My fascination with her body didn’t fade, even though she suddenly had enough one day, diverting her impulses and appetites instead toward confectionaries, dismissing me as a graduate from the university of love. The fun and games were over. We’d have sex on a monthly basis, going through the motions out of duty or to avoid a bulletproof reason for going our separate ways. I’d see the female form everywhere, in the most mundane things, like a toothbrush, but Zola was lost to me. It never crossed my mind that these were symptoms of a dying love, that I would stumble naked around hotel rooms where some of the most meaningless sex acts in the world were performed with my involvement. What followed were attacks of self-pity, overeating, and intensive staring into refilled sherry bottles during the months I moved back into Mother’s attic.
“Hermann!” Mother shook me as I stood shuddering in the camera department. “Are you lost in space?”
“Yes. Well. No.”
“I’m going to have a drink at the bar. Knowing you, you’ll be here for a while spending money on junk.”
We parted ways and I wandered around the camera section where a tanned couple straight out of a magazine glided between the shelves. The boy looked like a professional athlete and the girl like Miss California, lean and blonde with endless legs. Their appeal was so conventional that they could have been off-the-rack, like her short denim dress. I almost bumped into them when she suddenly charged and snaked her body around the boy’s, who reacted like a defense basketball player to swiftly secure a position for them between the Samsungs and the Sonys to swap spit. I was relieved when the whiff of animal fat seduced me into the Food Market, where I bought gum and a newspaper, then filled out a questionnaire on Icelandic lamb. I did this in part to make up for Mother’s loathing of any and all surveys, which she regarded as an evil of capitalism and mass surveillance. When I found her at the bar she was staring into the mirror, sporting huge sunglasses.
“Strange how I was never a dean’s wife,” she said, blowing cosmopolitan smoke rings at her reflection. “Why has my love life always been so . . . ? Take Jonas for example. It’s not my fault that the man was so sickly all the time.”
“I ran into him in the bakery the other day and he seems to be doing better, he’s walking again—”
“It was hopeless,” she injected and stubbed out her cigarette. “A man who’s in rehab when he’s not actually in the hospital? No. What I’ve never had, Trooper, is a man who could support me. Look at those two over there. It’s obvious what they’ve been up to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Obviously homosexuals.”
“Ah, but of course! I was wondering what’s up with their asses,” I said, ignoring the disapproving looks from the people on the next table. Truth was, Mother had a real soft spot for gay men.
“Why on earth do all the best men go into this? No wonder women my age have trouble finding a man.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Eva.”
“No, I mean it. Either they’re married to some sad cow or feeling each other up. Can you name one normal, single man my age?”
I reached for my Food Market bag and pretended to read the celebrity pages of my newspaper. The main story was about Croatian supermodels Milla and Iva.
“Although . . . you know . . . I always thought you’d turn out gay, Trooper,” she continued. “I’ve never known any child as dramatic as you were. You’d dress up in my clothes, put on makeup, walk around in over-sized heels . . .”
“You raised me in the theater, what did you expect?”
“Sure, but just think, a beautiful woman like me—surrounded by homosexuals her whole life. Then along come these old farts like Emma Gulla . . . apparently she bagged herself a doctor.”
“Who’s Emma Gulla?”
“Don’t you remember her? Such an incredibly ugly woman. And boring, too.”
A nearby screen announced that our flight was boarding. I picked up our things and prepared to go.
“Wait. Let’s have one for the road, Trooper.”
“We’ll miss our flight.”
“I doubt they’ll take off without us.”
“Eva,” I sighed.
“Alright, alright. I’ve got a little something with me anyways.”
We walked along the seemingly endless corridor toward the gate. Mother was astonished at the lack of moving sidewalks and gave the flight attendant a long speech about the technological superiority of German airports. The Samsung-girl in the short denim dress sat in the seat across the aisle from me.
“Isn’t that the same dress I gave Zola?” Mother whispered, but I was too overwhelmed by the girl’s presence to answer. She fastened her seatbelt while her boyfriend wrestled with his laptop, giving me a chance to stare at her legs and wonder how some human of the male sex, some sweaty, hick ape had actually been a part of her conception. I’d much rather believe that the Samsung-girl was the fruit of intense sex between the supermodels Milla and Iva. Mother, however, repeated her suspicions of the girl’s mundane part in the material world, took a swig from her flask and said: “Yes, I’m sure that’s the same dress.”
“What dress are you talking about?”
“Well, that dress I gave Zola. She made it into this huge issue, remember? She could be so incredibly opinionated.”
I remembered. A couple years earlier Mother had held a gala on Palm Sunday, inviting pensioners, neighbors, and distant relatives who had the required weakness for wine. The day before the party Mother had stopped by with a dress she’d bought on a whim for Zola during a shopping frenzy at the mall’s end-of-season sale. Zola didn’t like showing too much skin and was horrified by the short hemline. Mother insisted she wear it and then made an alcohol-induced presentation of Zola in the dress, parading her about the party, to show off what a fantastic stylist she was, the gorgeousness of the dress, how great Zola looked in it, and how wonderful the whole thing was. The tension escalated as the evening progressed, something detonated between them; there was shouting and crying and we left without good-byes. Zola said she’d had it and demanded that I talk to Mother or she’d never step foot in that house again. The next morning I took a taxi down to Spítala Street. Mother came to the door and welcomed me in high spirits. Now we’d have a fun hangover day! But instead of sharing a drink with her, I brought up the incident.
“What?”
“Just, you know. You were being difficult. That speech, for instance, about Willy Nellyson and his cock.”
“That was just a joke.”
“And then you asked Zola if I was any good.”
“Really? In bed?”
“That was the only way to interpret it.”
“Oh. And what did she say?”
“That’s beside the point. You need to learn to behave in company.”
She asked if this was a message from Zola and I told her to knock it off, that she knew very well that this wasn’t about Zola.
“Well, I don’t remember you speaking to me like this before you met that woman.”
“That woman. Is that how you think of her? The woman who took days off work to . . .”
“Oh, Trooper, let’s not bring that up.”
“By all means, let’s. I want to know what you mean.”
“Well, nothing