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It would be too much to say she cared, but it seemed easiest to conceal her disinterest. She nodded by way of reply. She didn’t want to explicitly commit herself to any sentiment that might misrepresent her. No conceivable choice of words could make her lack of enthusiasm appear like anything other than an implicit rejection of the offer, so she chose to use no words at all.
For Lena, silence had always been rather more than a convenient failsafe. She understood herself as a more elegant and precise being than words could ever display. Her skin was taut and flawless, her hair was at her effortless command. Her self-control was absolute, her desires null. She lied with her eyes, with her heart and with her soul, until all she knew herself in terms of was an exacted, inflexible fiction. Words, she felt, could only create unrest. And Lena was quite prepared to rest forever. It never crossed her mind that she might be doing herself harm simply by staying silent.
...
Mark spoke.
‘You’re not working at the moment, are you?’
‘No.’
‘That’s good, I think.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I was working. I’m not now.’
Lena paused. She bit gently at the inside of her cheeks for want of anything else to fill her mouth. Then, belatedly, she spoke.
‘I don’t have anything to drink in.’
‘We could get something. Or you could always come back over to mine’.
...
It was already becoming dark. A thin, marbled, uneven layer of black ice lined the pavement. Lena walked at a speed that took no regard of the conditions. Accordingly, Mark did likewise. They both knew they would never fall. At this pace it was ten minutes walk to Mark’s flat. They each bought a bottle of beer to drink on the way. A queue formed behind them at the kiosk, so Lena stepped aside and used her cigarette lighter to open the bottles.
‘I don’t normally answer the door.’ Lena said, breezing untouched past a young woman passing in the opposite direction.
‘I’m glad you did’.
Using only her eyes – a painful movement upwards and to the right – Lena looked at Mark. His left cheek, his hair, his dry, slightly parted lips. He proceeded to address inquiries she hadn’t made.
‘I knew you’d be tired. And that you’d have no questions left to answer.’
She did not resent these assumptions being made. Not because they were accurate. Maybe that was the case. This did not interest her. She had already reached the conclusion that there were only two real reasons why Mark had come to her.
Either he imagined she had something to offer him, or that she was in need of something he felt he could provide. Neither struck Lena as possible. She wanted nothing, she needed nothing. In return she gave nothing. She remained unmoved. Unfazed, her heart continued to process her dry, rich, blood.