Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

— Interesting, said Niko, still watching the television. You like Barthez?

— Barthez? said Haffner. A showman. Just a showman. Never rated him. Now Banks, however, now there was a goalkeeper.

— Who? said Viko, bored.

With Niko's next shot, the red ball quivered against the angled upper jaw of a centre pocket, and settled there, unpotted. The white dribbled towards it and, miraculously, stopped — on the lower jaw of the same centre pocket.

— It's amazing what can happen, said Niko, meditatively, on this twelve-by-six-foot table. Then he smiled at Haffner, as if for appreciation.

There only remained, therefore, said Haffner, with decorum — trying to return the matter to his hoped-for conclusion — the matter of: and then he broke off, as he had always broken off before, when negotiating with clients. He understood?

Viko understood: he had consulted with Niko, he said. They were friends. Haffner nodded. They wanted to do this as friends. Haffner nodded again. They would therefore only charge him for the merest expenses. With a small extra compensation. For a third time Haffner solemnly nodded his assent, with gravitas. With gravitas, Viko named his price.

In this way these deals were done.

Haffner, in conclusion, nodded his agreement. In response, Viko stood to offer Haffner the manly theatrics of a less reserved hug.

Haffner looked at his phone, and considered calling Benji — to boast of his success.

— You want another drink? said Niko. Sure you do!

He decided that Benji could wait.

— So, said Niko.

They walked back to the bar, and sat down on the ripped banquette. There was also, he added, the question of his money too. Haffner looked at him, sad that matters should have turned so predictably filmic: with all the usual minor sins. He thought that had been taken care of, mentioned Haffner.

— For the bet? said Niko.

Had that been a real bet? asked Haffner. He had no idea that Niko had been serious.

Niko looked at the old man in front of him, and placed a paternal hand on Haffner's boyish shoulder. Could Niko talk about Haffner? Would he permit this? Haffner said he could. Sometimes, Niko worried, Haffner didn't seem to take things seriously which he should have taken seriously. Like, he pointed out, how Haffner had behaved in the club the night before. Whereas Niko, now Niko took things seriously. But then, Niko had been in a war. In fact, Niko had fought in two wars. Against the Muslims. And let him maybe tell this story. Once, Niko was on the border, in the mountains. They were laying an ambush. It was very cold in the mountains. And Niko's friend, he had been to America. In America, he had bought a special suit, with wiring inside. It was like an electric blanket? But there was no internal power supply to this suit. There was no battery. So they were at the front, in the mountains. And his friend did not bring so many of his clothes. Instead, he brought his suit, and also a car battery. So. They got to their position. He put his suit on, and then he wired it up to the battery.

— And what happened? asked Haffner.

He fell asleep, said Niko. It was freezing, all the enemy was there, close to them, and he fell asleep. He was snoring. And this, said Niko, was Haffner. The man asleep.

— I fought in two wars, said Niko. And I fired shots in anger, I can tell you.

In the difficult silence which followed Niko's portrait of Haffner, Viko proposed that they should go somewhere else to celebrate.

There was a place near here, agreed Niko: with such girls! Then he paused. He began to smile. In his lightness of spirit, Haffner said he would also, of course, pay for the drinks. First, however, Haffner downed a final vodka. He placed the glass back on the brittle bar towel. Then he drank another final vodka. His heart accelerated. And Haffner, searching for coins in his wallet, which emerged, scissored between two figures, leaned into the sense of flight — as into the exhilaration of a speeding curve.

He knew what Niko meant. The problem had always been to distinguish whether one was wasting one's life or truly living it. This was the conundrum inherited from Solomon, his father. But the anguish of Haffner's life had therefore been in identifying which was which: the two so often hid within each other.

Libertine man! This was all Haffner had ever wanted to be. Yet now, he was beginning to think, it had always been a mirage. Although it might have looked like waste — his life in the quiet suburbs — although it had so often seemed a waste to Haffner, in fact that life was everything. Renouncing a woman, after all, can be a form of heroism; this is famous. And winning her may be a form of discipline.

The war was everywhere.

And Haffner, thought Haffner, had finally proved equal to this war — as he contemplated his finale up here in the mountains, with Zinka in the foreground, Frau Tummel in the background, and Benjamin a shadow in the distance. This piece of paper in his pocket, thought Haffner, constituted an undeniable achievement. So Haffner rejected Niko's accusation. Haffner was exultant!

In recovering Livia's villa, Haffner saw his reconciliation.

A chorus of trumpeting putti, Viko and Niko and Haffner raised their ultimate vodkas, downed the glasses on the wet surface of the bar counter, then on they went, happy, to the next whisky bar.

Haffner had always liked the imaginary travel books: the voyages to the centre of the earth, the voyages under the sea. There were the Sciapods, one-footed, but whose one tremendous foot served as a sunshade in the desert; or the Cynocephali, with the heads of dogs and a language which resembled barking. His favourite, given to him by Livia as a Christmas present, was an illustrated edition of the adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac — the comical man with the grandiose nose, who imagined a trip to the moon. But all these mythical journeys could only lead their heroes home. And Haffner was moved to realise that this was also true of him — even now, when Livia was dead. The marriage was endless.

— It kind of baffles me, sometimes, how you sleep at night, Pfeffer once said, as they sat in the Overseas Bankers' Club in Lothbury: amazed how Haffner could lie beside the wronged form of Livia.

Haffner dropped a chunk of sugar into his coffee, observing the brief spawn of bubbles on the black surface.

With Pfeffer, the family man, when trying to defend his sexual record, Haffner had then developed a theory of the wife and the mistress. Really, said Haffner, people didn't understand: the wife was safe. The really vulnerable were the other women. Pfeffer queried this. Haffner was always good, he observed, at misplacing his tenderness. His sense of what was important and what was not had never been a thing of moral beauty.

Haffner's argument had never convinced Haffner, let alone Pfeffer. Now, however, Haffner was beginning to wonder if he had been right all along. He couldn't remember the other women. They meant nothing to him. It was sad to admit this, but it was true. Whatever Barbra was doing now, Haffner didn't care. Whereas Livia was different. Livia was everything.

And me, I might add something else.

It is still the same Promised Land, it is still the same story, whether we talk of Moses and his Promised Land, or Odysseus and his Ithaca; or Haffner and this villa in the centre of Europe. And in a version of the story of Odysseus, which I once read, when Odysseus finally arrived safely home in Ithaca, he found himself utterly disappointed. And yet, wrote the author, whose name I have forgotten, what did he want of Ithaca? What else did it really offer him, if not precisely that journey home?