Yok (15 page)

“But I would think that . . . ?

“I see.

“Well, you've thought of everything, Leopold.”

W
e got off the bus outside the square entry to the TV building, and I felt experienced as I could show Leopold the way directly through the lobby over to the dark corridor, which led to the TV studio and the tryouts. I walked a few steps behind and whispered where he should go, and I knew him so well that I noticed how nervous he was, but I didn't say that.

“What?

“No, I didn't go in with him. I stayed here until . . . 

“Sure.

“Over there.

“Okay. I'll wait.”

Leopold entered the corridor, and I went and sat down on the bench I'd seen when I was here with Rasmus last week, the one all by itself next to the high glass walls toward the inner courtyard, the glass walls that admitted daylight into the middle of the wide, square building. The garden made me happy, perhaps because it was so well arranged, or else because it was so green and full of life, with the massive willow tree in the middle and the dense, low hedges right next to the windows, blue and purple flowers along straight, square gravel paths and lovely grapevines that fell down across the glass wall opposite. The only thing that was strange about the shady courtyard (which everyone who worked in the TV building could look down on, if your office faced the courtyard on any of the floors), was that I never saw doors; the gravel pathways and flowers were there to be observed, but not visited.

I sat down to wait, and I can't explain how special it is to experience time as I did right then, how amazing it is to wait, without demands or expectation, without fear or worry, just sitting and staring out over the flowers and the tree in the middle and not thinking about anything at all. I don't know how long Sparrow Dahl had been sitting beside me when I noticed her, but there was no doubt that she was staring at me, and I was startled because I felt found out, revealed in my total idleness. She was a cute stuffed animal with a light green plastic beak on which a pair of thick, round eyeglasses rested. She wore a green knit jumper with a tangled yarn that made you want to hug her, and a pair of ordinary jeans that my brothers would not have liked because they were hard worn; nothing in her exterior suggested that this was a bird with influence, a stuffed animal with whom many in the TV building were friends.

It's still hard to believe that what happened then really happened, but I can prove it wasn't my imagination.

“Excuse me?

“No, no . . . I'm just here with my brother.

“I see.

“Uh-huh.

“That sounds . . . exciting.”

She fell silent and looked at me, studied me up and down, it felt unpleasant because I don't remember if anyone had looked at me that way before. I became aware of how I looked, with the long tail, my short back legs where a pair of gray shorts served as long pants, my narrow, long upper body that I've always had a hard time holding straight, I can't help that it sways to the right and left most of the time, to the short arms: thank goodness I'd put on a white shirt that was both clean and not torn.

“Excuse me?

“No, a gecko.

“Yes . . . sure . . . I don't know. I mean, I've never been anything else.

“You say?

“Yes, maybe it is? I don't know. Not particularly, I think.”

Then she asked me to tell a little about myself, and she did it in such an encouraging way that I didn't get upset at all, which I usually do if someone wants me to get personal because I think my life has nothing to do with anyone other than myself, so instead of getting up and leaving I stayed and looked out over the purple and blue flowers and said something about myself that was neither true nor false, an art I've mastered.

“
What?

“Me?

“Now?

“Yes, of course I can try . . .”

Rasmus and Leopold had practiced my news items for many years, they had learned every pause and nuance, sat in front of mirrors that they pretended were cameras and carefully studied their own facial expressions as they furrowed their handsome brows deeply to emphasize the seriousness behind the invented news items, and even if I was often forced to listen to these rehearsals, and even though I'd written the pieces myself, I quickly decided not to try to recall those clever, precocious formulations, but improvise instead, inspired by the beautiful garden that was unreachable a few feet in front of the bench, and now afterward I don't know exactly what I said, but it must have been something along these lines:

“Tonight a fire broke out in south Pertiny, probably caused by a spark from an idea that Laskoo Cow had long harbored, and the destruction may have far-reaching consequences for city planning in the area, because Cow is the nephew of Professor Ghandi, the long-time chairman of the Ministry of Finance's committee for alternative energy, and thereby an influential animal, even where park administration in the district is concerned. In brief tonight, Cow's idea burned down the abandoned valve factory that for years has stood deserted in the corner of Carrer de Carrera and Los Estiz, so that a flower meadow could be created there. We hope to return later in the afternoon with pictures of this meadow.”

I fell silent, astonished, because I never would have believed that I could, well, think of so much, the words just came out, I didn't stop to think, just let them tumble out of my mouth, and perhaps it was a little strange, the part about an idea that starts burning, but the kind sparrow seemed to think I'd done something good, because she looked flabbergasted, in a positive way, and what she said took me completely by surprise.

I thought I'd heard wrong, but when I was about to ask if it was really true Leopold came out of the dark corridor, and I stood up, almost at attention, I was so excited, and—still without answering the sparrow—started going to meet my brother, because he expected me to escort him out to the bus. The sparrow called after me, repeating what she had already said, that she would hold a place for me at the tryouts on Monday, that she believed I had a good chance to be included on
New Mornings
, the program my brothers fought over to win with a longing greater than life itself . . .

“What? No, it must have been to someone else.”

T
his excuse of a life that I live, this masochism that I expose myself to daily, cuts into my soul, it may seem I accept it without thinking, as if I enjoy being bullied and held down, but inside I'm burning up, as if someone were vomiting into my open mouth, and I swallow and want more and more, and it's inconceivable, of course, that every day I choose to continue and act as though I have no choice. Life is mysterious, and not a second goes by that I don't despise myself for this self-imposed punishment that no one sees and no one promotes; however hard I work, however complete my humiliation is, I still can't free myself from the tormenting awareness of my own spinelessness. I'm not just a wretch, I'm worse than that, I betray myself, and when you've betrayed yourself you can never, ever regain any dignity, and you can never look another stuffed animal in the eyes.

L
ife doesn't always turn out like you expect, and I'm not the type who likes surprises. I resist when I notice that things are about to change, and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of wanting security; I don't think I'm different from most, we are all creatures of habit even if some want to present themselves as more adventurous, we're used to dreaming about something other than what we are and used to not daring to live that dream.

On the bus to work the next morning the encounter in the TV building with the sweet Sparrow Dahl was already removed to the stockpile of memories I save in the hindmost parts of my brain, where dreams and hopes remain. In part because the encounter had been so unreal: the garden in the courtyard, the sparrow's proposal and my own behavior, but also because I didn't want to admit what had actually happened and the proposal she shouted after me. I could imagine that my brothers would one day be sitting on TV reading the news, that was how it should be, but that I . . . no, I couldn't even formulate the thought, it was so absurd, and the question of whether I would or would not go to the sparrow's program-host test was not only hypothetical, it was worded wrong: I had nothing to do at that kind of test.

Together with hundreds of anonymous workers, I walked across the open fields of the industrial area on my way to the brewery, and the sky was dark as it usually was and the first raindrops struck against the barred windows as I stood in the dressing room and pulled on my work overalls in ten minutes, then I set my lunchbox in the locker and shut the metal door with a bang and quickly twisted the padlock so that none of the rats saw what I was doing or figured out the combination. And with steps that were neither especially heavy nor especially light I went out into the factory where the odors and sounds of the brewery surrounded me and protected me from the world outside. I passed the first of four cisterns and went down the steps between the foreman's office and the spice room, and all during that time I did not think about anything at all. Last year's austerity package meant that all the lightbulbs in the lower level were exchanged for a lower wattage, and the light down there was barely more than a night-light nowadays, which the union complained about, of course, to no avail. And I went over the trampled dirt floor (that rested in dark shadows) over to my oven, the fourth counting from the stairway, and when I got there no one turned around, no one welcomed me or took particular notice, and I took my place in the team and spent the day feeding the oven with chips at a pace that was as stingy as possible, but without risking that the heat went down.

T
he quarrel that started later that morning was nothing unusual, it was a couple of rats who started squabbling, most likely it was over money (the rats at the ovens made bets and wagered on everything they saw, so it was usually about gambling debts), and I kept at a distance as normal. There were hard words, swearwords being thrown in different directions, there seemed to be three of them who were mad at one another this time, and soon they started scuffling with their small, hard claws. It wasn't long before the fistfight was in full swing. The foremen most often let the rats be, as there was no point in intervening, the internal pecking order was impossible for an outsider to figure out, and we workers who had nothing to do with the matter were forced to concentrate on the ovens because now a number of animals (the ones who were fighting and the ones who were watching) were neglecting to shovel chips into the openings.

What happened next happened frighteningly fast, but when I think about it, it feels like it went on for an eternity, I had only seen it at close range once before and it must have been ten years ago; I'd forgotten how repulsive it was.

The rats fought, and without thinking about it they rolled over to the ovens where I was standing. The circle of observers moved with the fighters, and the audience was so absorbed by the struggle (they yelled and hooted for their favorites) that they didn't realize how close they were to danger. And the spark that flew away—we were working in protective clothing, the overalls were specially treated, on all the pillars in the cellar there were foam extinguishers, and there was an automatic sprinkler system along the low ceiling, no one underestimated the risks of fire or neglected trying to foresee them—landed on the shoulder of one of the rats watching the fight.

I was the one standing closest, I saw the spark fly out of the oven and I heard the terrified rat's desperate scream. Loud and anxiety-ridden, it cut through the noise from the fight. I took a few steps toward him out of pure reflex, and then I backed up again in terror: He was in flames before I even realized what was happening. I ran over to the nearest fire extinguisher, no more than five or six steps from where I stood, but by the time I'd grabbed it down from the wall and pulled out the safety pin the rat was already past saving. I sprayed foam over him—over what remained of him—but I knew that it was no use, and I didn't even notice that the fight had stopped and that everyone stood looking at me and the pile of cotton and fabric that was still burning on the floor in front of me, only now with smaller flames.

Together we all stood awhile and stared, then I dropped the extinguisher on the dirt floor, turned around, and went quickly through the dark underworld over to the stairway and then up into the brewery to the dressing room, where I sat down on the bench in front of my locker and just stared vacantly into the air in front of me. I don't know how many fire drills we've had since I started at the brewery, I don't know how many warnings I've gotten from older workers, and I can't count all the times sparks landed on the ground next to my fireproof boots; small, dangerous, yellow flames that died in a few seconds and left a final puff of smoke behind them, a last breath, visible as a gray veil against the black dirt, and every time it had been possible to be wiped out within the course of a few seconds.

At last I got up, without anyone having come up after me from the cellar (I'm sure they were occupied with compensating for the reduced heat in the ovens during the fight), tore off my overalls, changed, and left the factory. I had to see the sky, had to breathe fresh air, had to be alone with my thoughts, and I let them run free in any direction they wanted; they surprised me by not being occupied with fear of death or existential questions. On the contrary I knew there and then, and with an astonishing certainty, that I would do as the sparrow asked me, I would return to the TV building on Monday, but this time for my own sake. I would go through the tryout and be tested for
New Mornings
. It was obvious. Why had I been so hesitant?

I
think about her often, but not as often as I thought about her before, she's starting to fade in my memory, the outlines are fuzzy, it's unforgivable, I don't recall her voice any longer even if I recall her screams the night that formed me into who I am—this loathsome little stuffed animal who's me and who is never even going to find a punishment harsh enough to atone for my crime. I was six years old that autumn, I'd started school, I had a mom and a dad to come home to in the afternoons, and even if she had often had too much wine, even if she often smelled bad (I thought it was the smell that made her ridiculous, pushy, and hard to understand), she was there and she was my mom. She smoked too much and I know we were in the living room together that evening, I don't know where Dad was, I don't know where Leopold was, I don't know where Rasmus was, it was her and me and she was going to light a cigarette with a match and her paw was shaking like it always did when she'd been drinking, and I imagine that I can see it before me, the shaking paw with the lit match, but that's probably something I've thought up afterward. How she raises the match to the cigarette she's holding between her lips, but how the flame flutters and lights her whiskers, and it's then that she starts to scream. Get water, get water, put out the fire, put out the fire, I've never heard her sound that way before. I'm only six years old and don't understand that it's distilled terror I'm hearing, fear of death. Frightened, I leap off the couch and run out to the kitchen and search in the cupboards for something to put water in. At last I find a large saucepan, I put it in the sink and turn the tap, and while the water runs into the saucepan I hear the screams from the living room, ghastly screams, I start screaming myself, I don't know why but it's my instinct to drown out Mom, and at last the saucepan is almost full. I lift it up, almost drop it because it's far too heavy, and drag it out to the living room, where the screams have fallen silent, and when I see her on the couch there's nothing left of her. I drop the water on the floor and then Leopold comes running, I don't know where he's coming from, but he sees that the couch is about to ignite, and he throws a blanket over the fire and suffocates it and screams at me to get more water, and this time I don't fill the saucepan as much as before . . . if I'd realized that the first time . . . if I'd known about the blanket . . . if it had been someone other than me sitting across from her that evening . . . I killed her by sitting by . . . I let her die, and I have to live with that.