TE21 Serbian Moments

Nikola Tutek

The Widower

and she wanted to know where everyone was heading.

steam detaching from the surface of the coffee. He got just as much response as he did when Kate was alive. He sat on the edge of the wooden bed. There was a little table next to the wall, a round table. Egan always hated seeing round tables placed close to the wall. It seemed to him as if the roundness of the table was at odds with the flatness of the wall. On the table was a framed photograph of Kate. In the twilight of the bedroom. Egan has decided to get married again. For a year now he was making a list of older women living in the town who would be appropriate candidates. As fate would have it all four women on the list were widows. Egan studied them from a distance. Although he was on a friendly basis with some of them, and some of them even expressed their willingness to spend time with him, Egan was utterly incapable of offering these women anything more than the opinion that they should at some time meet for a coffee or tea , and, of course, that never happened. Therefore, Egan came up with a different plan. I. Jessie Talks Egan knew exactly where to look for traces of Meno. He was something of a town legend, with his long and permanently filthy dark hair. He looked as if he had spaghetti hanging from his scalp. Meno was a non-smoker, a non-drinker, and – an unconfirmed story that he spread about himself – an ex- sportsman. He didn’t look like he was able to run more than

“What you gonna do now?” she asked.

Richard sipped his coffee. It was very hot and it drew tears from his eyes. “A job. He’s gonna find a job,” Egan said, and Richard confirmed by nodding his head and estimating if hewas ready for another sip. And indeed, Richard was soon gone. A multinational in the Capital. Then, postcards from Frankfurt, Oslo, San Francisco. He finally settled in Hong Kong and married a Ukrainian woman he had met in a karaoke bar. By that time Kate was already fading fast. Interestingly enough, it is only when Kate got sick that she and Egan became friends. He was carrying her to the toilet. They even told jokes. Old jokes, those that they should have told each other years ago. He washed her, he fed her. And then she was gone. Egan never had real friends and hewas left alone in that house. He didn’t mind. He’d pretend that Kate was still there. He’d make coffee and put two cups on the table. “That’s not natural, you know, a woman dying before her man. That’s not the way to do it,” Egan would say watching the white

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