The first thought I had was that I was facing a Taoist exorcist. This was a totally absurd idea because:
1. The last Taoist capable of hunting foxes lived in the eighteenth century.
2. Even if one of them had managed to hold out until modern times, he would hardly have been able to disguise himself as a bearded Sikh with an Oxford accent - that would have been ‘too freaking much’.
3. Since I work according to the method ‘the bride returns the earring’, Taoists have no formal right to come hunting me.
4. Taoists never come three times in a row.
But the powerful fear of exorcists of evil spirits is built into our genes, and in moments of danger we always think of them. Some time I must tell you a couple of stories about those guys, then you’ll understand the way I feel.
A moment later I realized this was no Taoist, but simply my client, who had slipped off the tail. It was an appalling sight. The Sikh was opening and closing his mouth like a fish just landed on a riverbank. Then, in an attempt to gain control of the body that wouldn’t obey him, he lifted his hands up in front of his face and began clenching and unclenching his fingers. Then he groaned hoarsely several times and suddenly bounded to his feet.
At this point I finally unfroze and made a dash for the bathroom. The Sikh came rushing after me, but I slammed the door in his face and locked it. In moments of danger my mind works quickly; I realized immediately what I had to do.
Every bathroom in the National has a red and white cord hanging out of a little hole in the wall. I don’t know what it’s connected to, but if you tug on it, ten seconds later the phone in the room will ring, and a minute after that someone will knock on the door. I pulled the cord and dashed back to the door of the bathroom.
The next few minutes were rather nerve-racking, while I waited for security to arrive, and shuddered at the furious blows on the door, counting to myself and trying not to hurry. The Sikh was pounding as hard as he could, but I managed to hold him back without too much trouble - he wasn’t a large man.
The phone rang after exactly twenty seconds. Naturally, the Sikh didn’t answer it. When the blows stopped after a minute or two, I knew there were other people in the room. They were just in time - the door was already coming off its hinges. I heard the sound of furniture being overturned, the tinkle of broken glass and a garbled shout that sounded liked ‘kali ma!’ It was the Sikh shouting. Then there was silence, broken only by the distant honking of car horns.
‘That’s fucked it,’ said a man’s voice. ‘He’s a goner.’
‘Lucky he didn’t take us with him,’ said another voice.
‘True enough,’ the first voice replied.
It was better to let them know I was there myself than wait for them to find me. I called out in a plaintive voice:
‘Help!’
The door opened.
There were two hulks standing in the doorway of the bathroom - dark glasses, suits, flesh-coloured wires dangling from their ears . . . A regular cult of Agent Smith, I thought. And, incidentally, that would make a great religion for security men - after all, the Roman legionaries worshipped Mithras, didn’t they?
One of the security men began muttering to himself - the only words I could make out were ‘three nineteen’ and ‘call’. He was-n’t talking to me.
As far as I’m aware, their microphones are hidden behind the lapels of their jackets, and that’s why it often seems like they’re talking to themselves. Sometimes it looks very funny. I once saw one of these goons searching a woman’s toilet - opening the doors of the cabins and chanting: ‘There’s no one here . . . There’s no one here at all . . . The window’s blocked off by a party wall . . .’ If I hadn’t known what he was doing, I might have thought he was pining over some failed lovers’ assignation and pouring out his grief in iambic pentameters.
‘Did you pull the cord?’ the second security man asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but where’s . . .’
The security man nodded towards an open window. The glass was broken.
‘Over there.’
‘You mean . . .’ I said, making big round eyes, ‘he’s . . .’
‘Yeah,’ said the guard. ‘Came at us like a lunatic the moment he saw us. Was he doing drugs?’
‘What drugs? I’ve been working here for a year now. Everybody knows me, I’ve never had any problems.’
‘Well, now you do. What did he want from you?’
‘I didn’t really understand,’ I said. ‘He wanted me to give him something called a fisting. I said I didn’t know how, and then he started . . . Well, anyway, I hid in the bathroom and pulled the alarm. And you saw everything else.’
‘We sure did. Got any ID on you?’
I shook my head. Give your passport to these guys and you’ll never see it again.
‘Maybe I could go? Before the fuzz gets here?’
‘What do you mean, go? Are you crazy? You’re the main witness, ’ the security man said. ‘You’ll have to testify about what you were doing here.’
That definitely wasn’t part of my plans. I evaluated the situation. While there were only two of them there, I still had a chance of avoiding any hassle. But it was getting slimmer every second - I knew the room would soon be packed with people.
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
The security man nodded, and I went back into the bathroom. I had to act quickly, so I didn’t hesitate for a second. I dropped my pants and freed my tail, bent over and opened the door. I did it very abruptly, and the guards immediately turned to look at me.
I believe a man reveals what he’s really like in that second when he’s already seen a fox’s tail but not yet fallen under its hypnotic influence. A client usually has enough time to express his response to what he’s seen. And that’s enough to tell you who you’re dealing with.
All the crude, narrow-minded losers screw their faces up into grimaces of sullen disbelief. But the faces of people who have the potential for inner growth express something like delighted surprise.
One of the security men wrinkled up his forehead and frowned. The other gaped in amazement (I could see his eyes even through his dark glasses) and opened his mouth like a little child who’s just seen the birdie the photographer promised him. It looked really sweet.
Of course, I couldn’t completely remove my imprint from their memories - to do that to someone, you have to shoot them in the head with a pistol. All I could do was change the context of the memory - I planted the suggestion in their minds that they’d met me in the corridor on their way to the suite. Then I made them go into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed behind them, I picked Stephen Hawking’s book up off the floor, dropped it in my handbag, pulled up my trousers and skipped out into the corridor.
There was another security man standing on the stairs. When he saw me, he gestured for me to go over to him, and when I reached him, he ran his hand over my buttocks, forcing me to squeeze my tail in between them as tightly as I could. In any other situation the least he would have got for that was a bruise pinch. But right then it still wasn’t clear how everything was going to work out, so I just slapped him on the hand. He wagged his finger at me, and then this gesture flowed smoothly into a different one, as his index finger and thumb connected and started rubbing against each other.
I understood. Girls like me usually hand over a hundred dollars on the way out, but under the present circumstances of force majeure, it was being suggested that payment should be made on the spot. I took a portrait of Benjamin Franklin out of my purse and the guard grabbed it with the same finger and thumb that had just been rubbing against each other. There was a certain kind of beauty in the economy of movement - from threat to reminder to acceptance. As the Japanese swordsman Minamoto Musashi said: ‘You can tell a master from his stance.’