Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

Niko said that he would just go into the bathroom. Viko said he would be with them in one minute. First he had this little matter — they understood? He gestured over to a table, where an argument was taking place. They understood. So Viko wandered back over to the tables and took up his position, a little way off, on a bar stool; while Haffner waited on a banquette for Niko to return.

Haffner listened to the argument: like every argument, its intonations were universal.

He did not know the precise details: he did not know that a man was telling his teenage son that he was not showing any respect to Viko.

— When you were my age, he said. When you. When I was. There was a pause.

— You're me, right, said the man.

On his bar stool, Viko lit a cigarette: aloof from the argument, in his ivory tower.

He was forty-two, said the anonymous father, and he had never said fuck in front of his mother. Never. Look, he loved him more than his bird loved him. He respected him. And he didn't need to go round saying things which weren't respectful. If he didn't show any respect.

— Him, if he wants to, said the man, pointing at Viko, he can have anyone killed.

And how was Haffner also to know, as he listened to this incomprehensible argument, that Niko was, at that moment, bending as if in solicitude over the tank of a toilet, inhaling a gram of cocaine which he had first neatly heaped in a thin straggling line? It wasn't Haffner's normal world. As he looked around, sipping the first of the vodkas which the barman brought him, he was simply trying to understand why there seemed to be such a lack of urgency; such a lack of businesslike flair. He wanted to be done with this. The urgent need to do what he had to do and secure this villa for Livia still possessed him, even in his drunken state. He wanted to be true to a domestic idyll. He wanted to be successful and in bed. But Haffner, in his finale, was fated so rarely to be in bed when he wanted, with whom he wanted.

He felt for the phone, bulging in his tracksuit top.

Niko propped himself on the patch of yellow foam under the ripped velour of the banquette, on which Haffner's hand had been resting.

— You want to play? said Niko. You like billiards? Why not? If we played a little game, for a bet?

— Really? said Haffner.

— Why not? said Niko. Why not?

Haffner was drunk. And he was good at billiards. After all, he had been Joe Davis's banker. Haffner, as the legend had often said, was a natural.

Along the walls of the billiards and snooker hall, a range of cues was propped — like an armoury. Haffner prised one out from its tight little omega, and rolled it on the empty and unlit surface of a dark unoccupied table. It drifted in an unprofessional curve. Haffner prised out another. The black butt of this cue was slightly sticky. He rolled this one also — noting its warp, its bias and slide.

He walked back to his table; asked if Niko wanted to break. Niko rested his cue, upright, against the table.

— You break, he said.

Haffner settled over the table, fervently. He jabbed the white, but somehow swerved his arm so the tip of the cue slid and tapped the white on top, then bounced beside it on the thin green baize.

— That's not a good shot no, said Niko.

— No, said Haffner.

— Listen, said Niko. You must keep your arm straight — no, yes, out, yes, better. Now try.

— But it's your turn, said Haffner.

— No no, said Niko. You go, you go.

Haffner recovered his form with an in-off red. He played gracefully, impressively. He relaxed into his talent. Intently — doing this for Livia, thinking of Livia, the tenderness he felt for the rashes she had been prone to, her skin weeping like honeycomb — he did not look at Niko during a series of fourteen in-offs. And then he missed.

— Come into my office, said Viko: he was standing beside their table, his arms wide, smiling.

Neatly, he sat down on a bench.

— So sorry, said Viko, nodding over in apology to the now becalmed and darkened table. A drink? he added.

A deal among men: this, at least, was a world which Haffner could understand. On his bench, as in the most masculine of steak houses, Haffner leaned forward, in the way that he had always done: the clasp of his palms dropped against his lap.

A genie, Niko returned with three bottles of beer — the flare of his nostrils, inside, was a glowing coral. He picked up his cue, scratched the turquoise block of chalk, with its shallow indentation, across its tip. He puffed the puff of chalk away. Then settled to his work.

And Viko outlined the situation. Haffner wanted the villa. The Committee was proving difficult. Haffner was interested in speeding the process up. This, so far, was what Viko understood. Haffner praised his grasp of the situation. And Viko, continued Viko: he was known as a man of honour. He liked to help his friends. And Haffner was a friend?

Haffner was a friend.

He thought he was, said Viko. So. Viko had done his research; he had asked various questions: he had made Haffner's situation known.

This was very kind, said Haffner.

Niko had been playing a monotonous series of in-off reds. He lifted his head from the table. What, he asked, did Haffner want the upper limit to be? Haffner wondered if 100 would be appropriate. Niko played another long in-off red.

And Viko therefore thought that, with the document he was now offering to Haffner, Haffner would find it ever so much easier to bring the matter to a close. He unfolded a square of paper from his pocket, and laid it in front of Haffner. Haffner tried to read it. As he expected, it was not in a language he knew.

This was what? he queried. It was the necessary authentication from the authorities, said Viko. It was the proof that the family of his wife were the rightful owners of the property.

— The deeds? asked Haffner.

— Not quite, said Viko. But this was all he needed.

Haffner had never imagined the world of corruption to work with such elegance, such dispatch. If only he had understood this sooner, in his career, he thought. He might have saved himself so many hours of work.

From the bar, they could hear a miniature ice-hockey match, on a miniature television, being brought to its conclusion. Niko paused: he strained to watch.

— You prefer which games? asked Niko, still straining.

— The game of cricket, said Haffner.

— Yes, the English game, said Niko, relaxing back into the real world.

From his cueing position, Niko wondered if Haffner could explain the game of cricket. Haffner thought this was unlikely. But it was true: he liked the higher games. The higher English games. Like cricket, and croquet. The games with intricate rulebooks.

— Or soccer, of course, said Haffner, in an effort to lower himself to the universal level, looking at his incomprehensible document with lavish pride.

— This is my game, said Niko. The penalties! This I love. The lottery. The goalkeeper's fear.

But no, Haffner said, putting his folded document down beside his beer, careful to avoid the ornamental water features on the scratched and sticky shelf. Not at all. The goalkeeper was never afraid of the penalty, said Haffner. The goalkeeper was in love with the penalty.

— You kill me, said Niko.

Hear him out, said Haffner. Hear a man out. What the goalkeeper didn't want was the difficult cross, the perfectly weighted through-ball. These were the tests of skill and psychology: the undramatic moments.

— Possible, said Niko. Possible.

The real dilemma for the goalkeeper, continued Haffner, was whether or not to leave his area. That was the moral crux of goal-keeping — to know when to curb one's courage. But the penalty was pure theatre. The goalkeeper, finished Haffner, in a penalty, could never be defeated.