'What are you doing this afternoon? Do you know you could spend it in the company of a fascinating man. .' No, that wouldn't work. She wouldn't even respond. He stared at his textbook. The fasciola and opisthorchis genus: heart-shaped bodies with two suckers. .
'You must be made from the foam of the sea. Let me look at you for a moment. Just a single moment! Just gaze!' She would hardly refuse. But it would look as though he were totally infatuated with her.
'You have a head like a hoopoe.'
'Like a what?'
'Hoopoe!'
A slightly bewildered laugh.
'It's a bird. With a magnificent head. Though nothing to compare with yours!' That sounded promising.
The term's lectures were finished and they no longer all went to lunch together. Some days they didn't set foot outside the student residence but lived on bread and tinned cod in tomato sauce, with poppy-seed buns and potted mushrooms from their mothers, while chatting away about the four features of the dialectic, the unfortunate Belinda Lee, the latest show at the Semafor, about how Fuchs yelled so loudly the last time he failed his annual exams that the cleaning woman on the floor below dropped a jar containing a rare specimen of Chinese crab and the crab and the alcohol skidded over the floor as if alive and the old dear nearly had a heart attack.
Then there was only a day and a night left before the exam. Mulling things over, they revised worms in their heads — he had just got to the order of brachiopods, stupid little sea worms he'd probably never lay eyes on. Maybe today of all days she had come on her own — it would make a wonderful change from these wretched worms! But on the day before the exam?
He thought he might shave, at least. Then he polished his shoes. After all, the canteen was only twenty minutes away. He put on a new shirt — the latest style. He looked quite interesting (he might just borrow a silver cigarette-lighter), he'd enough money, a full hundred crowns he'd been saving for emergencies.
The day was unbearably hot, and the crowded tram was sweaty. He cursed all the idiots around him and resolved that if
he actually managed to catch her he would speak to her, even if the dean himself was sitting at the same table.
He saw her from afar — her bright green blouse, the light blond hair. She was sitting at the wobbly table, and the chair opposite was empty.
He quickly collected a lunch and made his way over to her with his plate.
In her low neck-line hung a decorative coin on a bronze chain; her skin was smooth, so fine and smooth. 'Is this place free?'
She looked up in surprise. 'Watch out,' she said. 'You're spilling your soup.'
He tried to match her table manners, but she had had a head start and two dumplings remained on his plate when she finished her meal. There was no time to waste. 'On your own today?' What a daft thing to say. How utterly trivial. 'I suppose he's examining,' he added quickly.
'I've no idea.' She stacked her plates and stood up.
'Wait,' he blurted out. 'What would you say to an afternoon stroll?'
'A what?'
'What else are you doing this afternoon?'
'Going fishing.'
'That's no fun.'
'What do you suggest?'
'Something you've never experienced before. An original and unforgettable evening!'
'You were talking about the afternoon a moment ago.' She picked up the plates with one hand and her handbag with the other and walked away — those short, brisk steps of the ideal secretary.
He hurried after her, up the staircase and then along the hot,
overcrowded street. This chance would never come again. He tried desperately to come up with something clever, witty and slightly ironic to say, something charmingly self-assured — but remained silent.
The lights at the intersection were red. 'Well,' she said with her eyes fixed on the red light, 'will we be going in the same direction for much longer?'
'For ever,' he said, despairingly, 'unless you want to destroy me utterly!'
They crossed the intersection, a taxi appeared from the direction of the Powder Tower. She hailed it resolutely.
The driver leaned over the front seat lazily and half opened the back door.
He dashed to hold it open from outside.
'Where to?' asked the man behind the wheel as she got in.
'The Golden Well,' he said, then quickly jumped in and the taxi drove off.
Tight-lipped, she stared ahead. He now caught a slight scent of lilac and was overjoyed: it must have worked. Action is always better than blathering.
The car crossed the river, turning several times into ever narrower streets. 'Sixteen crowns!' declared the driver and quickly cleared the meter.
'Thanks for the lift,' she said. 'Your cheek really is something extraordinary!'
He felt flattered. 'So come on up! There's no point hanging about down here.'
'A truly unusual afternoon,' she said, scornfully. 'Sitting on a terrace and gawking at our city's famous "hundred towers". And a glass of wine with you into the bargain! Was that the best you could dream up?'
'I would have dreamt up something better, but you didn't give me enough time.'
'Well you have plenty now.'
'Okay, I'll think up something original. But let's go and sit on the terrace first.'
After they had climbed the 160 steps he called over the waiter and coolly ordered a bottle of champagne — I'll find out what it tastes like, at least.
The city was truly beautiful. Some of the windows shone like flame and small, old-fashioned tram cars moved soundlessly along the distant embankment. The familiar towers soared upwards and a haze of smoke and exhaust fumes hung over everything.
'We could introduce ourselves,' he suggested.
'Such an incredibly original gambit,' she said. 'My name's none of your business. And yours doesn't interest me in the least.'
He raised his glass, determined not to be put off. 'You're extraordinary. Really extraordinary. And fascinating.'
She looked past him and over the low railing at the dark, sooty roofs. 'And now tell me what you really want.'
'I told you. To spend the afternoon and the evening with you!'
'What would be the point?'
'I don't know. . We could both be happy, perhaps.'
'You can stop that kind of talk. I've heard it too many times.'
Won't you tell me something about yourself?'
'No!'
'Are you a student?'
She remained silent.
'Do you love him?'
'Stop it!'
'You're not happy, are you?'
'You say the same thing to every girl and she's amazed you could possibly know. Is that it?'
'But you're not. I can tell!'
'You can stop talking like that immediately — or I'll leave you to sit here on your own.'
He paid for the wine. The tip alone would have bought three lunches at the canteen. He had scarcely forty crowns left.
'Now I hope you'll let me go,' she said at the bottom of the steps. But the question already contained the answer. After all, there was nothing to stop her leaving, there was no need to ask him. Now was the moment to come up with some brilliant subject. Or an anecdote. But he had spent the last days deep in worms.