Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“What kind of job?”

“It’s just a job.” Alice sounds detached now, a little dismissive.

“Were you sleeping?” he asks.

“I was just resting.”

“Will I see you at Kristin’s Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to your mother?”

“She called yesterday. She told me to bring a sleeping bag. Apparently we’re all sleeping in the barn.”

They discuss whether she has enough money to get by for now, and she believes she does. “If not I’ll just borrow some from Luke,” she says. “Or his friend.”

Another silence. Thomas is about to advise her against that, but decides not to. “Okay, well, I’ll see you later,” he says.

He can tell she nods when her earring clatters against the telephone. He calls the real estate agent.

“Are you still in the area?”

“Ten minutes,” he says.

He arrives a short time later, parking his car and climbing out. Thomas says he’s ready to make an offer. “That didn’t take long,” the agent smiles. He looks very satisfied. Thomas names a figure considerably lower than the asking price. He believes that he’s achieved something important, something meaningful, when the real estate agent, his exhaust pipes spluttering, drives off again.

On the way home he picks up Thai food and white wine. Patricia slumps at the kitchen table in her blue dressing gown. Her greasy hair hangs over her eyes.

“Do you have a fever?”

“No,” she says, her voice quivering.

“Then what is it? Are you sick?” He puts a hand on her shoulder. He grasps both of her shoulders and she shakes him off.

“Get the fuck away from me.”

“But you said you wanted me to come home? You just called.”

She raises her red-rimmed eyes. “That was hours ago.”

She gets to her feet, points at him, narrows her eyes. “Why did you do it? Why did you put your hand over my mouth? Why would you do something like that?”

He looks out the window.

“It’s perverse, Thomas. It’s fucking violent!”

“I don’t know. I had a sudden urge. I couldn’t help myself.”

“You couldn’t help yourself. You had an urge ! Don’t you hear how fucked-up that is?”

He throws up his hands. “I’m sorry. But can’t you please forgive me?”

Patricia takes a threatening step toward him. All at once she seems big and fierce, strong. “You’re acting so fucking strange, what the hell’s wrong with you? You’re acting like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.” Clenching her jaw, she shakes her head and returns to her chair.

“Of course I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It was overpowering.”

“Yeah, let me assure you that it was!” When she lunges to her feet, the chair knocks over backward. “You assaulted me. You’re destroying us!” She rushes away. Looks at him with disgust. “I’m leaving.”

“But I bought food. .”

“Eat it yourself!” She goes down the hallway and slams the bathroom door. Shortly afterward he can hear the water running. He knocks. “Patricia? Can I come in?” But she doesn’t answer, and the door is locked. He goes back to the kitchen. He picks up the chair and sits down. Her cup from yesterday morning is still on the table. Her lipstick has left marks, two red wings on the white porcelain. He watches the sparrows that are once again lined up in a row on the roof across the street. The river: white-green, milky. Some flies buzz around the fruit bowl. He stands up and tosses a half-rotten pear into the trash. A long time passes. Then she’s standing in the doorway in a beige jumpsuit. She’s applied a thick layer of makeup. Her eye shadow is dramatic, dark, gray-black. Her skin is dulled under a coat of powder. She’s wearing her silvery shoes, her party shoes.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

But she only stares at him, sharp and angry, her hands at her sides. “That’s none of your business.”

She turns on her heels. Then she’s gone, the door banging shut. The cat leaps on the kitchen table and sniffs curiously at the box of chicken satay. He calls Patricia several times, but she’s turned off her phone. He tries to convince himself that she’s just out with a friend, but jealousy and fear gnaw at him, like maggots. Later, he drinks the entire bottle of wine, and even later he stares walleyed at the sales sheet for the old bookstore, and even later than that he reads Celan: “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown / we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink it / we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined. .” He reads Celan, loses himself, images of his father in his cell: his profile, the sharp nose, these words in his mumbling mouth, in his consciousness, his back arched, his face close to the book. He shivers, he stands at the window, he lights a cigarette. He thinks: One could jump. One could fall. As easy as anything, could dig a grave in the breezes. He lurches back, startled. He lies down under the rumpled sheets on the unmade bed; the cat’s sprawled at his feet. Water swishes through pipes, the poems jumbled and harrowing his mind. He curls up and sleeps, just as unsettled and troubled, and doesn’t awake until there’s clattering in the kitchen early the next morning: Patricia has returned.

When they sit across from one another in the kitchen drinking coffee, it’s as though they’re each hovering in their own worlds. He’s held her tight, she’s pushed him away. In vain he’s tried to get her to say something, anything. She reeks of booze. Maybe she didn’t even sleep last night. Her makeup is cracked, her eye shadow smeared. He boiled eggs, she took only one bite. Now she’s got egg yolk on her chin. The morning is warm and humid. She hasn’t said anything about where she was, he hasn’t asked. A ceasefire, Thomas thinks optimistically, letting his eyes wander across the light-blue sky. But what kind of war is this? There are butterflies in the pit of his stomach because he doesn’t understand, and he’s so desperately trapped in the present that he instantly forgets. He jerks his head. What is this? What do you mean? What does she mean? Not a cloud. Blinding sunlight. Rooftops, ships, tiny cars far below, people. An airplane ascending, slowly diminishing in size, carried off by the jet stream. Patricia stirs her teaspoon in her cup.

“You’re coming with me to Kristin’s tomorrow, right?” he says.

She glowers at him.

“Why are you so mad at me? I said I was sorry. Are you drunk?”

She says nothing.

“I’m getting ready to buy a new store. I want to hire Alice. Show her the ropes.”

She looks at him, but her expression is cool and distant.

“Do you have the money for that?”

“Looks that way.”

She shrugs. “Well, good luck then.”

“Patricia,” he says. “Patricia.”

The silence is thick and dense, as if it’s squeezing them each into their own corner. She stares at the shelf lined with glasses. So he says, “Want to go swimming tonight?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Want to come with me?”

“I don’t know.” She sounds a little hoarse now. She sighs. Her eyes remain fixated on the glasses. He follows her gaze. The cat meows insistently, rubbing itself against her legs. Then it leaps onto her lap.

Leaning forward, Thomas lays a hand on her arm. “Patricia? Don’t you want to be with me?” She lifts the cat and drops it, so that it falls to the floor, meowing.

He says, “Let’s meet at the little beach at 5:30. Okay?”

She rises slowly and gets ready to go. She brushes her teeth and washes her face at the kitchen sink. Her perfume lingers in the warm, unmoving air: cedar, vanilla. The stench of alcohol. She doesn’t say goodbye. She steps into her heels. She slams the front door behind her. As he clears the kitchen, he feels the sobs welling in his throat. He packs two towels in a bag, he feeds the cat and gives it some water. The cat’s tail swishes back and forth as it eats, its front legs bent slightly; it stares at him, affronted. He hustles outside and down to the street. His head pounds, his throat’s constricted, his vision’s blurry. Fucking Christ, he thinks, wanting to slap himself silly. Get your ass together. It feels like walking on sludge, on wet sand, he sinks in, lights a cigarette, leans against a wall, and rubs his head. He can’t go any farther, the humidity’s extraordinarily high; he clenches his fists. Get yourself together, man. Unlock your bike and get on the fucking seat, unless you’ve decided to die in the middle of the street. But maybe that’s exactly what you’ve got in mind. A grave in the breezes. You’re digging your own fucking grave. Pierced by fear. And he begins to move, the urge to sob subsides, biking through a city shimmery with heat. The peonies are in bloom, the roses, the rhododendrons, the bougainvillea, like glimpses of purple and cyclamen in parks, against the walls of houses, on patios, on balconies. Everything has exploded during the night.