His friend urinated with great effort and splashed cold water on his face. His vision regained the ability to perceive the hopeless reality surrounding him, a reality his friend would have gladly walked out into with his hands raised. He felt ill and weak, feeling the outlines of his figure reflected in the mirror above the urinal lose their definition, and that style, unique to ethanol, intensified. He walked to the bar and quickly drank two clear glasses of the juniper-scented drink, as it said on the bottle. He didn't smell the juniper, but he felt the sadness around his neck take two steps back, allowing his friend to take a few deep breaths. He was terribly, terribly, overwhelmingly afraid of the moment when, after drinking two clear, juniper-scented drinks, sadness wouldn't retreat or let go, and there would be no way to deal with the bastard, because it would grip his throat even tighter, suck his mouth shut, and drink all the aromatic and noble juices, leaving behind a dried-up shell of his friend. He also felt that the round hundred, flowing down his friend's dark, damp entrails, had awakened something truly evil, something that probably shouldn't be awakened. The plot, temporarily limping, began to run uphill again, clapping under his knees. Something was about to happen, and something would happen, with wormwood-like consistency, the friend thought.
He anxiously heard the rustling and scratching sounds mingling with the steady beating of his heart. His lower back had momentarily subsided, but the weakness remained. His hands shook, spreading the hundred across the bar, his breathing shallow, his forehead burning with fever. He needed much more strength to set his plan in motion; in his current state, he was useless. Alcohol wasn't very good at such things. His friend knew another method, reliable, but terribly bastardized. He sighed and walked towards the virtual table and somersaulted.
Somersault and the virtual were having a conversation about whether love was worth it in today's world, even at the cost of breaking the established conventions. Somersault was lightly drizzled with green caustic, while the virtual was perfectly intoxicated. Slightly choking, he radiated alternately masculine charisma and feminine allure.
"My God, how Wroński loved her..." Somersault sighed, or perhaps he burped.
"A darling is love, but a fool's joy," the virtual remarked sententiously.
"Then let's talk about spirituality and metaphysics," Fikołek exclaimed.
"In my opinion, it's all nonsense and bullshit."
The friend suddenly appeared behind the somersaulter.
"You don't think so at all."
The virtual man became indignant.
"Of course you do, my friend.
That's exactly what I think." "You're just talking nonsense for effect."
"My friend, don't start, I've been magically intoxicated.
" "If you really think so...
" "...then what?
" "Sell me your spirituality and metaphysics.
" "You're drunk."
"Sell me your soul.
" "Are you paying cash?
" "Absolutely. "
The transvestite pondered.
"You know, I don't really want to sell it.
" "My dear, dear, never mind, you're magically inconsistent.
" "I realize that, but one of the consequences of being magically intoxicated is being magically inconsistent. And that's why all the magically intoxicated idiots trying to marry the virgins they've been tossed around will abandon them in five minutes. Because of her, I can express myself so beautifully and accurately. And because of her, I won't sell you my soul.
" "You're a stinking coward and a walking hypocryph, and really, you're simply afraid to sell your soul to me. "
"Not true.
" "Then sell it.
" "No.
" "And you?" The friend turned to Fikołek. "Maybe you'll sell me your soul?
" "You know, I'm a young, liberated, stylish girl. I don't need my spirituality; what's more, I don't recognize my spirituality." I don't believe in the basic unit of society; I don't like the Pope, excuse me, the Holy Father. I don't donate to the Christmas charity. I see no reason not to sell you my soul.
"I'll give you money for orange pungents.
" "Stands."
Fikołek extended her shapely finger, which his friend ran a razor blade over. A red drop ran down the fingertip, straight onto his friend's tissue, which had something scribbled on it in blue pen. The friend quickly folded it into quarters and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he went to the bar to get some orange pungents.
"There's no sense in it," Fikołek stated uncertainly.
"None," the transvestite confirmed.
"He doesn't have a soul.
" "He doesn't.
" "The friend let himself be tricked.
" "Sure thing.
" "What a loser.
" "Terrible."
Reassured, Fikołek pulled out her cigarettes and lit one to test. Relieved, she noticed they tasted as good as before. When she set it down on the ashtray, she noticed a bloody trail on the mouthpiece.
"She's beautiful and does beautiful things."
The lover flushed a little with excitement, sitting with his back to the unnamed one.
"So-so, weak in the folds..."
The friend felt no excitement.
"You're wrong, but let's not argue."
He longingly observed the triangle-cut back, the fuck, the triangle-cut back with the deep cut of the evening dress. She disappeared around the bend of the wall. The evening was shaping up to be a real blast, so the lover was sure more than one would disappear around the bend of the wall like that.
"Listen, man, this isn't how it's planned."
My friend somehow came alive, a strange tension rippling through the tendons and veins in his arms. His hair was a little darker, his eyes a little bluer, his jacket a little more fashionable, and his shoes elegant. He looked really good.
"No, no, it's like this, from the beginning." The lover, nervously tense, broke his cigarette and now smoked without a filter.
"She's sitting there, and I come over, stop, and turn around—you think, with a better profile. And then she says...
" "Yeah, right," the friend was bored, "they're always talking shit, they couldn't just sit there in silence.
" "But she says it, and then I sit down next to her, and it's all cinematic. Like, I'm holding a cigarette like Rick from "Casablanca." And she looks like Sophie Marceau, only without the Żuławski.
" "Lover, listen to me. I think you should seriously consider one such possibility.
" "...and I say, 'Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs..." ...what possibility?"
"It's not your fault, that perception. Because it's very common, a failure to develop your paranoia in the right direction. Everyone has it, to some extent.
" "Not entirely you...
" "Well, you see that tramp of yours, a little overripe from waiting, puffing cigarette after cigarette, hoping for a lover. By the way, Sophie Marceau already has children.
" "She won't be any tramp."
"She can sit here behind the wall," the friend continued, "and that's not a bad thing, as long as when you go to the bar, she's not in the restroom. She can be in some other bar, which is worse. In another bar, in another city—even terrible. The tragic version is Haiti. We're not considering the tragic version right now.
" "But you don't understand me; if she's mine, then no matter what, we'll meet again. How else could she be mine?
" "Listen, have you ever seriously thought, seriously screwed up from start to finish, that she simply doesn't exist?" Neither behind the wall nor in Haiti?
- Yes... never? Nowhere?
- Because she shouldn't really be there. That's according to the plot. Imagine it: somewhere two tables away, a Lolita with brown lipstick and silver eyeshadow, faintly smelling of good perfume, just abandoned by her Humbert. A character sketched according to the best tragic models, unhappy and longing. Almost to the end, she's written so unhappily, until suddenly, bang, bang, right into the audience of hairdressers and chefs – a lover appears. This magically incredible client, he invites her for tea, they go to the cinema, he comes in for coffee, they make love, they spend a lazy morning with breakfast in bed. And that's exactly how it can't be written.
- Well... it's never ended like that.
- And there won't be a first time, lover. That's how it ends.
The friend rose unsteadily from his seat, poured the beer for the guy sitting behind him, and strode away in a text-and-speech style. The lover sat silently, feeling an unpleasant tickle in his throat and a burning sensation in his eyes. He felt very unmanly at that moment; after all, boys don't cry. But he also felt his terrible hopelessness in this plot, his grim role, and despite many good lines and comic situations, his destiny was simply sad. He saw himself as the lover, sitting at the same table for many years to come, only increasingly weary, with deeper wrinkles and a higher forehead, but still heartbreakingly alone. He wiped the mist from his eyes with shame and glanced around the room. A girl, auburn-haired and short, stood in the doorway, gazing at her lover, hesitant but also with a subtle amusement. After a moment of indecision, she walked briskly toward her lover and leaned over the table.
"Stupid, I've come."
And for the lover, at that moment, the Chinese promotion faded like a candle, all the more beautiful and alluring girls vanished into oblivion, because for the lover, at that moment, the only thing that mattered was the girl leaning over the table.
"So it's you?
" "You know it's me."
"From the moment you entered the room, you knew you were supposed to sit at my table.
She had beautiful eyes and slightly parted lips, which she constantly moistened with the tip of her tongue.
"I thought you lived in Haiti.
" "I live no more than two streets away."
The lover admired her figure sprawled on the room's varnish with delight.
"This is where my story ends."
He took her hands in his, oblivious to the fact that the lover would appear many more times.
"It's truly... wonderful. Good and beautiful. It won't get any better.
It can always get better, foolish lover.
" "What's your name?"
She fluttered.
"Catherine."
The lover froze.
"Just like that...Catherine?" Kaśka?
- Yes, Kaśka to friends.
The lover felt very tired. His entire euphoric coordinate system, full of love, returned to its stinking place. He already knew that this was definitely not the end of his role as a lover.
- So it's not you.
- What, it's not me?
- It's not you. It's not you again.
- I don't understand.
- The right one... mine... who will come here someday. She can't just be called... Kaśka. Because she will be my complement and completion, like yin and yang, she will be everything I don't have. And Kaśka... I have many Kaśkas within me.
- So it's not you either.
- It's not me either.
The girl stood up silently, and something seemed to have fallen into her eye. She turned on her heel and walked out quickly.
The lover was left alone again.
"But that's okay," he told himself, "she'll be in soon, and she'll really be mine. Not some Kasia-Srasia."
And he stayed, waiting.
Fikołek sat down next to him with a quiet sigh and took the cigarette from her lover's fingers.
"I'm sorry, but I have to take a drag. I don't feel well.
" "Fikołek, this is my last cigarette." The lover grimaced in irritation. "Look, you've smeared lipstick all over the filter.
" "It's not lipstick." Fikołek hesitated. "I... I cut my finger
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