What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

Author:Garth Greenwell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780374713188
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

III

POX

When the knock came, quick and assured, I heard it without surprise, my hand steady at the stove where I was warming the simple meal I had made. It wasn’t late, despite the darkness beyond the windows at my back; it was February, the dark came early, and what had been an unnervingly mild season had turned sharp and bitter, the coldest winter on record, with a fierce wind that burned whatever skin one left uncovered. He hadn’t pressed the buzzer from the street below, which would have given me some warning and a moment to prepare; he must have thought surprise would be to his advantage, I thought, and I imagined him waiting for someone to come in or out of the building’s locked front door, sheltering as best he could against the wind, a cigarette tight at his lips. There was no need for any of it; I would have buzzed him in as quickly as I opened my apartment door, which I unlatched without even drawing aside the little cover of the peephole, though I did pause briefly with my hand on the knob, drawing a steadying breath. It was almost two years to the day since I had last seen Mitko. When I returned from Varna I did everything I could to ensure I wouldn’t see him again; I blocked him on Facebook and Skype, I scrubbed him from my e-mail and phone. These were measures against myself, really, I wanted to make it more difficult for me to find him in a spasm of remorse; and though I thought of him often, though he appeared in dreams from which I woke more excited than I was by anything in my waking life, I didn’t regret what I had done. I had missed him, but more than missing him I had been relieved that he was gone.

The corridor was dark when I opened the door. The light was set to a timer, which must have run out since he pressed the switch at the bottom of the stairs, if he had; or maybe he thought darkness, too, was to his advantage. I could only see him thanks to the light from my own apartment, which barely reached him where he leaned against the opposite wall, as though he had waited a long time for me to answer, or been prepared to wait. He straightened up, coming farther into the light, and I could see he wasn’t dressed at all for the cold; he was wearing a thin jacket and torn jeans, and his canvas shoes were soaked through. He was unshaved and unkempt, thinner than he had been, though he had always been thin; it was as if he had been worn away somehow in the months since I had seen him. He stood with his shoulders slumped, his hands—which I remembered in constant motion, always seeking some occupation—shoved firmly in his pockets. Dobur vecher, he said, a formal greeting, as if he were unsure of his footing, and I repeated it back to him in the same tone.

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