“I’ll gladly do what I can. But have you tried asking the concierge or my mother about this?”
“Yes of course, but they say it’s only in their remit to handle requests that can be fulfilled on the premises.”
“I see… Well, don’t worry, Jean-Claude. I’ll deal with this.”
“Music to my ears, Freddy. That’s the Barrandov Way!”
—
I WAS GOING to have a lot of money soon, but the prospect didn’t excite me. Perhaps I’d get more excited as I went along. Aisha introduced me to Chedorlaomer without too much prompting: If anything she seemed amused that she’d discovered the fanboy in me.
Any friend of A’s is a friend of mine…
Chedorlaomer Nachor had been famous for years. He’d grown accustomed to living well and to feting his playmates; if you said you liked anything of his he gave it to you, even if that meant taking the item off his own body and putting it on yours. He was deliriously happy too — that was part of it. He freely admitted that Tyche was his first love, admitted this to anyone who’d listen. Wherever he was, the delectable, ambrosial Tyche Shaw wasn’t far away. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. A blended scent rose from their skins — sulfurous, sticky, sweet. Wasn’t he rather old to be falling in love for the first time? And who was she? Since Jean-Claude wouldn’t tell me what he’d learned about her, I did some research of my own. She was a puppeteer, and very far from a well-known one, though she did associate with the likes of Radha Chaudhry and Gustav Grimaldi. Aisha added in an offhand manner that Tyche also did odd jobs and invocations. Odd jobs? Was Aisha hinting at prostitution?
Chedorlaomer seemed like a nice person and so did Tyche; if either one was ill-natured they hid it very well. But it didn’t matter; I was there to end their romance. They were in love, and laughed at everything, and assaulted me with the odor of all the sex I was being denied. I know I said denied, as if I had a right to it. But those two filled my brain with the filthiest helium — I watched their wandering hands and I watched Aisha’s Deadly Beige and when I blinked diverse, divine contortions appeared to me, all wrapped up in satin sheets. The bodies I saw and felt combining were mine, Aisha’s, Chedorlaomer, Tyche’s… even the puppets got a look in. I propositioned Chedorlaomer, but the typical halfheartedness of my attempt aside, Jean-Claude’s son was immune to my charms. He talked about Aisha and explained that anybody who hurt her wasn’t going to find it easy to live with all the injuries he and Aisha’s stepdad would inflict upon them. He made these remarks in such dulcet tones that it took me a few minutes to realize he was warning me.
After that I had to let Aisha in on my project, before Mr. Protective told her. Once I’d told her everything she looked at me with the most peculiar expression.
“So you have a tendency not to want anything more than you already have?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you think that’s a problem?”
“Clearly it is: It’s a difference that’s slowly estranging me from my family!”
“What if I told you that I know both Ched and Tyche well enough to be fairly sure there’s no need for you to break them up?”
“I’ve still got to do it. My word’s my bond. I told Jean-Claude—”
“As for Jean-Claude,” Aisha said, stirring her tea with sinister emphasis.
“Oh, don’t.”
“All right, forget Jean-Claude for now. Listen Freddy, you’re my guy, and together we can accomplish anything. Here’s how you break them up…”
“Your guy… accomplish anything… anything, your guy,” I said, thinking I was talking to myself. But she heard me, and asked if I was OK.
“Me? Yeah? I mean… yeah. Always. I— Sorry, I interrupted you, didn’t I? Go on.”
Aisha knew a man who gave “relationship-ruining head.” She suggested getting together with this man and Tyche one evening, giving them both a lot of wine and letting nature run its course. So we did that; I pretended to find it funny when I discovered that this giver of relationship-ruining head was my flatmate Pierre.
—
TYCHE ARRIVED with Chedorlaomer, and left with him too. Such a companionable couple, enjoying each other and us, his energy so upbeat, she full of quips and observations, both kept revealing their visionary natures, all these hopes and plans, all a bit exhausting really. Meanwhile Pierre drank and drank without getting drunk. He also made meaningful eyes at Aisha. I drank water the whole night; gulped it actually, just trying to cool down. Avoiding inebriation helped me think fast and not write that entire evening off — there on the kitchen counter were the glasses Tyche and Chedorlaomer had drunk out of and then left on the kitchen counter. I swiped them for the next stage of the project.
The results of the DNA test were disappointing. Bloodwise Tyche and Ched were as unrelated as could be, so I’d have to make some effort… I looked the results over carefully, consulted friends with some knowledge in the field, and went to work falsifying particulars. The end result only had to look legitimate to two dumbfounded laymen. I stress that this was not about Jean-Claude’s Tyche-phobia, or about money, or even about proving to my mother that as a true Barrandov I was equal to any task. I asked them to meet me in the bar at the Glissando.
“What’s this about?” Chedorlaomer asked, and Tyche appeared to very briefly meditate on the two envelopes on the counter before me before asking what was in them.
—
MY MIND TICKED over as I stammered the words I’d prepared; some words about never really knowing our fathers, how we only think we know them, how our fathers’ undisclosed dalliances may well cause the world around us to teem with flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, correspondences we may only recognize subconsciously.
“Exactly what is he saying right now?” Tyche was talking to Ched and looking at me. The voice of reason piped up in my ear, beige through and through: Freddy’s lost his marbles. Lost them? What was this about loss? Ah well — I’d found something I really, really wanted. It was my dearest wish that Tyche and Chedorlaomer would believe my lie. If they believed me and shunned each other, then I had won. If they believed me and stayed together, then… well, that was another version also worth watching, even if it meant I’d lost. I still think I might not have gone as far as I did if they hadn’t arrived coated in that scent that drove me to frenzy.
if a book is locked there’s probably a good reason for that don’t you think
Every time someone comes out of the lift in the building where you work you wish lift doors were made of glass. That way you’d be able to see who’s arriving a little before they actually arrive and there’d be just enough time to prepare the correct facial expression. Your new colleague steps out of the lift dressed just a tad more casually than is really appropriate for the workplace and because you weren’t ready you say “Hi!” with altogether too much force. She has: a heart-shaped face with subtly rouged cheeks, short, straight, neatly cut hair, and eyes that are long rather than wide. She’s black, but not local, this new colleague who wears her boots and jeans and scarf with a bohemian aplomb that causes the others to ask her where she shops. “Oh, you know, thrift stores,” she says with a chuckle. George at the desk next to yours says, “Charity shops?” and the newcomer says, “Yeah, thrift stores…”
Her accent is New York plus some other part of America, somewhere Midwest. And her name’s Eva. She’s not quite standoffish, not quite… but she doesn’t ask any questions that aren’t related to her work. Her own answers are brief and don’t invite further conversation. In the women’s toilets you find a row of your colleagues examining themselves critically in the mirror and then, one by one, they each apply a touch of rouge. Their makeup usually goes on at the end of the workday, but now your coworkers are demonstrating that Eva’s not the only one who can glow. When it’s your turn at the mirror you fiddle with your shirt. Sleeves rolled up so you’re nonchalantly showing skin, or is that too marked a change?