The Hundred-Year Flood by Matthew Salesses Page A

last of Pavel’s unsold paintings, still intact, were at her father’s apartment.
    Back at the table, the drinks had arrived before Tee. He thought about what he could say to Katka, but she didn’t ask. She wiped her lips and drained her second glass of red.
    He shouldn’t have hung up so abruptly. What would Pavel do if Vanessa told him she had seen Tee and Katka together, alone? Tee remembered the shattered mug, the night of the attack. That was nothing compared to what Pavel could be capable of now, an artist who would burn his own art.
    Katka leaned toward him. The scent of cocoa butter. “Remember that day,” Tee said, “in Vyšehrad, with the dogs? Pavel and Rockefeller appeared, and then you took off and pulled me along, and they ran after us. I didn’t even know why we were running.” Several dogs had jumped their leashes and joined the chase. Strange Prague everydays. “I’ve always been ready to follow you.”
    Her expression hardened. “Follow? Is that why you climbed the tree? That day in Vyšehrad, you rescued a girl no one else would, remember that? The dog had her in its jaws, and you let it snap at you so she could get free. Even her dad would not do that. On New Year’s you seemed brave, going under the fireworks nude.”
    “Naked,” he said. He remembered doing those things, only he hadn’t seemed himself then.
    “I had not thought you needed to follow,” she said. “I thought you were more mature than your age, you were different than anyone else. You left your home behind. You left Korea. You left America.”
    People stared now, as her voice rose. And he was reminded, horrifyingly, of his mother. Like always: an Asian boy with an older white woman. Katka gripped his hands, and he wanted to let go, but he didn’t.
    She seemed to be accusing him. She brought his hands to her cheeks, as if he would slap her. “You’re so young,” she said, but she didn’t look away. He knew by now that this was desire, an attempt to distance herself from what she wanted. She brushed his fingers over her lips. He knew what he’d agreed to by meeting her here, by climbing the maple. He leaned in and kissed her.
    She shook him off and stood. “I have got to go,” she said suddenly.
    He shoved back his chair. Then he stepped in front of her, not caring who saw them, and kissed her again.

V
    They got out of the cab in front of his building in Karlín, the rain coming on, and she said, “No one will know who we are. The rain will hide us.” On the stairs, they shushed each other. They put their fingers to each other’s lips. He went first to check that Rockefeller’s door was closed. Then he waved her up. His heart thudded like a third pair of footsteps. He recalled what she’d told him about the truth, hard and soft cartilage. He rested his finger on her nose.
    Wrong women. But he was defying, not repeating, the past. He touched Katka lightly on the arm, and she shivered. At the top of the stairs stood two ghostly feet. He stopped short. The feet didn’t move. They weren’t Rockefeller’s. And Katka couldn’t be in two places at once. Tee touched her arm again, solid and real. When he kept moving, the feet were no longer there.
    In his bedroom, he whispered with a sharp ache, “This is right.”
    “No,” she said, “promise me we will not pretend.”
    He pulled her toward him. He twisted her blouse in his fingers, and lifting it off, brought his darker skin to her lighter skin. He ignored the ghost passing his doorframe now. Katka moved his palms to her ribs, her breasts. He imagined his desire gathering her up, piece by piece. In her closet those pieces had been separate, a conspiracy of art. Now she was in his arms, whole. His fingers brushed the curve of her waist. Goose bumps rose on her cold chest. She kissed him harder, then softer, than before. He could hear the change in her breath. He bit her nipples, and she tugged his hair. He tried to make her same deep sounds, to hold nothing