Following the Hearts
Author: Nadezhda Bezuevskaia, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg (HfJS)
Cara saw the hearts everywhere: a heart-shaped tiny puddle on the pavement or a pebble on the beach. Such things she even collected. Cara would gaze at a heart-shaped cloud in the sky until it lost its contours, or she would admire a heart-shaped tealeaf in a cup, or a dusty crack in the wall of the house she lived in, or a hollow in a tree in the local park. Cara would come across a snow pattern on a car window, drawn by some stranger. Or one cool September morning, she would stop by the free city library shelf and accidentally find a pink, heart-shaped love note forgotten in a book…
Despite Cara’s big plans for that day — sitting down at a coffee shop with her laptop and writing a book review for the publishing house she worked for — her attention was immediately drawn to the love note in the book she was holding in her hands. The book was heavy and smelled of new ink, and the love note inside was made of expensive, glossy light pink paper. “Follow the heart, love…” it said. Cara smiled at the coincidence between the text and her tendency to see signs. Or was it just some kind of obsession? Suddenly, the sun came out from behind the clouds and its ray touched the book with the note in Cara’s hands. She looked up to see a street garland of colorful paper hearts leading to another street.
As if guided by invisible forces, Cara turned the corner and headed up the other street. In the window of a bookstore, she saw a heart-shaped advertisement offering discounts on books of love poetry. Cara found that funny, too. She continued walking up the street and saw heart-shaped objects everywhere: lollipops in the windows of pastry shops, parts of bas-relief ornaments on the buildings, and prints on tourists’ T-shirts with declarations of love for the city. It started to rain lightly, and little hearts began to appear as the raindrops on the pavement and even on a passerby’s umbrella. It was as if all this made her speed up, and her walk almost turned into a run.
Eventually, the signs led Cara to the train station. She felt she had to get on a train, but she could not decide which one. Then she got to the opposite platform and noticed a small blue and white heart-shaped sticker on the train timetable board. Cara had to wait a few minutes until her train, decorated with graffiti of silver hearts, arrived. And Cara entered the train, sat down on the window seat, and tried to find new signs of her destination. The journey took her no more than fifteen minutes when she saw a child with a pink heart-shaped balloon on the platform and hurried off.
“Follow the heart, love…” What was that? Unknown force? Madness? Somebody’s mind game? Her answer was golden confetti in the shape of little hearts, scattered along the road and shining in the rays of the newly emerged sun. Cara walked down the festive path, crossed the road and found herself in a tiny garden, right in front of a solitude bench with a sculpture of a young man holding an open book and looking a little sadly, as if through Cara.
“Do you mind, sir, if I sit next to you?” Cara asked jokingly.
“Not at all. Please, madame, come keep me company,” was the answer.
Cara looked at the sculpture. It did not seem to have moved an inch. What was that? Was she going insane? Cara slowly sat down next to the sculpture, took a bottle of water from her small backpack, and sipped. She sat for a while and decided that, perhaps, it was time for her to return home. The game dragged on, and she’d better get back to her small cozy apartment, take an aromatic bath with candles, and relax. Her mind clearly needed a rest.
“Are you leaving already?” As if reading Cara’s thoughts, someone on her left asked her, causing her to jump.
“What’s going on? Is it some kind of a joke?” demanded Cara. The sculpture’s eyes kept gazing just through her.
“If you considered it a joke, you would not have come here, would you?” The deep voice came from the sculpture, which remained frozen.
Astonished, Cara came closer to the sculpture and touched its shoulder. It was metallic, cold, rough and not at all reminiscent of the living sculpture that can be seen on the central streets of cities that attract tourists.
“How are you doing this?” asked Cara.
“Follow the heart, love, and you will find out,” was the answer.
“Okay, I get it. You are playing me out,” Cara mentally addressed her friends and colleagues at the publishing house, who considered Cara too romantic and dreamy. “Haha, everyone had a laugh, now it's time to go home.”
“As you wish. But it took me forever to wait for you,” Cara could have sworn she saw the sculpture’s eyes blink and its lips smile slightly.
“Alright. Do you want to play games? Let’s play, then.” Cara sat down on the bench next to the man again. “So, what do you want to discuss? The weather? Politics? Gossip?”
“You are not interested in any of these, are you?” the sculpture wondered.
“I asked, what would you like to discuss?” Cara insisted.
“I would discuss your favorite topics because I am your spiritual fellow traveler,” replied the sculpture, his gaze now seemed warmer.
“You mean, my soulmate?”
“I mean what I said.”
“Ok. Sorry. I hope I haven’t offended you, dear magical creature, sir, but you don’t seem to travel very much.”
“Oh, do not worry. The key word here is ‘spiritual,’ and as we know, spirits travel more freely,” replied the stranger. His voice seemed to sound softer.
“In the fairy tales, the main characters have spiritual animals and magician friends, and I have a spiritual sculpture,” sighed Cara. She got so carried away with this bizarre conversation that completely forgot about her idea that she was being fooled.
“Most people are deprived of the privilege of meeting their spiritual companions in real life,” said her new acquaintance.
“Tell me then, my magical spiritual fellow traveler, sir, how can I help you to turn into a Prince Charming?” Cara asked mischievously.
“What makes you think it is me who needs to be transformed? You came here,” said the man, his eyes sparkled and the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes smiled.
“Fair enough. I hope you do not want me to turn into a stone, do you?” Cara chuckled at her new ability to make small talk with a stranger, which had never been her strong suit.
“If you don’t want to, I won’t do it. Although then we could talk forever and not be afraid that our time together would end soon,” the man replied and shrugged.
“I think we have enough time to talk right now. Today is Sunday, and I have an entire day ahead,” said Cara.
“Exactly. Today is the Autumnal Equinox Day. The day when our worlds coincide, and we do not know how much time we have to interact,” said Cara’s new acquaintance.
“Do you want to say that you can forever be locked into your metal self here, or I can forever stay in your fairy tale world?” Cara asked, frightened.
“I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for our meeting for a month of Sundays, and now you are finally here. It seems like even eternity has its limits. Who knows when we will be destined to meet again?” Said the friend, and Cara noticed the bunch of golden little confetti hearts appearing on the pages of his opened book.
“Alright, sir. Now, should I ask you to grant me three wishes, like they do in real fairy tales?”
Cara’s companion laughed and gently touched her left hand, which lay on the surface of the bench, with his hand that was no longer cold. It felt as if an electric shock had passed through Cara’s entire body.
“You can try. Tell me, what are you dreaming of?” asked Cara’s new friend.
“I can’t tell you my dreams, then they won’t come true,” Cara replied. “Besides, I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in hard work and self-reliance,” she said proudly and a little arrogantly.
Cara worked really hard to get a job as a literary reviewer at a publishing house. She loved her job and managed her own creative project. She had almost everything in life: supportive parents, her sister with whom Cara met once a week for a coffee, her creative job, her cozy studio apartment in a lovely, green neighborhood, an invitation for a date from a guy she met at a book presentation event last week… What else can one ask for? Cara also had her ambitions.
“I support your stance. You trust yourself and follow your heart,” said Cara’s friend in a noticeably quieter voice. He seemed to be turning into a sculpture again, his mimics were getting frozen. “I can feel our worlds are getting apart. It’s time. It was a real delight to meet and talk to you, love,” he said and froze for good.
“Wait! I don’t even know your name!” exclaimed Cara, but her words, alas, were not heard.
Cara’s new friend was gazing into the distance again. The wind carried away the little golden heart-shaped confetti from his opened book. Cara did not have time to even get upset about the interrupted conversation.
Suddenly, she found herself back to the narrow street standing by the free library shelf. She could not understand how she returned there. Was she dreaming again? It seemed a while had passed since her talk with a friendly stranger. Cara felt more mature and self-confident now.
She turned around. She kept on noticing hearts everywhere. She looked up in the sky to see the multicolored paper hearts hanging above her. Then Cara looked down. Several little golden heart-shaped confetti got stuck to her shoes and were shining in the sun. Then she realized that she was holding a book tightly. There was a pink, heart-shaped love note sticking out of the book. She looked at the cover of the book and read the title: Cara DeLeon “Following the Hearts.”