Yok (29 page)

“That's nice, Tom-Tom,” answered Mike, who realized the crow was trying to cheer him up, “but I think I'll pass. I didn't sleep at all last night, and I have to get a few hours' sleep before tonight.”

Mike got up from the bench, carrying the gloom on his shoulders. He walked back down the hill, leaving the crow behind. The overgrown flower beds on the side of the path rustled. Along with the damp fog that constantly rested over Plaza de Bueno, the day felt enchanted. Mike found himself looking for the genie, but Fredrik was not to be seen.

T
he idea grew during the walk home. With each block, Mike Chimpanzee's pace quickened, and when he reached indigo blue Calle Gran Via there was no doubt remaining.

He opened the door to the antique store and called to the genie. Fredrik materialized instantly.

“Now I know,” said Mike. “I wish to be free.”

“Free?”

“I'm tired of never feeling like I measure up. Tired of the demands. I want to be free for real.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I don't really think that . . . whose demands are we talking about?” the genie asked.

“The demands!” Mike exclaimed in irritation. “Everyone's demands. Stuffed animals in the city who stare and expect . . . something. Toad's demands. Mom's demands. The demands!”

The genie pretended to furrow his brow in deep folds, but of course that was wasted effort.

“And you want to be free?”

“Lose this damned stress and anxiety I wake up with in the morning and go to sleep with at night.” Mike nodded.

“That is your third and final wish?” the genie confirmed.

“I know that,” Mike replied. “And that's what I want. Freedom.”

The genie nodded.

Before Mike Chimpanzee's eyes, the transformation began. The cloud of diffuse outlines that Mike had become accustomed to seeing under the genie's clothes successively took more solid form. The grayish white cloud yellowed and became furry. What had been air became a body. Out of the implied facial features a nose appeared; whiskers grew out, and the puffs of ears became thick and hairy.

Fredrik was a lion.

“At long last,” he whispered.

He stretched himself, stroked his belly and shoulders with his paws, let his tongue investigate his lips, and filled his lungs with air.

“At long last,” he repeated.

Then he took a few steps over to the glass display case and found the small blue glass bottle where he had lived for so many years. He pulled the cork out, and at the same moment Mike Chimpanzee felt something happening to him. It was not pain, more like a kind of ache. It started in his feet and quickly rose up through his body. It dematerialized body part after body part and left behind a lovely vacuum; he leaned his head forward and discovered that his feet no longer were feet, only clouds.

The insight was momentary.

“I'm becoming you,” Mike panted.

“You're free, Mike.”

Fredrik held the blue glass bottle up in front of him, and in only a few seconds Mike had been sucked in through the opening. The former genie put the cork back in the bottle, and placed it back on the shelf where it had previously stood along with other antique writing implements. Then he left the antique store without looking back.

Mindie

 

Part One

N
ame?”

“Vincent Hare.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-two years, 150 days, 4 hours, and about 20 minutes.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“It is our cursed duty to keep track of how much time has passed,” the hare answered without a trace of irony.

Vincent Hare was a light yellow stuffed animal with a crocheted nose. The inside of his long ears was covered with warm pink silk. He went on.

“At the moment the Deliverymen bring us, it's like a great devil's paw turns over the hourglass, and the countdown has begun. I hear the sand running every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to bed. Shh! Do you hear it?”

Vincent pricked his long ears.

Falcon Ècu wrinkled his well-polished nose, dissatisfied with the answer. A few months before he had been reassigned to this police station in Mindie in Yok and, while not happy, was trying to make the best of the situation.

“Address?” asked Ècu.

“Calle de Serrano, 25.”

“Occupation?”

“Philosopher.”

“Philosopher?”

“Or,” said Vincent, “forget philosophy. Just say ‘artist.' ”

“I'll write ‘student,'” Ècu said.

“If that's easier for you to spell.” Vincent nodded, shrugging his shoulders. “And that's not necessarily wrong. I study myself and life. The sand runs, time passes, and we have an obligation in life to try to understand why we're here. Do you understand?”

“Do I understand why we're here?”

Vincent nodded.

“We are here,” said Ècu, “because you have to answer my questions.”

The room was big enough to accommodate two chairs on either side of the white table. White walls. A badly worn wood floor. Behind the police falcon there was a wide mirror along the short wall. The light of the ceiling lamp was sharp and cold. Ècu was not a friend of typewriters, and it was slow going to peck out “student.”

“I'm in a bit of a hurry,” Vincent said.

Ècu looked up from the typewriter, shaking his head and leaning back. The motion released an aroma of soap and fabric softener.

“No, I don't think so,” said the police officer. “You don't seem to get what this is about. You've been brought in for interrogation. You're going to stay here until we're done.”

“I'm in a bit of a hurry,” Vincent repeated impatiently. “Because my life is running out—yours and mine—and the day the Chauffeurs arrive, neither of us is going to remember this meeting, these minutes in this room. Because of that, this conversation is wasted, and we're both in a hurry. This is not how we find out what we really should be doing.”

Vincent threw out his arms, indicating the cramped room. The knot of his tie was small and hard, the polyester of his light blue shirt shimmered and the lapels on his jacket were narrow. For being an impoverished student from Mindie he was remarkably well-dressed, Ècu noted.

“Listen up!” said Ècu, raising his voice. “Now I think you should—”

“Wait!” Vincent shouted, raising his paw. “Do you hear it?”

Ècu listened, but heard nothing.

“It's the sand running,” said Vincent. “It's time that's passing, Falcon. While you sit here tapping on that machine, time passes, and you don't seem to be running, Falcon. You seem to sit still. But I have to run. You have to catch up with yourself before it's time for the finish, Falcon. We're in a hurry, it's a race.”

Falcon Ècu tiredly observed the vain hare.

“You're twenty-two,” Ècu pointed out. “And you're acting like you're twelve. Now shut up, and just answer my questions.”

“Ask them quickly,” said Vincent.

“We know you were outside the loading dock at St. Andrews Hospital at twilight two days ago,” said the police officer. “We know you were serving as a lookout. We're prepared to let you go if you tell us who was in the car and where you were taking the stuff.”

The police in Mollisan Town were organized in three divisions. At WE, crimes committed in wrath or envy were handled, that is, the majority of violent crimes. GL took care of criminality due to gluttony and lust, primarily sexual offenses. Vincent Hare had been brought into the third division, PAS, which was the largest, because it was assigned pride, avarice, and sloth, and investigated all the robberies, thefts, and swindles in the city.

“I'm not sure,” answered Vincent, “whether you already know you've made a blunder, or you're taking a chance, or whether you're mixing me up with someone else. But, no, I haven't been at any hospital.”

“We know you were there,” said the falcon, sighing. “There's no point in denying it. Who was driving? Whose idea was it?”

Vincent snorted, adjusting his cuffs.

“This is turning into a pretty boring conversation,” he said, getting up. “Can I leave now?”

“Sit,” Ècu ordered.

But Vincent remained standing, and demonstratively placed one paw on the door handle.

“Listen now, cop,” he said. “I don't know what you think I've done or why you've brought me here, but if this is about a hospital I can't help you. Sorry. I'm leaving now. Vanishing back into the haystack.”

“You arrogant little shit,” said the falcon, but without energy. “Sit down and shut up. You mustn't take that tone just because you dress like a rich kid. I know who you are and where you come from.”

Vincent opened the door. It wasn't locked. Without hesitating he left the cramped interrogation room, turned left in the corridor, and headed toward the exit. Ècu did not follow. There were no grounds to hold Vincent.

A
t the café in the entryway to the police station, Vincent sat down at the counter, ordered an espresso, and took a gray notebook out of his inside pocket. He had not been lying to the police. He heard the sand running in the hourglass of life every morning when he woke up and every night as he fell asleep. It was a miracle, he thought, that he hadn't gone crazy.

The gray notebook was a kind of existential account book. He imagined three accounts. Under the first account he tried to summarize the meaning of life in Mollisan Town. The second one he called the Knowledge Account, and here he gathered clues that might lead to answers in the first one. The third and final account was the Bank Account.

He sipped his espresso, and wrote:

1. Meaning of Life: Still no idea.

2. Knowledge Account: Won't become a police officer.

3. Bank Account: Zero.

C
asino Biscaya in northwest Tourquai was a place without ambition. Here you would never catch a glimpse of the rich and beautiful; instead, anonymous stuffed animals sat huddled in long rows, feeding one-armed bandits without looking up when the winnings occasionally clattered out of the machines. The money was used to buy more time; the alternative was to return home to solitude.

At the bar were those who made drinking the main event. They didn't drink to get drunk, to forget or celebrate; they bought a place at the bar by paying for the next drink. They were all regulars who despised one another because they were the mirror images of one another.

The casino's card-playing section was a half flight up, to the right of the financially shaky restaurant. There were six tables on a platform bordered by an elegant leather railing: two tall, half-moon-shaped blackjack tables and four round poker tables. At one of the poker tables there were six players, one of whom was Jack Dingo. The table felt was green; the liquor brownish; and the chips red, black, yellow, and blue. Thin layers of cigarette smoke curled in the feeble light from the ceiling, but the light did not reach beyond the circle of the green table.

Dingo had two pairs with tens high. He let his long, transparent glass claws drum impatiently against the table, decided his move, and threw in a pair of fifty markers to see the cockroach across from him. The cockroach folded and shrugged his wings. Dingo gathered up the pot.

“That's enough for tonight,” he decided, leaving the table.

No one had any objections. Dingo had lost about as much as he won.

In the bar Vincent Hare and Gavin Zebra were waiting. Hare was 23 years, 234 days, 18 hours, and about 10 minutes old. He was dressed in a midnight blue suit, blue shirt, and cream white tie. Zebra was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“I'll treat to a round,” said Dingo, as if he had won at the gaming table.

Hare and Zebra nodded. Neither of them was interested in gambling. They had gone to high school together, but never been close friends. In the last year of high school Gavin Zebra discovered the author Fernandez Armesto, and read
Solitude
four times in a row. It was one of Vincent's favorite books, and for a few weeks he and Zebra had something to talk about. After his entrance exams Zebra's passion for Armesto waned, but for Vincent, the trilogy, starting with
Solitude
and continuing with
Exposure
and
Meaninglessness
, remained one of the most important things that had happened to him. When Vincent and Zebra were later accepted at the College of Architecture, they resumed their superficial acquaintanceship, but never found any deeper kinship.

“Thought about heading up to Bois de Dalida this weekend,” Dingo reported as he paid for the mango drinks with vodka. “Anybody want to follow along?”

Jack Dingo spoke loudly to be heard over the music, making the stuffed animals at the bar twist their heads. He rustled his thick gold armband and acted like he owned the casino. He always hinted that he had connections all over. Neither Hare nor Zebra was sure this was true. Why, in such case, did Dingo hang around at a place like Casino Biscaya? Or with stuffed animals like Hare and Zebra?

“I'd like to,” said Zebra, “but I promised Jeanette—”

“Sure,” said Dingo, without hearing the excuse. “And you, Vincent?”

“Dalida? Sure. The forest? Who's going?”

Dingo named a number of stuffed animals that Vincent didn't know. Zebra lit a cigarette, Dingo ordered more drinks and told about a Volga Sport Delay being built in a limited edition of one hundred, and that he was in line to buy. Zebra showed some interest in the car model, which he'd read about, but Vincent stopped listening. He sipped his second mango drink and listened to the sound of the sand running through the hourglass.

“What the hell are you staring at?”

The words made all three react. A bald eagle in a worn leather jacket was pointing at Vincent. The eagle's pupils were big as plates, his sharp claws only a few inches from Vincent's nose, and on the chest pocket of the leather jacket was a monogram that read SS5.

Without meaning to, for the past few minutes Vincent had been staring at Eagle's embroidered ears. His gaze just happened to settle there.

“Me?”

“Yes, you, you ugly ball of cotton. What the hell are you staring at?”

Everyone knew what SS5 was—the private security force used by the stuffed animals who controlled the organized prostitution in Tourquai, and notorious for their brutality.

“What am I staring at? Nothing,” answered Vincent slowly. “Absolutely
nothing
.” And he stared even more intensely at the enraged eagle, while Zebra pulled on him.

Vincent was no fighter, but he was always getting into fistfights anyway. He never hit back. He let them hit and tear until they were worn out, and sometimes—but not always—he felt liberated afterward. Pure from pain, pure from humiliation; he could not explain it.

“Forget about him, Vincent,” Zebra whispered.

“What the hell are you saying?” asked the eagle.

“Let's go, Vincent,” said Zebra.

“Like those freaking ugly ears are worth staring at,” said Vincent. “I've never seen anything so ridiculous. How did they get there? Was your mother cross-eyed?”

“What the hell?”

Zebra threw himself forward and placed himself between the eagle and the hare. The eagle pushed Zebra aside with no effort.

“Do you want a beating?” asked the eagle.

“From you and your friends?” Vincent asked. “Oh, excuse me, of course you don't have any friends—”

Eagle's reaction was instinctive. His wings shot forward, he wrapped his claw around Vincent's neck and pulled him down from the chair. No one dared intervene. Dingo was gone. Zebra staggered to his feet, and while the eagle pulled Vincent across the floor of the casino the zebra ran after.

“Let him go!” Zebra pleaded. “He didn't mean any harm.”

“You shouldn't be ashamed because you're a bird.” Vincent continued peeping his provocations. “Some birds have brains. And I'm sure you're . . . a friendly soul.”

“Shut up, Vincent!” Zebra shouted.

The eagle stopped and pounded the hare's head against the floor a few times to get him to be quiet. Then he continued toward the exit. He was holding Vincent by the ears, dragging him behind like a rag.

“Or to say you have a soul,” Vincent slurred. “Perhaps that's saying too much?”

Eagle tore open the door and threw Vincent out on the street.

“You're afraid to fight, huh?” Vincent shrieked from where he was lying. “Maybe you're afraid your nice jacket will get torn?”

Eagle sighed, bored now. The lesson must be given, however, even if it didn't feel truly motivated. He took a step out onto the street.

“When you see this monogram next time, you'll know to keep your trap shut.”

The eagle gave the hare a kick in the belly that made him fly into one of the parked cars along the sidewalk. The eagle went slowly after, and the next kick hit the hare's head. After that, the hare did not remember anything.

T
he moon was half and the Breeze faint when Vincent came around again. He was sitting against the wall of a building, and he could smell sewage and asphalt. Zebra was crouched in front of him. Tourquai was deserted and abandoned. They were no longer outside the casino.