At that stupendous moment, he ate a watermelon

Valentine Willie asked me to participate in the Valentine exhibit at Manila Contemporary. I am probably the last person anyone would ask to join an art exhibit — I have no drawing or painting skills whatsoever. So I said yes, because the invitation was not likely to be repeated.

The show was originally titled “Where is the love?” Later it was changed to “A Thousand Times Yes.” I approved of the change in reference from Sergio Mendez to James Joyce: my great achievement in college was having read Ulysses. The literary reference also gave me the idea for my project. I would write Anton Chekhov’s famous story, “The Lady with the Little Dog.” Only the most perfect love story ever written, by the most perfect writer of short stories.

True, it had already been written, but I would write it in cursive.

This would fit the Love theme exactly: I love Chekhov, this story, and writing in cursive. Reading intensely and writing by hand: two activities in danger of extinction in the 21st century. Very retro.

At the very least, I would be spared the question visual artists are always asked by people who feel compelled to ask a question, any question, to prove that they are sentient: “What does it mean?”

Go on, ask me what my exhibition piece means.

It’s a story by Anton Chekhov. Read it.

The idea of the index cards I ripped off from another Russian, Vladimir Nabokov. He wrote on index cards, in pencil, in his neat cursive.

Writing teachers recommend copying great literary works by hand as an exercise, and it is a very useful one. You become acutely aware of the author’s choice of words, the rhythm and flow; the details your eyes pass over in reading are remembered by your fingers. You see how the author’s mind works and how he organizes information. Chekhov repeats and restates facts about his protagonist, Dmitri Dmitrich Gurov, until you feel you have known him for years. Otherwise how would you know that his behavior is consistent, or that a change has gradually come over him? Chekhov doesn’t state these things outright: he lets them creep up on you so that you’re as surprised as Gurov is at the turn of events.

 “The Lady with the Little Dog” is the story of a man who has a casual affair in a resort town, is relieved when it ends, and then realizes that something momentous has happened. Without his noticing it he has fallen in love. Not only that, but it is the first time he has ever been in love. What will happen to him now?

As I was “writing” the story several details leapt out at me. In the hotel room with Anna Sergeevna, the lady of the title, Gurov cuts himself a slice of watermelon and calmly eats it. The importance of the moment has escaped him completely: instead of basking in happiness, he eats fruit. Which is kind of a jerky thing to do when she’s having an attack of guilt, but that’s how Gurov is, and that’s how humans are. He is the veteran of many affairs; this is just another encounter.

Chekhov doesn’t judge Gurov; he describes him exactly as he is, the bad with the good. When Gurov goes home to Moscow, he starts remembering his summer affair with fondness. What seemed insignificant while it was happening now seems absolutely significant. His life seems dull and awful. He finds himself talking about love to his friends and associates. “If you only knew what a charming woman I met in Yalta!” he tells a doctor friend. Instead of asking about her, the doctor says the sturgeon they’d eaten at dinner was rancid. Gurov wants to tell him of his romance, and all he can think of is fish. Gurov is enraged.

Watermelons and fish: that’s what these people talk about when they’re supposed to be discussing love. How unromantic. How like life.

So Gurov sets off for S., the town where Anna Sergeevna lives with her husband. He doesn’t know her address, but he finds out easily enough.

He stakes out the house, and after a few hours a servant comes out with the little white Spitz. Gurov wants to call the dog, but in his excitement he has forgotten its name.

Finally he spots Anna Sergeevna at the opera. As he looks upon her, he considers how vulgar her lorgnette (those eyeglasses with a long handle on the side) is, how tacky and provincial her existence is, and how much he loves her. Love does not blind him to her flaws; he loves her because of them. A man of the world, Gurov has had more stylish, desirable women, but for some reason this is the one he wants.

When they meet again, they don’t go into raptures. This is not one of those affairs where the lovers are consumed by bliss. It’s real people love, not the stuff of romance novels or telenovelas. The lovers are simply facts of each other’s lives.

She visits him in Moscow, and before he goes to her hotel he brings his little daughter to school. When he arrives at the hotel she is crying. He’s not annoyed anymore; she is a woman who cries. They talk about the difficulty of their situation, and agree to find solutions. The hard part is about to begin. Love is a pain, but what are you going to do?

The story ends there.