In a Courtyard
by Ingrid Wenzler
(Continued)
"Oh, I like them all," he said. Then he paused, and he said, "Ya know, I already told him where I am going, I mean Pete, thas Pete." He looked at the man in the working boots. Then he put his hand on Iva’s arm, and he said, "But, ya know, Pete, he came to see me in the hospital. I had to go to the hospital. He came and Ilya came." He gestured to Ilya with his hand then, loosely and as though to shake water from it. "That’s Ilya," he said, and Ilya looked over to Pete, who stood and went over to another bench.
Nick began to speak louder, and Ilya turned to him. "They came because the doctors decided to operate on my knee," he was saying, "but it’s full of fluid now, my knee, and
they told me it’s too swollen to dance; ya see, I am dressed to dance because the aide, at the assisted living, over there, Mariel, she forgot I couldn’t go. It is, it is, ya know, I can’t do nothing, and I don’t have nothing left."
Ilya had been looking at Iva, and he kept looking at her. She said nothing at first, and Ilya wanted to take back what Nick had told her. It was not what you told to someone you did not know; it was too much.
Then Iva said, "I don’t know what to say, but I know," and Ilya could see then more from how she spoke than from her words that she understood.
Iva started to speak then stopped. Then what she said was not what Ilya thought she would say.
"What kind of dancing?"
"Oh, the waltz," Nick said.
"Could you, do you think you could teach it to me?"
"Sure," he said, "I could teach ya." Then Nick looked away, and Iva looked to Ilya.
"Where is it you work?" Ilya asked. "You are not a student?"
"For now, there, at the café." She paused then. "My break though, it’s almost over."
"Oh," Nick said, "Well, when you, when ya hava another break, come to the coffee shop. I could buy you a coffee." Then he again placed one hand on her thigh, close to the hemline of her coat.
Her shoulders rose, and Ilya felt ashamed of Nick. He thought of how he wanted to repudiate Nick, to say Nick is only one that I have met, I do not know him, but then Iva looked to Nick. She looked to him, and she said, "Sure. You could buy me a coffee."
Ilya looked at Nick and he could see that Nick had not meant anything by it; he did not know what he had done. Ilya felt as if all the blood had gone out of his head. He put one hand over his brow and his temples. He could not understand why it had been so easy for him to forsake Nick. He wanted to take back what he had thought.
"Ilya, what’s the matter?" Nick said, and Ilya did not know if he could hold himself together then. A man cannot unthink what he has thought. Thoughts, they stain.
Iva rose, and Ilya said, "I think there’s more to say." He was not sure what there was to say though. He was not sure if words could make any difference. It was just that he wanted to ask Iva what he was supposed to do.
Ingrid Wenzler studied Creative Writing at Connecticut College as an undergraduate. She has just come back from Barcelona, where she taught private English lessons, and she is at work on a collection of short stories and a play.