REQUIEM FOR THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

@ Short Story by Džena Andersone, 2023

@ Translated by Kaija Straumanis, 2023

Džena Andersone / Jen Anderson /

REQUIEM FOR THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Wrapped head to toe like a corpse rolled up in a rug, Stefan could still feel her eyes needling into his skin through the sweaty, synthetic blanket. It was hot under there, but he didn’t want to move, didn’t want the woman waiting motionless next to him know he was awake. Stefan knew Esther was watching him. The same way she’d watched him every morning these last, endless months. Waiting for him to wake up.

            He cautiously pushed the blanket off his face. The new day shone pale and jeering from between the thick curtains, the gap like a crooked smile. The walls were still there, standing like footmen at attention under the high ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The same, watery-milk-white room. Nothing had changed. No miracle; everything was the same as it had been. Saturday, October 31st.

            – Stefan, you asleep? Hey?

            Stefan squeezed his eyes shut again at the sound of her whispers. He counted slowly to five, then rolled over onto his stomach.

            – I was worried you were still asleep, Esther sighed with relief and draped herself over him. I’m cold, hold me.

            Stefan freed his arms with some effort and wrapped them lightly around her. He kissed the top of her head.

            – Why don’t you put on a sweatshirt, or something with long sleeves? he said and rubbed her goose-fleshed shoulders.

            – I like it this way . . .

            How could you like lazing around half-naked for days on end, Stefan thought; it’s so stupid. How could you not know that it stopped being beautiful or sexy a long time ago.

            – Seriously, put one on, you’ll get sick. He gave the top of her head another kiss and began to gently untangle himself from her.

– No, I’m not letting you go, Esther murmured, her limbs vinelike around him.

            – C’mon, Esh, let go. He freed himself as kindly yet firmly as possible and surfaced from the low bed with a breath of relief.

            Esther remained, the duvet pulled up to her chin. She looked placated, but ever so hopeful.

            – You look so pretty this morning, he said, though he didn’t know why he’d done so.

            – Liar, you’re just saying that so I don’t get mad. Esther sat up, tucking her legs into lotus position.

            – I never lie. Stefan put on a robe and made for the door.

            – Where are you going?

            – You know where.

            – Don’t take too long . . .

            – Esh . . .

            – You’re a liar, Esther repeated and reached over to turn off the space heater. I know everything.

            Stefan went into the bathroom and turned on the tap. He rinsed his face and looked in the mirror. Only two days, Stefan, only two more days, he said to his reflection with a nod of encouragement. Monday you get on a plane and then you’re free. The thought of Vienna was what was keeping him going.

            When he got back to the bedroom Esther was sitting up in bed, viciously filing her nails and wearing pink, hooded pajamas. Hooded pajamas with cat or catlike ears on top.

            Who told women those are sexy or even cute? It’s grotesque, Stefan thought. Especially for a woman over thirty.

            – You want coffee? Esther asked, not looking up from her right index finger.

            – Yeah, that would be great, Stefan said and sat down awkwardly on the bed.

            It wasn’t a true bed, but a large, square mattress on the floor in the center of the large, empty room.

            – I’ll finish this and then make some, Esther said with a flutter of her hand. Other than that she seemed suspiciously calm.

            Stefan reached for his cigarettes and lit one.

            – I’ll open the window, okay? he said, turning toward her.

            – No, she snapped back. I want everything to stay how it is. I want to remember all of it, forever. So when you leave me at least I’ll have that.

            – Have what, stale air? Stefan blew the smoke in the direction of the gap in the curtains. You’re making it pretty dramatic.

            – You just don’t understand me, you don’t understand what I feel. Esther threw the file at the floor. Every single detail is important to me, every little thing . . . they’re memories, the air we breathe, the smell of our bodies, the things we’ve said . . . there are so many of them, right here in this room.

            – Esh, you’re the one who didn’t want to come with me. You made that decision . . .

            – I didn’t want to? I did too want to and you know it! You know I can’t, not that I won’t, Esther said and jumped to her feet, the cat ears flopping angrily.

            – Fine, let’s not start, okay? We’ve been over it a hundred times . . .

            – Start what? You’re the one who was rude, and now you’re saying let’s not start? Esther jammed her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. And the salt in the wound is that you can’t wait to get out of here!

            – You could’ve gotten the vaccine too, and come with, Stefan said and took a drag; he picked up an ashtray from the floor and stretched out on the mattress.

            – You’re being so mean right now! You know how I feel about all of it . . . there isn’t any research, no one knows how harmful the vaccines could be to future generations, Esther said and began to move from one corner of the room to the next, like a fly that can’t find the open window. What if there all kinds of genetic mutations and who knows what else . . .

            – That’s so stupid, Stefan said and stacked his feet heel-to-toe in an effort to block the sight of the circling pink cloud.

            – Easy for you to say! You’re only twenty-six and have your whole life ahead of you. It’s different for women, our fertility isn’t infinite. I’m almost thirty-four, I’m not going to risk . . . I want kids some day!

            – You make it sound like you’re eighty. My mom had me when she was forty-four, Stefan said and brushed some ashes off his chest. And what does that have to do with getting a shot?

            – Stefan, it’s not the same! Maybe it’s normal for you guys, in Serbia . . .

            – What’s normal? Having a kid after forty and not being afraid of a shot? he laughed.

            – I’m not afraid of shots, Esther stopped at the foot of the bed. I have allergies. I don’t need the extra risk. My allergies are so bad I can’t even have a cat . . .

            – It’s all in your head, Stefan said. His eyes searched the gap between the curtains for any reprieve, hungry for the mundane strip of visible sky.

            – I don’t want you to leave, Esther said glumly. But you’re restless, you have somewhere to be . . .

            Stefan didn’t reply. The stump of the cigarette was smoldering in his fingertips. He brought it to his lips, sprinkling more ash on his chest.

            – I’ll go make coffee, she said, pushing back her hood as she left the room.

*

Stefan used the first cigarette to light a second. He felt bad. He couldn’t give Esther what she wanted. He just couldn’t.

            He remembered how they’d met, over three months ago. He’d been stuck at the airport on the stopover between Belgrade and Vienna. Austria had closed its borders to those travelers coming from countries with particularly high infection rates. Stefan didn’t have his vaccination certificate yet, and he couldn’t get to Vienna with a negative test result alone. But even at this first sign of complications, he hadn’t gone back home. It would be embarrassing, to go back having failed, having wasted his money on a ticket and not having found a job. And so, quite unexpectedly, he found himself in the airport of this foreign country. A country whose name he had never heard before, and that he had never noticed on any map.

            He spent the nights sleeping in the arrivals hall while waiting for the travel restrictions to change. That’s where he first saw Esther. Or rather, where Esther first saw him. It was five in the morning, and he’d gone out to the smoking area for a cigarette when a tall redhead in an airport-staff uniform addressed him. She was asking for a light. He flicked his lighter and held it out; instead of simply leaning in to light it, she had confidently grabbed his hand and brought the lighter to her lips. The warm touch of a stranger’s skin jolted his brain like an electric shock.

            In the dusky airport light, he could sense a woman behind the stern face and crisp uniform—a real woman, the kind that hadn’t crossed his mind in the last few months leading up to his trip to Austria. His job search and lack of funds had occupied all the free space in his mind. There hadn’t been time for fooling around.

            Esther, I’m Esther, but you can call me Esh, she’d smiled. That same day, once Esther’s shift was over, Stefan had gone home with her. She’d picked him up from the airport bench like he was a stray cat; and he’d let her. At the time it had felt like he’d really lucked out. Who knows how long he would’ve had to stay in the cold arrivals hall—whereas here was a pretty divorcée with no kids and her own apartment. She was older than him and had years of pent-up desire, and a fire in her that at times bordered on obsession.

            The pandemic was raging across the globe; the airport was partially shut down and two thirds of the employees—Esther included—were sent home on furlough. Esther had been so happy she glowed. Stefan was happy too. He had no idea how deeply he was mired in this stranger’s life. His brain had shut down and was floating in a pool of serotonin. They spent most of the first two weeks in bed enjoying cheap Bulgarian wines, food delivery, and each other. The curtains on the window were almost always pulled shut against the sunlight and reality. The line between morning and evening slowly dissolved, until the passage of time turned into something like polar night.

            After a month in Esther’s bed, news hit the internet that Austria was easing its travel restrictions.

            – We could go together, Stefan had suggested. My friend’s lived there for over ten years and has helped a lot of people get settled. I think it’d be easy for you to get work.

            – No, and why? I’m fine where I am and you, Stefan, don’t need to go anywhere either, Esther had said, already against the idea. And you could find work here.

            – But I don’t speak your language and the money is better in Austria, Stefan countered. Why don’t you want to go? It’s not like you have anything here . . .

            – And there? What’s there? Do you think you’re going to find mountains of gold? You’re so naïve . . .

            – But the restaurants and hotels are . . .

            – Hotels? Yeah right! Best case you end up at some farm, but not a hotel! You’re being ridiculous, Esther nagged. You honestly think you’re going to live in Vienna?

            – I do. My German is pretty decent . . .

            – Idiot . . .

            At first Stefan thought Esther didn’t want to go to Austria because she didn’t speak German and that her English wouldn’t get her very far. But as time passed he understood that she simply wasn’t ready for change—didn’t want change—things are good as they are. And with the pandemic and with Stefan by her side and with all this free time, things were twice as good. It was suffocating. He felt like a gigolo; he was using Esther and Esther was using him. He felt like he was a burden.

            If his parents saw him now they’d die on the spot from shame. He imagined his childhood home in Ivanica—his mother with her red scarf over her hair, his aging father sitting as always by the front door with his bum leg stretched out—and he felt incredibly sad. He’d left home to make money, to send it home to help his parents, but instead he was stuck in this strange, unknown country, having misled this woman and made both her and himself unhappy. Like the Hungry Caterpillar, this thought ate holes through his conscience, leaving only worry and sorrow.

            Things became even more untenable when Esther refused to get the vaccine because she believed some conspiracy theory about a cell mutation that caused something like tumors that were harmful to reproductive health; or how coming into contact with a certain substance—one still unknown but one that would in the future be introduced to all those who were vaccinated—could lead to a slow, horrible death or to addiction; or some other, equally horrible outcome these conspiracy theorists hadn’t yet written about on their blogs.

            – That’s just ignorance, Stefan had said.

            – Ignorance is your religion! she’d snapped, her words whipping him like a wet rag.

            Stefan had instinctively placed his hand over the cross that he’d worn around his neck for as long as he could remember. Back then he hadn’t said anything, but Esther’s words had lodged themselves deeply in his mind like buckshot in a wild boar’s hide.

            All the words that came after that, the millions of words about love, happily ever after, and sensual delights—they all dropped to the floor like empty peapods, large and fleshy, but good for nothing.

            – I love you, love you, love you, Esther breathed into his ear night and day. Please, please stay a bit longer, just a week or two, just until the first of the month, until the fifteenth, until . . . I need you, I can’t do this alone.

            So he stayed. For another week, two more, until that date or the next. Esther continued grasping for and finding various excuses why he should stay for a little longer still. Her mother needed help painting her bathroom ceiling and her godmother needed help painting her kitchen walls, both women are old and they live alone like Esther, and who else would do it if not the very kind and very helpful Stefan. Then he needed to meet Esther’s friends so they could see how great she was doing and what a catch she’d found in this dreary time. The best! Then there was the wardrobe she’d ordered from Poland a while back, which once delivered needed to be carried up to the fifth floor and put together. And on and on, week after week, the finished tasks on the to-do list replaced by new tasks, and Stefan growing more and more irate.

            – I want you, I want to drink you dry, Esther would pant, biting his neck until she broke the skin.

            The harder she bit him, the more Stefan perfected the slimy sense of guilt that had lodged in his throat. He couldn’t swallow it or cough it out, but choked on his indecision, almost hoping Esther would bite through his jugular in a moment of extreme ecstasy and end it all.

            Yet no matter how intense and energetic Esther could be, she also made sure Stefan was in good health and not excessively marked up. And so all of his arteries and the rest of his body parts remained intact.

            Stefan had smoked his cigarette down to the filter without noticing.

*

A pink hood with cat ears appeared in the doorway. Esh had a large mug of coffee in each hand, both filled to the brim. She walked slowly, placing one foot carefully in front of the other; then she misstepped and the coffee spilled.

            – Dammit! Esther cursed. Hold these!

            Stefan took the mugs from her and Esther got a napkin to wipe the floor.

            – Turn it up, I want to hear the news, she ordered.

            It was the top of the hour and the radio announcer was starting with world news.

            – . . . the Austrian Parliament has scheduled an emergency session for November 1^st due to the sharp increase in coronavirus infection rates, which over the past day has reached nearly fifty-five hundred positive cases, the radio announcer said. Austrian officials plan to approve a partial quarantine starting Tuesday, November 3^rd, set to last for four weeks . . .

            Esther let the napkin fall from her hand as she turned up the radio and sat on the floor next to it.

            – Austria will enforce a nightly curfew of 8 p.m. . . . all cultural institutions and recreational centers will be closed . . . sporting events will be canceled . . . funerals will still be permitted . . . all restaurants and hotels will be closed . . . retail stores may continue operations, and university and college courses may continue remotely . . . these restrictions will remain in effect until November 30^th . . .

            – See? You can’t go anywhere! Esther’s lower lip trembled. Quarantine! You can stay here for another month at least . . .

            – Esh, I can’t, I’m going, Stefan set both coffee mugs on the floor. I have a ticket and I’m not changing the date again. It’s settled . . .

            – Rubbish! What’re you going to do there? Esther reached for a coffee mug with one hand and for her laptop with the other. Nothing’s going to be open!

            – I promised, Mihal’s expecting me. I can’t keep stringing him along like this, changing my ticket again, Stefan said. And maybe a good thing, with the quarantine in place I can get to know the city while it’s less hectic, I can settle in . . . and it’s been so long since I’ve seen someone from back home that I’m about to forget my own language.

            – I want the pandemic to last forever, Esther said glumly and tapped away at her keyboard.

            – What? Stefan cringed. Don’t say stuff like that . . . people are dying every day from . . .

            – So? What do I have to do with other people? she snapped. People die every day, whether there’s a pandemic or not!

            – Esh, don’t say that. He took a drink of coffee. You don’t know what you’re saying sometimes. And what would you do if it did go on forever?

            – Why just me? The question is what would we do. I know! We’d never have to leave the apartment again. Esther was focused on the computer screen. What’s there to do out there that I haven’t already seen?

            Stefan shivered inwardly.

            – I couldn’t live like that, he said. There are so many countries I want to travel to, so much I want to see . . .

            – I’d tie you up, Esther laughed. Look! See what they’re saying?

            She turned the computer to face him. On screen was a table of all the countries with particular safety measures in effect. Austria was on the list, marked in red as one of the countries it was recommended to avoid traveling to.

            – See? Do you get it now? Esther was triumphant. You can’t go anywhere!

            Stefan took another drink of coffee and set the mug on the floor.

            – That doesn’t matter, Esh. I’m going anyway.

            – You are so, so, I don’t even know . . . so whatever! Esther’s face was red with anger; the pink of her sweatshirt made it look even more scarlet. Her expression grew darker with each minute. Stefan looked away.

            – You’re going to leave me? Yeah? Tell me then, just say it! Now her hands were shaking.

            – Esh, you can come with me, I’ve told you a hundred times. Get the vaccine and come with! I’ll wait for you. Okay? Stefan said. His eyes searched the closed curtains for the triangle of sky as if he were searching for a life vest in a storm-tossed ship.

            – Shut up about the vaccines for once! she yelled so shrilly she caught herself off guard. I could die . . . what if I die? You wouldn’t care . . . you’ll be gone, and . . .

            – Stop it. I don’t want to hear this garbage anymore. He drained the rest of his coffee. It’s all in your head, the biases, the fear, the . . .

            – It’s not the same!

            – I’m serious, that’s how it is. For example, you have no problem getting those dumb pictures on your back, but how are you so sure that the ink isn’t bad for you?

            – What? Esther froze. You’re talking about my tattoos?

            – I am. Do you have any idea what goes into the ink?

            – Ink is ink! That’s what goes in it! Esther’s eyes had grown large and round.

            – And how do you know that the ink isn’t bad for your health?

            – Everyone knows it’s not! Quit fooling around and leave me alone!

            – What about lips? How safe can that be? Stefan continued.

            – What lips? Esther’s hood slipped off her head.

            – The ones your friend has, Fiona or whatever, Stefan sat with his back against the wall and picked up his phone.

            – Fiona? It’s Ilona, not Fiona! Esther jumped to her feet. And what do her lips have to do with you? The things you’re saying are so stupid!

            – I have nothing to do with her, but I find it odd . . . none of you want to get vaccinated yet you’re willing to inject yourselves with all kinds of . . .

            – Shut up!

            – Why? Stefan laughed and plugged in his phone.

            – Because it’s annoying and hurtful!

            – Which part?

            – Everything you’re saying . . .

            – Listen, I’m not saying I don’t like your little drawings, but . . . what even is that on your back? A snake?

            – Snake? Esther hissed. It’s a dragon! A dragon.

            – Okay, and why do you have that dragon? Stefan pressed on.

            – It’s my horoscope sign! Esther all but sparked. But not like you care! You are seriously annoying!

            – Come on, tell me, why do people feel the need to get tattoos. Why do you do it?

            – What’s up with you? Did you run out stuff to say so you had to find something to latch onto? My tattoos? What bullshit! Esther slammed her laptop shut.

            – Why is it bullshit?

            – I said shut up, Esther shot him a look of despair and contempt.

            Stefan opened his email on his phone and found his e-ticket. He ran his finger across the screen.

            – Esther. You have such a beautiful name, Esther, he said after a pause. Almost Biblical . . . you could be someone completely different . . .

            – Why do you do that?

            – Do what?

            – That . . . Purposely piss me off. Say things that I don’t like . . . And you know you do it, too, and still you keep on doing it, Esther said, starting to cry. You can’t wait to get away from me . . .

            – That’s not true, Stefan said unconvincingly.

            – It is so, Esther sniffled. You don’t want me anymore, I can tell . . .

            – Esh, come on . . . Stefan felt helpless. Esther, I . . .

            – Yeah, yeah, it’s always the same, you always say my full name when you don’t want to talk to me anymore or when you’re mad, Esther said and covered her beet-red face with her hands.

            – But I never get mad, I swear I was only kidding about the dragon. What would I be mad about? I’m not mad, I . . .

            – You call that kidding? Esther asked through tears. You have a strange sense of humor.

            – I was just teasing you a bit. Stefan felt like he was sinking. That’s not who I am, I’m . . .

            – Then who are you?

            – Me? I’m myself, I’m . . . I’m just worried about my parents and money and work, okay? I want to work, I can’t spend all my time at home, and, what’s more, at your expense. I feel worthless.

            – And me? What about how I feel? Or do you even care? Esther’s shoulders shook lightly as she cried, the cat ears on her hoodie shaking in time with them.

            – I do care, I really do. Please don’t cry, Esh, please. I can’t stand it, you crying because of me, Stefan said and set down his phone. He went to her and took her into his arms.

            Esther threw her arms around his neck as tightly as if she were drowning and Stefan were a dolphin that had accidentally come across her in the open sea.

            – Know what I just thought of? Stefan sat on the mattress with Esther in his lap. Maybe when Austria lifts all the restrictions and vaccine mandates next spring, you could come visit. You’d come visit, right?

            Esther was still hanging on to him. She shrugged.

            – What would I do there? she asked reluctantly.

            – I’m sure we’d find something, Stefan said briskly. I’d take you to the Bermuda Triangle. Do you know what that is?

            – Yeah, it’s where ships and airplanes go missing . . .

            – Not that one. The Bermuda Triangle is this area in the old part of downtown Vienna. It’s this really cool place for tourists to hang out. Yeah, we’d definitely go there at night, the pedestrian part is supposedly really nice. Live music, small pubs, Stefan spoke as if telling a story.

            – How do you know that? Esther asked.

            – Mihal, the friend of mine down there, he told me. Stefan brushed some hair from Esther’s face. He works somewhere nearby. If I get lucky I’ll get work too. We’re meeting up on Monday in the Bermudas, as Mihal calls it. Can you imagine? He’s going to show me where he works. His boss is great, so hopefully I have a chance there.

            – The Bermudas. Almost sounds dirty, Esther said and wiped her face with her sleeve.

            – Dirty, he said and kissed her damp cheek. Are you saying you don’t like dirty?

            He slid a hand under her sweatshirt and she went into a fit of giggles. He continued caressing her stomach and breasts. As he gently kissed her neck he wondered what was worse: having no idea what his future held, the pandemic, or the possibility of staying locked in this room with Esther for an interminable amount of time. He could feel her body burning hot like dry grass in a heatwave. He didn’t want her to cry, didn’t want her to cry today. There was no other way he knew how to stop her, and so he closed his eyes and kissed her tear-stained face.

            – I’d rather see your triangle, he whispered into her ear, tracing figure-eights around her belly button. Esther pulled her sweatshirt off and tossed it over her shoulder onto the radio, then pushed Stefan back onto the bed. A second later and the mattress in the middle of the room had turned into a hurricane-whipped sea; there was nothing to do but survive the storm.

*

The airport bathroom stall was huge. In any case it was a lot bigger than the elevator Stefan had taken down from the fifth floor of the apartment building. Unlike the elevator, the bathroom stall was clean and pleasant. What’s more, he was alone and didn’t have anyone screaming words at his back that he didn’t understand and never wanted to.

            He lowered the toilet lid and sat. Then he carefully inspected the sterile gauze bandage on the back of his left hand. It was holding in place; his hand was swollen and stung.

            With his good hand he reached into his backpack and pulled out the Irish whisky he’d bought at Duty Free. He unscrewed the top and pulled down his face mask to take a long drink, straight from the bottle. At the thought that he would very soon be getting on the plane, sweat broke out across Stefan’s forehead and his insides turned. On his way to the bathroom he’d seen the large, white plane with the red Australian Airlines logo glinting in the autumn sunlight. It looked beautiful and terrifying all at once. Stefan was deathly afraid of flying. He took another swig from the bottle.

            His head hung, he waited for the warmth of the alcohol to spread throughout his body and at least calm his shaking. Instead of the warmth he wanted he felt only anxiety and remorse. Now and again his last moments at Esther’s apartment flashed before his eyes.

            He’d known there’d be a scene, but not that it would turn into a full-blown psychological trial. Sunday had gone smoothly enough—Esther had managed not to pester him about changing his departure date. It had seemed to Stefan that she’d accepted it.

            But that morning, after he’d gotten out of the shower and started packing his handful of possessions, Esther started to yell. He was used to that by then and paid no attention to her at first. Then she switched from yelling and threats to pleading and sobbing. Nothing helped, not talking to her, trying to calm her down, making promises, nothing. Things only got worse.

            She took the cup of coffee Stefan handed her and flung it against the wall. That was preferable to her throwing the hot liquid directly into his face; he had calmly wiped up the mess and poured her a fresh cup.

            Once he was dressed and putting on his jacket, she threw herself at his feet, begging him to stay. God, Esh, stop, what are you doing? he’d said and tried to lift her to her feet to sit her on the bed. Her hysterical sobs grew louder with every second, grating against his brain.

            Half an hour before he needed to leave for the airport, she’d started saying she’d jump out the window if he left, to which he’d told her to stop messing around or else he’d nail the windows shut. Then she’d turned aggressive and started hurling ugly words at him. The English ones he understood, but whatever she said in her language was beyond him. Based on the intonation, it sounded like damnations, curses. No one had ever spoken like that to him before.

            Stefan knew she wouldn’t jump from the fifth floor, and so he called a cab. He had gone to the window to see if the cab was waiting out front when he heard a sound in the hallway. Esther had removed the keys from the door and was heading toward the windows with them, screaming that he wouldn’t be going anywhere because the door was locked and she was not giving up the keys. That had been the worst part: him chasing her down in the tiny apartment and wrestling the keys from her. It made his stomach turn. He hated violence and aggression, along with unnecessary, excessive force.

            – Give me the keys, please, stop fooling around, he’d said at first. But when she made to throw the keys out the window, Stefan had grabbed her and with his free hand tried to free the keys from her clenched fist. He’d hoped up to the last second that she’d finally give up and give in—but instead she’d bent forward and sunk her teeth into his hand with all her strength. She broke the skin. It was so painful and so unexpected that he’d cried out, his hand swinging up and hitting Esther. The keys fell to the floor and she spit in his face.

            – I’m so sorry, he’d said, frozen still. He had never hit a woman. It was so awful, it felt like he’d hit his own mother.

            Esther stood silently in the hallway and watched him leave.

            – I’m so sorry, he said again from inside the elevator. For whatever reason the elevator doors hadn’t closed yet, and Esther said she hated him. Then the doors snapped shut like a guillotine, severing the past, and the elevator whirred down to the ground floor, where he stepped out to find the yellow cab waiting for him. He didn’t dare look up to the fifth floor, to the silent window with its curtains pulled shut but for the triangular gap between them.

            Luckily the cab driver was a helpful sort and gave Stefan a strip of gauze and a sterile pad from his first-aid kit. He eyed Stefan’s injured hand doubtfully from behind the plastic safety divider and had offered to drive him to the nearest ER. He also said something about getting vaccinated. I am, Stefan had explained. But the driver said he wasn’t talking about the coronavirus, but about rabies. You could only get a rabies shot at the ER, a fact he knew because he’d lived in the countryside for a long time and had experience with rabid dogs, and once even a rabid fox. That’s why he knew Stefan should start there, he’d seen the bite marks on the back of his hand. No, no, take me to the airport, please, Stefan said defiantly. He was terrified of getting stuck in yet another place, and then he’d never make it to Austria, never make it to the Bermuda Triangle. He bandaged his hand in the cab, then pressed his head against the window and watched as driver navigated through the autumnal landscape of a city whose generosity he no longer believed in.

            Stefan swirled the bottle of liquor and took another swig. He tucked the bottle between his knees and took his phone from his pocket, then removed the SIM card and broke it in half. Forgive me, Esh, he thought to himself, and dropped the pieces in the trash.

            He left the restrooms and joined the swarm of people lining up at the gate for boarding.

            – On behalf of our airline, we wish you a pleasant flight, the dark-haired, neatly-dressed flight attendant said to each passenger once their documents and face masks had been checked and approved. Her eyes were kind above her own mask, which matched her uniform.

            – We wish you a pleasant flight and a pleasant evening before the start of quarantine, the woman’s brown eyes smiled at Stefan in turn as she handed back his boarding documents.

            He grabbed his passport. He thought the dark-haired woman might take him by the hand and never let him go. Never before had he been so scared of being touched.

*

Wrapped head to toe in the synthetic blanket, Esther lay in bed. It felt like it had doubled in size; the room felt twice as big now, too. In an effort to fill the stifling emptiness that had been accumulating in the apartment since morning, she had relocated the television from the kitchen to right next to the mattress.

            The TV was turned up to max volume. Esther flipped apathetically through the channels with the remote. She was waiting for the evening news. Hearing about the bad things happening regularly to unknown people who lived far away often helped distract her from her own problems.

            At nine o’clock the anchorwoman started with local news. Business as usual, the continual spread of the pandemic, the number of positive cases, the number of deaths, the exhaustion of the overworked hospital staff, teacher protests, the grave faces of the ministers, all of it so predictable.

            She was about to change the channel when the international news jingle started to play. It was breaking news from Austria. The reporter said that around eight o’clock that evening, Austrian time, there had been a terrorist attack in downtown Vienna—four dead, nearly twenty injured, with the total casualties yet unknown . . . There had been multiple attacks coordinated simultaneously in several locations . . . the epicenter of the attack was a synagogue in the heart of Vienna, in a neighborhood known as the Bermuda Triangle . . . according to witnesses there were several attackers, one of whom was killed by police during the shootout.

            The sound of the voice on TV grew lower, hollowed out, until it bled into the ringing emptiness of the room, and Esther stopped listening. She gazed into the middle distance for a long time before her eyes looked to find her phone. She picked it up and held it for a moment, but felt the desire to not know, and set the phone almost inaudibly back on the floor. She fell backward into her nest of blankets and stared at the window, the curtains pulled closed. The bit of sky that could be seen through the triangular gap between them was pitch-black.