White Niggers
Chapter 46
Capital City Lights restaurant, Fischhof 3, 1st district of Vienna
Saturday, September 7th, 2019, 17:00
Timur parks his Chevy van close to the Capital City Lights restaurant. Before he gets out, he looks in the mirror in the sun visor and straightens his tie.
If it wasn't for my father and Lisa, I wouldn't have had enough patience to knot it, Timur thinks. The two most important people in my life. It won't hurt to show them how much I care about them by dressing up. Them knowing that is worth the trouble.
Speaking of trouble, I need to check my cufflinks, Timur thinks.
He inspects the cuffs of a shirt that cost him the equivalent of five premium pizzas. One of the cufflinks has fallen off, and it takes Timur a couple of seconds to find it on the floor and fasten it.
Unconditional love is irrational, Timur thinks. As irrational as spending more money to buy less-convenient clothing. I hope it won't backfire and Lisa won't think that I think she is superficial enough to be impressed with a suit and tie.
He gets out of the van and walks towards the restaurant.
The lantern light glitters in his polished leather shoes.
When he arrives there for another meeting of the Viennese Russian-speaking community, Lisa and Zoe are already there, chatting with each other.
"Good evening, girls!" Timur says.
"Hello, Timur," Lisa says.
She raises and walks to Timur. She wraps her hands around his neck and gives him a deep, soft kiss, as sweet as dreams of peace during war.
She is different today, Timur thinks.
Lisa stops kissing Timur only after someone clears their throat. She backs away, suddenly self-conscious, and starts looking at his suit.
"You look dapper, like a diplomat," Lisa says.
She is looking at his outfit so attentively that Timur wants to say, "My eyes are up here."
On the other hand, isn't this the exact effect you wanted to achieve? Timur thinks.
"Thank you," Timur says.
The way she touches the fabric of his jacket with her hands feels like the foreplay in a softcore porn movie.
"Or even like Barack Obama," Lisa says. "This, this jacket… and the shoes. Wow!"
She isn't superficial, Timur thinks. She's just a woman. To her, this suit is what a Mercedes-Benz C-Class Cabriolet is to me.
They sit down at the table.
"Hello, Zoe!" Timur says.
He remembers the Doppler story and smiles. Zoe looks sultry.
"Timur, you may look like a diplomat," Zoe says. "But you don't act like one."
"No?" Timur says.
"Irmgard told me everything," Zoe says.
"Who is Irmgard?" Lisa says.
"A desperate painter who tried to seduce me," Timur says.
"How interesting!" Lisa says. "You didn't tell me about that."
"There's nothing to tell," Timur says.
"No funny business between the two of you?" Lisa says.
"No sex," Timur says. "But there was business of another kind. And it was not just funny business, but hilarious."
Timur laughs.
"I'll tell you about it later," Timur says to Lisa.
"Don't you dare!" Zoe says to Timur. "Irmgard is not that desperate. You were a jerk."
Zoe takes a red serviette from a napkin holder at the center of the table.
"Why? Because I refused to sleep with her on a first date?" Timur says. "Or because I am afraid of getting some disease from all the squalor at her place?"
Zoe starts playing with the napkin – folds it, then wraps it around her fingers.
"You could have been more tactful, Timur," Zoe says.
"Then, maybe, just maybe, you should stop playing matchbreaker," Timur says.
"Ah! This is unbelievable!" Zoe says.
Zoe tears the napkin into pieces. Its frayed edges twist outward like raw, torn skin.
She turns to Lisa.
"Lisa, don't you think this is offensive?" Zoe says.
"What, precisely? Timur's honorable refusal to take advantage of a mentally unstable woman?" Lisa says. "Or your aiding and abetting some floozy in stealing my boyfriend?"
"Irmgard isn't a floozy," Zoe says. "Why are you so rude?"
"Does it mean that, apart from Irmgard being a floozy, you agree with my accusations?" Lisa says.
"No!" Zoe says. "Of course not."
"Why, then, did you play Cupid between Timur and SNAF?" Lisa says.
"What's SNAF?" Zoe says.
"Supposedly-Not-A-Floozy," Lisa says.
Timur laughs.
"I didn't do any of that," Zoe says. "All this stress is affecting your clarity, like a mental fog."
"Oh, yeah?" Lisa says.
"Your classmates did that intervention for a reason," Zoe says.
A broken clock shows the correct time twice a day, Timur thinks. Zoe is worse than a broken clock, because she is right less than twice a day, perhaps not even once. Today is one of those rare times. Lisa is not herself, indeed. But we can fix that.
Timur embraces Lisa and feels the hardness of her back and shoulders. He makes a few strokes with his fingers, like petting a cat. Lisa's shoulders drop. Her body becomes warmer than before.
Lisa and Timur look as if their marriage is made in heaven.
Zoe looks at them. Her eyes say, "Heaven isn't missile-proof. How many Minuteman III ICBMs, B-2 bombers, and Ohio-class submarines does your Holy Spirit have?"