They drove in silence. It was only a few minutes away, though.
“Widows,” Thomas thought, “widows—they’ve gotta be the ones who wind up being prostitutes. That profession welcomes them with open arms. Widows are the best lovers—they’re the least calm and they have the most stamina.” His first woman was a widow, which was pretty much the only thing she had going for her. She was his parents’ friend. A full professor at the university. As a child, Thomas was convinced that the majority of people in town were full professors. Lecturers were in the minority. They had their share of lecturer friends, too, though. Thomas came from a respectable family, and he was raised with wholesome values. Given the sheer number of full professors in their social circle, it was hard to imagine his first time being with anyone else. His widow took the initiative, promising to help him get into college and offer guidance during the admissions process. They wrapped up one of their sessions at her home with some quick sex—excessively quick, as a matter of fact. Thomas just went along with it, thinking, “Sure, my first time can be with a full professor, why not?” Then she actually did help him get into college, although nothing else ever happened between them. “I hope it wasn’t good for her,” Thomas thought. Nevertheless, after that he was always cautious when dealing with widows. “You never know what you’re getting into with widows,” he thought, smoking on his balcony and taking in the golden light glowing inside the old buildings above the river. In fact, he was so cautious when it came to dealing with widows that he tried to only hire married women, preferably middle-aged ones. Preferably with gold teeth. That kept him in line.
That night, he decided to send Olia a text, something about how at such a late hour, when demons whiz by overhead through the sticky air and the smoke thickens in kitchens smelling of poppy seeds and cacao, he, like a grizzled old pirate, could spot the glow exuded by her apartment in the middle of the lilac night and sniff out the tender aroma of her skin with his acute, ratlike sense of smell, feel her fluttering down into a pool of dreams, as into fragile and weightless Christmas snow. Something about how he was keeping watch, protecting her tranquillity and warding off the demons with the smoke from his Cuban cigarettes while frosty crystals coalesced on her lips. He reread it and thought that the part about the poppy seeds was a bit much. He decided to destroy the message but pressed the wrong button, so it got sent to her after all. He stood there, waiting with trepidation for a reply. At around four in the morning, when the last few demons melted away in the morning twilight, his phone died.
She called after lunch.
“What were you texting me about cacao for?” she inquired.
Thomas got defensive, fabricating a mysterious, convoluted story about the events of last night, about shady characters and their family problems, about late-night calls and nighttime drama, about his futile attempts to comfort and reconcile everyone, about taxi rides and journeys across the city by night, about unveiled threats and solemn oaths. Obviously, the smell of cacao had no place in this story; he got himself so mixed up all he could do was suggest they get together soon.
At the Georgian joint where they met up, she greeted the waiter, who responded cheerfully, seeming to recognize her, then nodded reverently at Thomas, immediately starting to recommend some specials and caution against ordering others. Thomas had made a point of dressing casually—a short-sleeved button-down shirt and khaki pants—so he was feeling pretty self-conscious without his signature tie, like a dog who’d been let off his chain for the night and was just dying to get back on it. “How does he know her?” he thought, looking at the waiter suspiciously. “Is he somehow part of her past? Just how many men are there in that past of hers? Is she going to be saying hello to all of them?” Thomas was anxious and he got hammered without even realizing it. Olia got a kick out of it all. “Good work, man,” she said. “Keep drinking. You’re more fun drunk.” He drank but remained vigilant. “Just keep it under wraps. Don’t let on that you know. Just don’t drop any hints,” he reminded himself. At first, he talked about work, said his clients just whored themselves out for money and then bit his tongue; he discussed politics, started telling a story about members of Parliament from the ruling party hiring young male escorts, then changed gears halfway in and recalled a gruesome crime scene from the paper—some priests had gotten busted in a closed sauna—but then she told him to cut it out. Eventually, he switched to sports, sizing up the waiter and saying that he clearly used to be a boxer.
“His nose is all flat and stuff.”
“Yep, he did used to be a boxer,” Olia said, confirming his suspicions. Thomas couldn’t take it anymore.
“How do you know him?”
“Whatever happens happens,” he thought, floating through a haze of alcohol. “I just have to know.”
“What do you mean? He comes to our bar. He’s a Manchester United fan. He comes to my joint and I go to his. Isn’t that funny? Sometimes it feels like most restaurant customers are just waiters from other places around town. Do you like waiters?”
“Waitresses,” Thomas answered hastily. “I like waitresses.”
“Oh, I like waitresses, too. I used to date one. Her name was Kira. She lived by the tractor factory, did yoga, and could go without taking a breath for a long time… a long, long time. You’re looking at her and thinking, ‘I gotta call the ambulance, get up, get dressed, and run down to the police station to report her death.’ And then she exhales. I felt so sad and empty; I was eighteen and life seemed unbearable. That’s when we met. Want me to introduce you to her?”
“I do,” Thomas said, nodding his head sloppily. “I really do.”
“All right, I will,” Olia promised. “Want me to call her up right now?”
“I do,” he said, sucking the last gulp of a Georgian red straight from the bottle.
He wanted to meet all her girlfriends, size up all her men, peer into all her acquaintances’ eyes, hug all the boxers and duke it out with all the wrestlers in town, challenge all the bartenders to knife fights, and trounce all the valets at dice. He wanted to hear from her girlfriends what they said to her before she went to bed with them, what arguments they presented, and what they promised. He wanted to hear from her men about how she looked before she got that boyish haircut—what her natural hair color was, what she looked like in the morning—untouched by all that black makeup—what she said in her sleep after everything that had transpired the night before, how she spoke when she was drained by exertion and silence. He wanted to sit down with her teachers, he wanted them to tell him about her accomplishments, about her good behavior, about her passion for chemistry and sports, about the color and cut of her school uniform. He wanted to have a drink with her shop teacher and bond with her history teacher, gaze deeply into her assistant principal’s eyes and smother her homeroom teacher with kisses, he wanted to be in her life, be next to her, close enough to feel the blood flowing under her skin. He wanted to be privy to all her secrets and all the riddles she had tucked away in the depths of her memory, know all of her countless stories word perfect, correct her mistakes, dispel her doubts, become part of the action, explore her life like a suitcase found in the attic of someone else’s house, sit there and sift through precious evidence of other people’s emotions, other people’s laughter. He wanted to manage it all, he wanted to be involved in everything.