David Szalay - All That Man Is

And then he just leaves, and follows his friend into the dark, past the washing machine.

—

‘She wants you, mate,’ Ferdinand says. They are sitting at a wrought-iron table in a park where peacocks occasionally shriek and he is talking, of course, about their landlady.

Simon smokes worriedly.

‘Do it,’ Ferdinand says. ‘Fuck her.’

The idea that he might actually do this has never even occurred to Simon and instead of answering he just frowns at his friend.

‘Why not?’ Ferdinand asks.

Simon’s frown intensifies. He says dismissively, ‘She must be forty.’

‘So what?’ Ferdinand says. He turns for a moment to inspect the terrace where they are sitting. ‘She definitely knows a thing or two,’ he says. ‘And you know, she’s really not too bad. Very nice legs. Have you noticed?’

Simon says nothing.

‘She’s quite sexy ,’ Ferdinand says. ‘I mean, when she was young, she was probably quite hot.’

‘Maybe, when she was young ,’ Simon mutters.

‘What did she say she was?’

Simon waits for a few moments, then says, ‘She said she was almost a champion swimmer…’

‘Except she was the wrong shape, that’s it. That was quite funny.’ Ferdinand smiles. ‘Well, those swimmers are all totally flat-chested. Why don’t you fuck her?’ he asks.

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘She doesn’t want me,’ Ferdinand points out. ‘It’s you she wants.’

‘She was drunk.’

‘She’s always drunk.’

‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ Simon starts to ask.

‘I think you should fuck her,’ Ferdinand says.

‘Seriously…’

‘I am being serious…’

‘No, I mean what should we do this afternoon?’

‘Don’t you find her attractive? At all?’

‘No,’ Simon says. ‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’

‘No.’

‘I think she’s okay,’ Ferdinand says. ‘Seriously, I think you should do her.’

Simon lights another cigarette. He has been smoking heavily, even more heavily than usual, all morning.

‘You know,’ Ferdinand says, ‘you can tell from a woman’s eyebrows exactly what her pubes are like.’

Simon laughs — a single embarrassed exhalation. He is about to ask, again, what they should do that afternoon, when his friend says, ‘Don’t you want to get laid?’

Simon shrugs and puts the cigarette to his lips. He stares at the paint-thick wrought iron of the tabletop.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ Ferdinand says. ‘I just think you should do her. You might enjoy it, that’s all.’

They sit in silence for a minute, Simon still staring at the metal lattice of the table, Ferdinand turning his head to look around at the other people there. Then he says, ‘So, what are we going to do this afternoon?’

Simon, having found his voice again, suggests something about Kafka, an exhibition.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Ferdinand says.

In the end, though, despite hours of searching, they do not succeed in finding it, the Kafka exhibition, and spend another afternoon rattling around the tram- and tourist-filled centre of an old European capital.

‘Do you really not want her?’ Ferdinand says later.

They are sitting opposite each other on the benches of a beer hall, in a clatter of voices, each with a litre jug of Prague lager, half-drunk.

‘She’s not an unattractive woman,’ Ferdinand says. ‘I wonder what she looks like naked. I mean, don’t you just want to see her naked?’

Simon does not seem to hear. He is looking away. A pinkness, however, suffuses his face.

Finally he turns to Ferdinand. ‘I think we should leave tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I mean, leave Prague.’

‘Really?’ Ferdinand seems surprised.

‘Do you want to stay?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘I don’t,’ Simon says.

‘Okay.’

‘So we’ll leave tomorrow?’

‘If you want.’

They stop at the station to look at timetables. Vienna, they have decided, will be their next destination — Simon, it seems, is interested in some Kunst they have there. There is a train at about ten in the morning.

Then they make their way out to the suburbs again.

They make their way to the smoky kitchen, where she is waiting for them in her yellow dressing gown.

Simon has been hoping all day that her husband will have returned from Brno — that by that simple development the whole situation will be defused.

Her husband has not returned from Brno.

She is waiting for them alone and they take their seats in the kitchen. Simon is hardly able to look at her. It was the same in the morning — he seemed frightened when he finally appeared, still moist from his interminable shower. She does not pay so much attention to him this evening, however. She talks more to Ferdinand, who seems keen to save his friend embarrassment and makes an effort to engage her, to draw her attention away from Simon, who does not speak at all until Ferdinand says, after only half an hour or so, ‘Well, we’re quite tired, I think — aren’t we, mate?’

Then Simon says, ‘Yes,’ and immediately stands up.

‘So we’ll be off to bed, I suppose,’ Ferdinand says, also standing.

She makes them have another slivovice , standing there, and then lets them leave.

—

Simon wakes the next morning to find Ferdinand not there. This is unusual. Usually it is Simon who wakes first. He listens, trying to hear voices from the kitchen, or the sound of the shower perhaps. There is nothing. Shadows from the tree outside the window move shiveringly on the wall. He pulls on his jeans, his T-shirt. He visits the fetid toilet — a flimsy door, ventilated at ankle level, in the windowless passage where the washing machine is.

Then he finds Ferdinand in the kitchen, sitting at the table, eating the sour yoghurt-like stuff she serves, which Simon does not like even with jam in it. Ferdinand is alone. ‘Morning,’ he says.

‘Where is she?’ Simon asks.

‘She’s around somewhere,’ Ferdinand says between spoonfuls of yoghurt.

‘You’ve seen her?’

Ferdinand just nods. Something strange about the way he does that.

‘You’re up early, aren’t you?’ Simon asks him.

‘Not really.’

‘How long have you been up?’

‘Uh.’ With the little spoon, not looking at his friend, Ferdinand scrapes the last out of the yoghurt pot. ‘Half an hour?’

‘Is there any coffee?’

‘She made some. It’s probably on the hob, isn’t it?’

Simon, at the hob, pours himself some. As he turns to take his seat again he sees something on the floor. Though it seems familiar, he is not sure what it is. Only as he sits down again does it strike him — it is her yellow dressing gown. Her dressing gown, there on the kitchen floor.

‘How’d you sleep?’ Ferdinand asks.

‘Okay.’

Ferdinand says, ‘You still want to leave today?’

‘Yes,’ Simon says.

Her dressing gown, there on the kitchen floor.

—

And then the train to Vienna. Ferdinand falls asleep immediately, as it leaves Prague, is snoring in his seat as it flows ker-thunking over points, and suburbs pass in the windows. Simon, awake, stands in the corridor and watches the landmarks of the city dwindle.

There is a strange sense of loss, a sense of loss without an obvious object.

He takes his seat.

He looks at his friend, sleeping opposite him, and for the first time he feels a sort of envy. That he…With her…If Ferdinand was willing to…And saw her…

Her dressing gown, there on the kitchen floor.

The Ambassadors makes him sleepy.

He puts it down.

He looks out the window, and the suburbs evaporate in front of his eyes.