Chapter 20 Chapter 19 Ivana

"Huh? Where are you hiding, my sweetheart?" Ivana stood on the threshold of the bathroom in a robe, pressed her skinny buttocks with her hands, and searched the bathroom with wandering eyes. "Are you hiding here?" Leon closed the secret door just in time, and put the floor mat on the door, so Ivana didn't notice the hole in the floor when she came in (just not yet).Although the loud sound of Leon pushing open the hidden door was almost covered by the sound of the washing machine running, his neighbors should have heard the noise.Leon thought that Ivana might find him hiding here at any time, because the hiding place he chose was really not enough to hide his tall body.The second Ivana stepped into the bathroom, Leon jumped into the bathtub, and now he was standing with trembling legs in the narrow gap between the hanger and the wall.In order to prevent Ivana from spotting him at a glance, he hurriedly closed the shower curtain, but Ivana didn't seem to notice this small change, obviously she only cared about the cat's whereabouts now.

"Alba, where did you hide this time?" Through the corner of the shower curtain, Leon could see the mirror installed above the sink, and from the mirror, Ivana could see that Ivana was taking out a small metal box from her robe pocket. "Come to me, my sweetheart," Ivana yelled, shaking the feed in the metal box. "I have prepared delicious food for you!" Ivana is already at the washing machine. "Alba? Did you hear me calling you?" She shook the feed box again, but there was no sign of the cat, so she had to put the box back in the wide pocket of her robe.

Leon watched as Ivana walked towards the mirror, and took off her glasses in front of the mirror.She blinked as if dust had gotten into her eyes.In fact, Ivana was fighting back tears. "That cat is just like you, Richard." She whispered in an almost inaudible voice, "always leaves me alone again and again." Leon's nerves were tense to the point of bursting.He stood in a rather uncomfortable position, propping himself up against the wall with one hand and holding on to the clotheshorse with the other to keep it from collapsing.He took shallow breaths, careful not to make any noise, but (hope I didn't sneeze!) his nose felt itchy.

Ivana was looking at her own face in the mirror.She gently massaged the bags under her eyes that were as big as coins, and shook her head helplessly; then, she stretched out the wrinkled skin on her jawbone, and then began to examine the quality of her hair.Her hair was gray, but it still had volume, but it still didn't satisfy her. "Everything deserted me," Ivana said softly, turning on the tap at the same time. "They always do." Leon felt the muscles in his back gradually stiffen, and he couldn't last much longer.But how was he going to explain it to Ivana if he had been spotted by Ivana because of a careless gesture?

Leon could only hope that Ivana would leave the bathroom quickly, but she seemed unwilling to do Leon this favor.Because Ivana suddenly began to take off her clothes, but she didn't have much to wear, so there was almost nothing to do. First, Ivana pulled her gown off her drooping shoulders, she wasn't wearing a bra so Leon could see her breasts in the mirror.Her breasts were covered with age spots and hung over her ribs like a half-deflated balloon. It made Leon feel ashamed to spy on Ivana's private behavior without her knowledge. However, he didn't have any room to turn around, much less stop Ivana from laboriously lifting her bulging, vein-ridden legs one foot after another in order to remove the flesh-colored panties.

Leon had never seen a naked woman at this age (he estimated that Ivana was about eighty years old), but what attracted his attention was not Ivana's naked body, but the tattoo on her back: Two green snakes intertwined on her spine like DNA helices, a pair of snake heads facing each other climbed up the thin shoulder blades, and finally there were two long tongues tangled and kissed on the neck. With all her clothes off, Ivana washed her face first with a towel, then her neck, and finally her breasts.At the same time, Leon also felt an itching in his nose.The smell from the freshly washed clothes around him reminded him of the legend of the Twelve Nights for a moment, and his current situation made it all the more bizarre; especially Ivana had no Weeping in alarm, and angrily throwing the towel at the mirror.

"You bastard!" Ivana exclaimed.Then, grabbing her robe and putting it on, she forgot to turn off the light in the bathroom and shuffled out of the bathroom. With Ivana gone, Leon's urge to sneeze disappeared.However, he continued to wait for a while until he heard the sound of the TV in the living room before he dared to leave the hiding place. The layout of this room is the same as his house: the corridor behind the bathroom extends all the way to the left to the living room, while the entrance porch is on the right, and the public stairwell is just a few steps away.The only problem, and it is also different from Leon's house upstairs is that this room has not been renovated for several years, not only the wallpaper is yellowed, but some skirting boards are also loose, and every step you take , the old wooden floor will make a creaking sound that cannot be ignored.

When Leon tiptoed out the door, he secretly prayed that the sound of the TV would be like the loud washing machine before, drowning out the sound of his feet when he moved.If it wasn't for the sudden ringing of the phone, Leon would have left Ivana's house without anyone noticing. The old green rotary telephone was placed next to the teak chest of drawers beside Leon, with a woven mat underneath. The phone rang one after another.Leon looked around as if asking for help, hesitated for a while before quickly fleeing into the room closest to the door.The space at the same location upstairs was used by Leon as his studio, but now the door of this room has been removed.Besides, the room was empty except for a small moving cardboard box.

I have nowhere to hide, Leon thought, the phone stopped ringing.But at this moment, Ivana's surprised voice came from behind.