Free The Last Girl by Stephan Collishaw Page A

be coming I ordered a drink. It had started to rain and the wind took the drops and threw them against the glass. The waiters ran outside and gathered up the tables and chairs. Emptiness replaced my fear. I wished she would come. Gladly now I would confess my carelessness; would have those beautiful eyes reproach me.
    Gladly I would have seen her elegant fingers tremble on the tablecloth between us. I would take them between my own thick, clumsy fingers and beg her to forgive me. Allow her to think what she would of me, only to see those eyes. How were we to meet again? I did not know her address or telephone number and she did not know mine.
    Leaving the restaurant I set out quickly in the direction of Gedimino. My first inclination was to get a trolley bus up to Karoliniskiu. I hesitated after a few steps though. Who was to say why she had not come. And what was I to do, go banging on all the doors in her block? How would I explain to her how I knew where she lived? No, it would not do. Tired and confused I stood in the road. I knew I should be sensible and make my way back to my apartment but the thought of sitting alone in the darkness filled me with horror. I wandered slowly along the gutter, knowing with a bleak sense of inevitability I would end up in a bar getting drunk.
    As I wandered, however, I remembered that Svetlana had paid me a visit the previous evening while I had been out. I was puzzled as to what she had wanted. She knew where I lived as on some occasions I had asked her to drop my clean shirts off at my apartment. She had never, though, been to my apartment for any other reason. It was possible, I thought, that she was in need of money. Not that she would have come begging. She was proud despite her difficulties. She might have come to see if I had need of her services.
    The idea of going to see her restored a certain amount of purpose. I hurried back to my apartment to collect some shirts for Svetlana to clean. They were not really dirty and I could not afford to have them cleaned too frequently, but I needed someone to talk to. I threw the shirts into a plastic bag, making sure the bag was a good strong one with an attractive picture on it. I had to crumple one of the shirts to make it look as if it needed her work.
    I hurried back through the old ghetto to Stepono Street, with its crumbling, decaying buildings and rutted cobbles. Plaster peeled from the walls and grass grew in the guttering. Ahead of me, turning out from Svetlana’s courtyard, was a familiar figure. For a few moments I could not place who it was. The man crossed the street, limping slightly, his shoulders hunched. He had disappeared around the corner before I realised it was Jonas, the cleaner.
    The cold, blustery weather made the buildings more dismal than ever. The wind drove the rain against the little glass panes in the windows, blowing back the rags and paper covering the gaps where the glass had broken. Plaster dropped in heaps onto the broken paving slabs. I bent beneath the sagging walkway and knocked on the door. Waiting, I tried to shield myself from the wind, which eddied around the courtyard. Behind the door I heard noises, but for some time nobody answered. I banged on the door again. It shook beneath my fist.
    â€˜Svetlana?’ I called.
    â€˜What do you want?’ a male voice answered irritably.
    â€˜I’m looking for Svetlana,’ I called. There was further shuffling behind the door and then, finally, the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door scraped open and in the darkness I saw the face of a man, perhaps in his fifties. He was unshaven and his hair was matted and dirty. He wore a coat. His puffy face was a raw shade of red.
    â€˜She isn’t here,’ he said, leaning against the doorjamb. He looked me up and down reflectively.
    â€˜When will she be back?’
    He coughed, a rasping cough that racked his thin frame. ‘How do I know?’ he growled.
    â€˜She didn’t