5

The washing machine purred for the first time in months. A collection of clothes bundled around at high speed, passing through jets of hot water as the entire appliance rocked, sending volts of vibrations into the floor. The spinning clothes were watched by absent eyes.

Visions of Jennifer Lee flashed into Joseph’s mind. He pictured her smiling in the heat of the Caribbean sun, her head resting on a cushion of her own lustrous hair as she reclined on a sun chair, watching the blue skies above and enjoying the peace.

He remembered the smiles of enchantment that lit up her face when she first saw the streams of artwork he had devoted to her. The feigned grin of disinterest as she listened to his absurd, drunken conspiracy theories. He even remembered the times she cried: the death of her parents, the loss of a pet—one cat and two goldfish, the former had eaten the latter—an angry argument, or a sad film.

He replayed the memories together with the fresh images of his neighbor. He felt like he saw Jennifer every day—her face was always in his thoughts, in his dreams and on photographs hidden in drawers—but seeing her again, in the flesh, felt otherworldly. Only it was someone else’s flesh.

He’d never felt like he needed or wanted to move on. He had only ever loved one woman and she was gone. Everyone else that followed would only be walking in her footsteps. But after seeing Zala, his thoughts shifted.

The washing machine beeped three times. Joseph glared at it. The water had stopped flowing, the clothes had stopped spinning. The machine beeped again, one long head-churning noise.

“What?” Lee asked the idle machine. It had taken him twenty minutes to figure out how to turn it on. He wasn’t interested in learning its language.

Since Jennifer’s death, he preferred to buy new clothes instead of trying to wash his old ones, but lately he hadn’t bothered to do either. He wanted to look his best when meeting his new neighbors, not for social or cleanliness sake, just for Zala.

He jabbed at the buttons across the top of the machine, eventually finding the right one. He removed the sodden clothes and scooped them into his arms, clutching them against his naked torso and then dropping them into the dryer.

After a few minutes, with sensations of cold pricking at his skin and lifting the hairs on his arms, the dryer whirled into action and Lee retreated to his thoughts again, his arms folded over his chest to keep out the cold.

____

From the wide windows inside the brightly lit studio, Lee watched as clouds of smoke pushed their way into the evening air from the Lechnens’ house. He couldn’t see the back garden from where he sat, but he saw a mass of lights shining out from its direction. It looked like the majority of the lights inside the house were also on.

When the smoke emerged from over the top of the house, Lee made his way downstairs. The new neighbors hadn’t specified a time and he’d found himself in an awkward position, nervous for the first time in a long time. He didn’t want to go over too early. If he did and they hadn’t set up the barbecue, they would then feel obliged to do so. He also didn’t want to leave it too late and find himself knocking on the front door with no one to answer because they were around the back listening to music and enjoying themselves.

He hadn’t realized how much of a social outcast he had become until that moment. He had never had the social touch, but in the past he’d never really cared. He had always had a subtle confidence that came from a total lack of respect and complete indifference to his surroundings.

Standing at his own front door, his heart beating fast, his palms sweaty, Joseph Lee pondered.

Should I take something? he wondered. A bottle of wine, a few cans. He scuttled into the kitchen and opened the drinks cabinet. A half empty bottle of cheap vodka sat solitary in the middle. In the fridge, he found two cans of lager, with the top of one coated in a congealed substance that had dripped down from the shelf above. He examined the substance and instantly recoiled. On the shelf above, he found the stinky culprit, a block of cheese three months past its sell-by date. It had turned a putrid shade of green and seemed to be growing hair. He wiped the cheese juice from the top of the can, but couldn’t rid it of its rancid stench.

He decided against a housewarming gift and left the house after throwing on a leather jacket. The street was silent except for the house the new neighbors occupied. Lights from living rooms beamed through closed blinds and drawn curtains, flickering occasional blue streams. The stench of flame-grilled meat, accompanied by the sounds of soft pop music, floated across the road, polluting the night air and tingling Lee’s taste buds.

Walking down the garden path to number 23, he studied his surroundings. The garden was neglected, covered with dead leaves and dying flowers, although it was nowhere near as bad as Lee’s own garden. They seemed like people who would take pride in appearances. Lee assumed they would have the garden looking like a wonderland within a week or two.

Parked in the gravel driveway was an immaculately clean Mercedes. The glare of the streetlight allowed Lee to catch a glimpse of his reflection on its polished surface. He watched his own distorted mirror image as it bounced down the pathway to the front door and raised a fist to the wood.

After half a dozen knocks, a small spotlight above the door burst into life, showering Lee with a bright white glow. He lowered his hand and blinked away the beam. Seconds later, the handle turned and Zala Lechnen appeared.

“Mr. Lee,” she said excitedly. “You came! Excellent!” She shifted aside to allow Joseph past. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you,” he muttered softly. “And please, call me Joseph.”

He crossed the threshold in slow motion. When he passed within inches of Zala, their eyes met, their faces a mere foot apart. Lee’s nostrils tingled, his smile faltered. He could feel her warmth and sense her body as he brushed against her. He breathed her in and reveled in her aura as his heart pounded so loud he worried she would hear it.

The moment was over quickly, leaving Lee to realize that he hadn’t been that close to another human being in a long time.

Zala carefully closed the door behind him and walked down the corridor. She ushered for Lee to follow her as she strolled gracefully across the laminated floor.

“You came just in time,” she said over her shoulder. “Riso was just putting the meat on the barbecue.”

Lee nodded and watched the swaying hips of the look-alike. She wore light, loose-fitting clothes; her white blouse swayed gently around her torso as she walked. Gray jogging pants flapped at her naked ankles, flicking the tops of her bare feet and picking up flecks of dust from the floor.

“I hope you like a drink.” She crossed into the kitchen and made for the patio door at the back end of the house.

“I do, yes,” Lee said politely.

“You’ll be in good company here then.”

She stepped through the opening in the patio door and toward a pair of flip-flops waiting on the deck. Joseph could see the streams of smoke coming from the side of the garden, panning out from a barbecue. He watched her slide into the flip-flops, his own feet still inside the confines of the house.

“No need to wait for me,” she said, smiling. “You are quite the gentleman, aren’t you?”

Lee smiled. “I guess so.” If anything, it was because he was shy and lost, his mind rampant with random thoughts, his body stuck as if waiting for orders, his hands stuffed into his pockets like an idle teen.

With her feet ensconced, Zala stepped forward and hooked her arm through Lee’s. She smiled at him. “Come on then, gentleman,” she said jokingly. “Escort me to the barbecue.”

Joseph couldn’t help but smile. Immediately his anxiety softened and the tension in his body vanished. He returned her smile, her breath on his lips as he faced her. “Yes, my lady.”

____

Two sets of garden furniture sat on top of a stone deck that overlooked a bland and colorless garden that suffered the same misfortune and neglect as the front. The food and drink on offer more than made up for the bland surroundings.

Lee and Zala sat on wooden chairs in front of a large round table. Two other chairs occupied the table, but no one occupied them. In the middle of this table were plates and bowls of various offerings, including buttered bread buns and a bowl of potato salad, which nestled in the middle of an encirclement of crisps, rice, relish, and peanuts.

Riso grabbed Lee a can of beer from an icebox immediately after greeting him, insisting he drink straight away. Zala, sitting next to Lee and sharing his view of the garden, held a tall glass of white wine in her hand, with the open bottle sitting on the table in front of her. Next to this table was another, which stood beside the smoking barbecue, a large chrome device holding vast quantities of meat on three separate cooking shelves. Rio seemed to be in his element as he operated it, grinning through the thick smoke and talking over the hiss of the sizzling meat. Between breaks of billowing smoke, with sweat beads popping on his forehead and smoke stinging his eyes, he drank thirstily from a beer glass the size of a vase.

Lee had been at the house less than two minutes and had spoken nothing more than a few greetings, but already he felt calm and welcomed.

“I hope you like meat,” Riso shouted.

Lee looked at the steaming grill. He could smell a range of burgers, chops, and hotdogs sizzling away. “I do,” he replied with a smile. “But that’s a lot of food. Are you expecting more people, a pack of wolves maybe?”

Riso laughed his boorish laugh and took another long drink of beer. “You are our first guest and this is our first barbecue in our new house, so I thought, why not make it special?”

“Makes sense.”

“Anything that doesn’t get eaten, we can give to the dogs.”

Lee looked around. “You have a dog?”

“No,” Riso said grinning. “I was hoping you did!”

They all laughed, chipping further away at ice that had already been broken.

The barbecue hissed violently, spilling more swarms of heavy smoke. Riso backed away, waiting for the thick clouds to dissipate.

Zala turned to Joseph, a loving smile etched on her soft face. “I hope you like your meat burned.”

“I don’t mind.” Lee smiled. “That’s one hell of a beast.” He gestured toward the barbecue, a volcano spewing plumes to the fading day.

“The barbecue or Riso?”

“I heard that!” Riso called, his laugh lingering on his lips. “I got this thing a few months ago,” he called through the thick smoke. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I can grill up to twenty burgers at once on this.”

Lee’s eyebrows arched, and he thought about questioning the Austrian giant but decided against it.

“He never has and he never will,” Zala said, reading Lee’s expression. “We’re not ones for huge parties or social gatherings. Although, if it wasn’t for me, I’m sure he’d cook up the burgers and eat them all himself.”

“Of course!” Riso said over the top of his beer glass. “I love my meat!”

Lee nodded. Riso certainly looked like a man who enjoyed his meat; his heavy physique had clearly seen a lot of protein over the years.

Zala shook her head at her husband’s reaction. “It’s a good thing he works out so much,” she told Lee, her eyes on her husband. “If he didn’t exercise all that congealed fat out of his veins, he’d be dead by now.”

Riso frowned.

“I keep telling him to watch what he eats,” she said distantly, turning away from her husband and looking directly into Lee’s eyes. “So, Joseph …” She spoke his name with a soft subtlety, her accent disappearing for those two syllables. “What do you do?”

He looked at her over the rim over his glass and raised his eyebrows. “Do?” he asked, taking a mouthful of ice-cold beer.

“Where do you work?” she reiterated, quickly adding, “if you don’t mind me asking.”

Lee did mind. He hadn’t worked on a decent lie and he wasn’t ready to tell strangers about the entirety of his jobless life and how he came by his huge fortune, no matter how welcoming they were. “I paint and write mostly,” he said, realizing that if he provided enough information, relevant or not, he may be able to sidestep around the word job.

“I do it all at home. I have a studio on the second floor—big, bright, empty. You’ve probably seen it from outside. The windows are huge. It’s like a conservatory up there.” He took a sip of his drink with the implied expression that more information was to come, which he hoped he could think of during the short pause. “Painting is my strong point. I do the occasional portrait and landscape, but most of what I paint comes from within, I guess. I also do a bit of poetry and prose; I haven’t gone as far to write a novel yet but I have completed a few short stories and poetry anthologies.” He paused again, realizing that both of the Lechnens were staring at him with great interest.

He felt a nervousness creep over him. He didn’t like being the center of attention. “I have many creative outlets,” he continued, rushed. “That’s what Jennifer always used to say—” he paused, his heart skipping a few beats. He hadn’t wanted to bring her up.

“Is Jennifer your wife?” Zala quizzed.

“Was,” Lee said quickly, choosing to take another drink and a subsequent break from the conversation. “We … broke up. A while ago.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” He spotted a genuine sympathetic flicker in her blue eyes.

“It’s okay,” Joseph feigned a smile. “We didn’t work well together.”

“Women!” Riso shouted brashly. His tone, just like his laugh, carried an unintended abrasiveness to it. “You can’t live with them and you can’t get laid without them!” He began to laugh but his wife stopped him with a stern look.

Lee smiled, content. “So, what do you two do?” he asked politely, happy the conversation was moving away from him.

“Have you heard of August Transport?” Riso wondered.

“Sure,” Lee lied.

“I own the place,” Riso said proudly. “It’s a family business. I came over here from Austria ten years ago to help my uncle run the company—back then we only had two depots, now we have seven all over the country, with more in the pipeline.” He stepped away from the smoke, moving closer to Lee, the vase of beer in his hand.

“In Austria, I was a soldier, I joined the army when I left school and spent the best days of my life there. I always knew I’d have the family business to fall back on so I was free to see the world and I didn’t have to worry about the shitty paycheck the army gave me.” He paused to take a drink, simultaneously rubbing his smoke-peppered eyes. “I left not long after I met Zala.” He nodded toward his wife, as if Lee needed verification. “The army is no place for a married man.”

“You were getting old and tired, that’s why you left,” Zala joked.

“True,” Riso agreed with another burst of harsh laughter. “Zala works there too.” Again he pointed at his wife, his thick finger peeling away from the cold glass. “Well, she’s on the books anyway.” He winked before downing the remaining beer, swallowing half a pint of the dark liquid in two big gulps.

“Drink up, Joseph!” he exclaimed merrily. “I drank two cans before you got here. You have some catching up to do!”

____

Joseph Lee stumbled out of the Lechnen house a few hours later, his merry feet treading the tarmac of the quiet street, the intoxicated Austrians shouting their good-byes behind him.

“It was great having you over,” the voice of Riso Lechnen boomed, no doubt waking up a few annoyed neighbors.

His wife, standing next to him and swaying gently with an absent smile on her face, hushed her husband. “Sleep well,” she said in a softer tone.

Lee waved a final good-bye to his new friends and made his way across the street, fumbling in his pockets for his front door key.

The neighborhood was asleep, living room lights no longer ablaze. Three houses down, Lee saw an upstairs light burst into life out of the corner of his blurred vision, but he paid it no heed. The neighbors were too private and retiring to complain about anything. A few loud noises in the night certainly wouldn’t upset them.

It had been a fun night. He had enjoyed himself for the first time in a long time, his troubles melted away under the welcoming pressure of alcohol and pleasant conversation. After cooking up enough meat to feed an army, half of which had been wrapped in foil and placed in the fridge for a later date, Riso joined Lee and his wife at the table. They consumed vast amounts of alcohol, talked about anything and everything. The conversation had flowed with effortless ease.

With every bottle of beer, the conversation had both broadened and dimmed somewhat, from views about politics, modern art, and classic literature to outlandish jokes and nonsensical opinions, putting the world to rights.

Much to Lee’s delight, Zala had stayed in touch with the conversation, her mind just as broad and her opinions just as crazy. She also joined in when the discussions moved onto sports.

At the end of the night, Riso opened a bottle of vodka he had been saving for special occasions, claiming that the beginning of a new friendship couldn’t be more special. He lined up shots on the table and the three drank with great thirst and joy, cheering one another on like partying students.

Joseph Lee stumbled into his house. His eyes instinctively fell to the laminated floor, tracing over an invisible outline as they always did, but for the first time, his heart didn’t sink. His face was a picture of happiness, accentuated with a broad smile that stretched from ear to ear.

Stumbling into the living room, not bothering to switch on the lights, he collapsed onto the sofa, sunk his head into the cushions, and closed his eyes. Memories of his happy night flashed and spun through the blackness, a carnival behind closed shutters. In less than five minutes, still smiling like a simpleton, he was asleep.

____

When he awoke and his tired mind tuned into the world, it noticed something different; something odd. He was hungover, that wasn’t much of a surprise; his dehydrated brain had shriveled to an unhealthy size, compliments to the foreign beer and expensive vodka, but the dry lips and throbbing head didn’t bother him.

His mood was different, lighter. He even managed a smile whilst he was rubbing his eyes—an involuntary twinge, a merry tic. Sleep itself was a natural mood lifter and energizer, especially for someone who got very little of it, but Lee rarely felt energized upon waking. Sitting up on the sofa, something quickly dawned on him, as though the blood rush had forced his brain into gear. He hadn’t woken with a start. He hadn’t dreamed about Jennifer. His sleep had been restful, uninterrupted by the sickening images of her massacred body. He failed to recount any dreams. The only memories that offered themselves were of the night before: the beer, the conversation, the meat, the special vodka and, most prominent of all, Zala.

He staggered to the kitchen, flicked on the kettle, and rested against the countertop while it heated up. Despite being the spitting image of Jennifer, Zala Lechnen didn’t share many other qualities with Joseph’s buried wife. They were both compassionate and loving people, a gorgeous virtue that shone through to their exterior and expressed itself in an unforgettable smile, but the similarities stopped there.

Jennifer was a career-motivated, professional woman. She had an intimidating, powerful demeanor coupled with an assertiveness that tended to overshadow her innocence. She had developed the personality for her work. As a lawyer, she needed an edge; she needed to be ruthless and cold, even if her poetic side didn’t agree with it. She was also a workaholic. Joseph would go for days at a time without seeing her, and when he did, he often encountered the cold-hearted Jennifer and not the compassionate one.

In her earlier days, she had always been the innocent butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth type. As she furthered her career, she worked more hours and lost more innocence, but away from the stresses of work, she still maintained the sensitive mannerisms that warmed Lee’s heart.

Zala’s personality hadn’t seen the likes of such a stressful job. She had never had to feign heartlessness to win a case or intimidate people to get answers. The compassionate side of her personality remained fully intact.

The steam from the kettle rose through the funnelled top and dispersed as it collided with the base of a protruding cupboard. Lee watched the dispersing fog inattentively.

There was still a lot about Zala that he didn’t know, and every part of him yearned to learn. Listening to her last night, he had discovered many things that surprised and delighted him. Her married life had been simple. She was a housewife who hadn’t worked since her teenage years. She had no children to look after and, other than making Riso’s tea when he arrived back from work, she had no major chores. She had the makings of a woman whose personality and purpose had been stomped out by a macho man with archaic designs on life and feminism. But she was independent, she was strong, and while Riso made many jokes suggesting otherwise, he was not a chauvinist, and he didn’t keep his wife under lock and key.

Zala spoke fluent English and Spanish and had her mind set on learning Portuguese. Through home-learning courses, she had achieved diplomas in English literature, social sciences, and psychology and would begin studying toward a Psychology degree next year. She could play the piano—Lee had been treated to a short, sweet, and drunken recital—and she was a big film buff.

She also had an interest in art and had asked to see Lee’s paintings many times during the night. He had side-stepped the question with modesty at first, but he relented eventually, making a promise that he didn’t really want to keep.

He wasn’t sure if he was infatuated with her, but he was certainly mesmerized by her. His current mental state didn’t call for a relationship of any kind—he could barely handle any human contact—but he enjoyed Zala’s company, and not just because she reminded him of Jennifer. After all, he had gone out of his way to remove any reminders of Jennifer from his house and his mind.

He poured himself a black coffee loaded with three sugars and then climbed the stairs and entered the studio. He glanced blankly at the easel and canvas, the centerpiece of the room, before settling down onto the swivel chair and rolling it to the expansive windows.

Pushing his feet against the wall, he allowed the chair to recline as far as it would go as he sipped the bitter black liquid and stared at the Lechnen’s house. He stared intently at the closed curtains on the second floor, beyond which lay the master bedroom. He imagined Zala lying in bed, covered with the flimsy material of a silk nightdress and wrapped snug in a thick duvet, her sweet eyes closed, the innocence of sleep pressed onto her soft face.

He pictured her like he remembered Jennifer: her thick hair sprawled on the pillow, her lips gently open. Lost in the lust-filled thoughts, he nearly dropped his coffee when the curtains were suddenly yanked open.

The fantasy of the sleeping beauty disappeared. She had awoken. Holding both ends of the curtains, Zala closed her eyes, sucking in a morning breath and soaking up the sunshine. Her once perfectly straight hair had been ravaged by sleep. Strands of it grasped at her neck and face. She wore a loose green tank top, the right strap had fallen away from her pale neck and wrapped slackly around her arm. Lee imagined nipples poking through the material but, due to the distance between the houses, he saw nothing more than a Zala-shaped blur.

He took a long drink of the scalding coffee and found himself wishing he had a pair of binoculars, a wish that soon disturbed him. He turned his eyes away from the window and shook his head, trying to push the thought away. He didn’t want to lust after a married woman, and she was too much like Jennifer.

He finished his coffee with his chair facing the other way as unwanted thoughts raced through his head. He decided to shower; his clothes stank of sweat and alcohol and for the first time in a long time, it actually bothered him.