Moshe rolled awake. He looked up and across at Nana. Nana was looking at him. He asked her what the time was. Nana told him. She leaned over Anjali and kissed Moshe.
Nana, about to leave for ever, said she would make Moshe some coffee.
4
It is not easy — breaking up. There is very rarely a right time. In fact, I do not know when the right time would ever be. This particular break-up took place at eight in the morning. That is not a great time. And Nana was naked. She was in the kitchen, filling the kettle. Moshe followed her. He was naked too.
The only good thing, thought Nana, was that Anjali was not there. At least Anjali was still asleep. Because it is hard enough breaking up with one person, let alone having another person interjecting and explaining.
She said, ‘Moshe.’ And she paused. Moshe was silent, yawning. So Nana said, ‘I, umean I’m not sure this is right.’ And Moshe said, ‘Wha?’ He said, ‘Wha?’ and then yawned again.
She walked into the bedroom and scooped up a bundle of her clothes. She walked back into the kitchen. She chucked them on to the worktop.
She said, ‘Mosh look I do love you. This isn’t me rejecting you but. You musn’t think this is a rejection. I’ve just been thinking more and more that I want to be with Papa. And you and Anj. You and Anjli should be together.’
Moshe said, ‘Wha?’ He was sleepy, Moshe. He had only just got up. Moshe was not at his intellectual best, at eight in the morning.
Nana said, ‘I’m sorry I jus it’s just I think we need to be apart fra bit. Or I do. Jus for now. An maybe. Maybe we can. I jus don’t want you to be hurt.’ She paused. She said, ‘I’m sorry I’m being like this.’
And Moshe said, ‘I don see why. I. I don see why. I don see why we need to give this up.’
It is particularly difficult — breaking up — when you do not entirely want to. And Nana wanted to break up, she really did. She wanted to be with her Papa. But she was still in love with Moshe. She still thought that Moshe was lovely. It was just that now Nana thought that he was happier with Anjali.
So Moshe was not helping her — making it a delicate conversation. Making it a conversation at all was a problem for Nana. He was not meant to be weighing up the pros and cons. He was not meant to be reasonable. She wanted out. She wanted to leave for ever. She did not want a conversation. In a conversation, you have to explain things. You have to say that you want to leave for ever. And Nana did not want to say this. That was partly because Nana was kind. She did not want to be hurtful. It was also because it was not entirely true.
The problem with breaking up with someone, if you are a little unsure — and so often, people are unsure — is that breaking up involves persuasion. You have to persuade your ex that it is better this way for everyone. And this is difficult if you have not entirely persuaded yourself. It is especially tricky to do this if you are also naked, and making two cups of coffee.
Nana handed Moshe a coffee. He wandered off with it into the living room. And Nana followed. She gathered her clothes and she followed.
‘But I love you,’ said Moshe.
Personally, I think this was a very good argument. It might sound a bit cliched of Moshe, but I think he has got to the bottom of this. It was true. He loved her. It is a good reason for not breaking up with someone.
He was sitting on the futon. He was not feeling very happy. He was not happy being naked, in this way, while a six-foot and beautiful girl broke up with him. So Moshe artfully and casually draped Nana’s shirt over his body. This concealed the fatty folds and creases that nipped and tucked as he sat down.
Nana pulled on some black trousers. Then she stopped. It felt wrong, getting dressed, in this crisis. It felt a bit heartless. So she stopped.
For the rest of this section, therefore, Nana was topless and her flies were undone. This meant that Moshe could see the turquoise lace of her knickers. Her knickers were from the ritzy end of the MS range.
There was a mini mirror on the table and Nana prised it up with her thumbnail. The mirror had a stainless-steel case. On the case, the word ‘Mirror’ was printed. She pushed it back down. She said, ‘Moshe.’ He put his hand round his baggy testicles, coyly, feeling naked. He felt very very naked. Nana picked up a new lipstick she had bought yesterday called Moxie. Moxie was red like Ruby Woo but lighter. It did not seem so interesting now. It did not seem interesting at all. And Moshe looked at the portable clock, standing on a wicker place mat on the living room’s drop- leaf table. The clock had fluorescent yellow hands. It was eight thirty. Moshe said, ‘You’re late.’
She said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He said, ‘No it’s important, you should go. We can. We can talk later.’ She said, ‘It’s only a dentist Mosh.’ He said, ‘I know, simportant.’
I am not being silly here. He was suddenly obsessed with her teeth. It seemed suddenly so melancholy and important. It seemed essential to be considerate. If he seemed considerate, thought Moshe, then maybe Nana might reconsider. She might realise how nice he was, if he was nice.
Moshe said, ‘Look therz something you’re sad about. So tell me.’ She said, ‘No look really there’s nothing. It’s nothing else. I just wan. I don’t know.’ He said, ‘No, tell me.’
This was not the most articulate exchange, but there it is. It is what happens in these situations. They are very rarely scripted.
Moshe stood up and went to the window. He was not enjoying this early-morning scene. What it needed, he thought, was elegance. It needed to be elegant and subtle. It especially needed Moshe to be elegant and subtle. He needed to save the situation. But he could not see how he would do this. He was naked. He stood at the window and watched. Outside, a boy was walking along, holding a tennis racket over his head. It was a Wilson tennis racket. The plastic leather-look cover was his improvised raincoat.
Moshe felt very sorry for this rained-on boy.
Oh, poor Moshe. Soon, very soon, he will have to realise that breaking up is not elegant. It is never elegant and fun. It is lots of lies and evasions. Of course this scene did not have the elegant 1930s class he might have hoped for. No, instead, naked Moshe was just confused. He stood there — mooching, moody, devastated.
And Nana was mooching too. She was thinking about
Anjali again, abandoned in the bedroom next door. The last thing Nana wanted was Anjali to come into the living room, to hear Moshe and Nana discussing a break-up. But on the other hand, she thought, Moshe and Nana still needed to talk this through. It had been too one-sided. Moshe had not had his say.
Oh, poor Nana. She did not know what to do. She said, ‘Do you want to come to the dentist with me?’
Moshe looked at her. It was not the break-up he was expecting. Well, obviously he was not expecting any breakup really. But if he were asked what a break-up was, it did not involve a visit to the dentist.
He said, ‘The dentist?’ She said, ‘Well if you don wantto, you could just walk me to the tube. It’s just. I don wan Anjali to hear. I don think that’d be fair.’
It was not a bad idea, Moshe could see that. It was reasonable.
There was an interlude of comical slow-motion real-time dressing. Then Nana and Moshe left. Without an umbrella, they went out into the rain.
5
In 1920, when the Civil War was taking place in Communist Russia, Nikolai Bukharin wrote a small book called Economics of the Transition Period. Nikolai was a Bolshevik. So he was quite in favour of the recent revolution. In his book, he tried to explain why everything was going smoothly. He tried to explain that, while it might look like the country was falling apart, in fact everything was fine. The revolution was fine. Some people might be dying, the proletariat might be dying, but that was all part of the plan.