“Have to wash them. Hold on a minute, everything’s full of garbage.” She went into the bathroom and continued to speak from there. “If you turned out to be a teetotaler on top of everything else. I don’t know what I would do with you… What a pigsty he’s got in his bathroom — I love it! Where are you staying? Here too?”
“No, in town,” I replied. “On Second Waterway.”
She came back with the glasses.
“Straight or with water?”
“Straight, I guess.”
“All foreigners take it straight. But we have it with water for some reason.” She sat on my armchair and put her arms around my shoulders. We drank and kissed without any feeling.
Her lips were heavily lipsticked, and her eyelids were heavy from lack of sleep and fatigue. She put down her glass, searched out another butt in the ashtray, and returned to the hassock.
“Where is that Rimeyer?” she said. “After all, how long can you wait for him? Have you known him a long time?”
“No, not very.”
“I think maybe he is a louse,” she said with sudden ire. “He’s dug everything out of me, and now he plays hard to get. He doesn’t open his door, the animal, and you can’t get through to him by phone. Say, he wouldn’t be a spy, would he?”
“What do you mean, a spy?”
“Oh, there’s loads of them… From the Association for Sobriety and Morality… The Connoisseurs and Appraisers are also a bad lot…”
“No, Rimeyer is a decent sort,” I said with some effort.
“Decent… you are all decent. In the beginning, Rimeyer too was decent, so good-natured and full of fun… and now he looks at you like a croc.”
“Poor fellow,” I said. “He must have remembered his family and become ashamed of himself.”
“He doesn’t have a family. Anyway, the heck with him! Have another drink?”
We had another drink. She lay down and put her hands over her head. Finally she spoke.
“Don’t let it get to you. Spit on it! Wine we have enough of, we’ll dance, go to the shivers. Tomorrow there’s a football game, we’ll bet on the Bulls.”
“I am not letting it get to me. If you want to bet on the Bulls, we’d bet on the Bulls.”
“Oh those Bulls! They are some boys! I could watch them forever, arms like iron, snuggling up against them is just like snuggling against a tree trunk, really!”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” yelled Ilina.
A man entered and stopped at once. He was tall and bony, of middle age, with a brush mustache and light protruding eyes.
“I beg your pardon, I was looking for Rimeyer,” he said.
“Everyone here wants to see Rimeyer,” said Ilina. “Have a chair and we’ll all wait together.”
The stranger bowed his head and sat down by the table, crossing his legs.
Apparently he had been here before. He did not look around, but stared at the wall directly in front of him.
However, perhaps he just was not a curious type. In any case, it was clear that neither I nor Ilina was of any interest to him. This seemed unnatural to me, since I felt that such a pair as myself and Ilina should arouse interest in any normal person. Ilina raised up on her elbow and scrutinized him in detail.
“I have seen you somewhere,” she said.
“Really?” said the stranger coldly.
“What’s your name?”
“Oscar. I am Rimeyer’s friend.”
“That’s fine,” said Ilina. She was obviously irritated by the stranger’s indifference, but she kept herself in check.
“He’s also a friend of Rimeyer.” She stuck her finger at me.
“You know each other?”
“No,” said. Oscar, continuing to look at the wall.
“My name is Ivan,” said I. “And this is Rimeyer’s friend, Ilina. We just drank to our fraternal friendship.”
Oscar glanced indifferently in Ilina’s direction and nodded his head politely. Ilina picked up the bottle without taking her eyes off him.
“There’s still a little left here,” she said. “Would you like a drink, Oscar?”
“No, thank you,” he said, coldly.
“To fraternal friendship!” said Ilina. “No? You don’t want to? Too bad!”
She splashed some wine in my glass, poured the rest in hers, and downed it at once.
“Never in my life would I have thought that Rimeyer could have friends who refuse a drink. Still, I have seen you somewhere before.”
Oscar shrugged his shoulders.
“I doubt it,” he said.
Ilina was visibly becoming enraged.
“Some sort of a fink,” she said to me loudly. “Say there, Oscar, you wouldn’t be an Intel?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” said Ilina. “You’re the one who had a set-to with that baldy Leiz at the Weasel, broke a mirror, and had your face slapped by Mody.”
The stone visage of Oscar grew a shade pinker.
“I assure you,” he said courteously, “I am not an Intel and have never in my life been in the Weasel.”
“Are you saying that I’m a liar?” said Ilina At this point I took the bottle off the table and put it under my armchair, just in case.
“I am a visitor,” said Oscar. “A tourist.”
“When did you arrive?” I said to discharge the tension.
“Very recently,” replied Oscar. He continued to gaze at the wall. Obviously here was a man with iron discipline.
“Oh, oh!” said Ilina suddenly. “Now I remember! I got it all mixed up.”
She burst out laughing, “Of course you’re no Intel! You were at our office the day before last. You’re the salesman who offered our manager some junk like… ‘Dugong’ or ‘Dupont…’”
” Devon,” I prompted. “There is a repellent called Devon.”
Oscar smiled for the first time.
“You are quite right, of course,” he said. “But I am not a salesman. I was only doing a favor for a relative.”
“That’s different,” said Ilina and jumped up. “You should have said so. Ivan, we all need to drink to a pledge of friendship. I’ll call… no, I’ll go get it myself. You two can have a talk, I’ll be right back.”
She ran out of the room, banging the door.
“A fun girl,” said I.
“Yes, extremely. You live here?”
“No, I’m a traveler, too… What a strange idea your relative had!”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Who needs Devon in a resort town?”
Oscar shrugged.
“It’s hard for me to judge; I’m no chemist. But you will agree that it’s hard for us to comprehend the actions of our fellow men, much less their fancies… So Devon turns out to be — What did you call it, a res…?”
“Repellent,” I said.
“That would be for mosquitoes?”
“Not so much for as against.”
“I can see you are quite well up on it,” said Oscar.
“I had occasion to use it.”
“Well, well.”
What the devil, thought I. What is he getting at? He was no longer staring at the wall He was looking me straight in the eyes and smiling. But if he was going to say something, it was already said.
He got up.
“I don’t think I’ll wait any longer,” he pronounced. “It looks like I’ll have to drink another pledge. But I didn’t come here to drink, I came here to get well. Please tell Rimeyer that I will call him again tonight. You won’t forget?”
“No,” I said, “I won’t forget. If I tell him that Oscar was in to see him, he will know whom I am talking about?”
“Yes, of course. It’s my real name.”
He bowed, and walked out at a deliberate pace, ramrod-straight and somehow unnatural-looking. I dipped my hand in the ashtray, found a butt without lipstick, and inhaled several times. I didn’t like the taste and put out the stub. I didn’t like Oscar, either. Nor Ilina. And especially Rimeyer -