Chicago after dark is a lot like any other city you don’t know. It’s just lights really and after the quiet of Luka’s room when he’d been settled down for the night it seemed noisy even in the cab.
I had trouble reading the door code not just because it was dark outside his building but because his hand hadn’t been steady when he wrote it. His neighbour looked at me suspiciously with hard brown eyes in an orange face when I said I’d come for the keys. I had Luka’s AMI ID, still bloodied, and my own and he finally brought me a buff envelope which he said contained the keys and some other things Luka asked him to take care of and he gave me a pile of mail for good measure. I turned to go but he opened his door wider and lounged against the frame. Oh please don’t.
“So where is the good doctor?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Back at work already?”
“No, no, he picked up malaria, needs to get his strength back a little before they’ll let him go.”
“Malaria? It’s not contagious is it?”
“No, not contagious.”
“I won’t need a shot or anything?” he persisted.
“Not even a pill, I promise.”
“Say, you look beat, why don’t you come in and I’ll make us some coffee – or maybe you could use something a little stronger. I have – “
“You know you’re right, I’m dead on my feet, been travelling a long time.”
“You sure? You’re not from round here, I can tell. You from Dr Kovac’s neck of the woods? If he’s sick maybe I can show you around Chicago, take in some of the sights.”
Maybe he was being kind or maybe he was hitting on me, thinking malaria wasn’t the only thing Luka had picked up over there but right then I didn’t care. I only wanted him to shut up.
“I’m going to be pretty busy looking after Luka, he’ll be home in a couple of days. But thanks.”
“Suit yourself. Knock any time if you need anything, anything at all.” I fished out the keys and let myself in and for a moment I think I could have fallen asleep where I stood. I dropped my bag and the mail and the envelope on the floor and felt around for the light switch.
It was so utterly quiet in that apartment, despite the faint sound of the traffic from outside. I stood very still, feeling like a trespasser, feeling like I shouldn’t move, shouldn’t breathe.
Once I saw a TV programme about condors, the birds that fly over the Andes. Sharp edges of rock, snow against a blue, blue sky and the birds, wheeling on the air currents. I woke up later on the same night I’d watched it and in the dark I thought about those mountains, thought with a little shiver that they were there right that second, real, as I thought of them, that they’d been there before I was born, before my parents were born, before their parents were born. Sometimes I think of those mountains, think “They’re still there with the condors gliding over them”.
I had that same feeling now. This space, his space, had been here all along, waiting, untouched by everything that had happened to him, to us, like the river that runs through Congo, like Mont Royal, like those mountains, and I understood why the thought of them had made me shiver, really felt for the first time the massive indifference of the world to everything that touches us.
I don’t know what I expected; a guy’s place, messy, a coffee cup or beer bottle left on the table maybe, CDs heaped up, sports pages from newspapers from before he left lying around, dust. There was nothing. It was neat, clean, orderly. The refrigerator completely empty, turned off at the wall, its door left a little ajar, everything in its place, feeling like a museum, even down to the expertly lit paintings on the walls.
Abandoned.
There.
He hadn’t meant to come back. This was something he’d left behind and something he didn’t care about – or that didn’t care about him.
I felt very cold suddenly and looked around for something to drink. There was a half bottle of slivovic and I knocked back a good slug, letting it warm me through. I was too tired to think but it occurred to me that I should call Jean, tell him I was OK, but when I picked up the phone there was nothing, and when I looked I saw that that had been unplugged too.
Upstairs I opened the wardrobe door, took in the suits and shirts, lifted a pullover to my face and breathed him in. The bathroom was as clean as everywhere else, like no-one had ever used it. I thought I should find out how to turn on the hot water heater but I was too exhausted to explore and couldn’t face the guy from next door so I went back to the bedroom. The bed was stripped, quilt and pillows, a throw, a soft blanket all stacked neatly. I should find sheets and make it up but all I wanted was to lie down, my head on his pillow, sleep. The pillow smelt faintly of him and for now it would have to do. The throw and the blanket felt like heaven and for a few seconds before I fell asleep I let myself wonder about the Andes and crisp white snow.
oOo
The rows and rows of cans, packages and bottles, chill cabinets full of meat and poultry, the heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables in the supermarket seemed indecent after what I’d been used to the last month For a long time I’d craved a hard, green, sour apple, wanted to feel the juice on my chin, pick the peel from between my teeth but now I could have them I hesitated. Come on Gillian, fill your cart, get on with it.
I don’t know what he eats. I don’t know what, if he has a choice, he eats. Fish? I know he grew up by the sea. Maybe he hates fish. Chicken. Chicken is safe, everyone likes chicken and I’ve seen him eat it. I can choose between factory farmed, free range and organic chicken, I can check the GI rating on the cereal packet, I can get low carb pasta for God’s sake. I can go fuck myself actually because why am I so important that all my food has to be so pure, huh? In the end I get what I’d get for myself, butter, milk, eggs, bread, store cupboard stuff, fruit, vegetables, beer and a good Chablis.
Chicken. Free range organic. He’s been sick, he should have the best.
And later I went to Marshall Fields and spent more money than I could afford on a pair of sheets made of beautiful Egyptian Cotton, like the snow on the mountains and I set them aside for a homecoming. He came home three days later, walking but weak and I helped him upstairs, telling him he must get into bed. He complained that he’d only just got out of bed and then stopped at the door of his bedroom and when he looked down at me I knew he understood about the sheets. He opened his mouth to speak, shook his head slightly.
“I – “
“I know. Come on, think of it, you’ll be the first to lie on them. ”
“Not alone, I – “
“Of course not alone. You think I’d miss out on brand new sheets with you?” I was smiling but I couldn’t look at him because if I did I’d cry and I didn’t even know why.
