Grażyna Plebanek - Illegal Liaisons

He walked on ahead. Rue des Tongres started with a sweet turn, which led to the delicacies of his youth: French cheeses and wines appeared behind glass. In the next window was a meat roast like the one Nick, his mother’s husband, used to prepare, while in the GB shop on the other side of the street were pickles and a mock-up of the works of art his paternal grandmother had fed him. “And dat way to films,” prompted Tomaszek’s writing. Jonathan looked down the street: cars glided in a narrow thread toward a crossroads where trams clattered. Beyond the crossroads the street descended more steeply but must have ascended somewhere again because at its far end towered a church – the one where he had met Andrea so frequently.

He put the vibrating phone to his ear. It was Cecile Lefebure with some good news: a friend of hers, working for a publisher, had promised to ask if they’d be interested in publishing the work of a group of beginners. The money would have to come from grants.

“So it’s possible?” he asked.

She laughed, won over by his enthusiasm.

“I can’t promise anything.”

“But maybe?”

Because of the fuss, he lost sight of his Dogs. They had not fled completely, but he felt them scampering away and panicked that he wouldn’t be able to catch up with them.

“You’ve got too much on your plate,” Megi consoled him.

She was sitting on the stairs, her arms wrapped around her knees. It was two o’clock in the morning and he was flitting like a moth between his computer and the kitchen.

“You’re editing your disciples’ stories, applying for a subsidy to publish the collection, looking after the children, and still harbor ambitions to write. It’s hardly surprising you’re uptight.”

He stopped short in front of her as if seeing her for the first time.

“I don’t harbor ‘ambitions,’ ” he let out through his teeth, angry, “only characters who are going all over the place!”

“So why did you pick ones with four legs?” giggled Megi, but seeing his expression turned serious. “I meant to say that they’ll come back to you. When you whistle. Nomen omen.”

Jonathan grabbed the end of a bread roll Antosia had rejected and started to nibble at it absentmindedly.

“If only that were possible, to whistle and that’s it,” he said indistinctly. “Some things have a time and place, but if you miss them …”

Megi adjusted herself on the stairs, buttoned her pajamas higher. She sat in front of him, warm with sleep, devoted. He moved as if to stroke her but stopped mid-gesture.

She went back to bed; Jonathan remained downstairs on the pretext of gathering his notes. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and exchanged a few messages with Andrea. Unlike him she didn’t need much sleep; that’s where they differed. “And in many other ways,” he thought.

He took a beer from the fridge and opened the window. The inner courtyard, lit by the gentle glow of windows, chirped quietly with holidays. Their Brussels apartment was unusual – if he crossed to the other side of the room, and opened the huge balcony window, the shrill sounds of the city entered, music from the pub on the corner, the din of motorbikes. One apartment with windows on two worlds.

He stood in the middle of the room, and took a gulp of Leffe. His eyes wandered over the stucco. Why had he built all of this – to demolish it? Is that the eternal meaning of constructing something? He ought to be grateful to Andrea, in fact, for not pressing him for anything. If she’d gone to Megi, like Stefan’s lover, and demanded that his wife get out of the way of their love … He took a draught of beer and leaned against the window frame. The air was not cooling. It was the hottest month of the year and the city lay to its side, panting lazily.

Andrea hadn’t gone to Megi asking for him because women like her didn’t have to fight for anyone. They forged ahead and everybody else ran after them, catching crumbs of attention, the sweetness of their glance, scraps of conversation. He slapped his forehead and yanked the cap off another beer with his teeth. Andrea laughed whenever he did that, Megi too, although she worried about his teeth.

“You can see straight away that you went to an English boarding school,” giggled Andrea, and he grimaced as if he really had broken a tooth. “Simon does it too, does he?” he asked, and when she said yes, added, “Then I’ll ask them to replace my molars with a bottle opener when I’m his age.”

Andrea was never spiteful about Megi. Jonathan loved her for it all the more. There was something noble about her, which he would willingly have told his friend-wife. He knew Megi would have been pleased to have her theory proved that intelligent women today fought over a position in the company where they worked rather than over men.

He spat the cap out of the window. Everything would be simpler if he could finish with the duplicity in his life. But how could he ditch Andrea? Or Megi? Harmony with Megi, passion with Andrea: the mixture gave him wings, allowed him to live life to its fullest.

Paradoxically, it was now that his relationship with Andrea had assumed an unexpected equilibrium. The fact that he hadn’t broken up with her when he found out about someone else’s baby like many men would have done, had started a new phase in their love. He became dear to her; he saw this and, although the man in him would most willingly have got rid of someone else’s foetus, it was his humanity that won Andrea over.

Jonathan stood the half-empty bottle on the sill and stared at the lights opposite as they went off, one by one. What a brittle equilibrium! Her swelling belly and with it his pain; messages by night, life by day and, in the evenings, trips to churches where he avoided people’s eyes like a vampire avoided daylight.

JONATHAN STOODdownstairs in his jacket, but Megi still wasn’t coming down. Finally, he heard the rhythm of her heels on the stairs.

“I couldn’t decide what to wear.” She raised her eyes. “Have I put on weight or something?”

“No chance,” he countered automatically.

“Is Helena here yet?”

“Mm-hmm.” With his eyes he indicated a pair of golden trainers beneath the coat-hooks.

“Helena, could you give the children their supper at nine then chase them off to bed, please?” ordered Megi, catching Tomaszek’s hand at the last moment as it aimed to bury itself in her lacquered hair. She kissed him carefully, not to leave lipstick on his cheek. Antosia came up and put her arms around her mother’s hips, gently so as not to crease the skirt.

They were late for the concert; the seats in the hall above were already full so they had to stay downstairs and watch on the screen.

“Is there anything to eat?” Jonathan leaned over to Megi’s ear.

She indicated a section of the room partitioned off by small barriers where waiters were milling around. He took a step in that direction but she caught him by the arm.

“Only after the concert.”

When the barriers were finally pulled aside, a tightly packed crowd threw itself at the tables. Megi stormed the snacks, Jonathan’s task was to acquire some plates.

“Got them! And look, how ingenious – palette-shaped plates!” He handed her the oval shape with a hole through which he’d put his thumb.

“It’s for your glass,” she snorted, “so you don’t have to hold it with your other hand.”

“So it’s free to …?”

“Hand out business cards.” Megi kissed him on the lips; he felt the moistness of her lipstick.

Martyna sprung up next to them.

“And you two are still at it after all those years! Have you heard about the pregnancy?” She transfixed a mushroom with her fork; a slimy streak gleamed on her plate.