Читать книгу Justine - Iben Mondrup - Страница 18

He approaches from the front, a young man, well, a big boy really, with a smile on his open face. He approaches me and angles his head back so he won’t get cigarette smoke in his eyes. Then he places the hot water kettle and cups on the table and extends his hand through the barrier of air. With a squeeze he says:

“Bo.”

Now he removes the cigarette from his mouth. His hair springs in large curls away from his head. He’s sunburnt with eyes that are white in the white.

“You’re the one who made that video of the woman doing the drum dance, right?” he asks.

He rummages about, not just with his hand, but with his whole arm, no, with his whole body in my space.

“I don’t think so. I’m some other.”

“Some other? How can you be some other? Other than who?”

“Than myself.”

“I’m pretty sure it was you, and . . .”

“I don’t think so.”

At this point, I’ve turned around and left, because he can’t help it, after all, he’s just that open, pure and simple. But he’s unconcerned and on my heels, I can hear him, now he’s reached the door, he collides with it, uses a hip to push it open and enters the workshop balancing two cups, “coffee,” he says. His voice is so wry and he’s asked for it now.

“Do you live out here?” he asks.

The coffee makes a thin stripe down his hand and there’s a nimbus around him. Youth, I think, and inhale, a distinctive odor, sharp and dry.

“I do, too.”

He takes a chair, places his arms on the rests, brown and hairy, and asks if he can smoke. Apparently, it doesn’t faze him when I say no; the hair surges from his armpits like crimped fur.

“Wasn’t it you in that video? But you don’t want to talk about it, right?”

Now he stands up. Is he leaving already? No. He begins to flip the paintings.

“Stop that,” I say.

Now he’s leaving. No. He’s giving me a wry look. Like he thinks he’s got me figured out. Let him think that. I can tell he assumes things with me are off-kilter.

Now he’s leaving. He draws a current of air behind, sharp and dry.