Yok (35 page)

“You'd be a good partner,” said someone else.

“But I've only been here six years.”

As they stood next to each other, the tortoise and the hare, the differences between them stood out more clearly than ever. Around the hare was a radiance not only due to his shoe polish, while the tortoise was a gloomy gray in his somewhat baggy jacket.

“Vincent will emphasize that he, too, has been here for six years, and that's enough to become a partner,” Goat clarified. “I can read you like an open book, Vincent.”

“Maria.” Vincent laughed, adjusting the deliberately loose knot of his tie. “I don't know where you got this idea that I want to promote myself.”

“Probably from you,” Goat answered.

“From me? No, now you have to—”

“Let me ask a straight question: Do you think you would be a good partner, Vincent?”

Vincent fell silent and stared at Maria. The stuffed animals around them held their breath.

“Yes,” said Vincent at last, smiling broadly. “I would be an excellent partner, Maria. Hasn't Diego told you about our race?”

“No,” she answered.

Tortoise's coffee cup was full, and he took it out of the machine.

“That,” said Tortoise, snorting, “was only a whim, Vincent, wasn't it?”

Vincent did not reply, but the stuffed animals standing around the coffee machine would not forget that there was a race going on between Vincent and the tortoise, and at regular intervals they would remind Tortoise about it over the years.

Two days later Pug Jansson was named Svensson's successor and a new partner at the firm. Jansson had previously worked at Salmon & Feary, but before that had worked for five years with Daniela Fox (both at Bombardelli and at the Ministry of Finance). Everyone except Vincent Hare thought Jansson was a positive reinforcement for Bombardelli & Partners, and that his good reputation in the city would contribute to the success of the architectural firm.

“You have to admit it,” said Tortoise to Vincent a week or two later, when as in old times they were having a pizza at Gino's for lunch, “Jansson is a much stronger card than you or me.”

Vincent did not answer.

V
incent Hare was 33 years, 305 days, 15 hours, and about 5 minutes old, and felt Maria Goat's breath on his belly.

The room was dark. Two candles set in wine bottles stuck up from drifts of melted paraffin; the flames emitted a troubled glow over the table where he was lying. The smoke made the air heavy with cinnamon and cumin. First they drank red wine and then smoked. He had used a sheep comb on her. She had rubbed his ears with a chamois. The desire was stronger than he thought was possible. They moved slowly. Every movement a reflection. She breathed on him, and he wanted to feel her lips against his fur, but she never got that close.

“I'm not an animal who takes drugs,” she whispered.

“I know that.”

“I'm an animal who maintains control,” she whispered.

“I know that.”

“I am rational.”

“I know that.”

“This is not about love.”

“I don't agree with that.”

“I'm not searching for new experiences, Vincent. I think we've had it good the way we've had it.”

“I know that. Shut up now, Maria.”

“I have no desire to go further.”

“Shut up.”

He kissed her. On his tongue was a tablet of acid that he let her taste. It made her head sing, and slowly he drew a small but incredibly strong fan down along her back. She moaned audibly.

“I'm not a stuffed animal who moans,” she said.

But when she heard herself say this she moaned even louder; she could not help it. She had never felt like this. The shame made her more aroused, his presumption made her dare, but if she let the thought reach a millimeter beyond the dining room table regret would overwhelm her. She concentrated on what she was feeling: the fan exposed fabric that had never before been exposed. It turned her coat to one side and revealed her seams. She moaned again. She let her breath make its way down his belly and against his crotch. She did not know if it was her or him making the sounds she heard. The acid on her tongue made her awareness slide sideways. When she closed her eyes she saw water, still and endless, but it didn't frighten her, it only added to the feeling of unlawful well-being. She continued down his body, he continued up her back. She had never felt this naked before. She did not know where he started and where she ended. She felt him everywhere, as an absence or a presence.

“Hold me,” she whispered.

Betweenward, because there was no afterward on this night, they lay on her couch and smoked marijuana. She had not even smoked a cigarette before she met him.

“That's dangerous,” he said. “Stay away from cigarettes.”

“You shouldn't make me do this, should you, Vincent?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“We have to get out more. Can't we invite some friends over for dinner?”

“We don't have any friends in common. You would throw my friends out immediately. And I wouldn't protest.”

“We can invite someone from the office?” she said.

“You and me and Diego Tortoise? Maybe he'd like to play, too?”

“Now you're not just disgusting, you're mean, too,” she said.

He laughed.

“The very idea, Vincent, of challenging Diego to a race.”

“That . . . was a joke. It was about who would become a partner first.”

“You wanted to become a partner instead of Jansson, didn't you?”

“I did. You have to play by the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The rules of life. If you start working at an architectural firm with partners, the idea is to try to become one of them. As soon as possible.”

“And if you're happy with what you have?”

“You may be happy, but you still have to believe that life can get better if you become a partner. Or if you get a higher salary. Or more power.”

“Power and money are not particularly interesting,” she answered.

“Only stuffed animals with power and money say that,” he said. “But there are other rules for academics. There are even rules for anarchists. No one escapes.”

“So life is a competition, then?”

“Yes.” Vincent took a deep drag and breathed the smoke out as he slowly and jerkily gave her his view.

“We are collectors. All of Mollisan Town. We collect experiences and friends and things and wisdom, and it seems that most or biggest is best. Some compete against Magnus. Others compete for Magnus. Some who say they aren't competing are scared to death of losing. Their face or pride or integrity.”

“And you, then? What do you collect?”

“Hours with you.”

“That's sweet of you to say, Vincent, but that doesn't count. What do you collect?”

He became impatient.

“I don't know,” he said at last. “Adult credits, I assume?”

“Adult credits? But you're over thirty, aren't you, Vincent?”

She got up and went into the kitchen.

“I collect reasons,” he called after her. “You are a reason to continue playing by the rules. But you are the only reason. I need more.”

Goat returned with a carafe of water. She drank right from it and again lay down on Vincent's lap.

“When you pretend you don't like life I always have a feeling you're putting on airs,” she said. “I have never met anyone who lives as intensely. And I don't think you're particularly tough when you try to be disillusioned.”

“I collect reasons,” he repeated. “This is the best one.”

And he leaned over and kissed her. The night had lacked a beginning, and she would be crushed and infinitely relieved the moment it came to an end. When an hour or two later she fell asleep on the couch, he sneaked up and sat down at the desk where he took out the gray notebook and wrote:

1. Meaning of Life: No idea, but there are moments when it doesn't matter.

2. Knowledge Account: If love was the final reward, love would not be so immediately satisfying.

3. Bank Account: Don't know.

A
fterward, Vincent Hare tried to think that it wasn't due to the lunch. That what happened at the outdoor café at Trois Étoiles in Bois de Dalida was part of a process that had already been going on for a long time, and which was impossible to stop. He had seen the signs, and they had been insignificant or hard to interpret. He was 34 years, 63 days, 6 hours, and about 50 minutes old.

Maria Goat was not the stuffed animal he was trying to make her into, he thought. She appreciated the details of life. She did not stay away from work. She maintained contact with her girlfriends. She did not deviate from routines. She loathed an untidy home and was not ashamed to say it. Vincent understood all this, but could not dissimulate. His passion fed itself.

From never having loved, he was now filled by love in a way he had thought impossible. He abused love the way he abused all other drugs. Separated from Goat, he could not think of anything but her. Whether hours or days had passed lacked significance. He realized he overwhelmed her, frightened her, but she let herself be carried away by his intemperance. He could bewitch her like no one before him. He could drive her to a level of excitement that excluded reality. He could replace anything and everything when they were together; then she lacked nothing because there was no time to lack.

But a part of her he never reached, and that part remained ill at ease. It was as if she were struggling against herself. She would be the Maria that Vincent saw only when he was near. When he left her, if only for a while, when he shut the door to the bathroom or went shopping, more and more often a sense of gloom hung over her when he returned. He noticed it but pretended not to. After their impassioned nights, after decadent mornings or afternoons when their senses—touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste—were exhausted and dazed, she withdrew. Shame took over her, and it was not always easy to lure it out of her again.

The lunch at Trois Étoiles, he convinced himself, could have been a dinner at home on Calle de Serrano or a breakfast at a Springergaast somewhere in Lanceheim.

But however many times he thought that, the thought echoed vacantly.

They had decided to have lunch in Bois de Dalida, and there was no particular reason for that. The beautiful park in north Tourquai was not a place they usually went to; they had only been to Trois Étoiles separately.

Inside, every table was reserved, so they had to wait for fifteen minutes before a table was available outside. They sat down under one of the big, spanned sails that seemed to hover freely above the lunch guests, and that provided a pleasant shade. They looked out over the park with its ponds, and laughed at the fact that stuffed animals always walked so slowly there. They each ordered an asparagus salad, and while they waited, she let herself be filled up by his energy. But perhaps above all by his irresistible will to fill her up.

Vincent did not see Jack Dingo until he was standing by the table.

“We run into each other at strange places.” Dingo laughed.

Vincent laughed. He knew immediately what occasion Dingo meant. They had met late one night a month ago, by chance. Vincent did not go out very often anymore, but sometimes he gave in to one of the importunate female admirers who seemed to be everywhere. There was a pink lamb he had treated badly by promising her too much. She had demanded that they meet one last time. It had nothing to do with his love for Maria Goat. Nothing had even happened: a dinner with the pink lamb, a stop by the nightclub where they ran into Jack Dingo, and then a kiss good night.

“Jack,” said Vincent, expressing himself clearly. “This is Maria, the love of my life. Maria, this is an old friend, Jack Dingo.”

“We've met,” said Dingo, nodding at Goat.

“No, I don't believe so,” Goat answered. “I'm sure I would—”

“Sure we've met, it was only a month ago. But weren't you pink then?”

V
incent Hare stayed behind in Bois de Dalida until long after darkness had fallen. He sat protected by a hawthorn bush on a stone on one of the small islands that were connected by bridges in the park across from the restaurant. He told himself it had nothing to do with Dingo, it had nothing to do with lunch, it had nothing to do with the pink lamb. It was only about him and Maria. The two of them were basically too different to be together, and sooner or later that bomb would have dropped.

But he didn't believe a thing he told himself. No explanation or excuse or even curse helped him.

When Dingo left their table, only the truth about the night with the pink lamb remained. Goat had not taken it well. She was rational by nature, but she was also principled. What he had done was a violation she could not accept. Now it was evening, many hours had passed, and Vincent did not want to think about their quarrel. He had already repressed it. There had been an explosion, and he knew it was not only due to Dingo's revelation.

How he hated that animal.

But more than that, stronger than hate he felt pain and guilt.

Vincent raised his eyes. The islands in the park rested in a mild glow from the spotlights that discreetly lit up the large trees and the arched wooden bridges. Stuffed animals walked here in the evening, but not many. Right now he saw no one.

Vincent Hare had exerted himself. He had realized that life lacked meaning, and tried to live anyway. The last few years had been different. His existential questions had paled more and more in relation to what he felt for Maria. Now he realized this was self-deception: an illusion that in the long run was impossible to maintain. Now he knew he had been blinded. It had only been a matter of time. The sand in the hourglass ran no faster and no slower.

Vincent Hare took out the matchbox he had brought with him from the restaurant. He opened it and took out a match. He drew the sulfur of the match head against the striking surface, and saw the flame light up. He leaned over and set fire to his shoelace. It took a few seconds before it started to burn.