Please

by Peter Wild

  St. Matthew’s Crimson Razor Edge (Novacula acies coccineus Matteum). Missing from 838 Glen Pond Drive. Please return. No charges will be pressed.

  The air is cold, still. Robert is at last inside now, warm, asleep, but Julia is outside in the night, the light of the stars and the moon reaching down like so many icicles. She does not know why she woke at 3 a.m., why she put on her robe and her slippers and came out here only to think how cold it is, how the cold always lasts so much longer than she expects, how she should be inside. She stands and she does not move and she wraps her arms around herself and she looks up and she looks around and she shivers. There is a scraping sound coming from beyond the privet hedge, she realises, coming from the orientalist Koi pond, the sound of something large tunnelling into frozen winter soil.

  Julia moves quietly through her garden, knowing just where to tread to make no sound, even wearing her clumsy comfy slippers. She slips through the trimmed-away archway and behind an evergreen. The sound is coming from somewhere near the new bushes and she makes her way from tree to tree, quietly, until finally she is behind one that affords a clear view. When she peeks out, she sees Jorge crouched down in the dirt, a trowel in hand, digging at the base of the Pua Keni Keni. She slips from tree to tree again, as if this were something she did all the time, creeping around at night in the wild. She takes to it in such a way that when Jorge notices her at last, she is standing almost on top of him, looking down at him, in silence.

  He looks up at her, looks down at the earth, up at her again. He puts the trowel down on the ground and shrugs, pursing his lips. Then he sits cross-legged on the frozen ground and waits for her to yell, to cry out, to run. But Julia just looks at him, at the moon falling in a band across his black hair, at the blackness that is his dark eyes at night, at his wide nose with its sharp ridge, almost like a beak, at his sweatshirt and jeans and work boots.

  Then, without a word, she crouches down before him and begins to scratch at the soil with her bare hands, slowly at first, then more quickly, then frantically, pulling clumps of frozen soil from the ground, throwing them behind her, hearing some land with a plosh in the pond, hearing some hiss through the pine needles of the evergreens, she is digging, scooping, tearing up the earth. Jorge merely watches at first, stunned, then reaches quietly for his trowel and digs himself, carefully avoiding Julia’s hands as they fly at the soil, her hair in her face, kneeling in her silk pyjamas. Soon the work is done and they both cease, although Julia does not look up. If Jorge had to say, he would guess she was looking at the roots now exposed before them in the ground, lying over the earth like a net. But it is difficult for him to decide exactly what she is looking at, her hair hides so much of her face. He bends and pulls gently at the base of the bush. It lifts free from the ground and he shakes out some earth as he watches Julia, again unsure whether she will do something more. He opens his mouth, closes it again, takes a step back, opens it once more, then turns and burrows away into the loam of the night.

  And in the morning, when she wakes, Robert beside her, when she comes down from her room, when she takes her cappuccino from Martina, Martina gasps, drops the mug. It shatters on the slate and the foam and the coffee leap out with more violence than seems possible to either of them.

  ‘My God,’ says Martina, holding Julia’s wrists. ‘My God,’ she says, looking into Julia’s eyes. ‘Please, signora–please,’ she says. ‘Tell me–what have you done to your hands?’

  Shoplifters of the World Unite

  James Flint

  There was something I always really liked about the mixture of resignation and optimism in this song. It seemed right for a story about a kid hunting down a thieving animal in order to secure himself a small portion of love. There’s a sort of economy of theft at work in both.

  Them aardvarks are tricky critters. Old fellas, we always call ’em, cuz they sneak in and around the houses and the compounds stealin stuff like wise old ghosts, but you never see ’em. Some say the guys who steal the goats’ food and the chickens’ eggs aren’t aardvarks at all but are the old bad river spirits, that the aardvarks couldn’t do it cuz no one ever sees ’em. But that’s not true, cuz last year I saw one and more ’an that I captured him so now I know for sure.

  I was fully thirteen at the time, I know cuz when Aloysius came and said he’d seen an ol’ fella scuttling down along the river bed, it was the exact same day as my birthday. I thought he was just tryin to get attention cuz that’s what Aloysius did, he was a real ole liar, and that’s why no way was I gonna start believin him.

  The ole fella had eyes bright as a cheetah’s, he said, and a back broad as a turtle’s, and a thick black stumpy tail that bashed side to side when he was runnin.

  I said he should go take a drink of water from the donga pool, if he spected me to believe a word of that, which would be a crazy thing to do cuz the donga pool is down below the village in the elephant rocks and is full of cess and skeets.

  But then again Simon Old Old once told me that he’d seen an aardvark once and what Aloysius said, well, in truth it weren’t that different. Simon Old Old had been living in the village longer ’an anyone, and he’d seen everthin there was to see. He never xaggerated nor lied about it neither, unlike Aloysius. And unlike my own damn dad, you might as well know, who would never admit that there was nothin he didn’t know nor hadn’t seen, nor anything that you thought of ’at he hadn’t thought of first.

  Anyhow, Aloysius was saying he’d seen the fella down in the river bed, right where there are all those ’oles and burrows, and he went on and on about it, tellin everyone how he was special cuz he’d seen by daytime what was only supposed to come creepin out and go softly softly hauntin by the magic of the moon, and all in all spoilin what was supposed to be my damn birthday. So next day on the way back from school I went round the way of the widow’s goat yard and wound a good fine strand of wire off the bottom of her fence, right out of sight where she wouldn’t see it nor the goats wouldn’t see it neither.

  The wire was all kinked up and rusted, but after I’d got it between my feet and rubbed round a useful bit of rock it came up straight and fair old shiny. When I’d got it as good as it was gonna get, I looped one end into a loop just ’bout the right size to fit round my thumb. By threading the end through that little ’ole what I got was a sort o’ lasso. And the first half of my plan was done right there.

  The second half was simple as pumpkin soup. I went and got myself a good bit of stick from the wood stack round the back of our shack, good meaning straight and true with no boles nor branches sticking up off it. And then round the middle of this I wound the wire, three, four and then five times, so it was fixed on good and strong.

  To test it–cuz nothin that’s gonna work is no good without testin–I looped the loop over the big old camel thorn that grows by the water tank and swung on it all swing-like til I was sure ’at it would hold. Then I had my trap. A good trap an all. Straight away I unhooked it off the tree and hauled it over to the mud bank. Movin as quiet and sly as I could I set it outside the biggest burrowdown, the same one what as had the freshest droppins. Round the ’ole went the loop, pressed down in the mud at the bottom so the ole guy wouldn’t see it, and then with the wire all snakin away down the slope and the stick laying quiet at the end all was set, and nothin suspicious about it nor nothin.

  And then I left it and went and had dinner like it was a normal everyday kind of a day, which in most respe’ts it was.

  Next day was Saturday an I was up before anyone on account of not being able to sleep. All night long I’d been staring up at the tin on the roof, wondering if the ole fella had got caught in my snare, the only thing keeping me from going down the river bed in the dark being that I’d most likely make lots of noise and frighten him off. But with first light I was up and out and down there like someone had buried a box of bucks and I’d just dreamt a dream of exactly where they’d hid it.

  But I saw pretty quick my snare hadn’t worked. The old g
uy must’ve been in and out because it’d been knocked out aways from where I’d put it. It hadn’t caught nothin, and it didn’t catch nothin the next night neither, even though I reset it better ’an before. When I put it back for the third time I’d already pretty much decided that my plan wasn’t gonna work and that Aloysius had been lying all along, just like I’d thought. But then I stopped by there on Monday on my way off to school, and the snare was snapped down out of sight and the stick was dragged all the way right up to the ’ole.

  The old guy was caught! I dropped my books and hopped around and ran down to the mudbank where straight away I grabbed that stick and started hauling on it, thinking I’d just fetch up that old aardvark right away and get a proper look at ’im.

  Well, if I thought that I was crazy all right. I pulled on that stick and I pulled and I pulled, but every tug I gave that old guy tugged back twice as hard. If that ’ole of his had been any deeper he’d’ve dragged me clean down in it, stick or none. That’s how hard he was pullin.

  I pulled and I pulled. I pulled till my arms and my shoulders hurt like crazy. I pulled till my feet had dug craters in the mud. But the plain truth was I weren’t big enough to pull that old fella out by myself. He was too strong for me, I had to give him that. I needed some help if I was ever gonna get to look that aardvark in his face, that’s one thing that was for sure.

  I ran back to our shack just as Dad was coming in to get his breakfast. The moment he saw me, there was just one question in his mind.

  —What you doin here, boy? Why ain’t you at school?

  —I ain’t at school, I said, filled to bustin with how proud he was about to be of me, cuz last night I snared that old guy aardvark what’s been stealin all our eggs. But he’s dragged the snare down into the bottom of his ’ole, and you gotta come and help me pull him out!

  He clearly wasn’t listenin to me one little bit.

  —I gotta do nothin of the sort, he said. All you’ve got to do is get your arse to school before I whop it.

  —But Dad! I caught an aardvark. And no one in the village ’cept Simon Old Old has ever even seen one.

  —School. Now.

  —But what could be a better lesson that seeing an animal what no one else has ever seen?

  —Don’t test my temper, boy.

  He nearly had me then–he was lookin at me all sideways like he did when he was gonna raise his arm and biff me. But he hadn’t said anything when I’d said that truth ’bout Simon Old Old, and that’s where I saw my chance.

  —But you’ve never seen an aardvark either, have you, Dad? And now I’ve got one wrapped around a wire and all’s we’ve got to do is pull ’im out. And then you’ll be the first guy in the village not just to see an aardvark, but to catch ’im an’ all.

  He waited for a moment and in that moment anything could’ve happened. But instead of biffin me he sniffed.

  —Alright, then. I’ll come take a look. But just for a few minutes. After that you get back to class.

  —Thanks, Dad, I said, and we started off down the path that led down to the riverbank, me in front, him behind. I know my dad pretty well, see, and I know just how he thinks.

  By the time we got to the mudbank he was more excited than even me, I reckon. He looked at the wire and he looked at the ’ole and he looked at the stick and he sniffed.

  —That my firewood?

  —I’m gonna put it back soon as we’re done.

  —Well, make sure you do. And where’d this piece o’ wire come from?

  —I found it out back by the water tank.

  —You found a good piece of wire like that just lyin around?

  —It was all kinked up and rusted. I put in a lot of time just gettin it polished up and straightened out.

  He looked at me like he knew I was lyin, but he was gonna let it pass.

  —Could be a fox or a jackal, just as easy, he said, lookin at the ’ole.

  I didn’t say nothin. I knew that he’d know what it was just as soon as he gave a heave on that wire.

  The minute he did it pulled tight like it was wrapped round an iron stake buried deep in the ground. He hadn’t counted on that, I could tell that alright. He’d forgotten about me not being at school and all that. All that he was thinking about now was that ’ole, and whatever was stuck down there in it.

  He crouched down and had a sniff at the opening, like an old dog. The burrow curved down hard and deep, with the wire vanishin over the lip, not three feet in. You couldn’t see nothin. I knew cuz I’d looked.

  —He’s in there alright, he said, right and low.

  —Yes, Dad.

  He got up then and brushed the dirt from his knees, then settin his feet either side of the ’ole he started to pull. He pulled, damn it he pulled, he pulled so the lines stood out on his neck like roots round a tree and sweat made a patch like blood on his shirt, even though it wasn’t even properly hot yet. He pulled, and he pulled, and the wire pulled back, and then the stick slipped from his hands and he flipped down the bank and landed on his back in the dust.

  I daredn’t even let out a smile, though I never wanted to let out a gut-rippin laugh half so damn much.

  —What’s so funny, boy?

  —Nothin. Nothin’s funny.

  —So you gonna stand there like a halfwit, or are you gonna come over and lend me a hand?

  I did what he said and helped haul him up to his feet. I don’t think I’d ever tried to do that before. His hand felt right strange in mine, and he didn’t half weigh some–nearly tipped me over right there. But I got him up and back at the stick now we took one end apiece and started haulin on that just as hard as we could. When that made no bones we turned around and put our shoulders to it, straining away like two ole bulls at a yoke. But push nor pull as much as we could, we couldn’t shift that fella, not one single inch.

  After a bit we gave up and went and sat on a grey log out in the middle of the dried-up creek bed and rested. While we got our breath, we both stared at the ’ole.

  Dad brought up the hem of his shirt and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  —He don’t want to come out, does he?

  —It’s lookin that way, I said, doing the same with the arm of my T-shirt, cuz the hem wouldn’t reach.

  —Well, we’re not gonna get him out like this, Dad said, after a minute of ponderin. I think we’d best go get the truck.

  The truck! Now why hadn’t I thought of that? But then that’s what dads are for, ain’t it? For bringing out the heavy guns when the time is right.

  —Run and tell your uncle to bring the Toyota down here, Dad said. And an axe. Best tell him to bring an axe. He stopped and ran his hand across his hair. And while you’re at it stop by the house and pick up a flask of water.

  The Toyota! The Hi-Lux Diesel 4×4! It was the coolest vehicle in the village. Actually that was an easy game to win, cuz the only other vehicle in the village was Simon Old Old’s tractor, which had long since lost its wheels and just sat in the sand now driving the water pump or the big ole wooden thresher that we get out when it’s harvest time. Uncle has it cuz he’s a doctor and he needs it to go pick up supplies like bandages and needles and medicines and stuff. It’s not his really, it’s the government’s, but he gets to use it when he wants as long as he doesn’t make too much noise about it. Uncle studied at a university across the border and he’s the only doctor in the whole three valleys, so people come from all over to his clinic. When I haven’t got school or work I help him out, and we talk a lot about how I’m going to go study to become a doctor too then come back and work with him right here.

  Sometimes there’s a whole posse of people queuing up outside waitin to be cured, but today we was lucky cuz Uncle was all alone in his office. I spied him through the window, sitting there fillin in some of the forms that needed fillin. It was a job I knew he hated cuz he always told me so, sayin however many forms he did there were always more where they came from.

  I raced into the room an stood there
pantin.

  —What’s up with you? he said, peerin down at me over them brown ole glasses he has to wear for readin.

  —Me and Dad we’s caught an aardvark and we need you to bring the Hi-Lux so as we can pull the fella out.

  Uncle looked at me like I’d gone completely crazy.

  —Now just slow down a moment, take a breath, and tell me all of that again, he said.

  I did as he tol’ me, jus slowed right down and went through it like a slow-brain. When he understood what was goin on he sniffed like Dad sniffs when he’s thinkin–I guess they’re brothers and that’s what brothers do–and then he got up and fetched his medi-bag sayin that he’d best come along just in case any one got hurt.

  —What about your forms? I said.

  —What? he said, and looked at them like he’d never even seen em before. Oh, they’ll still be here when I come back, he said.

  We got in the truck and got it goin and we were on the way when I remembered that we needed an axe and water, so we detoured by our shack to pick em up. By the time we got back to the creek Dad had unwound my original fixin from the stick, and had looped it into a big ole loop of triple thickness. I jumped out and signed to Uncle to back up the truck. When it was close enough we hooked Dad’s loop on the tow hook. It fitted just so.

  —Now we’ll get you, aardvark, I said, but quietly, just to myself, so’d I didn’t draw down a jinx. Then Dad and me stepped back and Uncle put the Toyota in gear and started haulin away.

  Nothin happened. That ole aardvark was so stuck down in his ’ole that even the Hi-Lux couldn’t pull him free.

  —No way, Dad, no way! I said. It’s no wonder we couldn’t shift him when we were pullin on the stick.

  —Give it some more! shouted Dad, so Uncle revved the engine. But all that happened was the front wheels started spinnin in the dirt. By now the sun was right overhead and suddenly it all seemed a little crazy, us standin in the bakin heat down in this dry ole river bed, next to a Toyota spittin dirt on account of a wire goin straight down into a ’ole.