Matteo had hanging over the space: one a crystal chandelier, the others a hodgepodge from various eras that he had clearly jury-rigged. The light reflected off a collection of mirrors and picture frames of various sizes, most empty, some not, that lined the entryway on one side and continued up the wall along a flight of steps to the second floor. To her other side, the walls opened into pocket doors, to what would normally be, in a house like this, the living room. Here, Matteo had arranged, as best as she could tell at her quick glance, a makeshift furniture museum. The walls were flanked, from floor to thirteen-foot-high ceiling, with distinct side chairs and dining chairs hung neatly on wall hooks, ranging in style from Victorian to Bauhaus. She stole a glance at two or three furniture vignettes featuring sofas and side tables but could hardly make out more before Matteo called out to her, directing her to a small half bath under the stairway. It was preserved from another era, an addition or redecoration from the late ’70s, with its bright yellow porcelain sink and matching toilet. A light plaid wallpaper peeled slightly at the edges, she noticed as she peed. Here, the walls were surprisingly bare. A large stack of New Yorker magazines sat in a corner, though, Olga noted, hardly more than any normal subscriber had in their home. She flushed and washed her hands and made a note that the hand towels were clean. When she didn’t find Matteo waiting outside the door, she took her chances and wandered across the hall to where, traditionally, a dining room would be. This, Matteo had repurposed into a music room, of sorts. The largest wall—the one that connected to the parlor space—was lined with shelf after shelf of records, even the fireplace repurposed for record storage. Against the windows, which she knew likely looked out into the backyard, was, of course, a record player, as well as any number of nearly extinct mechanisms for playing recorded music. An eight-track player, CD players, cassette decks, and, of course, speakers of various shapes and sizes. Olga had just turned to take in the rest of the room—rack storage for said eight-track tapes, CDs, and cassettes—when Matteo appeared, two beers in hand. She startled.
“Well,” he said, “since you haven’t run out of here yet, I figured I should at least offer you a beverage.”
“This is … unreal. Is this what the rest of the house is like?”
“Um, kind of,” he offered sheepishly. “I, um, like to keep the stuff categorized, I guess. This is … music. Upstairs, I have a lamp room—lamps are hard for me to pass up, personally, and um, well, I know I said I don’t keep papers and stuff, but that wasn’t totally true. Downstairs is comics and magazines—but what I’d like to think of as good stuff, you know? I’ve got two decades’ worth of Rolling Stone and every issue of Vibe.”
His sheepishness began to recede as he started talking through the various rooms, his enthusiasm for their contents clearly shining through. Rather than find this repulsive, Olga was surprised that it endeared him to her. She wanted to know the size and shape of the hole that had been left in his heart that required so many objects to fill it. She found herself envious that he had identified something to pack it with.
“The TVs … they’re in my bedroom,” he continued, “I mean, I don’t watch a ton of TV, but I have a lot of them. Different models and stuff. They all work. I just keep them in there and sometimes the light can be soothing to sleep to, or to pop in an old movie. And then, I keep a Christmas room, but it’s small…”
“I thought you were Jewish.”
“Yeah, but who doesn’t like Christmas, right? Like, if you’re having a bad fucking day, what’s better than sitting near a Christmas tree and listening to some carols? Actually, there are more records up there, because I don’t mix the Christmas music.”
They were standing a few feet apart. A silence fell between them.
“No one has been in this house in eight years besides me, Olga.”
He offered the words to her, loaded as they were with meaning. And she accepted what he said with gentle care. Fear and affection bubbled warm in her chest. A sensation of intimacy innervated her body from the root of her sex to the roots of her hair. She wanted to tell him that she was honored that it was her. That she was happy he’d talked to her that sad day at the bar. That she thought the house was actually kind of fucking cool, even if it wasn’t perhaps psychologically healthy. She wanted to say that she was sorry his mother had died, that she was sorry he had felt so lost. That she understood pain like that. That, for her, instead of filling her house, she had slowly stripped herself bare, until there was nothing. But she was too out of the practice of loving, in that moment, to say those things.
“Thanks for letting me use your restroom,” she said with a smile, frustrated with her own inadequacy, and desperately hopeful that he understood.
He closed the distance between them, kissed her cheek, and pulled away with a smile.
“Girl, do I have a record that’s gonna blow your mind! Let me find this shit.”
He quickly made his way to a spot on the many shelves of records and, with slight smugness, made a show of his find.
“That’s right! Fania All Stars, San Juan seventy-three!”
“Shit!” she said, with genuine delight.