—

He went out on my tiny balcony and said, You can see the whole city. I pulled from under the bed my small collection of cassette tapes and I put on the Vienna Symphony Orchestra playing Bolero. That first time was in the long dawn and I remember him above me and the sounds outside of the awakening street and our eyes asking, accepting, and I remember how I opened to him and how slow he was. Then we fell asleep and woke and made love again, this time with more hunger and more wild. He slept with his eyebrows raised as if in endless wonder at the world. When I woke again in the early afternoon he was sitting naked over a sheet of paper at my little table.

What are you writing?

I am writing you a goodbye letter, but I don’t want to.

You are in love with someone else.

He crumpled up the paper, said, Does my face really tell every fucked-up secret?

I said, Your language sounds terrible in English.

English is thin, he said. In my language we are creative with our words.

Tell me about her.

Don’t ask this, it is fucked up. Do not want to know.

Tell me.

He stood, looked out the window. Nothing to tell, he said. She is married. I met her at an art show with her husband in Sarajevo and then I left.

What is her name?

I cannot talk about her when I just made love with you.

I said, At least it is not cowardly like leaving a letter.

I pulled the sheet up and he unfolded the crumpled letter and refolded it into an airplane and went naked onto the balcony and threw it to glide down into the street. He turned and said, Edina.

He was right. Her name was now between us like a punch. But he also looked outrageous without clothes outside on my balcony, and his buttocks were muscular and round above strong thighs. Confusing feelings feel normal when you are young. I was laughing at him and I said, Come inside. You are going to get me in trouble going out naked and you will get me kicked out of this room and it is difficult to find a room in Paris.

I wanted to know him. I wanted to show off for him and I wanted him to watch me. He let me bring him back to my bed and this time we came together, and then he got up and I watched him get dressed. We had so much energy. I knew now he would leave and I said, Va te faire foutre.

He laughed and said, You see, you swear too and English is not good enough for you either.

I said, You’re like a bird that flew, see you on the avenue.

He said, Can I come here again?

I listened to his steps echo down the six flights of stairs and when I heard them on the tiles of the foyer at the bottom, I went out on the balcony naked and wrapped in the sheet from my bed. He turned to look up at my window and he waved and I could still feel his hands on my back. Already I loved him, and I had to drop the sheet to wave goodbye.