And so they invented a complex game of not being together, of renouncing, of teasing, which, when the degree of abstinence was complete, released itself in the transgression of a new sexual practice. For years they’d endured in the grips of such passion. Until one day Mojca
‘Hey, while you’re there, can you bring me another one?’
She pressed a button. With a hand over her chest, she moved to the chair over which her dress was draped. She tossed it on in a single move and made herself look, at once, attractive because she hid herself, and somewhat ugly, because everything that remained to the eyes bespoke morning. In the morning everyone is…
‘None for you?’
‘I don’t drink coffee.’
‘You want something else?’
‘I ate while you were sleeping.’
Sour yoghurt breath. Evan’s head was spinning. The caffeine was kicking in. His stomach was awhirl.
She brought him a second cup. As she leant down to him, he saw the outline of her breasts and filled in the rest on his own. He was covered by the sheet. It rustled slightly. He blew across the surface of the coffee and observed the resulting ridge. For a moment he forgot about his own body and immediately felt better.
Sometimes we get so angry with the people we love. We are never as passionate when it comes to other people. When we attach ourselves, when we really attach ourselves, these bonds create little bubbles in which there is space for the rawest of things.
The pancakes looked much less appetizing here at their final destination. Evan flushed the toilet and stepped into the shower. He kept one ear out of the stream so he could hear the door. Oksana didn’t come in. That wouldn’t bother him now. He dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist. He tied it loosely. He opened the bathroom door—
the windows were transparent and the sun had sharpened the edges of all the objects, the tables, the bed, bulbs in lamps, frames, chairs, all the bristles of the carpet, cabinet knobs and drawers, empty cups and plates, forks, knives, and her skin, which stuck out from her clothes, exploded with every pore, every hair into an impossible sharpness, and Evan could feel his pupils dilating, as if scissor blades were about to gouge out his eyes
—and slammed it shut. Panic grabbed him, he was out of mAk and he couldn’t get any more, anywhere, Gordon was in jail, he didn’t know anyone else, and all the doors, all the doors were closed, he didn’t dare ask anyone, since they’d toss him out, and he didn’t want to go back, he’d left a desert behind him, so he headed to the cabinet above the sink, opened it and grabbed, without looking, a plastic box of pills he’d been prescribed once, somewhere, for something or other, opened it, took two, swallowed, and grabbed another packet of pills, two more, swallowed, and a third, swallowed, and he would have taken a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth…had he not been afraid of committing suicide by accident. That would not be smart. Suicides are to be committed on purpose.
‘Eeeeevan…Are you ok?’
She knocked. Carefully, she opened the door. He was lying on the floor, a smile on his face, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
‘I’m ok.’
She stepped forwards, but he put his hand up to stop her.
‘No need.’
He turned onto his side, naked, got to his knees, wriggled his arse and got up. He walked slowly past her. She followed him.
‘Rehearsal’s at five. See you there.’
He didn’t look at her. He picked up the newspaper from the floor and threw it against the wall. He went to the console and pressed a button. Then he opened the closet and got dressed. He ran a hand through the pocket of the trousers he’d worn the day before. When he saw her he shuddered, as if frightened.
‘Rehearsal’s at five. See you there,’ he repeated.
Oksana was offended. She turned to leave. She’d left her necklace on the bedside table. She had her knees on the bed so she could reach over for it, when she felt a caress on the inside of her thighs. She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes. He was only joking. The fingers crept up her dress and entered her almost violently. She let her head drop. The other fingers were gliding over her tummy, to her breasts, pinching a nipple. She directed the moan into the pillow. She arched. The lips descended on her tailbone, then the teeth, then the tongue, broad and wet, going, slowly, lower.
Evan observed the goings-on from a safe distance.
When she walked in, Oksana screamed and threw a sheet over herself. Evan stared at her in jutting amazement. Her voice was cold.
‘Evan Z—, get dressed. Oksana Ivanovna Bobrova, go home. Rehearsal is at five.’
Her face was not quite human. A heart-shaped oval with a straight-bridged nose, thin lips that barely parted when she spoke and a pair of oval buttons instead of eyes, without whites, entirely covered in jade. A Mesopotamian sculpture. Modigliani. She had straight black hair that emitted a dead shine, like the fur of a stuffed animal.
‘Who are you?’
‘Koito XXV. Your new sponsor. Get dressed. Oksana Ivanovna Bobrova, go home.’
Oksana scrambled out of bed, grabbed her necklace and straightened her crumpled dress. She looked at Evan, who was staring at Koito.
‘Bye.’
‘Goodbye, Oksana Ivanovna Bobrova.’
She picked up her shoes and ran barefoot into the hallway.
‘Evan Z—, say goodbye to Oksana Ivanovna Bobrova.’
‘Oksana!’ he called out. She was already in the hall. ‘See you at rehearsal.’
No response.
‘Get dressed.’
Evan bent down to the pile of clothes on the floor.
‘No.’
She opened the closet and mechanically, in a regular rhythm, began flinging underwear, socks, trousers, a shirt (‘Outside it’s twenty-three degrees Celsius, a slight wind, thirty-three percent chance of precipitation’) and a jacket. Evan got dressed. He tossed the jacket onto a chair.
‘Have you already consumed breakfast?’
She was dressed in a one-piece, skin-tight plastic outfit that showed no curves. Underneath, she was obviously a skeleton.
‘What happened to Gordon?’
‘Answer the question.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Eat.’
Evan sat down before a platter of food.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Eat.’
‘Tell me, where is Gordon?’
‘Gordon Shaw Falstaff is in custody awaiting trial. Eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘The recommended daily intake of food is two thousand five hundred calories, breakfast is eight hundred. Eat.’
‘What the fuck is this, if you—’
‘Do not curse. Eat your breakfast, brush your teeth. The time is eleven forty-three and fifteen seconds, the photo shoot is at one, the meeting with the director is at two, at three, lunch with the Mishima family, at four, free time under supervision, at five, rehearsal, at eight, free time under supervision, dinner, asleep by midnight at the latest.’
The pills were sizzling in Evan’s stomach acid. Their chemical properties were spreading through the barriers and into his bloodstream. This thrust him into catatonia. Koito took his hand and pricked a finger with a pin. He did not respond. A drop of blood swelled out. She wiped it away with a napkin.
‘It’s only for one year!’
He knew that look. He’d seen it on the faces of countless girls who were dragging themselves through audition after audition. The rehearsed look of despair, disappointment and helplessness. Which, after they found out that they didn’t get the role, obtained just one additional, negligible, almost imperceptible yet crucial aspect which turned the expression into a sincere one. That aspect was staring at him as he told her.
‘Evan, a year is a really long time… Why can’t I go with you?’
‘Because they want the pure and authentic me. If I take you with me I’ll be taking a lifetime’s worth of baggage, and that’s not what they want.’
/>
‘But what is this, Evan, who’s this they?’
‘Edo! Mojca, you know how much this means to me, it’ll be the pinnacle of my entire career.’
‘I know, I know, but I always thought that I could be there with you, never that you’d leave me all alone.’
‘One year. One lousy year.’
‘For you I…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Evan, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go.’
‘Mojca, please, you know I’m going.’
‘Yes…’
Again he found himself in the toilet, this time not with his arse but his mouth perched over the bowl, a long finger jabbing into his throat, prodding his trachea and forcing him to vomit. The coffee sludge and chalky stomach remnants clanked into the bowl.
‘Drink.’
He drank from a glass that contained a greenish fluid, tea-like but cold.
‘Was that mAk?’ he asked her.
Koito turned her head, first right, then left.
‘No.’
‘What is it then?’
‘stAbIIno.57. Your blood is not optimal. It’s now in the seventy-seventh percentile. Any more than that is prohibited for foreigners.’
She wiped off her finger. Evan got back to his feet.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Because you are a foreigner.’
He felt somewhat normal. That wasn’t good. The rift had lost its edges and turned into a mere void.
‘Can you please explain to me what’s going on?’
‘That is too broad a question.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Koito XXV. Your new sponsor.’
‘Who are you in relation to yourself?’
‘Koito XXV. The sponsor at disposal.’
‘At whose disposal?’
‘Daimyō’s.’
‘What were you up to yesterday?’
‘I was at disposal.’
‘Date of birth?’
‘That information is confidential.’
‘Parents?’
‘That information is confidential.’
‘Who did you sponsor before me?’
‘That information is confidential.’
‘Do you feel things?’
‘That is too broad a question.’
‘Can I touch you?’
‘Non-aggressively.’
He placed a hand over her chest, just below the slight bulge that was supposed to indicate a left breast.
Silence.
‘I think we will get along well.’
‘Yes.’
The air was airy, the light light and the room roomy as Evan ate breakfast. The taste tasty. He spoke with his mouth full and slowly wiped away the moist bits of food that flitted onto the table.
‘Is it possible to visit Gordon?’
‘When the schedule allows for it, it is possible.’
‘Should I visit him?’
‘It is not necessary.’
‘He was my sponsor for almost the entire year.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why is he in custody?’
‘That information is confidential.’
‘Because of mAk?’
‘That information is confidential.’
‘Perhaps it would be right to visit him.’
‘That is a decision.’
‘Mmm, yes.’
Three mouthfuls of water, interrupted by breaths through the nose. He squeezed his toes together.
‘Should I shave for the photo shoot?’
‘It is not necessary.’
‘Good.’
Koito was standing motionless by the table. She was staring at him, though not intrusively, and he could eat in peace.
‘Is it forbidden to sleep with an actress?’
‘That is too broad a question.’
‘Is it forbidden for me to sleep with Oksana?’
‘It is not forbidden.’
‘Is it, how should I put this, unseemly?’
‘I do not understand the question.’
‘Would it be better if I did not sleep with her?’
‘That is a decision.’
‘Mmm, yes.’
One last bite.
‘Once I was very much in love.’
‘…’
‘Now I can’t even remember what that meant. I remember the gestures and words, but not the motives behind them. Is that the same with everyone else?’
‘I do not have sufficient information to provide an answer.’
‘Have you ever been in love?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘…’
‘I don’t know if it’s even a matter of memory. Maybe it’s supposed to be felt. Mnemotion. Is that a word?’
‘No.’
‘With mAk I can, in a good way, feel mnemotion. Without it, things would be rougher, more aggressive, almost unbearable. But in any case, at least it’s something, right? Now, I can’t even understand, I mean, it’s difficult, without the right words, from such a cold place…’
‘Get dressed.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I do not understand.’
He stood up.
‘Photo shoot.’
‘Yes.’
The photographer seemed entirely human-like. When they entered his ‘atelier’ (that’s how he greeted them – Welcome to my atelier – although his atelier was nothing but a space bordered by sheets in the middle of an abandoned warehouse), he parted his lips and kept them spread in variations of vowels and consonants until Evan was seated on the bar stool. Then he shut them, closed them into a blue line, took up his camera and said, ‘Now you speak.’
Evan turned to Koito with a look of astonishment. What should I talk about? Koito was unable to read anything from his miming, so she just stared calmly on.
‘What, then?’
The photographer’s mouth was closed. Both of them looked at Koito.
‘Tell Mundo’ (that was the photographer’s name: Mundo, just Mundo) ‘about mnemotion.’
Evan rubbed his eyes. Mundo took photos.
‘Once I was very much in love.’
Mundo nodded.
‘And I can prove it.’
Evan stuck his right index finger into his mouth and drew back his cheek. A hole gaped where there should have been an incisor. Mundo took photos.
‘My tooth is now resting against her chest, perhaps, though I’m not totally sure if that’s true, but anyway… Has anyone ever stolen a tooth from you?’
Mundo shook his head, Koito did not.
‘That’s very unusual, wouldn’t you say? But that’s what it means to be in love. Or even what love means. Now I don’t know any more, I couldn’t say, since there’s no more mnemotion, what it was all about. Now it just seems a little odd.’
He stroked his gums.
‘But the hole bears witness. The body does not lie. There should be a tooth there, now it’s no longer there and therefore…’
He shook his head.
‘I woke up, it was a little bit before I left, before I came here. Someone had inflated a balloon in my cheeks. A very strange feeling. I said, I remember it well, I must have felt horrible, and I swore. What the mufferfuck…I said. And then I cried. Where are my ff’s?’
Mundo took photos of him.
‘Where are my ff’s, who took my ff’s, do you understand? I couldn’t say “th”. My tongue was swollen. And the saliva was running down my chin. I had shaved that day and Mojca was livid at me for that, well, actually I don’t know what she was feeling, but she looked angry, she said she knew what that meant, my shaving, that it was just a matter of time… I couldn’t quite understand what she meant by that. But, ok, I was freshly shaven, with spittle all over the place.’
Mundo took photos. The camera shutter released a salvo of five, six rapid clicks.
‘Mojca was a dentist. A really good one, a really successful one, with her own pri
vate practice, money to burn. Soon she became independent, as far as money goes, and in a way that was a healthy thing for our relationship. Now that I think about it, on the surface, each of us functioned independently, yet we had an inner connection, though I can’t really understand that any more. I can’t mnemote it. Yes?’
Mundo took photos. Click-click-click-click.
‘She was a dentist, though she herself never went to the dentist. Isn’t that suspect? Her teeth were perfect, absolutely healthy enamel, no cavities, no bad breath, no plaque, just whiteness, just purity. She didn’t even need a prosthesis – is that what you call it? A prosthesis? – those metal things you stick in your mouth to make your teeth line up straight, I had them when I was a kid, well, her jaw was perfect from birth, she didn’t even have wisdom teeth. Mine had to be torn out. I was still a kid. Braces! Of course, that’s what you call them. And a person like that goes on to become a dentist. A person who has no idea what it means to sit in a chair with a drill aimed at your skull. That’s problematic.’
Mundo approached him, piercing the bubble of his personal space, but Evan wasn’t bothered. He took photos of Evan’s unshaven chin, which swivelled as he spoke.
‘But so be it, if men can be gynaecologists… That’s even more problematic, I guess. Or…artists. They don’t have a clue either.’
Evan stopped talking. The camera was left hanging in the air, silent. Koito made a mill gesture with her hands, keep going.
‘Well, and…what was I saying? Oh yeah, I’m lying there hollering where are my ff’s? Mute in the head. You could have slapped me and I wouldn’t have minded. She filled me up with narcotics, my skin was numb. I wiped off the saliva which was running down all the time, I couldn’t keep it in, so I was wiping it off. And I yelled. Mufferfucker and so on. I still didn’t know I was missing a tooth. And then she appeared, smiling wickedly, and at that moment I already hated her, well, I don’t know, I can remember now that I told her I hated her because she’d made an utter fool of me, just so that I wouldn’t go, and she almost succeeded, if it weren’t for my friends, but I don’t know, now I can’t remember how I felt at the time. She came over, dressed in a red jacket that I’d bought for her in Vienna, lipsticked and powdered, beautiful and sleek and alluring, and she walked right over to me, with a smile on her wicked face, I can see it now, beautiful and tasteful and attractive and wicked…’
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