Vladimir(62)

XVII.


He woke a little past noon. I heard him stirring in his room and packed the moka pot with espresso and started it on the stove. That morning I had taken the glass of water with his phone in it from beneath my bed, pulled out the waterlogged device, and put it in a bowl of rice. When he asked for it, I would tell him I had found it in the toilet and was trying to save it.

It was cold in the cabin. I wore wide-legged corduroy pants and a silk turtleneck beneath a fitted cambric work shirt topped with an oversized woolen cardigan. My hair was plaited and pinned on top of my head like a German. In the morning, when I realized Vlad would not be waking anytime soon, I spent an excessive amount of time applying my makeup so that it did not look like I was wearing makeup.

“Whoa,” Vlad said as he entered the room. He wore his blazer over the pajama pants and his arms were crossed and shivering. I pointed to a sweater of John’s I had selected for him—a lambswool pullover made for the coldest of winter days. He took off the blazer and put it on—it billowed and flowed girlishly around his hips.

“The coffee is almost ready,” I said. He thanked me, then went to look out the glass doors that led to the lake. He seemed subdued, philosophical almost. I poured him the coffee, and not knowing how he took it and feeling too shy to ask, I filled a small pitcher with cream and made a tray with a bowl of sugar cubes. I placed it on the coffee table, and he turned toward the sound, sat down without speaking, and fixed his coffee with an obscene amount of milk and sugar. He looked bloodless and withered, a movie star playing a sick scene.

“This is so good,” he said as he finished it, and I replenished his cup.

I waited for him to ask where his phone was, or suggest we leave right away, or propose some sort of plan that linked us with the outside world, but he drank his coffee and said nothing.

“Would you like some eggs?” I asked hesitantly.

“I will eat whatever you give me,” he said.

I found the classical station on the radio and fixed him scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, raisin-bread toast, and a glass of orange juice in silence. Ravel’s “Boléro” played, and he hummed along, staring into the middle distance.

When the food was ready he came to the kitchen table and ate with fixed intensity. It was like watching a time-lapse video of an invalid recovering strength. As he ate, in a steady rhythm, color returned to his gray face, and his limp limbs seemed to plump with renewed energy. When he finished, having consumed the meal in silence, he leaned back and ran his hands up and down the sides of his abdominals.

“Excuse me,” he said, and walked very quickly to the bathroom, where he stayed for twenty minutes.

While he was engaged, I checked his phone, soaking in the rice, and confirmed that the screen was still warped and nonresponsive. Then I checked my own—another text from John came through, a picture of a platter of cherry tomatoes, basil, and fresh mozzarella on skewers. His message read, The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his own caprese. Pedant that he was, he followed it up with another text, Voltaire, get it? Then another: This thing is a farce. I could resign now and end it. We’d save a fortune.

I texted him back, Why don’t you?

Civil suits. We didn’t get all the evidence until the hearing started, Alexis and Sid are looking it over today.

Ok

Where are you? I’m worried. I miss you.

I missed him too, in a way. The thought of he and Sid and Alexis all working together, drinking beers and going over his evidence seemed fun and familial. I started and erased several messages to him, but then I heard the door handle of the bathroom turn and I clicked off my phone.

“Jesus,” Vladimir said, “I feel like I was hit by a truck.”

I asked him if he wanted some painkiller, but he said no, only water. I pointed him to the glasses. He asked if I had apple cider vinegar. I had bought some the day before, in fact, and he mixed in a tablespoon. “For belly bloat,” he said, like a joke, though he meant it. As he was drinking, I pushed the bowl that contained his phone toward him.

“I found it in the toilet,” I said. “I think it might have fallen out of your pocket.”

“Nice one, Vlad,” he said. “Thanks for rescuing it.”

“Do you—want to see if it works?”

He shook his head. His lips were puffed with bitterness. “No.”

“Do you want to—use mine?” His lassitude was confusing me.

“I want to take out a boat,” he said. “Do you have boats?”

I pulled a kayak from the storage shed and brushed spiderwebs from the oar and the life jacket. I pushed him off, and he waved goodbye. Only when he was at a good distance out on the lake did I feel an erotic throb return, as I watched his shoulders undulate with the paddle, far from me. I went back inside the house and pulled the file of my book up on my laptop, hoping I had time to add an extra five hundred words before he returned. But instead I stared at the cursor blinking and wrote nothing.

What was he playing at? I couldn’t understand. I understood that during the night, still under the effects of the sedative, he had only wanted to sleep, he couldn’t think about the outside world, his wife, his daughter. But come this morning (or afternoon—I realized it was now after 2 p.m.), I had expected him to want to get back to that home and daughter as soon as possible. If he believed me about John and Cynthia, I would have expected him to be in more of a rage—ranting at me about my husband or fuming about his wife’s betrayal. But never mind him, I also didn’t understand my own mind. Did I wish to keep him here with me, in his docile, agreeable state? If he stayed, and we drank a bottle of wine or two, would it lead to our coupling? Last night, again, probably still under the influence, he had made it seem like that was a possibility. But I couldn’t believe that was true. And besides, when he caught sight of my low breasts, my rumpled thighs, the loose skin of my stomach—