by Shamim Sarif
“Are you trying to get me to smell you?”
“No,” he laughs. “Only if you want to.”
“No, thank you. Some things should be kept for the future.”
She cannot think why she has said that. About the future. Without any thought, it just flew out of her mouth, and now he is smiling, he looks happy, as though he is hoping to see her again. She smiles too, suddenly. After all, something has drawn her to this man; perhaps his eyes, which are open and honest and intelligent.
“How old are you?” she asks.
“Do you want to guess?”
“No,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “I just want to know. I can’t tell from the look of you, whether you are eighteen or thirty.”
“I am twenty five”
“Like me.” She smiles, as though this satisfies her in some way, and then she closes her eyes. Etched into the skin between those eyes is a furrow of concentration. Alexander watches her, pausing only to ask the girl to pour two more drinks. When Katya opens her eyes, she sees the young man standing before her with his own eyes tightly shut, and a look of absorption on his face. She laughs.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to see what you were concentrating on so suddenly.”
“And? What was it?”
“The music?” he ventures, and she smiles her affirmation. The musicians are playing more quietly now, and are almost drowned out under the rising of voices made freer by alcohol and laughter, but the music is there, behind everything, and it is soft and emotive. An older man has joined them, and with his balalaika is wafting a mournful tune that twines out over the heads of the crowd like a long curl of blue-tinged smoke.
“I love this song,” Katya says, so quietly that Alexander can barely hear her.
“So do I. Doesn’t it remind you of your childhood?”
“Yes. That’s exactly it.” She looks away from him. “My grandmother used to sing it. She’d make my father play the piano to accompany her, and she’d sing it to my brother and me before we went to sleep.”
“Is she still alive?”
Katya shakes her head, but offers nothing more and Alexander looks around, at the deaf crowd, and then back at the liquid eyes of the girl before him.
“Nobody can hear it except for us, I think.”
“Perhaps he is only playing it for us,” she suggests.
Alexander smiles at the idea. “Yes,” he says, and he quickly asks her to dance again, for she seems to be on the verge of tears, as she stands there, alone, listening. His question wakes her from some faraway reverie, from unbidden, unwanted memories – no, they are not even memories, she thinks, it’s just a feeling that has enveloped her without warning; that feeling of being a child and being warm, with everything as it should be, nothing complicated or difficult. The smell of onions and fried potatoes still lingering from dinner, and sitting close between Yuri and her mother, and watching her father and grandmother play and sing, and feeling safe and just happy.
“Would you like to dance?” he asks again.
She shakes herself, and smiles and refuses, politely, for she feels that if she continues to focus on that song, even by dancing to it, she will start crying. I must talk, she thinks, say something funny or witty or intelligent to this kind-faced young man. Ask him what he does, where he lives, what he thinks, feels, knows. That’s what I am supposed to be doing. He is not what I expected to meet here tonight.
She opens her mouth to address him, and he leans forward a little, to catch the coming words, but they don’t arrive. The perfect bow of her upper lip remains open for a second, but no words come out. I cannot speak, she realises; I cannot say one word without crying. It must be the drinks. What is in them?
Her head turns to the bar table, and she sees the second round of glasses sitting there, brimful, their wet bases leaching colour out of the red paper that covers the table. A hand comes into her line of vision, and she sees long fingers and square nails closing around one glass, and raising it up to offer to her.
“Another? Or have you had enough?”
Misha is smiling grimly. Beside him, Alexander stands, attentive, polite.
“I think you know each other?” he offers.
Misha nods, his eyes, reddened with too much alcohol, still upon Katya.
“She’s like my kid sister,” he tells Alexander. “Which is why I warn her off men like you.”
Alexander laughs. “Am I so bad?”
“You’re too good, my friend. Too good by a long way.”
Katya takes the glass and downs the drink, while Misha watches her. She is restless, annoyed with Misha for interrupting, for breaking the delicate web of memory and gentleness that she had spun here alone with this young man. Now they will be forced to banter with each other, to laugh at stupid jokes that are funny only when you have drunk enough vodka.
“How do you both know each other?” Katya asks.
“We were in the same class at school,” Misha tells her. “I was the handsome, brilliant, popular one, and he wasn’t.”
“Then why were you friends with him?” Katya’s voice sounds bored with her own question, as though she is now merely going through the motions of frivolous conversation.
“I took pity on him.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?” Her voice is clipped, with no hint of laughter, and Misha’s eyebrows go up and he smiles to cover his displeasure.
She looks at Alexander. He is smiling at his friend indulgently, but there is also a hint of distance in his eyes that suggests he too is beginning to find this conversation tedious. Misha glances from one to the other, with a wry smile now, and through the clouds of vodka that have gathered in his head, he sees that neither of them are finding him charming or amusing. He takes a deep breath that neither one can see. Never mind, he thinks, I’ll deal with this later. Now is not the best time. Without another word, he squeezes Alexander’s shoulder, and leans to kiss Katya on the cheek. And then, as suddenly as he joined them, he is gone, and they are left alone again, amongst the crowd.
Alexander hands her another drink, and she takes it, then winces and coughs at the burning of the pure liquid snaking down her throat, and he rubs the top of her back with his hand to ease her discomfort, and she leans in to him, and lays her head on his shoulder. Almost as soon as he has absorbed the fact that she really is leaning against him, that he can feel her whole body beneath his hand on her back, she straightens up, with an abruptness that surprises him.
“What is it?”
She shakes her head. “I hardly know you.”
He cannot contradict this fact, so he stays silent.
“I want to go home,” she says.
“Don’t. Please.” He turns to follow her movement away from the bar, and when she looks at him, his eyes are concerned and alert.
“Why not, if I am tired?” She looks much stronger now, less fragile. Misha’s interruption has given her time to gather herself together, and he knows that her petulant question is only her way of reasserting herself after the lapse of allowing herself to lean against a strange man. She knows it too. She does not really want to go home to the faded, cold apartment that she lives in with her friend Maya and Maya’s mother.
“Can I accompany you home?”
She shakes her head. “Thank you, but there’s no need. My roommate is over there. We’ll go together.” He turns to see the blonde-haired young woman who had been sitting with Katya earlier.
“And you won’t stay just a few more minutes?”
“I’m tired,” she says, but her tone is softer now – she is physically tired, but also mentally weary of fighting her attraction to this man, just because it is unexpected and unsettling.
“If you are tired, you should go,” he replies. “I only wanted you to stay because I would like to talk to you, and to see you.” He swallows and makes himself continue. “But that can wait for another time, perhaps?”
The waiting; the waitin
g for her to answer, as the crowd of drinkers clustered at the bar around them grows louder and louder. He sees the bulbous eyes and reddened cheeks of the mass of people around him; he watches them shout to get the attention of whoever is pouring the vodka, watches them toast each other and drink, and he frowns and fixes his eyes on Katya’s face, on her mouth, so that if her reply is drowned in the noise, he will still read it.
“Come to see me,” she tells him, raising her voice against the others around them.
He nods, and waits again.
“At my home. Tomorrow,” she says, and tells him the address.
He repeats it after her, grateful for her trust in him, and she smiles and turns, and walks away, darting in amongst drinkers and dancers. He takes a step as if to follow, but then stops, because he senses that his time with her is over for now. He only wishes he could have left her with some memorable, romantic parting words, and not with the desperate, loudly-spoken repetition of her address. He turns back to the bar tables and sees Misha at the other end. Misha has seen him also, has been watching him, Alexander feels, and Misha nods and looks away, wrinkling his nose, as if he has just smelt something slightly unpleasant, and orders three more drinks. He had been planning to take them back to share with the girls he has just left, but by the time they are poured, he somehow thinks better of his plan and he drinks them all down himself.
Chapter Three
Boston
A FEW WEEKS AFTER THEIR LUNCH, he receives a postcard from Estelle. It arrives at the office, a picture of a sun drenched boulevard and palm trees, sitting jauntily and unexpectedly atop the rest of the more mundane mail of his desk.
“Lots of sun and lots of facelifts (not mine) here in LA,” it reads. “Having a break in the sun while Frank gives a paper at a literary theory conference. Thanks so much for lunch. Back on 22nd, for Xmas. Expect you for tea some time? Estelle.”
Today is the twenty-second. He is pleased to have heard from her, for he had enjoyed their afternoon together, even though by the end of it he had also been a little disconcerted; with her smiling eyes and quiet questions, she had begun to stir at the settled surface of his interior, past life. There were moments during that lunch, admittedly short, when he had felt the carefully filtered, clear, still pool of his memories being shaken, the clarity being slightly sullied by a swirl of dust unexpectedly disturbed.
He props the card against his computer screen, with the written side facing outwards, then he walks out and into the glassed-in conference room. His vice presidents are already there, as is Melissa Johnson’s small team. Day after day, her people arrive in full, formal business dress, despite the fact that Alexander and all his employees tend to dress more casually. His company headquarters is a relaxed environment in which to work. People have pictures of their children, or paintings by their children pinned to the walls. There are armchairs and sofas amongst the desks, where informal meetings are frequently held. Outside the row of conference rooms is a large kitchen station that looks like a coffee bar. From there, drinks and snacks and samples of new recipes can be collected throughout the day by any employee. From time to time during longer meetings, an assistant comes in with fresh cakes or muffins.
He is immediately irritated by the fact that everyone present already has their laptops flipped open, humming, expectant. It seems to him to be a false show of eagerness. This deal should have been – could have been – completed in principle several days ago. But he has been finding Melissa intractable on certain key points. As soon as the problems arose, he removed himself from the negotiations for two full weeks, a tactic designed to worry her into compromising – but Melissa appears to have nerves strung like steel wires and has stuck with him every step of the way. In retrospect, he realises that anyone who has gotten so far so young in the business world, as Melissa Johnson has, is likely to be a far stronger negotiator than he. In fact, what he has been seeing with considerable clarity during the past several meetings is that for the last decades, during all the time he has built up his business, he has been largely protected. He has always had the majority stake in his own business, he has always been able to run it as he chooses, and he has always chosen to surround himself with like-minded people. He has never bought or sold a company until now, has never had to join in the ruthless games in which others in his position are so well schooled. These past weeks have made him feel like something of a gentleman amateur who has wandered into a kind of financial Olympics where all the other players are highly trained and motivated in a single-minded way with which he cannot quite sympathise.
He sits down, and pours himself some coffee from the pot that sits on the corner of the table.
“Good morning,” he says to the room, and there is a ripple of greeting in reply. “Where’s Melissa?”
“She’s in the bathroom, Mr Ivanov. She’ll just be a second.”
He nods, and turns to look out of the window while they wait.
Melissa Johnson leans her head against the cool glass of the long washroom mirror and closes her eyes against the overhead lights. The oppressive ache in the centre of her forehead that has been with her since the early hours of the morning has spread now to the left side of her head, and is building into a deep throbbing sensation. She knows that, left unattended, it will mutate into a migraine within an hour or two. Not now, she thinks, please not now. She can hardly leave everyone waiting while she rushes out for medication. It would be unprofessional, and even worse, they would all know she was feeling rough. They would immediately sense an advantage. Alexander Ivanov, she feels, is just waiting to sight a weakness so he can up the deal. She rolls her shoulders, a poor attempt to loosen clenched muscles, and tries to recall the last time she had a migraine. She remembers suddenly, and in some detail – she was closing the telecom deal; they’d worked the whole night, and she had forgotten to eat dinner or breakfast. Her blood sugar had dropped. But that was at least two years ago. Since then she has stayed off red wine and red meat, and cut out chocolate and most carbohydrates. She works out each morning, and most useful of all, she has a set of relaxation exercises that her trainer taught her, which are unobtrusive enough to use even during business meetings.
She opens her eyes, and leans back again. Splashes some water onto her face, and then stands gripping the sides of the basin. She hates the fact that today, when she is so near to closing this deal with Alexander, she is tense enough, apprehensive enough, to give herself a migraine. It does not speak well of her inner strength, or her confidence, and she is someone that prides herself on possessing both in copious quantities. She stands and takes in a deep breath. Then lets it out through her nose in a series of short, sharp, noisy bursts.
Behind her a toilet flushes, and she starts. Melissa watches in the mirror as the stall door opens and a young woman emerges. Dark hair and eyes, pretty. Tailored trousers, a soft shirt unbuttoned to show some kind of trendy leather necklace around her throat. No jacket. Around thirty years old, Melissa thinks, a few years younger than she. Top level assistant, possibly very low level management. Probably on about sixty thousand a year.
“Hi,” says the woman. “You okay?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“Sounded like you were having trouble breathing there.”
Melissa clears her throat. “No. That was a cleansing breath. It’s a yoga thing.”
“Ah.” The woman washes her hands, using enough soap to make a lather that drips messily over the side of the basin. Melissa waits for her to leave, but she dries her hands and then takes out a small washbag.
“What are you cleansing?” she asks.
The question focuses Melissa on the pulsing pain in her temples. She puts a hand to her head as unobtrusively as she can.
“I have the mother of all headaches,” she says.
“Tension?”
Melissa nods.
“Want me to get you something for it?”
Melissa feels elated with relief. “I’d be grateful,” she says.
“Thank you,” Melissa says. She looks at the tablets. “Aspirin?”
“Yes.”
Melissa shuts her eyes again. “Thanks.” She almost breathes the word, for all her energy is divided between this immediate disappointment on the one hand and the effort of pulling herself together on the other. With nothing more than a quick nod to the woman, she turns and leaves.
“How do you want to proceed, Mr Ivanov?” Melissa asks. The directness is typical of her style of work; in a meeting such as this, pleasantries take too much time in relation to their value.
“Let’s just get this done,” he replies, matching her tone. “I’m sure everyone here would like to get this finished up before Christmas.”
“The holidays have never been a big thing for me,” she replies. “I think the main thing is to achieve a win-win deal for both sides. And if that means working through Christmas, we’ll do it.”
Alexander nods, trying to look tough, when really he just feels tired. This is not where he wanted to be three days before Christmas. What he had wanted was to be browsing in delis and supermarkets, with nothing more to think about than what to cook for the next meal. And Lauren will be arriving soon to spend the holidays with him. The idea of spices and fruit and roasting has been slowly insinuating itself into his mind, imbuing him with a feeling of festivity. But that feeling is melting away all too quickly under the searing focus of Melissa’s laser-like gaze.
There is a knock on the glass door, and it opens slightly, hesitantly, to show the young woman from the bathroom. Melissa glances at her hand, half-hoping that she has searched her out in order to supply her with a more useful medication, something to stop and kill her headache; but before she can even finish this thought, she is watching Alexander almost leap up from his chair and throw his arms around the woman, who hugs him back.