![]() Midnight, still okay: Zuzana goes to bed late. He drove out of the petrol station and realized this might be his last chance to phone. Through Poland, or Slovakia? He wasn’t bothered, it would all be the same at night, and by daybreak he’d be so muzzy that whether they were Polish fields or Slovak, it would simply pass him by. The screen glimmered, and when he turned on the satnav it was taken over by a spider of roads. He couldn’t have said how he was feeling, but the car’s upholstery had a calming effect, so somewhere inside he must have been feeling nervous. It was obvious from the outset that he was taking all the wrong things. So he’d taken just a sports bag from the closet and stuffed it with the first items that came to mind: energy bars, thermal underwear, a sleeping bag. He’d grabbed a suitcase to toss some clothes in, then decided it wasn’t the best idea to arrive with a case full of washing. ![]() ![]() He hadn’t had much in the house, and he hadn’t wanted to waste time packing anything. “Number four, paying by card.” He paid for a full tank and some extra food to keep in reserve. It’s great when glass doors slide open before you in the middle of the night and you can treat yourself to coffee and a baguette and stare vacantly into the eyes of the person behind the counter. He looked about him with the vague realization that he quite liked petrol stations that were open at night. He thrust the nozzle down the fuel filler neck, hmm, this is about the limit to any violence on my part. Not that that mattered, it still had the same reek however much it cost. What they’d said on the news was true − petrol had gone up by almost three crowns a liter during the last week. He stopped at the first petrol station out in the wilds. Gradually fewer proper buildings, but more warehouse facilities. Several crossroads later, each marked out by a single flashing amber light, he was out of the city. He’d ordered a cab, but then didn’t take it. He had briefly wondered if sleeping together after a lapse of ten years made any sense, but rejected the idea after two beers. And that she thought he’d achieved something. He was surprised that she remembered what he had talked about back then. The girl, who had been quite unapproachable at uni, asked him that evening if he was pleased to have achieved all the things he’d talked about ten years before, and for the fifth time in twenty minutes she ran her fingers through her hair. Some things need time before they can be judged in the round, while others never gel into a whole. He hadn’t gone far before he passed the pub on the corner where the previous evening he’d met up with a girl he’d known at university. His hands on the wheel began to feel cold, so he turned on the heat. ![]() ![]() He’d thought it best to set out at once: if he’d left it till morning, he’d never have gotten away: in the morning, you wake up, do your teeth, and just get on with life. He turned them on manually, took a deep breath, in, and out, put the car in gear and drove off up the familiar street. Raindrops were trickling down the windshield, which was supposed to start the wipers automatically. “So it’s a kind of philosophy that doesn’t cause offence, but–” he switched it off from the steering wheel. His mobile automatically paired up with the speakers, and a Spotify podcast resumed where he’d last left off. It showed an aerial view of his car ringed by smudgy yellow blotches where the wet roadway reflected the street lights. He reversed out of their embrace without triggering a single annoying bleep and stopped briefly in the middle of the street, hands resting on the wheel. The red Alfa Romeo to the left belonged to the lady next door, whom he had once quite fancied, while the Škoda on the other side meant nothing. The concealed cameras showed him his immediate surroundings via the screen on the dashboard. ![]()
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