Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

Or Patricia, either. I’ll put the money in a safe deposit box at the bank. Like I’m in some fucking movie . Idiot. I have to think about it. I’ll decide in the morning, I’ll sleep on it. The old fool, hiding money in the toaster. He probably felt like a gangster, smart and resourceful. The idiot. It was almost as though Jenny had intuited the money was in there, but she couldn’t have known that. Thomas flushes his cigarette butt down the toilet and slides the window open a tad. He pulls a bill from one of the bundles and holds it up to the lamp. It’s legit all right. Watermark and all that jazz. He packs the money back up and tiptoes down the dark hallway. He pours himself a tall glass of whiskey in the living room and gulps it down, grimacing. It occurs to him that there’s an old microwave in their storage unit in the basement. He smiles. He thinks: I’m smiling like crazy because I am crazy. We might as well stick to kitchen appliances, he thinks, if that’s the way the old man wanted it. I’ll put them down in the microwave then. He draws his keys out of his pants pocket, carefully closes the door behind him, and takes the elevator down. The basement is dark as a cave. He fumbles for the light switch and suddenly he can’t remember where their storage unit is. Every unit is numbered, one after the other in a system of hallways running lengthwise and crosswise. But which number is theirs? Is there some sort of system? There are iron doors with bars for each of the small compartments. Through these bars he can see moving boxes and worn-out furniture. It’s not here. Or here. He begins to sweat. The heat from the boiler room is unbearable. The smell of dust clings to his nostrils. The light clicks off. He turns the corner onto a new, long hallway. And another. This one’s like a passageway, narrower than the others. His footfalls ring metallically on the hard floor. At last he catches sight of an orange plastic chair that he’d used in his kitchen before he moved in with Patricia. And there are the boxes filled with summer clothes. And the microwave, way in the back. He can feel his heart hammering. In with the bundles, close the oven, slam the door shut. A thought rumbles through him: Is this secure enough ? He’s about to open the door again — because of course the money should be taken to the police, what is he thinking? what kind of person is he? But now he wants to get out of the basement. Now he’s panicking. What if he can’t find his way out again? The bundles will have to stay there until morning, in any case, and nothing will happen to them between now and then. Desperate and downright afraid, he bumbles around the basement searching for the exit. He keeps finding new hallways, new light switches that click off, new fucking signs on doors with new combinations of numbers. He wants to be calm and composed, but he’s not calm and he’s not composed. At last he finds a door and enters an unfamiliar stairwell. Out on the street he lights a smoke. His torso is wet with sweat, and his throat is constricted; it’s as if there’s an iron hand wrapped around his chest, squeezing him, as if someone shielded behind iron is screaming in his face. In the silence of the street at night, he can see that he’s wandered off, down in the basement, in the completely opposite direction of his own door. He’s four doors from his own. It almost makes him smile — it’s so laughable, this. His watch shows quarter after 1:00 A.M. The wind has settled. How long did he stumble around in the darkness like a scaredy-cat? Slowly his breathing returns to normal, his pulse calm. A scooter motors noisily past with two youths on it, the girl tightly clutching the young man; each wears a black helmet. He catches a glimpse of the girl’s long legs in skinny jeans. Her blonde hair spilling down her back. The moon vanishes behind a dark cloud. His shadow towers long and ghostlike on the street. When a humpbacked old man with a squeaky, nasal voice calls to his dog on the other side of the street, Thomas jumps, frightened. “Come, Bingo, you old scoundrel. Come to Papa.” Later in the night, rain begins to fall, heavy and monotonous. A powerful sense of unreality trails him into his dreams when he finally falls asleep close to morning, just as the first sliver of daylight wedges through the blinds. He dreams of the basement, and once again: the little girl on the carousel, her facial expression now distorted; grasshoppers everywhere; the sensation of suffocation; stagnant warm air.

The following morning the wind has picked up again. Patricia goes to yoga at 10:00 A.M. She doesn’t seem angry with him, but she’s quiet. Thomas wanders anxiously through the apartment the entire morning. He can’t think about anything else but the money in the microwave. At 11:30 he’s so jumpy that he decides to go for a jog, to rid himself of his unease. Against a strong wind, he pants around the park four times. More than once he has to stop for a drink from the water fountain. The sun breaks through the layer of clouds. When he returns, Patricia’s listening to music. It sounds like Schubert. She’s scrubbing the kitchen sink.

“Tina and Jules are coming to dinner at 7:00. They’re bringing Stella.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“No particular occasion.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about this.”

“Tina called just now and I invited them over. Is that okay?”

He pulls a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge.

“Are you angry about it? Why are you angry? They’ll put Stella to bed and probably go home early. It’s been so long since we’ve seen them.”

He pours water into a glass and chugs it.

“Thomas?” She dries her hands and puts them on his shoulders from behind. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m tired and confused and don’t have any particular interest in sitting around talking about literature and recipes while a two-year old races around makes a mess of everything,” he says somberly. “My father just died.”

She sighs. She sits on the edge of a chair. A short time passes before she says anything more. He thinks: She’s making an effort.

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t think his death affected you all that much. I thought you were mostly relieved. But—”

“I am relieved!” Thomas has an uncontrollable urge to be left in peace. Schubert’s piano sonata worms into his brain in an unbearable way. She sets the scouring pad aside and removes her rubber gloves.

They sit opposite one another at the small, black-stained table; the water faucet drips, and large gray cloud formations flit swiftly across the sky. The sun disappears behind the clouds and the light in the kitchen changes, like a curtain closing on a stage.

“Do you want me to cancel?”

He shakes his head.

“We can invite Maloney to join us, if you want. And Jenny?”

“Hell no!”

Her eyes darken, and she looks down.

“I’m just not myself, Patricia. I can’t explain it. Weird things are happening.”

She props her elbows on the table and looks directly into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” He fiddles with a box of matches, scratches at the sulfur. “But I’ll survive this dinner.” He attempts a smile. Takes a deep breath. The nape of his neck tingles unpleasantly. He thinks again of the money.

“Okay. I’ll do the shopping and make dinner. I thought we could broil a turbot in the oven. With melon and raspberries for dessert.”

He nods.

“Do you want to take a shower first?” He shakes his head. She squeezes his hand and leans across the table to put her free hand on his cheek. “You’re warm. You don’t have a fever, do you?”

He doesn’t have a fever. Still seated, he stares out the window listening to her clattering in the bathroom, blow-drying her hair, opening closets and cupboards in the bedroom. He sighs, thinking: “You should be drinking champagne and dancing on tables, you’re free, a free man. You’ve just inherited a considerable amount of money.” But he has no desire to dance. He stands up and turns off the music in the living room, crawls onto the couch, and pulls a blanket all the way up to his chin, still miffed about having dinner guests and Schubert, and he’s amazed at how his body instantly grows heavy as lead, how his breathing almost at once becomes slow and calm, how his lower lip relaxes, slips down, how a little drool trickles from his mouth and splotches the pillow, how the wet stain grows cold against his cheek. He wonders how his body can go from being agitated to being calm so quickly. Off in the distance he hears a train. A truck slowly and loudly — a kind of snort — rumbles down the street, and the whole time the wind, the wind: howling and whistling like a huge, unthinking creature racing through the world without knowing what it’s supposed to do.