On the third floor, he heard her voice from above. “Brani? You is there?”
He galloped the next flight to find her in her doorway, pink-cheeked, wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. Self-consciously, she pushed dark hair behind an ear, but, trimmed short, it wouldn’t stay.
Somehow, he had forgotten that she was taller than he. Her hesitant smile, which brought out a dimple, was glued to her face as she kissed his cheeks. He wanted to squeeze her entire body but was afraid that would scare her.
“So you really are here,” he said.
“We talked, no? You was too drunk to remember?” Even her high voice seemed different.
“I thought maybe you were a hallucination.”
“Well, I’m not,” she said, then cocked her head. “You stop writing. I don’t know how is your life.”
“Things didn’t go well for me back home. I thought it was a good idea to leave.”
“To come here.”
“To leave,” he said. “And what about you? How are the cards?”
For an instant, she didn’t understand. Her eyebrows came together, and her lower lip rolled out. Then she smiled. “Oh, tarot? No, no, Brani. I’m not do that anymore.”
“Why not?”
She laughed. “You want we go in?”
He laughed, too, easily, relieved.
Her apartment was airy, with wood floors and old, heavily padded furniture. Essentially the same as August, except for a new beige chair, where, with one knee propped up to support an acoustic guitar, sat a young man with a mustache and blond curly hair long enough to cover his ears. He nodded at Brano.
Brano nodded back.
“Wolfgang,” said Dijana as she walked on to the bathroom. “Introduce yourself to my boyfriend.” She said this in German.
Wolfgang’s face shifted, as if the bones beneath his skin had moved. He leaned the guitar against the arm of the chair, stood up, and stuck out a hand. “Gru? Gott.”
“Gru? Gott,” said Brano.
Wolfgang settled back down, opening a hand toward the sofa. Brano sat. They said nothing, half-smiling and listening to Dijana run water in the bathroom, humming. When she reappeared, she smiled at Brano. “You like my boyfriend?” she asked Wolfgang.
The young man stood up. “So I guess today’s lesson is cut short, Dee?”
Dijana nodded sternly. “Pa da.”
The men shook hands again, and Dijana walked Wolfgang to the door, closed it after him, and turned to look at Brano on the sofa.
He didn’t say anything at first, because her long body seemed unapproachable. There were so many things that Brano, the zbrka rising again, did not understand. He didn’t understand how he could be here in her apartment-how he ever could have been given access; he didn’t understand why she had sent away her handsome friend for him. He didn’t understand how she could be looking at him in that way. He supposed Cerny had always been right, and she was a spy. What else could explain her desire for an old man with a cold heart? But right now- right now, he didn’t care.
She squatted beside him. “Wolfgang, he manage the bar where I work. Jazzklub Abel, on other side of canal, at Gro?e Mohrengasse. Maybe you hear of it?”
Brano shook his head.
“Easy work, I wait the table.” She shrugged. “A real job, no? But I like people what is there. Musicians. Folk music. You like?”
“I don’t really know it.”
“Wolfgang, he teach me guitar. Just little. And I’m thinking maybe it’s not bad idea I learn to sing. What you think?”
She smiled hugely, waiting for his approval. He couldn’t say anything for a moment, because she was here, finally, with him. She smiled a lot-he’d forgotten that-and her teeth were large and clean and straight. He felt like he’d been drinking, but he hadn’t been.
“I think it’s a great idea, Dijana.”
“Dobro,” she said. Good.
“And you’re finished with the tarot cards?”
She nodded seriously.
“Why?”
“Because it’s silly,” she said, standing again. “That’s something what you know. Okay, I thought maybe there is something in it. You know. Something like truth. But I change a lot since August. Da. First you come. Then Bertrand die. And tarot, it seem… I don’t know. Stupid. Wolfgang, he say to me about tarot, You know, Dijana, that is old world. Is true. This is new world.”
“You’re brand-new.”
“And my hair?” Hesitantly, she touched it. “You like my hair?”
“I love it,” said Brano.
They talked, and Brano slowly readjusted to the peculiar rhythms of her speech, the forgotten flow of her thoughts. She laughed regularly, and while in his career he often associated laughter with nervousness, this was not the case with Dijana. She simply found more things in this world funny than he did.
As she told him more about her life, the job, the music, the friends, and even her developing interest in Buddhism, Brano realized that they were just as unlike as before, perhaps more so. Her evenings were spent in smoky music clubs discussing political hymns and peace marches and mysticism. His evenings were spent planning his survival. And she was young-even Cerny had pointed this out. A woman in her midtwenties was still jumping around the spectrum, trying to find something that would settle her nerves and guide her through the zbrka of modern life. She had left her own country behind, which only added to her need. The tarot cards hadn’t done it, so now she was throwing herself into the world of popular music and Eastern religion. That, no doubt, would not satisfy her either, and she would be faced with more years of dissatisfaction.
He watched her face as she explained to him the idea behind reincarnation, and to avoid making an expression that betrayed his real opinion, he stopped listening and noticed how her cheeks puffed up when she spoke, her fingertips tapped the table, and her neck, just visible above her turtleneck, was very pale.
“You know what?” she said.
“What?”
“You listening to anything I saying.”
He remembered that that night in August she had often confused “anything” with “nothing.” He laughed, then she laughed. “You’re right,” he said.
She stood up. “Is okay. But you must to go now.”
“Go?”
“ Pa da. I have things I must to do.”
He patted his thighs and stood up, warmth rushing to his face. He started to look for his coat but realized he’d never taken it off. She walked him to the door. “Really, you are here?”
“Really, I am.”
Then she reached her arms around him, squeezed, and kissed him on the lips. She tasted of chewing gum, but he hadn’t seen her using any. Her lips parted, and he felt her large, strong teeth against his tongue, then her tongue entered his mouth. He held her tight until she let him go.
“I not drunk this time, dragi. Yes, but not now, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, nodding dumbly. “But when?”
“I just-” she began. “Only not so fast. Okay?” When she smiled again her shoulders settled.
Then she closed the door.
When he left the building, Brano spotted the sunburned man putting away his camera. Brano caught his eye by waving and, inexplicably, blew the man a kiss.
