Megi pushes the door and walks alongside the row of hangers. Something sexy but not kitschy. In no way must Jonathan laugh at her. She wanders around, restless as a bee, until she grabs a bra and pair of panties and dives into a changing room. The black triangles of underwear contrast sharply with her pale skin. Megi joins her hands and unconsciously rubs one against the other.
“Is the size right?” the saleswoman asks from behind the curtain.
“Yes, yes.” She rubs her hands harder.
A memory comes back: they used to rub their hands like that at the summer camps then shove them under each other’s noses saying, “Look! That’s how corpses smell.” Megi smiles; the mirror registers the change. She bends over and pulls her phone out of her bag. She’d told her mother of her suspicions about Jonathan and Andrea – she’s close to her mother – and they both decided that Megi should phone Andrea to sense whether the panic in the latter’s eyes had only been an illusion.
She dials Andrea’s number, which she obtained from the trainee, and cringes. What’s she going to talk about? The smell of corpses? What’s Swedish for “corpse”? Or Czech? She knows nothing about this partner of Simon’s.
“Hello? It’s me, Megi.”
“I’m sorry but is it urgent?” replies Andrea’s official voice. “I’m just recording.”
Megi hangs up.
“Is that your size or shall I bring another one?” the shop assistant enquires from behind the curtain.
Megi doesn’t reply. She stands in front of the mirror; the black lingerie is draped over a hanger, next to it her own clothes. She gazes at the triangle of pubic hair. Should she shave? That’s what they’d done to her when preparing her for the operation. The smell of disinfectant and a bald pussy. She hated them for reducing her, a woman, to a little girl.
And now she’s cold. She quickly pulls on her clothes and leaves the shop, buying nothing.
Jonathan’s thoughts returned to the previous evening. They’d watched a couple of episodes of Sex and the City; Megi had borrowed them from Monika, who loved the film.
At first, Megi had watched the series as she would a spider behind glass.
“A woman’s sexuality can’t be based on a coarse reversal of roles, especially in the Casanova myth!” she’d fumed. “There’s a rhythm in the way a woman matures. There’s a time for everything – on a monthly, yearly, and ten-year scale. I can see that men might want us to be available nonstop but it can’t be like that! And something like this” – she’d pointed to the screen – “is made to sell things to the ever-ready female, crotchless panties and other shit. There’s no truth, only business.”
“Celibacy was introduced for similar reasons.” Jonathan smiled. “So as not to pass church property on to children. That’s business, too.”
He’d thought she’d laugh but she got to her feet and angrily switched off the television. It suddenly hit him that she hadn’t laughed for a long time. He couldn’t make her laugh any more. Was it like that ever since Andrea had arrived on the scene; was it then that the thread of understanding between him and his wife had started to grow weaker?
Watching her, he was again haunted by beginnings. As if there was such a thing as a beginning! Yes, he’d met Andrea, accidentally kissed her, but they must have been waiting for each other. There must have been a vacuum in him somewhere for the moment to have shaken him so much. Because when had Megi last shown herself to him in a bra and panties? She used to show him her new clothes, ask his advice about whether they suited her or not, to which he used to reply, “Yes, wonderful,” “No, take them back,” “Not bad but a bit too sensible.” They’d acquired the habit in their first years together when Jonathan, asked for his opinion, had pulled the new garb off, had her, and only then expressed his opinion.
The good old days! They’d enjoyed each other, laughed together. She’d thought Jonathan’s fascination with the female metaphor of taking off the armor of the office day so funny. He’d latched on to the phrase. Megi, home from work, would say, “I’ve got to remove my bra,” and he, returning tired, would throw himself on the sofa and, glancing at her, murmur, “I’ve not even got the strength to remove my bra.” They’d joked that they were moving with the times because taking off a bra was on a par in their home with loosening a tie. And then daily life had teemed with chores to be done immediately so that, one day, when she’d appeared in front of him in her underwear – he couldn’t remember exactly when – he’d merely nodded his approval and returned to the computer. Poor Megi had stood in the doorway for a moment then turned, embarrassed; Jonathan had leapt from his chair, put his arms around her, and given her some good cunnilingus. She’d stimulated him until she squeezed a few drops from his cock, like an icicle melting in the spring sun.
Now, Jonathan turned to the table and began to tap at the keyboard. The Pavlov Dogs didn’t romanticise beginnings; they lived in constant continuity; their lives were continuous. And when there was no constancy they allowed something else to take its place. Such was the law of nature, a dog’s law.
10
SOME TIME AGO, when Latin American literature was in fashion, Jonathan found the verbosity of its prose annoying. He’d been a fan of Nabokov then, of his precision, spiced with an ironic style. Now Love in the Time of Cholera drew him in like music pulsating in his belly. He asked his students what they thought of Márquez and saw that his admiration alone didn’t render Márquez objectively admirable. Ariane said she’d already been through it – just like bell-bottoms. Jean-Pierre sniffed at the lack of refinement in the overly long stories. Geert, a poetry lover, mumbled that so many words between two covers overwhelmed him. Only Kitty admitted that Latin American novels were not a bad vintage.
“Because what’s so literary about the sentence: ‘He finally understood something that, without knowing it himself, he had felt numerous times before: that one could at one and the same time and with equal pain, love many women simultaneously, without betraying any’?” asked Jean-Pierre.
“That’s not any good.” Ariane settled herself more comfortably on the chair.
“In what way?” asked Jonathan.
“It’s too…”
“Immoral?” Kitty broke in.
Ariane shook her head as though something buzzed around her.
“Too simple! Simple as…”
Jonathan was about to throw in the missing word but realized he didn’t know the English word for “cep” [blockhead].
“Didn’t I say so?” Jean-Pierre took possession of another chair and turned it into an elbow-rest.
“What’s simple about it?” Kitty was surprised.
“It’s a round sentence that doesn’t clarify anything,” snorted Ariane. “Where is human emotion?”
“In the rest of the book?” risked Jonathan.
“What I mean,” Ariane seemed irritated by something, “is it lacks life’s reality.”
“Literary novels aren’t nonfiction,” muttered Jean-Pierre.