salmon-pink by olga kotnowska

Alone at forty-five, at the back of the old house, the uncle sits.
A glass of instant coffee in the corner, in the mornings, in the afternoon.
After years, after a mortgage, after the struggle, the uncle sits, alone at forty-five.
His mattress is deflated from the night before, a blanket unmade across it.
The grass, wet with dew, a jungle across the front-yard. When he stands outside, the grass-tips touch his belt, touch the windows of his car.

The niece sits across from him. The uncle places two wine glasses on the table. He reaches up to the top of the pantry for the casket of wine. The uncle is forty-five but he is short. Wine fills the niece’s glass, as the uncle leans across the table, his top three shirt-buttons undone. He smirks. Then he fills his.
Red wine, murky.
Outside there is a rustle of leaves, constant. But there are no bird-calls.
From a plastic bag, three lunch-boxes are placed in the middle of the table. It is Chinese take-away and it is loneliness. The uncle opens the first box, two large pancakes packed tightly, grease across the lid. There is no steam.
The uncle takes out two plates, china from a dead friend’s house, he remarks. In the middle of the plate a series of patches, once a picture of a rose, now a broken-up continent.
The rain is knocking on the kitchen window, it is meant to be summer. The niece crosses her legs. She is twenty but she is cold.
The uncle is forty-five. He is alone.

Salud. The clink of glass, the uncle’s smirk. She sips, eyes down her nose, into the glass.
“Do you still see your children?” The niece fills in the silence.
The uncle sips his wine. Rain outside. It is not the sound of comfort.
The uncle places his glass down, licks his lips. Time flies by he assures her. It is hard to see children when time flies by.
The niece uses the wooden chopsticks, she fishes them out of the plastic bag. He prefers the fork.
He is her Godfather. He is forty-five.

The uncle likes astrology. He tells the niece about astrology, and sips his wine.
He talks about astrology while she eats the pancake. Grease on the tips of her fingers.
He talks about astrology while she opens the second lunch-box.
The uncle pushes his chair back, the legs scraping against the brown linoleum. He leaves the kitchen.
The niece sits. She looks around the kitchen, salmon-pink walls, half a loaf of bread next to the sink. The uncle’s wine at the bottom of the glass, the head of his fork resting on the plate.
The fridge cold against her back.
She doesn’t see a clock.
The uncle re-enters the room. She fills up her plate with noodles, smiles, her whole glass red with wine.  
The uncle is holding a stack of papers, the thickness of a novella. They are astrology predictions that he has completed of people he knows. She nods. He offers the niece a piece of paper with her name on it because he has completed her astrology. She places the chopsticks on the plate, wipes her hands on her thighs, feels the edge of the paper, takes in the signs scattered across a circle that is segregated into quarters. Asks what the signs mean.
The signs describe who she is.

Through the house the uncle takes the niece.
Out of the kitchen, through the hallway, left into the front bedroom. He points out the new curtains, navy, the ends resting on the floorboards, creased. He is preparing the room for a tenant. He is forty-five and he is alone but he is sure he will find a tenant.
He takes her back through the hallway. Salmon-pink walls.
He pauses to point out the newly renovated floorboards. She nods. Asks about his job.
His hands are in his pocket, his cheeks red from wine. She never hears the answer because he walks on, past the kitchen, to the back of the old house, he sits.
The rain is always outside and she is cold. The uncle offers the niece some coffee. Maybe tea, he adds.
She forgot her watch and she cannot remember the bus timetable.
She sits on his mattress, it dips to the floor.
The uncle is forty-five, she is twenty.