What Belongs to You Page 5

  Mitko was awake when I returned to the hotel, lounging and watching television, unperturbed by my absence, though he wanted to know where I had been and took my camera to scan through the photos I had taken. He knew every inch of the park, he said, he recognized each of the scenes on the screen, and he demonstrated this knowledge by describing for me what lay outside the frame. Later that afternoon he took me into the center, through its streets and squares, pointing out landmarks that were like miniatures of their counterparts in the capital: monuments to the same patriots, museums of history, of archaeology and ethnography, the Roman ruins and the central cathedral with its efflorescence of domes. Everywhere there were gulls, tame and inquisitive as cats, filling the squares with their cries. Mitko was hungry, and we stopped at a snack stand, a bakery selling cheese pastries and sausages and sweets of various kinds. We stood in the street to eat, a small pedestrian square lined on one side by the opera house, and soon we were accosted by one of these birds, who trotted intently before us, working the hinges of its bill and raising its wings as it cried. Mitko had ordered more food than he could eat, and he threw one of his scraps to this bird, which beat its wings to catch it in midair, tossing it back quickly and repeating its demands. Soon there were four or five of them hopping and calling, so that the air was full of opening doors. They delighted me, and Mitko fed my delight as he fed the birds, to the last scrap, after which he raised his hands in apology for having nothing left. As we continued our walk, Mitko told me stories about the places we passed, here the restaurant he frequented with Julien, here the scene of a nocturnal encounter, here the table outside of a dyuner stand where, drunk and brawling, he fell and struck his mouth, breaking his tooth. When it was dark, he said, he would take me to the thermal baths, pools where despite the cold we could lounge in the water together. And he wanted me to see his home, he said; the next morning we would take the bus to the blokove on the outskirts and I would meet his mother and his grandmother. I was surprised by this; I suppose he wanted to show me off, a foreigner, a teacher at a famous school, though how he would explain our acquaintance I had no idea.

  Everywhere we went he greeted people by name, shaking their hands, patting their backs like a politician, an unaccountably public man. He gestured toward me in introduction, saying that I was his friend, an American, at which point I nodded politely and waited for the conversation to end. As we walked away from certain of these men, Mitko would lean into me and whisper a suggestion that we might all three have fun together, he could easily arrange it. But I wanted to be alone with Mitko, and I told him this later, back in the room when he suggested he call his friend, the one he called brat mi, who was, he assured me, as eager as Mitko himself for the three of us to meet. We would gather at the hotel, he said, and then go to the hot springs together. It was already early evening, night was falling, he said we could leave soon. But I want to be with you, I said, only with you, and he smiled and allowed himself to be dragged to the bed, where I tugged off his shoes, unbuttoned his pants and his shirt. He lay next to me, accepting my caresses, every now and then propping himself up to drink from the whiskey he had poured himself as soon as we got in, despite his illness and his pledge, he had told me, to drink less. He was watching television as well, flipping through channels until he stopped at a film, an American film dubbed in Bulgarian, as though to distract himself from what I was doing to him, so that I felt not only alone in my longing, but for the first time like an aggressor. When I pulled back from him, he reached down and started to stroke himself, slowly and with something like languor, even when he went soft maintaining the same regular motion of his arm.

  It was now, lying next to him but excluded from this mechanical exercise, that I noticed the movie he had chosen. It was a famous film, recent, a historical drama that for all its artifice was as brutal as the film I had watched on the bus the day before. But this was a different sort of violence, more invested in genuine suffering; it wasn’t gunfire and explosions we watched, Mitko and I, but the lashing of whips and the hacking of swords. It killed my desire, but Mitko watched it without once looking away, not avidly but with a strange dullness, the same quality with which his hand moved at his waist. Can we change it, I said, can we watch something else, but he murmured no, he was watching, it was interesting, he wanted to see what would happen. It was history I had learned in school, first as a child and then again later, when I could understand more of its horror; I knew what would happen, and I didn’t want to be drawn into that cumulative helplessness portrayed on the screen. I wanted him to stop jerking off to these images, though it didn’t seem to me that that was quite what he was doing, the two actions—his eyes motionless and his hand in constant motion—seemed detached from each other, even if they shared the same languorous quality. Maybe you want to stop, I said, you don’t have to finish now, using the Bulgarian euphemism svurshish, more accurate but less hopeful than our own verb, come, the openness of which I preferred, you can wait until later. But he didn’t want to wait, he said he was close, though he wasn’t close, there was still no urgency in his movement, no variation of tempo at all. I lay there for another quarter hour, watching him and watching the images on the screen, feeling an acidic sense of entrapment. He did finally finish, and it was only then that he touched me, at the last moment he reached out and pulled my head to him and filled my mouth, which felt less like an erotic act than a convenience, a way quite simply of cleaning up. And now his languor disappeared, he seemed pleased with himself, filled with ebullient energy. The third time today, he said, switching off the television as he turned to me and grinned, and then explained, seeing my confusion, that he had jerked off twice that morning while I was exploring the Sea Garden. What do you mean, I said, surprised, though as I spoke my surprise was changing to something else, and a note in what I said put Mitko on his guard. What, he said, lifting himself from the bed to the chair beside it and reaching for the pack of cigarettes he had already emptied, which he crumpled in annoyance and then tossed aside. He reached instead for his drink, though it too was empty and he had to pour himself another from the bottle on the floor. Are you mad at me, he asked, and I wasn’t quite, anger wasn’t really what I felt, or not yet. Why would you do that, I said, why would you do that alone when you know how much I want it? I couldn’t do any better than that, I had to speak baldly in his language, without any of my usual defenses. But you weren’t here, Mitko said, I woke up and you were gone, I didn’t know where you were or when you would be back, why should I wait—and here he smiled and held up his hands, trying to lighten the tone—I’m a young guy, I can’t wait, I don’t have that much control.

  I didn’t respond to his smile. I came all the way from Sofia, I said, and I’ve paid for the room, for our meals, for everything, I came to be with you, to have sex with you—and here Mitko broke in, catching the scent of something he could exploit. Is it just about sex then, he said, you’re my friend, and he used again that word priyatel. I found the hotel, he said, I waited for you at the bus stop, even though it was raining, and now my throat hurts, I’m starting to get sick. A ne e li vyarno, he said, isn’t that right, challenging me to deny it. He paused to drink, as though bracing himself for a confrontation he knew he couldn’t avoid. I did all that because we’re friends, he said, those are things friends do, it isn’t just sex for me. He stopped then, as if he realized he had gone too far, had leaned too hard on the fiction of our relationship and felt the false surface give way. But we aren’t friends like that, I said as Mitko took another long drink. We both get something from it, I went on, and the bluntness of the language was now the tool I wanted: I get sex, I said, and you get money, that’s all. But now I was the one who had gone too far, and so I softened what I had said, or tried to: I like you, I said, I like being with you, skup si mi, I said, you’re dear to me, you’re beautiful. But Mitko’s expression had hardened. He set down his glass and placed both of his hands on his knees. When have I ever said no to you, he asked, and it was true, thou
gh he had delayed and put me off he had always given in when I insisted, he had never truly refused. The trouble with you is you don’t know what you want, he said, you say one thing and then another. I knew he was right, and not just about my relationship with him; always I feel an ambivalence that spurs me first in one direction and then another, a habit that has done much damage. I didn’t deny what he said, I even nodded in agreement, at which his mood only darkened. I’m not like that, he went on, I’m a man of my word, if I say that I’m through with you I’m through, I won’t change my mind, and if I see you again, if we pass each other in the street, at NDK, in Plovdiv, in Varna, it doesn’t matter where, I’ll pretend I don’t know you, he said, I won’t even say hello. Is that what you want, he said, and then, without pausing for me to respond, be careful. There wasn’t anything playful or warm about him now; though he sat naked in front of me he was entirely unavailable. Be sure you tell the truth, he said, be sure you say what you mean. But how could I say what I meant, I thought, when that meaning so entirely escaped me?

  I looked at him without speaking, at the length of him folded in the chair; it was a way of delaying an answer but it was also a valedictory look, I was taking him in with a sense already of regret. He saw me looking as he poured himself another drink, his third or fourth in a short time, the effects of it were beginning to show; and again I had the thought, more troubling now, that he was steeling himself for something to come. Well, he said, which is it, and though I hadn’t come any closer to a decision I felt pressed to meet his tone, a pressure I was grateful for, since it freed me from having to choose. Yes, I said then, yes, I think that’s best, but I didn’t stop there; I’m sorry, I said, I’m sorry, and then, this is sad for me, tuzhno mi e. He looked at me silently, then stood up and began pulling on his clothes, moving purposefully but also unsteadily. Think if I were someone else, he said, and there was tension in his voice, he was speaking more quickly and I had to strain to understand him, think if I were a different person, if I were like that guy who stole from you, have you thought about that? Did you think about that when you took me home with you? He looked different to me now as he stared at me again, he wore a face I hadn’t seen before, a face that grew stranger and unsettled me more as he went on. I could have been anyone, I could have robbed you, I could have taken your camera and your phone, your computer, I could have hurt you. Did you think about that, he asked again, and he paused, he looked at me with his new face, which was capable, it seemed to me, of any of those things, and I wondered whether it was a face he had just discovered or one he had hidden all along.

  I stood up, feeling the need to assert my presence, and also to place myself between him and the pile of my belongings I had gathered in one corner; I felt threatened by him, which was what he intended me to feel. At first it was as though this had its effect, he seemed to beat a kind of retreat. But I’m not that sort of person, he said, though this wasn’t a retreat at all, it was just the start of a new theme. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even have them, he went on, stepping up to me where I stood, nobody needed to steal them, you left it all on the bus, and again he gave an inventory of what I owned, what I had brought with me that might fetch him a few hundred leva in the pawnshops of Varna. Ne e li vyarno, he said again, working himself up, if it weren’t for me you would have lost them anyway, you owe me, and he punctuated this last with a touch, not quite adversarial yet but assertive, putting his hand on my shoulder and pushing to see how far I would give way. All the while he held his face close to my own, his new face, and I felt the beginning of fear like a light current, a prickling along the nerves. Mitko, I said, softly but I hoped with confidence, saying his name again as if to call back the face I knew, Mitko, you should leave now, it’s time for you to leave. He smiled at this, he widened his eyes with amusement and took a half step away, Is it time for me to leave, he said, quoting my words back to me, is it? And he turned a little and made a sound, hunh, a sound of puzzlement and continued amusement, not an angry sound, and when he turned back his arm swung in a wide arc and he struck me, with the back of his hand he struck my face, only once and not very hard, so that when I fell back upon the bed it was as much from the shock as from the force of it, from shock and from the passivity that has always been my instinctive response to violence. We both froze then, I on the bed and he standing in front of it, as if both of us were waiting to see what would happen next. I felt real fear now, physical and immediate and, strangely enough, already fear of the more distant future, as I wondered how badly I would be bruised and how I would explain it to my students. I watched Mitko, and it seemed to me he was surprised by what he had done, that maybe he was frightened too by what he might do next. He only stood there an instant before he propelled himself forward and fell on top of me, and I must have flinched, I must have shut my eyes, though it wasn’t a blow I felt on my face but his mouth, his tongue as it sought my own mouth, which I opened without thinking. I let him kiss me though it didn’t seem like a kiss, his tongue in my mouth, it was an expression not of tenderness or desire but of violence, as was the weight with which he bore down on me, pinning me to the bed as he ground his chest and then his crotch against me; and then he grabbed my own crotch with one hand, gripping it not painfully but commandingly, and I thought whatever happens next I will let it happen. But nothing happened next, he was on me, unbearably present, and then he sprang off the bed and was gone, without taking anything or speaking another word, though of course he could have taken whatever he wanted.

  I lay there after he left, feeling my fear, which grew more intense, so that for a minute or perhaps for two or three I couldn’t force myself to move, not even to close the door. I observed, as if at a distance, my quick breathing and the pain I felt, not an especially bad pain, maybe there would be no bruise to explain away. Finally I hauled myself up, surprised by how unsteady I was though so little had happened, everything was fine, I said to myself, I was safe now. But as I turned the latch on the door I realized I wasn’t safe, that the thin tongue of metal between the two wooden wings might easily be forced, it offered almost no resistance at all. And the latches on the windows were flimsy too, a push would be enough to snap them. They were large windows, big enough to pass in or out of, and some of them faced the street, which meant there wouldn’t be any need to enter the courtyard to gain access, anyone could avoid the supposed watchman sleeping in his glassed-in porch. I paused then and looked at those windows, realizing that I was visible to anyone peering in through the ill-fitting drapes. So the crisis isn’t past, I thought, using that word, crisis; I was right to still be afraid. I was frozen in place, pinned where I stood, a feeling I remembered from childhood, when stillness was the only response to the terror I often felt at night. It was all I could do to reach out and turn off the lights, listening for any noise outside as I thought again of the face Mitko had shown me, his real face, I thought now. He had so carefully arranged our trip; maybe he had chosen this hotel not because of price or its nearness to the sea, but for a different set of reasons altogether, its ease of access and the inadequacy of its locks. I thought of the many friends he had introduced me to, some of whom he had encouraged me to invite into our room, where I would have been, it now occurred to me, completely vulnerable; I thought of the boy he called brat mi, who had been so obedient in the bathrooms at NDK, ready to do Mitko any service. They were probably together at that very moment, walking the streets as Mitko waited for the right time to come back. All of Mitko’s proposals seemed to me now like snares, the invitation to the thermal baths, even to his home among the blokove, both of them places where Mitko might have become any of the hypothetical selves he had listed, might have become all of them at once.

  I was convinced now, there would be no sleep for me in that room, and so I gathered together my things and went out into the central yard. The attendant emerged from his booth to meet me; he was the same man who had greeted Mitko so warmly the night before, and surely he had seen him leave. He was full
of solicitude when I told him I wanted to change my room, though he did ask me why; Ne mi e udobno, I said, unable to say more, it isn’t comfortable for me. He shrugged at this and smiled, and then showed me to a much smaller room with a single window that faced the courtyard, looking almost directly at the attendant’s porch. He helped me transfer my things, made sure I was satisfied, and then looked at me expectantly, as if knowing I must have more to say. The man who was with me, I said then, burning with shame to say it, he shouldn’t come back here, he isn’t welcome, he’s not my friend. At this the man’s face brightened, not with malice or the scorn I had feared, but with comprehension, and also with a sympathy I hadn’t expected. I understand completely, he said, don’t worry about anything, I’ll watch for him and if he shows up here I’ll make sure he won’t bother you. He was briefly silent, and then, It’s a shame there are such people in the world, he said, you have to be so careful, you pay them, you have your fun, and then they should leave—but sometimes they don’t leave, they want more than you agreed. It’s a shame, he repeated after a pause in which it was clear I had nothing to add; I was paralyzed with humiliation and wanted only for him to go. But don’t worry, he said as he opened the door, this is a good room—and here he reached over to arrange the curtains so that the glass was more fully covered—you’re safe here, don’t worry. Then he was gone, finally, and I locked the door behind him and lay down on the bed, feeling relief now but also the anger of having been subjected to something, an anger like the dry grinding of gears. Maybe it was an anger that Mitko knew well, I thought suddenly, that he knew better than I. I closed my eyes as I lay there, though it would be a long time before I slept.