Lovers for a Day

'What's that?'

'Nothing. I wasn't talking to you.'

'Is someone there with you?'

'I told you already. My little boy. Now he's gone and tipped flour in the sink and is running the water. What were we saying?'

'That we could meet at your parents'.'

'I'm not sure I want to drag them into it. Oh Jesus, the flour's blocked the waste pipe. Bill, I'm sorry, I can't concentrate, the sink's overflowing. And anyway you promised me time to think it over! '

'Seven one zero eight one three? I have that gentleman from Wellington for you again.'

'Tereza, it's Friday here now. Are you there on your own?'

'Yes. My little boy has just gone to sleep.'

'That's good. At least we'll have a bit of peace and time for ourselves.'

'But Bill, what do you mean by time? You only called three hours ago.'

'Precisely. You've had a chance to think it over.'

'What can I have thought over?'

'Whether I'm to fly there. That's not a very tough decision, is it?'

'But Bill, I can't even be sure we'll be able to meet. I told you I didn't want to drag my parents into it.'

'How about some girlfriend?'

'I don't know, Bill. Girlfriends are out too.'

'Think up something else, then. Otherwise just tell him I've arrived and we need to talk to each other.'

'Do you think I ought to tell him everything about you?'

'It would be the honourable thing.'

'But he might kill you. Or me. Or himself. You don't know him.'

'You see the kind of life you have with him!'

'Would you put up with it if I was your wife and told you someone else — my lover — was flying in to see me?'

'I wouldn't kill anyone. At the most I'd chuck him in the sea and let him sink or swim.'

'But there's no sea here, Bill! '

'So I'd chuck him in any old water.'

'You're different, I know. That's why I fell in love with you.'

'And do you love him too, seeing that you're always so concerned about him?'

'I'm not talking about love. But he is still my husband after all.'

'I thought you didn't love him any more. That you didn't want to live with him. So why are you so concerned about him?'

'That's true. But he's terribly attached to the children.'

'But you wouldn't be taking them from him.'

'And the children are attached to him. He's their father.'

'You said you're always having terrible rows at home. That he yells at them needlessly. That he makes them neurotic.'

'We do have rows sometimes. Awful ones. We hurl the crockery at each other in the kitchen. Sometimes he yells at the boys. And twice he wanted to kill himself. Now I can hear some music on the line. What absurd kind of music is that anyway? Some Chinese thing or other. Can you hear me at all? It's enough to drive you mad.'

'There you are. It's enough to drive you mad.'

'What is?'

'Life with your husband.'

'That as well. But at this moment it's the telephone. I can hear you again. What was I talking about?'

'Your husband. How he wanted to kill you on two occasions.'

'Not me. He wanted to kill himself

'Sorry, I misheard you. There was some Maori band on the line. He wanted to kill himself on account of you?'

'He wanted to kill himself in a rage. Or from despair. Or maybe it was just a threat. He wants to bind me to him, to make me obedient and faithful.'

'Do you think that's good for the children?'

'It certainly isn't.'

'There you are.'

'But we don't quarrel all the time. Sometimes our home is quite peaceful. And he plays with them and reads them Bible stories and tries to bring them up as decent people.'

'I'd read them Bible stories too. We always read the Bible at home on Sundays.'

'In your home?'

'Yes, in my home.'

'And tell me, could you really leave it behind? Don't you love your home?'

'I love you. My home will be wherever you are.'

'How can you tell?'

'I just feel it.'

'This is a foreign country.'

'My ancestors also came to a foreign country. Everyone here bar the Maoris came to a totally foreign country. The journey by ship could take three months in those days. And even the Maoris haven't always been here.'

'But you were born there. You have your parents, your brother, your friends, your wife, your children and the sea.'

'But I haven't got you.'

'Do you mean to say that I count for more than everything else?'

'Yes, that's just what I mean to say.'

'But you hardly know me. After a couple of months here you might start to regret it.'

'I never regret anything I do.'

'You married once and now you want to go away and leave them. And you don't regret it?'

'No. We loved each other once and then it ended. I don't regret it.'

'You'll love me and then it'll end. Won't you regret it?'

'It won't end!'

'If it ended, would you regret it?'

'It won't end.'

'But if it ended you would regret it.'

'No, I wouldn't.'

'What would you find to do here in a foreign country? A sailor with no sea. A man 'with no home, no family, no friends?'

'Didn't you tell me just a while ago that one has to live for the present and not act in terms of what will or won't happen?'

'But we'd break up our families. Both you and I.'

'They're broken already. After what has happened.'

'But things like that happen in life and the family doesn't have to break up on account of them.'

'When love ends it never returns.'

'Are you so sure?'

'I'm speaking about myself

'Bill, these phone calls must have cost the price of an air ticket already. You might as well have come straight here.'

'You didn't tell me whether I should come.'

'I'm really not sure, Bill. It'd be awfully complicated.'

'Life is complicated. Until the day you die.'

'But some complications are needless. Or excessive.'

'Do you think I'm an excessive complication?'

'No, not you. You're someone who's very dear to me.'

'So why don't you want me to come?'

'Hello, Bill, are you there? You keep fading away'

'What did you say?'

'I said you're fading away.'

'There you are. That's something I know from the sea. First your country fades away and then everything else. Even the ones you love the most. Otherwise you'd go mad.'

'What would make you go mad?'

'Getting up every morning and knowing all you'll see that day is the sea and none of your loved ones, the ones that make your life worth living. That's why I want to come to you.'

'Don't come, Bill!'

'You tell me not to come, even though I'm fading from your life?'

'I was only talking about the phone. Otherwise you're not. I mean, I'm not sure. Bill, to come all this way, when we're not even sure we'll be able to meet? The whole thing is madness. I realize I ought to have thought better of it before, but I fell in love with you. Now I'm frightened of the consequences. Not just for me, but for you too. I'm touched by what you want to do and I love you for it. But at the same time I'm afraid.'

'One should only be afraid of dying.'

'Don't talk about dying.'

'Living without you seems to me like dying.'

'That's blasphemy!'

'A day without you is like the sea 'without dry land. There's nowhere to come back to, nothing to look forward to.'

'Bill, you're a… a… I don't know how to say it in English.'

'Say it in Czech then.'

'You're a cvok.'

'What's a cvok?'