Antanas Garšva once again noticed the slight but pervasive smell of beer and urine, heard the rustling of the Daily News, and said:
“Hello there, Mister Stevens!”
“Hello there, Mister Garšva!”
The bar owner’s face brightened with the gentlest version of his obliging smile.
“A mother strangled her three-year-old child and then jumped from her fourth-floor window. It happened in the Bronx,” Stevens offered pleasantly.
“Not too close to here. How about some White Horse?”
“Surely you’ve got some good news, if you’re having scotch?” asked Stevens.
“Another customer will be coming by soon. We’ve got some important business to discuss.”
Garšva sat down at the bar. He saw his face in the mirrors, in the convex glass of the bottles. Fair and pallid, dark rings under his eyes, and bluish lips. A reflected mask that was begging to be ripped off and discarded.
“This is a good bar, Stevens. I’d buy one like this.”
“Save up, and I’ll sell you it,” said Stevens as he poured scotch from a gurgling bottle.
A hurried gulp and quick breathing, red circles on the cheekbones. “This guy is in bad shape,” thought Stevens.
“If it goes well, I’ll ask to be a partner,” said Antanas Garšva. “Pour me some.”
“OK. Sure…”
Squares of sunlight spread across the floor. The round lid of the jukebox glistened – a magician’s crystal ball containing the tavern’s warped interior and expanded perspective, the doors and street now farther away. And in this oblique instability, the furniture and the other people froze. Antanas Garšva swallowed a second mouthful. His face fogged up in the mirror and his eyes glittered. “He’s overexcited; I don’t like how he’s rubbing his hands on the bar,” Stevens observed. Outside a white mongrel loitered by the door and then ran off, its tail up. Dimes and nickels rested on the bar; change waiting to return to a pocket.
“Nice weather,” Garšva said.
“Yea. Not so hot any more,” agreed Stevens.
Elena’s husband opened the tavern door. Wide shoulders, dark hair, blue eyes, worn grey suit, polo shirt, protruding chin, determined and sad, he looked like a lost centaur. He lingered at the door. Garšva slid off his chair. Elena’s husband waited, leaning forward somewhat, his stiff short hair aggressively erect. Garšva took a few steps. They stood facing each other until their eyes agreed they would not shake hands. “If there’s a fight, Garšva’s finished,” Stevens decided.
“Let’s sit down,” said Garšva. They chose a table by the jukebox.
“What will you have?”
“What are you drinking?”
“White Horse. Can I get you one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Two,” Garšva raised two fingers.
“And two glasses of seltzer.”
The mongrel returned, lingered by the tavern doors and disappeared. Stevens brought over the scotch and the seltzer, and returned behind the bar to pick up his Daily News. For a moment, the rustling of the newspaper and Garšva’s rapid breathing were the only sounds in the tavern. Elena’s husband poured some scotch into his seltzer.
“I’m not trying to interfere,” stressed Garšva.
“I know,” replied Elena’s husband.
Garšva looked up.
“Elena told me.”
“She spoke about me?”
“She told me everything.”
Elena’s husband sipped his drink calmly.
“I was going to kill you.”
“You were going to?”
“I was. But I changed my mind. Love is stronger than death, isn’t it? You should know, you’re the poet.”
“This is a ridiculous situation. I asked you to come… because I hold the opposite view.”
Elena’s husband put his glass down on the table suddenly. Several drops of his drink fell on to the reddish tablecloth.
“Death is stronger than love,” said Garšva.
“I’m just an engineer,” said the engineer. “And I don’t understand this kind of obscurity. Explain yourself.”
“If there’s a fight, I’ll help Garšva out,” Stevens decided.
“I saw my doctor yesterday.”
“I know. You fainted yesterday.”
“She really did tell you everything.”
Garšva downed a third swig, wiped his lips with his palm. He looked at the engineer as though he were a priest giving him his penance. “I don’t like to see Garšva afraid,” thought Stevens angrily, opening a page of the Daily News. A shabby, unshaven tramp entered the tavern and asked for a glass of beer. The silence was dispersed. The whir of the distant cars on Bedford Avenue reverberated.
“I wanted Elena. She didn’t agree. We talked through the whole night. Don’t worry, she’s faithful to you. She loves you.” Garšva played with his empty whisky glass. He turned it in his fingers like a top that won’t start spinning.
“I’m sorry that it happened this way,” he added quietly.
“Do you love Elena?” asked the engineer, sipping his drink once again.
“Very much,” Garšva confessed even more softly.
“Are you seriously ill?”
“I’m going back to the doctor. I’ll find out then.”
Now the engineer raised two fingers, and Stevens brought glasses of scotch and seltzer. “It looks like my guy knows how to turn a phrase. The gentleman is already giving in,” thought Stevens, and he returned behind the bar to pour the dozing tramp a free glass of beer.
“What will you do?”
Garšva looked hesitantly at the full glass of scotch. He didn’t have anything to play with.
“I’m not a romantic. So I won’t jump from the thirty-fifth floor. I’m an aesthete, so even if I wouldn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t want others to see me unaesthetically crushed.”
“Stop joking. What will you do?” asked the engineer, mixing his scotch into the seltzer with precision.
Garšva smoothed the tablecloth with his fingers. He focused on the beer-drinker’s back, his hands and toes felt cold, and he wanted to hear Elena’s voice. He knew that if he had a fourth drink he’d say something soft and helpless.
“I’m going to wait.”
“Damn, why is he shaking?” Stevens got upset and poured himself some beer.
“You and I started off badly,” said the engineer, watching Garšva with steady eyes. “This way we’ll end up spending several hours talking without resolving anything. You have your say, and I’ll go next – then we’ll sum up.”
“I haven’t prepared a speech. Maybe I shouldn’t have even asked you to come here. Elena and I had decided. I was going to ask you to divorce her. But… you know what happened. I once had to give up another woman for the same reason. I’ll have to give up Elena. It will be my final retreat. We probably shouldn’t have met. Forgive me. Some sort of atavistic sense of responsibility made me do it. And… I think we can take our leave now, if you have no objection.”
And Garšva raised his glass.
“Put that down! Don’t drink it,” the engineer said sternly, and Garšva complied.
“You need help. Will you go into hospital?”
“I don’t know. The doctor will decide. He just said I had to quit my job.”
“Elena and I will visit you. In the hospital or at home. Send us a note.”
The engineer finished Garšva’s scotch, washed it down with his own, and got up. He teetered towards the bar, glanced at the slumbering tramp, and said, “Passed out first thing in the morning?”
“Just some bum,” explained Stevens.
“I’ll pay for everything.”
The engineer returned to the table and stretched his hand out to Garšva.