Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi [best life changing books TXT] 📗

ever worried me or caused me stealthy glee … I must have discussed it all with Honza S. He was interested, he cared, but he didn’t respond with his own stuff. I didn’t meet Honza’s friends, and I didn’t get to introduce him to mine; the plans kept falling through at the last minute. Árpád didn’t like him, but then Xavier Shin is the only boyfriend of mine Árpád has ever shown enthusiasm for. I could tell from the first night Xavier stayed over at my place that we were in a new era of acceptance; in the morning there Xavier’s shoes were, exactly where he’d left them by the door … unchewed and unshat in.

Honza didn’t like Árpád either … I remember he never referred to Árpád by name; it was always “your friend the stoat,” “that marten that aspires to mongoosehood,” or “the vicious ferret.” Honza also said he didn’t need to meet my friends. He was happy with me as long as he was what I wanted. Or maybe it was “I’m happy with you as long as I’m enough for you.” I got uncomfortable when he talked like that, so I remember the “oh no, not this again” feeling more than I do his actual words. Whatever the exact wording was, it was cock deflating. I started looking elsewhere. Well, not just looking. Honza began to bring it up in conversation, the inevitability that I would do that “now that I’d got what I wanted” from him. He’d tell me I really didn’t need to do that, and that I could always ask him for more. Always. And when he talked like that, I went beyond uncomfortable … basically, the feeling Zeinab Rashid describes regarding being offered “a present” was familiar to me.

That’s not why I’m mentioning Honza here, though. There’s no one reason for a breakup, but quite early on in the relationship I developed a suspicion of him that never went away. It wasn’t any of the irregularities I already mentioned … it was about the fire. He knew about it. It had happened in the building he used to live in. Honza was the J. Svoboda whose name I saw beside one of the doorbells. He told me there was a neighbourhood rumour that somebody had run into the fire. Why would anyone do that? he wondered. Whoever it was, he thought they should still be rewarded for what they’d tried to do.

You might think that would have made me inclined to tell Honza what it was the heroic fool had thought he was trying to do, but I resisted talking about it for a couple of months. Then it got too difficult not to tell him; after all, we’d talked about everything else.

Honza was dissatisfied with my account but didn’t seem able to explain why. He believed me, and yet …

I told him all over again. I felt like I owed him at least that much. Honza got less and less satisfied with each repetition. Eventually it felt as if every conversation we had was a pretext for him to probe my memory of the fire. There were no slipups in his line of questioning … It was always about what I remembered and never about any memories of his … but I started to have strange thoughts. He was the arsonist, or he knew that there had been a man in the flat and he knew what had happened to the man, but he would never back up my account, he preferred me to live in doubt of my own stability … thoughts like that. And like I said, I wanted the fire left in the past. I met up with Honza and told him this face-to-face, in a coffee shop, so there were plenty of witnesses in case anything happened. I don’t know what I thought would happen, but that step beyond discomfort when he’d insisted I could ask him for anything … I did have that in mind.

Honza didn’t protest. I took that as his way of indicating I wasn’t “what he wanted” either. He thanked me for my honesty and left. I haven’t heard from him since. And I did miss him, but, Ava, I was so happy to be able to work and think and talk without having to keep putting together that jigsaw puzzle that always had the same piece missing … plus that truly maddening suspicion that this person who kept telling me he loved me had the missing piece in his pocket. The name “Stojaspal” never came up between us. So whether this truly is Přemysl-related or not is up to you, I suppose. But I do think we should assume that he will come calling very soon, your Přemysl. I’m not clear on his motive(s?), and I certainly don’t mean to scare or worry you, but I’m finding I can’t overlook a possible connection between your Přemysl and my Honza. Or, at least, a link I’m sensing between Přemysl’s disappearance and Honza’s appearance. Please understand that these aren’t things I would admit to anyone other than a fellow member of the Empty Room Club. We need to come up with a secret handshake.

Ava, you’re here with five friends—Laura De Souza might say you don’t have that kind of relationship with her, but she’d be lying—and two of those friends are mongooses. Přem (or whoever) doesn’t stand a chance.

O.

16.

XAVIER SHIN

Dear Ava,

I never heard the name Přemysl Stojaspal until I came aboard this train. Having read the other contributions (apart from Otto’s—I don’t think we will consult each other’s recollections), I’m of the opinion that “Přem” refers to a person who will not be seen again. The fire that almost every other contributor to this file mentions: let’s just say that fire took him. But what I’m seeing is that there was something that “Přem” wanted. Wants? What if his longing outlasts him? What if this longing actually