When they again hopped over to the bar, because in the end there wasn’t much else to do between the sea and the campground fence, on the coarse sand that unexpectedly flowed into the dry soil beneath tall, straight pines, so strange and uncharacteristic of the seaside, Krustev again insisted on treating them and they took him up on it, each time they put up less of a fight, the man obviously enjoyed doing it, while for them every free round was a breath of fresh air. In the car, Maya had told him that they’d taken the year off to think about whether they really wanted to study what they were studying, and that was true, but only almost. In fact, it was Maya who had taken a year off not just because of that, but because she needed money, after the divorce both her mother and her father’s finances were not exactly rosy, while her brother was growing and eating a lot, at least that’s what Maya said, half-joking, half-serious, but on the other hand, she could translate and teach French without taking a year off her major, so the idea of taking a step back and reflecting on things really was important, in any case she had suggested it and he and Sirma had taken her up on it, because it had seemed wise to them, they wouldn’t lose anything by doing something else for a year, and in any case Spartacus was growing ever more skeptical where law was concerned, while Sirma, who had gone to fantastic lengths to get into her dream major of architecture, was simply furious about the way the teachers blocked their students’ progress so they couldn’t become competition. The year would soon come full circle and they had to decide what to do from then on, but for now they could still travel, think, and earn some money with which to think and travel. Spartacus calculated that if things went on like this, even if they extended their vacation, he might still have some money left over when they got back. He had set aside the payment from the last brochure, and now, of course, tourist season was starting and there would be work, new groups of German grannies and Mesozoic Americans. His own grandmother, from the village near the Sea of Marmara, always loved to say that easy money was the most fun to spend. Now, having earned a little something and despite the fact that he still lived with his parents, he no longer asked for an allowance, Spartacus was convinced that his grandmother was dead wrong: it was the most fun to spend money you earned yourself and which you knew you’d put time and energy into, which you were now free to squander in one fell swoop, getting your revenge on the tourists by turning them into beer and fried fish, draining them and gnawing them down to the bone, or better yet, transforming a glossy brochure into a concert ticket, watching for an hour and a half as the smoke of your burning cash envelops the musicians on stage, watching with delight as the time-turned-to-sound breaks loose and flies off. He didn’t like carrying cash, no matter how little, he hurried to turn it into other things, and sometimes he wondered what in the world he would do if some day he made a lot of money, say what Krustev made, it seemed logical, maybe he, too, would take a shine to some kids who reminded him of his own youth and would pick up their tab, but Krustev, with his promoter’s agency, at whose concerts Spartacus had turned his cash to smoke and time to sound, and with his stores for home entertainment systems, that Krustev was probably too rich to be able to squander his money, he didn’t have enough time. No matter how egotistical it was, there was something deeply pointless, some insult to being itself, in dying without having relieved yourself of that burden. Once, only once, had Spartacus ended up without a single cent, he had been maybe seventeen, he was going to meet Sirma and Maya on the bridge over the Tonzos, they were late and for lack of anything better to do, Spartacus dug into his pocket and found only a small coin, it wasn’t even enough for ice cream, so he raised his arm and chucked it far into the river; cars whizzed past on both sides of the bridge, it was noisy and he didn’t hear it splash into the river, but he told himself, okay, now I don’t have a single cent in my pocket, and he felt an incredible rush of freedom. He spent three days like that, until the next installment from his parents, of course, that was easy at seventeen, what do you really need to buy, when it comes to beer in the park, there was always someone willing to cough up cash for it instead of you, and if nobody does, then you go without beer, but despite that for those three days he completely consciously lived the joy of the penniless, looking to spend most of his time out and about, wandering through the streets, looking in the shop windows and feeling pride and relief that he could not buy himself anything whatsoever, not even a bottle of water. He knew, with that knowledge which stands in the corner like a heavy block of stone that you can’t budge, that those three days would never repeat themselves. The older he got, the more doomed he was to earn money and spend it, spinning his toothy gears in the machine of exchange, grinding coins in his molars.