Into the Light

22. What Have I Done To Deserve This?

I wish I could just bite off my tongue right now. Not that it would change anything, of course... and kissing just wouldn't be the same without it either... Okay, so maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea after all. Besides, what I said was not a slip of the tongue. It was actually something that I had real trouble getting my tongue round.

Rashim swallows, meeting my gaze across the table. "So - when will you be leaving then?"

His tone is light, conversational, and I don't like it in the least.

"Soon," I manage. "I mean, no reason to put it off any more than what's absolutely necessary, since I'll have to go anyway. And the sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back again."

"Yeah." Rashim's gaze drifts to the glass he's fingering. He nods, smiles thinly. "What's 'soon', then - a few days, a week, tomorrow?"

"A few days," I tell him. "Probably after the weekend. Chaim's told me that I can take his carriage. They're staying here."

Rashim nods again and bites his lip. I feel like howling. Not crying, no. I'd really want to shout as loud as I can, yell out this frustration and despair and - yes, fear. I'm fucking afraid of what will happen.

I didn't want to tell you quite yet, Rashim, not here and now. But you, damn your perceptiveness, you noticed that something's amiss as soon as you caught sight of me outside this little café. And you didn't give up until you'd forced me to spill the news I've spent yesterday alternately ranting, whining and raging about. That the tone of my lawyers' letters has finally reached a pitch that I can't ignore any more.

Despite Chaim's patient efforts, I've never been one to take a very active part in the management of my property. And yet, apparently the little I've done has still been necessary. I wouldn't know, I never really noticed it before. But before this journey I've been within easy reach of the people doing the job for me. It's been easy for them to just drop by, push a sheet of paper in front of me and show where I need to sign my name.

I guess my signature has been going to more places than I've realized. And not even Chaim has been able to guess that it might come to this - that the people acting on my behalf don't have sufficient authorization to carry out everything necessary. Oh, sure they've been sending documents over for my approval and signature and so on, but this bloody distance...

I mean, for fuck's sake, Uman is so bloody far! And what right do the guys over there have to behave like it were some fucking center of the universe? The hub around which the entire world turns?

I know it bloody well isn't, but one goddamn fact still remains: I'll have to travel there and at least try to put things right. To be present, in person, and transfer all my pertinent affairs to be handled here. To make sure that the people in charge of things back there have sufficient powers and good enough instructions to act without me being available at a few hours' notice. There's no way I can go on just shrugging at things, no matter how fervently I'd like to do exactly that.

Rashim, this is difficult enough for me even without you looking like that... Like you couldn't fully believe your ears. Like you'd just been told that someone is dead, or something. You're sitting there, in your chair on the other side of the small café table, looking as prim and proper as you only do when you're coming straight from work.

I can't take this, I simply can't. "Rashim... let's walk. Or would you want something to eat?"

He shakes his head. "No. Not hungry. Let's go."

We get up, push our chairs under the table, I leave a small tip on the table before following Rashim out to the street. I fall in step with him, his hand fumbles for mine and our fingers entwine, clutch each other. He's swallowing hard and looking straight ahead.

"Rashim." My voice is not nearly steady, probably because I have trouble breathing. "I hate the whole idea but I simply have to go, I've been putting it away for so long that -"

"It's all right," he interrupts. "Honestly, Toni. You can't help it, you said so. I just - I'll miss you so goddamn much."

"I'll miss you." Gods, I wish I didn't feel this helpless, this miserable. "And I wish there was another way. I don't want to spend a day without you, and now I don't even know how fucking long it's going to be..."

"You have no idea?" Rashim turns in a corner, towards one of those small parks that dot this city. I follow him meekly.

"No." Fuck, I really wish I did. "One-way journey to Uman will take about a month, when all goes well, and another month back. And it's anybody's guess how long it'll take to sort things out there, so that I can leave again. I think it'll be at least three months altogether."

He nods again, manages a small smile. "Hey, that doesn't sound too bad," he says brightly. "So you're coming back then?"

"Of course!" I stop, so abruptly that Rashim has to spin around to face me because I'm not letting go of his hand. "What are you thinking, Rashim? Why the hell would I want to stay in Uman? When everything I care about is here?"

He looks into my eyes and tries to say something, shakes his head and presses his lips together. And then he's in my arms, face burying into the bend of my neck. I hug him tight, my breathing as erratic as his, and we just stand on the sidewalk holding each other. Rashim's breath hisses, I feel his jaw clenching, his fingers digging into my back. Is he crying?

"What does it mean?" he mumbles into my shoulder. "For us - what does it mean for us?"

"It means that we'll have to be apart for a while. That I'll write to you," I promise him. "Rashim... I love you. I really do. And I wish you could come with me but - I don't suppose -"

"No." His sigh, so hot on my collarbone, makes a shiver run down my spine. "No way, I can't."

"Thought so." I try to smile but it's so goddamn difficult. "Too bad, though. But Rashim, I..."

"Let's sit down," he interrupts me. Oh, right, we are almost in the little park, and there's a bench not far away from us. I follow Rashim and sit down - and then he's straddling me, on his knees on the bench and sitting in my lap, arms winding around me. Our lips mesh together with furious passion, I don't give a flying fuck about where we are and what this might look like. All I care about is that Rashim is in my arms, kissing me, and in not very many days I'll have to say goodbye to him for too long, because anything longer than one day without him is too much. And I don't want to let go of him.

"Mmmm..." Rashim wriggles a little and finally bites my lip, not very hard but enough to wake me up from the haze. His green eyes sparkle, they're a bit too bright but he's smiling to me. "Toni," he says and I try to understand why I hear a breathless hint of warning in his voice underneath the laughter. "Toni, I think that even in Dirna it just might be possible to get arrested for indecent behavior."

"What do you mean?" I truly don't get what you're talking about, baby...

Rashim grabs a hold of my both wrists and pulls my hands out of his shirt where they have crept to caress his bare back. "This. Toni, maybe we'd better go somewhere?"

"Oh... oh, right." I nod to him. His wonderful catty eyes are playful once more, even though his smile is slightly fragile. "To your place?"

"Right." He places my hands on his waist, securely on the visible side of all clothing, and lets his forehead rest against mine. He's still straddling my lap and I notice that some people walking by are looking at us, eyebrows jumping. Well, let them watch. I've got nothing to be ashamed of. This is the guy I love, I'm holding him right now and in not very many days I won't be able to do it any more.

"What do you want to do?" I wrap my arms around Rashim's waist.

"I want to spend every minute I can with you, before you leave," he says. "I don't want to let go of you for a second if I don't have to. And I want to have sex with you until we both drop."

I can't help laughing. Rashim laughs too, and damn but it does feel good to laugh with him. It makes me at least a little more confident about this whole fucking business. Oh, we can survive it.

"Hadn't we better start right away?" I squeeze him still a little closer, so that the hardness of his crotch presses against my stomach. His breath hitches, he stumbles backwards on his feet and pulls me after him.

"Come," he says. "Come, let's go. Just in case I start bawling, I don't want anyone to see me."

His arm wraps around me, my arm around him, our hips press together as we walk side by side towards his little apartment. Neither of us has noticed exactly why the people have been hurrying past with such a busy step, and so we are blissfully unaware of the approaching rain until the first droplets fall, soon followed by their entire large family.

But we don't duck under eaves to avoid them, no, we just walk through the rain and let it soak our clothes through. We grin to each other through the rain that is getting heavier by the moment, I touch Rashim's hard nipples through the clinging shirt and he tries to bite my dripping hand, teeth snapping. And then we laugh again, stubbornly not running even though people are gaping at us from the shelter of shop fronts and cafés and gateways.

Rashim is so right. I don't want to think about the journey, I don't want to think about Uman. It's no use being miserable in advance, now that we're still together. I'll have time enough to be miserable when I have reason to be. Right now, I'm still here with him.