The Panda Theory (9 page)

He scratched his head furiously again, shaking the dandruff off while clearing his throat with a cooing sound. There was a feverish look in his eye.

‘The apocalypse will come from above. Like at Hiroshima. Since the big boss copped it, anarchy has ruled the clouds. It’s time to go underground, young man, I’m telling you!’

The old man pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on his knees with his forearm. It was some kind of blueprint.

‘Bomb shelter, fallout shelter. Anti-pigeon,
anti-everything
. Ten metres square with four-metre-thick reinforced Swedish reinforced-concrete walls, buried fifty metres below good old Breton soil. I’ve thought of everything. The heating is provided by the toilet waste and the water is triple filtered. The living room is there, with a sofa, TV, radio and bar. All mod cons. Here is where the stockpiles are kept, next to the kitchen: wheat, rice, corn, pasta and tinned food. And the armoury. You never know! And the medicine area: aspirin, antiseptic, dressings. And the best bit, a cellar! Ten metres further down with everything you’d ever need. It could last me sixty years, maybe more! I’ll die there, but at least it’ll be
of natural causes. What do you think? Great, eh?’

‘Magnificent. Where is it?’

The man narrowed his eyes and tapped the side of his head.

‘Top secret, my friend. It’s all up here.’

He rolled up his sleeve and stared at his watchless wrist.

‘Good God, I’d better go. How about ten euros?’

‘Ten euros? For what?’

‘My survival plan. You can have it for ten euros. Five for something to eat and then five for a wash.’

‘Okay then.’

‘You’ve got yourself a good deal there. But no more feeding the pigeons. You promise?’

‘Yes, I promise.’

‘Well, good evening, young man. It’s getting dark; the weather’s turning. You’d better go home. It’s been a pleasure.’

The old man got up. He rolled his shoulders, puffed out his chest and stuck his nose in the air. He opened his waterproof and strode determinedly off, scattering the pigeons as he went.

On another bench, two teenagers sat not kissing. The boy was looking down at his enormous new trainers, size 12 perhaps. The young girl was twisting a strand of hair between her fingers and holding it up to her lips as a moustache. They both looked extremely bored. It suited them. The sky was the colour of frogspawn absorbing joy and sorrow with the same indifference. Gabriel rubbed his hands together. He had washed them ten times that day but still they smelt of the hospital. José had insisted on
sleeping in one of his children’s beds. The three sleeping tablets he had taken would do him until tomorrow, his big boar head resting on a Mickey Mouse pillowcase.

Rita and I waited for you until eight o’clock. Come and join us at my place if you want – Madeleine.

The note had been slipped under the door. Gabriel didn’t know whether or not to go. The ravioli simmered on the camping stove in front of the open window. A church bell struck nine as if testing the density of the air. He hadn’t eaten ravioli out of a tin since he was a child. He used to eat them all the time. He used to love them. Now though, even when they were covered in Parmesan, he found them disgusting, like eating spoonfuls of vomit. Yet, perhaps out of respect for his childhood, he finished them all. Afterwards, he cleaned the pan in the washbasin. The water, reddened by the tomato sauce, slowly swirled down the plughole with a revolting gurgle. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw he had sauce around his mouth. Like blood, it was difficult to get rid of tomato sauce completely. There was always some left behind.
Months after … the accident he kept finding tiny flecks on the sole of a shoe or on a button. He ended up seeing them everywhere, like strewn confetti after a carnival. He closed his eyes for a moment. The darkness enveloped him. Only the searing glow of the strip light on which he was resting his forehead remained. He left the bathroom in a hurry, threw on his jacket and slammed the door behind him. He raced down the stairs and flung himself into the street. On the pavement, he lifted his nose to the sky, took a deep breath and filled his lungs with as much of the
manure-rich
night air as he could. Slowly the scorching of the fluorescent tube faded away, much like a white-hot knife plunged into a tub of cold water. He strode determinedly off like an old steam engine. He reached out his hand and touched everything he passed: the freezing metal pole of a one-way sign, the corners of a tattered poster, a rough brick wall. He had to feel everything around him, dry, wet, hot and cold, to convince himself it was real. He wasn’t sure of anything. He moved faster as if trying to escape from a predator – his shadow perhaps? Or the past, which was swiftly catching up with him? He could feel its icy breath on his neck. Around him the town was falling apart like a boat in a storm. The tar was rising up, the sky falling down. He was a panting wreck by the time he reached Madeleine’s flat.

‘Ah, Gabriel! We were wondering if you were coming. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

‘No, I’m fine. I was running because of the rain.’

‘But it isn’t raining.’

‘Exactly. I wanted to get here before it started raining.’

The door closed behind him, leaving the monster on the other side. Indoors, there was only the comfort of the here and now. Rita was sprawled on the couch wearing a tracksuit and slippers which slopped off her feet, probably borrowed from Madeleine. It hadn’t taken her long to become part of the furniture.

‘Look who it is! We didn’t think you’d come.’

Rita sat up and patted the cushion next to her in invitation. Gabriel sat down and caught his breath. The room was soft, warm and sweet. Madeleine sat opposite the sofa on a pouffe. As she poured Gabriel a glass of cognac, her dressing gown hung forward to reveal the curve of her breast. She must have just come out of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and she smelt of soap, dewy and clean. Gabriel finished his glass in one. Slowly, his whole body began to relax. He should have come sooner. The two women glanced at each other. Rita poured herself a large drink.

‘We thought you might make us a bit of supper.’

‘Haven’t you eaten?’

‘Yes, of course, don’t worry. We had a little tea party. Is everything okay? Do you want another drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

Madeleine put her hand on Gabriel’s knee.

‘Is it José’s wife?’

‘No. Well, yes. Maybe. She’s fallen into another coma. No one’s sure when she’ll wake up. Perhaps never. It could last weeks or months. Even years.’

‘And what about José?’

‘I took him back to his place. He’s asleep now. I gave
him some sleeping tablets. We’ll see how he is tomorrow.’

Rita stood up, emptied her glass and put on a CD. It was a tango dance track, the kind radio stations usually played. She sat back down, practically in Gabriel’s lap.

‘I could never stand “Sleeping Beauty” stories.’

‘Rita!’

‘What? It’s true. Even when I was little I never liked stupid fairy tales. They were either so scary I couldn’t understand how adults could read them to kids or they were unbelievably soppy and annoying. It’s no surprise that the world is as daft as it is if we’re telling stories like that to our kids.’

‘I loved “The Little Mermaid”.’

‘Jesus, that’s another one. A bimbo who goes to the trouble of getting legs that hurt like hell for a guy who ends up dumping her for somebody else. That’s morally okay, is it? You’ve got to be twisted to write something like that. And, anyway, it’s always the women who pay the price in the end in those stories. “The Little Match Girl”? Dies of cold. “Little Thumbling”? Who ends up being eaten? The ogre’s daughters, of course. Aren’t I right, Gabriel? You know everything.’

‘I saw the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.’

‘And what was she like?’

‘Small.’

‘Of course she was! They didn’t haggle over the size of the statues for Stalin, de Gaulle or Émile Zola, did they? But for the Little Mermaid! Women are on the bottom rung of society; we’re like a school of sardines surrounded by sharks.’

Madeleine smiled. The sea was at low tide. She looked like she didn’t care about the status of women. She was daydreaming, floating in the sea somewhere off the coast of Guadeloupe.

‘You should never leave the water,’ Madeleine said. ‘Men or women. Everything is weightless in the water. We glide and brush up against each other, bob up and down. There’s no noise. Everything is quiet, the mind clear.’

She must have been a bit drunk. She stood up and spun round on her toes, her eyes closed, her body in thrall to the music, her dressing gown flaring out.

‘There was nothing before, there’ll be nothing after and we don’t give a damn about what goes on in between. Why? Why?’

Rita reached over to the lamp beside the couch and turned it off, plunging the room into darkness. The only light came from the streetlamp. The room resembled a fish tank. Rita sidled up to Gabriel.

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she is. Very.’

‘Do you fancy her?’

He had bought a fish tank for Juliette on her fourth birthday, but she hadn’t wanted to put fish in it. She just liked the plastic algae and the little toy diver that knelt in front of the treasure chest, with air bubbles escaping to the top like live pearls. She would fall asleep in front of it, sucking her thumb. Her bedroom was never dark. She was so very afraid of the dark.

‘Do you want me to suck you off?’

‘No, thank you, Rita. It’s kind, but no.’

‘With Madeleine then?’

‘Not her either. You’re both very charming, but no. Let’s leave it at that.’

‘Well, at least look at us then. That’s the least you can do.’

‘Okay.’

‘It’s not that Marco doesn’t like women, it’s just that he was one once, so he has a chip on his shoulder.’

‘
What?’

‘I’ll tell you the story. He must have been seventeen or eighteen. He was with three mates in a car going off to a party in some godforsaken corner of Auvergne. All the guys had to dress up as girls, and the girls as guys. Some stupid teenage game, you know. So they go off in their old banger, completely stoned, dressed up to the nines in wigs, miniskirts, high heels, bras and suspenders – the perfect male fantasy. They were having the time of their lives, taking coke and passing around joints. Everything was going great until about nine o’clock, when the car broke down in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black. There was a little village a couple of miles away and so Marco and one of his friends decided to go and call for help or get a tow. The thing was, they’d forgotten to take a change of clothes, normal clothes, with them. But they had no choice so off they went, hobbling along in their heels, completely off their heads. They arrived at the village only to find that everything was closed – apart from a transport café.
Well, what do you think happened? Two drag queens in a room full of tanked-up knuckleheads, with tattoos like toilet-door graffiti. It was no party, I can tell you. He never really got over it. Something like that must have happened to Gabriel. Everyone’s got baggage. Mine is so full I can’t even close it.’

‘You’re still thinking about him, after everything he’s done?’

‘Of course! When you sleep with one man for so long, even if he’s the scum of the earth, at some point you will have seen him hanging on to your breast as if it were a life belt, looking so small, fragile and vulnerable. I know it’s stupid, but it’s things like that that make you forgive and forget everything. Has that never happened to you?’

‘No. I’ve had the odd fling, but nothing serious. I haven’t found The One yet, that’s for sure.’

‘I’m not talking about finding your one true love. Just love, full stop, the kind that everyone enjoys.’

‘No, I don’t think I’ve ever found that either.’

The two women thought he was asleep, curled up on the couch. Madeleine had covered him with a blanket. He had pretended to drift off when they started dancing together and feeling each other up. It was awkward, touching and a little sad. And now they were whispering, one sitting on the pouffe stroking the hair of the other, whose head rested in her lap. A woman’s soul is like the Lascaux caves, only older and deeper, so deep that you need a torch, wandering endlessly, leaving handprints, hugging the walls to find your way. Once you enter, there’s no way out. You give yourself entirely, getting under her skin to
the point that two become one. Madeleine’s blanket smelt of her perfume. He would love to drift away down the river, to not exist any more.

‘Gabriel? Are you awake? Are you crying?’

A soft hand touched his shoulder, a soft hand heavy with life.

‘I was dreaming. What time is it?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘No, that’s just what you say when you wake up, isn’t it? Is it morning?’

‘Not yet. Do you want a coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’

The lovely Madeleine. Her face was as blank as an unwritten letter. Rita was skimming through a book, the sound of the pages passing through her fingers like the fluttering wings of a bird. She stopped at a page and began to read out loud in a voice that wasn’t hers: ‘“I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?”’ Rita closed the book and turned towards the window. Maybe it was the new morning’s light on her cheeks, but it looked as though she were crying.

‘Isn’t it funny – books can really speak to you sometimes. Gabriel, will you help me find Marco?’

You can follow footprints in snow and sand but not in town. The pavements are etched with footsteps, the tarmac is blistered, swollen, dented by them. They come, they go, they leave, they return, walk about, slow down, drag. And then, when their number’s up, after a moment’s hesitation, they disappear for ever, somewhere, up there.