*

And that’s it. About three years later I got a letter. A card in an envelope, in fact, closely covered with her neat hand­writing. She wrote that she had left town and was now living with a man called Stephen. I should come and visit them sometime. Stephen would fire up the grill, we’d eat sausages and potatoes and talk, or just sit there and enjoy the garden. Enjoy the garden? I imagined how they lived, in a little house with a gravel drive, a pear tree and a juniper hedge. It was a strange thought. She didn’t know the first thing about plants and found the little creatures under the leaves disgusting. Stephen would have to deal with the greenery by himself.

The day Louise’s card arrived, I went to the Golden Moon. I still had a few coins. I sat down at the Lucky Deal and began to play. And that’s the thing: the reels keep spinning as long as you just keep pressing the button. You play. You up the stake. You win a few times. Then you lose. But you keep going. You always keep on going.

Louise Trattner

It smells of men. Of their breath, their saliva, their sweat, of all that they’ve shed in the night. The beds are still warm, the covers rumpled. There are damp patches on the sheets. Some look like islands, others like heads. I picture them lying there. Their sweaty bodies trying to curl up in this nest after a day of defeats. They’ve travelled across the country in their patent-­leather shoes with their suitcases on wheels, they’ve sat in corridors and rooms and cheap pub restaurants, stood at bus stops and in doorways, they’ve rushed and run, talked and talked, hunched and smiling and furtive, always ready for whatever might happen, only to crawl at last into a cold, unfamiliar bed. But now the dreams come. They’re dreams of power and ruin, conquest and disintegration, train stations and refreshment kiosks, endless rows of empty wooden benches, and a woman’s white arm dangling from a train window like a scrap of cloth.

Do you know why I’m so familiar with these men’s dreams, Lennie? They told them to me.

Do you remember Kobielski’s? You were leaning against the window, the showroom full of expensive cars all lit up behind you. You looked good. Your whole stance expressed a kind of nonchalance, a casual indifference to the world. You’d lowered your head; your face was in shadow. That made you seem mysterious, but at the same time I felt I recognized you. Because the truth is: it was a mistake. I thought you were someone else, that’s why I spoke to you. Maybe I should have cleared that up right away, but you were funny and I was lonely. Or maybe I just thought you were funny because I was lonely. Whatever – it makes no difference. Later, when Kobielski let off his fireworks, we’d already been leaning against the window for a while, shoulder to shoulder, staring out into the exploding night.