Every Stone has a Love Story

Every stone has a story. Patrick gave me three stones on a day that seemed so serene to me. Patrick was calm that day. I had gazed at his shoulders contently, like a thirsty person looking at a crystal- clear spring... If my mouth could reach his shoulders - I would drink them. I was not drunk. Seeing him in the conscious world made me intoxicated.

When I arrived on that day, it was during his last lap of swimming. He said: “Two hundred more meters”.always after his final lap, he stayed a bit in the water and then went to the jacuzzi... But the jacuzzi was closed that day. He was bent over in the pool, hands on knees, panting:

“I was hiking this morning. I brought you three stones... Each of them has a story”

Here is the picture of those three stones.

I will talk about them soon. Today I want to tell you about Tanya.

The first time I saw Tanya, my back pain had reached its peak. As I entered the pool, I saw a tall, beautiful woman standing in the corner. I let myself float in the water, gently moving my legs toward her. As always, I started talking in an instant. Women reveal their hearts quickly. Men, on the other hand, have to traverse earth and time, meandering until they can muster up the courage to say something, a word that finally drops from their hearts and falls to the ground.

I told Tanya"We've just moved and bought a new house. I have come to this land with my husband and my son. “

Tanya, standing right in front of me, said: "Oh, you should really be careful with the men in your house.”

I said: "There's no man. My son is ten. My husband is fifteen years younger than me”.

She said” "It doesn't matter; she goes after all the men in Henderson.”

I asked: "Who?"

She replied” "The Snow Woman.”

She looked around and said with a tightly pursed lips: "She writes letters. These letters confuse the men.”

Then she leaned against the edge of the pool and fell silent. Tanya was staring into the distance, and it was unclear where her gaze was directed.

I asked” "What are you talking about? Whose letter?"

This time Tanya lowered her voice as if she was afraid someone might overhear her.

She said: "It's not written anywhere, and nobody talks about it. Nobody wants to admit it. But here in this city, the main threat to family life isn't casinos, street women, or internet women; it's the Snow woman”.

I asked Tanya” "Do you watch many Japanese films?

She said she'd never seen a Japanese film and didn't know who Kurosawa was.

The tip of Tanya's nose had turned red as if she was about to burst into tears any moment. Looking closely, I realized she wasn't the type of woman to cry over trifles. However I had no other explanation but to think she was just confused or crazy.

I soon realized that Tanya was not alone. There were other women in the city like Tanya,those who gathered once a month by the lakeside, talking about the good old days when the Snow Woman had not yet sent letters to their husbands. They were reminiscing about the good times that had passed.

For me, as a story writer, all these talks were just stories until I myself became one of them.

It was in 2015 when I understood Tanya's' words. One morning, my husband instead of asking:

"By the way, what did you say your name was?". He said: "I'm going to Alaska.”

We had lived near Las Vegas for eight years, and neither of us had ever been to Alaska. The only thing we knew about Alaska was that Sarah Palin lived there, and I was sure he didn’t like her.

The morning he said he was going to Alaska, I didn't ask anything. Honestly, I even noticed that I breathed easier. Some women had told me about their husband’s resistance to the letters of the Snow Woman, but I believe my husband was on his way with the first letter. Of course, I never threw myself into it and never asked” "Which letter are you going with?"

None of the women I knew, whose husbands had been lured to Alaska by the letters of the Snow Woman, had ever seen a letter... But everyone I spoke with said that their husband's voices had been such that they seemed like they were lost somewhere in life as if they just realizing it.

I really wanted to read one of the Snow Woman's letters. When I gathered with the women by the lake, I always asked and wanted to know if the Snow Woman just wrote letters or, for instance, drew something in the letter, a corner of her mind, or a part of her womanhood...But the women remembered nothing and had seen nothing.

The Snow Woman severely punished Tanya. Later on, Tanya described what had happened to her. On her birthday, her husband invited her to a fancy restaurant, Clim Chamber (where I used to go with Patrick). There was a beautiful bouquet on the table. As soon as they sat down, a waiter lit a candle on a small cake, another waiter came with a guitar, and people gathered around the table and began singing the Happy Birthday song.

I still hear tanya’s voice in my ear:

"After it was over, I was trembling with joy; I was holding and kissing my husband's hands; Then they brought the dinner I loved, and at the end, my husband left a generous tip on the table, took my arm, and we left the restaurant. The waiter’s faces were beaming, and other customers looked at us with envy. Outside the restaurant, a taxi was parked in front of the Clim Chamber... I walked toward where we had parked. My husband let me go and went toward the taxi. I laughed and said, 'Where’?' He stood still and, with a strange voice I heard for the first time, said,’ Alaska.

I didn’t believe it. I thought he saw an acquaintance and was joking. I stood still as he got into the taxi and left.

Sweet Tanya... maybe that's why when I introduced Patrick to her... she said:

“Are you sure he didn’t come from Alaska?”

Tanya believed that when the Snow Woman takes all of a man's warmth and takes his heart, she sends them back to the desert to warm up again, to warm up with the love of desert women."

I saw Tania for a long time until the war in Ukraine started, and she left to rescue her daughters, who were trapped in Kyiv. It's been a year since the war started in Ukraine. Tanya sometimes, when She is on The border of Poland and Ukraine, calls me or responds to my emails, or answers my phone calls.

After Tanya left, the women dispersed, and the women whose husbands were taken by the Snow Woman no longer came to the pool. They didn’t even gather by the lake.

Maybe when I finish writing the pool stories, I will unravel the mystery of the letters. Maybe while writing, I will understand why, when I introduced Patrick to Tanya', Tanya's face turned pale, and she gasped at the sight of Patrick standing almost naked in front of her by the pool.

And I caught's Patrick’s gaze and saw....a small, invisible scar on his heart...  a small wound. So small that it was barely noticeable.

I said” "Patrick... Patrick, have you had heart surgery? Has someone taken your heart away?"