Black Vodka

Vienna

‘Before I forget,’ Magret’s voice is low and vague, ‘I want to test my new microwave.’

He nods, as if he is a secretary taking notes from an inscrutable Executive Director who wears purple lipstick to frighten the more timid of her staff. She rips the silver foil from a carton of langoustines and slides them into the microwave that still has the price taped to its side. He watches her bend her long neck to check the minutes and seconds and then fold her arms against the pearl-grey cashmere that hugs her small breasts. While she waits she tells him she has no idea why her husband has bought her a microwave.

When the timer pings she takes out the langoustines and places them in front of him in a delicate blue china bowl. He cracks the pink and grey shells with his fingers and then sucks the white flesh into his mouth, suddenly aware that her accent, which he can’t place, makes him think of wolves. He looks down at the frayed cuffs of his shirt sleeves and notices a small rash on the back of both his hands. Does she know he has brought his agitation and turbulence into the white walls of her apartment? The rash on his hands is the memory of saying goodbye to his small children when he left the family house, knowing he was never going to return.

Magret walks across the carpet towards a sleek black answering machine and presses the Play button. A man’s voice speaks to her. He suspects it is the authoritarian voice of her new Italian husband.

Ti penso sempre

Mi manchi

Cara mia, ti voglio bene

‘What does it mean?’ He understands that her husband has told her he loves her but wants her to tell him anyway.

‘It means now I am going to pull down the blinds and you and I are going to take off our clothes.’

For the first time all evening he feels frightened. He wraps his fingers around the pulse of his wrist and shuts his eyes. A boiler concealed somewhere in the building makes the sing-song sound of cicadas. Worst of all, a picture of his ex-wife slides into his head when he least wants it to. She is sitting with his daughter and baby son, threading glass beads onto a length of red string.

When he opens his eyes, Magret is naked. Her long limbs are warm, he discovers, moving his cold hand between her legs and leaving it there, letting her move his fingers, while the hidden boiler fills the room with its own peculiar sounds. He likes her disdain for small talk after sex, relieved she does not ask him to exchange small confidences, pleased not to have to tell her about his wife and children, temporary bedsit and unpacked suitcase.

But he doesn’t want to let go of her yet.

He asks her a question in the language of his father, a language he has almost forgotten how to speak.

‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’ She sits up and shakes down her hair.

‘It’s Russian for do you have children?’

‘I do not.’

Now he knows she does not have children. This is one of the few things he knows about her. He knows she does not need him. He knows she can cook langoustines to perfection in a brand new microwave. He knows she is married. That is all he knows.

She stands up and walks to a cupboard made from Swedish blond wood, aware that he is watching her take down a blue silk bath robe and loop it over her long, tanned arms.

She is middle Europe, he thinks. She is Vienna. She is Austria. She is a silver teaspoon. She is cream. She is schnapps. She is strudel dusted with white icing sugar. She is the sound of polite applause. She is a chandelier. She is a velvet curtain. She is made from the horn of deer found deep in the pine forests of middle Europe. She is spun from money. She smells of burnt sugar. She is snow. She is fur. She is leather. She is gold. She is someone else’s property. He holds out his arms, inviting her back to her own bed, inviting middle Europe to share her wealth, to let him steal some of her silver, to let him make footprints across her snow and drink her schnapps.

Magret ignores his invitation to return to his thin white arms.

‘My husband wants me to learn Italian. So he tests me on the seasons. I have to say in perfect Italian all the months, January, February, March, until I get to December and then he corrects my accent.’

‘But you speak Italian don’t you?’

He hides his hands under the sheet, hands that are livid and itching.

‘Not well enough for my husband.’

He realises he does not know where she is from or if she works or why she lets him have sex with her.

‘What is your first language?’

‘There are so many languages.’ She flicks an invisible light switch and the room fills with unwelcome white strobe.

‘I am going to swim in the pool downstairs.’

He nods. He has been dismissed by middle Europe, who has plans that do not include him in the structure of her day. Again, he feels foolish, not sure what it is he wants from her or why he feels so excited when she calls him to say she is in town. He climbs out of bed and looks for his clothes. While he puts on his trousers, shirt, cufflinks and jacket, she slips on a modest white swimming costume. They do not speak until he is standing on the marble floor outside her front door. Only then, facing him in his suit and the heavy overcoat he bought in Zurich when he knew his marriage was over, barefoot in her Italian swimming costume, does she attempt to say goodbye.

Gute Nacht.

Spokojnoj nochi, Magret.

As he walks to the tube station he thinks about the snow of his childhood and all the trams he rode on with his sister. He thinks about the wars and famines his parents lived through and about the 11:07 that leaves promptly every Sunday morning from Zurich where his ex-wife and children live. He thinks about Magret swimming in the cold pool below her apartment, her head surfacing, her mouth opening to take a breath. He knows she is dead inside and he is aroused that this is so, and he takes out a cigarette and lights it. He thinks about how there is life with rye bread and black tea and there is life with champagne and wild salmon. He can live without champagne but he cannot live without his children; that is a grief he knows he cannot endure but he must endure and he knows his hands will itch for ever. He thinks about feeling used, teased, abused and mocked by middle Europe, whose legs were wrapped around his appallingly grateful body ten minutes ago, and he thinks about the twentieth century that ended at the same time as his marriage.