CHAPTER NINETEEN: Different city, different street

“Three days was the morning
Three lovers in three ways
We knew when she landed
Three days she’d stay
I’m a proud man anyways
Covered now by three days.“

Jane’s Addiction, Three Days

When you travel enough, spinning through a vortex of languages which

have secretly imbedded their meanings in your subconscious there are

times when you awake with a start in complete confusion about what

it is you're waking from.

I walked to a window overlooking a street viewed through a prism of

rain, half-lit by street lamps, watching a man attempting to walk

with a speedy nonchalance, newspaper folded over the top of his

head, one arm up to hold the newspaper in place, the other swinging

back and forth in desperate propulsion.

And only this morning I'd freed an insect of some sort from a

spider's web just under the bathroom sink wondering if I was doing

the humane thing by rescuing it from its struggles and the slow,

inevitable end to its existence or if I'd only been interfering like

the spider's little nosey neighbour, jobbing up the mechanisms of

nature and the balance of the insect world.

I watched the man and his rain-spattered arm swinging until he was

gradually swallowed back up into the night further down the street.

Three days I'd been in this hotel in Bratislava on the mere rumour

that Anastasia had been headed this way.

And don't think for a minute I didn't have to hear an earful from Albert –

the old, haven't you learned your lesson yet speech he brought out every

time one of her postcards arrived. She probably doesn't even send them

herself, he'd mused back in our grim and smoky flat on Husitská.

Certain enough, I wouldn't find her sitting in this hotel room with its drab

curtains and filthy carpets. Three days I'd been here already and having

left only once since I'd arrived, gathering the strength to face her again,

chain-smoking and staring at stains in the wallpaper, I had a good idea

the courage was never going to come from anywhere other than a half

dozen pints in the nearest pub. Then again, that wouldn't have been

courage, that'd have been drunken bravado, devil-may-care, feigned

nonchalance as in oh, fancy running into you here in Bratislava,

Anastasia.

There wasn’t any postcard. I dutifully informed Albert. Of course, he knew

this already. The postcards had come sporadically from different towns and

cities after our meeting at the festival, little clues and cryptic messages first

from Polish towns and then from cities in Scandinavia, a sudden unplanned

leg of a tour I hadn‘t heard anything about; Helsinki, Stockholm, Gothenburg,

Olso, Copenhagen, fuck, everywhere, even smaller cities I’d never heard of.

The postcards that filtered in did little really to explain although their mere existence made it clear what was going on - change in plans of the tour, a

new opportunity, expanded horizons. Usually only a few words or a simple sentence or two in her tight script along the lines of very busy, or hectic schedule or don’t even have time to sightsee.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the postcards. They gave me some sort of vague hope, justifiably or not. I began to feel guilty for having stopped

writing to her in the first place and imagined that when she finally made it

back to her flat in Paris she would be disappointed to find out there was no

bundle of letters from me waiting for her. I couldn’t get that image of

disappointing her out of my mind, thinking of her arriving at that little

flat, exhausted from travelling but buoyed by the thought of my letters

waiting for her and then, opening the door, not finding the usual piles

of my correspondence on the floor, slipped through the mail slot, finding

nothing but bills and junk mail instead, that look of disappointment in her

eyes at that precise moment of realisation was what I imagined most so in

the end, once we’d started having these little gigs every day with the Gypsies, I started writing to her again just to get that image of

disappointment in her face out of my mind.

But the postcards in essence, meant nothing. I wasn’t with her. Yes, she was thinking about me, great. But the touring went on forever, even well after she said it was going to, impeding us from dealing with the issue of a relationship other than this long distance, nearly wordlessly unfounded dedication.

I suppose it’s natural, to want more. Even if the wanting made me feel more like a cliché than I wanted to. But the fact remained that we were apart, we were going to be apart for the foreseeable future and perhaps I had to consider getting on with my own life, this gypsy jazz, this daily run through the intoxication training ground, this day to day effort to forget.

So it was rather suddenly and unexpectedly that I’d discovered the resolve

to head uninvited to Bratislava. Albert had long ago embraced his pet

theory that it was all a colossal mind fuck of some kind, some sort of

sadistic little game wherein she'd conspired with others, people perhaps

who she knew would be going through that village or town who could

write out these little postcards on her behalf, just to keep the game going.

It might have been a sound theory but for the fact that it was certainly her handwriting on those postcards and how does one after all, buy a tourist

postcard from a village or town, write a message on it and post it all

without ever having been there in the first place?

So that's the way it had gone for weeks, getting these postcards, getting

jerked back into thinking about her, thinking about the absence of her,

thinking about all the things I imagined we could be.

*****

I got off the train with a burst of energy but after the first few hours turned

up nothing the energy wore away and slowly it sank in that the chance

had been missed again. How could I be expected to stay one step ahead of

her, to know instinctively where she would pop up next?

For a little while I thought I could detect a pattern in the postcards, or perhaps it was merely delusional. Sill, I had to try.

Did the names of the villages and towns fall in alphabetical order, some

geographic sequence, some cleverly disguised yet still breakable code? Not

in any of the instances. After Scandinavia, one week it was Hungary, another

it was Austria. The following month Slovenia,, and after that, Poland again. Amazing, all this touring and yet one of the greatest pit stops on the circuit

was blatantly ignored. Didn’t she ever tour in Prague?

I was growing weary of the game, frustrated by my lack of success and then,

when I'd overheard a conversation between two Czech Dixieland jazz

buskers on the Charles Bridge one afternoon talking about the little French

girl with the beautiful voice having stopped by only a few nights before that to sing with them, I crudely demanded to know what they were talking about.

After their initial huff at my intrusion they reluctantly shared a few tidbits

with me about a little bird with a beautiful song in her voice stopping in

for a few songs on her way to the train station for Bratislava.

Surely that couldn't have been a plant. I never hung around the Charles

Bridge, rarely even crossed it, so she'd not have left this clue for me here.

No, it was certainly unintentional, coincidental, a twisting of fate I was

meant to overhear and meant to act on. This time, I would be the one to

turn up unannounced.

But the moment I got off the train in Bratislava had come the crushing

realisation that the situation was hopeless, the idea had been hare-brained.

What if it hadn't been her? Oh, certainly I grilled those two musicians on

the Charles Bridge but good for details to try and ascertain with certainty

that it was in fact her, but they didn't know her name and who knew

anyway, she might be using any name by then.

Even if it had been her, what had she been doing in Prague at all anyway?

And even if she had been in Prague, what shitty, terrible thing did it

portend for us that she’d been right there and had never even contacted

me? And then, if I’d just forget about that sour point for a minute, if she

had been going to Bratislava in the first place, who's to say she'd still be

there at all. And if even I forgot the sour point of being in Prague without

telling me, and ignored the possibility or probability that she would have

already departed to the next great city on this never-ending tour by the time

I’d arrived, where in the hell was I going to find her?

Nowhere, I thought to myself sitting on the edge of the creaking bed and rolling another cigarette. Not sat indoors never having left the hotel room paralysed by inertia or fear or the knowing futility of it all.

The only logical place to begin looking was music venues. Bars or cafes or pubs which had live music where she might be singing or might be looking

for someone to sing with. A bird with a voice like hers had to sing, after all, craved the public attention, yearned for the recognition. It never should have been hard to begin with yet in all the little music venues I'd stormed into expectantly in all the little villages and towns, I had yet to overturn a single

worm beneath the rock, had yet, not only to find her but to even find a trace

of her having been there at all to begin with.

I was already missing Prague. The afternoon drinking and rehearsal sessions were becoming ritual, one we looked forward to each morning when we got up, a schedule of sorts other than the class I was teaching, around which to

orbit. Overnight almost we had become guided, energised, focused.

Overnight we suddenly felt credible.

Which of course made my inability to control myself all the sadder. Common sense should have told me there was no reason to go chasing after Anastasia. Her actions should have indicated either that she was going to forever be too

elusive or that she wasn’t really all that interested, other than the idea of

us, not the practicality, or as the case may have been, the impracticality of it. So I had no business being in Bratislava trying to hunt her down like a war

criminal.

And yet there I was.

Convinced that since I was already there anyway and that she certainly wouldn’t simply show up in this hotel when she didn’t even know I was here, or for that matter, if she was even here, I headed out to explore the city, the poor man’s Prague.

******

Whilst walking it was impressed upon me how different a city looks when you’re alone in it. In fact, the old Doors tune, People Are Strange When You’re A Stranger kept popping up into my head, perhaps reflectively.

When you blow into cities, as Albert and I had, ready to take it on, begging to embrace it and be embraced back with every debauchery and hedonistic urge sated, the city becomes an almost anywhere place. Plus you deprive yourself of most sensory experience. Sure, you get the highs, the passion. Sure you talk up strangers you might never speak to sober. Sure, you go places you wouldn’t dream of entering when sober but the darker side to it is the

negation. Drunk, Albert and I would become almost impervious to charms.

We’d be quick to negate, quick to turn up our noses at people, at experiences,

in essence at life. Life was drinking, only the venues were changing.

I don’t know why I realised this when walking around Bratislava, evading the stout Austrian and German tourists in the market square examining trinkets and crafts with delight . The easiest guess is the most obvious, sobriety. But there was a sobriety that had to do with not drinking and the sobriety that had to do with chasing a girl around from city to city with no earthly idea why other than some weird obsession that completely contradicted, emotionally,

the entirety of your life up to that point.

Why was I constantly getting myself in this pickle anyway? I’d done so well to avoid relationships and emotional entanglements my entire life that it seemed strange that I would creep out of my shell now, that by virtue of a simple dream and a chance meeting, here I would find myself surrounded by foreigners with their own empty chattiness polluting my ears instead of back

in my flat in New York evading, always evading exactly this sort of millstone, chasing after a dream. A dream? Since when did I have dreams? I felt as though I’d left my life, someone else took it over for awhile and now that I’d stepped back into it I was only now beginning to survey the damage the stranger inhabiting my life had done.

And what were my feelings for Anastasia anyway? Love? How could I be capable of love? I haven’t given a thought to anyone but myself and maybe Albert for the entirety of my life, or at least the majority of it once my parents were out of it. So why now? What was I playing at? Was I simply bored? Looking for new experiences? And if it were such a scientific endeavour,

some clinical, detached survey to complete the missing elements of my life,

why did I feel such longing?

Ah, but predictable creature that I am, after wandering around aimlessly for hours, getting nothing sorted out but confusing myself more instead, I decided to enter a cellar pivnice and have a beer or two, sample the local goods, forget my troubles for awhile. So I descended the winding stairs to the bottom which opened up to a windowless room where sat an old man and a chess board.

The old man was studying moves. He had the pieces spread out, a book in his hand on Sicilian Defence and a beer to the side of the chess table. I noticed him first because he was first in my line of vision but as I went further I could hear Rammstein pounding; an odd juxtaposition, Rammstein and the old man practicing chess.

And as I entered further I encountered an incredibly bored looking girl with short blonde hair, pins in her lips, plaid skirt, Doc Martins plopped up on the bar top, reading a book as though impervious to the music which was quite loud and insistent.

I ordered a beer and headed over to the old man. A game of chess would be a nice distraction, even over the music. I motioned to the board. Would you like to play? He looked up from his book, certainly he hadn’t heard my words, the music was far too loud for conversation, but he must have felt my presence there. I pointed again to the table. You want to play? I nearly shouted, waiting for a sign of recognition from him, acknowledgement. Gradually, he appeared to grasp it, a look of mild delight crossed his face. He put down his book and nodded his head, motioning to take the chair opposite him. He said words to me that I couldn’t hear or even if I’d been able to hear them, no doubt I’d have not understood them anyway, a pensioner’s Slovakian. As I sat down, he removed a black pawn and a white pawn from the board, put his hands behind his back and then held them back out, like a magician, hands closed, motioning for me to pick, right hand or left hand.

Before long we were in the middle of a good struggle. He was probably a little better player than I was, or perhaps I simply made a few dumb mistakes early on, distracted by the Rammstein or the venue, or the bored girl with her feet up on the bar top or perhaps the pensioner himself. But we continued playing, I lost two games in a row before perhaps luckily gaining the third and by then of course, we were out of beer and I’d gone up and bought us another few rounds.

Each time I got more beer the girl would unravel herself from her position, setting her book down, whose title I couldn’t read, and would pour the beers without a word, without even really looking at me really. And oddly enough, when the Rammstein CD was over, instead of putting a new CD on, she simply hit replay and the entire CD was played again. And when it was over the second time, she did it again until it got to the point of being almost surreal. Between the pensioner, the chess, the Rammstein, the Slovakian girl and the emptiness of the pub, I no longer knew where I was or that I was even alive, that I wasn’t simply dreaming again, somewhere else.

After a few hours, I finally left, a little tipsy, like the pensioner, and headed back out into what was now the beginnings of night. I tried to find a place to have a quick meal and decided finally, whilst chewing over a few sausages and dark rolls at a street stand, washed down with a bottle of beer, that I would give up this nonsense, go back to Prague, back to rehearsals, back to life, forget about Anastasia as best I could, for my own sanity and health.

And when I went back into that very same cellar pub a few hours later the only thing that had changed was that the pensioner had left. The place was entirely empty although there was now a heavily muscled doorman at the entrance. Entirely empty and the very same Rammstein CD playing and the very same Slovakian girl sitting with her feet up on the bar top reading.

So of course I got the idea in my head to try and chat her up seeing as how we were the only people in the bar. After I ordered I tried to make some little comment passing as wit, about the CD, or lack of variety. She looked annoyed. She turned the music down for a moment. I’m sorry? Nothing, just I was curious why you’re listening to the same CD over and over again.

Because it’s good, she said as if explaining why the sky is blue to a small

child. And then she turned the volume back up and went to her book. I finished my pint quickly and left.

Bratislava is an ugly, unforgiving city. Perhaps I’d been spoiled by Prague

and its well-preserved grandeur but there was something miserably

industrial, bleak cold and grey, filthy, about it, as if the longer I stayed, the lower my shoulders would slump, the dirtier I would become, the more

permanent this nagging feeling would grow inside me like a cancer.

By morning, I had decided for certain that this was it. I was leaving. I

wouldn’t play the game any longer. I’d wash Anastasia from my mind

just as I’d washed my parents from my mind and go back to my life

in Prague with Albert and drinking and music.

It was just as I’d decided I’d had my fill, that this ridiculous charade should end finally, just as I was turning the corner back on to Michalska ulica,

returning from a morning stroll to go back and check out of the hotel that I spotted her at a café, reading something, not a book, not a newspaper but

what appeared to be sheaves of paper.

I closed my eyes a moment, stopping in my tracks, then reopened them

again to see her still seated. Her back was almost entirely to me, as though

she’d been facing as best she could away from me to conceal herself if I’d

been coming from this very direction but this of course, was preposterous

as she had no idea I was even in Bratislava and even if she did know it, she

certainly wouldn’t be trying to avoid me.

Yet I could not shake this nagging gloom, whether it was Bratislava or the

solitude or the circumstances.

You might think I’m crazy but at first I considered after all this to simply turn around, walking away as quickly as possible from where she was seated, some 50 metres or so from me, hop the next train back to Prague and pretend I’d never been here, never known her, had never allowed my heart to roam so far from home.

But although the terror rooted me for a moment, passers-by turning over their shoulders as they passed to glare at me, I knew the absurdity of turning away was unthinkable. I’d come this distance, I’d have to admit I’d come this distance on some half-baked scheme and simply hoped that her surprise and happiness at my having come across her would match my own.

CHAPTER TWENTY : Anastasia’s Interlude

“C'est merveilleux en moi la vie bourdonne
L'amour jaillit dès que je m'abandonne
Et quand il m'a soûlée
De mots et de baisers
Et qu'il sourit, c'est drole
Je mords dans son épaule
C'est un gars qu'est entré dans ma vie
C'est un gars qui m'a dit des folies
Tu es jolie, tu es jolie
Veux-tu de moi pour la vie
Oui!”

Edith Piaf, from C'est Un Gars

You can’t imagine how much my heart sank when I saw Witold standing there in the street. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was pretending hard that he hadn’t spotted me and poor boy, pretending he could carry off an aura of nonchalance, caught out, flat footed, spying on me. How did he even know I was here?

But his timing was terrible. Here I was with the contract in my hand, Franco waiting impatiently in his suite, right on the verge of the independence I’ve been craving ever since I’d let that pig Franco touch me for the first time.

How could Witold, stupid boy, interject himself now of all times? Why the devil was he here?

I too decided to pretend. I studied the contract, now a blur of words. Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through to get this contract? Those slimy hands of Franco, hours and hours, week after week in Franco’s company? Listening to him moan on and on about his wife, listening to his pathetic, raspy mewling for my attentions. I can’t even fathom the sacrifices I’ve gone through right now and my god, just as I’m finally nearing my goal of all of this, Witold is here. Witold is here somehow having found me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like him. I’ve grown quite attached to him and his letter writing. It’s wonderful to come home to those letters, I mean it. And he’s quite talented with his words. Sometimes, standing there in my flat reading his words I feel like melting. I feel like I could just be carried away

by his words, carried away out of all this bullshit, away from Franco, away from the road and all it’s filth and slime. All those dead, boring hours, all those moments trying to fend Franco off yet again.

I try to put Witold out of my mind. I’ve tried to do this over and over again and at first I was pretty successfully. He’s an interesting boy in some ways

yet predictable and boorish in others. I’ve got a bit of a drinking problem

of my own but Witold and his sidekick there, Albert, my god, I haven’t ever seen anything like it. They’re like animals when they’re around beer.

Original, chatty, witty all at first. And then as the beers get poured in they

digress, deeper and deeper in banalities, absurdisms, strange connections

and word play I can’t follow at all. I mean not only are they speaking English

but they’re speaking American English. It’s far too fast, far too much slang is

thrown around and sometimes, when I was in Utrecht with them, I thought I

was going to lose my mind. Really.

But whenever I manage to put Witold out of my mind, who pops in his place

but Franco. I’m really growing to hate him. And Witold is only a reminder

of how miserable I truly am.

Nearly a year now Franco has been stringing me along with these promises

about a recording deal, a touring contract, some real stability. Sure, sure,

he’s gotten me gigs, too many almost. I’ve been all over the place for months

with hardly a break. And every time I complain about the pace, suggest I

would like some time alone, away from touring, it is Franco who reminds

me with his little smirk that it is I who wanted this to begin with.

And it’s true enough. This is what I thought I wanted although I had

expected perhaps a little more glamour, less of a vagabond’s life, it was what

I’d craved, what I’d asked him for when he first crossed into my life.

But I can see right through him. I can tell he isn’t getting me these gigs

for my benefit or because he thinks I’m talented. He’s just getting them to

to make sure he has an excuse to be with me.

Oh sure, he comes on these tours with me. Nearly all of them. To his wife

he makes out like he’s some big shot record producer following a hot talent

but does he tell her that he’s sleeping with me? Of course not. Does she even know I’m a woman for that matter? Probably not. He’s probably got that poor

woman believing I’m some young male heart throb crooner he has to protect

from insidious groupies or something. Surely he hasn’t hinted that he chases me around like he’s in heat, staying on the road to have his excuse to be

with me, monitor me, make sure I don’t have a chance to meet anyone else.

Of course, I’d not want him to tell her anyway. If he did, then he’d be my headache, not hers. I mean he’s my headache enough already, suffocating me with his needs, his delicate almost feminine hands always touching me,

pawing at me while he coos promises of the moon in my ear.

And yet a year later, those promises are still unfulfilled.

I’ve done my bit. I’ve gone on these tours, I’ve sung in these horribly

indifferent nightclubs, places that are sometimes little more than strip clubs

with a brothel up the stairs. There have been some horrible places.

And worse still, I’ve had to play the role of his lover. How much more sacrifices do I have to make to get results?

Then he lets me know one night in Milano just how much sacrifice he

expects of me. He wants to leave his wife and kids behind he tells me.

As if I don’t feel bad enough already for being the mistress. Rotten to the

core for what I’m doing to his wife, whether she knows it or not. Sure, it

could be anyone, I try to convince myself to relieve my guilt. It’s not like

Franco would only cheat on his wife for me. For all I know he’s cheated on

his wife AND me. That’s the kind of man he is. But still, I’ve fought a lot

of guilt all these months, ever since I found out. Do you know Franco

wasn’t wearing a wedding band when I met him? He only puts it on when

he’s in Italy. Once he’s out, off it goes. Now he wants me to be the home

wrecker. No, I told him. Completely not. He wants to marry. Oh how he purrs, that little bastard, when he wants something, caressing my arm in the

club so the other musicians would see what a big man he was, whispering in

my ear meaningless words, love, love, love.

But I told him no. I didn’t waver at all. I mean, the mere thought of

spending a lifetime with this flagoneur, watching him grow a middle aged

belly and growing bald and become more disgusting and repetitive and

needy as the years went on. Can you imagine?

No. So that’s when I decided I needed a contract. I’d had enough. We were getting ready to start a tour of Central Europe. Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Budapest and uncountable cities in between. A reasonably steady tour.

Every venue worse than the last.

And naturally when I thought of Prague I thought of all those letters Witold had been writing me from there. I thought about how I’d become terrified in Utrecht, that innocent visit, turning into a terrible, oppressive mire of

alcohol and pointless, meandering music. That’s why I left him with a letter

in Utrecht. Really, I figured that was it. I thought I would never hear from

him again. But I was ready to take that chance. That’s how desperate I’d

become.

One fool, this Franco character, buzzing in my ear all the time was enough.

Yes, there was some unknown quality in Witold that drew me to him. A

certain I don’t know, innocence, I suppose. He’d never been with another

girl before, can you imagine? I mean, he’d never had a girlfriend before.

So he said anyway. I don’t think I ever really believed that. I mean look

how he followed me that first evening in Paris. Stalked me. And he didn’t

even know me.

First I thought, yes, this is the action of a man who is used to chasing

women. Not a shy man incapable of even the simplest conversations to

start talking to a woman. Not a man who had never had a girlfriend before.

But then I thought well, maybe. The more he talked that night the more I

began to believe him a little. And then, in time, those days afterwards as

we both seemed to attach ourselves to each other, I became quite certain

he was telling the truth. He didn’t seem aware of the little psychological

games couples play, that people play with each other when they’re trying to

get something out of the other. He seemed almost naïve. It was charming.

So that’s why I let him stay with me in Paris. Yes, I suppose I was a little

lonely as well. Franco had difficulties at home to sort out so told me to

wait for him in Paris for three weeks while he went on a little holiday to

smooth things over. But I’d been lonely well before that. All the touring

with Franco meant his was the only company I kept. And as I said, his

company isn’t that great. I never have any meaningful conversations with

him. He doesn’t listen to anything I say. I’m a woman, why would he listen

to me? He’s too caught up in his self-important pseudo macho world to

bother listening to me. I’m just a pretty face he likes to be seen with, likes

to play with because he‘s bored with his wife or his ego needs another

boost.. Someone he might make a little money off of, promoting me. Something to distract from his miserable home life, an excuse to travel.

You name it but sincerity is not one of Franco’s strong suits. He used to be

a lawyer. Well, he still is. But apparently, he made enough money early on

to allow him to squander his time now going on the road with me. I can’t

believe his wife even lets it happen. If it were me and I were married to this

buffoon and he was gone several months out of the year to shepherd a bright

young jazz talent with a beautiful voice (don’t worry, those are his words,

not mine…) I wouldn’t believe him. Not knowing his character. For him

this is some little hobby he’s used to explore an affair, to get away from

home. Ok, yes, he says he’s an entertainment lawyer, has represented some

“big names” in Italy but there’s no real evidence of this. For a lawyer he’s

been awfully short of evidence. About everything.

Anyway, yes, I was feeling lonely when touring and even when I was home I felt alone. Usually I don’t mind being alone, I rather prefer it. But in those few weeks or perhaps even months before Witold started stalking me that night I guess I was secretly longing for precisely the sort of encounter Witold presented to me.

So it was no problem to let him stay with me, to share Paris with him, to try and keep him entertained. I tried not to lead him on too much. I didn’t sleep with him. I barely kissed him. I did like him though. It was just a little fun. Plus I knew I’d be leaving to go back and on tour and I thought, why not? Why not have a little fun, entertain this lost boy, allow myself a little fun

while I waited to go back on tour?

His dedication afterwards, all those letters waiting for me when I’d returned home during a break in the tour, my god, it was overwhelming. I couldn’t put those letters down once I started reading them. And in a funny way, reading them all, I felt even closer to him than I did when we’d been together.

That’s why I’d decided to go to Utrecht. I’d only planned on a short visit, just to try and see more, find out if the person behind all those letters, if his words, were real.

Then it started getting out of hand. I started feeling like it was almost expected that I would stay and that I sing with them. I didn’t mind singing with them, mind. They weren’t very good musically but they were weird. They played in a strange manner I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was, as they tried to explain it, experimentational. And they weren’t vain about it at all. They were easy to work with, compliant. They did anything I asked. But I suppose I should have been more straightforward about my intentions. I should have been but time slipped away and before I knew it I was scheduling a gig for them. I had no business doing that. I had to go back on tour. Sure, I could have done it the once but the more I thought about it the more I realised I was only leading them on. Yeah, it was too late but there was still time to cut it off.

And yes, writing a letter and leaving was a pretty cowardly way of going about it, I admit. I expected that was the last I’d ever hear from Witold. But then when I came back to Paris off the tour, there were the letters again. Not as though nothing had happened at all, there was of course a resentment I could read through his words but he didn’t pressurise me and after several letters he stopped referring to it at all and just kept writing about life in Prague. And again, those letters endeared me to him, made him real. Allowed me to feel as though I could trust him.

Anyway, when I thought of Prague and I thought of Witold I decided this was where I was going to make a big melodramatic scene with Franco. I’d break it off right there in Prague and tell him I wasn’t going to another city with him. I wouldn’t sing another song, I wouldn’t let him ever ever touch me again if he

didn’t get a contract for me. A real contract with a real touring schedule. In

Good places, not horrible, seedy nightclubs. I’m good enough, after all. I’ve

gotten my foot in the door thanks to Franco but if I stayed with him, that was

going to be as far as I got. A foot. He was never truly interested in furthering

my career. He was interested in furthering himself. Making me his.

But that got his attention alright. Two shows missed in Krakow and one in Warsaw. Then he was listening to my every word. I can get you a contract he said, that’s certain. I can always draw up a contract. But if you cancel this tour, if you stop now right when we’re in the middle of making it, he promised, that would be it. My name would be ruined. Diva. Temperamental. Too hard to work with.

So, I gave him another month. I continued the tour and he made noises about the contract. And here we were in Bratislava now. He’d finally produced the contract. Only, get this, he said he’d worked incredibly hard to get this contract for me and if I didn’t sign it that day, he couldn’t guarantee it would still be available. Nice little trick, wasn’t it?

So there I was sitting at this café, reading through the contract and I just happen to glance up and there he is, pretending he didn’t see me. Witold. Silly boy. And all those words, all those letters, all that naïve love spilling out of him like a faucet.

Such incredibly bad timing. Why couldn’t he have just waited? No, I can’t say for sure that once this contract was signed and I could tell Franco to get lost, that I’d want him replaced by Witold. I liked Witold, yes. I was quite

fond of him as I said. Those letters were like long distance caresses. Not demanding, just steady, reassuring. And his idea of me, this romanticised notion of me, god, that was going to be too much. I would never live up to it and I knew, I just knew it, I could see it clearly, there’d be some point where reality met dream and disillusion would set in and there’d be this little wrecked man, pointing and accusing me. I know, it’s happened to me too many times before.

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw him there out of the corner of my eye.

Maybe my heart did a little dance thinking he was here, trying to rescue me,

poor boy, when he’s the one who needed to be rescued. And there he was,

pretending he hadn’t seen me, trying to decide what to do next….

And all the while, I had no idea myself, what to do next.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: If I Wasn’t Awake I’d Think I Was Dreaming

“I think we can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist and who we exclude. I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create and who we include.”
Pere Henri in Chocolat (2000)

I finally screwed up the courage, turned and headed straight for her.

She turned, unsurprised it seemed to me, that I was suddenly standing there in front of her.

Witold, she smiled, receiving my kisses to each cheek gracefully. Whatever

are you doing here?

I felt slightly annoyed that my unannounced arrival didn’t cause more chaos,

didn’t send her reeling as much as suddenly seeing her there at this café

table had sent me reeling. What was going on?

I dunno exactly, I answered honestly. I mean, I knew that I was here, tracking

her down like she was a war criminal but for some reason I sensed she

hadn’t meant what was I doing in Bratislava, more like what were my

intentions now that I’d succeeded in tracking her down. I felt like my

presence required a more monumental confession that an admission of

simple stalking, simple obsession, couldn’t quite encompass.

I came here to see you, of course, I answered finally, taking a seat across

from her and trying to flag the waiter down for a glass of wine.

You’re not an easy woman to find sometimes, I started to explain, half- remembering a line I’d rehearsed in the hotel room several times imagining this very moment. But I figured you’d surprised me enough times, appearing unannounced and it was finally mine turn to turn the tables.

She laughed non-commitally, at what? At how pathetic I seemed as I sat

there trying to feign a nonchalance which must have been embarrassingly transparent as the waiter materialised and took my order. my hands trembling as I quickly pulled out my packet of Drum and rolled a cigarette.

I’ll be honest with you Witold, she said finally, leaning forward and putting

her hand on mine. Your timing is rather odd. These papers here in front of

me are a contract which I’ve been sitting here trying to decide whether or not

to sign for the last hour or so.

Well hell, if it’s a bad time I can just carry on, I said, feigning a motion to

stand, I’m sure I’ll be making my way to Bratislava again in the near future…

She laughed, despite herself, motioning me to stay in place.

You know what? It’s early but what the hell, I’ve had a long day already,

why don’t we just order a bottle of wine?

Of course. You know you won’t have to twist my arm but look, really, if

this is a bad time, I’ll understand…

Witold, she said, exhaling, there will never be a good time for what I have

to tell you so this is as good a time as any.

Naturally, my heart dropped at hearing this. I’d read about these types of

speeches, the I like you as a friend sort of speeches that have a way of ingraining a certain indelible finality to hope.

The waiter arrived with the wine and immediately I drained it while

Anastasia employed a rudimentary Slovakian I never realised she was

capable of to order us a bottle of Moravian wine.

So, I asked as casually as possible, trying to enjoy my final cigarette before

the execution, is this one of those good news/bad news sort of things or is

it just bad news?

She laughed again. I was batting a thousand when it came to entertaining her at least, squirming with dread.

Oh come on, Witold, I didn’t say anything about bad news. I just think

that since you’re here it’s time we had a proper conversation about

everything, about us, for example.

I didn’t say anything but exhaled a long stream of smoke, distracting myself by thinking, as I did on occasion, about what ever happened to all the cigarettes famous people had smoked in their lifetimes. I mean, I knew that

they were smoked and eventually extinguished but for some reason the idea

of Jim Morrison or Frank Sinatra or Miles Davis, for example, smoking a cigarette, fascinated me. Can you try and imagine how many fag ends old

Blue Eyes tossed away or ground into an ashtray in his lifetime?

Well, to be honest, I’m never quite sure whether there is such a thing as us, for starters. I mean yes, there’s us in Paris, there’s us in Utrecht, there’s even us at the blues festival. A nice, brief history of us in fact. I’m just never sure if us means two people, two people on their own paths with occasionally intersecting points or if us means you and I, together.

The bottle of wine arrived and we utilised the time the waiter took in presenting the bottle to us, opening the bottle and then pouring a small sample into my glass, to contemplate us. Or at least I did. After an embarrassingly

quick taste of the wine, an affirmative nod, both our glasses were filled and

more cigarettes were rolled and lit, the two of us smoking quietly while I tried

to wait patiently for her to elaborate just a little.

You see Witold, this is why you’re timing is rather funny. That is to say

I’ve been here with this contract for some time now wondering what to do

and I’ll admit, I can’t really say honestly that while I was contemplating my

future you were exactly in the forefront of those contemplations yet here you

are, like a sign of some sort.

(Of course, the revelation that I wasn’t at the forefront of her thoughts as she contemplated her future was a bit disconcerting but I satisfied myself that

at least my timing, as far as I was concerned, couldn’t have been better.)

And what does the sign mean, I asked as though I was asking her if she thought the greyish clouds floating overhead were an indication of rain.

I don’t know. This contract means for me, liberation. For months I have

been playing in these nightclubs, running from city to city with no idea where I’m heading. And worse still, I’ve been tied to the whim of my manager all this time with little or no say in the places where we went. This contract takes me from the hands of the manager to that of a record company. I would be able to record and album and then tour properly, to promote the album. It is a future of sorts.

Well that’s great, I enthused, seeing perhaps why thoughts of me would not have entered into the decision-making process. What’s to decide? It seems

that you’ll have exactly what you want.

Her face contorted with anxiety and soured as though the wine had gone bad in

one swallow.

You see, there’s a strange little caveat my manager has inserted into this contract opportunity which is in part, the part is the difficulty.

I waited patiently, sipping the wine while she struggled internally with her words.

There’s no easy way to say this, Witold, so I’ll just come right out with it I guess…She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, tapping her cigarette into the ashtray. It means I have to tell you something, or perhaps that I should tell you something that I’m not too eager to reveal to you…

She took another deep breath. You see, I’ve been sleeping with my manager. Or perhaps more precisely, I’ve been my manger’s mistress. For months. Since before I even met you.

Well. That was a bit of a shovel to the head, as you can imagine. Sure, we

weren’t exclusive. We weren’t even a couple. We hadn’t even slept together once. And surely the thought of this possibility, maybe not with her manager, but with others, had crossed my mind oh, maybe a million times at least.

But to have her sitting before me, admitting it to me, to have to visualise the idea of her sleeping with her manager, even in the abstract, even without having any idea who this manager was or even what he looked like, it twisted my guts like they hadn’t been twisted since my parents disappeared.

I didn’t say anything. I just smoked, staring off at a fixed point in the distance.

I felt her hand on my wrist. I’m sorry, Witold. I mean, I’m not sure I have to be sorry considering us, whatever we have been, friends or something more, I still have no real idea, but even I knew it was something I probably should have at least mentioned from the beginning.

I shrugged. I haven’t had any claim to you. Yeah, I may have professed feelings for you in all those letters, I may have let myself hope there was something between us but the reality is, you’ve never told me there was. You’ve never really led me on. In fact, you’ve been quite cagey all along, maybe to your credit. Hell, I even remember when you showed up at that blues festival you didn’t say anything even then, didn’t commit to any feelings, just asked for my patience. To allow the relationship to find its appropriate path, I think you said. I should have known then maybe.

Witold, I know this confession of mine sounds terrible but it isn’t quite what you might imagine it to be. I’m not in love with him. I don’t even know how I even became his mistress to be honest with you. I think I didn’t believe I could do this, all the touring and trying to get this contract without him. Because that’s what he told me and I believed him. And before I knew it there it was, this sordid little of affair that I entered into because I thought that was the only way I could get what I wanted. I know that sounds terrible, that it makes me sound cheap or maybe even like a whore, I can’t imagine what you think of me, but I don’t love him and I certainly don’t want to marry him.

Marry him? (the confessions dropped were successfully more astounding and suddenly not only was I unsure of my ground I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in the same city…) How do you go from a sordid little affair to a marriage proposal? My god. Ok, I didn’t appreciate the knowledge of this affair but if this guy wants to marry you for crissakes, I don’t know what to say. I’m completely out of my element.

Witold, we’re moving too fast. She took hold of my head and tried staring into my eyes but I couldn’t look at her. I looked again at a fixed point just above the waiter’s head.

Can we both just take a deep breath for a few minutes? I hadn’t planned on all this coming out like this. We’re moving too fast, please, can we just talk about something else for a few minutes, please?

My eyes widened at the farce. Talk about something else? Like what for example? The weather?

Well, what you are doing here, for example. I know you joked about coming here to see me but did you know really somehow know I was here or is this all just some big coincidence?

I stared at her for a moment in disbelief. Then I rolled another cigarette and lit it quickly, hands still shaking. I took a big swallow of wine.

Yeah, I said finally. I came here to see you. I didn‘t know for sure that you‘d be here but I happened to come across a couple of buskers on the Charles Bridge where apparently you‘d stopped off and sang for them a little while you were in Prague. So yes, I knew you were in Prague and that you didn’t bother to try and contact me while you were there but I came anyway maybe to find out why, maybe just because I wanted to see you. I’m not sure. But I guess I know why now at least.

She appeared to wince just slightly, another secret out of the bag.

Listen Witold, I’ve never lied to you, have I?

I thought about it for a minute or two, thinking about how close she’d danced near lying without having really done so. Finally I shrugged, tapping my cigarette against the side of the ashtray just for something to do. No, you haven’t ever lied to me that I’m aware of Anastasia. I suppose I could split hairs and say that while you haven’t lied to me on the one hand, you haven’t exactly been very forthcoming with the truth either. But I guess technically, no, you haven’t lied to me.

She leaned in closer, touching me on the arm. I don’t love him.

Well that’s great, I shrugged, moving from her touch. So you don’t love the guy you’re sleeping with. That’s a great comfort.

I don’t know how to explain it to you Witold. I didn’t even imagine you’d be here when I was making this decision. I didn’t even know there would be a decision to make and I certainly didn’t plan on just blurting all this out but since you are here, I didn’t see there was any other choice. I’m stuck. I’ve been demanding this contract for months, trying to get out from under him, from his control over my career and then all of the sudden he finally presents me with this contract and proposes marriage to me at the same time. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s already married. All I wanted was the contract and to get away from him….it’s all so fucked up.

Predictably perhaps, I think to myself, I notice tears formulating in her eyes but I’m unmoved. I’m too aware of my own pain to be moved.

Look, I said finally, clearly this is something between you and him. It’s got nothing to do with me. Yeah, I happened to show up here but you said so yourself, you weren’t considering me in the equation anyway. So maybe it’s best if I just go on my way, as I’d planned this morning before I ran into you. Let you figure out what’s best for you.

Please, Witold, she murmured before unexpectedly moving forward and sinking into my arms, sobbing against my shoulder. I need you right now, Witold. Please, just stay here for awhile, talk to me….I’ve been trying so hard to be strong but now that you’re here I realise I can’t be any more, I need your help.

It’s true, I’m not comfortable holding a sobbing woman, no matter who she is and I’ve got zero experience doing it. But for whatever weird wrenching of my own heart I’d just experienced, I couldn’t simply walk away after all these months and forget about her. I could have done that a few months ago maybe. I’d done it all my life, but just then I realised I couldn’t any longer. It was too late.

I looked up over Anastasia and tried to catch the waiter’s eye for some assistance. What the fuck am I supposed to do, I wanted to shout to him. But his back was turned as he busied himself with polishing glasses.

Then, just as suddenly as she’d lost it, she regained her strength, momentarily anyway, and sat back down in her chair, pulling a tissue from her purse and fighting to compose herself.

I’m no expert on these matters, I began slowly, but why do you think you even need this guy to begin with? You’ve got an unbelievable voice. You should have your pick of contracts, not just one and certainly not one with strings attached.

To me, this seemed the obvious answer. Coming from a person with no talent it’s almost unfathomable that a person with talent would need any help moving their career forward. If that’s what the person wanted anyway. If there wasn’t some deeper, unspoken motivation clouding the issue from the beginning.

You’d have to know where I was before I met him, Witold. I mean yes, I complain about these gigs, these nightclubs where I perform, none of which are really top class places, but compared to what I was before I met him, before he started promising me the moon, even this is a much better place.

She lit another cigarette off of the one still burning and signalled drained the remaining wine into her glass. She looked up at me, her eyes glistening.

You don’t know me, Witold. You don’t know who I was, what kind of things

I’ve done in my life, what kind of things have happened to me, what kind of terrible, wretched things I‘m capable of. All you see is this end product which you’ve romanticised without having the facts. I could tell you things that would probably completely change what you think about me. Sleeping with a guy who wanted to be my manager, who promised me a way out of the miserable hole I was in is nothing compared to some of the other things I’ve

done with my life.

Naturally, the caused a spark in my imagination. What kind of things, I wanted to ask. Details. We’ve come this far, let’s hear the worst you have to say about yourself, I wanted to say. But instead I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know what kind of expression I should be wearing. Interest? Disdain? Disbelief?

Look, I said finally, you’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t know these things about you, whatever they are, the things you’ve done, the lows you’ve visited.

But even I try to think, for example, that you could tell me you used to be a crack whore or what, I dunno, you killed your own child, I just can’t see how any of that information would change what I feel, what I think about you. I’m

hardly in a position to be a judge of morality. And you’re right, maybe I don’t understand why you didn’t simply just do it on your own instead of sleeping with this guy so he would do it for you, maybe you have very good reasons. I mean they must be very good reasons, I’m willing to believe that. Isn’t that enough? I don’t need to know the details. For whatever reason, I believe you when you say you thought it was the best way to go. What’s important to me is right now. You say you haven’t decided what to do, which tells me something already. As well as the fact that had I not come strolling along here and run into you, you’d be making that decision without even considering me. So it seems to me you should just carry on with figuring out which direction to take. I’m just in the way, confusing things more.

No, no, she sort of squawked, reaching out with the tissue still in her hand to keep me sitting there. That’s just the point, Witold. You ARE here. It’s not a coincidence, it’s a sign, just as I was saying. I’ve been turning everything over in my head and all the while, if I’d just thought of you, I’d have known all along what the right answer was.

The right answer? There’s no right answer. You make choices. I’m not a Ouija board. You make choices and you live with them. And if they’re not the right choices, you change them. If you don’t think you can make it without this guy then you have to decide how important it is to you that you do make it. I don’t have anything to do with that. I haven’t had anything to do with it all along. I’m just hanging on out there somewhere in the periphery. The real choices are with you. I’m only a distraction from those choices.

I considered then what the effect of another bottle of wine would be. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to hold on, to stay right there and have a say, despite what I was telling her. On the other hand, I knew I didn’t want the weight of the responsibility of my presence effecting her decision. It’s easy to hang on and maybe just as easy to let go. What’s hard is finally making the choice once and for all.

I stood up finally. You know where I‘ll be, Anastasia. Prague. All I ask is that when you decide, you at least let me know. I mean I’ll be in Prague anyway but really, after all this, I’d hate to think I’d be in Prague sitting there wasting my time thinking about something that simply isn’t going to happen.

She had composed herself by then.

She nodded silently to herself. You’re leaving Bratislava now then? I’ll understand if you are of course but you should know at least that I have to decide one way or the other today.

Again, the thought crossed my mind that if I just sat back down again, ordered another bottle of wine, if we spent the entire afternoon together talking, I could convince her that taking the contract was a bad idea. I mean she must have already considered it could be a bad idea and if I was there, if I didn’t leave her, I could almost guarantee the decision, couldn’t I?

The thing is, and believe me, I’ve thought about this millions and millions of times since, if I stayed there and tried to make certain she decided in favour of not taking the contract, maybe even in favour of being with me instead of whatever else she might chose to do as an alternative, I’d always know in the back of my mind that it was only because I’d stayed that she’d decided that way.

Have you ever overheard couples talking about chance meetings, about how if such and such hadn’t happened at just the right time, if the stars hadn’t been perfectly aligned or whatever such nonsense it is they use to convince themselves that fate played a role in the matter, that they might never have been together in the first place? I have. Many times. And I’ll be honest and tell you I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit. I mean, when I think back to when my father disappeared I could allow myself to wonder what I might have done to try and change that fact before it happened. Or if I had been a little stronger or a little more supportive for my mother when my father disappeared maybe she’d have stuck around, maybe she wouldn’t have decided to take off on her own and leave me there to figure it all out on my own. But where would that have gotten me? Stuck in the past, that’s where.

The thing is, they made their decisions, enormous decisions, one to take his life, the other to leave her son behind, completely on their own. I had no say in it.

So believe me, I thought to myself at that moment, standing there in front of Anastasia, here is your chance, finally, to have a say in it. Finally to try and stop someone from leaving your life. But it didn’t feel right anymore than it would have felt right to force either my mother or my father to stick around a few years more just because they had some responsibility to me or felt guilty. My mere existence had already altered their lives, had already taken from them a freedom, a youth they could never regain and there wasn’t a day that went by when they were around that I didn’t know that, didn’t feel that. I didn’t need that kind of guilt again.

Well maybe you can buy some more time, I said finally. It’s not a decision you want to rush into.

I kissed her gently on the cheek and headed for the train station.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: The Insurmountable Losses

“Well I’ve lost my equilibrium and my car keys and my pride,
The tattoo parlor’s warm, and so I hustle there inside
And the grinding of the buzz saw, ‘what do you want that thing to say?‘
I says, ‘Just don’t misspell her name, buddy, she’s the one that got away.“

- Tom Waits, The One That Got Away, (Small Change, 1976)

It’s sometimes the case in a moment of surrealism that the truth finally comes to life.

I’d encountered a friendly female guide in the course of a dream, followed that dream without knowing why and found myself deranged by infatuation in its place. Had the dream been meant as an encouraging sign or simply another crossroad down another avenue of aching? On the long train home I asked myself if in fact this little chanteuse had always been a figment of my imagination, a dream that until that day, continued in a prolonged exercise of excruciating delusion.

She existed, of course and would continue to do so irrespective of whether I continued to dream about her. The pain of that infatuation had now dissolved into a comforting numbness, a return to the empty, hollow but nonetheless welcomed inability to feel.

There was always that vague possibility of course that she would turn up at my door again some day but this was nothing to count on. The decision had been to turn around again, leave, abandon her before she abandoned me. A simple exercise of self-protection. It was not a resolution but a surrender to a perceived truth far stronger than any dream. I was miserable and there was no rope to pull myself up out this hole or, if I’d chosen, to hang myself with. As the train pulled into Prague’s main station I braced myself for that emptiness to become all-encompassing.

Hello? I’m home, I announced to any empty flat.

There was no sign of Albert anywhere. No lingering smoke clouds, no loud music booming from the speakers, nothing. Dead silence. His bass was propped up in the corner and the ashtray was filled with butts but none still smouldering. I twitched around in the flat for awhile trying to figure out what to do with myself. I’d spent the train ride girding for a nice long conversation of I-told-you-so with Albert, sitting around drinking beer, discussing our next move and now that I was here and he wasn’t, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

So naturally the first thing that came to mind was the Shot Out Eye. It was the most likely place Albert would have been if he wasn’t in the flat. It was the most likely place for either of us.

When I arrived there I found the usual, familiar faces. None of them were Albert’s. I asked around, had he even been around today? No. They hadn’t seen him in a few days. That hardly seemed possible. Hardly seemed like Albert. Not unless he was on his budget in which case he’d have been home anyway.

But you see there was nothing to concern myself about, anything was possible. He might have gone on a little bender of his own somewhere with his rehearsal partner dangling himself like a pinata in Bratislava.

It did cross my mind that he’d simply left Prague altogether but he wouldn’t have left his bass. I had a beer while I mulled over the possibilities. If he was off somewhere why wouldn’t he have left a note? Why of course, because he had no idea when I’d be back. The last time I said I was leaving for a few days I was gone two weeks in Paris so perhaps for all he knew the reunion with Anastasia had been a successful one and I’d decided to join her on the road, touring. Not that it could be reasonably extrapolated that my horn playing merited a slot in whatever band she’d be singing with on the road, even if it changed every night from one city to the next, so he probably wouldn’t have imagined that one.

I finished my beer and headed out to make the rounds, hitting each of the usual spots that Albert and I frequented and in each place, finding no Albert, having a pint and moving on again. By midnight I stumbled home, still not having found Albert and expecting he’d at least be in the flat by then with an easy explanation that had eluded me.

But as I approached I noticed no light was on. I entered the flat, flipped on the lights and inspected the miserable, empty space, inch by inch. No clues. Everything I could imagine he might have needed had he left the city, for good or on a short trip, was right there in the flat. Had he found a woman? Was he curled up in someone’s arms in their flat, muttering sweet nothings in the dark? The notion made me laugh aloud. A romantic Albert, indeed. Fat chance.

Of course my anxiety about his disappearance grew by the hour when he still hadn’t come home after three more days. Not a word. I tried to convince myself that had he known I’d returned he would certainly have gotten in touch with me. So I allowed myself a little space to worry. Worrying about Albert took my mind off the absence of Anastasia and the realisation, also growing day by day, much like my concern for Albert, that she’d decided on the contract or at the very least, decided not to bother keeping me entertained with my delusions any longer.

I managed to return to work if for no other reason that it provided me a modicum of distraction for a few hours every day between long walks back and forth to and from the school’s dilapidated building. I had a beer and goulash in the train station with Marshall, voicing for the first time, my concern that Albert appeared to have simply disappeared. Did you ever consider that something might have happened to him, Marshall offered as a form of consolation. He might be in a hospital or a morgue. You should check the Municipal Hospital or perhaps your local police station, see if you can find anything out. I don’t mean to be morbid, but it’s certainly a possibility

it doesn’t appear that you’ve considered.

I didn’t want to consider anything, to be honest. I was at my lowest point.

I headed straight for the Shot Out Eye after class with the idea of placating myself with a stupefying session of intoxication, the All-Time Drunk of Serial Drinking, it was distraction of sorts, mulling over with a vaguely schadenfreudesque satisfaction at how completely out of my senses I was going to be when I finished; a pure, cathartic cleansing, chasing away any last vestiges of the memory of Anastasia as well as my growing concerns about the fate of Albert.

When I arrived at the Shot Out Eye however, Kazimir immediately headed me off and sat me down. A woman was here looking for you, he said and for a second, my heart skipped a beat - Anastasia had finally come to her senses! But before I could carry the fantasy any further, Kazimir was putting his hand on my shoulder. She’s a nurse at the University Hospital. She didn’t tell me much out of respect for your own privacy but she did give me a number for you to call. She said she has some information for you.

I sat there, dumbfounded. A beer was brought to me and I drank it but I certainly never tasted or noticed it. What the fuck, I thought to myself. This can’t be happening. It had to be about Albert. If it was about Anastasia, how would the nurse have known that a message in the Shot Out Eye would meet me? Of course. I wasn’t a hard man to track down, simple habits. But it was Albert who was missing, not Anastasia. Or maybe Anastasia had intended on returning to me but was injured in an accident or something? Fuck, I couldn’t figure but either way there was not going to be good news at the end of that conversation.

I went out to the pay phone across the road and rang the number that the nurse had left for me. General Reception. I gave my name in the unrealistic hope they would be expecting my call. Then it dawned on me. I gave the nurse’s name instead. After several earth quaking moments of waiting, a woman finally picked up.

Is this Witold, she asked. Yes, it is. More delays.

So my message in the pub has reached you? Yes, of course, I muttered, spit it out already. Witold, I’m afraid your friend Albert is here in the hospital. He’s not in very good condition. He was hit by a car and if I’m honest, I cannot say for certain how much time he has left.

I hung up and stood motionless in the phone booth. It simply couldn’t be possible, could it?

I rode the tram to the hospital, asked for Albert and after turning down endless hallways, finally reached his room. Tepidly, I stuck my head in, you in there, I shouted.

And I saw him in his hospital gown, looking thin and weak, not Albert, but what seemed instantly like Albert’s ghost. His eyes were closed and it was not difficult to imagine standing there looking down into a casket. His face was bruised and bloodied, cleansed and then stitched but the head injury, it was explained to me, was not one he was likely to recover from.

What am I supposed to do, I wondered aloud. The nurse put her hand on my arm and led me to a chair where I sat in a stupor.

I began to panic, thinking how it might be possible to get him moved to another hospital somewhere, a place where they could actually do something. Could the end be avoided by taking him out this third world hospital? Surely, if he was getting care in New York or somewhere else, anywhere else, there would be something that could be done other than simply resigning oneself to what had always seemed an impossible fate.

I watched his uneven breathing. He’s close to unconscious, the nurse added helpfully as I probed around the bed attempting to find an answer, a way to see his eyes opened, to confirm that this was simply another bad dream in what was turning into a series of bad dreams none of which I could wake myself from despite the terror with which I watched it helplessly.

So what am I supposed to do, I finally demanded, just wait for him lying here to die?

The trauma to the head makes the recovery quite improbable and even if he were to come to there’s the very likelihood that is brain, deprived as it was of oxygen, will not recover fully. Even if he were to live he might do so only in some vegetative state.

I left the hospital after a few hours in order to try and find sanctuary, away from my thoughts. I tried to go to a cinema to forget about it, distract myself with some stupid age old comedy but halfway through it I simply stood up and left, headed back for the flat.

In the miserable days that followed I found irony in staying dry, off the piss as the drinking through the trauma seemed an unlikely solution. Instead, I tried to consider what I was going to do, what possible scenarios still existed if now, not only was Anastasia gone but so too would Albert be leaving me alone again, as I’d been from the beginning.

There was nothing I could do for Albert by staying put in Prague.

I couldn’t speak to him for assistance. I sat at his bedside talking to him, trying to get him to answer me - what the fuck should I do, stay here, watch you die and then what? What would I do with your body? Would you want it interned here in Prague or returned to New York? It was impossible to know because, the realisation dawned again, painfully, that I didn’t know enough about him, enough about what he’d wanted, to know what next step to take. Would he have wanted me to simply leave, get on with my life, affix a certain memory to existence and move on? Would he want me sitting here, trying to care for him when there was nothing I could do to fix the situation?

In the end, I decided to leave. I know that you might think this to have been a despicable act of abandonment. The idea crossed my mind over and over again. What the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t make the simple sacrificial act, to stay on for the duration, deal with whatever fate awaited him and of course, me.

Yet equally, what was the point of my staying? To be with him in final moments he couldn’t even be aware existed?

Of what I knew of Albert, the nihilism, the apathy, I couldn’t imagine he’d have cared one way or the other. Not unless like me, the façade was simply a way of protecting the heart. Was he afraid or even aware of dying? I racked my brain trying to recall even the slightest, subtle hint from our incessant conversations about nothing in particular, nothing of importance, what he might have thought, what he would have expected. Surely he would have expected nothing of me but my own self-preservation.

And so, without allowing myself to become paralysed by indecision, I called the shot.

***********

EPILOGUE

Tamara is still busy providing me with forensic detail about her fascination with European cities. She may have taken a brief break, allowed me the opportunity to

nod my head in agreement or sigh in disbelief, but the break wasn’t long. Long enough to draw another breath and begin again on another monologue.

I can tell this match making is a disaster. We aren’t going anywhere after this afternoon. Oh, we might end up getting drunk and maybe even end up sleeping with each other at night, wake up next to each other with that shit taste in your mouth of stale alcohol and stale sex, that odour of resignation. But we won’t be going anywhere else. We’ll be going through the motions.

I suppose you might be wondering what happened.

I haven’t told any body before.

I’m not even sure I’ve told myself. Just experienced it. Took the blows as they came without wincing. Save the pain to feel another day because that’s what I realised, opening myself up like I did, not just to Anastasia but to Albert as well. You open yourself up like a little blossom just so somebody, some stranger can come by and without even realising it, step on that blossom, crush it. And all that’s left is pain. You see, I’d taught myself all those years that feeling nothing at all was preferable to feeling pain, a non-stop drip of pain through the muscles, the bones, the head, the heart, everywhere, on every street, at the beginning and ending of every day and all the long succession of minutes in between. Pain.

What I wondered, abstractly, as I was fading in and out of Tamara’s torrent of words was how others adapted to that pain. I have no delusion that I’m the only one, that each of us isn’t fighting in our own ways, that incessant defence against pain. It might be said that defeating pain is merely living itself in defiance, refusing to succumb.

But I am not that strong. I’ve never been that strong. Eventually I return to that same protective shell, feigning the motions of emotion, struggling not to think that every step will be my last or their last and finding a tidal emptiness in the wake of failing time and again, to let myself go, to blossom again for someone else.