At a time when no one but Matija Dolenčec cared about this, he was prepared to do almost anything to write one more good story.
Almost anything. But not to delve into himself.
2.
Dina was hardly a femme fatale for Matija. If anything might be deemed fatal, it was the way he managed to smash the relationship to pieces. In her he had a lover, a fan, a friend, and his greatest ally, all in one. He didn’t cause their downfall of his own free will. Rather, he’d let the mask he’d been wearing for two decades—the one he’d mended and tweaked daily—crack, and the things that belonged to him alone, things he’d managed to repress, slipped through. Matija, perhaps because of the dread that he himself was a fabrication, was compelled to reconstruct the biography of every person he spoke with for more than ten minutes, and was uninterested in finding out whether he was right or not. Dina was the only person whose truth he cared enough about that he didn’t dare ask her whether his reconstruction was right.
They met at a gala celebrating a women’s disease, organized by an international pharmacy chain; Dina Gajski was second-in-command in their public relations office. It was the spring of 2008, shortly after Matija’s second book came out. When someone introduced them, they shook hands and politely said, “Pleased to meet you.” An hour later, they bumped into each other again outside the bathrooms. She pointed at him and said, “Matija, right?”
He pointed back and said the wrong name. She said she probably wouldn’t have remembered his name, either, except it sounded familiar, and she remembered she’d seen his photograph on the jacket of a book she hadn’t bought. Now that she’d met the author, she’d go back and buy it. He feigned embarrassment, told her he’d send her both books with a dedication as a gift. The party was loud, they were close together, and he felt her warm breath on his face. Its scent landed in his perfectly fuckable Venn diagram of chewing gum, warm dinner roll, and booze. She said something about food that he didn’t hear because he was searching for something to say, before it was too late, to bridge the gaps in polite conversation that led to forgetting. The best he could come up with was: “Admit it, you were hiding in the bathroom. You have the air of the most popular girl at school, but you’re not really comfortable here.”
She looked at him, serious but not surprised. He seemed to be saying the same thing as a voice already in her head.
“Yes, you saw right through me. And what’s your excuse for venturing from your ivory tower?”
“All the beautiful people here! What else?”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why? Look at them. I’m conducting a brief survey as I mingle. Did you know that more than half the people here have no idea what this event is for?”
“You’re no better. You sound like you came to observe the jet set just to convince yourself you’re superior.”
“Does it sound better if I say I’m here because I’m contractually obliged to appear at events like this, but they’re more bearable when I think I might meet someone like you at one of them?”
“Yes, that is better. But not good enough.”
Neither of them spoke to anyone else that evening. Matija nabbed a bottle of Plavac and two glasses from the nearest table, and they left the restaurant and sat on the steps outside. In the shadow of a neighboring corporate tower, Dina could not be seen by her colleagues as they entered and exited the building, so they talked for another two hours. Totally alien creatures passed by, bipeds sucking the food stuck between their teeth, making little whimpering noises, talking about cholesterol, enemas, Buddhism, then getting into their leased cars enveloped in clouds of stale perfume and garlic from the gnocchi sauce. They’d pause to fart at some point between exiting the restaurant and sliding into the car.
“Well, that’s that. We’re out of Plavac. And I’ve got to go home,” Dina announced.
“The kids’ cartoon shows are over for the night, so time for bed. I should be going myself—I start stuttering when I get fewer than six hours of sleep.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. So look, hey, why don’t we trade phone numbers, and then one of us can call the other if so inspired? We’ll have more to say about kids’ shows sooner or later. Thoughts?”
“Well, okay. I’ve got a better idea. Here goes. We bump into each other in town somewhere and go out for ice cream. Or try to find a mutual friend so we have an excuse to run into each other. Look, as far as these little dating games go, I’m not interested. I’m pretty binary with stuff like this. If you’re unsure, if you need time to think it over, write me little notes, discuss things over coffee, then sorry. Get my drift?”
“Well, no, I’m—”
“You’re what? In my head everything’s crystal clear. I’m a big girl—no time for bullshit. Can’t can, Superman. Capisce?”
“Oof, I thought that might be lurking inside you somewhere. Suits me. Like when the swan developed a crush on a swan boat.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. I want that, too, of course, I’m just trying not to be pushy, intrusive, whatever. You’re a nice person. Forget it. You know what I’m saying… I was prepared to play the game for your sake, not mine.”
“If it’s for my sake, then don’t.”
The next day, they exchanged thirty text messages before noon, got together at lunch for an orange fizz, and then met again three hours later for a beer. At ten she went back to her place, and he went to his, just to shower and pick up what he’d need for the next day.
For the next three months, they didn’t spend two nights in a row apart. She’d been single for a few months after a two-year long-distance relationship, and he’d just broken off a friends-with-benefits thing with a former colleague from the university. Whatever the random sequence of events by which two people fall hopelessly in love, whatever the strange guideposts human nature follows in this clumsy business… one thing is clear: Dina and Matija were partners in crime. They goaded each other and sparred like warriors in training. Neither was brave enough alone, but under the scrutiny of their fellow combatant, they were emboldened for destruction.
Jerk, all day long I think about you. I even smell like you. If this keeps up, I’ll lose my job.
So be it. Who gives a fuck? Let’s go down to the Adriatic and start a monopoly selling seashells on the street. We have too little time together now. You leave the apartment, I brush my teeth and count the hours till you’re done with work. I take a shower and count the days till the weekend. I don’t know what this is. Nothing matters anymore.
For me either. Think we’ll ever watch a movie to the end?
Sure. Yesterday, on the third try, we made it all the way to where the little curly haired Scot’s dad is murdered by the English, and the grimy little girl hands him the flower. Almost to the end!
You’re the only one who saw that, I already had my back to the screen. I rubbed my knees raw :-).
What’s that? A kiss? Or an asshole?
Your call.
Before he denied himself her company, Dina was an endless source of new insights into humankind for Matija. He relished her every contradiction and with each new day threw himself, happily, into a puzzle he knew he’d never solve, as readily as he’d always done with the fictitious or real people whose lives he’d invented.
The first peculiar trait he liked was that she carried some of the difficult things from her childhood completely openly, and held them out for all to see, while she buried others that seemed nowhere near as fucked up in that warm darkness of hers.