Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

Jenny takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “In our family the men don’t take very good care of their children. It’s a tradition. But you don’t have any children, Thomas, so you don’t count.”

Patricia mumbles: “Not yet, in any case,” and Alice sits up, says: “Not all the women take good care of their children, either, as far as I can see.”

“What do you mean, Alice?” Jenny struggles to sit up straight. “Why do you say that?”

“As far as I know, your mother left you two.”

Jenny sinks back again. “Right, well, but we had Aunt Kristin.”

“Oh, did we now?” Thomas looks at Jenny

“She was a consolation of sorts. In any event, we lived with her that summer.”

“That was a week at most.”

“I hate it when you’re so superficial, Mom,” Alice says in a high, clear voice. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Hey, now,” Jenny mutters.

“Aunt Kristin let you live with your father. She couldn’t handle you two. You told me yourself. And your father was a bastard.”

“Exactly,” Thomas says, smiling at Alice. “He was a bastard.”

“Exactly,” Alice says, returning the smile. Suddenly there’s a connection between them.

“Hang on,” Jenny says. “Aunt Kristin wasn’t much older than you are now. Of course she couldn’t keep us. .” Now it seems as though Jenny’s about to fall asleep. Her eyes fall shut.

“Do you have a smoke, Thomas?” Alice asks. He fishes a crushed pack from his breast pocket, and offers one to Alice. They light their cigarettes. Patricia glares at him disapprovingly, but it’s oh so good to feel the smoke in his lungs. Alice ashes on an empty pie plate.

“Are you sad that you never hear from your father?” Patricia asks.

She shrugs. “I used to be. But not anymore. Since I don’t really know him, I couldn’t care less.”

“Be happy you don’t,” Jenny snuffles. “But he’s got himself a cute kid, just like you were once.” Did she drink port before they arrived? Thomas wonders. Or popped pills? Does she pop pills?

“She still is!” Patricia squeezes Alice’s shoulder. “Please visit us soon. You can bring your boyfriend, if you’d like.” Alice seems younger and happier for a moment. She leans against Patricia and wraps an arm around her. Then, suddenly, Ernesto is standing in the doorway in his undershirt. “There’s pie?” he asks, showing everyone his toothy smile.

Thomas and Patricia push open the door to the street and are almost blinded by the light. Thomas glances up at Jenny’s windows, and sure enough, he sees a flapping arm; he returns the wave. They take a left toward the station. Patricia draws inward, says nothing. Thomas discreetly shoves his hand under his jacket and shirt and touches the packets. The tinfoil seems to have loosened here and there, no doubt there’s plastic underneath. Their father lay on a plastic sheet. Jenny insisted that the nurses dress him in his own clothes. So they did. Meanwhile they waited outside, and it took a long time. Maneuvering such a rigid cargo of flesh and bones must be strenuous work. The sounds in the hallway were hard and raw. The entire time he felt one little shock after another: a door slammed shut, then voices, then footsteps coming or going. As though all sounds were magnified. Jenny clutched the sleeve of his jacket and wouldn’t let it go. They stared at each other, but said nothing. She hung on his sleeve. Then the nurses returned, each of them flushed and warm. One disappeared, while the other began removing a thin rubber glove from her left hand. Her disposable smock rustled softly. “So he’s all set,” she said. Jenny thanked her, clasping her hands in her own. An ambulance was called. They could see him here or at the hospital chapel. But Jenny wanted to see him in his “usual surroundings.” Their father now wore a torn, dark-blue shirt and gray flannel pants. But the nurse had left the yellow windbreaker hanging on a chair. It was made of nylon. Maybe she’d considered how, when he was shoved into the oven, the flames would shoot through the windbreaker with its raging fire. Thomas tried to imagine it. Raging fire. Within seconds, the material would curl up and melt and the stench would be terrible.

“Would you like to sit with him for a bit?” the nurse asked kindly. “I can bring another chair.”

“No thanks, we’ll stand,” Thomas replied.

“The car will be here shortly.” She smiled, then was gone. The door closed.

“I hope we can find our way out again,” Thomas said. Jenny eyed him reproachfully. Then she tugged at the white sheet covering their father’s shins, and the toe tag appeared, neatly cinched around his right big toe with a little bow. His naked feet looked awful. The nurses hadn’t clipped his nails. Thick, horny yellow nails on crooked toes.

“Gross.”

“Thomas!” Jenny put the sheet back. There was an overly sweet, nauseating odor in the cell, mixed with Jenny’s spicy perfume. They stood there. An odd silence. The very silence, Thomas thought. The innermost essence of silence: the silence of death. Everything ends. Everything has ended. A long time passed and a short time passed. The late afternoon light fell softly through the armor-plated window. A glimpse of greenish sky. The cell was impersonal, lacking any trace of their father, who had lived here for four weeks. Maybe the staff had cleaned it up before they’d arrived. The nurse popped her head in the room. The car was ready. Jenny sniffled and shot a final glance at the body on the cot. When they exited the cell, they saw two porters rolling the folded-up stretcher from one end of the hallway to the other; they also saw the thick plastic body bag their father would be stuffed into, but they didn’t stop to see him being wheeled off. The nurse followed them out and shook their hands. Then they signed a piece of paper, and the package with their father’s possessions was placed into Thomas’s hand. The heavy doors fell shut behind them. Jenny looked about for the ambulance when they were outside in the fresh air, but neither one of them could see it. “Maybe it’s parked on the other side of the prison,” Jenny said. A bird tweeted cheerfully in a tree above them. “Don’t you think? Don’t you think there’s a parking lot on the other side?” She sounded so anxious. “Yes, probably,” he said. She tucked her arm under his. “I’m quite certain there’s a parking lot over there, aren’t you?” Then they walked along the huge, wet lawns observing the green and rose-pink sky, and as though automatically they headed in the direction of the train station cafeteria, where they sat next to the window and ordered the weak coffee they served with a whole lot of sugar. They froze like icicles. “We’re parentless now,” Jenny said, her lips quivering. Then she went silent. It was as if they were children again, slouching wordlessly at a small gray table under a slightly too-bright source of light. Just like they used to in the evenings in the kitchen at home. There’s something childish about us, Thomas thought. That’s what we have in common.

Patricia clutches his arm and picks up the pace. The sun’s so clear and strong that it stings their eyes. In the light, her dark hair has a reddish sheen. She squeezes his arm. “Can you and Maloney hire Alice for the store? She needs to get out of that apartment. You think she could clean, or something?”

“I don’t know, we’ve already got Eva, you know. I can’t just fire her. And every position is filled. Peter’s apprenticing. We won’t be rid of him for another two years.”

“I just think we ought to help her, Thomas. She’s smart enough, don’t you think? And after all, she’s your only niece. And mine. She’s the only child in the family.”

“She’s not a child.”