'Does it make a difference?'
'Did you torture her with hunger, too?'
'No, things were different in those days.'
'Things are always different. Why are you lying down again? You don't mean to stay here, do you?'
He broke into a sweat. He shouldn't have drunk so much water. But it didn't matter. He tried to listen carefully to the sounds from the corridor and from outside, but the music drowned out everything else.
'What are you scared of, in fact?' she asked. 'Did you kill someone over there?'
'Maybe people who kill are better off than people who don't.'
'Do you think so?' She was beautiful once more.
Blood trickled from the scratches on his chest. He thought he heard some footsteps, close by. Then someone seized the door handle. He started to panic. 'Could you switch that radio off for a moment?'
His eyes were glued to the door handle. It didn't move.
Maybe they won't come, while she's here. 'Do you love me a bit?'
'At this moment I'm hungry,' she said.
'Will you leave without me?'
She took him by the hand. 'Come on,' she said. 'Come on.'
As if there was any point eating. He listened for footsteps in the corridor. One step, another and then a strange knocking sound. One step, another and then the knock. 'Can you hear?' he asked and held his breath.
'I don't want to stay here any more!' She let go of his hand.
Someone had stopped in front of the door and was quietly sliding a key into the lock.
She turned towards him and a look a horror came on her face.
'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'I'll protect you.'
'You're bleeding,' she noticed. 'How come you're bleeding?'
She leaned towards him and kissed his chest.
He felt her lips suck at his chest, he felt her cool fingertips and he felt his bleeding slow. 'My darling,' he whispered. He knew they were touching each other for the last time. This was the last time he would say those words to her. She was leaving. She didn't need his protection or his love. She didn't need his return or his sacrifice. She was leaving like the rest, like everything. It was impossible to hold on to things, it was impossible to return. Nothing could be returned, that was the only certainty, the chilling, depressing certainty that everything would pass, including this moment and this anxiety. He could calmly close his eyes. And peace really began to envelop him and he was deaf even to the thumping of strangers' fists on the door. He sank into the bed.
They came in. There were two of them. The first was the
desk clerk, now dressed in blue overalls, the second was a young man with bright ginger hair, who walked with a stick. In his left hand he carried a large travelling bag.
'So what's going on?' said the first of the men. 'What's up with you? You should have vacated the room ages ago.'
She stood up and hastily wiped her mouth. With the other hand she pulled up the covers to hide her lover's nakedness. 'We were sleeping, that's all. He's still asleep,' she said and walked quickly past the two men and out of the door, as if she were ashamed that they had found her still there. The desk clerk went over to the bed. 'Wakey, wakey Mr Kaska!' Then he turned to the ginger-haired young man. 'Christ, did you get a look at her?' and he smacked his lips softly.
The ginger-haired man put his walking stick and his bag down on the armchair. Then his eye fell on the folded paper game. 'Heaven, hell, paradise.' He spoke the words tenderly. 'Paradise,' he repeated and he glanced out of the open door, as if in hope of catching another glimpse of her.
(1969)
HONEYMOON
1
The road wound upwards with hairpin bends. The girl sat pressed to his shoulder. Smaller and more finely built, she was almost hidden by him.
He drove with one hand, his other arm round the girl. Over that year he had become used to driving in that mildly uncomfortable one-handed fashion and the two of them had travelled like that across half of Europe, the German autobahns, the oddly deserted road between Chalons and Meaux lined with maple trees that seemed to have been gnawed by the wind (maybe they weren't even maples; it had been a misty night) and the wild mountain range of Olympus between Kozani and Tyrnavos, and amazingly, the whole time, even after endless hours of driving, he had always been aware of her, the touch of her hand or the trembling of her body, and would kiss her sometimes as they drove along — they would kiss while tearing along countless instantly forgotten roads and make love in that
car on deserted country tracks at night, or in the middle of the day, when the sun beat down on her pale, not particularly beautiful face, while a Greek shepherd slowly passed on a lazy donkey And now again they were approaching one of their destinations that was not really a destination, the roofs of a little town peeking out from behind the tops of coloured trees, looking almost like a stage backdrop in the light of the setting sun.
'So you've gone and got married on me,' he said, and it didn't sound like a rebuke, more like a recollection of her state, simply a sentence intended to break the silence for a moment.
'I've gone and got married on you,' she repeated. 'But I'm on my honeymoon with you,' and she opened wide her fishlike eyes as she always did when she declared something that was beyond doubt. 'This is my honeymoon, because I've just got married, and yours because you're with me!'
'Yes,' he conceded, slightly amazed.
'I couldn't have married you, could I?' she said, nudging him with her shoulder. 'Or could I?'
'I don't think so,' he admitted.
'With you I can just go on a honeymoon.'
'We've been on lots of honeymoons,' he said.
'You think we've already been on lots of honeymoons, then?' she asked.
'It doesn't matter though,' he added quickly. 'This is the first time you've actually been married. This time it's a real honeymoon,' he said, playing along, and then braked, turning the wheel with his free hand, and drove past a baroque fountain before pulling up in front of a house that might once have been gothic.
'It's not a particularly luxurious building for a wedding
night,' he observed. Overshadowing the square was a tall hill topped by a crumbling castle.
'It's not a particularly luxurious building,' she said as they walked through the gateway and she looked up at the whitewashed stone vaulting.
In the bar room stood an enormous Italian jukebox — the only noticeable thing there apart from the brightly painted gothic ceiling. Sixteen paper roses bloomed in sixteen identical vases on sixteen tables laid for dinner. Only the table adjacent to the bar broke the pattern — long and brown, without a tablecloth. Around it were seated four men and a woman. The men, one of whom was in uniform, were drinking beer.
'Are you hungry?' he asked. He knew he was going to eat and drink slowly, for as long as possible, to delay to the utmost the moment she was also waiting for.
She looked around the room as if trying to choose which of the identical tables suited her best. Then she said, 'Shouldn't we have a wedding feast if we're on our honeymoon?'
'Why not?' he said, still playing along. 'But didn't you have a wedding feast last week?'
'No, why should I have had a wedding feast last week?' she asked in surprise.
'I thought you did,' he said, puzzled. 'After all, you did get married last week.'
'It didn't occur to me at the time,' she said. 'But there's no suitable table here.'
'They're all equally suitable,' he countered. 'We could ask them to bring a different tablecloth and different flowers, if they have them.'
'Yes,' she said, 'but where will we put the guests?'