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.
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 good 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.