Ru Konstantin is dead. He died the same second his body speared the Mediterranean's shimmering surface. Quick. And a thousand slow deaths on the obtuse tongues of foreigners who grappled with the rolled R and the soft U of his one-syllable name. The fact that he's dead doesn't gnaw on me as much as when he died. Some days I know with the same acuteness a toddler knows his mother. Bent over in the supermarket queue, gasping for breath, I know he died that night in Tallinn when a drunken thought had translated into action and he'd gotten MALADAPTIVE tattooed on his left ribcage, and not when the immigration officer, chewing gum like his jaws couldn't be bothered by the motion, had called him Konstantin. I know because the latest recollection always dwarfs the pain of the one before it, making it feel more real.
The quick deaths vie for attention in the most desperate ways, attacking when you least expect them; at a pub with friends, while pored over work, at night just as sleep wraps you in its sweet embrace. Last week one found me in my bathroom mirror: was it as quick as that time? The thought entered my mind just as the lightbulb switched on, illuminating eyes too sleep-deprived to fend off the question. On tiles as cold as these but grimier, on your knees with your trousers like a blanket over your calves; the metal clasp on your belt scraping against the floor, and your breaths as laboured as his moans. The pungent memory of stale urine and sex knocked me over and I clung to the toilet bowl, but it might as well have been the same cold tiles, the same smooth ceramic surface because I lay there long after the panic had subsided, dry heaving, same as back then.
I take .5 milligrams of alprazolam in the AM and that's how I deal with the resurgent memories of quick deaths. It's the slow ones that are undoing me. I'm not so much dodging venomous snake bites as I'm slowly eroding. It's like I've taken every fatal knife stab and now carrying the bleeding corpse of my old self. Ru Konstantin is dead and I can't find a way to discard his decomposing body. He overshadows me. The good boy. The good, honourable brevidijemal. I can't stand him, so I aid in his self-destruction, and then, as soon as I feel his corpse slipping from my grip, I cling to him. The mornings I wake up muddled from whatever I upended into my body the night beforeâunrecognisable to where I start fearing I've lost him for goodâthat's when the self-preservation kicks in and I try to drape his flesh back over my bones.
I don't know whether I'm fooling anyone anymore. I wear coloured contact lenses to enhance my mother's contribution to my genetic makeup, and I go by my great-great-grandfather's name in a country where no one would think to make the association. I do it to forgetâbecause it's easier. Because if it means one less person is asking about the war then I've officially killed him and that makes me the winner.
But no one talks about the war. Not this far from home, and yet I'm still carrying him around, still pondering over slow and quick deaths to determine exactly how long I've been walking, hunched overâa witness to my own self-destruction.
If no one is talking about the war, does it even exist? Do I exist? Has there ever been a Ru or is this washed out, hazel-eyed Konstantinâjust Konstantinâall there ever was and will be? In the evenings I exercise until I'm too exhausted to even think by the time my head hits the pillow, and in the mornings I crunch my anxiety medication to neverânot even for a secondâspare these questions a deeper thought. Yet, in moments of sedated conformity, I plague myself with them, too. Agonising over them as I nitpick the comforts in my life which have afforded me anonymity, and when I'm thoroughly disgusted with what I've become, I seek venues where I can once more squeeze into that retired costume to see if I can still perform as Ru Konstantin.
Every evening in the company of Madame Ivana Stronszak Grimovic and her husband, Boris, is a silent performance of Spot the Difference. Tonight, at The British Arash Society's annual meeting, in an upscale hotel on the northern Thames Embankment, I wear my mother's eyes but school my expression into that of a military sergeant and become every inch my father's son.
I go for the war. Isn't that morbid? I go hoping against hope there will be some mention of numbersâcasualties, death tolls, pictures of the humanitarian crisis; bombed hospitals and wounded civiliansâanything and everything to confirm the images in my head. But it's too much to ask of a company in black-tie attire mingling around tables overflowing with decorations to share my morbid curiosity when none of them have ever stepped foot in Dronesk or had their ancestral home destroyed by shelling.
I know as soon as I see the blue and white colours of the NLPâthe nation's ruling right-wing partyâdecorated on every facet of the spacious ballroom that this function is nothing but a thinly veiled disguise to rouse sympathies and secure donations for the upcoming election back home. And then, as if to decimate my already dwindling expectations, I notice the sixth and last bullet-point on the programme: the crisis.
I tell myself I wasn't expecting a solution worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize to come out of this, yet the disappointment clinging to my palate disagrees. I look around the room for confirmation that I'm not the only one who finds it ridiculous that we've not only relegated what's happening at our border to the least prioritised topic of the evening, we've also gone so far as to sanitize the word war. The longer my eyes pan across the sea of people in search of that lone wolf seething in their seat, the less optimistic I grow about the prospects for the rest of the evening.
I don't know when I start drinking, but somewhere between the lacklustre performance of tonight's host and a dance number, empty champagne glasses start lining the table. Glittering evening gowns and tuxedos of every imaginable dark hue start moving away from me as if they can smell the stench of my decaying costume. I feel their flittering gazes like mosquito bites. Their questioning glances oscillate between understanding and pity.
I might as well be an extension of my father's body, they're not seeing me; they see him, and his legacy, and the tenacity of the Bikjaru. I'm living proof of how many times you can die and still rise from the ashes. When Ivana throws them at me after they've all taken their time to inspect me like one does the less attractive animal at the zoo, I give them the performance they want to see.
- We've survived it before, I say to a lady who holds my hand like she's about to have a pity-orgasm, - we'll do it again, God willingly.
They gobble my reassurances as if I've soothed a great distress of theirs. As if all this time they've been plagued by how the Arash in Rugja Province have been holding up. The worry on some of their faces would have made me bark with anger had their words held an ounce of sincerity. Instead, I recognise even this minute exchange for what it is: a performance, and so I perform my part in return. I smile, shake their hands, listen to their offerings of sympathy until their faces start to blur and each new person starts looking like the one before.
- Can I steal you for a second...away from the champagne?
- You've had any? I ask, ignoring the gentle warning in her voice like I did the rhythmic clacks of her heels closing in on our table.
- It's good. I take a slow swig to spite her vexed expression. A vapid attempt at revenge for what she's put me through. What did she say about tonight? An evening with like-minded people. Where exactly are these people? I want to ask, to look around and point out the obviousâthis whole evening is a fiasco. None of them are here to discuss a way forward for our people as much as they're here to see her. To see her flutter around the room like Cinderella at the ball. She's Ivana Stronszak, and for the same reason everyone wishes to catch a whiff of her, I know I can't say any of the thoughts aggregating on the tip of my tongue.
- It's fake, she deadpans. - Now, if I might inconvenience you for a bit, there's someone I'd like you to meet. She pries the glass from my grip and puts it down on the table before she redirects her attention to the other side of the room, to where a crowd is gathering. I can already tell it's around someone of importance before I notice her husband, hunched forward in humble gratitudeâa visual which conjures up the Hulk leaning forward to help an elderly lady across the road. There's an urgency in Ivana's eyes mirrored in her movements as she helps me out of my chair and drags me after her.
- Behave, she chides under her breath like I'm a misbehaving child at her party. I don't know whether it's the deficient lighting turning her highlighted hair a few shades darker or the way her glamorous ponytail swings behind her, but something about her in that moment is strikingly like my mother. The way they both seamlessly carry the affinity for people and attention. They way they don't crumble in on themselves as I feel like doing when she steps into the throng, leaving me to get swallowed up by its frenzy to be near her, to touch a real-life celebrity.
Boris's burly figure anchors me as does his Drudkir dialect when he loops his arm around my shoulders and proudly introduces me as his nephew to the president of the Society.
Somewhere in my chest is a laugh which never fully develops. I can't decide which irony is greater: that I, the least appreciative person in attendance, get to jump the queue to shake hands with the president or that I've done something to deservebeing called "nephew" by three-times world wrestling champion, Boris Grimovic.
I'm shaking the old man's hand, feeling the loose skin move back and forth over his bony fingers while Boris's baritone drones on about accomplishments I've garnered in a previous life when something inside me ruptures. The absurdity of it all hits me like a bullet in the chest, and I swear something vital; a liver, a lung, my heart fissures.
How dare this old man, practically more Brit than Arash, take the one time we congregate other than at church, and instead of giving due diligence turn it into a start-studded puppet show to distract us from the same old political machinery churning profit in the background? And more than anything, I hate how he smiles at me, making me an accomplice in his treachery. They're my people. They're the ones supposed to understand my pain better than anyone else, yet it's like I'm oceans away, stuck under the rubble along with the rest of Dronesk while they're here, drinking champagne and gouging on finger-foodsâdetached from the pain of it all.
- ...yes, doing his master's at LSE, I catch Boris say.
- That's terrific, our Kathyâwait, she's here somewhere...well, was anyway. She's doing the same but in International Business Law. It must be hard leaving the family in trying times like these. How's everyone? How's the...um-, he tsks, - sorry, her name evades meâGregor Benofs's girl.
- Adriana? Boris provides.
- Yes, Adriana. Adriana Benofs. We've all heard about her terrible injury and the lawsuit. How've things transpired since?
It's my cue to answer, and although his Yorkshire accent makes it harder to grasp, it's not like I haven't answered this question a hundred times before. But for some reason, I just keep staring at him. At his tuffs of wayward hair, his bald spots, his small eyesâblinking from underneath rolls of wrinkles. Shouldn't age soften a person? Everything about this man, down to his handshake, is welded out of iron, and despite his understated appearance, the fact that he's the most powerful man amongst some heavy hitters here tonight doesn't escape my notice. I tell myself not to look away. To memories his face so that next time I come face to face with greed, I know to recognise it.
- Ru?
- I must say, I'm a bit disappointed.
The words tumble out with such ease I feel the impending quick death being stored in my body for a quieter time when my mind will use it to haunt me.
- It seems like you had a hard time deciding between a Ted Talk and a Vogue afterparty and landed quite awkwardly closer to the latter. Had you gone with the former we might've at least ended up with some worthwhile entertainment instead of...this.
Boris stiffens next to me, and I feel my costume fraying at the seams; the old Ru dying a slow, disgraceful death.
- Don't tell me you expected a red carpet to be rolled out for you. Boris laughs in a vain effort to ease the tension. - Son, you're not in Dronesk anymore, he says, slapping me good-humouredly on the shoulder, - keep that attitude forâ
- You're right, I'm not-, I shake off his hand, - and if I hadn't realised that already, this farce made it abundantly clear.
I tear my gaze away from Boris's burgeoning concern to look at the old man, finally spotting the first sign of aggravation creasing his forehead.
- This right here just confirms everything they say about you back home. Parva, I say smiling condescendingly, - do you understand, old man? A leech, that's what they call westernised expatriates like you who keep putting the same people in power to look the other way as you leechâ
- That's enough!
- our country of money. Look around you, is this how you pretend you care?
- Okay, that's enough now! Boris bellows a second time. His arm comes up to intercept me like a referee about to hand out a yellow card.
- Maybe don't call it a crisis next time. Whose toes are you afraid of stepping on by admitting what's now a full-blown war? Your British overlords? I yell.
- Hey, heyâlook at me. What's your problem, huh? You got a fucking problem, you take it with me, outside, nowâ
He's pushing me, his fists around my lapels, propelling my limbs into action. My gaze drags and snags on shimmering, glittering dresses and iron pressed white dress shirts. I'm seeing, but also not seeing. I'm seeing the old man's neck rolls crease like a vulture's against his thick collar as he turns away from me. I see the tips of his large ears reddening, see it all in my mind's eye three seconds after I feel Ivana's hands tugging on my arm, pushing me away from the herd's prying eyes. This, too, I feel but don't really feel. I feel nothing. My heart is drumming in my ears reducing everything to a muted cacophony.
- What's your problem? Ivana's voice; shrill, panicking.
- What? Am I wrong? I persist as she drags me away to the least crowded place in the room, the emergency exit.
She stops and stares at me. Really stares at me, and suddenly it's like my performance in Spot the Difference isn't so silent anymore. It's desperate, screaming will you tell my father what I've become? Will you tell him about the missing prescription pills from your medicine cabinet, about the drinking, and the nights you've found me passed out on the bathroom floor? I used to be so sure she wouldn't, but now it's like she sees the difference; sees that I'm not Ru Konstantin, but an impostor in his skin.
She sighs. - I don't know what to do with you. I honestly don't. Why are you even here, Ru?
- Why come? What was the point? To embarrass yourself? This from Boris leaning against the wall, arms crossed at his chest. His burly built eclipses the light spilling into the crammed hallway, making him appear every bit as menacing as when he's facing an opponent on the mat.
- We're trying to help, but maybe your father was right. Maybe what you need right now is to go back...and...and...reevaluate. You need toâ
- No. I shake my head.
- You're not attending your classes and you sure as hell haven't been staying with us, so what exactly is it you do, Ruâother than show up unannounced now and then?
- Ivana... Self-preservation tugs a plea from between my lips. - ...please. There's an incessant alarm going off somewhere inside me, reminding me there's only so much destruction my body can take before it disintegrates. And I want to. I want to preserve whatever remains of my dignityâthat ingrained sense of brevidijemal that's chanting for me to get back into the performance, to get up! get up! get up!âbut there's also another part of me, destructive, watching everything as it transpires, and thinks let him die. Let that coward bastard die.
- What's back home but death? I ask. - Do you want to go back? Oh, that's right, I forget, you were born here. The great Stronszaks. You wrote the national anthem, but you sure as fuck never stayed long, did you? My voice turns wry, and I can't help it. I can't stop the self-destruction pulling me along for the free-fall any more than I can the words ricocheting off my tongue.
- Why would you care how many people die when you've made this place your home? Of course, you're enjoying the party. Everything is a party to youâyou're safe. But do you ever stop to considerâ
- Boohoo, cry me a fucking river, Boris yells, drawing closer. - You want me to believe whatever's crawled up your arse is because of some hero complex you developed yesterday? Like Daddy isn't spoon-feeding you a fortune every month. Aren't you forgetting something? You're a Konstantin, or did all those bums in Camden convince you otherwise? You're Bikjaru same as her, so drop the whole holier than thou lip servâ
- At least I have a conscience, but you? I say pointing to the man morphing into a rabid bulldog by the second. - You're cattle. You're fucking sheep.
- Stop it! Stop. It. Both of you. You will not fight in the middle of this gala, Ivana says, stepping between us. Pushing me back with a manicured finger to my chest, she says, - I'm not here to babysit a child. This is not what I signed up for. I took you in as a favour to your father because we're family. And if you're too drunk, or too high, or whatever you clearly are at the moment, to see that, then you leave right this second.
- I'm not the one you should be angry at, it'd serve you better to direct that anger at your father. He's the one who wants you back-, she stabs me in the chest to drive her point home, -Â and if you'd been around the last couple of days, I would've given you the flight tickets myself.
- Yes, she nods at the look of dread coming over my face, - flight tickets. Already booked, sweetheart. You're spending Easter over there, where your free to be every bit the peace advocate who's neither needed nor wanted here. Now, go. Leave! You've embarrassed me enough.
- If you're so afraid of embarrassment, I say as she leaves with her husband in tow, - you should take a closer look at your hypocrisy. But my words come out frazzled, carrying only a fraction of their previous heat.
- Goodnight, she responds, turning her head no more than ninety degrees, - you can come and find me after church tomorrow.
****
I want to lash out, to destroy, but the city wants to fuse me into its stone facade like a piece of gum abrading into the pavement. The April wind pulls, pushes, persuades, and I yield into the bustling sounds of a London that never sleeps. To think this city's sheer volume used to scare me; its never-ending rush, its foreign lingo that used to belittle me for needing a native to help me navigate its vastness. Now I'm alone and it beckons me into its chaos as if it can no longer differentiate my callousness from its children's.
I welcome the sounds, the smells, and the noises as a distraction from the fear worming its way into my spine. I don't know where I'm going, only that I'm going to destroy, and get destroyed, and from the scraps of whatever remains after tonight assemble somethingâanything that might resemble the old Ru's self-control. It's a promise I make to the wind and one the city promises me back with every passing ambulance siren, every drunken shout, every fleeting impression licking a flame of hope against my sternum.
I look for ropes to anchor me; for sounds of life, for conversation inside a corner store where I top-up my Oyster card. I hope for the silver of a chance someone in the street might inquire why I'm walking around in a tuxedo, and then, for a fist fight which might lead to passionate lovemaking or a rough fuck. Anything. But this is central London and I'm deluded to think anyone will so much as spare me a second glance.
My loneliness, and desperation, and the indecisiveness it carries in its womb waft into my face as the wind picks up the smell of the river. This close to the Thames, I feel no different from a discarded Happy Meal toy anticipating the gust that will inevitably push it under. I'm afraid of the river currents; its gentle lapping against the bank and the tangible threat of being swept and washed up on my father's doorstep.
Would he recognise me?
It dawns on me that someone nicknamed Salamander, whose phone calls only appear in the early AM, knows more about what I want than my own father. I snort. Maybe I should stop calling him father then. If he's not my father, then he's just a man, same as me. Despite knowing these thoughts only circle back to feed my never-ending misery, I do nothing to suppress them. If he's just a man, then his opinion of me weighs the same as mine. If we're equal, then I have a right to live my life as I choose, as he chose how to live his.
I'm full-on grinning, thinking why not? Why the fuck not? It feels like somewhat of a breakthrough until the sharp edge of hope presses into my jugular. I can't swallow. I can't seem to catch my breath, and I know a full-blown anxiety attack is imminent. I call Salamander with closed eyes and a heartbeat that flutters like a dying fish inside an ever cinching thorax.
Please, please, please.
He doesn't pick up.
I jump on the next bus, every part of my body fueled by the desperation to numb, to forget, to sooth. I call Salamander, already picturing myself in the humid club chasing back whatever pill of bad decision he's supplied with a shot of vodka. I call again and again and again, and when he doesn't answer I'm out the sliding doors and into the streetsâhyperventilating.
It takes me a minute longer than it ought to realise I've been spit out onto a kaleidoscopic street somewhere in Islingtonâfar away from the pull of the Thames, but nowhere near Brixton where on any given night I'd find Salamander. I start running, chasing the tail lights of double-deckers going in the opposite direction when I spot an incoming busâ19. I don't spare a second thought as I cross the street. I'm inside, nodding to the driver as if this is another Saturday night, and bad decisions are something I make on the regular.
Why? Why do I do this to myself? I'm nowhere closer to answering that question when I take a seat as when I climb off twelve minutes later at a large, subdued street lined with flats. I've never been one to beg for anything, yet I know that's exactly what lies ahead as I start walking towards the two-storey brick building etched into my memory. Am I really doing this? I come to a halt. You're going to have to grovel, but what choice do you have? I pick up the pace again. He's not going to want to see you. You can always turn around. Go home. I consider; for about twenty seconds I stop to meditate on my decision. Lulled by the echoes of suburban sounds in the distance, I close my eyes and imagine that I'm being pulled by three different possibilities in three different directions. When I open my eyes, I'm no more convinced that this is a lesser of a self-destructive route than heading home to my flat or jumping on the next bus to Brixton, yet I find myself propelled forward, same as when I saw bus 19 and knew it would lead me here, to Clerkenwellâto him.
I shove my pride as far away from the surface as it can go and press the buzzer next to his name: E. Yugrovsky. His voice crackles in the intercom: - Hello?
- Hello? He asks again when his voice, tender (unassuming, god, so unassuming) renders me speechless.
- Ezra...it's Konstantin, can you let me in?
The intercom goes silent for so long I start wondering whether he's disconnected without so much as a bye when the heavy door unlocks with a soft click. Relieved beyond what I care to admit, I funnel through, taking the stairs two at a time.
- Konstantin, he greets, lips pressed together. - ...I don'tâ...Is everything okay? Whatever reservation initially had him crossing his arms and pursing his lips falters as he takes me in on the landing to his flat. A small voice in the back of my mind is tallying all the ways I've fucked up tonight; holding up a mirror to my face, pointing out all the flaws now apparent to him, and yet, all the things I should focus on and should consider fly out the window the second I lay eyes on him.
- Eh... I don't know where to fix my gaze. Not at his bare feet, my mind screams not his newly showered hair nor at his pyjama bottoms and his white T, yet lo-and-behold, I can't stop raking my eyes over him, forgetting what I was supposed to say over the barrage of resurfacing memories.
- I'm sorry, is...is this a bad time?
To his credit, he only raises his eyebrows at my blunder.
- What are you doing here? His apartment door inches closer to him, in the process of shutting me out, and I hurry to say, - I'm sorry. I know, and I just...I just want to talk.
- I caâ...Konstantin, he sighs, - You do realise your standing outside my door at one in the morning, don't you? Like that's...even for you, that's...
I open my mouth, thinking I can put words to the roller-coaster of emotional instability that's brought me to his doorstep, and when nothing comes out, I end up opening and closing my mouth to where it draws another exasperated sigh from him.
- I can't. I can't do this. You're obviously drunk-, this comes out more as a question than a statement, - and Millie's dropped off Aaron, who's just fallen asleep after what's been the most draining evening since...âJust...call me in the morning, okay?
He's closing the door and I feel something like feral desperation clawing at my throat, slithering over my tongue. Who am I supposed to go to? I want to shout. Please, don't force me back into the night.
Words that have been floating like alphabet soup inside my mouth since last time I saw him two months ago, spill out, all entangled; uncoordinated and too blunt to hit the bullseye.
- I'm sorry I left like that, without saying goodbye. I'm sorry I ignored your calls. I shouldn't have done that; I was scared. I didn't know howâI don't know how to tell you who I am. With this tongue. How do I explain what it means to be Bikjaru, what it means to be Arash, what it means to be in the UK not as a refugee but a master's student at LSEâwhen I shouldn't be here at all. When in all likelihood had I not had his eyes, and his face, and his name, I would've been displaced or...or dead, buried under the rubble.
- You asked me to go with you, but I can't do anything on my own. You're British, you've been raised on the idea that you can become anything, do anythingâsave the world if you want, destroy it if you want âI'm not like that. I'm nothing like you. I don't have money of my own, and...and if I were to pack up and leave where would I go, huh? Where can I go where he wouldn't he find me? Where I'm not Konstantin? And you asking me to return...to...to...you don't know what you've asked of me.
- Listen. Now I'm really pleading. I jam my foot in the doorway to buy myself time. - I want to be of help. I believe in your projectâwhat you're doing, what you're sacrificing. You have so much heart, if anything, I came to tell you what you're doing surpasses what I'm doingâwhat my people are doingâby...by hundredfolds. They have no interest in...in changing how things have been progressing and yetâI mean, here you are, an outsider, but you have so much passion and courage, and I admire you. I admire you so much. I know I'm a coward, but I just want to talk.
Even after everything I've said, he eyes me wearily, and I hate that I've caused that. I've broken his trust to such a degree that he no longer believes I won't make a mess of his life if he invites me in. I take a step back the same second he pushes the door open.
- What's the tux for? He asks, the faintest smile grazing his lips.
I fight back my own smile. - It's-, I heave a relieved sigh, - it's been a long night.
- Come in.
I take off my shoes, noticing the much smaller trainers tossed against the corner beside the shoe rack. It becomes apparent they belong to his four-year-old, Aaron, when I step further inside and spot the litter of model cars and children's books strewn like flower petals down the hallway, leading all the way into the living room.
- We can debate whoever's had the longest night, but first, coffee? He asks when my eyes linger a bit too long.
- Sure, I say. From the looks of it, he might need the pick-me-up more than I do. Judging by the things on his counter, he was already in the middle of pressing himself a cup before I interrupted.
I come to a slow halt pass the threshold to his small kitchen. Though small is relative, and I've definitely been in smaller kitchens since moving here, it's nowhere near what we would consider normal-sized back home. Big, I've learnt, is a word missing from many Londoners' vocabulary, and I've had to acclimatise my dimensions ever since to fit the standard of a typical two-bedroom flat in London.
I train my gaze on his back, to save myself the memories jumping at me from unsuspect corners. Memories of watching him stir premade pasta sauce at the stove, of him languidly stretching at the table, him making coffee in his pyjamas in the morning. If he's as jittery as me to be confined in the same space again, it doesn't show in his broad shoulders.
- So...is Aaron with you this weekend? I ask to fill the silence.
- No, not really. Millie had to drop him off, something about her boyfriend needing to be driven to the emergency care. She'll pick him when she can. He shrugs and I sense a reluctance to continue the conversation.
Scanning his kitchen for a feasible topic, my eyes land on the laptop on the table.
- You up working?
He chances a glance while pouring us each a mug. - Yeah, been skyping with Mina.
- Oh. Is she the Moroccan? The transgender?
- Yeah.
- Is she still...
- A sex worker? Yes. He flashes me his usual smirk at my embarrassed hesitation.
- How is she?
- Good. Short on money, but that's expected since moving from Paris to Marseille. She asks about you sometimes you know.
- Yeah? I read some reviews online for the film, I hear myself admitting. - Everyone's raving about it. When he turns around, a cup in each hand, his eyes aren't as open and friendly as his tone had made me believe they would be. They bore into mine, depleting the air from my lungs.
- And you? He asks, and I sense it isn't the question he wants to know.
- How've you been? He hands me my cup.
- Good. Great. I take a sip.
- Where have you been? It's the way he asks; the cocked head, the feigned nonchalance, the intense gaze.
- You know...just-, I hesitate, fighting the urge to fidget, to move away from his scrutiny, - ...around.
- Salim's?
- Who? I ask.
- Christ, Konstantin. Salamander?
To think that I used to mistake his guarded look for jealousy. And that it's taken me two months in Salamander's company to realise that it was concern all along. God, how stupid I've been to put them in the same friend bracket. I met Salamander, then Salim, through Ezra, and I immediately pegged Ezra's possessive nature as being more insidious than Salamander's rough, I'll-stab-you-from-the-front demeanor. At least with him what you saw was what you got. I can't pinpoint the exact moment when it occurred to me that Ezra's entanglement wouldn't derail my life in quite the same wayâperhaps as late as this evening when I saw the 19 bus and remembered him.
I wish I could take back all the time I wasted when I say, - Yes, occasionally.
- Occasionally, he repeats in the same regretful tone with the faintest smile playing on his lips.
- Can I be honest? He pulls the mug closer, peering at me from its rim. Wisps of steam dances before his chocolate-brown eyes. He inhales, takes a sip, lingers over his words. - You fascinate me. Even now you fascinate me, and I have every reason to hate you.
- Is that your way of telling me I'm fucked up? Because I already know.
He chuckles humourlessly. - There's so much to youâso many layers. And they're like...right there-, he motions to my contours with his hand, - tangible. Sometimes I swear I can feel them, like an aura. He pauses again to consider his words. - An aura of hurt. Angry blues and yearning lilacs. I can't imagine what you've lost.
He draws closer. - What it must've been like. He stands so close I inhale a whiff of shampoo and laundry detergent; sweet, clawing. It forces me backâback against the doorframe.
- Tell me, he says. - To lose not a home, a city, a community, but a lover, too.
He's close, too close.
- Is that what you've come to share?
- No.
He leans in, almost as if for a kiss, but when I turn my head, when I place my hand to his chest, he simply smiles and pulls away as if he's just scored against me in a game I was unaware we were playing.
- No, because you never intended to, he asks, his voice soft, - or no, because he doesn't exist?
The answer beats against my throat, a rapid-fire thump thump thump. His smile saddens, and I realise he's known for some time. That almost-kiss was his way of confirming. His way of making sure I knew he knew the reasons his advances had been fruitless.
- No, as in...sometimes I'm sure I've made him up and he never existed, and other times I'm certain he's dead.
He nods, steps away, - Want to talk about it?
I snort, the adrenaline leaving me in one quick rush, - No.
- You sure? He's smiling, - it could make for a great film scrip. Cannes worthy.
I laugh trying to hide the emanating blues, the lilacs, - And who would want to read that?