Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Naja Marie Aidt

  Patricia clutches his arm and picks up the pace. The sun’s so clear and strong that it stings their eyes. In the light, her dark hair has a reddish sheen. She squeezes his arm. “Can you and Maloney hire Alice for the store? She needs to get out of that apartment. You think she could clean, or something?”

  “I don’t know, we’ve already got Eva, you know. I can’t just fire her. And every position is filled. Peter’s apprenticing. We won’t be rid of him for another two years.”

  “I just think we ought to help her, Thomas. She’s smart enough, don’t you think? And after all, she’s your only niece. And mine. She’s the only child in the family.”

  “She’s not a child.”

  “Yes, she is. An overgrown child.”

  “Didn’t you mention a job at the museum?”

  “I’ll look into it tomorrow. I just thought it would be good for her to spend time with you, that you could maybe train her.”

  He scrutinizes her.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Do you really think it’d be good for her to spend time with me? Don’t you think it’d be better for her to get away from all this shit as fast as she can, especially her mother and her family? She’s young. She could get the fuck out of here.”

  “Get away? How? With what? They’re living off nothing. Now they have this Ernesto eating their food, too, it looks like.”

  “And some food it is.”

  “Yeah, that soup was something else.”

  “It was inedible.”

  “But back to Alice—she’ll have to save up some money before she can start her own life. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  They’ve reached the platform and can see the approach road as well as scattered fields planted with evergreens. In other places the evergreens are interspersed with wild, young deciduous trees and thickets. A yard with tall stacks of brown cardboard surrounds a shed and the squat gray building of a recycling center. To the right of that, a discount supermarket. They can just make out the river that snakes around Jenny’s part of the city. As if the river’s avoiding this tainted area, where the schools are terrible and the child mortality rate, poor nutrition, learning difficulties, criminality, and drug abuse are well above the median. Jenny has lived out here since Alice was born. Back then there was hope; there were new constructions—parks, playgrounds, schools with façades painted in bright colors. There was a community center, a library, a sports arena. Here, it was believed, the children would play in the fresh air and the adults would help each other build a real community. Everyone would thrive. In less than twenty years the whole project has hit the skids. Now there’s neither money nor the will to do anything about it. All the idealistic students who’d begun their lives out here have long since departed, handing the area to those forced to remain.

  “Isn’t that right, Thomas? She needs to save money.”

  He nods distractedly.

  “Could you at least talk to Maloney? He knows Jenny too. Would you do that?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll try.”

  “Should we to go to the movies?”

  The train rolls in. Before he does anything else, Thomas wants to go home with his packets. But of course he can’t say that.

  That’s how he ends up seeing a two and a half hour-long film, as the packets dig deeper and deeper into the skin of his belly. He doesn’t dare shift them. He tries to fall asleep. Patricia squeezes his now clammy hand and eats popcorn with the other. The film has prolonged stretches without dialogue. It’s set in an attractive but crumbling city. Patricia whispers: “Look at that. See how beautifully it’s filmed.” Every sex scene turns Thomas on, and that doesn’t help ease his discomfort. He slurps soda, which gradually grows lukewarm and flat, and then he dozes off, but Patricia yanks on his arm. “You’re snoring!” He wants to straighten himself up in his seat, but he can’t because of the packets. When the film’s over, she insists that they eat a proper dinner after eating that awful soup, and she pulls him through the streets and down alleys and even deeper into the oldest quarter in the city down more alleys, until they stand outside the narrow, black-lacquered door of a little restaurant. There she orders kebab and several salads and a bottle of red wine that has a thick and revolting taste of raisins and barrels of oak. Still, they swig it down rather quickly, and when it’s empty, Patricia takes his face in her hands and pulls him across the table, planting a wet kiss on his mouth. “I love you,” she says hoarsely, smiling in the glow of the candlelight. “Last night was amazing. You’re so wonderful, honey.”

  He leans back in his chair. “I thought you said I was strange?”

  “You are strange. And wonderful.”

  “So are you. Are you ovulating?” He can’t help himself.

  “If I’m ovulating then that’s my business.” Patricia glares at him, cool, disappointed. “And if you want to know when I’m ovulating, then you’ll have to pay attention to my cycle yourself. And if you don’t want to get me pregnant when I’m ovulating, then you’ll have to take care of that yourself. I love you even when I’m ovulating, Thomas. But seriously, why must you ruin my happiness at being here with you? Why do you feel this need to do that?” As she talks, she shakes her head slightly.

  “You know very well it has nothing to do with you, hon. I just don’t want kids. We’ve discussed this a thousand times. I don’t want kids, Patricia. I really don’t.”

  “And I just don’t get that.” She stands. “You’re mean, Thomas.” She turns and disappears behind a red curtain. Probably the bathroom. For a moment, he’s afraid she’ll leave. Mean, yes. That’s exactly how he feels. In the full sense of the word’s two meanings. He hopes she’ll return soon so he can go to the bathroom, because he needs to shift the packets. It feels as though they’ve gnawed an open wound into his skin.

  When Patricia returns, a hurt expression on her face, Thomas stands and goes behind the curtain. The bathroom’s impossibly small, and he can barely squeeze in. Once he’s able to close the door he can hardly turn around. The stench of urine hangs in the air, the light is low and intimate, the walls adorned with dark purple, velvet wallpaper. There’s a cracked mirror over the microscopic sink. He fumbles with his zipper and nearly drops one of the packets onto the floor. In the muted light it’s impossible to see whether or not they’ve damaged his skin, but it feels that way. He has this irrepressible urge to open the packets, but it would take too long to get them sealed up again, so he settles on examining one with his hand (it has to be bundles of money) and shoves them into the waistband of his pants, next to his groin. His heart races, a sweet chill ripples up his back and his neck. Shivering, he washes his hands under a thin jet of cold water and goes back to the table, but Patricia’s gone. The waiter bustles worriedly about: “Your wife left. Here’s the check, sir. I hope you enjoyed your meal.” Thomas pays the tab and just manages to see Patricia turn the corner. He reaches her only when they’ve come to more heavily trafficked streets (the packets prevent him from running), and it’s obvious that she’s been crying. She curses at him, cries again, she’s unhappy, she doesn’t understand him. She plants a seed of guilt, he feels guilty, he feels angry, he feels restless. They take the bus home. Patricia sniffles a lot, and a nearly-orange moon rises in the dark sky like a faint half circle. He consoles her and apologizes, but Patricia turns away and jerks her hand back. “I think I’ll die if I have a kid,” he says. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she mumbles thickly. “I really think you need help, Thomas.” At home she goes to bed immediately, and he knows he ought to sit at the edge of the bed, talking to her gently and calmly, reassure her that he loves her. But he can’t do it. Instead he locks himself in the bathroom and, when he’s finally removed both the tinfoil and the plastic film, quickly forgets about Patricia. He sits with ten bundles of bills in his hands. New crisp bills. Big bills. Five bundles in each packet. He counts them. His hands tremble. The money must have come from their father’s final, measly coup. Though he doesn’t know the
details, he guesses that someone double-crossed him and got him busted. Soon it becomes clear that the coup hadn’t been so measly after all. He counts the money again. It’s an enormous sum. His head spins. Jacques must’ve been involved in something huge. Something truly dirty. Carefully he sets the bills on the bathmat, parks himself heavily on the edge of the tub, and lights a cigarette. Goddamn. What do I do? I’ll take the money to the police, nice and easy, on the way to the store tomorrow. He stares at the laundry basket. No, I’ll hide the money. No, I won’t hide the money. I’ll give the money to Jenny. No, that’s too dangerous, and she wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’ll hide the money anyway. Now his eyes wander across the black mosaic floor tiles. No, I won’t, I’ll take the money to the police. I’ll give it to charity. No. For God’s sake, how dumb can a person be. I’ll ask Maloney to hide the money. Someone will come looking for it, don’t be naïve. But not at Maloney’s—no one would look for it there. He closes his eyes. In no way can he involve Maloney in this—Maloney can’t keep his mouth shut. I definitely won’t say anything to Jenny.

  Or Patricia, either. I’ll put the money in a safe deposit box at the bank. Like I’m in some fucking movie. Idiot. I have to think about it. I’ll decide in the morning, I’ll sleep on it. The old fool, hiding money in the toaster. He probably felt like a gangster, smart and resourceful. The idiot. It was almost as though Jenny had intuited the money was in there, but she couldn’t have known that. Thomas flushes his cigarette butt down the toilet and slides the window open a tad. He pulls a bill from one of the bundles and holds it up to the lamp. It’s legit all right. Watermark and all that jazz. He packs the money back up and tiptoes down the dark hallway. He pours himself a tall glass of whiskey in the living room and gulps it down, grimacing. It occurs to him that there’s an old microwave in their storage unit in the basement. He smiles. He thinks: I’m smiling like crazy because I am crazy. We might as well stick to kitchen appliances, he thinks, if that’s the way the old man wanted it. I’ll put them down in the microwave then. He draws his keys out of his pants pocket, carefully closes the door behind him, and takes the elevator down. The basement is dark as a cave. He fumbles for the light switch and suddenly he can’t remember where their storage unit is. Every unit is numbered, one after the other in a system of hallways running lengthwise and crosswise. But which number is theirs? Is there some sort of system? There are iron doors with bars for each of the small compartments. Through these bars he can see moving boxes and worn-out furniture. It’s not here. Or here. He begins to sweat. The heat from the boiler room is unbearable. The smell of dust clings to his nostrils. The light clicks off. He turns the corner onto a new, long hallway. And another. This one’s like a passageway, narrower than the others. His footfalls ring metallically on the hard floor. At last he catches sight of an orange plastic chair that he’d used in his kitchen before he moved in with Patricia. And there are the boxes filled with summer clothes. And the microwave, way in the back. He can feel his heart hammering. In with the bundles, close the oven, slam the door shut. A thought rumbles through him: Is this secure enough? He’s about to open the door again—because of course the money should be taken to the police, what is he thinking? what kind of person is he? But now he wants to get out of the basement. Now he’s panicking. What if he can’t find his way out again? The bundles will have to stay there until morning, in any case, and nothing will happen to them between now and then. Desperate and downright afraid, he bumbles around the basement searching for the exit. He keeps finding new hallways, new light switches that click off, new fucking signs on doors with new combinations of numbers. He wants to be calm and composed, but he’s not calm and he’s not composed. At last he finds a door and enters an unfamiliar stairwell. Out on the street he lights a smoke. His torso is wet with sweat, and his throat is constricted; it’s as if there’s an iron hand wrapped around his chest, squeezing him, as if someone shielded behind iron is screaming in his face. In the silence of the street at night, he can see that he’s wandered off, down in the basement, in the completely opposite direction of his own door. He’s four doors from his own. It almost makes him smile—it’s so laughable, this. His watch shows quarter after 1:00 A.M. The wind has settled. How long did he stumble around in the darkness like a scaredy-cat? Slowly his breathing returns to normal, his pulse calm. A scooter motors noisily past with two youths on it, the girl tightly clutching the young man; each wears a black helmet. He catches a glimpse of the girl’s long legs in skinny jeans. Her blonde hair spilling down her back. The moon vanishes behind a dark cloud. His shadow towers long and ghostlike on the street. When a humpbacked old man with a squeaky, nasal voice calls to his dog on the other side of the street, Thomas jumps, frightened. “Come, Bingo, you old scoundrel. Come to Papa.” Later in the night, rain begins to fall, heavy and monotonous. A powerful sense of unreality trails him into his dreams when he finally falls asleep close to morning, just as the first sliver of daylight wedges through the blinds. He dreams of the basement, and once again: the little girl on the carousel, her facial expression now distorted; grasshoppers everywhere; the sensation of suffocation; stagnant warm air.

  The following morning the wind has picked up again. Patricia goes to yoga at 10:00 A.M. She doesn’t seem angry with him, but she’s quiet. Thomas wanders anxiously through the apartment the entire morning. He can’t think about anything else but the money in the microwave. At 11:30 he’s so jumpy that he decides to go for a jog, to rid himself of his unease. Against a strong wind, he pants around the park four times. More than once he has to stop for a drink from the water fountain. The sun breaks through the layer of clouds. When he returns, Patricia’s listening to music. It sounds like Schubert. She’s scrubbing the kitchen sink.

  “Tina and Jules are coming to dinner at 7:00. They’re bringing Stella.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “No particular occasion.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything about this.”

  “Tina called just now and I invited them over. Is that okay?”

  He pulls a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge.

  “Are you angry about it? Why are you angry? They’ll put Stella to bed and probably go home early. It’s been so long since we’ve seen them.”

  He pours water into a glass and chugs it.

  “Thomas?” She dries her hands and puts them on his shoulders from behind. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m tired and confused and don’t have any particular interest in sitting around talking about literature and recipes while a two-year old races around makes a mess of everything,” he says somberly. “My father just died.”

  She sighs. She sits on the edge of a chair. A short time passes before she says anything more. He thinks: She’s making an effort.

  “I’m really sorry. I didn’t think his death affected you all that much. I thought you were mostly relieved. But—”

  “I am relieved!” Thomas has an uncontrollable urge to be left in peace. Schubert’s piano sonata worms into his brain in an unbearable way. She sets the scouring pad aside and removes her rubber gloves.

  They sit opposite one another at the small, black-stained table; the water faucet drips, and large gray cloud formations flit swiftly across the sky. The sun disappears behind the clouds and the light in the kitchen changes, like a curtain closing on a stage.

  “Do you want me to cancel?”

  He shakes his head.

  “We can invite Maloney to join us, if you want. And Jenny?”

  “Hell no!”

  Her eyes darken, and she looks down.

  “I’m just not myself, Patricia. I can’t explain it. Weird things are happening.”

  She props her elbows on the table and looks directly into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” He fiddles with a box of matches, scratches at the sulfur. “But I’ll survive this dinner.” He attempts a smile. Takes a deep breath. The nape of his neck tingles unpleasantly. He thinks agai
n of the money.

  “Okay. I’ll do the shopping and make dinner. I thought we could broil a turbot in the oven. With melon and raspberries for dessert.”

  He nods.

  “Do you want to take a shower first?” He shakes his head. She squeezes his hand and leans across the table to put her free hand on his cheek. “You’re warm. You don’t have a fever, do you?”

  He doesn’t have a fever. Still seated, he stares out the window listening to her clattering in the bathroom, blow-drying her hair, opening closets and cupboards in the bedroom. He sighs, thinking: “You should be drinking champagne and dancing on tables, you’re free, a free man. You’ve just inherited a considerable amount of money.” But he has no desire to dance. He stands up and turns off the music in the living room, crawls onto the couch, and pulls a blanket all the way up to his chin, still miffed about having dinner guests and Schubert, and he’s amazed at how his body instantly grows heavy as lead, how his breathing almost at once becomes slow and calm, how his lower lip relaxes, slips down, how a little drool trickles from his mouth and splotches the pillow, how the wet stain grows cold against his cheek. He wonders how his body can go from being agitated to being calm so quickly. Off in the distance he hears a train. A truck slowly and loudly—a kind of snort—rumbles down the street, and the whole time the wind, the wind: howling and whistling like a huge, unthinking creature racing through the world without knowing what it’s supposed to do.