Chapter 7: The Green Dot

The lounge emptied slowly.

First the people from the bar left, then the group by the window, and finally the older couple who had sat by the terrace all evening and hardly spoke to each other. Waiters collected glasses, cleared tables, and turned off the lights over empty spots. The room gradually shrank.

Petr remained seated.

Žaneta left after ten. She said she was tired, and he nodded as if it were natural. As if there were nothing unusual about a husband on vacation staying alone in a hotel bar after the evening program.

Maybe there really was nothing unusual about it.

Radúz was no longer sitting at the piano. He was standing by the bar, talking to the bartender. Briefly, just a few sentences. Then the bartender went somewhere in the back and Radúz remained leaning with his elbow against the counter. He looked into his glass, not at Petr.

Petr waited.

A moment later, Radúz took his glass and came over to the table.

"You're still here."

"I'm still here."

He sat down just like last time. Sideways. He placed the glass in front of him and remained silent for a moment.

The sea could be heard beyond the patio doors. As the room emptied out, it stopped drowning it out.

"It was a good evening tonight," Petr said.

Radúz smiled slightly.

„He was.“

"The lounge was full."

"It tends to be in the summer."

Petr nodded.

They sat for a while like two people who know that more important sentences will come, and for now are not rushing them.

„How is work going?“ asked Radúz.

„Good.“ Peter paused for a moment. „I'm waiting for confirmation on one thing. But otherwise good.“

„What kind of thing?“

„Meeting. Work.“ He waved a hand. „The boss hasn't called in over a week.“

„That's a long time.“

“Yeah.”

Radúz took a drink.

„And here?“

Petr looked up.

„You mean a vacation?“

„I mean here.“

„Yeah.“ He raised his glass. „Markéta's enjoying it. Žaneta too, I think.“

"And you?"

Petr smiled slightly.

„I'm used to watching others.“

Radúz said nothing. Petr waited for a question, or at least some kind of answer, but none came. Just silence.

„And you?“ Petr asked. „How are things?“

Radúz ran his fingers along the edge of the table.

“All right.”

„Good as always good, or good as in really good?“

He gave a short laugh.

„You're always so precise.“

„I'm a spokesperson. I get paid for it.“

„For accuracy?“

„So that others wouldn't doubt.“

Radúz looked at the glass.

„That's strange work.“

„Yes.“

The silence lasted longer this time. A bartender appeared behind the bar with a crate and began stacking bottles onto the bottom shelf. He did it without haste, with the calm of a man who repeats the exact same movement every evening.

„Really well,“ Radúz said at last.

„What?“

„You asked if it’s really well.“ He looked up. „It’s a complicated year. But well.“

Petr waited.

Radúz ran a palm across his face. For the first time that evening, he looked tired. Not necessarily because he’d been playing the piano. Something had been there the whole time, only it hadn't shown as much before.

„Mom,“ he said.

Petr didn't move.

„What happened?“

„Nothing sudden.“ Radúz was silent for a moment. „She's older. And she's sick. Those are two different things that together eventually create a third.“

Petr nodded.

„Where is he?“

„On Gozo.“

„Alone?“

„Yes.“

Radúz took a drink.

„She always lived alone. She wanted it that way before. It just looks different now.“

A scooter rode past the window. The sound of the engine penetrated inside, passed through the room, and disappeared again. The bartender closed the crate.

Petr watched Radúz.

He was older than he remembered. Last year he had seemed like a person who could move through life lightly. Not entirely without problems, but without that heaviness that gradually settles into the shoulders and into the way a person remains silent.

Now that heaviness was there.

„I didn't know about the mother,“ Petr said.

Radúz looked at him.

„You didn't ask.“

Petr paused. Over the course of a year, they had exchanged dozens of messages, and he couldn't recall a single one in which he had asked about his mother, his family, his friends. About anything in Radúz's normal life.

He had assumed that life was simpler.

That a man who played the piano by the sea and sang to guests in a lounge in the evening didn't have a complicated daily life.

„Sorry,“ he said.

„For what?“

„For not asking.“

Radúz slowly turned the glass between his fingers.

„Don't apologize for that.“

„I had.“

„Maybe.“ He looked at him. „I didn't write to you much about Gozo either.“

„You could have.“

„I could.“ He nodded. „And you could have asked.“

They let it fade.

A waiter walked past their table and turned off one of the ceiling lamps. The room grew a shade darker.

„How much is a boat to Gozo?“ Petr asked.

Radúz raised his eyes to him.

„Why?“

„I'm just curious.“

„You're not.“

Petr fell silent.

The sentence he was preparing suddenly seemed worse than when it had first appeared in his head. But he said it anyway.

„I could help you. If it comes to care. Or travel. Financially.“

„Peter.“

„I don't mean—“

„Peter.“

He said it calmly. Without abruptness. Just precisely.

Petr closed his mouth.

Radúz leaned his hands on the table.

“I don't need it.”

„I know.“

“Then don't offer it to me.”

Petr nodded.

He didn't know why he'd said that. Or perhaps he knew all too well. As if money could shorten the distance between Malta and Gozo. Between a hotel and an elderly, sick woman who says it's all right. Between what a person didn't manage to know in time, and what they would now somehow like to fix.

Or as if they could solve something entirely different.

Radúz didn't dismiss him. He just stayed silent for a moment.

“I know how I live here,” he said finally. “Not always well. But I know how I do it.”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn't mean I'm okay every day.” He looked at Petr. “But I know what I'm doing.”

Petr straightened up.

There was nothing more to add.

The bartender turned off another lamp. The room remained in the warm glow of a few candles on the tables. Outside behind the glass, the sea murmured.

"You played well today," Petr said after a moment.

“Thanks.”

„Ta píseň. Ta druhá.“

Radúz looked at him.

„Která?“

Petr realized he didn't want to say the name.

„Ta pomalejší.“

Radúz nodded.

„I wrote that one last year.“

„Last year.“

“Yeah.”

Peter took a drink.

„When exactly?“

Radúz smiled. Not like he did in front of guests. More like a man who knows the answer and is waiting to see if the other person is truly asking or just circling around.

„In the autumn.“

That was all.

No specification. No explanation. Just autumn as an answer that closed one conversation and opened another, one that neither of them stepped into.

Petr let the answer be.

Radúz adjusted himself, let his gaze sweep across the room, and then looked directly at him. Differently than when playing. Differently than through the lounge.

„Peter.“

“Yeah.”

“Why did you come?”

Petr se ani nepohnul.

„Na dovolenou.“

„I know.“ Radúz didn't smile. „But why did you come here?“

Petr could have said because of the hotel. He could have said out of habit. He could have said that Malta is a nice island, or that Žaneta wanted to go to the sea, or that Markéta would like it here. Everything would have been true.

Radúz waited.

And this waiting was different from the waiting of a pianist for applause. It was the waiting of a man who does not ask the question because he needs to hear the answer. Rather because he thinks Petr should hear it.

That was precisely what struck him.

“I don't know,” he finally said.

Radúz nodded.

As if that answer were enough. As if there were more truth in it than in everything else that had been said that evening.

He stood up.

“Well, good night.”

They shook hands.

Petr watched him until he disappeared down the side corridor.

The candle on the neighboring table burned down and went out.

The waiter came to collect the glasses.

Petr remained sitting for a while longer.

Radúz asked him why he had come. And he said I don't know.

He discovered that the answer he had come with no longer applied.