Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi (best manga ereader .TXT) 📗

him. I’ll follow Ms. De Souza’s lead and tell you about the sighting, and then, just like her, I’ll tell you about another meeting (well, another relationship, actually) that I think belongs here, though you may disagree.

The sighting first: five years ago, I turned thirty-three. The entire year was a trudge; I had a master’s degree but couldn’t teach English Lit to save my life. A student I was tutoring said to me: “Er … have you actually read the book, Mr. Montague?” The thing was, I had. Tens of times.

I couldn’t find any other use for my qualifications, and I was coasting along on handyman jobs I kept botching so noticeably that I’d have to halve my fee in acknowledgment of the fact that a real handyman would have to be called in next. It was standard practice for me to only get the house address right on my third try. That was how I happened upon the fire; I was wandering around Dulwich, looking for my client’s house, which I’d probably have found quite easily if I ever remembered to charge my phone with outings in mind. I approached a building hoping it was the house I was looking for. It wasn’t. It was a dead-end house that closed off a street of much smarter-looking ones. There was a stretch of concrete between that house and the house closest to it, and from chimney to doorstep the whole building just looked back to front. Gave you a sense that you shouldn’t come this way, that progress was behind you. But perhaps you already know this flat, Ava. Perhaps you visited, looking for your Přem somewhere in that mass of canvas ash.

I saw someone standing in a window on the first floor. He was facing me but not watching the street; he had quite a faraway look on his face. It was the man in that self-portrait in the gallery car, Ava. I’m sure of what I saw, even if I’m not sure that he was there. He was older and a bit more bedraggled than he is in that painting, and he was wearing one of those nautical-stripe T-shirts—blue and white—and jeans. I saw and smelt smoke … chimney overflow or something, I thought. Get this … I also heard the fire alarm. But everything seemed so calm—there was no commotion whatsoever from the houses just a few steps away (maybe everyone was out?). Basically I told myself this was a household mishap that was probably already under control. Now very close to certain I had the wrong address again, I went up to the front door and saw that this building was divided into flats—I looked at the nameplates lined up beside the doorbells, even though I knew the client I was on my way to had the whole house to themselves. There were three names, but I didn’t see Přemysl’s, in case you’re wondering. I did see the name J. Svoboda, but more about that in a bit.

The front door was ajar, and someone called out to me from inside: “Quickly, quickly!” I went in, and the hallway was crammed with smoke … dozy little me finally woke up to the fact that this was serious. There was an old man who shouldn’t have been in there breathing in that smoke; he was coughing and confused, and for a split second he thought I was a fireman, that the fire brigade was already there even though he’d only just hung up from calling them. He told me to help his son, or to stop his son, I still don’t know which. I just went back out into the fresh air, pushing the old man in front of me; I called an ambulance for him, and while I was on the line to the operator, I was looking up at the window and Přemysl was still there. There were flames behind him, quite close. I didn’t see them, but I saw the room changing colour. And Přemysl was looking at me. Very, very scared, yet determined to stay where he was. The old man—Karel—kept trying to hobble back into the building; I was having to sort of bear hug him to keep in place. And then the man in the window suddenly winked out of sight, and just like that I was in the hallway, then at the top of the stairs, then in through the open door of that first-floor flat … I didn’t decide; it was decided, and it was done. There were four rooms, I think. The kitchen was just after the entrance, smoky, but no flames yet. I ran a napkin under the tap and put it over my face, then went into the next room, and the next; rooms the fire wobbled around in rings; I never thought it could do that, act like rampant jelly. Or I saw it that way because my head was spinning and I was asphyxiating. Anyway, I saw canvases burning, flapping on their stands … I’m sure I’d have found it creepy if I hadn’t been struggling to breathe … I mean, they could’ve doubled as a field of scarecrows come to life, those burning canvases. But as we discussed earlier, Ava, there was no one in the flat. In the bedroom, clothes were laid out on the bed. A blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, jeans, socks where the feet would be. I have described this over and over (to myself, to concerned listeners, some of them professional listeners), but none of the details change. I kept saying to myself, Get out, get out, turn around, and I fell onto the bed. I think I said: “Oh gosh, sorry, sorry about that,” because it seemed like I’d hurt someone … why did I think that … there might have been a sound? A sucking in of breath, like when you stub your toe but want to avoid histrionics? There was no one there, but before I passed out, it