He stepped out from under the bridge, seeing his shadow on the pavement. He pulled his hands out of his coat pockets and then he ran. His footsteps echoed in the road but the man didn’t turn around. And when he was right behind him and the man wanted to turn around — he must have heard his footsteps now — he shoved him in the back with both hands, pushing so hard that the man fell. He stumbled over him, holding himself up by the wall, and the man doubled over, clutching his hands in front of his face. What are you doing, please, what …?
You filthy bastard. She was waiting for me, you filthy bastard. He kicked out at him, but then he saw it wasn’t the man who’d gone into the house before. He was much smaller, lying there on the ground, and his jacket was completely different. The man before hadn’t been wearing a yellow jacket.
Please … please …
He reached for the man’s jacket, feeling the wallet in the inside pocket, then he let him go and ran down the road, over to the other side of the little town, where the canal led to the port.
•
So you’re looking for Zids, said the man sitting opposite.
Yes, he said. He’d been with her again, only a few hours ago.
You’ve found him.
Good, he said. She’d smelled of sweat again, only very faintly, but he smelt it clearly and it didn’t go away when he laid his face against her hair and breathed into it.
What do you want from Zids? asked Zids. He had almost no accent.
I’ve been looking for you for a long time.
Zids laughed. I’ve been busy. What do you want?
You speak Lithuanian, don’t you?
Yes, said Zids, sometimes.
You’re Lithuanian, aren’t you?
Yes, said Zids. What do you want?
If you speak Lithuanian …
Yes, I do, said Zids.
You are Lithuanian?
Yes.
I want you to translate something for me.
Why? asked Zids.
Just because.
Zids laughed and leant back. Just because.
It’s very important, he said. He’d taken her bathrobe and undressed her. Come with me. He’d taken her hands and pulled her towards the bathroom. No. She stood before him naked, shaking her head. Three showers today, she said, stroking her hair and her skin. He took the small bundle of money and put a couple of notes on the chest in the hallway, then he opened the bathroom door and said: Come.
Very important,’ said Zids, drinking a slug of his beer. How important?
He took the couple of notes he had left and put one of them down on the table in front of Zids.
Hey, hey, hey! Zids picked up the note, folded it up and pushed it back at him. What do you take me for? Money? For nothing? Let’s play a bit of dice for your money, then I’ll translate whatever you want.
Just a few sentences. Please, he said. He’d stood under the shower and held her tight, stroking her black hair over and over. She trembled although the water was so hot it was steaming. Everything’s fine, Baiba, he said, I’m here.
Just one little game, said Zids, putting the dice shaker on the table. Then he picked it up and shook it next to his head like a bartender, and the dice rattled and shook. The two men standing by the counter came over to them.
Tavo gražūs plaukai, he whispered. He was lying in the dirt by the tracks. The man was punching him and he pressed his face into the ballast. No, no one was punching anyone. He was alone. He turned his head cautiously. He could hear trains nearby. Tu esi geras žmogus, he whispered. He didn’t know what that meant any more. Your hair is beautiful or you’re a good person. The piece of paper was gone. In her flat. Linkiu sėkmės, he whispered.
He laughed — he knew what that meant. Good luck. Something hurt inside him when he laughed. She didn’t want his piece of paper, she didn’t want his words — the words he’d got from Zids in her language. It was raining. It was cold and steam came out of his mouth. Now the drops turned white, melting on his coat and his face. The man slapped him in the face. No money, eh? Don’t want to leave? She stood by the calendar on the wall, gathering her bathrobe up over her breasts. Baiba, he said, and the man raised his hand but didn’t hit him. If she doesn’t want a shower, she doesn’t want a shower, he said. Was he Lithuanian like Zids? No, she’d said something to the man in Russian when he’d come into the flat. She’d spoken Russian when she was holding the receiver too. He’d been sitting on the couch, the piece of paper in his hand. Your hair is beautiful. She’d pointed at him when the man stood in the doorway. Baiba, he said, but she walked up to the man, pressed herself tight up against him, put an arm around him and spoke Russian, in a very fast, high voice, and pointed at him and the piece of paper he was still holding in his hand. Tavo gražūs …
How long had he been in this town now? Two weeks or longer? He thought of his wife and his workmates and the training course and the cash and carry. He felt like laughing but he was scared it would hurt again, somewhere inside him.
It’s cruel, he thought, dragging a person through the night like that. He was the deputy manager, actually the deputy of the deputy. Processed Foods section. Now he did laugh, and something dribbled over his chin. He heard the trains and felt his coat getting wet. She stood by the calendar and he looked over at her. 1995. A couple of horses.
CARRIAGE 29
I feel myself gradually waking up. I open my eyes. I’m in a train compartment. The train’s moving and I look over at the window but all I can see is the reflection of the compartment in the glass. I’m alone and it’s night outside.
I get up and pull down the blind. I don’t know what I’m doing on this train, I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where I’m coming from, I can’t remember any station. I’m a wine sales rep, I know that much, travelling from town to town for years now. I’ve been to France and Spain as well, but not by train. A white van, full of bottles and catalogues. I sit down again, trying to remember where the van is, where I am. Something’s happened but I can’t get hold of it. ‘A wonderful pinot noir,’ I say, ‘dry but very fruity, what ripeness, let it roll across your palate, feel it rolling, grown on the best slopes, you can drink it with anything, always, I’ll give you three hundred bottles of this wonderfully fruity pinot noir, a truly aristocratic wine, Prince Löwenstein vineyard, three hundred bottles for … or let’s say five hundred bottles, the good old prince gets better and better with age, you’ve got a flourishing business going, noblesse oblige, as they say …’ I grab hold of the holdall on the seat next to me; a couple of bottles clink together and I open the bag. Five litre-bottles of cheap red wine with screw caps, one of them almost empty, and I take it out and put it on the little table under the window. It’s pretty nasty plonk, I’ve never sold anything like that, and I shudder as I drink it, and the full bottles next to me in the bag clink again because the train’s moving with a judder now, and I rummage in the holdall, finding a vest, nothing else in there, and shove it between the bottles. Was it that clinking that scared me? I try to understand why; I’m a wine rep and a few clinking bottles shouldn’t scare me, but as I drink the cheap wine I get the feeling there must have been a monstrous, much louder clinking somewhere and sometime, it can’t be long ago, and I drink until the bottle’s empty. I screw the cap back on and start to put it in the bag, but then I put it back on the table. No, I’ve never sold such cheap plonk. I’ve got plenty of mid-range wines on offer, but good Rieslings as well … ‘Freimuth Spätlese 2002 vintage from the slopes of the Bischofsberg in Rüdesheim, in the beautiful Rheingau region near Wiesbaden. A wonderful Qualitätswein mit Prädikat, pressed and bottled by Alexander Freimuth himself. Do you know what we call the beautiful Rheingau? Teutonic Tuscany. I’ll give you two hundred bottles from the best vineyard in the German Tuscany for a special price of …’ I see images of towns, hotels, restaurants and corner bars, then vineyards I rep for, and the vines growing on either side like waves; I’m sitting in my white van and driving from town to town, wine samples and catalogues, and no trains and no stations.