6.1

For a brief moment, the silence that followed Mara’s answer glued them all in place. Pablo wasn’t in any condition to ask for specifics; he had a feeling that if he’d been in a different mood, he would have found the answer frankly insulting, and couldn’t overcome his desire to flee. Kamtchowsky followed him out of the apartment and pulled the door closed with a bang.

What Mara had said was, “Well, who knows, maybe because you two are just like us?”

Pabst and Kamtchowsky walked down the hall, and the us from only seconds ago was now a distant them. Then, waiting silently for the elevator, they heard laughter coming from inside Mara’s apartment. Pablo stabbed at the elevator button. Kamtchowsky tugged at his sleeve. He turned to see Andy hanging from the door frame by his fingertips, gazing sleepily at the two of them.

–Guys, we’re sorry. We didn’t know that . . . Well, but you also didn’t have to take it like that, right?

The small bulb overhead covered him in a crystalline, pious light, and Kamtchowsky caught her breath.

–Do you want us to call you a cab? asked Mara.

She’d poked her head out through the space under Andy’s arm. Together they formed a bicephalous monster with exquisitely beautiful young features.

–Okay, well, bye then, and again, sorry if we offended you. Oh, and you, Documentary Girl, you never told me your name.

–It’s Kamtchowsky.

–No, I mean, your real name.

Squat dark K stared intently into Mara’s eyes for a moment, her own eyes wet with sadness. Then she stepped into the elevator, and Pabst slammed the grill shut.

Down on the ground floor, they heard the panauricular screech of a passing garbage truck.

–As researchers go, observed Dr. Kamtchowsky, we’re awfully prudish.

–No we aren’t, said Pablo, his voice trembling slightly. This isn’t the 1970s.

Dr. K observed the nervous expression on Pabst’s face as he shouldered his rucksack and checked the ground obsessively to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. His erroneous diagnosis of the Argentine zeitgeist made her suspicious. She was willing to admit that the whole armed rebellion thing had pumped the ’70s full of sexual energy, but actual sexual follow-through—which is what he was referring to—hadn’t exactly been its strong point, regardless of its many feverous desires, its profound sense of imminence, its well established petite mortes, or petites mortes en masse.

Of course this wasn’t the ’70s; the only thing that had anything to do with the ’70s was acting like promiscuity was a thing from the ’70s. Which meant that Pabst was just jealous. Which meant that he loved her. She put her arms around him and gave him a kiss.

–You’re an idiot, she said.

–I know.

–We could have fucked them, could have seen what they looked like naked.

–Yeah.

–And afterwards we could have gone right back to fucking each other.

–You think? But you’d have seen his dick . . .

K lit a cigarette.

–Oh please. And now who knows when we’ll get another chance. What happened to you? Did it freak you out because he’s a guy?

She expelled the smoke sharply.

–I don’t think he’s just a guy, whispered Pabst. He’s built like Achilles.

–Do you want to go back?

–Do you love me?

–Yes. Do you love me?

–Obviously.

–Damn it, there goes the elevator.

–There’s got to be a service elevator somewhere.

The second time I saw Kamtchowsky, it was in footage shot that night in Mara’s apartment.