Zdravko woke up with the phone ringing. It was Rusim. Zdravko listened while eyeing up the darkened, daytime apartment. Curtains were still drawn, the bedroom door shut. Silence but for a vaguely ill sounding city. The cup of tea was missing. A folded blue blanket lay over the end of the sofa.
“The bridge at twelve,” Zdravko confirmed and hung up. The time was 10.14am.
As he made himself another tea, Nadejda arrived back from shopping, a full bag of groceries in her arm. She was dressed in a turquoise T shirt, jeans and espadrilles. There was not one piece of jewellery on her.
“Good morning, detective Nestorov,” she said, dropping the bag on the kitchen bench. “Breakfast,” she said. “Time to pull the blinds.”
They sat down at the table. Mint tea and coffee and fresh pastries. Nadejda looked even more beautiful under daylight. Less make-up. As they talked, Zdravko got to meet her greenish eyes more often than was good for a sleep-deprived policeman.
“Death makes me nervous,” he was saying.
“It’s not really funny. I had to go to a funeral recently and I was shaking like a leaf. I had a speech to make. I just couldn’t stop shaking.”
“Whose funeral?”
“My big brother’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nadejda said nothing.
“What did he die of?”
Nadejda’s eyes focussed on some far away shirt button. Or some ruffled head of hair right in front of her that no one else could see. “They say his heart just exploded. He was twenty nine,” she said.
“That’s too young.”
“He was autistic. Borislav never had a good outlook for a long life.”
Zdravko stared at his plate, full of pastry crumbs, pushing them round with a teaspoon as if he could change the future. “Sometimes it’s like life’s a joke,” he said. “And we can never get ready for these things.” He pushed the crumbs round some more without looking. “And that was very sad about Antonov last night. We needed him alive.”
“From what I heard, sounds like he wanted to be dead.”
Zdravko raised his eyebrows. “Antonov didn’t have a good prognosis either. Tumour on his brain. Maybe you knew that already. Maybe not. Probably, he didn’t have long to live. But we didn’t know that last night.”
“Well you know it now,” said Nadejda. She finished her coffee. “I don’t know about life being a joke. I got taught to think of life like it was a bowl of cherries. Not even someone dying changes that. Not even sadness.”
“I guess we all got a lot of different upbringings.”
“You’ll need a shower,” she said.
“I’ve only got these clothes. I can take a shower at work.”
“Don’t be silly. I have some clothes that will fit.”
“And how will it be with me walking around in a twenty something year old woman’s undergarments?”
“Zdravko! Men’s clothes. I have all… I have a whole drawer full of men’s clothes. And new underwear.”
“Wow,” said Zdravko.
“They were Bobi’s,” she reproved him. “He was about your size. Only better looking.”
Zdravko put down the teaspoon. “You are very beautiful,” he said. The words just appeared of their own. Waltzed out the gate without any kind of anybody’s say so.
Nadejda gazed back at him across the table for a few seconds. Then she said: “You can kiss me if you like.”
The crumbs had fallen. Serious cherry shape.
“It’s a long way to kiss,” he said. “Maybe I could meet you at the end of the table.”
