Dan had been standing in the angry sun all day, working. Now it was evening, and he was ready for his reward. He got out of the lift on the fifth floor and stepped into a dirty dull hallway much like dirty dull hallways all over the city.
Irina opened the door to him. Her parents had gone away for the weekend. They kissed and he eased the door closed behind him. He slipped his hand under her top. She had just showered and her skin was smooth and cool, the flesh of her hips and breasts ripe and full. Such womanliness at the age of seventeen, he knew, must mean that she would be growing heavy as slimmer girls filled out. But for now everything was correct and in its place.
He detached himself from her and stepped from the hall into the living room. First he would smoke, then she would bring him something to eat and drink. Then it would be time for the bedroom.
Dan sat at the table and Irina embraced him from behind, her breasts against the back of his shoulders. He breathed the good smell of her freshly washed hair. She pulled it out of the way as she placed her left cheek against the skin of his right cheek. She rubbed his pectoral muscles, hard from working out with weights.
''Did you have a nice day at work dear?'' she asked playfully.
He snorted a half-laugh at her imitation of what bored old couples, so unlike them, said at dinner time.
''No dear, I didn't.''
''You sounded angry on the phone.''
''Several hunded kilos of rotting peaches.''
''Was it so much money?''
''Nothing I won't forget when I rip your little panties off.''
''You beast!''
She slapped his face lightly and jumped away. He let her go. They smiled at each other.
He took his cigarettes from his pocket and she brought white wine and a glass from the kitchen. He heard the hiss of the gas cooker and a pot going on. The apartment was cramped and the walls had not been painted in twenty years and were yellowed. One day when he had earned enough he would give her a better place than this. The money would come. It was a matter of being steady and taking whatever opportunities came his way. He had been her first. That mattered. With older girls there was too much you did not know. He lit up a Marlboro and watched the coils of smoke with great satisfaction. He felt like a man.
''Early for peaches,'' came her muffled voice from the kitchen, almost as if she were talking to herself.
He knew it. They were imported from Turkey but no one else had been selling peaches so he had gone ahead and bought them and stacked them up at seven in the hot morning at the stall at the intersection. The same as any morning, the anxious traffic revving at the lights, the trucks leaving expanding clouds of black smoke behind them, the crowded bus stops and tram stops, the people pouring into the metro station. The background scenery against which he made his money.
''It's not just the money,'' he said, raising his voice so she could hear from the kitchen. ''It's that I hate making mistakes. They looked perfect at first. There must have been a lot of little cuts and bruises. And it was so hot. By midday they were turning to mush. Nobody buying.''
She brought him a bowl of soup and some bread. She sat down next to him.
''Not eating?'' he asked.
''I've eaten.''
''And then,'' he said, spooning soup and chewing bread, ''I had these crates of rotting peaches stacked up in a wall in front of the stall. I was serving this man, and the whole wall starts to lean forward. You know the way when something is about to collapse and break it moves in slow motion?''
She nodded.
''Like that. All I could do was watch it go. All those peaches, spilling across the footpath. I wanted to kill someone.''
She covered her mouth with her hands and laughed at hundreds of peaches jumping and rolling across the footpath. He too began to smile but the smile was quickly arrested by the image of crates toppling and people turning to watch hundreds of peaches in motion. The feet of busy commuters dodging peaches. Peaches tumbling into the gutter. A dog sniffing a peach, unimpressed. A car wheel crushing a peach and leaving a stain on the road. A little boy bending over to touch a pretty peach and being wrenched away by an impatient mother. And then all the peaches which had to be gathered up again by him and the boy he hired, going back into the boxes more damaged and dirtier.
''Did someone knock them over?''
He took a swallow of wine.
It had been afternoon. The commuters were surging back out of the metro station like ants. The sun was angled in the sky, still hot but past its worst. He was serving a slim young man in a suit, the kind who looked well pleased with his job and his life. The man had not appeared to touch anything.
''Maybe they were just stacked wrong.''
She stroked the back of his head and went back to the kitchen to fry a piece of pork and some potatoes. Talking about it had made him angry again.
She brought the food. When he finished eating he pushed the chair back from the table and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He folded the napkin over and wiped his forehead. He threw the napkin on the table.
''Too hot in this city.''
She got up and stood before him and kissed his face. He inhaled. She smelled cool and good.
''One day we'll have a place in the country,'' he said. ''By a river.''
''I'm happy right now.''
''It's different when you're at school. When you start to work you feel time pass and you start to want things. You feel your life leaking away and you want something back in return.''
Gratefully, he began to kiss her face and neck. Then their tongues wanted each other. They did that until the moment to pause came. He stood up and picked the cigarettes and lighter off the table and put them in his trouser pocket. Then they went into the bedroom and undressed.
The evening sun through the window shone a broad patch of golden light on the bed and on part of the wall behind the bed. She lay down naked on the bed on her front and became herself radiantly golden. He straddled her and began to rub her back. He kneaded with his thumbs the muscles on either side of her spine, starting low down on her back and working up to her neck. She sighed as he pushed the tension from her body. Then with his fingers and thumbs he did her neck and shoulders. When he could resist no longer, he bit her shoulder. He bit a little too hard and she squealed and wriggled under him. He drew back and sat halfway down her legs, from where he surveyed her body. In the supernatural precision of the light her body was covered with very tiny golden hairs, too fine for his hands to feel, all down her arms and back and buttocks.
He frowned.
Her body, normally a paler honey-gold, had become deeper in colour. And around her hips was the narrow but distinct white mark which indicated how little had been withheld from the sun.
The summer before, when he was just starting the business, and when he had been seeing her for some months, she had gone for several days to the coast with her friends. She had not informed him before leaving, knowing that he had to work and would object to her going away without him. He had shown his anger by cutting her off coldly and waiting until she came to him, penitent and tearful.
She sensed something was wrong and turned her head to look at him. The sun had moved and now her face was in relative shadow. Her hair covered her mouth.
''What?'' she said.
''That's a very good tan you've got.''
His voice was a little hoarse. She let her head fall back on the pillow. Her hair fell across her face, hiding it. He sat motionless, her legs pinned together beneath him. He watched her breathe. If he waited long enough she would have to say something.
''I told you,'' she said, half speaking into the pillow, ''I went with my brother to visit some friends in the country. Old friends of my parents.''
He got off her awkwardly and sat on the side of the bed with his back to her and picked his limp trousers off the floor and took his cigarettes and lighter out of the pocket. She remained lying in the same position. She was very still. He was aware of each sound he made as he opened the packet and as he used the lighter. It lit the cigarette on the second go. He was aware that she too was hearing these sounds. Even with the window open it was very quiet. He could hear the cigarette paper crackle as he inhaled. All these sounds told him he was in charge for another little while. He did not know what he would say next.
He felt her body shift. He turned his head to look at her. She lay on her side, her head propped on her right arm, fingers lost in her hair. The sunshine was now just a bright strip across her breasts and midriff. His shadow fell across her hips. The light was narrowing and climbing the wall and would soon disappear entirely. He loved the shape of her uppermost breast when she lay on her side. He would rub his face against her breasts, take the nipple in his mouth for a very long time. Now, though she looked exceptionally beautiful in the strange light, the sight of her was troubling.
He stared at her and exhaled smoke out the side of his mouth, away from her.
''Sunbathing topless with old country friends of the family?''
''It was a private place,'' she protested. ''I was on my own.''
A high note of panic hung in the air after she spoke.
''I see.''
''I hate it when you get like this. Stupid questions. About nothing. About things that just aren't important.''
''When you love someone, really love someone, everything is important.''
He let the silence gather around them, to do its work.
''And you don't tell a lie to someone you really love.''
She began to be ashamed of her nakedness. Swiftly, in what could have been fear or anger, or both, she rose and picked up her clothes. She closed the bathroom door behind her. He could hear the rattling of objects and then water running. She was making herself uselessly busy. He put out his cigarette and stood up and put his trousers on.
The intercom buzzer sounded. Normally he would let her answer the intercom and of course the phone when they were alone at her parents' house. But today was different. He was already at the intercom when he heard the quick nervous sound of the bathroom door opening.
''Alex?'' crackled the voice from downstairs.
It was a man's voice. Alex was Irina's older brother. He no longer lived with the family.
''Come on up.''
Irina was standing beside him. She had put on her shorts and top.
''Now you're being crazy,'' said Irina. ''If it's someone my parents know I'll be in trouble!''
''In trouble! You sound like a schoolgirl.''
She looked about to cry.
''I am a schoolgirl!''
Dan stood with his arms folded over his naked chest as Irina opened the door. The visitor was young and slim and well tanned. He had expected to see Irina's brother. Irina quickly explained that Alex was fixing his car. Confused, he turned to Dan, who made no move to introduce himself.
''But you said - ''
Dan stared back blankly. His arms were still folded across his chest. The man turned back to Irina. He explained that he did not have his bag and Irina told him Alex would surely be back later, at his place.
''I don't have shoes, anything.''
Dan looked down at the man's feet. He had the kind of plastic flip-flops worn at the beach.
Dan watched at the side of the man's face. The man withdrew quickly, heading for the stairs rather than waiting for the lift, and Dan closed the door without returning his goodbye. In the same moment Irina turned and went towards the bedroom.
Dan stood alone for a moment in the hall, staring at nothing.
''Who was that?'' he called after her.
He heard her opening a drawer and closing it.
''Oh. A friend of Alex. When we got back the boot of the car was broken. We couldn't get anything out.''
''But why no shoes?''
''They were locked in the boot!''
She was very scared now. That was sure. The exposure of one lie would be enough to break her. It would be enough to unravel everything.
''You don't wear shoes in the country?''
There was no reply. He had spoken quietly and perhaps she had not heard. The light was fading. He turned on the hall light. It glowed pinkly. He hunkered down where the shoes were lined up by the door. He picked up one of the pair she usually wore and tapped it, sole downwards, on the floor. A dusting of fine sand fell on the linoleum. For a moment he did not rise. He put the shoe back in its correct place. He knew that the anger would soon come but for the moment he just felt short of air, as if he had been struck in the gut. Now that it had happened he felt it had been coming for some time. It had been inevitable but he had denied to himself that she could be like the others. He ran his index finger in a line across the little circle of sand, dividing it in two. He wondered was there something he could have done that she would have turned out differently but he could not think of anything.
The young man without the shoes bore a curious resemblance to the man at the stall. He had the same refined face, the look of one who dresses well for work and who knows where he is going in life. Dan knew that this was just one of those coincidences which attracts the mind as it flounders. Dan saw the crates leaning inevitably, toppling in slow motion, hundreds of ripe peaches spilling on their individual journeys across the wide footpath, people stopping to watch him recover them.
He rose and flicked his thumb against his index finger to remove the sand. It stuck there. His fingers were wet. He had been her first. He had opened the door to trouble. His throat was tight. It had begun to hurt. He knew he loved her very much. He had no idea what he was going to do or say next.
He wiped his fingers against his trousers and moved towards the bedroom.
