A Love Song for the Sad Man in the White Coat Read online

  At first, it was just the insanely satisfying sex which made him possessive of his young lover. Later, he would sometimes catch a look on Matěj’s face—he could never decide if it was his imagination or if Matěj, too, felt something more than lust—but he was surprised by his own reaction to the possibility. Fear. Simon was, for the first time in his life, consciously scared of losing something.

  That was when he realized he was falling in love. Through fear. Nothing pleasant about the emotion, that was for sure. Was not love supposed to be uplifting and fulfilling? Yet all Simon could comprehend of the emotion was dread—of being left behind, not being loved back, of Matěj getting hurt.

  When Matěj left just a few months later—without a single word of explanation and thus justifying all those fears—Simon might have died inside and reincarnated in this washed-out, black-and-white version of himself. He loathed this Simon. Moody, pensive, weak.

  Marta had saved him. Taking care of Matěj’s sister kept Simon sane, functioning. She was enough of a motivation for him to keep trying, shuffling and dragging his feet through life. Even when the past felt like a black hole sucking him in, he’d continue forward, hoping that one day, there’d be a cure for his pain.

  And now Marta was leaving him, too. Simon wished he could just forget it all.

  He ran hard and fast until he couldn’t run anymore. His stomach heaved, and he swallowed against the nausea. He walked the rest of the way to the apartment, just barely managing not to vomit.

  ***

  Refusing to stay the night at the guys’ apartment, Marta took a taxi straight to Simon’s. Mike and Lukas waved her off, and she watched them—standing there, holding hands, heads leaning together—until the car turned left and onto the main street. She didn’t even think of going to her own empty studio, no matter how close it was. Her new bed could wait one more day.

  Simon leaving the bar early had reminded Marta how much he hid from her. It frustrated her—the helplessness. When she was nineteen, so deep in her own grief, she never saw Simon’s suffering. She clung to his strength instead. Tonight, she realized she might be stronger than Simon, and it terrified her. Something had to change, and she had to be the one to act.

  In the bathroom, Marta found Simon’s wet running clothes. The sight made her angry. Why did he feel the need to punish himself like that? She let herself into his room as silently as she could. It was past two at night, and she didn’t want to wake him.

  He slept on his stomach in black shorts and a sleeveless shirt, the sheets a mess around his legs. His features were tense and tired even in sleep, his long limbs sprawled across the bed, reaching out for the nonexistent cool air. His scarred ear was a part of him which shouldn’t have surprised her anymore. Right then, the sight made her chest constrict in saddened tenderness. Simon had lost weight—working all the time, exercising too much, not eating properly—and Marta ached with the need to comfort him.

  She lay down next to him, covering his fisted hand gently with her own. He didn’t stir, but a few minutes later his fist loosened, and he seemed to rest easier.

  With the memories of her brother swirling around her head, Marta watched Simon sleep. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but the decision to find Matěj only solidified over time. She’d waited; because of fear, because she couldn’t see clearly how much of what happened was her fault, and because of Simon.

  She couldn’t do this alone, she knew that. She needed an ally. However, Simon’s reaction to the guys’ engagement confirmed her fears. Her ally couldn’t be Simon. After all they had been through, after three years of relying on each other, after Simon had put her needs first again and again, she was now plotting behind his back.

  “I’m so sorry, Simon,” she whispered softly before she closed her eyes.

  When she woke up, Simon had already gone to work.

  4: Marry My Dog

  —Old Town, Prague, August 2016—

  “Fucking asshole,” Mike muttered around the straw in his Kofola. He loved the communist copycat of the American coke which somehow survived 1989 and attracted its own retro cult. Marta found the mix of chemicals appalling. She believed Mike had learned to like it just so he could blend in better. Because his broken, hopeless Czech would never allow him to be a genuine part of the nation. Why he wanted to, that was another mystery. He was Australian. He never encountered the kind of prejudice people from Eastern Europe or Asia had to deal with. The kind of prejudice which made the Roma wish to be white while at the same time hating the whites with the passion of ten oppressed generations. The kind of prejudice that made people want to shrink in on themselves, to melt into the crowd, while at the same time they strove to wildly exaggerate their alien qualities as they clung to their dissolving identities.

  Mike was welcome here. People thought he was cool at first sight, like an exotic animal, with his accent, his tan, his straw-blond hair and lanky limbs, his leather bracelets, good-natured, self-ironic jokes and animated hand gestures, appearing just a little effeminate. He didn’t have to fight to be accepted. Even his mild flamboyance was met with far more understanding just because he was the right kind of foreigner.

  Right now, though, Mike was pissed.

  “The guy completely hijacked the discussion. Everybody else just shut up after that.” He made a slurping sound with the straw at the bottom of his glass and wiped his forehead in the stifling afternoon heat. They had a forty-minute long break and, since the classrooms were situated in one of the office buildings in the lower part of Wenceslas Square, they only rounded a corner and were sitting at a crowded café on Příkopy street.

  The intensive summer courses were in full swing. Mike was a senior lecturer, teaching intermediate and advanced business English plus conversational skills. He got all the corporate clients, mostly middle-aged men and women playing catch-up with the world. They were taught Russian and German in schools, growing up in the seventies and eighties. Their English was poor at best, their self-importance astounding, and their frustration of failing in anything made them aggressive. Marta rarely had to deal with them, though. In her beginners’ grammar classes, people were humbler, and she avoided individual male clients. She didn’t deal with the sexism well.

  Mike always felt the need to fight to change the world. Using his advanced conversation classes for his own agenda, he made the suits read articles on corporate social responsibility, business ethics, feminism, immigration, minorities… Marta admired him for his Don Quixote persona. He never gave up. He voiced his frustrations and moved on. He said if he managed to slightly widen the views of one person in the class of twelve, it was worth it. He was probably right and undeniably brave.

  “What did he say?” she asked in relation to the student Mike was complaining about.

  “That soon people will be able to ‘marry with their dogs.’ I was barely able to correct his use of the preposition before he went into full-on raging-bigot mode. How can you atheists argue with so-called Christian values without swallowing your own tongues?”

  Marta winced. “I’m sorry, Mike.” True to his relentless spirit, Mike introduced his class to the topic of Proposition 8. He’d prepared for the class for a week, brushing up his mild suggestions, hints and reasonable arguments. Wisely, he kept quiet the fact he and his boyfriend were registering for partnership in just a few days’ time. He showed the students parts of the play 8, because George Clooney always helped, and picked two New York Times articles for them to read and talk about. Apparently, it didn’t go well.

  “And the lawyer, Anna What’s-her-name, said the Czech Republic was not ready for same-sex marriage. It’s different here, she said. I mean, she’s nice and all, but I wanted to take off my shoe and beat her bloody with it.”

  “Did you manage to wrap it up?”

  “Kind of. I gave them the old women’s rights analogy. Interracial marriage in the sixties, majority cannot decide on the rights of a minority, human rights shouldn’t be a subject of a public vote, yada yada. They
were clearly uncomfortable.”

  “That’s good, though, isn’t it? Force them out of their comfort zone?”

  “I guess.”

  “Mike…” She put her hand over his on the table.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. He shifted in his chair, visibly pepping himself up. He slapped his thighs with his hands and looked around with a broad smile. “I love Prague in the summer. It’s like a continuous festival. And when it’s this hot, the city feels just a bit queerer.” He hummed in pretend thoughtfulness, blatantly checking out a passing stranger in flip-flops and too-tight shorts. His tanned legs were extremely hairy. Mike cocked his head, wrinkled his nose in mock disgust, and his quick eyes narrowed with cheeky humor. Marta chuckled. He looked back at her, serious for a second again. “It’s always worth it, you know. All of it,” he said.

  It was Marta who had introduced her Australian colleague to Simon’s group of friends the previous year. And to Lukas. Mike hadn’t planned to linger in Prague for long. It was just a stop on his restless journey through the world after finishing university in Melbourne. But when he and Lukas fell into a relationship smoothly and seamlessly, Mike decided to stay indefinitely. As an English teacher, a native speaker with a degree in education, he’d always find work. With his easy-going nature, he’d build a home anywhere he chose—a home made of a cluttered sublet studio apartment, a favorite coffee shop, a Romanian beggar in front of the grocery store whom he always slipped a fiver, and a casual jazz ensemble which he called “my band” with some exaggeration. Most importantly, Lukas was Mike’s home now.

  Marta admired Mike’s ability to stand his ground with Lukas, treating his partner like an equal regardless the decade-wide age gap. As a most natural result, he was being treated as an equal right back. It was what she fought for with Simon on a daily basis. She knew she couldn’t really compare her relationship with Simon to Mike and Lukas. Mike was never dependent on Lukas. They were partners, not guardian and protégé. But still, there were instances when they were all together as a group, and Lukas would do or say something which made her wish Simon would take a hint.

  “Mike, we have only fifteen minutes left, so it’s probably not a good time to open this up. But I need your help.” Marta spoke quickly, afraid if she waited any longer, she’d back off like the last time. And the time before that.

  Mike sat up straight, his attention fully on her. “What is it?”

  “I want to find him,” she blurted.

  Mike blinked. It took a few seconds, but understanding dawned on his face, his eyes widening slightly. “Matěj?” he asked, mispronouncing the name.

  Marta nodded. “Can you not tell Lukas yet?”

  Mike frowned and leaned back. He thought about it, and Marta took it as a good sign. Mike wouldn’t give her an empty promise. “Yeah. I think so. Why?”

  “Simon will flip out. And Lukas knows it. He’ll try to take over, make me wait, or make me tell Simon.”

  Mike laughed humorlessly. “Yes, I agree on all points.”

  “I want to see my brother again. As soon as possible. And I’ll tell Simon myself when the time feels right.”

  Her friend scratched his barely there stubble. “I will help you, of course. But why now?”

  “It’s not a sudden decision. I’ve thought about it many times. Simon blames Matěj for a lot things. At first, it was difficult for me to see past that. We became close after Matěj left. I trusted Simon implicitly—I couldn’t see him being wrong in anything. But we had all made mistakes, you know? Me most of all.”

  Mike cringed. “You don’t blame yourself for Matěj leaving, do you? Because Lukas said—”

  “Mikey, Lukas wasn’t there. I was.”

  “Okay,” Mike said hesitantly, a question in his tone.

  Marta looked away and took a deep breath. “I said some horrible things to my brother. Deeply hurtful things Simon doesn’t know about. It took me a long time to see it clearly, but I think I understand now why he might not…” She sighed deeply, searching for words. “It has to be me. Making the first step. It wasn’t my fault, not entirely. However, I could have gone after him years ago.”

  “Lukas told me the story. Matěj was…unstable.” Mike said the word carefully, apparently fearing its consequences as soon as it left his mouth.

  Marta winced. She had nothing to say to that. Mike had never met Matěj. He’d only witnessed some of the aftermath.

  “I think he kept things from us—how bad it was. I think he tried to protect me from the worst of it. I should have noticed. Jesus, no one wears scarves in May!”

  “You mean, your dad—”

  Marta nodded jerkily, fisting her hand on the table. “I still held on to the old version of Dad—I didn’t want to see how much he hurt Matěj. Dad was never like that to me.” Marta’s voice broke. She took a few fortifying breaths. “Matěj took the worst of it, protecting me, and I let it happen.”

  Mike was chewing on his thumbnail, his eyes fixed on Marta, waiting. “You were just a teenager,” he said quietly, but Marta didn’t acknowledge the notion. It was beside the point.

  “Will you help me? Even if you don’t agree?” she asked.

  Mike nodded immediately. Marta could see the hints of enthusiasm she’d hoped for. He would think of it as a mission—a project. Mike loved his projects.

  “I’ll help you. It’s a good thing you want to find him,” he said, a faint smile on his lips. “Simon will kill me.”

  Marta laughed despite herself. “So, it’s revenge on your part, huh?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Mike said and stood, his grin wide and happy. “C’mon. We’re going to be late.”

  5: The Man in the White Coat

  —New Town, Prague, September 2016—

  Marta sat in the tiny café facing Simon. He looked good as always. His face had very distinct features: a quite irregular and prominent nose, high protruding cheekbones, broad expressive mouth, and deep frown lines between his thick eyebrows. His intelligent but tired eyes were green with golden flecks in them, and together with those eyebrows, Simon’s eyes spoke volumes even when the man was quiet. He valued practicality, always clean-shaven, and he wore his light-brown hair buzzed short, like a thick carpet on his skull. Marta liked the feel of it against her palm and usually sneaked in a quick pat on his head when they hugged. He was tall with broad, square shoulders and long limbs he controlled with the precision of a skilled basketball player. He had the kind of appearance that would leave a permanent imprint on anyone’s memory.

  Then there was the ear, of course. Simon’s left earlobe had a large chunk missing; therefore, from a certain angle, Simon gave a subtle impression of a feral libertine cat. The story about how he sustained the injury used to change depending on his mood. At one point, there were several legends circulating about the day Dr. Simon Mráz had lost his ear. Lately, he hadn’t bothered explaining even when asked.

  His green eyes shone against his lightly tanned skin, and the white coat he wore for work was draped over his chair. He usually played with random objects or drummed his fingertips on the nearest surface—it was a habit which had intensified when he stopped smoking a couple of years before—but he rarely appeared nervous. It just seemed the force of his personality, the energy and strength pulsing through him, needed an outlet. Because otherwise his face was always as calm and collected as his behavior. Marta found it absurd that even Simon’s fidgeting was graceful.

  He had a shift starting soon so they sat down directly across from the hospital entrance despite the disputable quality of the coffee.

  “How are you, love?” She liked his Moravian accent. He did not prolong the vowels in the annoying way the people born in Prague generally did. He twirled a coaster in his long fingers, his penetrating gaze fixed on her face.

  Ready to jump out of my skin at any moment. Marta was keeping a secret from Simon for the first time. She hadn’t realized how difficult it would be.

  “I’m okay. What about you
?”

  Simon sighed, straightened in his chair and looked through the window. He smacked the coaster on the table and rubbed his big wiry hand over the top of his head. Something was off. Marta waited, curious.

  “I need to talk to you. I want to change our plans for tomorrow evening, but I would hate for you to feel cornered or forced, so you can say no to any part of the plan or just wave your hand and I’ll drop it.” He was talking too much. And Simon was not a talker.

  “Simon, what’s going on?”

  Simon shifted uncomfortably and took a deep breath. Here goes.

  “I’ve been seeing someone lately.”

  Marta held her expression, refusing to let anything show on her face before she was sure of how she wanted to react. This was no place for unguarded emotions. Simon deserved her support in any choice he made for himself. This was the very reason she wanted to move out in the first place.

  “As in the same person repeatedly?” she asked and felt her forced small smile quiver around the corners. But Simon wasn’t looking at her. He looked out the window at the passing trams.

  “Yes. His name is Jano. He’s a chef. Moved here from Eastern Slovakia last year. We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months. I didn’t want to say anything in case it didn’t last.” Simon straightened in his chair and leaned back, fastening his gaze on Marta. “You don’t have to meet with him. Only if you want to. I thought I could invite him to dinner tomorrow. If you’re okay with that.”

  “Of course, I am!” Marta stated, impressed with the strength of her own voice. She could do this. It should have happened a long time ago. “I want to meet him,” she clarified unnecessarily.

  Simon smiled, but his face was tense.