"Letters to Eliza" is a tale of love. Letter No. 16

Eliza,
What kind of dreams do you have? Among the many dream-interpreting books on your desk, is there even one you trust? They crowd, shove each other with intricate phrases, but none is able to admit that they are powerless to understand your dreams. You don't dream of rings, fish, wedding dresses, sinking boats, people calling you by name, burning houses. You dream of childhood in a red overalls, with the taste of shortbread cookies and apple juice, always the same corridors, along which it was so customary to run, people whom you have never met or those whose names have been erased from memory. Sometimes in your dreams those who did not know tears cry, looking at your death. You don’t take care of your dreams, you dump them on the floor in the morning to forget about them forever. Do you remember, Eliza, that inconsolable time when there were no answers, but only dreams? Do you remember how you asked questions, bowing in a prayer position, and the answers came? That was the only way I was able to talk to you then. In your dreams, those who were no longer destined to see in life came to you, they did not take their eyes off and, in a voice filled with secret sadness, spoke to you about love. Why did you end this dialogue with me, Eliza? As before, I can answer any questions. As before, there is more truth in dreams than in restaurants filled with cigarette smoke, with their half-dark revelations over a glass of wine or in the crackle of telephone lines, interrupted only by painful silence. Ask, Eliza. And the answers will come.

Anastasia Volkhovskaya