Yok (2 page)

“Don't be so damn pretentious, Cat, or I'll take a
few words out of your title. This has nothing to do with his eyes. This fox is
just plain better looking than any other stuffed animal we've captured on film
in the last decade.”

Hare was the creative aspect of the duo Wolle &
Wolle, Lanceheim's leading advertising agency. Together with the more
financially talented Wolle Toad, the two Wolles had more than fifty years'
experience in the industry, and the pictures the hare was holding were among the
best he'd seen.

“And they said he could only do clothing,” said
Cat, pretending not to hear the reprimand.

Fox Antonio Ortega was nineteen years old at the
time, and his first advertising campaign was pasted on large billboards all over
Mollisan Town and shone through the night from the tops of buses. Fox Antonio
Ortega had done what no one else could in Luigi Barcotta's tight-fitting suits;
long cardigans; and narrow, colorful pants: He looked comfortable. The fashion
industry realized at one stroke that anyone who got an exclusive contract with
the model Ortega had gained an unbeatable head start.

But Wolle Hare was one step ahead, and in his paw
he held his next challenge: He had decided to use Fox in a campaign for the new
model of Volga Sport. There was infinitely more money to make in the car
industry than in fashion and, besides, it was about linking Ortega to Wolle
& Wolle, not to any brand or product. The pictures he was looking at
depicted Fox behind the steering wheel.

“He's perfect here, too,” Wolle asserted.

“Perfect,” Cat agreed. “And if I may say—”

But he got no further than that; applause coming
from the studio made him fall silent.

“What's going on?” Hare asked.

The cat was already on his way to the door to find
out. He returned half a minute later.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. “It's our new photo
model.”

“They're applauding him? Why are they
applauding?”

“Don't know,” said Cat. “Maybe they think it's
thanks to him that Barcotta's campaign is a success?”

“Are you being ironic?” Wolle asked. “I hate
irony.”

“No, no,” Cat Nikolaus quickly answered. “I mean
it. They think Fox Ortega is a hero. And then they think he's beautiful. That's
obviously worth some applause.”

“Idiots,” the hare muttered, getting up from the
desk. “Go and bring Fox here before they gobble him up.”

And Cat Nikolaus again ran out to the studio to do
as he was told.

L
ess
than an hour later, Fox Antonio Ortega was sitting with Wolle Hare in the
backseat of a black limousine traveling south on sky blue South Avenue. The
Evening Weather was on its way in over the city, the traffic heavy. On the
ceiling of the car, a starry sky glistened in miniature and Fox could not tear
his gaze from it. Hare poured a substantial whiskey for himself. He had not
intended to drink this evening, but the crystal glasses in the car door's teak
shelf clinked so delightfully that it was impossible to resist. Fox, on the
other hand, had declined.

“That's wise, my friend,” said Hare. “This evening
is an important one.”

“I've never had a drink,” Fox Antonio Ortega
explained.

“Of course you haven't,” said Hare. Wolle Hare was
fascinated. The young fox, from what Hare understood, had had a promising sports
career ahead of him. He had gone to high school at some rinky-dink school down
in south Yok, and thus remained “undiscovered” longer than what seemed possible.
Three months ago Fox and his father—an unpleasant bear who reeked of
alcohol—were up in Lanceheim to discuss a contract with the Lasers, the district
cricket team. According to Fox, that was the first time he had set his paw
outside the Yok city line.

Father and son had been on their way out of the
club's office when one of Wolle & Wolle's talent scouts saw him. The rest,
as they say, was history.

“Have you read the screenplay properly?” Wolle Hare
asked, sipping the whiskey.

“I didn't understand that much,” Fox admitted.

“No? I thought it was a thriller. Bang-bang,
action, and car chases?”

“Well . . . it was mostly a lot of
dialogue.”

“You need that sort of thing when you're filming, I
assume,” said Wolle Hare.

“I know that.”

“Do you know the lines by heart?”

“By heart? No. Was that the idea?”

“I'm sure it will be fine anyway,” Hare answered,
as he did not want to make Fox unnecessarily nervous.

The car moved slowly in the aggressive traffic. The
seats smelled of old leather, there was gravel on the mats on the floor, and
someone had stuffed a paper tissue in the ashtray in the door. Wolle Hare would
tell his secretary to use a different car service next time. Back in the days
when he needed to look powerful, he would call a limousine. Now he could use
comfortable cars.

They were en route to La Cueva on saffron yellow
Puerta de Alcalà. Wolle Hare was proud of knowing the restaurateur of the
six-star restaurant. There were many stories told about Dragon Aguado Molina;
Hare had heard them all, but assumed Molina spread them himself. All advertising
was good advertising. As far as Hare was concerned, anyone who prepared a
béarnaise sauce with as much sensitivity as Dragon Aguado Molina could have
whatever secret life he wanted.

“Do you think that was the idea?”

“What?”

Wolle was lost in thought.

“That I should learn it all by heart? I've never
been good at memorizing.”

“I'm sure it won't be a problem,” Wolle Hare
repeated.

The limo turned off of South Avenue and onto a
narrow, raspberry-colored street that was typical Yok, with trash on the
sidewalks and graffiti on the walls of the buildings. Wolle shook his head
imperceptibly. He had still not made up his mind whether Fox was dumb or if it
was simply a lack of experience that made him appear dim-witted.

L
a
Cueva was located in a free-standing three-story building set off from the
adjacent buildings on Puerta de Alcalà by two narrow alleys where yellow green
tufts of grass struggled against clay and stone in hope of the sun's attention.
Pink roses climbed across the facade up to the windows on the second floor; the
outside door was completely surrounded by the blossoms and two old-fashioned
gaslights stuck out from the dense foliage.

Wolle Hare was the first out of the limousine. He
looked up at the sky.

“Well, at least we're not too early,” he said,
mostly to himself.

Fox Antonio Ortega got out on the other side.

“Has Father arrived, do you think?”

“I guess we'll have to go in and see,” said
Wolle.

Fox's father, José Bear, was waiting in the bar.
Judging by his gaze and unruly paws he had already consumed a couple of drinks,
which did not surprise Wolle. Bear had put on a light blue shirt and his best
suit: dark brown and double-breasted. In the dark restaurant he presumably
thought no one saw the long tears in the lining or the mud on the seams of the
trousers, and if he kept the jacket buttoned the oil stains on the shirt
remained invisible.

“There you are!” José Bear cried out. “I've been
waiting!”

La Cueva had been furnished at the beginning of
time with heavy, red and brown furniture. Now the furniture was old and worn,
which was part of the restaurant's charm. Outside the small, low-sitting windows
in the Little Bar the daylight was gradually disappearing, and in another half
hour the velvet curtains, motley rugs, and dark red leather couches would look
truly elegant.

Against this shabby backdrop the food stood out as
more spectacular.

“Where's the movie mogul?” Fox's father asked.

Wolle Hare raised one eyebrow.

“He hasn't arrived yet? Have you asked in the
restaurant?”

Hare was right; while José Bear was drinking in the
bar, Rex Pug had been sitting alone at a table set for four, waiting.

Pug got up when they appeared. He was a legend in
his industry, and his smile was blinding white when he greeted them, each one
just as fervently.

“Fox Antonio Ortega,” said Pug with feeling, “you
are even more handsome in real life.”

“Now, now,” José Bear retorted. “No homo fantasies,
if I may. We're here to talk money.”

Which was not Pug's understanding at all of why he
had invited Ortega to dinner at La Cueva. But the film producer had as much
experience as forbearance, and fired off another one of his perfect smiles and
refrained from correcting the fox's father.

Dinner was consumed under unexpectedly congenial
circumstances. Wolle Hare assumed the role of good-natured catalyst and
observer. Fox Antonio Ortega focused on the food, and the few times he thought
about saying something, his father was already talking.

Rex Pug was in a brilliant mood as always and he
entertained with anecdotes from the world of film. Wolle had known the film
producer for many years, but had never heard him sound so witty. Pug was behind
many of the successes on the silver screen in the past two decades, and he not
only knew everyone worth knowing in the film industry, he knew a lot of animals
you really didn't need to know.

José Bear concentrated on one thing at a time. When
there was food on the table he ate. When there was wine in his glass he drank.
And when there was neither food nor wine he explained the principles of what he
thought a business arrangement should look like. He talked about percentages
here and percentages there, royalties on revenue from popcorn and ticket sales,
salary floors and ceilings, fixed and variable bonuses, compensation for
expenses and allowances for inconvenient work hours. Who knew where he got all
this from. Maybe someone had given him advice in advance? Maybe he had stolen a
book from the bookstore and browsed through the chapter headings?

When dessert was finished and José Bear had set
forth all the demands he could think of, he got up on unsteady legs and
explained that he had to hurry to another meeting. Without further apologies he
left the restaurant quite unexpectedly.

“Your father is truly a colorful character,” Pug
ventured to say in the silence left behind by Bear's departure.

“Well,” Fox Antonio Ortega answered meditatively,
“it was probably just that light blue shirt against the brown jacket that made
you think that.”

W
ith
coffee Rex Pug could finally get down to business. When Pug had seen Fox Antonio
Ortega gazing down from the advertising pillars in his Luigi Barcotta suits, it
was clear that a new star had been born. By a quirk of fate, Pug had a
screenplay sitting on his desk, and the hero role was seemingly tailor-made for
Fox. He had sent over this screenplay, and now he was eager to hear what Fox
thought.

“I haven't learned it by heart,” Fox began, casting
an anxious glance at Wolle Hare. “But I read it all.”

“And?” Pug asked.

“Well, I don't know. He . . . Was he in
love with her?”

Pug nodded. The hero in the screenplay was
undeniably in love with the heroine.

“But,” Fox replied, “why doesn't he say so?”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

“Well,” said Fox Antonio Ortega, becoming eager.
“If he had told her right away that he was in love with her, he wouldn't have
had to go through all that, right?”

“No, of course,” said Pug. “But then there wouldn't
be a movie.”

“I see,” Fox replied, looking sincerely surprised.
“No, maybe not. Will you excuse me a moment? Wolle, do you know where the
restroom . . . ?”

Wolle Hare pointed toward the restrooms, and Fox
stood up. When he was out of hearing range Rex Pug leaned over the table and
whispered, “Is he a little slow?”

Wolle shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Well, I've made stars out of idiots before,” Pug
reminded himself. “Many times. But this . . . Can he act?”

“No idea,” said Wolle. “But judging by how he
performs during photo shoots, I would have to say no.”

“Can he even memorize lines?”

“Does he have to? Isn't someone standing there
whispering from the side? Or else can't you add a voice afterward?”

“I understand that as yet another no,” said Pug
drily.

“I only promised to bring you two together,” said
Wolle Hare. “And I've done that.”

Rex Pug sighed. “All that glitters is not
gold.”

T
o get
to the restrooms at La Cueva guests had to pass a large, round window through
which the restaurant kitchen could be seen. On his way there Fox had no time to
stop and be impressed by the stoves and chefs, given the urgency of his errand,
but on his way back he had more time. He stopped, stared, and way in the back,
in the shadow of an exhaust hood—by the door to the pantry—he saw her.

Beatrice Cockatoo, according to Fox Antonio Ortega,
was the most beautiful stuffed animal the factories had ever produced. She was
white as a cloud in a blue sky. Her yellow comb stood up from her head like a
plume on royalty. Her crooked black beak gave her face dignity, and the yellow
spot on her cheek enticed him in a way he could not explain.

Ortega remained standing, enchanted, just staring
through the glass. He did not notice at first when a waiter placed himself
alongside and followed his gaze. He started, and blushed almost imperceptibly.
The waiter smiled.

“That's Beatrice Cockatoo,” he said. “She's the
dragon's daughter. My advice? Forget you ever saw her.”