Armin gave a guilty little start but relaxed when he saw the amused sparkle in Van’s eyes.
“I like to feed you. It makes me hungry to watch you. In every sense.”
Armin smiled and stretched a hand across the table to caress Van’s beard.
“Did you eat enough? Want some more bread? Cheese? Fruit?”
Armin shook his head, but he did spread a little butter on his remaining bread. “To tell you the truth I have been hungry like an ogre all the time since arriving here. Do you think it’s the country air? The work? The flu I had before? The sex?”
“All of that, probably,” said Van.
“And the horrible thing is that I am craving meat all the time.”
“Want a slice of ham?” asked Van
“Nope,” said Armin with some emphasis.
“Just a little slice?” said Van with a devilish grin. He actually got up and uncovered the ham and cut himself a thin strip of meat.
Armin, who had become a vegetarian on principle in the last couple of years but had always enjoyed meat before that, felt his mouth watering and his conscience niggling him all at once, a remarkably unpleasant state of things.
“You are a bad man,” he said. “A—ein verführen—a male temptress, or something like that.”
That made Van convulse with laughter for a minute.
“Always been a vegetarian?” asked Van eventually, biting into his ham. Armin’s belly gave a longing twinge at the sight.
“A while,” he said staunchly.
“Any specific reason?” he asked, and to Armin’s barely concealed disgust, he pulled a box of thin cigars out of a drawer, lit one from the dying embers in the stove, and sat back in his chair, smoking contentedly.
“Well,” said Armin, pulling back from the cloud of smoke, “I’d just rather not have some poor beast killed on account of me is all.”
Van gave a dry scoff of laughter. “The way humans live, especially civilized humans of your sort, it’s a bit late for that kind of fine scruples, I’d say. Every time a road is cut, every time a field is plowed, every time a mine is opened or a new skyscraper is built, countless lives are taken, mostly for no good reason at all. We are all part of a wheel of life and death, Armin. To live is to cause death, same as to die is to feed life, or should be, whether you like it or not. You can take responsibility for that or pretend that you don’t belong to the cycle. But of all the reasons for killing an animal, feeding on it is almost the only one that is not dishonorable.”
“Well. I see what you mean. But animal welfare…”
“Yes, that is a consideration, of course. But this pig lived a good life. And died a quick and decent death. I promise you.”
“And you know that because…”
“I know that because I raised him myself and I killed him myself. As a man should do at least once or twice before he’s allowed to eat steak and burgers and blanquette de veau, I grant you that.”
Armin felt vaguely sick at the thought but then also admiring. It took more stomach than he could ever imagine to kill and butcher an animal, and he was glad he had already finished eating his own midnight snack. But there was at least a kind of moral honesty and integrity to it. He lived in a world where the more ecologically-oriented people were usually rather more sentimental and fuzzy-headed. He was both taken aback and interested by Van’s approach to all this. It seemed both profoundly ethical but also earthy, unsophisticated, something Armin had not encountered before.
“Anyway,” said Van, “have you ever seen a carrot? Really seen a carrot?”
“Eh?” said Armin, totally thrown out of his moral pondering.
“No, not a carrot as a side dish or a mildly amusing root vegetable. I mean a living carrot. Daucus carota. In its second year, when it blooms. The foliage is as exquisite as any embroidery. The flowers…” He seemed to run out of words, but his hands mimed the opening of a ten-fingered starburst. “It’s one of the few plants where Papilio machaon will hatch and feed… and the seed-heads. I can’t describe a carrot seed-head in words… I’d have to sculpt it. A carrot is both beautiful and alive and ecologically relevant, a noble creature. And yet we pull it and eat it before it has even a chance to grow into maturity. What makes you think that killing a plant is better, less unethical than killing a chicken? A life is a life. Is it because it doesn’t have eyes? Because it does not scream? Are you that shallow?”
Armin groaned.
“Oh God. So it’s as the fruitarians say? I can only eat apples that fell from the tree?”
Van spread his hands again, this time in a gesture of mock-helplessness. “Either that or learn photosynthesis, my friend.”
Armin groaned again.
“You know,” said Van, slowly, softly, looking into the dying embers of the stove. “You lot, you go on about animals like they are some finer beings. Innocent. Which they are, in a way. But. Have you ever seen a cat killing a mouse, or a baby bird? Have you ever seen a pack of dogs taking down a stag? It is not innocent, Armin. It’s most certainly not kind, not humane. Nature is red in tooth and claw, indeed. Nature is many things, but not sentimental, not kind. Only a man can kill humanely. If he chooses.”
Van concluded his speech with a deep puff of cigar smoke, and Armin grimaced.
“Well,” he said, feeling a little uneasy, for many reasons, “I will think of it. And you? What’s with the smoke, man? Healthy guy like you, all organic and ethical and ecological, poisoning yourself and your friends with this shit?”
He waved a hand in front of his nose to dispel the bluish cloud.
“Oh, dear,” said Van, moving to the open window. He sat on the windowsill to finish his cigar. “It is organic tobacco, you know? Grown, not flown, and all. You are as bad as Allie. I could not smoke in peace in my own house when she lived here.”
“Allie lived here?”
“Yeah, for a couple of years. When Michel was little.”
“You can’t blame her for kicking you out in the garden to smoke, then. With a baby in the house and all. Yikes. Cigars! For crying out loud, man.”
“Oh, give me a break. A man has to have some vices at least. It’s not as if I am a chain-smoker, three packs a day or anything.”
Armin took the cigar box in his hands and turned it around. It was an old tin box, so worn with use that it had no recognizable markings.
“What is this shit anyway? Where does it come from?”
“From my garden.”
“Oh? Is it tobacco? Or what?”
“It is. I haven’t smoked any shit in half a century at least.”
“Pft. You grow tobacco? For real?”
Van shrugged. “It’s a traditional crop in the region.”
He had finally finished the vile cigar. He tossed the stub into the stove, put away the dishes in the little sink, ready to be washed tomorrow, and followed Armin back to bed.
Armin curled up close around him, holding him tight, and fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Chapter Eight
Saturday
Van
The next morning, or rather later that same morning, Van woke up just before dawn, as usual. He was the sort of man who is immediately awake and ready to go and always started his day early especially in summer. But that morning he lay in bed in a stupor for several minutes before he could drag himself out of the blankets. Once he managed to sit up, he spent a few more minutes contemplating Armin’s pale lanky body in the very first gray gleam of daylight.
Armin lay flat on his stomach, with a hand curled in front of his mouth like Rodin’s Thinker and his long legs slightly parted. Van had to resist the temptation to touch him, stroke his back, put a hand between his thighs and tease the cock and balls that peeked there invitingly, like ripe fruit.
Too much to do, he thought, covering Armin’s sleeping body carefully and fumbling around for jeans and a t-shirt. He walked out of the room still naked and dressed in the bathroom after wiping himself all over with a washing mitt and cold wa
ter.
Definitely a little sore, he thought as he washed his ass. But not really what I’d call hurting. Still, it may be a good idea to take it a little easier next time. I might need to get used to this again before the next rodeo.
It was a moment before he realized that he had taken it for granted that there would be a next time, a number of next times, actually, as if Armin were his partner. For all I know he’ll be gone by Monday.
He laid a fire very quietly in the stove, feeling suddenly a little sadder and distinctly ancient.
The house was not large, and there were no doors between the kitchen and the bedroom, just a few conveniently shaped inner partitions. It was unlikely that any sound would carry far enough to wake up Armin, but even so, Van paid special attention as he prepared himself a sandwich and a pot of coffee.
He had never warmed up to espresso, which was gone in three sips and went straight to your head, and even less to American coffee, which went on and on and mostly just to your bladder. He liked to make his coffee in an old, begrimed, scratched, and scuffed Italian moka pot, an invention so brilliant and so flawless that the design had remained unchanged for almost a century. It didn’t need any electricity, and it made the perfect coffee. Van’s was a nine-cups pot. It made enough for all if he had a few guests during the day, but Van was perfectly capable of emptying it by himself in the morning, especially during workshops, when his equanimity needed all the help it could get. Contrary to the appearances, he was not naturally a people person.
He stood by the stove, gazing out of the open window without thinking of anything in particular, listening to the crackle and pop of the flames and the first birds singing out loud and clear in the first glimpse of dawn, waiting for the water to rise in the pot, wrapped in his usual delicious morning solitude.
So he jumped almost out of his skin when two long arms were suddenly wrapped around his chest and a sleepy kiss was laid behind his left ear.
“Hey,” he said, startled. Then, turning to return the kiss, he added, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“You didn’t. It’s all these damn birds,” said Armin, grinning and then yawning hugely. He was still buck-naked, his hair tousled, and his right cheek bore the mark of a fold in the pillow. He was too luscious for words. Van kissed him deeply and then smiled.
“Coffee? Or would you rather go back to sleep for a couple more hours?”
Armin yawned again. “Nah, coffee, please. What are you doing up at this time anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”
Van laughed. “It’s 6 AM, or thereabouts.”
Armin yawned again. “As I was saying. Middle of the night. What are you doing up?”
“Lots to do before the others are out and about.”
“Like?”
“Like emptying the outhouses’ buckets, refilling the water tanks, setting the ducks free, giving a good soak to the clay, collecting the snap peas, see if anything need an emergency weeding or watering in the kitchen garden, starting the fire in the open air kitchen…” Even Van yawned at this point. The temptation to grab Armin by the hand, drag him back to bed, make love again, and then sleep for ten hours straight was almost irresistible.
“Uh,” said Armin. “Okay. I will help you, then.”
“What?”
“You show me what to do, I’ll help.”
Armin began to regret his rash decision as soon as he put his nose outside. He had never imagined how gray, chilly, damp, and dismal a dawn in the countryside was. Then there was the business with the buckets, which Van said needed to be tackled first.
“I didn’t realize it was you emptying them,” said Armin, carrying a bucket full of … well, he’d rather not think about it, even if, in all honesty, it didn’t give any unpleasant smell. The outhouses were never stinky. He could not begin to fathom this mystery.
“Who did you think it was? Brownies? Fairies? The wood elves?”
“Well, no, I just didn’t give it much thought, that’s all. I thought perhaps you had, I don’t know, people.” The moment the words left his mouth, he knew it was a perfectly idiotic thing to say, but it was too late.
“I do. Me, myself, and I,” said Van, grinning.
And me, thought Armin. And to think I could have stayed in bed. Van’s bed was at least three times as big as Armin’s bunk in the palace. He could have spread himself wide and slept like a pasha until half past eight. Oh well. He was rather happy to be out here with Van, despite the gruesome task in hand.
“It’s not much of a chore when I’m alone,” said Van. “It just becomes a lot of work with all these people around.”
“Apologies. I’ll try not to shit so much in the next days,” said Armin with some feeling. Van laughed.
“Please don’t. It would not be pretty if you explode in the palace.”
“Argh,” said Armin. “Now, there’s some fine scatological imagery.”
Van laughed even more.
They tilted the slops from the buckets into a deep composting trench, spread some compost on them, and then covered them with some soil and a scatter of ashes.
After washing the buckets and returning them to the three outhouses on the property and refilling some water tanks, including the one that provided Armin’s afternoon shower, he was feeling like he could have an ox for breakfast. Luckily there had been a little rain in the night. The clay was nice and moist, ready for the day’s work. The garden didn’t need any watering. They set the ducks free and collected eggs and a basket of snap peas, which, Van said, had to be picked every day or they would grow stringy and run to seed. It had never occurred to Armin that a man could be hounded by his own vegetables. When they repaired to the open-air kitchen, Van busied himself making a fire in the clay stove, which was several times as big as the one in his own little kitchen, and Armin sat by, yawning again.
“I don’t know, this life in the countryside,” he said vaguely, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Van shook his head. “You know, I do wonder, how did you manage to get sent on this particular job? I am not complaining, mind. I am very happy you came. Ahem.” He shot Armin a mischievous grin. “But what crazy editor decided you were the man to spend a week in the country on a cobbing workshop?”
Armin groaned. He had barely thought about it once in the last few days. Well, certainly not after the evening in Van’s workshop. Perhaps because he had been stupidly happy ever since. “Well,” he said, a little reluctantly, “if you want to know, and no offense meant, it is a punishment.”
Van gave a snort of laughter. “Punishment? From your auntie? I met her. She didn’t look like the punishing type.”
“No, no, Aunt Anja is okay. She sent me here to do me a favor. I think. In her own way. Gave me something to write and a little time off from stressful situations. But mostly she dispatched me out here in the sticks for a while because I am an embarrassment to the family right now.”
“Goodness, that sounds ominous. Explain, maybe? What have you been up to?”
Van was still busy with the fire, but he threw him a keen look, and Armin fidgeted a little in his seat. He didn’t really feel like explaining the mess he was in to Van. What if Van, too, thought he was a lunatic? He could not take that. Not Van. He had felt so… safe, accepted, cared for, since arriving here. Even loved, perhaps.
He hated the idea of losing that. He suddenly realized how gruesomely important Van’s opinion of him was.
He had come here willy-nilly, and Allie had immediately dismissed him as useless. He knew that. And perhaps she was right. He had been pretty useless when he arrived. But Van had given him a chance. And more than that. He had helped him take it. He had appeared to believe that Armin was not, in fact, totally useless and Armin had done his best to prove him right. He had come to enjoy the challenge of the tasks Van set to him. Had even come to see the beauty of it all, the buildings, the garden, the trees, even the damn ducks and toads. And he had earned some respect from Van. Or at least a certain fondn
ess. That and … whatever it was that was going on between them.
When did it come to matter so much? I thought I would just look at the man and have a little easy fun and then go back to Germany and put my life back together somehow.
And at the same time, exactly because Van was suddenly so central in his life, Armin wanted him to know. It was unthinkable to leave him out.
“Well, I—I have done something rather unwise, apparently.”
Van arched an eyebrow, questioning.
“I had a piece published a couple months back. That got me into a load of trouble. And now. Well. I can’t really get any work. From anybody. I am a freelance journalist, but nobody will touch anything I write. It’s like I’m a leper or something. I even got some… well, you could call them threats, I suppose. And on top of that, my boyfriend… Well, I was really busy for some months, researching, for this piece. And I didn’t pay attention. And he… left me. It was pretty ugly.”
He saw Van’s eyes harden a little, and he hastened to add, “I know. I know. It’s my fault. It is and I am not denying it and I am not proud of it. I was a total dick. I really neglected him. I thought I would make it up to him, you know? But I was so obsessed with this piece I was writing, and there was so much research and… I thought that, once I had it all written out and published and it was all out in the open, I thought I’d have time for him, for us. Just, I didn’t have a chance. He just left and told everyone I am stark raving insane. And then it all came crashing down around my ears.”
Van was quiet for a little moment, adjusting the draught of the fire, then asked quite mildly, “What was the piece about?”
Armin took a deep breath. Here it comes, he thought.
“Well … if you really want to know, I suppose it was a … er … a conspiracy theory.”
“A conspiracy? No less? You intrigue me.”
Armin shot Van a sideways glance to see if he was being made fun of, but Van was busy lighting one of those foul cigars, and his expression was hard to read.
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