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Cinquante-trois
The first time he meets her, she knows him.
He is sitting at the kitchen table and doing his math homework. His father says that math is the most important thing in the world, and one day he'll understand how the whole universe is build on calculations, logical connections and denominators. Arthur agrees. He is twelve. His father is a mathematical theorist. It all makes sense.
The setting sun colors the beige kitchen walls into bright orange, with specs of red, maroon and yellow, as the light glides along the belly of a tea pot on the stove, mother's roses waving in the window, the shelves, the pots, the pans, and the stacked, sorted, and carefully arranged cook books, wilted with time and use.
Outside, in the warm embrace of the dying summer day , he could hear his mother's voice, a French song pouring through the window, someone translated it once for him, but he can't remember. Never was good with languages. Too many variations in meaning.
Besides him stands a cup of tea, steaming. The white porcelain yellowing slowly from age, the sticky sweet smell of chamomile and honey, and he stops for a moment, pulls himself away from 53 - 6 - 16 - 27 - 39 which somehow is supposed to end up with 23, and closes his eyes, hand wrapping around the burning warmth.
When he opens them, after a sudden feeling of weightlessness and flying, he is still sitting in the kitchen. The cup is still in his hand, chamomile and honey and porcelain, but something is different. The roses behind the glass of the window are red, and the teapot is chromed metallic with a chord. There are two women sitting at the table with him, older and younger. He has no idea who they are, but the way they look at him, they probably know who he is.
"Is that…" Starts the girl, somewhere in her twenties, and what Arthur finds peculiar - the details, always remember the details - is that she has his mother's smile, and his father's pointy chin, and even his grandfather's ears. She is a little bit surprised, a little bit amused, but happy to see him.
"Yes, it is." The woman, nothing like him, and yet, strangely fascinating in her scarf and cardigan, smiles, warm and welcoming, brown hair with silver threads coiling around her face. "Hello, Arthur."
"Who are you?" For some reason, he thinks that she is important, what he has to know her name, that somehow, they will meet again. "What are you doing in my kitchen?"
She leans over the table, her small soft hand covering his - ink in the skin, graphite smudges, calluses on her fingers, a writer, no, an artist.
"My name is Ariadne." It's a good name, rare, easy to remember.
The girl sniggers. "I never thought he was so cute."
He looks around, now with more attention, his eyes swiping the room. There are some changes, more books, a few beautifully drawn buildings hanging framed on the wall, a mug with crooked and smudged "Best Dad Ever" standing in the sink.
A photo on a windowsill. He steps for a closer look.
There is a couple, a woman - it strikes him that it must be her, Ariadne - younger, curling brown hair, wide chocolate eyes, sweet smile, and a man, tall, thin, his mother's eyebrows, his father's mouth, his grandfather's ears, who is looking at her like she is very very special, like she is the World.
He turns around, a framed picture in his hands.
"Is this," his finger jams into the glass, "is this… me?"
But before he can hear an answer, the room is dimming and blurring, Ariadne's smile is a little bit sad, and the photo falls from his disappearing hands.
Arthur is sitting at the kitchen table, math homework before him, a tea mug burning his fingertips.
He is alone.
He stands up and walks around the table, once, twice, and everything is as it should be. Then he sits on his chair and pushes the front legs of the ground. He is weightless and flying.
She is, unfortunately, not there.
Six
Second time they meet, she has no idea who he is. Not that it matters.
Like most of the teenagers, Arthur is unhappy with his body. The growth spur which he awaited eagerly, wasn't paying off. He got taller, yes, but other things came out as well: his ears seemed to be sticking out more than ever (he grew out his hair just hide them), legs and arms were knobby and thin, and his feet, he didn't even want to talk about them.
In school, he is not very popular, not because he is smart and interested in everything, from math to literature to fine art, and not because he tends to hunch quite a bit, and not even due to his lack of social skills (once, he refused to smoke behind the gym and the guys in his class called him anal). He just isn't interested.
He is sure that one day he will meet that woman, Ariadne (he scrawled her name on the underside of the kitchen table, not to forget), and he is going to marry her.
Arthur is 16 years, 5 months, 3 weeks and 2 days old. Last times he saw her was exactly 4 years and 4 months ago.
He is sitting on the bench in the park, sketching for his art class. What comes out is strange to say the least, he was told many times that he doesn't have enough imagination, required to be a good artist. Never the less, he is meticulous. The tree might not look like one, but he will draw every leaf on it's branches; the dog might come out like a mutant from space, but it will have exactly the right coloring; the girl on the bench next to him has brown curls and big doe eyes of a deep amber color, like a cup of black tea, like tobacco leaves, sun bunnies dancing in the irises, and she is going to grow up beautiful, even though he has no idea how she got here. She is sketching in her album, colorful pencils everywhere.
"This is very pretty," he says, admiring her work - a piece of art in comparison to his scribbles.
"I know," she says, lips pursed in concentration. From under her pencil come out walls and windows, doors and a jaded line of rooftops, all in some crazy surreal bright red. For a moment she stops, head turning to his papers. "You are really bad."
He suddenly feels embarrassed that a girl, she is what, five, maybe six, tells him he sucks.
"You are very mean," he tells her, and then, with out a single idea why, he asks her: "What's you name?"
She suddenly looks at him from her drawing, and he sees it, the button nose, the roundness of her face that she is going to keep through her whole life, and can't find a reason, why he wouldn't fall in love with her. Well, when she grows up.
"Mommy told me not to talk to strangers," she notifies him, but still stares intently.
"Well, if I tell you that my name is Arthur, we won't be strangers anymore," and he looks back, smiling, and she suddenly looks away, like she is nervous, perplexed. And that is adorable.
"I'm Ariadne," and that's all she needs to say for him to suddenly feel exceptionally happy, like this, here, with her, is where he is supposed to be.
"So you… like to draw buildings?"
She nods, red lines appearing on the new piece of paper.
"When I grow up, I want to be an architect."
He almost slaps himself on the forehead. Of course, an architect, not an artist. That would explain it all, the ink, the graphite, the frames pictures.
"I think you'll be very good at it." Amazingly good, actually.
"Mom says so too. She also says that I have to stop using up all the red pencils."
He gives out a small laugh, and immediately starts to feel stupid because he is getting all awkward around a little girl.
She suddenly stands up, starting to pick up all her papers and pencils, a little busybody.
"I have to go now," she sounds upset. "Will I see you again?"
"Definitely."
All serious now, little brows brought together with tiny wrinkle forming between them, her hand outstretched towards him.
"Pinky swear?"
"Pinky swear." His hand goes towards hers, but it's not there anymore.
He is sitting at the bench in the park, and it's cold, and there is no girl where she was before.
He can't wait to see her again.
Seize
The third time he sees her, he does a very stupid thing.
He is a second year management undergrad. T-shirts and jeans, soft smile, deep eyes, fuzz on his chin that every girl suddenly starts to find adorable. He goes out with a couple of them, all brown hair and chocolate eyes, flirts with them, and tries not to mix up their names, Amy, Amanda, Ann, Alex, Anastasia, Audrey, Autumn - you see, there is a pattern developing. They all say that he is lovely, that he is so smart, but he has to say goodbye to all of them. They are just not her.
His friends drag him to a party, a traditional endeavor created for the sole purpose of drinking too much, saying thing you might regret, and finding somebody to sleep with. He does get drunk at some point, purposefully not paying attention to multiple girls making eyes at him. Head spinning, tries to make his way to the bathroom. Upon making the corner, he bumps into somebody.
"Hey, watch where you're going!" She turns to face him, and he stands stupefied.
"Hi," he says, as her eyes widen with surprise.
"You," she starts, cute and confused, "I know you. You are that guy…"
"I'm that guy," he replies, mechanically, his head buzzing with alcohol and Ariadne, and his mind is windswept with her eyes and her hair and her plump lips.
Then he cups her face in both of his hands - they feel so large in comparison to hers, and her skin is soft and smooth, and alright, there might be a little bit of make-up there - and kisses her. Like he wanted to kiss her for a very long time.
Her hands fist into his t-shirt when he pulls away. "Luckily, you are my type, otherwise you would have been slapped already."
He smiles, happy, almost weightless. "I'm going to marry you."
"You are drunk. And I am sixteen."
"No, I mean it, one day… You are sixteen?"
"Yes, in fact, it's my birthday today. My older brother dragged me here, 'to celebrate like adults'. All his friends included. Asshole. I have a test tomorrow."
The song starts playing, he never heard it before, haven't even heard about these musicians, but everyone for some reason cheers. His hands start to feel tingly.
"I have to go, Ariadne. I… I'll see you soon."
"Hey, where are you going!" His t-shirt slips through her fingers.
When he opens his eyes, the student bar is back, and it suddenly seems so annoying, so he punches the wall, again and again, until his knuckles bleed.
Same evening, he goes back to his dorm with some girl - he couldn't even remember her name the next morning - who is thin, with brown hair and an a tender oval of her face. He mostly keeps his eyes shut, so that bright brown irises and soft exquisite lips never escape him.
It's not how he wants his first time, but the best he can have at the moment.
Vingt-sept
The fourth time, she doesn't even notice him.
He is 23 and his father tells him that having an existential crisis at his age is ridiculous. But he is 23 and he haven't met her yet.
Sometimes, when he lies awake in the middle of the night, his mind starts to crawl with ideas, that no future is predetermined and maybe he won't meet her at all. Because, if you quote his father, there are only probabilities.
Exploring those becomes his obsession.
Cards are boring, he counts them like fingers on his hand, and gets a few kicks in the ribs because of that.
Roulette makes him edgy, but he always bets on red. He thinks it's his lucky color.
Dice are the best, he decides soon enough. The heavy weight of them in his palm, the fleeting rush of adrenalin when they slip down his fingers, it all makes up for something, the thrill that he is, for once, controlling his own destiny. Luck doesn't get into that equation. It's all a matter of skill and calculation.
In summer, he goes to France, basically on a whim, and drinks too much. Quite a sad picture, if you think about it. A lonely man in a most romantic city on the planet, nursing a bottle of wine at four in the afternoon. He must really look pathetic, because a woman sitting nearby leans close and asks, a mischievous spark in her eyes:
"So, what's her name?"
He looks at her, brown curly hair, beautiful dark eyes, slender, elegant and so French, and if she isn't gorgeous, he doesn't know who is. Unfortunately, she is not the one he is waiting for.
"Why do you think it's about a woman?"
She gives out a small laugh, so tender and light, like breeze carrying the leaves outside.
"In this city, when a man drinks like this, it's always because of love." She raises her cup of coffee, a thimble of espresso, her lips quirking in a charming smirk. He smiles back, tired and tipsy.
"Ariadne. Her name is Ariadne."
Wine sloshes the walls of his glass, deep burgundy color, kind of like blood, such a macabre thought. Something you shouldn't think about when a beautiful woman is talking to you.
"Oh, what a rare name. I bet she is special to you."
"Very. But I don't think she knows about it."
"Ah, young love. It overcomplicated everything. Why not just tell her?"
"Because I haven't met her yet."
She pauses. Her cup stops in mid-air on it's way to the saucer, and she looks at him, deep and wondering, with just a hint of curiosity.
"You are quite an interesting young man. It's rare these day to find somebody, able to wait for his one true passion."
"But," now he feels more pathetic then ever, his throat drying out, turning swallowing into a complicated and uncomfortable process. "What if I never meet her? What if I meet her, but she already has somebody that is not me?.."
There is a tingle in this woman's eyes again, something he remembers all the way from his childhood, with kind words in an elegant foreign language.
"Dear, maybe you haven't become a man you are made to be yet. Maybe, you, as you are now, are just not ready to meet her."
Arthur looks at her, silently, because she, this completely strange to him woman, might have just said the wisest thing he heard the whole year. She digs in her purse and pulls out a card.
"Cheri, I have to go now. But you seem like a very nice boy so if you ever need a job, give this number a call. There is a man I would love to introduce you too."
She stands up, agile like a dancer, and makes her way to the door. Before she can leave, he calls to her.
"I'm Arthur. What's your name?"
By the door, dimmed but the yellow beams of light, she is an embodiment of a secret, wrapped in a mystery, tied with a riddle. But she replies: "Mal."
The card is cutting into his hand when he decides to take a walk through the city. In the most ridiculous cliché move of all time, he even takes a trip up the Eiffel tower. Somehow, he fails to see the whole point of queuing. The line is huge, the platform is too crowded to even see anything, and the tower itself, well, if he was an architect he would have probably appreciated the genius of the design and the beauty of form, but right now, it simply escapes him. Maybe he is just not in the mood.
Just when he finally manages to move aside a pair of overly-excited asians, and take a good look at the ribbon of the river and a thin bridge with a spine of spidery arcs, he hears it, a jingling laughter, a mischievous marvel that immediately pulls his attention from the view he waited for two hours to see, to the crowd surrounding him, a crowd that makes him suddenly feel underdressed in his t-shirt and jeans. He doesn't notice that the parks around him became orange blots on the grey background. All he sees is a red jacket and a white knitted hat with a pom-pom, making her hair look even more amazing. He tries to make his way to her, people staring weirdly, and he is almost near when a man, red folded scarf, black expensive coat, puts his hand - black gloves, fine leather - on the small of her back, calm and protective.
The way she turns her head to look at him, so beautiful, so in love, makes Arthur want to punch him in the face, to push him off the ledge, to roll him in the dirt, his fine clothes go to hell. She is mine, stop touching her, stop it now.
Ariadne's tiny naked hands find their way inside the man's open coat - what is this, a jacket AND a vest? - her face, bright, smiling, hiding into his chest. He wraps the coat around her slender form, and her face lifts to kiss the curve of his jaw. It's too much, and Arthur is about to call to her, when the man turns around, Ariadne still pressed firmly to his chest.
In a darting move, like he knows where to look, his eyes meet Arthur's - his mother's eyebrows, his grandfather's ears - and he smirks with Arthur's mouth, and kisses his girl on the forehead, and gives Arthur a very conspicuous wink.
He comes around in the first floor on the tower, and suddenly looks all over , very self-conscious. His jeans are ripped in places, the university t-shirt lost most of its color due to constant washing, his hair haven't seen a comb in two days.
From the pocket he pulls out a card, simple design, elegant writing.
Mallorie Cobb.
Maybe, he is ready to become a better man.
Trente-neuf
The fifth time, he… almost forgets. It was a couple of very long years, filled with Dominic and Mal, a model of successful relationship, with well fitted suits, and an acquired skill to wear them, with self-discipline, with Eames - oh, did that man manage to drive Arthur up the wall with his jokes and puns and mockery -, with jobs, but most importantly, with Dreams.
That's how Mal introduced him to her husband. "You'll like him. He is like you. He is a dreamer." Arthur still has no idea why Dom believed her - probably because he loved her too much -, but he is surely glad Cobb did.
Ariadne is always in his dreams. It makes things easier.
Dom didn't pay attention first few times, but soon enough, whenever a red dress - it's always a red dress, she looks marvelous in it - flickered behind a corner, he raised an eyebrow and squinted. He let it slide because she never interfered with anything they did.
When Mal died, he even stopped caring.
They sit in a bar in Bucharest and drink. Well, Cobb drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and just sits still, a bottle in his hand, forehead resting on a counter.
"What happens with your kids now?" That's a safe question, Arthur decides, even though no question is really safe right now.
"Miles is going to look after them till the new academic year starts. Then their grandmother will take charge." He groans, but Arthur can't really tell, whether it's tiredness, frustration, or one big aching emptiness that suddenly appeared right in the middle of his boss' chest. The man seemed to gain ten years in one week. "I couldn't even go to her funeral," he suddenly says.
In one moment it all becomes painfully real, he doesn't need a totem for this one, no way his chest could burn like this in a dream, like his esophagus is on fire, lungs collapsing, heart pounding madly within his ribcage, shirt, vest, fitted jacket, corsets upon corsets of restrictions and control he put on himself.
It's a panic and a hysteria, and pure sorrow, but he will hold. Because he is the one who will have to drag Dom out of the bar to the hotel and take sure the man falls in a deep dreamless sleep and does not kill himself. Because tomorrow, he is going to get this man a job that will keep him dreaming.
And then, maybe, the pain will go away.
And Arthur's main quality is to be dependable.
It's only when the door closes behind his back, he allows himself to slide down the wood with a strangled wail, head pressed against his knees. This hands curl into fists and hit the carpeted floor, grab onto the material of his own pants and jerk, fingers combing through his gelled hair.
"Arthur," says the voice, and a small hand lands on the top his head.
He looks up and she stands there, his tiny angel, tender and loving, and so much better, so much more complete than in a dream, with wrinkles forming on her forehead, an single white hair, and big soft eyes.
"Did something happen?" she asks, genuinely concerned as she lowers herself beside him, hand caressing his cheek.
"Mal died," he answers, simply.
And that's enough, and it doesn't matter that he is sitting in his old house, in his old living room, and the red roses behind the window are just starting to bloom, because he pulls her close, her knees landing between his spread legs, and he breathes, no, almost sobs, into her chest, while she pets his back, and murmurs into his ear. Oh, Arthur. Don't worry. Soon, very soon. Just wait a little bit longer.
He doesn't know how long they stay like that, doesn't know if the light kiss she presses against his temple is real or he just imagined it, doesn't know if there truly was a quiet sleepy mommy coming from another room.
She dissolves from his hands, or he dissolves from hers, and he sits in his hotel room, wooden door against his back, and breathes, serene, into the dawn of another day.
Vingt-trois
"You are not going to believe this." That's all Cobb says on the phone, and Arthur is prepared for anything, because 'not going to believe this' is a bad sign if applied to their job description.
What he is not prepared for is Dominic's smirking face as he opens the door to the warehouse.
What he is not prepared for is a girl, partially lost, partially curious, following him to the lawn chairs.
What he is not prepared for is to actually not believe it.
"Arthur, this is Ariadne. She might become our new architect. Ariadne, this is Arthur. He is… Actually, later about that. Let's do a trial run. Arthur, give us a standard."
He just nods, and hyperventilates a bit to calm his heartbeat.
She, Ariadne, observes him with a strange, uncanny interest and confusion, as he tries to fit an IV line to her thin, feminine, wrist.
"Do I know you?" she suddenly asks, and it seems like almost a hypothetical question.
"Mmm," he answers, before Dom orders him to start the machine.
These might be the longest five minutes in his life.
She wakes up, surprised, inspired, already more interested by this experience that she should be, still confused, but really, so was Arthur back in the day. Cobb seems to be even more captivated with her at this point. Before she can assess everything that happened to her, he is already dragging her down again, and Arthur catches the word addict before it can slip from his tongue. He might have waited for almost two decades for her, but he can wait a little bit longer.
The second time she wakes up, she is screaming and gulping air, like she almost drowned, hand covering her stomach. He touches her and she is real, and warm, and mouthy, her quirky temper making her flustered, stubborn, launching herself at anyone, even him, but it's alright. He shows her the die - red, her favorite color - and almost lets he touch it.
It's really difficult not to smile when he looks at her.
It's difficult to feel her jacket slide along his shoulder.
It's difficult to watch her walk away.
"She'll be back," says Cobb, confident beyond belief.
I know she will.
Encore
"So, you are telling me you have this time travelling thing happening to you?"
He nods, his fingertips gliding along the curve of her thigh, conveniently thrown over his lap as they sit on the sofa in his hotel room. She is so sensitive, his touching sending the tiniest of shivers down her leg.
"Arthur, stop it," she slaps his hands away playfully. "Alright. If we did meet before, you can prove it."
"Alright," he leans to her and breathes, hot and heavy into her ear. "When you were a child, you were very critical of others."
Her fingers play with the line of his collar, very distracting, while her lips press together.
"I wasn't too critical."
"You told me my drawing sucks, while all you seemed to be able to produce were red houses with red doors, red windows and red clouds in the sky." He tugged on her earlobe with his teeth. Her free hand, the one not laced into his hair, starting fumbling with his tie.
"I think my mother told everyone about my artistic promise. You'll have to try better."
He raises himself as her small body almost slips under his. She is, in her own way, exquisite.
"On your sixteenth birthday, your brother and his friends dragged you to the bar. You were very moody because you had the test the next day. In there, a drunken guy suddenly kissed you and told you he is going to marry you. And then he disappeared into thin air."
She stared, silent, still, her eyes widening in realization.
"That was… you?"
He leans down to kiss her, she punches him lightly in the chest.
"That was my first kiss, you asshole. And you ruined it."
She is actually genuinely upset, in a - how did Eames describe it again? - angry little hedgehog kind of way. As strangely adorable as it looks - stealing the first kiss of your perfect woman should be honored as a life-time achievement, like a Nobel Price, or a first place on Tour de France, shiny medal, whole shebang, maybe even a memorial plate -, if his memory serves him right, she didn't really mind back then.
"Ruined it? Who even has a first kiss at sixteen anyway?!"
"Me, that's who. And I didn't plan on giving it to a drunken guy who bumped into me near the toilet."
Maybe, she is right. He leans down to place a perk on her cheekbone.
"Sorry. How can I make it up to you?"
She raises her chin, and it return, leaves one on the corner of his mouth.
"You did already. You were cuter back then."
He raises her body suddenly - she is so thin, so weightless, so delicate - and presses her flush against his chest, her legs effectively straddling his lap.
"Well, I'm not changing so you'd better get used to this."
She laughs -what a beautiful sound - and kisses him. This is probably what true love tastes like.
"Wouldn't want this to happen. You are much better of a kisser now."
Arthur just smiles in return.
He can't wait to spend the rest of his life with her.
Fin.