THE BATH

In the black-and-white picture in Het Parool you are smiling, and before I start reading I already know: you’re dead. I lower the cat off my lap, plant my elbows on the newspaper and count back the years. Twenty-six – that’s how old I must have been. Sinking back into the loose down of my memory, the Amsterdam of those days seems swollen. A tumescence everywhere, a pressure underneath the pavement, the asphalt, behind the walls and rooftops of the city. Growth, frenzy, hunger. Your house in Oost seemed bigger than it must have been, as if the warmth of all your guests, of your candles, made the air inside expand, and after that the walls, which were the texture and colour of unbleached cotton – anyway.
And you, in the tub, your hairy calf propped up like a tree-trunk on the edge. You were smoking a cigarette, tapping the ashes into the toilet – hiss, hiss. And I, sitting on the laundry basket, staring at the fogged mirror, realised this condensation was everywhere now. You could see it on the mirror; you couldn’t see it on the tiles, or on my face, on my neck, between my breasts, on the inside of my wrists. One of your guests turned off the music in the living room only to be punished with loud booing from seemingly everyone else. You looked up at the ceiling, curious to see what would happen next. A pumping bass kicked in and the wall behind me started pulsating again.
‘Pour me some more,’ you said, your eyes sparkling.
I pulled the slender bottle out of the cooler and filled your held-out glass. The lower half of your body was still submerged, but I could make out the dark patch between your legs through the foam. I thought of Jaws, the poster that for years made it impossible for me to do the backstroke. I don’t remember what clever thing I said because you didn’t seem to be hearing me, and now I realise I can only recall the things that impressed you. I remember the weave of your bathrobe against my neck – washed until it had grown rough, worn until it had grown soft. But that came later.
‘Don’t you want to join me?’ you said.
I shook my head, laughing.
‘Shame about all this hot water.’
‘Do you think it’s normal to take a bath at your own party?’
You shrugged; the foam rippled. There was knocking on the bathroom door and I realised there was no lock on it. A tall boy came in with a drink in his hand. Ice cubes clinked against the glass.
‘Boris,’ you said. ‘How nice of you to join us.’
‘I gotta pee,’ the boy said and lifted up the toilet seat, putting his drink down on the cistern.
Leaning one hand against the wall, he let his urine flow as if he was emptying out a bottle. A large bottle. When he was done, he flushed and put down the lid. He turned around and sat down. You asked what he was drinking.
‘Vodka,’ said the boy. Boris. He stuck out his lower lip and spun the glass around in his fingers. ‘Was drinking.
I’m out.’
‘You want some wine?’
Boris arched an eyebrow and held up his glass.
‘You need to get rid of the ice first,’ you said. ‘It’ll ruin it.’
He emptied his glass into the bath; the ice cubes ripped tunnels through the foam. I got up, poured him some wine and planted one butt cheek on the edge of your bath. Now that Boris was there, that seemed less daunting.
‘The girl doesn’t want to get in,’ you said.
‘Yeah, I can understand why,’ Boris said. He brushed the hair off his forehead, smiled at me and looked away again. Although he seemed discomfited he stayed put, and I understood this was part of the rapport between you. That he took your teasing as a form of attention, maybe even love.
‘I didn’t say that,’ I said, rubbing my face so you couldn’t tell that I was blushing.
I got up, grabbed my glass off the sink and sat down again.
‘Should I give you some privacy?’ Boris said.
‘Not at all,’ you said. ‘Stay, talk to us.’
And with those words, I now know, it was a done deal.
We kept on drinking until your water got cold. I handed you your bathrobe and looked away as you got up. You’d stay in that bathrobe for the rest of the evening and I would wait until everyone had finally left, until the pile of coats on the bed had shrunk down to one, which it turned out wasn’t mine. The silk lining was cool under my bare butt.
You used your knees to push mine apart – I thought of kitchen cabinets, doors with loose hinges.
‘Come here with that face,’ I said and pushed your head down between my thighs. Your stubble chafed me; your tongue was fat and dry; I dug my heels into your back and kept you there.
Later I climbed on top of you and locked you into me, dreamt that we were standing in the same water, a cool, dark fen. Someone pulled the plug and I swirled down with the water, into the unknown. On the shore, your feet dry, smiling: you.
The city was tumid and orange in the morning, an answer to the sun. I was lying with my cheek resting in one hand peering out across courtyards at the windows on the other side. I had stayed because you’d chosen your friend when you could have chosen the girl. Because I saw a goodness in that. The girl, I now know, was already in love.
Those weeks together have faded, just like the day you ended things. A few years from now, all I’ll remember is the swollen city, your calf propped up on the edge of the bath, and Boris coming in to pee.

by Gilles van der Loo

Short Story

Published in Extra Extra No 18

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