So I kissed her before I left. I took her small chin between my fingers and raised those broad, wet lips to mine. I felt a rapid, darting tongue come between them, searching for my own. And I promised to check in on her again. Though as I walked back down the stone steps, as her neighbour glanced at me behind her lace curtain, as the cello sounded out again behind her door, I knew I wouldn’t, or shouldn’t. Some things are just too strange. They should be left in the realm of possibility, or imagination. I had pulled her from the river, yes. I had helped her home. But the thought of some ultimate responsibility, some promise, like the promise of her tongue, darting between her lips, was too much, much too much. I felt I couldn’t breathe, in that heat; I felt I was suddenly drowning in warm water. And there was a man standing on the pavement beyond the archway, dressed in a dark linen suit. How do they wear suits in this heat? I remember thinking.
You hear that music?
I had passed him before he spoke. So I had to turn to see if he had spoken to me.
Do I hear that music?
It was almost lost, out here on the street.
Yes, I hear it. Barely.
So it is not only me.
No. I hear it.
And a distant phrase came to its end. There was silence from inside the courtyard, the rattle of distant children’s voices.
And now it’s stopped.
Now you don’t hear it?
No, I said, I don’t. How could I, when it has stopped?
Don’t you find the phrasing is too – erzelmi?
Erzelmi? I knew the word.
Emotional.
Aha. A critic, I thought.
Should music not be emotional?
Good question, he said, and turned on his heel and walked away.
It was to be a day like that. A day of abrupt transitions, of non sequiturs, of arbitrary connections. I walked behind him until the cobbled street ended in a broader one, a boulevard, and I wondered at the fact that he never looked around. Shiny patent-leather shoes on the hot cobblestones, which could have sweated in that heat.
There was traffic held on the boulevard, a demonstration of some kind. Groups of men in haphazard military fatigues blocking the traffic island, arms punching the hot air, an incomprehensible slogan echoing. Lines of police in flak jackets, guard dogs on leashes.
I would have followed him out of a sense of idle curiosity, if nothing else, but he was soon lost in the crush of bodies. And Istvan, when I finally made it to the office, was sitting in the breeze of the desk fan, cleaning a weapon in his hand with a handkerchief.
You need that? I asked him.
It was a Makarov double-action, and I had cleared him a licence for it.
You hear that noise out there?
I passed the demo.
Well, he said. I might, some day.
And what’s the issue now? I asked him.
Balaclavas, he said.
Balaclavas?
We have our own pussy rioters. A demonstration. Which means they jump up and down with fake guitars and coloured balaclavas. Then some patriot punks put on black balaclavas to throw rocks at them. Police pretend to keep the peace. We will all kill each other soon.
Dare I ask why?
Doesn’t matter why. We are – how you say it? – a kind of blanket.
You mean a patchwork quilt?
Right first time. Patchwork quilt, with thread fraying. The black balaclava kills the coloured one, which might bring out the kefiah and the burkah that maybe kills them all.
How soon?
Doesn’t matter how soon. What matters is to be ready.
He cocked the weapon and pointed it through the open window at the street outside.
Pop, he said.
Sadly, yes.
Put it away now.
And he returned the gun to its drawer beneath his desk.
I called the brothel. In the twelfth arrondissement.
And?
I asked for a Petra. They smelt – how do you call it? A mole?
A rat, I offered.
Correct. Smelt a rat. Put down the phone. So there’s only one way to check now. Pose as client.
You?
Hardly me. They know my type.
How?
I have Special Forces written all over me.
You don’t mean me?
Why not? British businessman. Alone in foreign city. What could be more natural?
Or unnatural.
As you wish. Ask for a blonde. Twenty years or so. Say a Petra was recommended.
By who?
Does it matter? A colleague. Any travelling scumbag. Maybe you meet her. In the small room that she cannot leave. Case closed, as they say on cable series.