He’s tried to get in touch with film people, written letters to Jodie Foster and Martin Scorsese. No reply of course. It was naive of him to suppose his letters would get through, but back then he saw no other way. Since then he’s learned to use dead letterboxes. He leaves his plans and protocols and samples behind mirrors in public toilets or in garbage cans at certain crossings. He gets the position of the garbage cans from films, and also whether the messages have been received. His progress can be charted from film to film. Each film answers the question put in the one before. The communications are encoded, but he’s learned to decipher them. Sometimes he laughs aloud when he gets their meaning. He often feels a great hilarity, the cool bliss of being undeceived. He won’t be misled by the voices in his head anymore: You can’t leave. This is where you belong. You belong to me.
The sudden clarity, after years of uncertainty. He walks through the city and laughs. He sees through things. He could knock over the buildings with one hand, uproot the trees that have been fixed in the ground like parasols. He has achieved mastery over his body. By pure mind he can control his physical functions.
He knows his contribution is vital. Otherwise they would have pulled him out long ago. A sacrifice will be required of him, but he is willing. The sacrifice will give shape and meaning to his life.
He has forgotten his sandwiches. He wonders whether he dares to buy a hamburger at the bodega. They can’t know that today of all days he will go there. If he’s quick enough, he can take them by surprise, not give them time to doctor his food. Some risks are unavoidable.
While he’s waiting for his hamburger, he sees a woman with a small child walking straight up to him. She is wearing a fawn leather jacket and carrying a black leather bag. They always carry bags, presumably for the technical equipment, the batteries. They may be armed. The child is beyond suspicion. Presumably it knows nothing, it’s just there as a decoy. He looks the woman straight in the eye. She should know that it’s impossible to trick him. And it works: she turns aside and walks past him. Suddenly she speeds up. When she is a few steps past him, she looks back. Her expression is full of fear. He smiles triumphantly.
He waits until the last possible moment before turning on the light in his store. The light makes it easier to see him from the street. That’s the most dangerous moment of the whole day. Sometimes he walks out of the store and watches it from the other side of the road. If a customer walks in, he hurries across the street to be there.
Between six and eight o’clock is the busiest time. After that the customers dwindle away. It used to be he stayed open until midnight, now he closes at ten or eleven. Ever since the big video chain opened two blocks away he’s been getting fewer customers. They are trying to drive him out of business, but he’s not about to give up. He mustn’t give up. He counts the earnings for the day and puts the money in his pocket. Ever since he’s suffered a break-in, he leaves the register open.
He has gotten used to the situation, he is calmer now. On his way to work in the morning, he says hello to the agents. That terrifies them. They never expected him to identify them, and they run away. Good morning, he calls out after them. And in case we don’t see each other again, good afternoon, and good evening as well. He wants to burst out laughing, but controls himself. When he goes home at night, there they are again. He hurries down the street and runs up the stairs to his apartment, taking the stairs two and three at a time. He is so boisterous he feels like ringing all the bells and yelling in his neighbors’ faces that he knows perfectly well what they’re up to. Once he’s locked the door after him, he stops for a moment, then opens it again, peeps out into the stairwell, and locks it again. He goes straight to his living room and switches on the radio, so that no one can hear what he’s doing. His neighbors have complained about the noise. No surprise there.
Only after he’s eaten and showered and has been to the bathroom does he turn off the radio and switch off the light. With heavy strides he goes to the bedroom. That’ll fool them into thinking he’s gone to bed. Their guard will drop. He waits perfectly still for minutes. He is so tired he thinks sometimes that he’ll fall asleep on his feet. His thoughts wander, he loses track of time.
When everything’s quiet, when he’s calmed down, he creeps back into the living room, switches on the video recorder and the TV. He’s rewound the tape to the correct place.
He’s playing in the garden. His mother comes, picks him up, spins him around. The garden blurs with the movement, becomes indistinct. The music reaches its climax. He can no longer keep back his tears. He stretches his arms out to his mother, his hands brush the screen. She looks at him and smiles sweetly.
Men and Boys
THE RIVER BATHS were closed, the entrance padlocked. There was a chill rain falling. The lifeguard was nowhere to be seen, perhaps he had gone home or was in the village somewhere. When Lucas clambered over the wire fence, he thought of the drunk who had got in here at night a few years ago and fallen into the pool. They had found him dead the following morning.
He went to the changing rooms, which were in a low whitewashed brick building. Next to the entrance was a sign, MEN AND BOYS. There was no light except what came through the gap between the walls and ceiling, and it was always a bit damp in the cabins, even when it was really hot outside. Lucas browsed along the row of lockers, to see if someone had forgotten a coin, but there wasn’t one. About halfway he stopped looking. He went down to the river. The water was high and pale brown. It flowed so fast that there were little eddies marking its surface. Twigs drifted past, they seemed to be going faster than the current. They must have opened the weir downstream, following the storm, Lucas could hear a distant roar of falling water. The rain eased, then stopped altogether. He went back to the cabins and changed.
He remembered summer afternoons when it was hot and all the kids seemed to go swimming. There were various groups dotted about the lawn. Lucas’s fellows ran around on the edge of the pool jumping or pushing each other into the water until the lifeguard intervened. Lucas swam back and forth, counting laps. After he’d done a mile, he climbed out, feeling cold and staggering slightly as if he’d forgotten how to walk. His friends lay on big bath towels on the grass. They talked about the summer holidays and where they would go. He lay down next to them on the grass.
Whenever he was with the others, Lucas felt as though his pores were closing, he felt small and painfully self-conscious of his body. He was shut up inside it, he couldn’t be human without it. On his own, he could forget about it, then his edges were those of his consciousness, the damp meadow he was walking over, the passing clouds, the blue strip on the horizon, the seam of forest on the river’s far bank. Then Lucas could have been just anyone, or even no one.
He lay down on the rough concrete slabs beside the pool. There were leaves floating on the water that the storm had blown off the trees, and a wasp was wriggling about. Lucas put out his hand to rescue the creature, but he was afraid he might get stung. His hand hovered protectively over it. Slowly it drifted farther and farther from the edge of the pool.
Lucas remembered Franziska, who was in the same class as him. They sometimes walked home together from school as far as the railroad crossing, where their paths divided. Often they would stand in front of the crossing sign for a long time, talking. Franziska had so much to say, she never seemed to get to the end of it. But at the class party she didn’t want to dance with him, she made some snotty remark and got herself something to drink. And later she was seen dancing with Leo.