It was five in the morning. Mark took the rifle off the wall and stepped out of the hut. He fired a few shots in the air to announce the death to the village.
In the days that follow, Hana can’t stop thinking about the walk with Patrick along the Potomac. She has succeeded in having an almost normal conversation with a man, and the awe he inspired in her now feels like a fledgling sense of self-confidence.
After all, she’s lived in the US now for a good year and a half, and she has made it. She hasn’t had, and still doesn’t have, the ability or the ambition to understand herself. That’s another matter altogether. Putting together all the pieces of her puzzle: this was and is her project. While she eats her solitary dinners, she thinks with a certain pride of how far this project has taken her.
She had the balls to do it. They still hurt from the effort. She smiles at the paradox. She’s made it on her own. That’s all that counts. The rest, the world, can wait. She is Hana, the Hana of her stories and of the skirts that sit badly on her hips. The world outside can wait. Take your time, please.
She feels replete, a little dizzy without drinking a drop, crazy and wise. She sings out loud and strides around the apartment like a general.
‘Get a grip,’ she admonishes herself. ‘And cut all this pride crap. Take it easy.’
She observes herself from the outside severely. ‘Be normal, for God’s sake.’
Nine days later, Patrick calls again. They decide to meet that evening. It is Monday. She has the morning shift at the bookstore so she has all the time in the world to get ready. She wants to be relaxed and in control of herself. She wants him to notice a change in her.
Even a relationship as weird as this one has its purpose, she tries to convince herself. The fact that she sought him out or that he wanted to listen wasn’t such a prodigiously big thing after all. People continue to tell stories, thank God. And thank God some people continue to trust others and sometimes that trust is not betrayed. Hana steels herself: whatever Patrick has in mind for that evening, she is ready. Her newfound serenity will not be lost.
Now is the time to tell Lila why she’s been lying low for the past few weeks. When Lila hears her voice she’s overjoyed.
‘I thought you had left town. I’ve missed you so much, I have a million things to tell you. I would have come over this evening anyway, I couldn’t wait any longer.’
Hana tells her cousin she won’t be home this evening so she had better tell her now. Lila talks as if a dam has opened. At the hospital where she has a cleaning job they said they could help her. They offered to fund part of her nursing course — only if she makes all her grades, of course.
‘I have to fill in a pile of paperwork,’ she says breathlessly.
Hana congratulates her. ‘I told you you’d find a way.’
‘The Human Resources manager says I have good potential,’ Lila yells down the phone. ‘Are you sure we can’t meet this evening? What do you have on that’s so important?’
Hana confesses she’s going out to dinner with a man. Lila is struck dumb.
‘What? A man?’
‘I’m not going out with a monkey, if that’s what you mean,’ Hana answers, laughing. The floodgates open again and Lila gives her the third degree. To save time and effort, Hana feeds her the name Patrick.
‘The guy with the business card? The journalist?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘When did you see him?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘A few — how many?’
‘A couple of months ago.’
‘You are evil, Hana Doda, you are a real …’
Hana hangs up on her before Lila goes into paroxysms.
Patrick hugs her tenderly and sensitively. He puts her hands together and holds them tight. He knows what he’s doing; he wants to find the right way to handle her.
He says he’d just like to see her every now and then. Without stress. He’d like to spend time with her, as much as she wants. It’s simple. To be friends without worrying whether there’s anything unbalanced in the relationship.
She stares at him as he speaks without saying a word.
‘So?’ he laughs. ‘You’re not going to take weeks to answer, are you? I just want to clear up a few things. I’m not looking to have some kind of outlandish affair because that’s not what you need.’
Hana has trouble mustering an appropriate response. She’s panicking again, and she confesses as much. His response is perfectly sensible and that’s why, in the days to come, she is sure she’ll be wondering where the hitch is. She’s not used to this. She doesn’t believe in the perfect man. Not even in novels.
‘How many women in the world … ’ She leaves the sentence incomplete. Then she goes on, almost bitterly: ‘There must be something wrong with you. You can’t be perfect. Your perfection scares me — and it’s irritating too.’
Patrick laughs. And the drop in tension helps her.
‘Hana,’ he says. ‘I’m not desperate and I’m not trying to trick you into anything! Don’t worry, I have plenty of defects. Perfect? Me?’
She tells him she’s scared. Before he arrived, and in the last few days, she was calm. Now she’s feeling nervous, so it’s better if she doesn’t say anything else, or she’ll just talk garbage. He looks at her incredulously, but still with a twinkle of fun.
‘Tell me the truth,’ she pleads. ‘You’re regretting this now, right? I can see it. It’s not a matter of regretting things, or being convinced about what we’re doing. I just know this isn’t going to work. Pretending to be something I’m not, deceiving each other. It’s no good. It can’t work.’
Patrick gets up slowly and looks away. She follows closely behind. At the door she feels a sudden desire to curl up right inside him, but she doesn’t let him read her thoughts. She lets him kiss her forehead while she kisses him all over in her mind.
‘I’m sorry, Patrick. I’ve messed up again.’
He’s already out of the door, shaking his head without a glance back at her. He gestures goodbye and runs down the stairs. He has left his bunch of flowers in the apartment.
You’re fucked, Hana tells herself. You’ll never learn. You’re totally in the shit, ruined for life. All he did was ask you to be his friend and you acted like he was proposing till death do us part. God, you’re such an idiot. Worse than last time getting drunk and all that. What the hell do you want from him?
The question is loaded, and she decides to give herself a break that evening, because she knows damn well what the answer is, and it fills her with embarrassment.
She dials Lila’s number again. If she spends another minute thinking on her own she’ll lose it, there and then.
‘Lila, I like him too much.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I sent him away. I messed up.’
‘You’re crazy! Weren’t you two going out to dinner? Why did you do that?’
‘Because everything he says makes too much sense. Come over. I need you here.’
Two months later Hana gathers her courage and calls Patrick on his cell phone. It’s the beginning of September and it’s still warm.
She needs to apologize to him, she tells herself, and be forgiven. She suggests going out to a quiet restaurant in Georgetown on the canal, if he wants and if he has time.
After saying sorry to a passerby for bumping into him, Patrick says he accepts her apologies, but is still doubtful about the rest. ‘What do we have to say to one another?’
She waits for more. He doesn’t provide it.
It feels like a slap and it hurts. She swallows the pain.
‘Patrick?’
‘Yes?’
‘Please.’
Silence.
‘This evening I happen to be free. I hope that is ok with you because tomorrow I’m going out of town and I’ll be away for a good while.’