The subject turns to Rike’s teaching, this man, another unknown, dropped into the conversation (she thinks a little meanly) by Isa, announced as her Norwegian.
‘So what are you teaching? English?’
‘I am.’
‘Anything else?’ Mattaus winks at Henning. Henning, to his credit, doesn’t respond.
Rike also doesn’t trouble herself with such a weak parry.
‘Is he cute?’
‘He’s a student.’
‘But how hot is he? What’s his name? Maybe I know him.’ Mattaus and Isa share a smile. This is Mattaus, pure and simple, each person an opportunity, actual or potential, every man measured by his availability.
‘Tomas Berens. He’s Norwegian. And yes, he is your type.’
Mattaus raises his eyebrows. ‘My type?’
‘Male. Breathing.’
‘Berens. Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘A literary man?’
Rike shakes her head. ‘He works for the UN.’
‘Apparently,’ Isa interrupts, ‘he’s a little damaged.’
Mattaus immediately perks up.
Isa begins the story about the assault. Rike looks to Henning. Deeply interested in the salad, he doesn’t take part.
‘I told you that in confidence.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Isa gives a little snort.
‘You can’t tell her anything,’ Mattaus laughs, ‘you know that.’
‘Tell him about the murder. Tell him the story he told you.’
‘There isn’t a story.’ Again Rike looks to Henning.
‘Tell me. Tell me, tell me. I demand.’
Rike keeps her explanation blunt and to the point. ‘Two or three years ago they found evidence of a murder in the basement of his building.’
‘Evidence?’
‘Blood. Blood and some clothes. The room was covered in plastic.’
Mattaus’s head jots back a fraction. ‘Hang on. I know this.’ For one moment he looks puzzled, then a smile spreads across his face. ‘Wait. I remember. I’ve seen this. It’s from a film. It’s a movie.’ He uses the American word, deliberately. ‘Oh my god. It’s a movie.’
Rike feels a familiar weight. Doesn’t it always go like this? Mattaus and Isa on one side, Henning disengaged, then Rike, distant, on the opposite bank. Everything I say becomes about them.
Isa holds the salad spoon in one hand and picks from the bowl with the other. ‘Wait? What? Again? He’s done this before.’
Mattaus’s eyes brighten with delight. ‘It’s a film. It’s the plot of a film. And you believed him?’
Rike’s voice is small, swallowed by Mattaus’s laughter. ‘It’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.’
‘It’s definitely a film. Wait. Oh, God. I can’t remember. OK. Did they find his tongue in a bag?’
Rike rises from the table, takes Henning’s plate, looks to the kitchen. The bowls set out for pasta, for sauce, the water already boiling. What she feels is shame, why can’t she just let go enough to join in? Play with Mattaus’s absurd idea, to push it further along.
Isa is trying to remember if she’s seen this film. It does sound familiar now he mentions it. Only, no? She looks up, confused. ‘I’m sure I’ve read it. Ages ago. God. I can’t remember anything these days. I read a book I’d finished about three weeks ago. Didn’t remember until I got to the end.’
This, to Mattaus, is endlessly funny.
Henning straightens his napkin, cringes at the peal of laughter, but won’t engage, won’t even look at Isa. He seems, instead, to be somewhere else entirely.
‘So Rike, tell me. Rike, listen,’ Mattaus shouts across the room, ‘what else has he told you? Come on. Share.’
Rike sets the plates in the sink. She lines the bowls equidistant from each other. Looks for the salt to add to the boiling water. She’s already taken the packet of fresh pasta out of the fridge so that it won’t cool the water down too much.
‘Rike. Come on. What else has he told you?’
The pasta will take three minutes once the water has boiled. On the packet it says five minutes, but three is long enough given the time it takes to drain, pour into a bowl, and be kept piping hot with the sauce.
‘What did he do last Christmas, Rike? Was he a caretaker in a hotel? Was he writing his novel with his wife and child? Red rum, red rum.’
It takes Isa a moment to get the reference, once she does she gives a hard and mean laugh.
‘Oh, I’m in trouble!’ Mattaus roars. ‘She’s ignoring me.’
Rike prefers to put the whole cloves of roasted garlic into the sauce, although the recipe calls for you to mash them in, so that the flavour carries throughout the sauce, but she likes it better this way.
‘Better watch out!’
Rike tips the pasta into the water and watches it settle, the water froths and quietens.
Mattaus moves along, answers a question from Isa that Rike does not catch, and begins to recount his week, how they spend only the mornings and early afternoons together because business keeps his friend away, he isn’t even sure what this business was, decorating is a broad field, who knows, maybe he works as an international spy?
‘You said he was an architect.’ Isa looks a little puzzled. ‘He works at night?’
‘Interiors. Interior architecture. Remodelling? I don’t know.’
‘What’s his name?’ Rike turns from the pot of pasta. ‘You haven’t told us.’
‘His name?’ Mattaus looks unaccountably blank.
‘He has a name. You won’t tell us. What’s his name?’
Mattaus scoffs, but Henning and Isa are quiet and interested, and look to him with an encouraging come on.
His name, and here comes the blow, is Lexi.
Olexei.
Henning stiffens, sucks energy right out of the air to galvanize himself, say, politely, ‘Sorry?’ as if he hasn’t heard.
Olexei.
Russian.
The name sparks for Rike. He’s fucking a Russian. How could this get any better? Best of all, Isa can’t figure out her reaction and flutters from the bemused oh? of the recently slapped to the confusion of someone who being cursed in a foreign language understands the intent but not the specifics.
Olexei?
Henning folds his napkin. Leans forward, incredulous.
Mattaus has ditched Franco for a Russian. A Russian decorator, for christsakes.
Rike turns off the heat, leaves the pasta in the water.
This can only get better.
Mattaus tries to move things along by talking about the sincerity of the relationship.
‘He doesn’t believe in taking things fast.’
This information, Rike is certain, wasn’t supposed to slip out. She doesn’t understand why he didn’t just make up a name: Markus, Stefan, Tomas. Something generic. After the revelation prompted by the name, and with no hope offered that Lexi might be, say, a stage name, a nom de plume, a whimsical nickname or some family foible — as in, all the firstborn Kieserholzen males are named Olexei, nobody knows why. No. Genius that he is, Mattaus gives the man’s real name. The facts confirm the problem: Olexei comes from a place once known as Gorki, known now as Nizhny, or Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s fifth largest city, which makes him definitively Russian. He couldn’t be more Russian.
‘So?’
The possibility that Mattaus doesn’t quite understand the infringement, or his predicament, isn’t an option. The man grasps for something, explains, falteringly: ‘We’re taking it easy at the moment. We’re both out of relationships, and because we’re both, you know, neither of us is new at this, and we really want to give it a chance, a better chance by not rushing.’