The Ice Cream Man by Katri Lipson

secret. Do you?”
    “If you like.”
    “Or is Tomáš meant to be stupid, so no one notices how clever you are?”
    “Have you noticed that I don’t ask you any questions? You always open your mouth first. And then you just carry on. Not that it ever leads anywhere.”
    The woman is overcome by a tremendous urge to say something nasty to the man, to tell him that there has been no change in his status, as if something had already happened during the night that she is now ashamed of, on account of which she must now announce that it was only a passing fit, a bit like epilepsy that comes and goes; she couldn’t do anything about it and the man helped her, stuffed a cloth into her mouth, made sure she didn’t fall and hurt herself.
    “Don’t you understand how simple it is? You draw a line leading from yourself as far as the paper will allow. However far that is, there’s a straight line in between, do you see? And an accountant. Haven’t you come up with anything better? Stop that infernal tapping! You’re like a woodpecker! Have you studied anything?”
    “Look at this: it’s a sign.”
    “You fool, the landlady is nowhere in sight.”
    “She is coming back, though.”
    “You’ve said that several times already. But you never kiss me.”
    “And guess why?”
    “Why, then?”
    “Because you beg and plead.”
    “Ugh, what a thing to say! The nerve!”
    “Then be quiet. If, for once, you can take no for an answer.”
    “You’re not going to decide when I stay quiet. Or what it means if I do stay quiet,” the woman shouts, then remains silent for some time, so nothing is left in any doubt.
     
    “What is it you really do?”
    The hammer in the man’s hand bends a nail into a curve on the board, so the nail has to be pulled all the way out. The woman notices, to her satisfaction.
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “That’s why I’m asking. We can’t talk about anything else, just trivial or general things.”
    “The less we know about one another, the better.”
    “How can you bear to come up with all those pat phrases?”
     
    The woman gets up.
    “Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? Are they going to shoot you if they find out your favorite color? Or if I tell them what it is?”
     
    “What? An ice cream man?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you sell ice cream.”
    The man goes to fetch some more nails from the shed. When he returns, the woman looks at him in amusement.
    “Are you serious?”
    “How so?”
    “Do you have a little refrigerated cart on wheels that you drag along to parks and swimming beaches? Vanilla? And what else?”
    “Cherry.”
    “Anything else? Haven’t you any aspirations, any ambition? Selling ice cream day after day.”
    “Do you mean that the only people who do it are those who are incapable of doing anything else?”
    After a brief silence the woman says, “I studied English and French. At university.”
    “I’m not interested.”
    “No? Esther went to university as well. But Esther had to give up her studies when she married that Tomáš. Tomáš the accountant thinks a wife’s place is in the home.”
    “If Esther is honest, the universities were already closed when she got married.”
    “If you can recall that I’ve got a real life,” the woman snaps. “This life, this one here, is just a shadow life. Might as well be dead.”
    “What’s brought that on? Real life or shadow life? It’s all the same life, whether you like it or not, from your first breath to your last.”
    “If you don’t make it any further than being an ice cream man, I suppose you’ve got to think like that.”
    The man struggles to his feet, drops the hammer to the ground, and picks up the board frame with the wire netting attached. He places it against the hutch.
    “This will make a nice enclosure,” he declares. “The only thing missing is the rabbits.”

    The next morning, the woman gets up even earlier than on other mornings, pulls a cardigan over her nightgown,