Ольга Токарчук - Flights

‘You see,’ she said, coming to stand next to him, as though the secret of the specimen brought them together, rendered them close. ‘Lay it down and turn it over.’

He did this carefully, and she reached out and laid her hand on the cat’s stomach.

Under its own weight the cat’s body stretched out and for a moment lay before them on its back, in a position no live cat would ever assume. Blau touched its soft fur and thought it felt warm, although he knew that was impossible. He noted that its eyes had not been replaced by glass ones, as was usual in such cases; instead, Mole had in some magical way left its real eyes in; they seemed only slightly turbid. He touched an eyelid – it was soft and gave under his finger.

‘Some sort of gel,’ he said, more to himself than to her, but she was already pointing him to the slit on the cat’s stomach, which split open after a slight tug and revealed the cat’s whole insides.

Gently, as though touching the most fragile piece of origami, with just his fingertips he pried apart the abdominal walls of the animal and got into the peritoneum, which also let itself be opened, as though the cat were a book made out of precious, exotic material for which there is no name yet. He saw the sight that had since childhood given him a feeling of happiness and fulfilment – the organs perfectly placed in relation to one another, packed into a divine harmony, their natural colours providing absolute verisimilitude, completing the illusion that here the insides of a living body were opening up, that one was participating in its secret.

‘Go ahead and open the rib cage,’ she said, taking a small step back but still hovering over his shoulder. He could smell her breath: coffee and something sweet, stale.

He went ahead and the fine ribs gave way under the pressure of his fingers. He was actually expecting to see a beating heart, so perfect was the illusion. Instead there was a click, something lit up red, and out came a screeching melody, which Dr Blau later identified as the famous hit by the band Queen, ‘I Want To Live Forever’. He jumped back, frightened, with a blend of fear and disgust, as though he had inadvertently harmed this animal outstretched before him. He held his hands up and out. The woman clapped her hands together and laughed outright now, joyously, pleased with the joke, but Blau must have had an overly stern expression on his face because she regained control and put her hand on his back.

‘I’m sorry, don’t worry, it’s just his little joke. We didn’t want it to be too sad,’ she said, now fully serious, although her blue eyes were still laughing. ‘I’m sorry.’

The doctor reciprocated her smile with difficulty, and watched fascinated as the tissues of the specimen slowly, almost imperceptibly, returned to their initial layout.

She did take him to the lab. They took the car down the gravel road along the beach and went up into some stone buildings. Once there had been a fish processing plant here, back when the port still functioned as such; now they’d been converted into a few large rooms with clean, tiled walls, and doors that opened with the touch of a remote, like garages. They had no windows. She turned on the light and Blau saw two large tables covered in sheet metal as well as several glass cases filled with jars and instruments. Shelves filled with flasks of Jena glass. ‘Papain,’ he read on one of them and was surprised. What had Mole used that enzyme for, what had he used it to break down? ‘Catalase’. Syringes of enormous dimensions for infusing and ordinary small ones, like those used to give people injections. He noted this to himself, not daring to ask. Not yet. A metal bath, a drain in the floor, an interior reminiscent simultaneously of a surgeon’s office and a slaughterhouse. She tightened the dripping tap.

‘Are you happy?’ she asked.

He slid his open palm down the sheet metal of the table and went up to the desk, which still offered up some printouts with a graph of some curve.

‘I haven’t touched anything,’ she said encouragingly, as though she were the owner of a home put up for sale. ‘I just threw out the unfinished specimens, because they were starting to go bad.’

He felt her hand on his back and cast a startled glance at her, then immediately lowered his eyes. She moved closer to him, standing so that her breasts were touching his shirt. He felt a panicked rush of adrenaline and just managed to prevent his body from jerking back against his will. But he found a pretext; the table, which he bumped into, swayed, and some small glass ampoules almost rolled onto the floor. He caught them at the last moment; thus he freed himself from that uncomfortable closeness of their bodies. He was certain it had happened naturally enough, as though she’d accidentally leaned on him. At the same time, he felt like a little boy, and suddenly the difference in their ages loomed so large.

She lost a bit of her interest in showing and explaining the details to him; she took out her phone and called someone. She was discussing some rental fee, making plans for Saturday. While this was going on he looked around voraciously, examined every detail and called upon himself to remember all of it. Record in his mind on a map all the equipment in the lab, every little bottle, the location of each of the tools.

After lunch, during which she talked to him about Mole, his daily schedule and little eccentricities (he listened attentively, sensing he was receiving an extraordinary privilege), she talked Blau into swimming in the sea. He wasn’t happy, he would have preferred to sit quietly in the library and examine the cat and the room itself once more. But he didn’t have the courage to say no to her. He made a last vague attempt to get out of it by pointing out he didn’t have a bathing suit.

‘Oh, come on,’ she said, not accepting the excuse. ‘It’s my private beach, there won’t be anyone. You can swim naked.’

But she was still going in a swimming costume. So Dr Blau took off his boxers underneath his towel and got into the water as quickly as he could. The cold of it took his breath away. He wasn’t a good swimmer – he’d somehow never had an opportunity to learn. In general he didn’t like exercise, being in motion. He uncertainly hopped around in the water, taking care to be able to feel the bottom under his feet. Meanwhile she swam out to sea in a beautiful crawl and then returned. She splashed water on him. Blau, surprised, shut his eyes.

‘Well, what are you waiting for, swim!’ she cried.

He readied himself for a moment for the plunge into the cold water, ultimately doing it in desperation, submissively, like a child not wanting to disappoint a parent. He swam a little distance and turned back. Then she slapped her hand against the surface of the water, hard, and kept going by herself.

He waited for her on the shore, shivering. As she walked towards him, dripping, he looked down.

‘Why didn’t you swim?’ she asked, in a high-pitched, amused voice.

‘Cold,’ was all he said.

She burst out laughing, throwing back her head and shamelessly exposing her palate.

In his room he dozed off briefly, before taking some meticulous notes. He even sketched the layout of Mole’s lab, feeling a little bit like James Bond. With relief he washed off the salt water, shaved and put on a clean shirt. When he went downstairs, she was nowhere to be seen. The door to the library was closed, and the key in the door had been turned, so he wasn’t brave enough to go in… He went out in front of the house and played with the cat until the cat ignored him. Finally he heard some sounds coming from the kitchen and went towards it from the yard.

Mrs Mole was standing by the counter and going through green lettuce leaves.