Page 34 of Exit Party

“Yes, but I’m talking about now, not a week and a half ago.” He looked at me sharply. “I’m not talking about loneliness, to be clear. I’ve been alone for years at a time, but pragmatically, operationally, it’s not ideal.”

“It’s easier than being with a person, though.” Earlier in the day I’d brought flowers to Felix’s grave and wept beside it, but I wasn’t too grief-stricken to recall his incomprehension, his total inability to absorb shocks, the feeling of being the only adult in the room.

“True,” said Soriano, “but it’s more dangerous. I used to be a soldier.”

“Obviously. You’ve got a blood-type tattoo.”

He smiled. “The thing is, one person can only do so much. When you’re out on patrol, you need another person with you, so you can take turns keeping watch.”

This did make a kind of existential sense to me. If Felix hadn’t been alone at the diving board, then probably my thoughts at the present moment would be occupied by the logistics of breaking up with him, not by grief. Beyond the lights, beyond the dancing couples and the musicians, the ocean was a black abyss.

“I’m not getting down on one knee,” he said. “But I’m available for a partnership, should you so desire.”

“Romantic,” I said.

“You know we don’t live in a romantic world.” He was leaning forward, speaking softly. “One of several reasons I’d like to be with you, Ari, is you seem to understand that. I think you understand what kind of world we live in.”

“You did prison time,” I said, testing a theory.

“Yes, we have that in common.”

“How could you tell?”

“Something in the way you carry yourself.”

I watched the dancers, considering this. I never thought about prison anymore, or rarely. It was terrible but it ended. It was terrible in a way that didn’t break me. If it had marked me in a manner visible to others, well, there are worse scars a person can carry.

“What do you want?” he asked, after a while. The question unfurled into a dozen other questions that he didn’t have to ask because they were all implicit—What are you doing here, what will become of you, etc.—and I didn’t tell him because I didn’t know him well enough to try to express this, but what I wanted, actually, the thing I most longed for, was to get to live in a different kind of world. Soriano was watching me, then I watched him give up on waiting for my answer. He rose, smoothing his jacket. His smile was unreadable.

“Well,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me what you want. I’ll ask again later.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, perhaps we can agree: this is a bad timeline. I didn’t have to do what I did. I want to wake on that last morning with Felix, but instead of waiting on the balcony while he goes for a walk, I want to make love to him, eat lunch, maybe go swimming later so I can watch one last dive. Later that day or the day following I want to board a series of trains and return him safely to Paris, where I wish to separate from him in some mildly-sad-but-not-devastating way, because it was obvious to me by the time of his death that he wasn’t a person I could stay with forever or, if we’re being honest here, probably not even for another month. But then, post-breakup, after a little time has passed, I want to meet him for drinks at some quiet bar and reminisce about the time we fled a collapsing country together. I want someone to get drunk with who was there in my past.

“Let’s dance,” said Soriano, and I took his hand.

We boarded a flight from Athens to Barcelona, then a night train to Paris the following evening. The train was heavily fortified—steel plates on the outside, two men with heavy weaponry posted outside the door to our private carriage—and it took me a moment to realize that this was how Soriano habitually travelled. “I had to clean up after an exploded train once,” he said, by way of explanation. “It gave me a lifelong appreciation for armour plating and armed guards.”

“It seems expensive.” Our carriage had an air of faded luxury. There were plush seats upholstered in threadbare velvet, gilt wallpaper peeling. I took a seat by the window. The glass was so thick that it warped the station, the lines of the platform curving at the edges of my view.

“The alternative is too stressful. One’s nerves get frayed in specific ways,” he said, “in my experience. Most kinds of stress I can manage, Ari, but I struggle with travelling in a train carriage with other passengers, wondering which of them might suddenly set off a bomb.”

“Fair,” I said.

Soriano sat across from me, travelling backward, peering out through the bulletproof glass. The lights of a passing town flared and receded. We didn’t speak.

It was a bullet train of the kind that never existed on my home continent, and it glided so smoothly that after a moment I forgot we were moving. It felt like being suspended outside of time. Soriano fell asleep, his head drooping, arms folded, but I sensed that he was never far from leaping to his feet, ready for combat. The thought made me weary. I drifted into an uneasy sleep, and woke when Soriano touched my shoulder.

“Come with me,” he said. He unbolted a series of locks and I followed him out of our car and into a narrow hallway, empty now. We passed through into an adjoining carriage, this one more of a regular train car, but entirely empty, between rows of seats. The train was slowing, I realized. As we reached the end of the second carriage, I heard piano music, quite close. I couldn’t identify the composer, but it was familiar, and virtuosic. That next carriage had been stripped of seats, and was being used for transporting goods. Crates were stacked halfway to the ceiling, and at the far end, a piano had been tethered to a luggage rack. The pianist was a small man in an oversized coat, bent low over the keys.

“Are we in a World War Two movie?” I muttered.

“Mozart,” Soriano said. “This is one of my favourite sonatas.”

The pianist glanced at us, and I saw that I’d been mistaken. She was a woman in men’s clothing, a small person in a large scarf, somewhere in her fifties. She had beautiful eyes. I thought her face looked kind. The train lurched to a stop, and through the music I heard the hiss of a hydraulic door. Someone was standing between cars with a flashlight. I couldn’t see their face in the shadow, but they used the light to gesture toward an open door.

“We’re leaving the train?” I asked. “What time is it?”

“Just after four a.m.,” Soriano said. “Careful on the steps.”