Karolina Waclawiak - How to Get into the Twin Palms

The owner came back over and pushed us for our order. “ Bigos ,” I said. Hunter’s stew. I looked at Lev slurping his vodka.

We sat and ate in silence. I wondered why he wanted to come over if he wasn’t going to speak to me. He ate his royal plate, moved the gulasz into his potatoes and left the pieces of meat there, the sauce soaking up the mash.

My mouth tasted sour from the bigos . Caraway seeds stuck between my teeth, my tongue could feel them but I didn’t want to reach up to the mirror and pick them out in the car, in front of Lev, as he drove back to my apartment.

He said something to me to make me smile and I did, mouth closed, tightly, trying to keep my lips pressed over my teeth, over the seeds. He turned back to driving and I went back to staring straight ahead.

“How is your wife?” I decided to ask.

Lev drove, turned on the radio, a Russian station. Russian pop songs, it sounded like. He turned it up loud, so he couldn’t hear me anymore. I listened to the girl singing wildly and wondered what she was singing about, if I would care if I could understand her.

WHEN WE GOT BACK TO MY APARTMENT I FELTashamed for where we went. It was low class. He wouldn’t quite look at me and I thought it was because of what he saw, and saw in me. This place had made it seem like we were beneath them. It was what I was thinking and I knew he was thinking it too. I went to the bathroom and waited for several minutes and watched how I moved in the mirror. Sucking in my stomach and blowing it out. Fixing my brows, my hair, covering the thin line of light roots growing in. I heard him shuffling around out there and didn’t want to go out but I couldn’t stay in here. I turned the water off and on, flushed, pulled my panties down and checked to make sure I was clean and good smelling. I sprayed perfume down there and pumped some moisturizer in my hand, perfumed like the spray I had just sprayed, with a hint of glitter, and rubbed it down there too. Just in case.

LEV OPENED MY LEGS UP AS I SAT ON THEsofa, they shook in his hands. I couldn’t help it.

My skirt was working.

My legs looked dewy and fresh from the glitter cream.

I still felt ashamed but I wanted him to want me again, to erase what he had seen and start over. As he got down on his knees and moved the coffee table, he pulled my legs toward him, moving my ass to the edge of the seat and closer to his mouth.

He pushed the folds of my skirt up and his mouth down. I leaned back and tried not to think about anything else. I tried not to think about comb-overs or Polish regal eagles or dust-covered shelves. Lev looked up at me from where he kneeled and I made a face like I liked what he was doing and I wanted it.

Did Lev get on his knees for his wife?

I WATCHED HIM SLEEP ON THE SOFA, MOUTHgaping and hot, sour air coming out. I went and washed my mouth, my hands, and my face. I brushed my tongue thoroughly. And waited. Lev didn’t wake up right away. He moved several times, I thought this time he would open his eyes, but he didn’t. I went and cleaned my room. Took my sheets off my bed, newly purchased and already soiled. I turned the mattress over, feeling nostalgic.

The stain was brown by now, years old, like a body had bled out on it. I remembered waking up in it, staring at the red on my legs, still fresh. Redder than anything I had ever seen before. A new kind of blood, from somewhere deep inside of me, that I was unfamiliar with. It was a quick decision but I liked to keep the reminder. The finality was comforting. I had put my head back down on the pillow, closed my eyes and hoped that my panties would stop feeling that wet stick to them.

I got up and stared down at the drying blood on my legs. Walked into the bathroom and was careful not to drip on the white nubby bathmat.

The cleanup was slow. I tried soaking my underwear in cold water and soap, like my mother had taught me when I was younger, careful not to waste any underwear, letting them go until the elastic stretch creaked and fell limp. The cold water and soap didn’t work, the blood and water went down the drain and when it was all gone, only streaks of rusty red-brown were left on the cheap porcelain. The underwear would have to go. I threw it in the garbage, a garbage without a top, in a tight-fisted ball and covered it with toilet paper, hoping anyone who came in before I threw away the bathroom garbage would not know to look for it. I washed the sink, kept my bloody legs still and finally took off my shirt and ran the water of the shower, watched it all go down the drain as I stepped inside and scrubbed.

The bed was more difficult. The mattress was sodden red, now a deep brown. I had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it over, watching the blood sizzle and bubble, the disinfecting seeming to work. I rubbed at it, the red was turning a thin, faded brown and the hydrogen peroxide spread it into a wider swatch of stain. I kept the mattress and stain and it was what I liked to hold on to.

Here it was, still a faded brown, beige at the edges, water-stained and dirty looking. I pulled the mattress up and over again, hiding it. Put the dirty sheets back on. I left the bedroom and sat down next to Lev, hoping I’d wake him with my breathing, with small noises I was making, but nothing made him stir.

WHEN I WATCHED HIM SLEEP, LEV LOOKEDharmless, like a boy. He looked like every other man I had ever watched sleeping. Childish and small. He opened his eye at me.

I got up to move and his hand pulled me back down. “You watch me sleep.”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You’re so paranoid.”

“Watch your mouth, Anya.”

It was the first time he’d ever spoken to me like that. I looked at him to see if he was joking. He was not.

I said all right and tried to move away. I wanted to get away from him but he wouldn’t let me.

He pulled me close to him and kissed me with his sour mouth. I tasted myself on his lips and thought about him kissing his wife with my taste on his lips. If he would wash his mouth out first, if he would wash his face, and then kiss her or if she was used to tasting other women on his lips. If they kissed at all.

“I have clothes in my car; can I bring them in?” he asked.

“To stay here?”

“I could go somewhere else, I think.”

I thought about the possibility of Lev. Here, at length. His mouth on me often.

“It’s okay. You can stay,” I said. He got up and walked out the door. Leaving the door open, letting the streetlight glow and the night sounds come in.

He brought suits in, sharkskin looking things; there was a sheen to them but they still looked cheap. A suit with pin stripes. I thought there might be something going on at the Twin Palms but I was afraid to ask.

“I’m going out but I’ll be back in a while,” he said.

“Where?”

“Nowhere. Just stay here and wait for me.”

And now I would be the one waiting for him, wondering where he was. He didn’t change. He left with his rumpled shirt, collar open, pants creased and parts of me drying into the weave.

I would run while I waited for him. I could see my street from where I was running, be able to track his car coming down Fairfax, and watch him walk up the stairs to my house. I let him go and I tied on my sneakers. It was dark already but I knew the lights would be on around the circle, the theater nearby just letting out and there would be people on the sidewalk. I could watch them all, look out for Lev and be able to see the green gaping mouth of the Twin Palms.