“You’ll have to sleep in here with me, Lavinia.” She strips off in silence and climbs in.
Lavinia watches her curl up, looking for the sanctuary of sleep.
Petra stares at the flaky mustard coloured wall on her side and takes in the unusual sensation of an adult other than her husband undressing and slipping into bed beside her.
As an afterthought, Petra gets up and pads over to a chest of three drawers upon which sits her prized possession: it looks like a small hard suitcase—a gift from Jordi’s French counterpart who has taken a shine to her and touches her whenever he has the opportunity. Once just a shade below the small of her back. Petra unclasps and opens the oyster coloured lacquered case with obvious care.
Lavinia lies on her front, propped on elbows, her cheeks cupped in both hands, the single sheet cleaving to the contours of her haunches, and watches silently like a sphinx.
Petra pulls the top drawer of the chest halfway, picks out a black disc from a card sleeve, positions it on the spindle and manoeuvres the curved chromium arm; the disc rotates and she blows hard on the stylus before lowering it carefully.
She had to smuggle the gramophone past the gorillas at the embassy who would have smashed it like an Easter egg to check for listening devices. Jordi wasn’t happy.
Lavinia’s eyes follow Petra as she walks back to bed and climbs in to the accompaniment of amplified scratching. It is interrupted by the waltzy rhythm and then the lovesick melody of Schubert's Serenade, which sweeps Lavinia away like the music from the cinema hall used to all those years ago. Lavinia kisses Petra’s shoulder and buries her face in her tangle of hair. Somehow she has snagged what to her is a real live princess of the silver screen.
“Petra—I sorry I give you trouble tonight. Thank you let me sleep here.”
“I’m sorry, too. Sorry I’m not as brave as you. I suppose I was frightened. You stood up to those animals. But we can’t afford an incident that would threaten our diplomatic position here. It’s difficult enough with the new regime. We are losing our foothold in Haiti to forces I just don’t understand. They are alien to me. I just don’t understand it. I don’t think Jordi does either and he’s far more open than me. I think that’s why the drink has got him. Such an unholy, bloody mess.”
Lavinia works her hand around Petra’s waist: “Haiti is very slippy land.” She scoops Petra in close to her so that they mould together. “Shift like sand.”
Jordi is snoring and whistling through his nose.
“He’s going to feel like shit in the morning.”
“No worry. I make something for him that help. Very good. Be OK tomorrow.”
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