Intimacies

by Katie Kitamura

I could have walked away then, and chosen not to involve myself any further. But I was disarmed by his honesty, by the simple question that was so difficult to answer. The appearance of simplicity is not the same thing as simplicity itself, even then I was aware of this.

That was, I thought, the prospect offered by a new relationship, the opportunity to be someone other than yourself.

He did not feel the complexity of those objects and their history, no matter where he was he never looked anything other than a man at home. I smiled and squeezed his hand in return. That tranquility was what had drawn me to him, but at the same time I understood a little better the determination with which Gaby had decorated the place and filled it with her belongings, the degree to which she was trying to occupy a foreign territory, in that action I was able to see beyond the failed marriage, and further into Adriaan’s past.

The couple linked hands and hurried down the street. Another second and they had disappeared. Their manner had turned furtive, as if they sensed that they were being observed, and I wondered if they had seen me watching from the window. Perhaps they were involved in something illicit, or something that newly appeared so to them—the way we understood our own behavior shifted according to whether or not we thought we were being seen.