Starving

I am sitting over coffee and cigarettes at my friend Nataly's and I am telling her about it.

Here is what I tell her about.

Eclipses in summer always bring me so many shocks. And there were two in July.

He picks me up after work, and I am full of it. I want to tell him everything. It’s so strange to have all of that happen in one day. As if the stars suddenly aligned.

It’s this beautiful summer evening, orange sunset and I have a day off tomorrow, so it feels great. We stop at the supermarket Target. You know, the one where they’ve got a cheap dining area on the ground floor.

There isn’t anything good left. Some stale buns and tired salads. I am looking for something he would want to pay for. You know how he is. Not necessarily stingy, but he wants to see the value for money. So I go for a pizza and coffee, because it’s the only thing that is cooked fresh for you.

And I am starving. Again, I wanted to stop eating meat and try to be a vegetarian. But I am already starving most of the time. And how is it possible not to eat meat when there is nothing good in sight and you’re starving?

You remember Katya from my work? The really skinny one.

“The one who tucks a wool sweater into her jeans,” Nataly says.

She just eats buckwheat and a tomato for lunch. I tell her that I could deal with it being tasteless and all, but it just wouldn’t fill me up. I would be hungry all the time.

And she says, “To be honest, I don’t feel hungry. You just get used to it.”

I can’t imagine getting used to that. I guess I am just too comfortable in my body to force myself to starve.

Anyways, that’s not the point. He gets himself an XL hotdog, and we sit down at the corner table. The place is almost empty. Only one couple at one table and a giant man at the high table next to the window.

This couple has a bunch of tubs of mayo salads in front of them, just eating in silence, not talking, not even looking at their phones.

I tell him, “Jesus, it’s sad. Seems like they’re actually having their dinner here.”

And he says, “A lot of people don’t cook.”

The place is terrible, but their coffee is good. The milk foam tastes like mousse. So I lick the foam and tell him that I have been promoted again. The second time this year. Karina wants me to be the head of our branch.

“Congratulations,” he says. But he doesn’t even look at me. I can tell that he is annoyed. He is jealous.

We don’t say anything about it anymore. The cashier lady yells that my pizza is ready and I go to pick it up.

It is worse than I expected. Only in Ukraine people can put dill on pizza.

So I am picking out the dill twigs and eyeing that huge man next to the window, while Alex is telling me about transformation of personality. He is obsessed with that term.

He is telling me how much I’ve changed since I started dating him. That I have taken up sports, got promoted and all thanks to his positive influence on me.

I have heard it so many times, so I am not really listening. But it’s kind of nice and comforting to feel his warm knee against my leg.

And I can’t concentrate after what happened that day. I feel like I am hovering in the air and just observing us from above. I can’t take my eyes from the big man. He must be two metres tall and one metre wide. His fingers are thick and white like boiled sausages. He is wearing blue sport shorts, a sleeveless shirt and sneakers. He could have been working out, but the things on his table don’t match with sports - pastry, pastry, pastry and mayo salads.

Alex asks me something. “It’s such a weird day,” I tell him. “I can’t concentrate.”

So what is the magical thing? Nataly says.

You will see why I couldn’t tell him about it. But it’s so good I can tell you, because I am bursting with it.

In fact, it was nothing mysterious. I just met two of my old acquaintances. But it felt surreal.

In the morning I am getting myself a flatwhite at the Coffeeman next to the office and I see a familiar face. You remember that dental surgeon who was also an artist? I had such a massive crush on him. I even wrote poems and sent them to him on Facebook messenger. But he was too perfect. I could only love him from a distance. Otherwise it would ruin the magic. Besides, he was married and had a kid.

I see him walking down the street, the camera hanging over his chest. He shaved his head. I felt like I saw a ghost. I just stared at him until he disappeared in the crowd.

I went to the office feeling magical, he always had that effect on me, thinking that he looked as godlike as always.

In the evening I had a meeting at another part of the city. After I was done I walked to the subway. I had to ride a couple of stops to meet Alex.

So I am walking to the underground and there is some dark man next to one of those gambling shops staring at me. Then I hear my name and I instantly understand that it’s Eugen.

Now, I will tell you who it is and you will understand why it’s so mad seeing him.

Eugen and I worked together about ten years ago. We had so much fun together. He was the smartest and the funniest man I had known. Nearly a genius in my eyes. Really, there was no one like him. And I kind of still think so. He is special.

We spent our shifts glued to each other. He used to say some nonsense with a totally straight face to some old ladies and it made them furious.

He had those soft meaty palms and he let me squish them. We cuddled a lot.

I was a virgin at the time, so for me it was all very innocent.

He was dark, curly and his beard grew so high up his cheeks, almost right under his eyes.

And I could tell that he was also into me.

But the thing is, he had a girlfriend. Annushka, he called her. And she came over every day at the end of our shift. Sometimes in the middle of the day. They were both 24 at the time. Now, I understand she must have been jealous.

And then he quit. He said he was going to Moscow to work as a sound engineer or something like that. He played the bass guitar.

But I felt that she made him quit because of me. I remember the way he looked at me and hugged me when leaving.

I cried into my pillow for many nights after that. It felt like I lost something big from my life. I have been thinking about him all these years. It felt unfinished. I saw him in my dreams, I imagined seeing him in a crowd, asked our former coworkers about him, looked for him online. But he just vanished. I thought he must be living in Russia then and never came back.

And that day I heard my name and it struck me that it was him. After so many years, at last it happened. All that time I had kind of been sure that he was meant for me but I lost him.

And then when I saw him, my heart sank. It wasn’t him anymore. He was an addict. I could tell it on the spot. He was a dead man.

And the first thing I told him was, “Why are you so skinny?” It just came out of my mouth. He really did look unhealthy. And he said, “Why are you so fat?” Imagine, those were our first words after more than ten years.

He said he had worked at a theatre, but they kicked him out because of the drugs. He didn’t say anything about Annushka. And I didn’t ask.

He suggested exchanging phone numbers. And then right away said, “Or maybe better not.” For my own good, I figured.

I gave him my number. But right then I knew that I wasn’t going to get involved.

All those years I had been looking for a man who didn’t exist anymore.

What else? Nataly says, lighting one of my cigarettes and pulling the chair closer to the table. This story is becoming interesting.

Nothing, I say. Alex and I just sit at the diner, me watching the giant man getting more food. Berliners. He gobbles each in two bites. And then his thick red tongue comes out like a snail and licks the icing from his lips and sausage fingers.

He drives me home, we listen to the 90’s pop on the way and the sunset is so beautiful, I almost feel happy for a moment.

But as soon as we get home, he puts some erotic movie on and begins to rub his hands over my stomach. And I feel so sick, I want to cry.

It’s a funny story, Nataly says. I can see she doesn’t get it.

But I have already told her too much.

She sits there, picking dirt from under her fingernails with a toothpick, waiting. Waiting for what?

It is August.

My life is going to change. I feel it.