Black Vodka: Ten Stories

her voice is gentle. rain does that to voices, makes them intimate and suggestive.

Elisa and I, the last two smokers on earth, sit under the bay tree, listening to our cats purr while they sharpen their claws and lick each other clean. My new wife plays with my fingers and the sun, which is setting, prints colour into the concrete towerblocks.

We said Yes in all the European languages. Yes. We said yes we said yes, yes to vague but powerful things, we said yes to hope which has to be vague, we said yes to love which is always blind, we smiled and said yes without blinking. I wished my mother could hear us say yes and I thought about the stories she told me when I was a child and walked on garden walls that seemed so high but she always said yes, yes climb up and walk on that wall, I will hold your hand and tell you about the skyscrapers of Chicago.

She does not tell him that she has been standing outside the city of Roma, watching and talking to him over the wall.

Naomi said to Simon Tegala: It's over between us. I can't believe you wanted more sex magic because you think your father is dying. Simon Tegala's heart has two chambers: the upper chamber and the lower chamber. Blood flows between these chambers. Simon Tegala's heart is the size of his fist. What were you thinking, his ex-girlfriend shouts as she slams the door. Simon Tegala says, SHAKING. I was thinking about SHAKING.

I am looking into your eyes and I can't get in. You have changed the locks and I have an old key that doesn't fit and our daughter is making her way across the garden towards us, holding her thick blanket. You are telling me you are dead, and I say yes, I know you are. We miss you and since you've been gone I've forgotten all my pin numbers, I can't remember the code to my gym locker or where the honey is or where I put the blue pillowcase-- and could you tell me, again, where exactly the sea is, in that photograph?

I want you to be someone else.' 'Who do you want me to be?' 'I want you to be kind and wise. I want you to be a father who loves his children. I want you to be attentive to me and faithful for ever. I want you to always fancy me and respect and admire me and I want you to be older and more confident.' 'But I'm not,' Pavel says. 'I'm not a father. I'm not very wise.' 'I know.' Ella turns away from him.

There is nothing that feels as good as breathing near someone you desire. The past of my youth was not a good place to be. Is it strange then, that I am attracted to a woman who is obsessed with digging up the past?

That night I dreamt (again) of Poland. In this recurring dream I am in Warsaw on a train to Southend-on-Sea. There is a soldier in my carriage. He kisses his mother's hand and then he kisses his girlfriend's lips. I am watching him in the old mirror attached to the wall of our carriage and I can see he has a humped back under his khaki uniform. When I wake up there are always tears on my cheeks, transparent as vodka but warm as rain.

Beautiful breath beautiful breath beautiful breath. I loved every part of her.

Tears fall from his eyes and arrange themselves on his cheek like Man Ray tears.

Her sad girl breath makes me dizzy.