A Love Song for the Sad Man in the White Coat

by Roe Horvat

  Simon turned around the corner, and his heart started beating faster. What was going on with him? He felt sharp claws of fear creep up his spine. The hair on the back of his head stood as he opened the glass door to the café, and he stilled in the doorway seeing the figure in front of him. A man’s back was to him, Simon couldn’t see his face. He was a little shorter than Simon, his frame smaller all around, almost skinny. He had on a dark-blue hoodie, snug faded jeans hugged his lean legs, red Converse sneakers were peeking out from under the threadbare grayish fabric. His posture was relaxed, hands in the back pockets of his jeans; the edges of the familiar clockwork tattoo peeked from underneath his pushed-up sleeve. The man rocked on his heels.

  Simon knew immediately who it was. He would have recognized him just from the angle of the man’s spine, the way his hair lay on his neck. The gauges in his ears were a different color, but Simon knew.

  He felt the presence of others in the room vaguely, the voices maybe greeting him, somebody touched his arm. Simon couldn’t move.

  He was a rational man—he valued self-control and awareness. He’d seen his share of drama and sorrow in life. Hell, he’d created a lot of drama himself in the past few months. But nothing could have prepared him for this moment.

  In slow motion, the shoulders of the man in front of him stiffened, he turned, and Simon saw Matěj’s face for the first time in years. His blue eyes were huge, both excited and terrified. His voice the softest of whispers, barely audible, when he said, “Simon…”

  He was still breathtaking.

  His face was thinner, tired, his features strained, haunted, his black hair the usual mess, irregular stubble covering his sunken cheeks, and he’d replaced the wooden gauges in his ears with simple black ones. Simon felt all the memories rushing back, flooding his head. He saw glimpses of the same beautiful, ragged face in a hundred different moments. The black eyelashes casting shadows on Matěj’s cheeks as he slept young and peaceful in Simon’s bed, a fading bruise on his jaw… His head thrown back in a fit of laughter or in pleasure… The crooked mischievous smirk, his forehead sweaty in the midday sun when they were out somewhere running…

  And Simon felt the urge to fall to his knees and wail in the agonizing pain and overwhelming relief. Matěj was right there in front of him, close enough to touch.

  Simon probably looked crazy, because Matěj made no move toward him, just continued to stare at him, his lips moving, trying to form words. They were both mute.

  Simon started shaking. It took him a moment to recognize the emotion that sent his hands in tremors and his head moving vehemently from side to side in refusal.

  White-hot blinding rage.

  Never so angry before in his life, Simon spun and rushed back on the street, gripping the back of his head, his teeth grinding together.

  How dare he! Who the hell did he think he was, barging back in Simon’s life like this, expecting what? That Simon was here all the time sitting on his ass waiting? Because that was exactly what Simon had been doing. Waiting and waiting and wallowing in memories. Trying to hold on to every detail and trying to forget it all at the same time. Fuck that!

  Simon did not know where he was headed, did not feel his own speed, but soon he heard footsteps behind him and a too familiar voice called, “Simon, please!”

  He stopped on some crossroad—a tiny park and a battered old art nouveau house created a backdrop to the surreal scene. Matěj caught up with him but stopped two meters away, judging smartly he should stay back.

  Simon opened and closed his mouth, the muscles in his face caught in furious spasms. The anger flooded his body and mind like lava, melting all reason, all his self-control.

  “Almost four years,” were the first words Simon uttered, seething. Because damn it, those years felt like walking knee-deep in fast-setting concrete. Matěj flinched at the menacing whisper. “Where the fuck have you been?” He paced, his hands in fists, his head still shaking. No, not like this. No!

  “I…worked in Freiburg, in Germany,” Matěj answered, nervous but collected like Simon would be around a psychotic patient. The composure of the man who’d destroyed his life made Simon see red.

  “Working in Germany,” he spat, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And do you have any idea what was going on here while you were working in Germany?”

  “I talked to Mike. Simon, I’m—”

  “Mike,” Simon laughed evilly, not recognizing his own voice and not caring. “Well, let me fill you in further because Mike knows shit!” He kicked a wall and then spun taking two steps toward Matěj pointing a finger at his chest. “You left me here with your heartbroken, beaten-up sister who was weeping in my arms every evening for a fucking month straight! I organized a funeral and cleaned up the apartment after your fucked-up bastard of a father. I wiped your father’s splattered brains from the walls. I talked to detectives and lawyers for her. I paid for her psychotherapy and prescribed her anti-anxiety meds. I held her hair when she vomited in the middle of the night after dreaming of you. Then I locked myself up in the bathroom so I could lose it myself without her worrying about me.

  “You left without a word, without a note, never calling or…shit! Sending a fucking email! We were worried sick—sometimes I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere! And all the while you were what? Working in Germany!?” Simon yelled the words. “And now, when we have finally managed to put ourselves back together after the shitstorm you left behind, here you are. Just like that?

  “You’ve ruined me. You’ve ruined my life. And I thought there had to be a damned good reason for you to disappear on me. But no, you were off earning euros in Germany.”

  Simon was high on the anger, reveling in the raging energy. He felt like he’d just stood up and started sprinting after being bed-bound for years. The relief! The clarity of mind his rage brought was invigorating.

  And Matěj stood there taking it all.

  “I am so sorry, Simon. Forgive me,” he stammered. “I thought…”

  But Simon was winning, and he deserved to win. “Forgive you?” he asked mockingly. “Go fuck yourself!” he said. Then he turned and started walking away.

  “I messed up!” Matěj shouted after him, his voice breaking. “I know I messed up!”

  Simon stopped, tilting his head to the side. Should I…? He considered turning around for a brief second—to shout some more, to scream, to spit in the face of the man who made him lose his control, who made him feel like he was less than nothing, to slap the deceptively beautiful face.

  Dismissing those urges, he calmly stated over his shoulder, not looking back, “You should have stayed. Whatever happened, you were supposed to be here for your sister.”

  Then he continued down the street.

  ***

  Matěj crouched down, his body sagged, and his hands gripped his head, slapping his temples a couple of times. Then he rubbed his face with his palms and finally rested his elbows on his knees. He sat in the middle of the sidewalk, staring toward the end of the street where Simon had disappeared a few minutes ago.

  That was how Marta and Mike found him ten minutes later. They got him to his feet and led him to Marta’s apartment where he curled into a ball on the couch.

  7: Blood

  —Žižkov, Prague, December 2016—

  It was six in the evening on Christmas Eve, and their group of misfits spent the Holiday together for various reasons. Mike’s family was on the other side of the Globe, and Lukas’s parents still refused to accept his partner. Andrea’s daughter, who worked as a lawyer at the European Commission, was spending the Holidays with her in-laws in Brussels, which left Andrea and her new boyfriend, Eda, alone in Prague for Christmas. Marta and Matěj didn’t have anybody else.

  Why Simon didn’t visit his parents in South Moravia, Matěj didn’t know. Simon didn’t say anything even remotely personal to anyone for the whole afternoon. He didn’t speak to Matěj at all.

  Even though Simon had called and apologized for
his “overreaction”—Simon’s word—he acted as if they barely knew each other. He seemed completely unaffected, chatting with Marta and Lukas casually, and avoiding Matěj. Matěj knew Simon had only apologized to keep a pretense of peace for the Holidays. His anger that night at Dolce Vita was the only indication Simon cared at all whether or not Matěj breathed.

  Matěj expected it would be like this, but it hurt. He didn’t know what was worse—missing the man for years, or watching him now, barely two meters away, so distant, they might as well occupy different dimensions.

  Marta and Lukas cast careful glances at Simon and at each other—they probably assumed they weren’t painfully obvious about it. Hence, Matěj felt like an intruder. And lonely. And guilty for feeling lonely because Marta was loving, accepting, and so attentive he had to dig his nails into his palms to keep himself from wincing every time she called his name. Nevertheless, Matěj was with his family, and the novelty of that still hadn’t dulled.

  In what seemed a desperate attempt to find a safe topic, Andrea held a long monologue about the changes in the staff of the child psychiatry clinic. Simon caught on, and continued to comment on the general crisis of the healthcare system in Prague.

  Matěj listened to his voice more than to what Simon was saying. He should have cared about the topic because it very much affected his chances of finding a reasonable position at one of the orthopedic clinics in Prague. He would care after the New Year. This evening, the melody of Simon’s words, his subtle humor, the measured hand gestures, and movements of his expressive eyebrows flooded Matěj’s senses, and he lost focus within the first twenty seconds. Memories mingled with the present, making him confused, and oddly happy, just as he was very much aware of the constant nervous ache in his stomach.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, there’s a worse atmosphere today than when Miloš Zeman was elected president,” Mike said loudly, interrupting a momentary silence.

  An involuntary smile tugged at Matěj’s lips. He liked Mike. The young Australian was genuine, happy, and lovable all around.

  Eda chuckled, and his set of perfectly white teeth appeared in the center of his dark-gray fuzzy beard. The fifty-year-old librarian was the only one in the living room who didn’t seem to be at all affected by their weirdness.

  “What was the movie with drag queens you told me about in the car?” he asked. Andrea was sitting next to him on the sofa. She clasped his hand and squeezed. It was their first Christmas together.

  “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” Mike enunciated, deliberately exaggerating his accent. He crouched down by the TV, and pulled a stack of old shabby DVDs out of the shelves.

  “It has a young Hugo Weaving,” Lukas added, watching the red Cabernet swirl in his wine glass.

  “Agent Smith in drag? Bring it on!” Eda said with a broad smile, his deep whiskey voice echoing in the quiet apartment.

  “I thought that was Lord of the Rings,” Matěj mumbled. He heard Marta chuckle. He cast a careful glance at Simon, but there was nothing. Simon’s features were all chiseled stone and Buddhist stoicism.

  “Heathen,” Mike said. Popping the disc out of the case, he stuck it in the aging player. The player buzzed to life, and after a minute, the music started. Matěj leaned back in his chair, grateful for the distraction.

  There seemed to be a force field around him—the others being careful with him, giving him space, and reminding him with their kindness of how exactly he’d fucked up. It was exhausting. And he deserved much worse. In a way, Simon was the only one who behaved in sync with how Matěj thought he should be treated.

  “Give it time,” Alex had repeated when they’d skyped over the weekend.

  Matěj took a deep gulp of his wine and tried to watch the movie, but instead of the wide planes and endless roads of Central Australia, he saw Prague in his mind. He’d taken a walk the day before, trying to ascertain what was new and what had changed. In three and a half years, there hadn’t been much. But it felt different. Completely new.

  The Prague he remembered from those years before he went away was blurry, muddled, full of faces he’d no longer recognize, and places he wouldn’t visit again—the clubs, the student pubs, his friends from the university, even Simon’s loft… The Prague he knew these days was less friendly, less forgiving—more a monarch than a mother. She seemed to judge him and fill his head with challenges instead of promises. However, she was also more honest, down-to-earth. Matěj knew if he managed to prove himself, and she welcomed him back, he’d feel like he deserved her acceptance.

  He tried not to smoke too much in front of Marta. He didn’t even know why—she’d never said anything. It simply felt wrong. Tonight, though, he needed a break. He sneaked out of the living room when the ping-pong ball scene began. It seemed like a good time to hide. The door to the tiny balcony was from the kitchen in the typical style of housing built in the thirties. Matěj didn’t even put the lights on. He closed the door behind him, lit one cigarette, and exhaled deeply, watching the flickering Christmas lights in the opposite building. He huddled deeper into his parka. He should have put the sweatshirt on as well, but the parka would do for a few minutes.

  “I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” Simon’s voice resonated from the kitchen, and Matěj stiffened. The light inside flared on. He was leaning on the railing in a gray parka behind the closed balcony door—whoever was in the kitchen wouldn’t see him standing there in the dark behind the curtains. Not wishing to eavesdrop on the conversation, he reached to stub out the cigarette so he could go back to the kitchen and make his presence obvious. However, the next sentence made him pause.

  “Are you at least taking the Cipralex I prescribed you?” It was Andrea.

  Too late. Matěj was sure he’d already heard what Simon didn’t want to share with anyone.

  “I’m not,” Simon answered calmly. Matěj heard a clank of a glass being put down on the stone counter.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m functioning.”

  “That’s the worst example of your hero complex…” The rest of what Andrea said was drowned by a car speeding through the abandoned street four stories below.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” Simon reminded her. “Can we leave this for another day?”

  “I’m not done with you, Simon,” she told him.

  “Of course not.” Matěj could hear the eye-roll in Simon’s voice.

  The lights were switched off.

  Matěj eyed his cigarette as it burned to the filter in his fingers and died. He wouldn’t light another. He opened the balcony door, entered the darkened kitchen and froze. Leaning against the counter stood Simon, watching him. Contempt emanated from the man, perfectly clear even in the dark.

  Matěj sucked in a breath. Fuck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “I’d appreciate you not telling Marta,” Simon said, his tone freezing.

  “Of course not. Simon, could we talk? Not today, but…”

  “I have absolutely nothing I wish to discuss with you.”

  “Please, Simon. I need to explain. Please, let me explain.” He was begging. So what? Some things were worth much more than that. He had no ego left, no self-respect, no face to lose.

  Surprise flashed across Simon’s face for the tiniest fraction of a second before the infallible control returned. The dim light coming into the kitchen from the living room allowed Matěj to see the lift of Simon’s ribcage under his dark-blue button-down, as he breathed in and out. Other than that, the man was motionless.

  “I’m done. I expect you to respect it,” he stated.

  Matěj couldn’t help but remember the other Simon—the one he used to know—the one who’d let him study in his kitchen and then smiled happily when he’d found Matěj there in the evening, and the Simon who’d asked him to stay the night. He remembered the look of defeat in Simon’s green eyes when Matěj couldn’t. Had he known then what he knew now…

  “This is what you are now? I did th
is to you?” He didn’t want to hurt Simon with those words. They just rolled off his tongue, and he fisted his hands in fear of them.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Simon hissed, sent Matěj one more withering look, pushed himself off the counter in slow grace, turned, and walked away, his head high and back straight.

  Fuck.

  Simon was unwell. Andrea wasn’t a busybody. Something must have been seriously wrong if she was involved, even prescribing antidepressants for Simon. Antidepressants Simon refused to take. Marta also mentioned Simon hadn’t been doing well. Why? What was going on?

  And why the hell did Matěj care so much when the man couldn’t even look at him without sneering?

  But Matěj cared. It was Simon. For all the coldness, the anger, the way he got pushed away every time he tried to come closer, in Matěj’s mind, Simon’s name still equaled hope.

  He could leave. Maybe, he should. Instead, he went back to the living room, this time watching Simon deliberately. Simon’s gaze was trained on the movie, but his eyes were empty. There once had been a time when Matěj believed he had power over this man. Ridiculous. Tonight, he was as powerless as a stray cat they took in for Christmas, feeding him morsels of affection. Worse. He was the rat who snuck in uninvited.

  A hand on his shoulder made him jerk his head up.

  “More wine?” Marta asked, the gentlest of smiles on her lips. Jesus, he was an ungrateful bastard.

  “No, thank you. I’ll stick with water for a while.”

  She squeezed, and her hand slid down his shoulder blade. He suppressed the impulse to hug her. He’d only weep again. It was the last thing he wanted in front of all those people. In front of Simon.

  The movie barely ended when Mike exclaimed it was time for snacks. The whole room of friends followed him to the kitchen, drawn by his unabated energy as if he had them on a string.

  “Simon, you brought klobásky?” Mike asked, rifling through the fridge.