WARNING: THE FOLLOWING TEXT CONTAINS STRONG AND OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE

They Covered Him With Leaves

By Michael E. Halmshaw

‘It’s impossible to meet women here,’ Petrov says. ‘You talk to a barmaid and she thinks you want to fuck her. Sometimes you do want to fuck her – this is when you’re really screwed. Or you see a woman at the bar. Even if all you want to do is pass the time, she thinks you want to fuck her. Then you begin to question yourself. Maybe you do want to fuck her. Maybe that’s the only reason you started talking to her. But you are sure you didn’t think that at the beginning. You are fairly sure you thought she looked like she would be interesting to talk to and you wanted to talk to her. But then you know she thinks you want to fuck her and you think about what it would be like to fuck her and then it is ruined. Next thing you realise all you are thinking about is fucking everyone in the room. It is almost all I think about. Fucking.’
       A barmaid walks over to them, takes their order and pours the drinks. The young man sitting next to Petrov watches her hands.

Petrov is not from this county and neither is the young man he’s talking to. The young man is here looking for a new life. His parents are dead, have been for years. Here he can make three times his old salary in a lesser job. He has enough saved to live here for three weeks. He has heard about the jobs but he hasn’t found one yet.
       He has almost completely resigned himself to deportation. He does not have the correct working papers and – although he applied for them months ago and was told they would be ready for him – there is no sign that they will arrive. Unless he finds a job, he will be deported. With each day he thinks less about work and more about sex. He has not slept with a woman since he arrived.
       He lives in a single room in an old apartment block. Many other people live here. Many are families. The block is owned by a man he has not met. None of his tenants come from this country.
       It is March, a Tuesday. He woke at noon and left to walk around the city. He visited a museum. He rode on the trams. He sat in the park for two hours.
       He went home when night fell and got back into bed. There was a knock at the door. At the door was a man who said his name was Petrov. He didn’t ask for the young man’s name. Most people in this country can’t pronounce it, so he calls himself Frank.
      

Now he is here with Petrov, Petrov who knocked on his door earlier today and invited him for a drink. They have had six drinks each and Frank has not paid for one.
       Petrov is not unattractive. Petrov’s jaw narrows to the chin, and there is a vein running along Petrov’s right temple. When he first saw Petrov, Frank thought there was something in Petrov’s look to suggest brightness, an active mind, perhaps kindness. Maybe it is in the creases at the edges of his lips. To Frank, Petrov had the look of someone who would give a lot and not mind giving.
       ‘Take that barmaid,’ says Petrov. ‘We will never be able to fuck her. There’s no way either of us could get even ten minutes of conversation out of her.’
       ‘That’s because she’s busy.’
       ‘No, I mean she’ll know what we’re thinking.’
       ‘I’m not thinking about that, though.’
       ‘Now you are,’ Petrov shakes Frank’s hand. He is quick to move his hand and his grip is firm, holding Frank’s hand still more than shaking it.
       ‘Yes, now. I wasn’t.’
       ‘And it is not that we are foreigners either. That can be to our advantage. There are all sorts of assumptions and stereotypes about foreigners and what they like and what they can do in bed.’
       Frank waits. Someone turns the music up.
       ‘Go on,’ says Petrov, ‘try to talk to her.’
       ‘All right. Slide over there. I don’t need a partner.’
       ‘What’s that?’
       ‘I said I want to talk to her alone.’
       Petrov gets up and, with the ice cubes in his glass clinking, walks to the other end of the bar. Frank waits for the barmaid to turn to him and then raises his eyebrows. She walks over to him, her walk quick but not smooth, each step like she is springing just an inch off the ground. Frank leans forward and so does the barmaid to hear him. Their heads are close. She can feel his breath on her ear. She leans back, looks at him and smiles, frowning and smiling at the same time.
       Petrov does not see anything else in the bar. When the barmaid smiles and leans back, he hopes it is the professional smile of a barmaid who’s seen another customer and is leaning back so that she can move to them. He puts his hand around his glass, ready to pick it up and walk to Frank. But she leans in again. They continue talking. Frank does not smile, although the barmaid does. What’s so amusing? Is he telling her deadpan stories? Petrov taps his glass on the bar to get the barmaid’s attention. She keeps her eyes on Frank until she is at the other end of the bar, then she turns to Petrov.
       ‘Is he bothering you?’ Petrov says.
       Frank watches Petrov talk with her. The barmaid listens to him, then walks through to the back. Petrov gets up and walks over, checking his watch. He stands next to Frank.
       ‘Bad luck, friend,’ says Petrov. ‘The bar’s about to close.’
       ‘How much were my drinks?’ Frank says, standing.
       ‘Don’t worry about those. I’ll take care of them.’
       Petrov puts his hand in his pocket and draws out a thin black wallet.
       ‘You were very good company,’ he says, shaking Frank’s hand and seeing that Frank’s eyes are on his money.
       The walk home is short and silent. They part in the hallway, Petrov patting Frank’s shoulder.

The next day Frank has little to do. He moves furniture, cash in hand, at the weekends but it is Wednesday. He lies in bed and imagines having sex with last night’s barmaid. At noon, there is a knock on the door.
       ‘Good day,’ says Petrov. ‘Since I enjoyed last night so much, I’ve brought you a present. I trust you will enjoy it.’ He gives Frank a rectangular box. It’s wrapped in paper with the words Merry Christmas printed on it.
       ‘We’ll go out drinking again tonight, yes?’
       Frank agrees and Petrov shakes his hand. When Petrov is gone, he returns to his bed. He opens the package, takes out a silver watch and tries it on. It’s a tight fit, leaves a red mark when he takes it off. He lies on the bed, but does not sleep. He stays there for hours.

Petrov knocks on his door and invites him out. He accepts and they walk a little further to a different bar.
       ‘You look like you miss the company of a woman.’
       ‘Of course I do. I haven’t spoken, really spoken with a woman for months. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without a girlfriend, without sex.’
       ‘And you have had many girlfriends?’
       He nods. Petrov says, ‘I bet,’ and shakes his hand.
       ‘And are they beautiful women, your girlfriends?’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘Are they beautiful to you or are they beautiful women?’
       ‘They’re beautiful women.’
       ‘What is the longest time you have spent with a woman?’
       ‘Four months.’
       ‘Four months, this is nothing.’
       ‘It’s never how I plan things to go.’
       ‘So all you want to do is fuck.’
       ‘No. I try to find the right one each time. But they leave me or I leave them, it never lasts.’
       ‘So you end up in lots of relationships where fucking is the main thing, even though that is not your intention.’
       Frank waits.
       ‘That’s how it has to be. You haven’t experienced a relationship of more than four months. You have never known the changes in a relationship, the changes that are subtle and also clear that come from longer commitment. You have never even known a decline in sexual attraction to your partner.’
       Frank is about to speak when Petrov continues.
       ‘For you, you are still mad for fucking when the relationship ends. Not mad enough to continue the relationship. But the fucking is always good, right?’
       ‘I suppose.’
       ‘Right?’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘Of course yes. Four months, your partner’s body is still surprising to you. And every man likes to fuck.’ Petrov signals the barman with two fingers pressed together and orders two more drinks. When the barman leaves, Petrov turns to Frank.
       ‘Here I something I really want to know,’ Petrov says.
       ‘What is it?’
       ‘Have you ever fucked a man?’
       ‘No,’ says Frank, sipping his drink, keeping his eyes on Petrov.
       ‘Have you ever thought about fucking a man?’
       ‘Why are you asking me so many questions?’
       ‘We are getting to know each other.’
       ‘No. You’re getting to know me. I don’t know anything about you.’
       ‘Then what do you want to know?’
       Frank begins asking one question and then changes his mind.
       ‘What do you do?’
       ‘Now, not as much. I was very busy once. For a while I was a soldier. Then that ended and I struggled. I could not keep a job. I ended up homeless. And that was when I got this watch. You like my watch, don’t you?’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘It looks like an expensive watch for a homeless man, doesn’t it?’
       ‘Yes, it does.’
       ‘It’s very expensive. Where do you think I got this watch?’
       ‘I don’t know. Maybe your father gave it to you.’
       ‘I took it from a corpse.’
       ‘In the war?’
       ‘No,’ he says, ‘from my old profession. In the war, people took things from people they’d killed, but not me. I was a good soldier. I believed in ethics.’
       He shakes Frank’s hand. ‘Ethics, right?’ Petrov says. ‘It was when I was sleeping in the park and not eating for days that I went, with three friends, to a graveyard, to dig up corpses.’ He slides his glass over the bartop from one hand to the other. ‘I only did it once. We found a lot of loot. Most of it we sold. I kept my watch,’ Petrov taps the watch face with his fingernail. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? What does it matter.’
       Frank looks at Petrov’s watch as he orders more drinks. There are no rings on Petrov’s fingers.
       ‘I am not married,’ Petrov says. ‘But I have a woman with me. Her name is Anna. I have known her six years. Long for you, not long for most.’
       Petrov pulls the skin at his Adam’s apple.
       ‘But we would never marry. Anna and I do not love each other. A marriage requires love, doesn’t it?’
       Petrov looks at his watch.
       ‘Tell you what,’ he says, finishing his drink. ‘Let’s go home. You’ll meet her tonight.’
       Their walk home is charged for the young man. The streetlights shine brightly at him.

Anna is very slim. She stands in the doorway, half behind the door. She wears a long grey dress, which makes her body look long. She has pale red hair like faded roof tiles. She looks only at Frank. She doesn’t once look at Petrov. She seems to move slower than other people. She holds out a hand to Frank and he takes it, and feels that she is cold.
       ‘This is Anna,’ Petrov says.
       She still does not look at Petrov.
       ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ Frank says.
       ‘Isn’t she beautiful, my Anna?’
       ‘Yes.’
       Petrov looks from Anna’s face to Frank’s, as if approving the meeting.
       ‘You will meet again,’ Petrov says to him. ‘For now it is everyone’s bed time. Goodnight.’
       Anna steps back, releasing her hand as Petrov walks into the room. She keeps eye contact with Frank, and closes the door.
       He goes back to his room and gets into bed. He sleeps, and dreams about Anna.

He is woken – late evening – by a knock on his door. He stays in bed. He is still. He is trying to be silent. He can hear feet moving, still close to the door. There is another knock – knock knock knock. He thinks someone is listening at the door. Then the footsteps move away, quieter and quieter until they are gone.

An hour passes. He needs to go to the toilet. He puts his shoes on and walks quietly to the door. There is no sound. He steps into the corridor and sees, talking to an old man further down the hall, Petrov.
       ‘Drinks in half an hour?’
       ‘Sure,’ he says, going towards the toilets, the opposite direction.
       ‘I’ve thought of another place we can go to. Not as far as last time.’
       ‘Okay,’ he says, walking on. He uses the toilet, looks both ways down the corridor and returns to his room. He closes the door behind him, sits and puts the watch on.
      
       *

‘You want to fuck Anna, don’t you?’
       Frank says nothing. He hears the second-hand ticking on his wrist.
       ‘You don’t know what to say, do you? If you say yes, who knows how I may react? If you say no, who knows how I may react?’
       Petrov smiles.
       ‘I understand. She exudes it, doesn’t she? You have touched only her hand and yet you know she will be a very good fuck. I knew it too.’
       He looks at Petrov’s wrist and Petrov’s watch.
       ‘I think it is in how she carries herself. It is strange that such a thing – posture – should make us suspect she would fuck well, but I am sure it is that. It cannot be a quality of the face – how could that tell us anything about how she would fuck? It cannot be the shape of her fingers or the veins in her arms. You have only seen her in a doorway and you know it. And everyone sees it in her.’
       He and Petrov have the same watch.
       ‘Do you think it makes me jealous, that everyone looks at Anna and knows she would be a good fuck and that some of them think about what it would be like to fuck Anna?’
       He can also hear Petrov’s watch ticking. Petrov reaches across and puts his hand on Frank’s wrist, covering the watch. Frank looks at him.
       ‘You can sleep with Anna if you want,’ Petrov says.
       Frank says nothing.

Frank walks a step behind Petrov. He watches Petrov’s legs, the area where ankle meets shoe, his belt, the places where Petrov might carry a knife. He walks with excitement and fear. He walks knowing something is about to happen, but not knowing how it will happen, or what will happen afterwards. And he knows he can stop. He does not have to follow Petrov. But he walks on with Petrov, and he waits while Petrov unlocks the door, and enters when Petrov holds open the door for him.

Anna is sitting on the bed. Frank unclips the watch as he walks to her. She takes the watch from him and again he feels her cold fingers. She puts the watch on the floor. He cups her jaw in his palms. Her lips part a little but she makes no noise. She stands as he guides her and she hooks her fingers into his shirt, lifting it and revealing pale skin. He raises his arms so she can take his shirt off. Petrov walks to the door, opens it.
       ‘You can kiss her on the lips,’ Petrov says.
       Frank runs his hand down Anna’s hair, her shoulders, her back. She unzips his trousers.
       Petrov steps outside and closes the door behind him. He looks both ways down the corridor and leans with his shoulder, and puts his ear to the door. Then, still facing the door, he takes a step back.