In/Half Read online

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he swore under his breath, and then in a loud voice, ‘Isn’t anybody going to help?’

  ‘Ok,’ said Evan, through a full mouth. He’d even pay ten times more, no problem. Daimyō was letting him stay free of charge and was paying him handsomely on top of that. Even if he wanted to, even if he threw his money away on constant orgies, drugs, booze and food, he’d be hard-pressed to go bankrupt. But that didn’t mean he should remain indifferent to Gordon. That character flaw – greed – was one of the ugliest a man could have. The universe had conjured up, for you, a complete machine of limbs, a nervous system, lungs and a heart, and you go about impotently haggling over a lousy one or two percent. He swallowed, with difficulty.

  ‘But I need some today.’

  ‘Impossible,’ replied Gordon immediately, closing his eyes and smacking his lips. He had expected a response, but when nothing but silence came he feared something unpleasant was going on in front of his eyelids, so he opened them again. Evan was staring motionlessly at him. ‘Well, I think it would be very difficult to arrange something so quickly because, well, these things take time. No transaction, no business, goes down that fast, especially when, you know, things are not, strictly speaking, entirely legal.’

  ‘I’m fine for today, but tomorrow we have a rehearsal and I don’t know whether I can survive without. Ok, of course I could, easily, no problem, but I don’t want to. Because everyone knows what they have to do, but still nobody’s obeying, they still find time for stupid questions, still… But I’m boring you, aren’t I? I just need a little something so that I’ll be a bit more lenient. Is that doable? Please don’t say it isn’t.’

  Gordon chewed his steak and nodded sympathetically. As Evan raised his eyebrows questioningly, he took three quick bites and had trouble swallowing. He put a hand to his chest and washed the chunk of meat down with a sip of wine.

  ‘You know, of course, well, at home I have a little. If I remember correctly, I put something aside for hard times, but in any case I don’t need it right now, you know, I’ve started with meditation and that really, really, helps, maybe if… Will you come with me? After lunch I have post-yoga – Cambrian, deuterian, and I can’t even remember what, all these new things from up north, everyone in this town is just mad about them.’

  Evan appreciated extremes. Sometimes he worked out until his nose bled. He despised meditation. But in moments of need honesty is unbecoming.

  ‘That’s kind of tricky, I already have an appointment.’

  ‘With whom?’

  He’d never figured out whether Gordon’s unbearable curiosity was a personality flaw or just part of a sponsor’s job.

  ‘With…Oksana.’

  ‘The actress?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Ah, Evan, you lech.’

  ‘No, it’s not like that.’

  ‘Aha.’ Gordon winked. His curl leant to the right.

  ‘Fine. Believe what you want. But why didn’t you bring any with you?’

  ‘Any what?’

  ‘mAk.’

  Gordon put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Not by name, please. Here even the lights are listening in.’

  High up on the ceiling, the lights were buzzing lazily and they did not have ears. The old man and the woman left. The long-haired guy was suddenly standing near their table. He was gazing into the space behind Gordon’s head. Perhaps he’d been hypnotized by the curl. Evan remained conciliatory.

  ‘Fine, I’m sorry, but still…’

  ‘What?’

  Gordon was ineffectually feigning ignorance. Evan gritted his teeth.

  ‘Why didn’t you bring any with you? I wrote to you that I’d run out.’

  ‘Because now it’s banned. You know what they’d do with me if… I don’t even dare think about it. They’d throw me out, no chance of appeal, and then back home, my goodness, the last thing I need now…that gives me the chills…home.’

  Home. A simple noun Evan felt somewhere up around his Adam’s apple. Cold. Prickly. Home is the place where they can’t turn you away, apparently. But what if you ask them to? If you beg them nevertheless to send you away, somewhere, anywhere?

  They lived in a stone bungalow on the shores of the Mediterranean. He lived in a terraced house, on the edge of town, not far away, with Mother, with Father, with Sister. They lived in a flat, fifth floor, a skyscraper, in a residential part of town, pretty comfortable, hard to complain. He lived in a student ghetto, alongside nitwits and crazies, horny lads, babes. They lived abroad – if you can call something ‘abroad’ just because it’s not home, even though you know everybody and know how things work and everything is pretty much the same as it was in the old place. He lived on the road, hardly alone. And with people, and sometimes in love. He’d lived, they’d say. He’d lived in Edo, way up high, higher than ever. He never

  ‘Let me put it this way. You drop by my place, tonight after your, hmm, visit, I’ll go to meditation, let’s meet at, say, around seven, my place, ok? The risk is yours. I will sleep peacefully. If you get caught, I’ll be on the chopping block because I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you from, hmm, wrongful handling, but all right, we’d be able to settle it at the consulate since they go pretty easy on foreigners, especially invited foreigners. Unless they want to make an example of you. Which I doubt.’

  Evan smiled. He should never be an example for anyone. He couldn’t imagine anyone scrambling after his fate. Although that fate didn’t look bad – from the outside it all seemed fine, which was a good thing, since a great part of your fate consists of how others see it, but if they knew, if they really knew – it was a fate no one would want to have to live out. Gordon had made him happy. The hour precise, the promise nice. He liked clarity. He looked at his watch. A little past four.

  ‘Good, great, it’s a date. Seven, your place. I’ll take a taxi.’

  ‘Taxis aren’t so bad,’ mused Gordon. ‘It’s mainly just the public transport unions, the environmentalists, the rabble that’s doing the scare-mongering, to pack more people into buses and trains. You’re more likely to suffocate under someone’s armpit than to run into a serial killer in that hustle and bustle. You’d have to have awful luck.’

  Evan didn’t have any kind of luck. The pancakes were gone. Gordon didn’t finish his steak. He crossed his fork and knife and, satisfied, stroked his belly. Even the curl was obviously full since it was no longer forcing its way up into the air. It split in two and stretched itself over the baldness.

  ‘Dessert?’ said Gordon.

  ‘After pancakes? What should I have? Meatballs?’

  Gordon laughed.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course not. Ok, then nothing. We done?’

  They emptied their glasses and rose in tandem. The chair legs silently slipped away. They sized each other up. Gordon was taller and narrow-shouldered, but his indolent belly spilt over his belt. Evan would jump out of a skyscraper if he suddenly found himself trapped in a body like that. He didn’t envy him. Maybe it was indifference. It couldn’t be very easy for him, a whole life with such an awful figure.

  They walked off. Evan looked back, force of habit, to see if he’d forgotten something, and saw the waiters, how quickly they cleared the table, like ants picking a bone clean. He thought the long-haired guy was following him, though it might have been just a coincidence.

  The hostess took affectionate leave of them. His imagination lapped her up. He’d like to give it a go, but time was running out and he was low on energy. Lust is risky. Age had rendered him more careful. He liked to be in control, to have complete control, and carnal needs soon shrivel once you consider everything they can generate. Children, venereal disease, offended and whacky women are the least that could happen to you. The worst is sudden boredom and the feeling you have, right after you’ve squirted out blind passion, that you’ve lowered your standards. Anyway, he was allowed to do dirty things with her in his mind.

  Her greedy eyes. Was her skin made
of cream? Was she pretending? Was it all the same to her? Maybe she was lying. Each time, again and again, doubt. How to trust? He’d never really trusted her, he’d had no reason to, not even a need to, and if she latched on to him, fine, and if at some moment, just like that, without thinking, she left, then so be it…but himself? How could he trust himself, if he was always waking up in a different skin?

  They stuck out their hands. Though Gordon’s was limp and moist, Evan grabbed the whole hand and looked him in the eye as they shook. Almost flirtatiously. He smiled at Gordon.

  ‘At seven.’

  ‘At seven.’

  Gordon disappeared into the crowd, but Evan stood still. He had a few hours to kill. Maybe he’d run through the script again, though he already knew it by heart. Every time he leafed through it, it seemed lousier and lousier. If he tried to fix it at this stage, the actors would murder him. They’d all praised it – who was he to think his judgement was worth so much more than theirs?

  Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. When they looked into each other’s eyes, Evan got scared for a moment. The long-haired guy from MUD was smiling, but his face bore a threat. Evan shook off his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That bald poofter is going to rip you off.’

  He withdrew and looked left and right, as if he was expecting help from somewhere.

  ‘Come on, wait, wait a second. He’ll rip you off, I said. I heard him. Forty?!! Shit, give me forty and you can take a bath in mAk.’

  ‘I don’t know what you heard, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  The guy with the long black hair showed his teeth, pressed his chin to his chest and looked up at him past his forehead.

  ‘You have no idea, you say?’

  Evan shrugged his shoulders and forced himself to smile. ‘A misunderstanding.’

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ repeated the long-haired guy, reluctantly. He grabbed hold of the braid that had started dangling along his side and swung it back where it belonged. A mocking grin crept over his face. ‘Good. Good.’

  Evan didn’t know what to say – he stared stupidly at him and tried to keep his face steady. A pigeon flew past his head. The long-haired guy took a white business card out of his pocket and waved it in front of Evan’s nose.

  ‘In case you ever prefer an understanding.’

  Evan received it cautiously, took another step back and looked at it.

  Lefkas Saito – a middleman, a number. On the back a scribbled address. In the bottom right corner a cryptic note, in tiny font – habeas cor?

  By the time he looked up, Lefkas had disappeared. He glanced around. Two dogs were fighting loudly, dragging their owners by the leash. A student was explaining his views on abortion to his girlfriend, dismembered snatches of conversations on the street, justice – ethics – necessity.

  Laughter into mobiles. The hollering of hot-dog vendors. A cloud hid the sun for a second, casting darkness upon the passers-by before the wind blew the darkness apart. Furtive glances among the promenade of sunglasses. The skyscrapers swayed with the footsteps. Evan didn’t know where to go.

  He entered in complete silence, took off his shoes and, from behind the closed door, listened in as she cried on the phone.

  ‘…I know. I know. But, Mum…Mum, listen to me, I know that for a long time we haven’t…Mum…I know…I know…Yes, Mum, list—…Mum, will you listen to me? Now that I’m calling you, would you rather not hear from me for another year?… All right. No, please, listen, just listen.’

  Brazen eavesdropping.

  ‘I lied to him. I don’t know, I don’t know why. What? It doesn’t matter. Just listen. Now I’m all entangled in this bloody lie and I don’t know how to get out of it. What? Please, just listen. I want to get out of it but not that way, not by admitting it and not by getting out of it with an even bigger lie. Can’t you understand? It’s not important, what. No, not that. There’s no other man, Mum, I didn’t. I don’t want… Mum, I don’t want to. It’s hard. Did you ever lie to Dad? No, I don’t want to know. Please, Mum. Please. What should I do?… I don’t want to. No. I can’t. He’ll leave. Nothing. And he’ll be right. Mum, please. Can we meet up? Yes. Ok. Yes. Ok, Mum. Sorry.’

  Tears are a concoction of hormones that balance out emotional turmoil. Imbibing someone’s tears gives you a glimpse of their inner countenance. She sobbed and snorted, then banged a fist on the floor. Evan slipped his shoes back on and crept away. As long as it was his child.

  He put the card in his pocket and set out blindly for anywhere. He soaked up the energy of the city and committed himself to not stopping. He felt sweat on his back. He hoped that the line of sweat wasn’t visible. He avoided reflections in shop windows. He knew what he looked like, for three quarters of his life he’d been looking into mirrors, now he’d stopped with that. They’d had to take away the mirror from the bathroom in his flat. The last thing that you want in the morning is to look into the old, wrinkled face of someone you can’t shoo away. He ran a finger around his mouth and held it up in front of his eyes. Brown. Someone could have told him. He was a chocolate clown. Again he rubbed hard. He ran his tongue over his teeth and rubbed his eyes, then brushed his hand over his hair and patted it down. The wind blew away his effort. Forget it, he said. It’s all the same. Nobody’s looking at you. That was sad, but liberating. We’re all alone and nobody really sees anyone.

  He’d splurge on a massage. So much for commitments. Now he was no longer shy about going in and demanding to be touched. An old woman stood in front of the door, her mouth agape and tongue sliding along her lips. He went past her and entered the long, empty hallway. On the floor was a worn-out carpet that had perhaps been green at some time but was now just a dusty grey. The bare walls had been freshly whitewashed and were punctured by doors.

  He went through the first door and found himself in some sort of temple. The rows of benches were sparsely planted with protruding heads. In the transparent half-darkness one could see over to the altar, a stone table with a single candle flickering on it. He wanted to leave when a fat man in a red cloak stepped in front of the table, jingling a copper bell, and lifted his arms, screaming.

  ‘We are all cockroaches in the kingdom of gnosis!’

  That did it. He didn’t even try not to slam the door as he left. It reverberated down the hallway and the voice of the nuisance disappeared. Evan had been brought up Catholic, at university he’d fancied himself a nihilist, and now he believed in neither nothing nor coincidence. The fact that he existed was just another abhorrent, incomplete, unexecuted idea. He puffed his cheeks and popped them with his hands.

  So much for existence.

  A scabby, cross-eyed man bumped into him –

  ‘Lost your way, didn’t you? Hee, hee, hee. Behind these here doors, they’ll rub you down like you’re some king, some king. A happy ending and, if you’re into it, a happy start too. Hee, hee, hee. I’m dry now, totally dry. Ha!’

  – and ran off into the street. Evan lost his desire for a massage, but didn’t want to be immediately behind him. The man disgusted him. For a happy ending he’d need much more than a woman’s fingers, and for a happy start it was already way too late. Everything was hollow. He looked out. He left.

  The shop windows flickered past like late-night TV shows. Unexciting cubes of despair. Click-step. Next. Dolls, dead dolls, staring into the nothingness. Containers of sand, dust, plates of spices. Mendacious premonitions of laughter, happiness and joy, hidden behind price tags. Silk scarves, drawn out like slimy trails of snails, techno-nails, rivets, pliers…click.

  They’d carved a park among the skyscrapers. A few benches, a pathway, a pair of overly sheared shrubs, nothing special. One bench was free. Evan stretched out on it and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand.

  Troubling dreams. When he awoke, he didn’t know where he was. An old man with a hearing aid and monstrous glasses was standing over him.

  ‘The park’s clo
sing. You’ll have to get up.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nothing but junkies here at night. They mess up everything. And I have to clean up after them.’

  ‘Ok. But do you perhaps have the time?’

  ‘I do. Someone died last time, right there on that bench you’re sleeping on. I had to call and then they interrogated me… I don’t have time to be interrogated. I know nothing. I’ve never known anything.’

  Evan got up and tottered drunkenly towards the street.

  ‘How about a thanks?’

  He looked at him, the old man in the green suit, with the rake in his hands.

  ‘Drop dead.’

  The old man clutched his chest, shook and sat down. The rake fell.

  Evan stopped.

  ‘It’s seven o’clock,’ was the grave reply.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No need for thanks. At least I know something, at least I know the ti…’

  Evan was already on the street flagging a taxi down. He got into the first one that stopped. He had no fears. He’d never had bad luck. He’d never had anything. A woman was driving, which surprised him. She looked old, though he couldn’t say how old. Grey curls curled around the forehead, and at the neck tucked into the collar of a blouse. They greeted each other.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  He had to think. He gave her the address.

  ‘How much?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not far. Three.’

  ‘Aha. I meant how much time will it take. I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘Ten minutes, fifteen if we hit red lights.’

  ‘Good.’

  The people blended into the pavements. His mind went blank. He gawked.

  ‘Where are you from?’ she asked him.

  He looked wearily at her in the rear-view mirror. Her face shone with something like happiness. He didn’t dare to be rude.

  ‘From Europe.’

  ‘That’s far.’

  ‘Yes. And you?’

  ‘From everywhere, from nowhere. You know how it is. You forget everything.’