I drove all evening. I watched the delinquents two surface at night and the partygoers two walk like dancers, impersonating movie stars and mobsters, straightening their collars, pulling down their hats, and reapplying their fading lipstick. I drove ignoring all the creatures who bumped their heads on my glass like blind birds and soundless bats trapped in a world devoid of insects. Then I drove up the mountain and gazed at the streets down below, searching. Futile, I thought: in the chaos of the Carnival, a clown could vanish like a laugh. And then, towards morning, I decided to go back home. I opened the garage door and I parked my car.
I saw the vague shadow of a man standing in the corner. The shadow approached me and I recognized Otto with a quilt over his shoulders. He looked like a defeated bat: his beard had grown, the wrinkles on his face had multiplied and traced deep lines that reached the corners of his eyes. His back was hunched and his face had the look of an old black-and-white photograph that had found its way out of an attic.
I didn’t want to come up, he said. They might be looking for me there.
Are you hungry? I asked.
I’m okay, he said.
I could go and grab something, I said.
No need, we will pick up something on the road.
Where to? I asked.
To Aisha’s, he said.
WE DROVE TOWARDS the limits of the city. Otto rode in the back seat and lay down for fear of being seen. He covered himself with the quilt as I drove through back alleys and into deserted streets. I sailed my boat in the manner of the black and golden ships bringing pharaohs to their burials down the Nile. Once the city was behind us, I stopped at a gas station and I bought water, food, and alcohol.
Otto moved from the back seat to the front. He reached for the bottle of alcohol, opened it, and drank as I drove.
This has to end, he said.
All ends, I said, and then I kept quiet because all was quiet. The roads narrowed and the trees swayed in the silence of dawn. A few cars passed us but no one seemed to be going anywhere. All was still except for the road that curved and passed and disappeared underneath our wheels. Trees appeared suddenly at the edge of the road; they grew in front of our eyes only to pass and shrink again in the frame of the rearview mirror. Otto opened the window and froze his face against the cold wind. Fresh air, he said. Fresh wind for the rodents and the cavemen, he said, raising his voice through the whistle of the open window. Then, to make a fire, he closed the window, lit a cigarette, opened the window again, and blew into the rushing air.
The ground is wet, Otto said. Look how all has turned grey. How I hate that pale colour. The colour of evenness and submission, the colour of dormitories and hospitals and jails. For the funeral of my father, my mother bought us grey suits. She said, Kids shouldn’t wear black. Kids should be in grey, and then one day she left us. I can’t even remember where she’s buried. Do you remember where your mother is buried, Fly?
Beside a river, I said. Somewhere between the Danube and the Italian heel. There was a band playing, and everyone wore bright colours.
Bright colours, lucky you.
We passed by a river. Otto suggested we stop to look at the water. There is a good view here, we can reach it by going behind the truck stop, he said. Pull over. There are no trucks at this hour.
I parked the car and stepped out. A cold wind was coming up from the water. Otto didn’t seem to mind. He saw me shivering and handed me the bottle. Here, this will keep you warm, he said. I took a sip and we walked through an opening in the bushes. The soil was indeed wet and muddy. We stood on the edge of the river and we looked at the currents rushing towards an old bridge and a few rocks standing on the shore.
This should end, Fly, Otto said again.
This? I asked.
This, me. This person here. This small universe. This insignificant star. This ephemeral river. All of it should end.
WE ARRIVED AT the cottage. The door was unlocked.
There must be another bottle around here somewhere, Otto said. Aisha had stopped drinking and worried about my habit, so I hid it from her. He went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses and a bottle of rum.
We poured ourselves drinks and we drank.
I asked Otto, What did you and Aisha talk about before she was gone?
Many things, he said. Her family, her childhood. She remembered reading The Iliad to Mrs. Rooney, the neighbour. She said that, during the battles, the Greeks burned their dead but the Trojans buried theirs. They all feared for the well-being of their corpses and wanted to protect them from birds and hungry dogs. . Once she asked me to find a jazz station on the radio, but there are none in this area. We laughed about that. . We talked on the days when she didn’t feel as bad, we had conversations about music and dance. She remembered a short story about a black jazz musician who played across the Atlantic in Paris for years, then one day decided to return home, only to be pursued and lynched by a mob. . She remembered us dancing, she talked about her father. One day I asked her how she was feeling and she said she finally felt at peace, now that everything was about to end.
Let’s light a fire, Otto said suddenly, and got to his feet and went outside. He disappeared and came back with two logs in his hands. He laid them in the stove and started to make a fire, using some leaves as kindling.
We sat across from it and waited for the fire to appear. There was only smoke coming out.
The leaves are wet, Otto said. They’ll dry out soon.
It was cold and damp inside the cottage.
When the fire starts, it will warm up, Otto said.
Do you remember that tune, Fly? “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”? The great Thelonious, you used to call him. It went like this. . Otto hummed a bar and swayed a bit. He always swayed gently when he drank.
What album might that be, Fly?
Straight, No Chaser, I said.
You know it, brother. Straight, No Chaser, he said, and smiled. There is no one left but you, Fly.
And you, I said.
Otto didn’t reply. The conversation stopped when the fire started to take off, and we sat quietly, looking at the smoke.
Then I suggested we eat.
Otto waved his hand and raised his drink and I understood his gesture. He raised the glass because he preferred to maintain the quietness of the place.
You can sleep on the bed if you are tired, he said.
I shook my head in negation. But when the flames started to dance inside the chimney, my eyes felt heavy and I slept on the chair with the empty rum glass in my hand.
Otto woke me up gently and said, Lie on the bed, Fly. It is more comfortable there.
And without resisting I stretched myself out on the bed and Otto took his quilt and covered me with it.
When I heard the gunshot, I must have been dreaming, because for the past few weeks I’d been having the same disturbing dream, which always struck me as very real and vivid. It was a chaotic dream, involving cars and a rundown place that I would struggle to escape from. There were always people chasing me in the dream, though I had never once seen their faces. But this night, I remember turning to confront them and to fight and then chasing them in return. . I woke up sweating, thinking, They’ve killed another man. In my dreams, the victims were always nameless men.
It took a while to make the transition back from sleep and to return to the cottage. The stove helped me reorient myself and I looked around the room, but Otto was not there. I went outside looking for him and I saw him lying in the shadow of the tree. I ran towards him, and I held him. I knelt on the ground and held his head and my hands slowly filled with blood.