Татьяна Толстая - Aetherial Worlds

Sure, the house was also dirty, but what difference did that make? It was finally clear why he required sterility specifically, and not mere cleanliness: if you’re a messenger from hell and you’re building a pentacle, you need to purify the space of all specters, of all the lares and penates, both the household and the basement variety. That’s when you need demons-for-hire to arrive with their fumigators—Kock and Chik, transvestites joined in matrimony, if not in surname; I should have figured this out earlier, when I saw Kock arranging glassware contrary to all human convention.

Bushes were pulled out by the roots in the garden, roses were cut down to resemble ski poles, and at the border with my neighbors there were signs in the soil of indiscriminate digging. The mailbox contained two letters. One a month old, in which Nielsen gives notice that he has vacated the premises and demands the return of his security deposit of fifteen hundred dollars. And the other letter, informing me that, because of my failure to return his security deposit, he is suing me. He is suing me.

So there you have it, girlie, that’s the finale: you find yourself alone in the middle of the great American continent, not a penny in your pocket, and a crazed arthropod bent on suing you. Have you ever tried to wrap your mind around the behavior of, say, cephalopods? Consider, for example: “The fourth left arm in the males is distinctive in its formation and is used for fertilization purposes.” Clearer now? The above is a scientific fact, by the way.

I found the address of a Princeton law firm in the Yellow Pages. Drove to their office. I picked the lawyer whose last name to me hinted at a knack for cunning pettifoggery. Described my situation.

“And why didn’t you keep the monies in an escrow account, as the law prescribes?” inquired the lawyer.

“I just borrowed it, no big whoop.”

“I see. Well, now he has the right to demand from you not just the security deposit, but also a penalty—I would guess around three thousand dollars. My fee, by the way, is two hundred dollars per hour.”

“Shit. Um. Okay. So what’s the plan?”

“I would be delighted to handle this case.” The shyster’s eyes lit up. “I think we can expect a very interesting fight in court.”

American courts are not as they appear on TV—things proceed a little differently. In my nonprofessional opinion, everything could have been handled in just an hour. But at two hundred dollars for my lawyer and probably the same for Nielsen’s, it would hardly be worth showing up for. So both shysters delight in playing for time. After a few hours, it’s our turn to question Nielsen. Here is my lawyer, leisurely getting up from his seat, strolling ever so casually, as if contemplating something, then sloooowly spinning on his heel, slooowly asking:

“Your full name?”

There followed ten minutes of irrelevant questioning, then Nielsen’s lawyer doing the same—and how polite, how respectful toward each other these shysters are. You don’t need to be a detective to know that they take turns driving their bimmers to each other’s house’s to sip whiskey on the rocks after work. Weekends are for barbecuing by the pool.

“Do you recognize the damage, as shown on these photographs, as the damage you caused to the walls?” slooowly asks my guy.

Nielsen is silent.

“Were you the one who damaged these walls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you cut an opening in this wall?”

“I did.”

“And did you cut an opening in this wall as well?”

“Yes.”

“For what purpose did you cut these openings, as shown in exhibit A and exhibit B?”

Nielsen is quiet, as the meters continue running. We are playing double or nothing: If I win, Nielsen will have to cover all my fees, including those for my attorney, in addition to the repairs. If he wins, I’ll have to return his security deposit, pay a penalty, and cover his attorney’s fees, and my house, desecrated by this beast for his séances of evolutionary regression, will hang around my neck like a millstone. What to do?

They stall and stall and then break for lunch. Another hour, another two hundred dollars. After lunch I ask my guy: So? How is it looking? He goes to confer with Nielsen’s shyster. Through closed doors I can hear them laughing, obviously discussing other things and not just my case. This is how it’s looking: Nielsen was unable to answer any of the questions clearly—his lawyer is furious. Furious! It’s a special kind of lawyerly fury, because it doesn’t cost him anything. But this doesn’t mean that I am sure to win this case! It remains a fact that in failing to deposit his check into an escrow account I did violate state law. My chances are fifty-fifty. But we can end all this right here.

“He is willing to withdraw his claim,” says my guy. “In exchange, he wants you to withdraw yours. That’s the cautious way out. But I would be delighted to fight this!”

Of course you would! But I can’t risk it. To hell with him. Let’s end it right here. To leave and to not look back. After all—“forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

“What a shame, what a shame!” calls my guy after me. “It was just getting interesting. I was looking forward to a good fight!”

After somehow repairing and cleaning up the house, I was able to sell it to a Latino couple. They weren’t particularly friendly, never smiled, not even out of politeness. So I didn’t tell them about the leaks in the basement. They never asked and I never said, just as my realtor had taught me. “I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know!” he’d exclaim, putting up his hands.

I sold all my belongings at a yard sale. Dragged some tables outside, set out my forks and corks, curtains and schmertains and other crap—just like the stuff they sell in the subways in Moscow. I put my furniture up for sale, too: a sizable crowd came to check it out; hard to keep an eye on everyone, so many things were stolen, including the draftsman’s kit, but it wasn’t mine anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Americans also pinch stuff, not just us Russians. The patio had lost some of its color over the years, the wood turning silvery, and it was almost time, according to the licensed carpenter’s schedule, to treat and stain it. Won’t be me—I’ll leave it to the buyers! Their kids, by the way, had enormous heads.

I sold my car to a neighbor down the street—he had a grimy little shop in his backyard: taking apart junk for spare parts, tuning up engines, and selling it all to auto supply shops. I asked for five hundred dollars but he turned me down. In the end he paid me one buck, and this was fair: the bottom had rusted out so much that, between the pedals, you could sometimes spot the remnants of skunks who hadn’t quite made it. He actually did me a favor: you can’t simply abandon an old car here—they’ll fine you. Unless maybe if you take it deep into the woods, to a forgotten plot of land, to a shack called “the End of All Paths,” and leave it there until the cows come home, until the fat lady sings, until Columbus’s second coming, until the day when they come for us all.

Thou comest naked into this world, and naked thou shalt leave.

I stood at the fork in the road, looking.

Yanked out the needle from my heart and walked away.

Throughout my life, Paris has been marked on my road map in a distinctive red color: maybe it’s karma, or misaligned feng shui, maybe the Catholics jinxed me or someone shot me the evil eye or put a spell on me, but in Paris specifically, unseen dark forces lunge viciously at me, wreaking havoc in an unusual, sophisticated manner.