tania

Blade in Red (part 2) 10/2/07 09:35 They emerged from the terminal and he looked around. ‘There,’ Mirka said and pointed. ‘There’ was no parking place but only slightly away from of the main exit, and ‘there’ was parked a very red, snazzy Alfa Romeo in what was clearly a no-parking area, and a girl was leaning to it and telling-off a police officer. That would be Blade, naturally! But the car? He hurried to her, following no thought but his big-brother-instinct wanting to interfere before Blade would be fined; but he should have known better, of course – the police officer was already retiring hastily, looking as if he wanted to apply for another job. ‘Ahoy, Blade,’ he said with a grin, ‘fancy car you’ve got there!’ ‘Idiot!’ Mirka hissed at him, ‘this is Mamas car!’ Both girls exploded in laughter at his stunned-and-stupid facial expression. ‘Welcome back to reality, Mr. Expat,’ Blades tongue bit, ‘ I don’t know how things are out where you live, but here students don’t have cars.’ ‘When they fired that Spanish production manager,’ Mirka explained, ‘the new guy wanted something more conservative, so Papa bought this cheaply as a gift to Mama at her 50 years birthday.’ Well, he’d known that the gift was a car; but… Mama and a violently-red Alfa Romeo? Well, he guessed that Mama felt younger than she was, or wanted to – or perhaps Papa saw her as younger, or wanted to. Maybe even people of 50 or more were not really as old as they looked… Then his intellect coldly told him that he knew nothing about becoming 50 years old, it would take him around 23 more years to experience that - and he regained control of his composure. ‘Should we try again?’ Blade said dryly and put her hand forward. ‘Welcome here.’ ‘Thanks,’ he said and took her hand. Her shake was firm as that of any man and that was at least one good thing – most Slav girls and women have a handshake like a long-dead codfish. They looked each other over; he attempted to do so discretely, she did it directly and openly. She was three-four years older than the girl he remembered, but she had not changed much. Still slim, slender, obviously very fit; perhaps slightly more generous shapes. Dark hair set in a shabby pony-tail, no make-up at all. Good face, with strong, harmonious features – actually it could perhaps have been beautiful if it had not been so, was it bitter, or angry, or full of contempt, or hurt, or arrogant, or perhaps an unholy cocktail of all of that. And she chewed gum. He knew that a lot of girls think it’s sexy to chew like a dromedary, but somehow he thought that Blade did it for exactly the opposite reason, deliberately to be un-sexy. It made her look utterly stupid, which in a way comforted him; because he’d always been a little afraid of her intelligence. But the huge darkeyes, like ponds of night with twinkling stars dropped deepdown at the bottom were the same as they’d always been, mysterious, mesmerizing jewels. Casually dressed; cheap, flat sandals; loose grey trousers worn and pale, spotted with duskblue-and-darker camouflage (no doubt the lower half of her hunting suit, used when she took her rifle into the mountains), a loose sweat-shirt, greenish-grey with huge lubricant-pink letters spelling out, ‘IT IS NOT EASY TO PLAY WITH ME!’ Well, he should say not! ‘Good to see you again,’ he said; he didn’t want to say that she looked the same as always. ‘You’ve grown, Expatty,’ she said, ‘done a lot of body-building abroad?’ She said it quite neutrally, and still he blushed. That irritated him, but he’d not allow this brat of his childhood to provoke him! ‘Yes, kid,’ he said, and she lifted her left brow a little; he remembered that prelude to sarcasm too well and hurried on, ‘They have a very good gym at the office, and I use it. But mostly, it’s the swimming that developed my body – you can swim the sea each and every morning, and I do that!’ ‘And that explains the suntan too,’ she nodded. ‘Looks good on you, muscle and tan, Martin-Man,’ she added with a kind grin. And he blushed even more, hurrying up to ask, ‘Well, and what do you do to stay trim, Blade?’ ‘Fencing, of course,’ she answered. This was one of the irritating things about Blade, she’d never hesitate, always repost faster than lightning, and say something like that – something which might be a fast pun, could be deep irony, or perhaps was just a simple fact – and you’d never know which it was. She opened the frontdoor of the car, saying, ‘Now, if you’ll get into the car, we’re off for Spisska…’ Again there was this secretive smile when Mirka crawled into the back seat. And he understood that all her dressing-up probably was meant to distract him from anticipating some intrigue or trick of hers. He was quite sure about that now; but couldn’t imagine what it was going to be. So he sighed and sat in the right-side front seat. Blade removed the chewing gum and put it in a waste-bin, before she sat behind the wheel. He’d much have preferred to drive the car himself; but that was out of the question, after beers and bavorak. And Blade was driving the car very well, he had to admit that – even if she had a relaxed attitude to traffic rules in general, and generously ignored speed-limits. She had always been good at everything, and always – as now with driving, excelled in taking it to the very peak of performance at the bare borderline of risk, but always and ever just within that borderline. Perhaps that was the most annoying thing about her! Out of the corner of his eye he looked at her profile; yes, nice but very concentrated. And a little drawn with tiredness, or stress, or concern..? ‘You’re studying in Bratislava now?’ She didn’t answer immediately, occupied as she was with overtaking a lorry on the serpentine-road (discretely his left foot stepped on the brake-pedal which was not there, as another lorry rushed downhill towards them); she just shifted into a lower gear with rapid, precise movements, accelerated the car further, and with several meters to spare shot it ahead and to the right into safety. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘management and law. Holliday now, as you know…’ She shut up while overtaking a row of four other cars. He closed his eyes and with an effort of self-control kept his voice calm. ‘Interesting study,’ he said. ‘And how do you enjoy the vacation?’ ‘Working,’ was the dry reply, ‘one must make money…’ This time she paused to avoid being hit by a wild downhill-driver ghosting it in the wrong side of the road. ‘Fucking idiot!’ she hissed, and then calmly went on, ‘So I’m a PA for this Dutchman who’s here to consider building a production plant.’ ‘PA?’ ‘Expat slang for personal assistant,’ she explained, roaring the car around an especially tricky serpentine-curve. ‘Secretary, interpreter, pseudo-lawyer, sales-agent, tourist-guide, dinner-companion…’ ‘And bed companion?’ he suggested. Immediately, but surprisingly gently she turned the car into a forest road and stopped it. She did not switch-off the engine, and in the waiting-time it was purring like a cheetah ready for attack. She looked at him with a strange smile. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to walk the rest of the way, Pattyboy’, she said very sweetly. ‘Martin, you idiot!’ Miroslava exploded from the backseat, interjecting some new, juicy Slovak words. ‘You give Jana an excuse right away! And Jana, please don’t…’ ‘No, it’s all right, Mirkin, I should not be so short-fused,’ the other girl answered, ‘And Martin, please don’t apologise. The question was fair and logical – and so is my answer.’ Her face split into the grin he too well remembered from many an argument he’d had with her. He gulped and awaited the verbal thunderbolt. ‘Many PA’s sleep with their boss, and even marry them – anything to get out of here! And you know that well, Mr. Expat, don’t you! Sorry Martin,’ she quietly went on, ‘I sleep with whoever I want, and as long as it is not you, I can’t see it’s any of your business.’ Gone was the grin; now Blade just looked determined, as she turned away from him. She backed the car onto the road again and roared it ahead towards Spisska. Martin was both ashamed and surprised – very ashamed of having put such a question, and even more surprised that he had put it; it really was none of his business and he didn’t care anyhow – so much more it was surprising that her answer had really hurt him. ‘I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘You should be!’ that was Mirka yelling from the backseat. ‘Here she takes the trouble and invests her scarce free-time to pick you up, and right away you have to insult her, and…’ ‘Shut up, sis! I want to apologise!’ he interrupted and put a hand on Janas shoulder. ‘Really, I’m sorry! I know that you’re not like that, and it was unforgivably rude of me…’ ‘Yes!’ Mirka hissed from the backseat. ‘Will you forgive me, even if…’ Blade laughed. ‘Anything for an old friend!’ she said. ‘Thanks for the apology, it’s accepted and appreciated – let’s forget the little incident.’ ‘Thank you!’ he said. ‘But how can you,’ again Miroslava from the backseat, ‘let him get away with it so lightly? Why don’t you…’ Her voice drowned in the sound of the horn, when Blade signalled to advice whoever else might be on the road that the Alfa would now skate around a sharp corner. When the road was more or less straight again, the car jumped forward, sneering like an angry swarm of bees, and Blade found the time to reply. ‘He apologised and said sorry,’ was her calm remark. ‘And Mirk, I’ve been called a whore often enough – and worse things – but your brother is the only one who ever apologised and said sorry. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’ Miroslava grumbled something or other. And as the Alfa roared down the last mountainside before the river valley Martin changed the subject.