by Neil Jordan
You felt free enough to let yourself in.
I did. I’m sorry.
Why sorry? It was good to find you here. Asleep, midday. Like you were home.
Home?
And it was even better to lie down beside you. And, you know.
So, I had not been dreaming. But it would have been impolite to mention that. So I said what anyone would say.
Yes.
She pulled the towel off and turned her head.
Help me dry.
And I rubbed her hair between two bands of pink towel.
They look good together, she said.
And I remembered she had said that before. But I repeated, almost ritually: What?
Our clothes.
They were lying on the bare wooden boards. Mine, and above them hers. A thin yellow summer dress, like the Pussy Rioters wore.
I was taking the last few steps from the stairs to the fanciful courtyard when the cello started up again from above. A summery baroque dance, which I later came to recognise as the gigue from suite four. It was precise and light, exact as a piece of lacework, and I was imagining her fingers stopping on the strings when my mobile rang and the office number showed up. I heard Istvan on the line.
Where have you been? he asked. I have news.
Sleeping, I told him.
Well, come round, he said. You have an office, remember? And what used to be a business.
So I continued on through the arch where the summery gigue was drowned out by the sound of a distant riot.
It was another demonstration on the boulevard. The coloured balaclavas bounced up and down behind masses of police helmets, which separated them from a baying crowd in camouflage and combat clothing. It was like an unruly gymnastic display, and I was amazed at their level of fitness. Thin, muscular arms, dressed in pink and yellow tank tops, under the bobbing, pastel-coloured ski masks. Maybe they sold them in Benetton.
I found Istvan at his desk, with his back turned towards me. He swivelled his chair around when I entered.
It is strange, he said, how battle lines take shape. We always thought it would be Russophiles and nationalists, the old pre-war divisions making space for themselves again. The Jew on one side, the Christian on the other, Catholic, Orthodox, atheist, Muslim, anarchist all falling into line, on one side or the other. But who could have foreseen the coloured balaclava? It spreads like its own virus, creating new fault lines altogether, new orthodoxies, throwing church into the arms of a state it used to hate, internationalist and nationalist band together against this degendered neutered thing that believes in nothing but street sex and boomboxes in public places and wants to turn this place we know into some Strasbourgian Nordic version of permanent disco night.
You won’t be wearing the coloured one, I gather.
And now, he went on, with a kind of worldly Slavic sadness, there are rumours, that they have found the grave of St Panteleimon.
And that’s significant?
Martyr. Roman times. Patron saint of the church of Constantine. A discovery that could have united us all.
And will it?
He blew through his closed lips.
There are no more brothels to be found in the twelfth, by the way. Of all the districts in the city, it is quite unusually chaste.
And that was your news?
No. My news was this.
He turned his laptop towards me.
There was a small, unremarkable building on the screen, with lettering above the door.
What does it read? I asked.
Morga, he said. City morgue.
Of course, it would come down to that. One knows without admitting it; one looks from the Polaroid of little Petra to the enduring faces of her parents and thinks what one cannot say. Save your money, she’s already dead.
You think she’s inside there? I asked him. And there was a dead feeling inside me.
What did the psychic tell you?
That she was in a small room that she cannot leave.
Well. It has many small rooms. That the residents cannot leave.
He was really going for the Yorick thing today. But it suited him somehow, those Slavic jowls and the moonlike glasses. Maybe he had found his voice.
Can we go there?
Not without appointment. It is a morgue, after all. And Jonathan?
He pronounced it the Gertrude way. Three syllables. Jo-na-than.
Yes?
Frank called.
I sat at my desk with my back to him. Of course he would call. One day.
He thinks you two should talk.
Perhaps we should, I thought. A have-a-drink kind of talk.
He’s in a bar around the corner.
I opened my desk drawer and saw the Glock sitting there. Like all guns, it seemed to want to be put to use. Some day.
And what would Frank be? A coloured balaclava or a black?
Balaclava is not Frank’s style.
I slipped it into my waistband and stood, and found a jacket on the wall. I put that on, even though it was too hot.
Which bar?
He mentioned a name. An unfamiliar one.
I walked out and the gun walked with me. I remembered the feeling very well.
27
So there he was, dressed in a linen waistcoat and an immaculate pale-green shirt with short sleeves. So the cufflinks weren’t an issue, thank God. He was sitting by a scarred wooden bar in a room with bare brick walls and no glass in the windows. It was a style they had there: take a ruin and design a bar around it. He smiled when he saw me enter, and then looked behind me and smiled again, apologetically, as if to say here was his appointment, and any new acquaintance would have to wait. I assumed there was a woman behind me, or several; he was that kind of man, after all, to whom women came easily. But I wasn’t so indelicate as to turn; I would save that for later. I kept my jacket on and sat down beside him and asked him if it came to balaclavas, which colour would he wear.
Strange greeting, he said.
Strange times, I said.
Yes, I agree, he said. We’ll all be at it soon.
Killing? I asked.
Barricading. Burning tyres. First things first.
I was in Dubrovnik, I said, before the thing broke there. They would point across the bar at friends who would soon be cut-throat enemies. They would smile, shake hands.
I was making small talk and I wasn’t sure why. And he was good enough to stop me.
You’ve got to stop blaming her, he said. Blame me.
For what? I asked.
Aha, he said. That’s the thing, isn’t it?
Why are we even having this conversation?
He looked over my shoulder again. And this time I had to turn.
Do you think I want it? he asked softly.
There was a girl by a stool, at the bare brick wall. She looked like a student. She caught my eye and looked away.
Because, he was saying, she asked me to.
She asked you when?
Yesterday, he said. I met her by the river.
And so, I thought. I was wrong about that, too. How many more things could I be wrong about?
And if you want to hit me, he said, now is probably a good time.
And I could have, I suppose. I could have whacked him once and watched his head bounce off the scarred wooden bartop. By the time he brought it up again I could have had the Glock out and decorated the whole place with him. But it seemed strangely inappropriate. He looked sad and tired of the whole business.
She wanted to talk, he said. She missed you. She still misses you. She even wanted me to teach her how to say it my way.
How? I asked him.
Chybis mi, he said. And if it sounds flirtatious, it is only because I am that kind of man. The kind of man women want to flirt with, when they want it to mean nothing. I am the great nothing, the great vacuum. I listen and I nod and I smile in appreciation and every now and then it works for me, I get into their favour, but your wife, my g
ood friend, was not one of those.
I was not his friend, not any longer, but I took his cue and listened and I nodded and was amazed at what self-laceration it gave rise to.
You were hardly there. You gave me a lesson, actually, in loving, if it ever should come to that with someone and me, because you had assumed an intimacy you no longer bothered to practise, you left her with me to choose office furniture, an indication if there ever was one of lost interest, lack of interest, you no longer bothered even to be jealous, and jealousy, she told me, was inseparable from her idea of love.
She told you this where?
In the bar of that concrete place by the water. We had drinks and a laughable attempt at dinner. I booked a room which she paid for to keep the conversation going and the suggestion was mine, not hers. I wanted to know what it meant to be loved, to be cherished, to be the cause of such bereavement. I wanted to be you for a while and I failed miserably. But I did what you mustn’t have done for so long. I listened.
A present one and an absent one, I thought. And I kept my mouth shut.
I would have worn your clothes if they had been available, just to know what it felt like. Because I am a man, not like you. I am the one they want to fuck, when they want it to mean nothing. I am the one they can leave without a thought or a backward glance, thinking that was nice. The one with the smooth body and the shaved chest, and I know you’ve noticed that, because I heard you say so. So I wanted to be in the clothes of a marriage, if only to know what it felt like. And I have to say, it felt good, while it lasted.
You should stop there, I told him.
And thank you for saying that. I should stop there. You want to know how long it lasted?
No, I said. I think you’ve said enough.
Too much, he said. I’m a listener, not a talker. So tell me, he continued, tell me what went wrong; maybe your eye had wandered, maybe there was another one too, one like me that you leave in the morning and want to obliterate from memory.
An absent one, I thought.
It was good, he said, being you for a while, for a few hours, but I was never the husband, I didn’t even come close, I was hardly the lover. you are both of those things for her and I am the jealous one, oddly enough. you should leave that bile and that envy to me. You must keep being the husband, my friend, and do what the husband does.
What does the husband do?
He – what is the phrase? He makes up. He knows the dislocation was his, maybe the fault was his and the love is all his, if he wants it. He buys her something. Something with sentimental associations. A gift.
He lit a cigarette. He offered me one. I shook my head.
Tell me just one thing, I said. Why did she pay the bill?
And he smiled. If he was to be undone, it would be by vanity.
Because with me, he said, the woman always pays. And she has paid, I assume.
She told you?
No. Her face said it all.
He smiled. He brushed his eyes, as if the cigarette smoke was bringing water to them. I assumed it was that, and not tears. It was odd, to feel so close to someone so repellent. But I had worked with him once and tolerated him and maybe would do so again. What was odder was to have Sarah in common with him. As if she was a pool and we were both doing laps, up and down.
I said goodbye and passed the girl who looked like a student, in her high stool against the bare brick wall, and saw her look up at someone, not me.
28
The boulevard was empty of traffic when I walked back down it. There was the smell of tear gas in the summer air and random groups of policemen stood under the linden trees, sweating under their visors in the intolerable heat. There was no more sign of riot, though, and whatever passers-by there were kept to the shaded side of the street. I saw a yellow balaclava hanging on a parking meter, streaked with the colour pink. I picked it up, saw the round open O of the mouth and realised the pink was the stain of blood, some young girl’s blood. Or boy’s, since it was impossible to tell, under those pastel-coloured ski masks, which may have been the point. The blood and the bright childish yellow made a miserable contrast and I dropped it, as if it had been some young thing’s undergarment, which again may have been the point. Blood and pastel.
Some of the shop windows were broken, their owners patiently sweeping up the shattered glass, as if they had done it before and would soon be doing it again. I passed a jeweller’s, with miraculously unbroken plate-glass windows behind a metal mesh, and saw a display behind it, gleaming pinpoints of white light against a green baize cloth. There was a bracelet there, of black pearls curled into a figure of eight. And I thought maybe he was right, it was time, the man should do what the man does and buy his wife something with sentimental associations. A gift.
I walked inside and thought of opera and pearls, and wondered why. That opera by Bizet, The Pearl Fishers, with its duet that I had always found so anodyne. Did Sarah ever like it? I couldn’t remember. But I knew she liked pearls, black ones particularly, and I was reaching through to the window display to take them out, when the shop assistant came up behind me.
Let me, she said.
I stood obediently back and she hooked them round her finger, and held them up to the sunlight coming through the window.
You like pearls?
My wife does, I said.
Black pearls. Japanese. Uncultured.
I can see that, I said.
You know pearls?
I shook my head.
You know the duet, though. The Pearl Fishers.
Was this a sales pitch, I wondered, or some kind of osmosis. Then she nodded her head, to the building across the street, and I understood.
I heard Andrea Bocelli sing it over there. In the State Opera. He was blind, so had no idea how beautiful the setting was.
I could see it through the grilled mesh. A fin-de-siècle attempt at grandeur, like a miniature of the Garnier in Paris.
His voice, though, was even better.
Better than what? I asked.
Than the beautiful setting. That he couldn’t see. You’ve been inside? The opera?
Never, I said.
Though I must have passed it so many times without even a glance.
Well, you should visit. Though maybe it closed, with the trouble on the street.
You like pearls? she asked again. Black pearls? You want to read about them?
She turned and took a small booklet from the counter.
A symbol of hope, it says here. For wounded hearts.
Aha.
And every heart is wounded. Once or twice.
Is that you talking now, or the booklet?
Me, she said. And she held the pearls up against her salmon-coloured blouse.
Your wife’s colouring? Like mine?
A little, I said, although I didn’t mean it. She had the palest of skin, like a nun’s.
May I?
I took the booklet from her hand and saw how expensive they were.
We can talk of discount, she said, again reading my thoughts. If you pay cash.
I’ve only credit cards.
Even so, she said.
29
I walked out with a small carefully wrapped box dangling from my index finger. The smell of tear gas was gone from the air and the traffic had once more begun its slow crawl. I crossed the street, weaving between out-of-date cars until I reached the opera steps. The heavy wooden doors were open and there was a man in uniform between them with a leather wallet round his neck. And as I mounted the steps I wondered why I’d never noticed it before. Because I had the philistine’s dislike of opera: warbling sopranos and pearl-fishing duets. Maybe, but the building had a lot to recommend it and I liked old buildings: looking at them, wandering through them, thinking about them. Two caryatids stood on either side of him, supporting the carved arch above the door.
No opera tour today, he said, though I hadn’t asked for one. And when I asked him why, he said, the demonstration. But if I
paid the recommended contribution, I could walk around with an audio guide. So I walked inside, into the carved-stone interior, and paid the woman behind the glass cabinet the recommended fee.
There was another grand staircase before me with a carpet of a red so bright it almost hurt the eyes. It branched off, to the left and right, and the balustrades rose and drew the eye to a bewildering series of murals above. Overhanging trees, ivy, collapsing ruins and follies, nymphs, fauns and cupids with faded pink bodies, that all seemed frozen in the act of tumbling down towards me. There was a large decorative arch beneath them that led to what I knew must be the auditorium, so I climbed up to it and underneath and found myself among long rows of empty seats with gilded boxes rising above them in a semicircle, at the end of which was the empty stage with the huge red curtains drawn back. The only light in there was the sunlight, coming through the circular windows way, way above. So the seats seemed to vanish into a bowl of shadow that led to the stage and the dull gleam of theatrical flats.
I heard a bow scrape over an open string and knew the sound intimately, immediately. It continued on, into an operatic flurry. Someone was playing the cello in the orchestra pit.
I walked forwards, almost blindly, feeling my way by the satin-covered seats that led down the aisle. The cello played again, another operatic flurry, which confused me. I had become so used to Bach. Then the darkness must have softened somewhat, from the sunlight above, or else my eyes had grown used to it. I could see the red-satin covers to the seats, a balustrade at the end of them with a long cushion of red, and as I moved forwards I could see a serried row of music stands, each with a red backing. Was red the only colour that opera allowed? I wondered, and the cello continued and then I saw her, sitting on a gold-painted chair, alone in the orchestra pit, her head raised towards a score on a music stand, the dark hair masking half of her face.
