Jonathan Raban - Surveillance - A Novel

“Coco de mer.” His bridgework grin reminded Lucy, a little late in the day, of the comic obscenity of those gourds, their cheeky likeness to enormous vulvas. Cripes, she thought; she certainly hadn’t meant to send Vanags thinking in that direction.

He was weighing it in both hands. “What d’you think? Animal or vegetable? Dead or alive?”

“Animal,” she said. “Definitely animal.”

He stood up, still holding it.

“You’re not going to take that home with you?”

“Don’t you want to know what it is ?”

Lucy laughed. “I think I could go without knowing and live.”

In the presence of this thing neither of them could name, she felt suddenly easy with the man. Watching him bear it tenderly before him, this weird childish trophy, she couldn’t help worrying for his immaculate shirt and pants. As they walked together on the sand, in step, on their short shadows, Lucy found herself telling him about the accident. She’d meant to say nothing — to put the whole business of the wrecked Infiniti on hold until after the interview — but now, with the sun hot on their backs and the house a mile off, it seemed natural to confide in him. She told about the couple in the lounge aboard the ferry, the flying car, the dreadful roadside aftermath, her stumbling performance with the young cop. Vanags nodded as he listened, every so often turning his face to hers: his blue eyes, which she’d thought of as piggy only minutes before, now struck her as kindly, searching, full of comprehension. But when she was through with her story, all he said was, “Yeah, that’s a dangerous road. Lot of people get killed on it, I hear.”

But then Vanags, at an age when he should have been in preschool, had been out on the streets robbing corpses. If such everyday horrors were hardwired into your character, of course the deaths of strangers wouldn’t seem that big a deal — which made it even odder to see him holding the globby red thing so protectively, like a baby.

When they reached the house, Minna was out on the patio, wearing an apron that said “Kissin’ Don’t Last — Cookin’ Do!” She said, “Nice hike?”

“Yeah, we had a blast,” Vanags said, showing his prize.

“Does he always bring stuff like that back with him?” Lucy said.

Minna eyed it with a look of doleful recognition. “Oh, yes.”

“Gotta keep it damp,” Vanags said, and disappeared into the house.

“The things he finds on the beach,” Minna said. “One day he found an octopus. Octopus!” She shook her head at the memory. “Been a long time dead, too. It was really stinky. Oh, Augie! That’s a new towel!”

Swaddled in the dripping bath towel, the thing bore an uncanny likeness to a baby — a very red, very angry baby, howling for a feed.

“Where’d I put my peepers?” Vanags said, and went to look for them, still carrying his precious charge, now cradled on one arm, the folds of the towel dropping from it like a christening shawl.

Peepers. The most un-American thing about August Vanags, Lucy thought, was his addiction to American slang, some of it so out of date as to be fossilized. To Minna she said, “You guys have kids?”

“No.” Minna drew the word out into a sigh, making Lucy regret the question. “Is hot!”

It felt like ninety now, and through the thin soles of her flip-flops Lucy could feel the burning bricks of the patio. “Another record. Every day now, it seems to break the record.”

Minna gazed into space. Her face appeared to go out of focus, then suddenly came back. “The greenhouse gases! Augie can tell you all about the gases.”

Lucy bet he could, and made a mental note to avoid the topic.

When Vanags reappeared he was wearing half-moon glasses and holding an open book. “You were right on the money — it’s a mollusk! Gumboot chiton. Biggest chiton in the world. Related to the limpet. Eats red algae. Cryptochiton stelleri. That’d be Steller, as in Steller’s jay and Steller’s sea lion. German guy worked for the Russians. Know about Steller?”

“Yes, a bit,” Lucy said, trying to forestall a lecture. “He was up in Alaska.” That pretty much exhausted her knowledge of Mr. Steller.

Vanags gently unwrapped the towel from around the chiton to show its flat bottom. “See? That’s his foot there. Feel the suction! This poor critter must’ve gotten washed off a rock someplace. I better take him back to where he belongs.”

As Vanags marched in short neat steps across the bald lawn toward the beach, Minna called after him, apparently from long and, Lucy guessed, unsuccessful habit: “Augie! Don’t be late for your lunch!”

AFTER THEIR LUNCH of incredibly disgusting chicken fajitas, Gail and Alida raced each other to the computer lab to find Finn. Weird as he was, Finn was a big figure in the lives of sixth-grade girls, who usually referred to him not by name but as “the Geek,” or just “Geek.” If you were building a website, sooner or later you’d find yourself armed with bribes in the shape of Jamba Juice smoothies, gum, doughnuts, dark chocolate (Finn would accept no other kind), Cheez-Its, or, like today, blueberry muffins, going in search of the Geek.

Finn wrote code. He could rattle stuff out in HTML and Java faster than the girls could write English when they were I.M.-ing. If Finn had a life, which was doubtful, it lay somewhere out in cyberspace. Even seniors consulted him, gifts in hand; you’d hear them saying in low, respectful voices, “How’d you get there, Finn?” and “Can you show me that again?” He sat through tech classes, scowl glued to his face, rolling his eyes when the teacher wasn’t looking. Mr. Orlovsky, Finn said, was “crap.”

Last week he’d done this really cool thing with Emma’s website. Emma had always had a picture on her home page of her house in Issaquah, with her entire family posed outside, right down to the aunts and uncles and cousins. It had been taken on her grandparents’ silver wedding anniversary. Finn had gone to work on it. Now the whole picture was alive with links: you’d click on a face and get taken to a biography, where you’d learn everything from their favorite color to their pet peeve. If you clicked on a window of the house, you’d find yourself inside that room — at least would be able to, when Emma finished taking photos, which was getting difficult because her parents were threatening to revoke her privileges for spending too much time on her website. This amazing interactive home page, shared in strict confidence with Gail and Alida, was so totally awesome that they had to have one for themselves.

In the computer lab, the Geek was sitting, or writhing on the stool at his usual monitor. Every kid in school recognized that spot as his personal territory at lunchtime. He had big springy hair, like an Afro, and a big ass to match. The moment the girls were in the door, he shut down the screen, like what he was doing was top secret, though the one time Alida caught him out, he was only finishing an e-mail, signing it “Love ya!!!! Finn.” Maybe that was his secret: whenever he sent e-mails to his girl clients, he always signed them FREAK.

“Hey, dude,” Gail said.

“So whaddaya got?” Finn didn’t turn around, just kept his eyes on the blank screen. He never looked straight at people; he’d talk to ceilings, walls, or windows, anything but the person who was trying to talk to him.

“Muffins.”

“Three muffins.”

“Blueberry?”

“What else?”

“Okay. Whaddaya want?”

He was incredibly rude. Puzzled that the website king didn’t have — or said he didn’t have — a website of his own, Emma had asked him why not, and got the answer, “Because I’m not a dumb-ass girl.” Hilarious. Still, you only had to see Emma’s new home page to swallow your pride and go buy muffins for the odious Finn.