Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

Haffner's knees, aching from their bathtime antics, made walking difficult for Haffner. As they passed a sinuous bench, he asked if they could sit down, just for a moment.

— Not yet, she said. Not yet.

He was so old. And Zinka was so young. These facts were undeniable. But Haffner did not care. He looked at her, she smiled and Haffner did not care if this girl were using him; if she looked on him as an old fool. He was an old fool. There was no shame in that.

— How old am I? asked Zinka.

— Thirty? hazarded Haffner, baffled utterly.

— So old? said Zinka, disappointed.

— I was wrong? asked Haffner.

— A little, said Zinka.

And she, beckoning to tired Haffner, began to climb some small and artificial hill. Wincing, Haffner followed her. They sat for a while, to ease Haffner's legs, in the bandstand. But no band could stand this bandstand — thought Haffner. Dejectedly he regarded the signs of a struggle, a flight in haste: two condoms; a cigarette packet and its scattered assortment of butts, some blushing with lipstick, some not; a bottle of beer, without any beer. He looked out over the landscape.

From this point, perched on an artificial mound, Haffner saw the fields outside the city; the yellow rape fields, now blue in the dark, against which were dabbed the cypresses' black Japanese brushmarks.

From here, Zinka told him, she was fine. She was just in that apartment block — the one he could see, on the other side of the park. Haffner slowly nodded. She kissed him goodbye on his cheek.

Around him clouded his life: its particles — as usual — suspended, motionless. He hardly knew where he was: or to whom he belonged.

But no, just right now, I'm not quite in the mood for Haffner, and his confusions. Instead, I am into the different confusions of Zinka.

For Haffner suspected that to Zinka it was simply a matter of the usual story: an old man being used by a young girl. But this, I think, was not fair to the complicated romance of Zinka.

He was, thought Zinka, the first man she had ever met who enjoyed it when she teased him. He did not mind when one praised him for the smallness of his hands. He did not mind when you asked him to follow you, when you refused him the kisses you knew he wanted from you.

To Zinka, Haffner represented freedom. He had a politesse which she admired. This would have seemed unlikely to the women who had known the previous incarnations of Haffner: the forgetter of birthdays and anniversaries, the man incapable of returning a phone call. But maybe Zinka was not so wrong.

In front of her apartment block there was a water feature which she had never seen working: in its trough lay a ready-made of garbage. So she looked up instead, at the giant advert covering her balcony: the manic woman, the manic birds.

He didn't need his pride. This, she thought, was why she liked him. At last, she had discovered a relationship which could be improvised by Zinka.

And as Zinka went into the kitchen, to find some food — emerging with a packet of crisps — above her hovered the moon, the clouds in a cirrus formation which watched over the buildings with their scaffolding, their satellite dishes and air-conditioning units, the adverts ( Heineken: Meet You There ), the raised blinds and the shut blinds: all the domestic paraphernalia.

She turned back the two folding doors to the television. She switched on some form of American TV. A baseball star was showing the camera crew round his house. They were approaching the bedroom.

He was going to say, thought Zinka, that this was where the magic happened.

She reached in the packet for some crisps; her fingers emerged empty, but dandruff 'd with salt.

— This is where the magic happens, said the baseball star.

And Zinka marvelled, silently, looking out at the suburbs by night, through the advert's gauze: wishing she could have told someone. First, she thought of Niko. But she wasn't sure Niko would understand any humour, let alone hers. And then she thought of Haffner.

And there she paused.

On the packet of her paprika crisps, a slice of potato with arms and legs beckoned to her with delirious eyes.

Alone in the midsummer night, Haffner had wandered off towards the hotel — on a road marked only by stray houses, then a Service Auto, beside a shop which seemed to sell the million varieties of cigarette, displayed behind glass cases, like extinct species of insect. Then a pizza place. And then a strip joint.

The twenty-four-hour bar ( Service Non-stop! ) into which Haffner descended, down a steep flight of stairs, was apparently in its busiest period. A group of possibly Polish truckers and a couple of policemen off duty made up the front row. Behind them, amphitheatrically, were ranged an assortment of men.

Haffner, however, wasn't here for the men.

He watched the women extend their legs around a stainless steel pole. He observed the way their breasts fell forward, elongated pyramids, as they leaned over — touching their toes in some strange imitation of an eighties aerobics routine, without the pink leg warmers, the turquoise sweatbands.

Then, in the crowd, Haffner recognised Niko: Zinka's boyfriend. He felt a descending qualm, a chime inside his chest. Niko gestured to him, warmly. He wanted him, it seemed, to join Niko's group. Haffner wondered about this.

He decided he had no choice.

— You all speak English? said Haffner to Niko.

— Of course we speak English. Fuck you, said Niko.

— That's a good accent you've got, said Haffner.

— Merci , said Niko.

It was the world of men.

— This man, said Niko, he look after my mad girl tonight. She bored you?

— No no, said Haffner, brightly.

— Yes, she bored you, said Niko. It's OK. We all understand. And everyone, including wistful Haffner, laughed.

— You want to play a trust game? said Niko. It is what we are doing. You can zip the person next to you — zip zip. Only zap the person across from you.

— No, said Haffner.

— Zap, said Niko.

— You mean zip, said Haffner.

— Yes, said Niko.

— Can we stop this? asked Haffner.

On stage, a girl was now entirely naked, apart from a pair of translucent platform heels, on which she was balancing with a grace and ease which charmed old Haffner's heart. But not Niko's. She lacked flair, he argued. If, however, Haffner wanted her. . He indicated that he had not finished his sentence. Haffner, however, was beyond the innuendos now. The masculine, and its zest for the tight-lipped, no longer charmed him.

He sadly nodded no.

— This is what you are here for? asked Niko.

Wearily, Haffner explained that, in fact, it was not why he was here. Or not officially. Nor primarily. Haffner was in this town to secure his heritage, his inheritance. He was here to do honour to his wife.

Angrily, he began a tirade against the state. He could not understand it. The bureaucracy bewildered him. It demeaned the human spirit. Why did no one seem to care? What, he asked Niko, did you have to do in this country to get anything done? He only wanted what was his due. He was hardly demanding the moon.

— You know, said Niko, I like you.

— I like you too, said Haffner.

— Yes, I like you, said Niko, then wandered off, leaving Haffner with Niko's friends, who did not seem to share his pure love of Haffner.

Ignored, listening to Niko's friends talk freely about him in a language he could not understand, Haffner sat and watched the women. If these men wanted to mock him, then so be it. He could do abasement. The silent pattern of his life had been delicately training him, thought Haffner, for these moments of humiliation. Like the time when he came home to discover that his father had sold all his bar mitzvah presents, arguing that they only took up space in the house, declining to discuss the possibility that he was going to use the money for some selfish gain. Yes, Raphael Haffner was used to the destruction of his hopes.