CHAPTER 3: My Sweet Peter

Žaneta wanted to stay at the table after dinner.

„Just one more glass," she said, twisting her empty wine glass. "Or two."

Markéta backed her up. They ordered dessert and started discussing tomorrow's plans. Petr listened, nodding, but his mind was elsewhere.

„I'm going to the bar," he said when a gap appeared in the conversation.

Žaneta looked at him.

„Phone."

She understood. Or she pretended to understand. In any case, she didn't object.

The lounge was full.

More than the previous evening. People sat at low tables, stood at the bar, or leaned against the railing of the terrace facing the sea. Candles burned on the tables. Glasses gleamed in the dim light. Voices merged into a continuous hum.

Petr se zastavil hned za vchodem.

Radúz played.

He sat at the piano, his back to the door. Petr first saw his shoulders in a dark jacket and then his hands moving across the keys.

He didn't move.

A waiter with a tray nearly bumped into him.

„Sorry.“

Petr stepped back toward the wall.

He let a group of guests looking for an empty table pass, and only then headed to the bar. He sat down on a stool with a view of the entire room.

Radúz did not turn around.

He was playing something Petr didn't know. Slowly, calmly like a man who has nothing to prove to anyone.

The bartender came over silently and Petr pointed at the Guinness on tap.

He looked at Radúz's back.

It was him.

The same figure. Maybe a little broader in the shoulders, or perhaps he only imagined it. His hair was shorter than last time, but that could have been the light. He played as if a week had passed.

But a whole year passed.

The entire year during which Malta turned into a place that existed only in the news. He didn't have any photos. They never took any. Only messages remained, which he deleted, and a number saved under a name that revealed nothing.

Guinness arrived.

Petr se ho dotkl, ale nenapil se.

Radúz dohrál skladbu.

For a moment, the only sounds were the clinking of a glass somewhere near the bar and the murmur of conversation. No one applauded. People didn't applaud here. The guests continued their conversations and Radúz began playing the next song.

Peter pulled out his phone. Nothing from his boss. He put it away again.

Meanwhile, an older couple sat down at the bar. The woman was looking at the menu, while the man watched Radúz with the expression of someone who wasn't quite sure where he knew him from. Petr knew that feeling.

Radúz turned as he rearranged his sheet music. Just for a moment. Petr caught a glimpse of his profile, a slightly stubbly chin, and the very same nose he would have recognized instantly, even if he'd met him at the other end of the island. Then Radúz turned back to the piano.

Petr took a sip of his drink. It took him a few seconds to realize their eyes hadn't met at all. Maybe Radúz hadn't seen him. Maybe he hadn't recognized him. Maybe he had recognized him and didn't let on. He didn't know which possibility was worse.

Radúz kept playing, and the lounge around them murmured as before. Petr sat at the bar and watched his hands moving across the keys.

He had come here with his wife and daughter. A business meeting was waiting for him. All of that was true. Just not the whole truth.

* * *

Radúz transitioned into another piece without a pause.

Petr watched his hands. His left hand stayed lower, while his right moved more lightly across the keys, as if searching for a path of its own. There was nothing unusual about it. He was playing for the room, not for anyone in particular.

And yet.

Petr turned to the bar and called out to the bartender. He needed something to keep himself busy. He ordered water, even though he didn't need it.

Behind his back, Radúz kept playing.

The older couple at the bar moved to a table. A group of people in beachwear arrived, even though it had already gotten cooler outside. Shortly after, one of them recorded the room with their phone. Petr instinctively turned his face away.

Then Radúz stopped playing.

Petr caught it before he could even name it. The silence was different from a normal pause between songs. Radúz reached for the glass of water on the edge of the piano and took a drink. Slowly. As if he could afford that moment.

He turned toward the room.

Petr shifted his gaze to the bar counter.

The bartender was wiping glasses. One after another. With the same movement. Petr watched him as if right there was everything that interested him.

Radúz let his gaze sweep across the bar.

Petr knew it without turning around. He felt that gaze on him before he allowed himself to check if it was really there.

He remained seated.

Radúz returned to the piano.

He started playing again. This time slower. Petr didn't know the piece, but something in it compelled him not to move. He had come here to make a call. The phone was silent and he was still sitting here.

The bartender exchanged his glass for a clean one without asking.

After a while, the lounge emptied out a bit. Two women arrived and sat at a table near the pianist. One of them smiled at Radúz every time he raised his head. Radúz didn't return the smile. He kept playing.

Petr turned around.

He hadn't managed to stop it. It was as automatic as turning around when you hear your name, even when you aren't sure if anyone actually said it.

Radúz had just swept his gaze across the room.

This time, their eyes met.

It didn't even last a second.

Radúz didn't react at all. He didn't stop. He didn't miss a single note. He continued playing the slow piece and moved his gaze onward, to the table by the window, to the group at the bar.

Petr turned back around.

He wasn't sure what he had seen. Recognition. Reproach. Calm. Or just the look of a pianist who occasionally has to lift his eyes from the keys so the room doesn't lose the impression that he is playing for it too.

The year had been a long one.

And at the same time he was not enough for anything.

Petr placed his hands on the bar counter. Palms down, fingers straight. An old exercise. Many years ago, a public speaking coach had taught him that: when you don't know what to do with your body, stop it. Don't move your hands. Don't rush. Act as if you are certain.

Back then, it used to help.

Not now.

Radúz finished playing the piece. This time, applause broke out. Just a few guests at the tables, nothing major. One of the women near the piano clapped longer than the others. Radúz gave a slight bow, almost imperceptible.

Then he stood up.

He moved the sheet music. He adjusted his bench. Small gestures that signaled a break.

Petr knew what was coming.

Radúz turned away from the piano and for the first time all evening swept his gaze directly across the room. No longer like a pianist simply monitoring the space between songs.

He stopped at Peter.

This time longer.

* * *

Radúz returned to the piano.

He sat motionless for a moment, hands in his lap, as if he needed to remember where he had left off. Then he placed his fingers on the keys and began playing an introduction that Petr did not know.

Žaneta was just saying something to Markéta. Petr caught only the end of the sentence, something about tomorrow's schedule. Markéta replied with a single word and kept looking at her phone. Meanwhile, the lounge returned to its rhythm. Someone laughed by the window, a waiter was carrying two drinks to a table on the terrace, and glasses clinked behind the bar.

Then Radúz opened his mouth.

Petr didn't expect it. Throughout his entire stay last time, he had never heard him sing. Play, yes. Hours and hours. Back then, he would sit at the tables or on the terrace and listen to the piano blending with the voices of the guests and the sound of the sea. But he had never heard him sing.

The voice was lower than he would have expected. It wasn't perfectly polished. At the end of some sentences, it grew slightly rough, as if he didn't care. Perhaps that was why it sounded real.

White orchids are blooming for you in the window, the morning is naked, water drips from the watering can.

Žaneta raised her head. Markéta put her phone down next to the glass and looked towards the piano. Petr felt his heart skip a beat.

You wrote the first "hello" via insta halls, and since that moment you steal half my night.

He took a sip of beer. Suddenly it tasted more bitter than a moment ago.

Radúz was not looking in their direction. He gazed somewhere above the sheet music and played with the calm of a man who is not trying to gain the room's attention, because he has it long since. Petr realized he had actually never seen him like this. He knew him from interviews, from late-night messages, from walks along the sea. This was someone else. Someone who could sit at the piano and effortlessly fill the entire space.

Petr, Petr, your voice is honey and light in the dark.

Petr stopped breathing for a moment. Then he drew a breath and forced his hand to move so he would feel normal. He knew what his name was. Petr. There were thousands of Petrs in the world. The name in the song by itself meant nothing. It could be a coincidence. It could be a memory of someone else. It could be anything.

Except Radúz had seen him just a moment ago.

Or not?

Peter, Peter, you're not mine — and yet I have you.

His heart beat faster. He looked at Žaneta. She was sitting leaning on her elbows and listening. She didn't look surprised or amused. Just focused. That was what unnerved him the most. If she had laughed, if she had remarked on something, it would have been easier. Instead, she just listened.

News like swallows returning once again.

Markéta smiled faintly. With that kind of smile one doesn't plan and that appears before one even realizes it. Suddenly, Peter felt absurdly old. Markéta was listening to the song. Žaneta was listening to the song. The whole lounge was listening to the song. Only he was sitting in the middle of it all, trying to figure out if the world had just changed.

Peter, Peter, stay with me on the phone, a honeyed voice.

Radúz kept singing and Peter watched his face across the room. The lamp light hit one side of his face, the other remained in shadow. He looked older than a year ago. Or perhaps calmer. That was possibly worse. Calm always suited him well.

Your body speaks, even when the sentence is mute…

Petr tore his gaze away and took another sip. He decided he was not listening to the lyrics. He decided he would ask Žaneta if she wanted more wine. He decided he would sit at the table with his wife and daughter and not think about the person at the piano.

However, the waiter was just at the other end of the room and Radúz started the chorus again.

Petr leaned back against the backrest and continued listening. He realized how ridiculous the whole thing must look. He had flown to Malta with his family, a work meeting awaited him, he was supposed to be part of an entirely different story. And yet he couldn't tear his attention away from the man sitting at the piano.

Perhaps precisely because Radúz looked as though nothing had changed over that year.

And Petr knew that for him, everything had changed.

* * *

Radúz finished playing the last song, and the room responded with applause. Someone at the bar whistled. Radúz nodded, closed the piano lid, and remained standing beside it for a moment.

Petr thought to himself that the evening would end now. That they would get up, return to the room, and everything would stay right where it was an hour ago.

Except nothing stayed where it was an hour ago.

Žaneta started putting her things into her handbag.

„Wait," Markéta said. "I need to use the restroom."

Radúz meanwhile walked between the tables toward the bar. When he was approximately in the middle of the room, he raised his head.

Their gazes met.

Petr stopped. Exactly that feeling one experiences at the moment when something long imagined suddenly becomes reality.

Radúz nodded slightly.

Petr vstal.

Later he couldn't remember whether he had made a conscious decision. He had the feeling he had simply found himself standing.

They met at an empty high table between the bar and the piano.

„So you came."

Radúz said it calmly.

Petr had dozens of sentences prepared. During the past year, he had imagined various versions of this moment. The moment he stood opposite him, not a single one remained.

„Yeah."

Radúz smiled briefly.

„I didn't believe it would happen."

„Neither did I."

It sounded stupid. Or maybe not. Petr wasn't able to judge anything at all anymore.

A waiter with a tray walked past them. Somewhere behind their backs, someone laughed loudly. The lounge continued living its life, and that was precisely what felt strangest to Petr. As if nothing had happened.

„How are you?“ he asked.

„Fine.“

Radúz se napil vody.

„A ty?“

Petr wanted to say something normal. Something simple. Instead, he just shrugged.

„That's good too.“

Both knew that wasn't the answer.

For a moment, silence fell.

Petr recalled the chorus again.

Petr, Petr, your voice is honey and light in the dark.

Suddenly it felt absurd to be standing here talking about nothing.

„Did you come with your family?"

„Yeah."

„Wife and daughter?"

„Yeah."

Radúz nodded.

„That's good."

Petr didn't know why, but this very sentence hit him harder than anything before. Maybe because there was no jealousy in it. There was no reproach in it. There was nothing at all in it he could hold onto.

Just an ordinary sentence.

And ordinary sentences are sometimes even worse.

Over Radúz's shoulder he caught sight of Žaneta. She was standing by the table with her handbag over her arm, waiting. She wasn't watching them continuously, but from time to time she turned her head in their direction. He couldn't guess what she was thinking.

Maybe nothing.

Maybe everything.

„“I don't want to keep you,” said Radúz.

Petr realized he actually didn't know how long he had been standing there. A minute? Three? Ten?

„Sure."

„See you then."

„Yeah."

They shook hands.

Normally this time.

Radúz turned and headed for the bar.

Petr stood still for a moment. He watched him go, trying to understand why, after that conversation, he felt even worse than before. For a whole year he had imagined that once he saw him, something would become clear. Instead, he felt that everything was even more uncertain than before.

When he returned to the table, Markéta was already back.

„"You know him?" Žaneta asked.

Petr sat down and reached for the nearly empty glass.

„We met here last time.”

Žaneta nodded. She didn't ask for a name or anything else. She just shifted her handbag to her other shoulder and looked toward the lounge door, as if that settled the matter.

This was precisely what Petr found worst.

If she asked, he could answer.

If she laughed, he could laugh too.

Instead, she said nothing.

And he couldn't stop wondering whether the silence meant disinterest, or something completely different.

* * *

The room was dark. Žaneta was lying under the blanket, turned toward the wall. Petr couldn't hear whether she was asleep.

He took off his shoes by the door and hung his shirt over the back of the armchair. Light from the promenade filtered through the windows, a faint orange strip across the floor. He went to get a drink of water. The glass on the bedside table clinked louder than he expected.

Žaneta didn't move.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stayed like that. He listened to his own breath and the distant noise of the street behind the blinds.

Petr, Petr, your voice is honey and light in the dark.

He didn't want to think about that sentence. That was precisely why it kept coming back, just the same.

He picked up his phone. The screen blinded him; he closed one eye and waited a moment for it to adjust. Nothing new. The boss was silent. Radúz hadn't written. Just a work email that he didn't open.

He put the phone down, face-down.

Radúz had shaken his hand today. Normally. Like someone who ran into someone after a long time and didn't want to make more of it than necessary.

That's good.

Petr remembered that sentence exactly. The tone, the brief pause before it, Radúz's glance toward the table where Žaneta was waiting.

There was no reproach in it. There was no longing in it. There was nothing in it he could hold onto.

That was precisely what bothered him.

He walked over to the window and pulled the blind back a few centimeters with his finger. Down on the pavement, a few tourists were standing. They were taking photos of the railing and the sea beyond it, as if right there was something that would vanish by morning. One of them laughed and the others joined in.

Petr let go of the blind.

Žaneta turned onto her back in bed. Petr froze, but she merely adjusted her pillow and rolled onto her other side. Her breathing remained steady.

She was asleep.

Or at least it looked that way.

Petr stepped out onto the balcony and closed the glass door behind him. The sea was black at night, with only the lights of ships blinking far on the horizon. He leaned his elbows on the railing.

A year ago, he would have been waiting for a message. Radúz never wrote much. And precisely because of that, Petr remembered every message more than was reasonable.

Today he didn't write at all.

After the song. After the look. After the sentence that was supposed to sound ordinary and didn't stay ordinary for a single minute.

Peter, Peter, you're not mine — and yet I have you.

Perhaps he was imagining the whole thing.

Perhaps not.

The worst part was that he couldn't decide on either of those possibilities.

He reached into his pocket. The phone was still empty.

He went back inside, lay on his back, and stayed with his eyes open. The ceiling was pale and flat.

Radúz said it was good he came with his family.

Žaneta didn't ask anything.

The phone was silent.

And Petr lay among those three things like between points that might one day connect into a pattern, but for now they were just darkness.