DAY FOUR

THE NEXT morning, I went to buy some groceries again. I mulled over my possibilities for a proper meal and decided to cook paprikáš, a Hungarian dish made with chicken, paprika, tomatoes, and cream sauce. Grandma would have been proud. Besides, ordering takeaway all the time seemed like a waste of money to me. I had nothing better to do than hover over my beautiful boy. When I came back, Jamie was awake and looking decidedly more alert than yesterday.

“What the fuck is that?” he exclaimed, scowling at his tablet. I’d only known him for a few days, but his tone was unusually menacing for him. It caught me off guard.

“What?” I asked warily.

“This!” He jabbed a finger in the air, above the screen.

I toed off my shoes, crossed the room toward the bed, and leaned over his shoulder, grocery bags still in my hands. He sat on the bed surrounded by all the pillows that he could find in the studio, including those he stole from the sofa. Jamie was a pillow hoarder. Cute. A smile tugged on my lips but then I saw the article on his tablet. It was the same New York Times article I’d read three days ago.

“Oh,” I said.

“You didn’t know about that?”

“I did.” I went to the fridge and unloaded the yogurts and clementine juice I’d bought for Jamie. I left the chicken out since I wanted to start on the meal straightaway. I was half-hidden behind the corner in the tiny kitchen.

“But….” Jamie sputtered loudly. Here we go. “You’re going home?”

I sighed. The word. That stupid word. Home. “I am going back to Slovakia, yes.”

“Into that!” he said with undisguised anger.

“Yes.”

And then he started reading, raising his voice: “According to one of the spokesmen for AFF, giving gays extended privileges could lead to disruptive changes in the Slovak Republic. Not only families and children would suffer from moral confusion, but the whole society would find itself in ruins. Similar kinds of societal changes have in history resulted in mass violence and dictatorships.” His tone rose and fell, modulating the words in a mockery of political speech, adding exaggerated dramatic pauses for effect.

“I’ve read it, Jamie,” I mumbled into the fridge, but he didn’t pay any attention to me.

He gave out a harsh, sarcastic laugh. “That’s hilarious!” he exclaimed. “Who the fuck are those people?”

“Catholic fundamentalists, power-thirsty wannabe politicians. They won’t win… probably.”

I made my way into the room, avoiding Jamie’s eyes. I pretended to be busy changing my clothes instead.

“I’ve googled for the past hour, Ondro. I’m sorry if that feels like an invasion of your privacy. I just wanted to know about Slovakia, and when I found a mention of the AFF, I continued reading. There is a huge campaign going on, billboards and flyers everywhere! And the Slovak Catholic church is involved. They’re going to preach this shit in every chapel right before the referendum. You’re going back there right now in the middle of that?”

I was getting Kristina flashbacks. Of course, I knew everything he was saying and then some. There had been some demonstrations and several attacks on gays in Bratislava. Although, that kind of thing used to happen even before all this noise, and nobody had been seriously injured lately. So, cool as a cucumber, I said, “It’s not like there’s a civil war, Jamie.”

I was aware that I’d told Kristina the same only a few days ago. I didn’t have any better arguments. My reasons for coming back weren’t exactly logical.

He pursed his lips, annoyed. “Why are you going back again?” The layer of suspicion was thick in his words.

How the hell was I supposed to answer that? Because I created this vision in my mind where my life was a broken clockwork, and if I could just turn back the time a bit and fix this little ratchet, everything would miraculously fall into place? Because I had nowhere better to go? Because my existence was bleak, and I couldn’t see why it would be worse in Bratislava than anywhere else in the world? Because honestly, I didn’t care that much?

“Why not?” I said instead, my back still to him as I changed from my jeans to a more comfortable pair.

“But it’s outrageous! Gay marriage will lead to dictatorships? How can anyone take them seriously?”

How indeed.

“It’s Slovakia, Jamie, not Atlantis.” My voice sounded shaky and hollow. Get a grip, idiot.

Jamie only became angrier. “And you don’t care?” he all but growled at me.

I snapped because I didn’t want to care. I tried like hell not to care. I turned to him and lost it epically.

“What do you want me to do? Where am I supposed to go? Because it’s either that or back to Dubai right now. I know, in Scotland, you’re all going to have your fabulous big weddings with rainbows and unicorns. But the rest of the world is not there yet. Maybe it won’t ever be. And screw gay marriage! Get real, Jamie! It’s a first-world problem. The Republicans deny the existence of climate change, for fuck’s sake! Now that is a real fucking problem! Does that mean you’d never go back to the States? Yeah, that’ll show them!”

I heard the evil mocking in my voice but was too far gone to stop myself. Blood pounding in my head, I threw it all at him, and he took it, momentarily stunned into silence.

“So some people think that queer equals freak. What else’s new? And what can I do about it? Shall I dress in rainbow insignia from head to toes and roam the streets of Bratislava until I get beaten again? Shall I start a hunger strike? A blog? What? I am not that educated, I don’t have that kind of money, and I’ve got no power, absolutely no connections. I barely have friends! What the fuck can I do about anything?”

I was shouting. I shouldn’t have done that. Jamie stared at me with those Bambi-meets-monster-truck eyes, and they were glassy. I so shouldn’t have done that.

“What do you mean ‘beaten again’?” He whispered the question as if he were genuinely scared of me.

I deflated and slumped, the worry and fear in his beautiful, fragile face subduing my anger in mere seconds. I stalked toward him, sank on the bed, and tried to hug him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. So sorry.”

Amazing as he was, he hugged me back. “You’re angry, of course. I’m furious, and it’s not even my country.”

It’s not my country either, I wanted to say. But that wasn’t true, not entirely. There would always be ties and memories. Like the paprikáš that I wanted to make him for dinner. There would always be the embarrassment and regrets. Like when you try to dig out a tree and never manage to get all the roots out. They stay in the mud until they rot. His hands on my back and neck were soothing but strangely disturbing at the same time. I kissed his hair.

“You got beaten?” He wasn’t going to let that go. I could lie. I could be silent. But I held him, and he fit into my embrace like he belonged just there, so I told him.

“It was years ago, my third year at the university in Bratislava. We were in a pub, my boyfriend and me, had a few beers and just wanted to go home. We kissed on the corner right next to the pub. There was a group of guys and a girl. We didn’t see them.” Jamie was still as a stone, and I sighed. “We’d never have done that sober. We knew better. I didn’t think it could happen, you know. Not in the middle of the Old Town with all the tourists and security cameras. But somehow it did. I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. As if it were impossible for a woman to be a part of that. But she was there. They started yelling obscenities and shoving at us, so Peter told one of them that the biggest homophobes are closet cases. Or something along those lines. They broke his jaw. He had to have surgery.”

It had taken some time before Jamie asked the next question. “What about you?”

“Cracked ribs. I was lucky. They had sneakers. Boots would have been worse.”

Jamie gasped and pushed me back to look squarely in my face. “They kicked you?”

I traced the soft contours of his cheekbones with my fingers, trying to wipe out the sadness in his eyes.

“I’m no hero, Jamie. I puked and sobbed and begged them to let me be.” I remembered the woman laughing. And I remembered she was pretty, her long dark hair in a sleek ponytail. I remembered her kicking Peter in the stomach—two of her buddies had to hold him so she could have a go. I didn’t tell Jamie that. It still felt surreal to me.

“I don’t have big thoughts and grand dreams, and I don’t believe in justice. I barely believe in democracy,” I half laughed at myself, grimacing.

He caught my hands in his, showing more empathy and compassion than I could ever deserve.

“But you want to be happy?” he asked.

“You don’t need me to answer that.”

Jamie worried his bottom lip with his teeth before he spoke again. I fought the urge to kiss him. “That’s why I moved to Edinburgh, you know. I once left Idaho for California because I wanted to be myself. I knew that I could never be that in the mountains. I loved the place, still do. But you are right that some things are just too hard to fight. Then I got the offer to work for the CRM in Edinburgh, the city my mom’s family comes from. I checked out the gay scene online, even the state of the LGBT rights on Wikipedia, and bought a ticket. Maybe I took the path of least resistance, but I love my life in Scotland. Even with the constant rain. Maybe that’s why I don’t understand, why I’m asking this. How are you ever going to be happy there?” He pointed at the tablet that was lying next to him on the covers. It was not an unjust prejudice that forced a sliver of disgust into his kind tone. Still, I felt a twinge of irrational hurt. I was born there.

“It’s not that bad. It’s just a bunch of crazy people craving attention. You are from the States, Jamie, the land of Pat Robertson and Sarah Palin.” He chuckled and winced at the same time. It was the cutest thing. “Bigotry is everywhere. It just happens to be loud in Slovakia right now. It’ll blow over.” I tried to sound confident. But I didn’t fool Jamie for a second. I didn’t fool myself either. It was bad, and it wouldn’t just blow over. Witch hunts rarely did.

Jamie scoffed and started coughing, like hacking his lungs up, which effectively ended the discussion.

AFTER THE coughing fit, Jamie fell asleep quickly. I went running. I stopped at the Solitude Park for a while again. There was this fountain that looked like a steampunk machine in front of the Museum Tinguely. But it was empty and turned off, the iron structure casting ominous shadows in the weak and low December sun.

When I came back, Jamie slept sprawled on his stomach. I didn’t pause to admire the view; my survival instinct was resurfacing. I showered and went to the kitchen, immersing myself in Hungarian cuisine for a while. I tried not to bang with the dishes too loudly, but I was probably bound to wake him up sooner or later.

We ate at the table in the kitchen, and Jamie’s appetite seemed revived.

“This is seriously delicious,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“It was my favorite as a kid. Glad you like it.”

“What’s not to like?” Jamie smirked, looking at me intently. Did I imagine the double meaning? He was a flirt after all when he chose to be. Damn him and his freakishly high IQ.

After a minute, he broke the silence again and ruined my appetite. “I should probably book a flight to Edinburgh for Friday. When are you heading to Bratislava?”

“I don’t know yet.” I forced myself to eat another bite of chicken.

Two more nights, then. Then he’d be gone.

WE THOUGHT we could watch a movie on Jamie’s laptop after dinner. He wanted Eurotrip. I guessed correctly that he only planned to mock me because of the part with Bratislava’s missing train station and Slovak dogs playing with ripped-off human body parts. I retaliated by letting him know what I thought about genius nerds indulging in teenage comedies. He flipped me off and put on old Big Bang Theory instead.

It was after eleven when we decided to go to sleep. Jamie was coughing from time to time but nothing too bad. He was just tired and still weak from the fever. He watched me from the bed expectantly, despite his obvious sleepiness, waiting for me to join him. I put on a plain white T-shirt and slid under the covers.

“You’ve never answered me. Why are you going back?” he asked just as I was reaching for him to spoon him like every night. I dropped my arm and settled on my back next to him. He rolled a little until our shoulders were touching. His hair was a mess on the pillow, and it smelled like coconut.

I took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling above us. There were faint shadows and patches of light from the street lamps outside. I could hear the muted hum of a passing car. A door clicked in the room next to ours. A toilet flushed somewhere.

“When I left Slovakia, I just wanted to be gone. I didn’t care where I ended up. I just wanted out. It was impulsive and stupid, and I was too young, too selfish to know better. Peter and I fought all the time, I fought with my parents, school sucked, being gay sucked….” I paused, not knowing how to explain all of that for Jamie to understand. I had to start from the beginning.

“You see, Peter and I, we had been together for a long time, even though only a few people knew. Our families most certainly didn’t know despite the fact that we’d lived together for the last two years. I loved him. He didn’t deal with the secrecy well. He was a good person. Loving and kind, the perfect son, beloved brother. He had four siblings, two little nieces, kind and generous parents. Devout churchgoers all of them. Peter came from a small wine village close to Bratislava and went to visit almost every weekend. Sometimes he took me with—as his best friend and roommate, not his boyfriend of course. It was uncanny, but they never suspected a thing. It was so far from the reality of their lives, it never even occurred to them that their son might be gay.

“They were the picture-perfect family. He was terrified to lose them. But we couldn’t continue to live like that. I knew we would have to either tell them eventually or move abroad. We talked about that many times. I tried to be patient, but my relationship with my own family was cold. I probably didn’t understand how deep his affection went, and how terrible it felt for him when he thought he had to choose between his family and me.

“We were too young, we didn’t know shit about relationships, we didn’t have anybody to talk to. Not really. Sometimes I thought we knew what was right and what was wrong. And then the next day it felt surreal because everybody else was telling us otherwise. I know now that it had been impossible from the beginning. Living like that, keeping it a secret from everyone. It slowly suffocated us. Crippled us.

“One day I came home from a whole day at school, and his stuff was gone. He’d moved out, just like that. I was furious, felt betrayed. It was much later when I realized that he was probably heartbroken, just like me. He just didn’t know what else to do. I never even asked for an explanation, never saw him again. I left Slovakia a month later. I was twenty-two.”

I was silent for a minute, collecting my thoughts, thinking about how to tell Jamie about the rest of it.

“You are going back for him?” he asked into the silence hesitantly.

“No, baby,” I said and put my arm around his shoulders, and he laid his head on my chest. I needed to hold him, for my sake. “Peter died six months ago.” A breath, and then I said that out loud for the first time. “He committed suicide.”

Jamie was stone-still in my embrace, but I could feel his breathing hitch.

Once I told him that one thing, I couldn’t stop myself. Everything I’d avoided even thinking about began avalanching out of my mouth. “He cut his forearms in the bathtub of his one-bedroom apartment in Petržalka. Tenth floor. I mean he could have just jumped. But instead, he cut all the way, both of his arms, with a surgical knife he bought specially. I wonder why he chose that. Why not jumping or pills. I would have pegged him for a pill kind of guy.” Oh God. I was freaking Jamie out for sure. “He’d planned for it, was sober, and knew what he was doing. He died quickly. He left a note for his mom. And because the world is a fucked-up place, I found out about that on Facebook.”

The silence seemed to judge me for staying alive and telling the story of my former lover to my current one. I hadn’t cried for Peter. It felt like I should. I’d tried to force myself some time ago, thinking of him being there in the soulless panel structure, abandoned, surrounded by the white noise of the insignificant, cruelly mundane city. My eyes had burned, but no tears had come.

“Jesus,” Jamie mumbled after a while, and I tightened my arm around him.

“When the campaign against all things gay began in Slovakia a few months ago, Peter’s mother took his suicide note and went to the media with it. While acknowledging her guilt, she claimed that it was the bigotry and hatred in the name of God that killed her son. Of course, a good Catholic mother calling the Slovak Church a murder of flesh-eating crows, the story has spread like wildfire. It seems that Peter didn’t give his mom enough credit.

“Immediately, Peter became a postmortem poster child for LGBT rights in Slovakia. I saw pictures of his grave. It looks like the most outrageously queer flower shop ever.” I blinked at the memory of rainbow-colored candles surrounding Peter’s tombstone in Modra. The stone says: “Our most beloved, forgive us, we didn’t know what we were doing.”

“You are going back for the referendum?” Jamie whispered.

“No, not for the referendum.” How could I put it in simple sentences? “I read his suicide note online several weeks ago. I was in a hotel on a layover in Beijing when I found it on the Facebook page of a Slovak nonprofit. I started to read without knowing who the author was, and I had a weird sense of déjà vu. It was all about how the man tried so hard to fit the expectations, how exhausted he was, how alone he felt while surrounded by others who were supposed to love him but didn’t even know him. There were even two short sentences about a boy he’d loved back at college, who he’d left because he wanted to be a good person, and good people didn’t lie and didn’t deceive others.” My voice broke a bit, and I had to take a few deep breaths. “I had a horrifying moment when I put the names and dates together. I realized that it was Peter and that he was dead, had been for some time, and that he wrote about loving me in his suicide note.”

“I’m sorry.” Jamie’s hand found mine under the covers, and he squeezed it.

“I read the letter over and over again, looking for hidden meanings. There weren’t any. He was just alone, and he thought that if people knew the real him, he’d be unlovable. Boyfriends left him because he was closeted. His family and coworkers would have scorned him, had he come out. Simple as that.

“I didn’t love him anymore, not like that. It’s been a long time. It felt more like a death of an old friend. But his letter made me think about my choices. He managed to put names to things that had haunted me for all my time abroad. All those years ago I took the easy way out when I left. I ran away from the challenges.

“That’s why, when I came back to Dubai, Peter’s words repeating in my head, I just handed in my notice. I didn’t think it through. I simply couldn’t go on like I used to.”

Jamie’s fingers played with mine, and his weight on my chest and side was a welcome anchor.

“I think I want a do-over,” I said in a stronger voice, finally finding words that sounded close enough to how I felt. “I’m not saying that I should have stayed in Bratislava eight years ago. I just left for the wrong reasons, and I kept leaving as if repeating the same mistake over and over again could ever make things better.

“I want to go places instead of leaving places all the time. I guess that is why I’m coming back to the first city I’ve ever abandoned. Because next time I leave Slovakia, it is going to be because I have somewhere to go. I want a proper destination.”

There was a quiet moment, filled with my anxiety and self-doubt. I shouldn’t have told Jamie all of that. I felt raw and…. Jamie turned in my arms and dragged my hand with him, rolling so that I spooned him.

“You’re the first person I’ve had sex with since last January,” he said. I tensed but silently begged him to keep talking. I wanted to know and wished he’d give me the relief of sharing something equally exposing. Somehow, he knew I needed that, so he started talking.

“I’d lived with Daniel for two years when we broke things off. I think he was the instant gratification type. Like I was the kid who hoarded all the candy, saving it for later. And he’d eat only the good stuff until the bag would be empty except for the licorice that nobody wants.”

I understood. “He cheated.”

Jamie sighed. “I wish. I don’t know. Maybe. He did something worse. He said he was leaving so he wouldn’t be forced to cheat.”

I winced. “That’s evil.”

Jamie chuckled. “Well, it took me some time to see it like that. We had friends who did the whole casual thing: sharing, inviting a third. Stuff like that. At first, I felt like I was a prude.” I wanted to argue, but Jamie continued, not letting me interrupt. “He insisted that he hadn’t done anything behind my back, though. He said he didn’t want to hurt me, and that it wouldn’t be fair to coerce me into an open relationship since he knew I didn’t want to fuck around. I think he expected me to persuade him to stay. He thought I’d give him the free card to occasionally fuck someone else because I loved him that much.

“It turned out I didn’t. Then he told our friends that it was me who broke up with him. He left out the part where I didn’t want to share my boyfriend with half of Edinburgh’s most fabulous crowd. It was ridiculous. I wanted to be mad, badly.”

“You had the right to be mad. He was manipulating you so he wouldn’t have to feel guilty.”

“I guess. It doesn’t matter anymore. I kept the apartment, as it was mine to begin with. I was worried I would have to move because of the memories. Then I realized that there weren’t many. I barely think of him nowadays.”

He spoke with a calm finality. I was inappropriately glad about that. The confession, both mine and his, took weight away from my chest. With Jamie safely in my embrace, I felt as if I’d just awoken from a bad dream into bright sunlight.

“You’re a candy hoarder, huh?” I asked.

“A major one.” I heard the smile in his voice. “What about you?”

“I don’t know. I never got much candy as a kid, so there wasn’t anything to hoard. I love chocolate truffles with chili, though. I always eat them slowly, savor them. Piece, by piece.” I started nipping at his neck when I said that, and he laughed. Foolishly, even knowing that Jamie was still too sick to do anything, I opened my mouth over his skin, tasting him.

Jamie stopped laughing and groaned. “Stop, please. We can’t. Don’t torture me.”

“Sorry.”

He turned his head toward me and kissed me chastely, lingering only a second. “It was amazing, the first night… I wish we could….”

I interrupted him by kissing him back. It was brief and sweet and too little.

“I know, me too,” I whispered.