A Love Song for the Sad Man in the White Coat

by Roe Horvat

  Simon composed himself enough to interrupt Jano there. “So you have thought about it?”

  “Of course I have! I am a thirty-year-old man from a family of five siblings. I’ve got seven nieces and nephews I’ve seen growing up. I’ve put more thought into this than you ever have!”

  “Then why are you so angry?” Simon asked calmly, genuinely confused by Jano’s reaction.

  “Because this isn’t some random idea for me! I’m not looking for an interesting way to fill in the blanks. I don’t want to use some helpless human being like a piece of tape to cover the emptiness I’m feeling!”

  Whoa. Simon blinked several times. He felt like he’d just been slapped.

  “And I am?” Filling the blanks in his life with a kid? That was not what Simon was doing. Or was it? Did Jano feel his life was empty? Or did he just know Simon better than he’d realized?

  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you.”

  Jano seemed to deflate a little, but Simon was still trapped in a surreal moment, his thoughts on a loop. How had they come to this point of the conversation? “Why?”

  “Let me see… Maybe because you’re unable to have a committed relationship in the first place?” Yes, Jano seemed to have found his spine after all. The anger and hurt flowed freely through his words. “And now you drop this bomb on me. What reaction did you expect, seriously?”

  “Shit, I’m not asking you to adopt a kid with me.” Simon tried talking quietly and calmly; it only seemed to fuel Jano’s anger more.

  “No, apparently you are not. What do you want from me, Simon?”

  “Calm down. I’ve been thinking about the possibilities.”

  “No. You haven’t really been thinking about it. You briefly entertained the idea.” Jano was embarrassingly right and he wasn’t done yet. “We’ve been together for what, a few months? I already feel exhausted from trying to drag any emotion out of you.” He paused but not long enough for Simon to recover. “You didn’t protest when I said you couldn’t commit. I wonder, why was that?”

  Okay, Simon could accept he was an asshole when it came to the kid question, but this wasn’t fair. He couldn’t help raising his voice as well. “Of course, I can! I haven’t fucked around on you!”

  Jano sighed and looked away. The fight left him; his body sagged. He was silent for a few seconds, making Simon wary. It must have been a premonition because his next words were like a kick in the crotch and an elbow in a kidney. “You’re holding on to a nonexistent relationship with a dead guy, Simon. Honestly, fucking around wouldn’t feel worse than this.”

  Simon stopped walking and blocked the narrow trail. He acted reflexively to dodge the pain. “He is not dead,” he growled.

  “Then where the hell is he? Where is this life-altering love of yours?”

  “Fuck you!” Simon yelled and immediately froze, suddenly mute. He’d just screwed up. Irrevocably. He should have seen it coming, but he was so self-obsessed lately. Damn.

  Jano gave a sad smile. “Thought so. I’d rather go home now if you don’t mind.” He turned around and walked the short distance back to the car.

  ***

  They drove back to Prague in silence. From time to time, Jano looked out the passenger window, grimacing in anger until he fought tears in such an obvious way it made Simon cringe with embarrassment, as if he were watching early rounds of a talent show.

  Simon parked in front of the panel structure from the seventies where Jano’s one-bedroom apartment was. He struggled to find something humane to say that wasn’t completely meaningless.

  “I’ve never lied to you. I told you in the beginning there’s a lot of baggage. You said you were okay with it,” Simon remained studiously calm.

  “Yeah, well. It was stupid of me.” Jano sighed, his voice on the edge of breaking. “I’m not sure if I want to raise a kid in this country. But I definitely don’t want to have a family with someone who doesn’t love me.” With that, he climbed out of the car, carefully closing the door behind him.

  ***

  Simon parked his shiny spotless Škoda in his garage twenty minutes later. It was hardly surprising that through the conflict Jano had gained points in Simon’s opinion. He wasn’t a pushover after all; he was a bottler. He remembered all of Simon’s mistakes and saved them for later, bottling all the hurt until it spilled over. The questions remained: was the damage Simon had done reparable? Did he even want to try? Or should he take the cowardly way out and consider it a breakup?

  In hindsight, the whole argument felt absurd. Why, oh why had he felt the need to talk about kids with Jano? He had to give his personal Mr. Hyde the thumbs-up for that advanced sabotage.

  At home Simon drank some water, changed his clothes and went for a long run in the afternoon heat.

  ***

  Three days later, Marta lingered near Simon’s living room door, waiting. They were going out after a long week of barely any contact. Simon didn’t admit how much he missed her, but she suspected for sure.

  He buttoned his shirt, checking around him for forgotten items. His phone was in his back pocket, his wallet—

  “You’re throwing these out?” Marta interrupted him.

  He turned to see her crouching next to the small pile of books he’d intended to take to the secondhand store.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hm.”

  She started going through them, reading the inscriptions, carefully building another small column. He left her to it and went to his bedroom to pick out a jacket from the closet.

  When he came back, Marta was standing in the middle of the room waving Rimbaud in front of Simon’s face. Fucking Rimbaud.

  “You used to love this one. I remember you sitting with it countless times.”

  Simon averted his eyes. “Doesn’t mean I loved it.”

  Marta looked at the book a little stunned. “Huh.” She frowned. “You know that Verlaine was probably abusive to Rimbaud when he was drunk? He used to beat his wife as well. He shot Rimbaud in the end.”

  That’s the true nature of gossip, right there. No matter how old the story—one hundred and fifty years in this case—everybody remembered and passed on the parts which touched them personally. The truth became distorted by hundreds of other life stories until it became a cliché.

  “There were many layers to that story,” Simon said, sounding detached.

  “Looks old, this edition. Isn’t it a waste to throw it away?”

  “It was printed only twenty-eight years ago.”

  “Oh.” Marta paused, holding it in both hands, staring at it as if it had eyes that were staring back at her. “I want to keep it. Can I pick it up next time?”

  Simon bit back his annoyance. He would never get rid of that stupid book. Shit.

  “I don’t want to drag it to a bar with me,” Marta explained, probably sensing something was off.

  “Of course. Leave it on the table. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Marta’s cheeks were tinged with pink and her ears shone red between the loose strands of hair. She was tipsy, but so was Simon. This drink had to be her last—he shouldn’t let her order another mojito.

  “Simon. Don’t hate me, but I asked Mike to help me find Matěj.”

  Simon lifted his glass to his lips and set it down again without drinking. The sentence replayed in his head once more. …help me find Matěj. He leaned back, watching Marta grow completely red in her face.

  “I wanted to tell you but there never seems to be a good time for this kind of thing. So, I’m telling you now because I’m drunk enough.”

  “When was that?” Simon asked, not sure why it was important.

  “Just before the wedding. We haven’t really got started. We’re waiting for a response from the Consulate in Munich.”

  Thankfully, the alcohol lay like a dulling filter over all of his senses and thoughts. He could see himself becoming angry, hurt, or unreasonable in some other way, yet he felt eerily calm. Maybe he�
��d suspected something like this all along? The involvement of Mike stung, though. She’d told Mike first.

  “Why now?”

  A self-deprecating smile flickered across Marta’s features before she leaned back and sighed.

  “You know, Mike asked exactly the same thing. The best answer I can come up with is that I should have done it months…years ago. I should have run after him directly from the hospital. I didn’t. Now is the best I can do.”

  Many words rushed through Simon’s mind, most of which he couldn’t say because he cared for Marta too much. He settled on, “What if he doesn’t want to be found?”

  “Then he’d tell Mike, and we let him be.”

  Suddenly, Mike was the solution to everything. The hero. “Isn’t that rather cowardly?”

  Marta scowled at him. “No. It’s respectful. If he’d prefer not to see me, he shouldn’t have to.”

  Such nonsense! Why was she so careful? So full of concern and compassion when her brother didn’t care at all? “He would have come back already, Marta.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. Simon could see her calm herself with effort. He didn’t want her to restrain her anger at him. He wanted her to lash out and scream at him. He wanted someone, please, to shake him, hit him, make him feel anything else than this vague sense of waste and pointlessness.

  “I want closure if nothing else,” Marta said finally. “What do you wish for yourself, Simon?” She asked in all seriousness, suddenly looking very sober, obviously expecting an honest answer.

  “Mostly I wish none of it had ever happened.”

  “But then we would never have met. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  Simon waved down the bartender and ordered two shots of tequila and one more beer for himself. Marta raised her eyebrows but downed her shot when he did.

  Simon shook his head and continued the conversation as if there hadn’t been any interruption.

  “That’s not what I wanted to imply. I’m failing at this. I just want it to mean less. I want him to mean less.”

  Marta’s eyes glistened, and Simon felt the plush warmth of alcohol holding him tighter. He settled into the feeling, enjoying the numbness while it lasted, before it was replaced with murderous headache and morning-after self-hatred.

  “He loved you too,” Marta said.

  “He told you?”

  “No.”

  There was a heavy pause filled with silent understanding. They both knew what the other thought. Marta’s hope and Simon’s skepticism warred in the silence just as they always did. It was so common between them it made them smile at each other.

  “You see, even if he did love me what difference would it make now? Feelings are just unfulfilled wishes. In the end, actions determine your future. And what we do is never based on how we feel inside. It can’t be.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because of logic. Because people want conflicting things. You never meet another person who feels exactly the same as you do. Every single human interaction is a compromise of sorts. And with every compromise you die a little inside.”

  “Simon, that’s a horrible thing to say!”

  “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “You could hack your brain into little cubes with your logic and you still couldn’t kill the love you feel.”

  “Jano left me,” Simon said, not caring about the argument anymore.

  “What?”

  “Said, and I quote, ‘I’m tired of waiting for you to fall in love with me,’ end quote.”

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” Marta reached across the table, but Simon moved away.

  “Your brother is turning my life into a car-wreck. And he’s not even here.”

  Simon’s heart clenched when he saw the tears filling Marta’s eyes. The faucet in Simon’s bathroom didn’t react as quickly as her tear ducts. Damn it. He was an ass.

  “Forgive me, my love.”

  This time it was Marta who ordered another round of tequila just as Simon felt the hit of the previous one to his frontal lobe. Thoughts tangled; logic left him. What a lovely feeling.

  ***

  Simon didn’t remember leaving the bar but he remembered the taxi drive to Marta’s place and then home.

  The book was waiting smugly on the dark glass coffee table when Simon stumbled into his apartment. He gave it one last evil scowl and dragged himself to the bathroom, managing to brush his teeth before he collapsed on his bed. He was going to pay for this at work in the morning.

  Simon, you fool.

  9: The Other Dream

  There was a man sleeping in Simon’s bed. He was facing Simon, curled under the covers with his hands tucked under his head. He slept peacefully, unmoving. Simon lay on his side watching the face just a few centimeters in front of his own. The image was a little blurry—maybe it was the darkness or something different with the air—but still he’d recognize him anywhere.

  Simon’s eyes flicked over the face he adored, trying to see it all at once, to take it in and save it in his brain, like a photograph, so he could pick it out any time and stare at it again. The face was young but so tired. The boy’s eyelids were a smooth lavender color, purplish circles half-hidden behind the thick black eyelashes, his dark eyebrows relaxed. His cheeks were sunken, covered with dark stubble, and the cheekbones pointy and prominent, reaching almost all the way to his ears. He was skinnier than Simon remembered him ever being but still the most beautiful… Stunning.

  Simon stared at the boy’s lips, reminiscing and memorizing every curve and shadow. When he managed to pinpoint a detail it would slip away again, making him doubt his vision. He noticed the brackets in the corners of the young man’s mouth and frowned. He studied him more. It was becoming hard to focus; the image was stirring and swaying in front of his eyes.

  Simon saw the strain in the features of the young man. Was he in pain? He seemed to sleep so calmly just a second ago. He was so pale, so thin, the wrinkles around his eyes didn’t used to be there. Sleep, my love, it will go away. I’ll make it go away. He leaned in and touched the boy’s forehead with his lips. He kissed his eyelids and temple, his cheeks. He tried to catch the scent but his nose didn’t work. He couldn’t breathe in properly. It won’t hurt anymore, my love. I’ll make it go away. He nuzzled the man’s hair and reached for him but his hand wouldn’t move. Strange. The smooth, pale skin was cool; Simon figured he’d hug him to warm him up. Maybe he was just cold? Simon knew how that was. He felt cold all the time.

  He lifted the covers to take his lover in his arms.

  Simon tried to open his mouth to scream but no sound came out. The man was naked, curled in a fetal position, his skin so pale it was almost blue, his limbs folded at odd angles and tangled, making them look like a heap of dead branches. He was gaunt, skinnier than any living creature Simon had ever seen. His whole body looked barely human, a pile of bones wrapped in papery gray skin, the swollen joints sticking out, covered with yellowish bruises.

  Simon looked back at the face of his beloved boy. The blue eyes were wide open now, as if staring back at him, but unmoving, blind. He started to scream again but he barely managed to open his mouth. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t make a sound, he was trapped there, unable to escape the sight of the corpse in front of him.

  ***

  Simon sat up on the bed and stared into the darkness. There was the door, there was the window; the curtains hung still, soft yellow light from the street lamps casting strange shadows upon them. There was the chair with Simon’s clothes folded over the back of it. His heart continued slamming wildly in his chest. Damn it.

  Scrambling from the bed, he went quickly to the bathroom and switched on the light. Light was good—the room seemed real. Everything was real now; he could touch the switch; he could turn on the water; he could control his own body again. Good. He wished he couldn’t remember the dream. Fuck. Simon’s stomach heaved, and he splashed cold water on his face repeatedly. He wouldn
’t throw up. No.

  Why, oh why is it coming back?

  He did good—he’d managed for so long. He took care of Marta; he pulled her through therapy and school. Except, for her sake, he never stayed home from work. He had continued with his career for the past three and a half years; he’d worked hard and he was successful. He had a functioning social life. He was healthy. Nothing was wrong. Nothing’s wrong.

  Simon didn’t believe in fate, intuition or the ridiculous notion of dreams being signs, foretelling the future or something yet unknown. He knew the workings of the human mind all too well for that. And nightmares were a symptom—a symptom of the big D creeping closer, looming over his bent head. Suddenly, everything seemed wrong.

  10: Nyctophilia – A Preference for Night or Darkness

  —Dejvice, Prague, October 2016—

  Simon sat on the living room floor, his back against the plastic-covered couch. His limp arms felt like damp rags as they rested against his body. He was exhausted. His shirt, hair, forehead, and even eyelashes were covered with little white dots, traces of the wall paint he used on the ceiling. The large work lamp illuminated the room from the corner, casting long shadows like an early morning in a tall winter forest. He could pretend the twirling dust motes were wisps of fog lazing around in utter silence. He stared upward, observing the subtle texture of the clean white space—there were cracks and bumps, spidery clusters of something nondescript, mountains and lakes like on the surface of the Moon… He had to pull himself together. He’d managed for so long. He could manage longer yet.

  It was half past three in the morning; he had just finished painting his living room walls and ceiling, and ripping off the old wallpaper in the bedroom. The loft was a mess of long strips of tape; the paper he used to cover floors was still attached in some corners; the contents of Simon’s toolbox were scattered all around him, together with different parts of the ceiling lamp and several light switches.

  When did I become so disorganized? I’m the most structured and systematic person I know!