Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“Was that about Mom?”

“You have good ears.”

“But was it about Mom?” Thomas planted the sharp point of his pencil into his side. A thin, sharp pain. Their father turned halfway round to look at him. “Your mother’s dead. She’s been sick, and now she’s dead. But it doesn’t change anything. To us she’s been dead a long time. Go do your homework now. It’s late. I’m off soon.”

Their father turned his attention back to the screen. Thomas struggled for air.

“She’s not dead to me,” he whispered.

“Maybe so, but now she is in fact truly dead. And you might as well get used to it.” Then he raised his voice menacingly: “Don’t stand there pouting, Thomas.”

His father rose heavily and stood in all his bulk, tall and big-boned. He stared at Thomas. “You’re not gonna stand there whimpering, are you?” His father sighed. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense. Have you forgotten that she left you? We haven’t heard a word from her since. Cut it out, goddamnit.” He got his jacket from the couch, put it on, zipped it up, and lit a cigarette. He shoved his lighter into his pants pocket and exhaled smoke. He gave Thomas a hard, dark glare that sent him back to the well-lit kitchen. Don’t sniffle, don’t say a word . His clear snot dripped on the floor. Then he heard the door bang shut and again he stuck himself with his pencil, poking it deeply in the skin just under his ribs.

The next day was incredibly sunny. He didn’t say anything to Jenny. Not before summer. He didn’t want to make her sad. He kept their mother’s death to himself, like a big, shaggy, twisted lump of darkness. It wasn’t until August, when they visited Kristin in her apartment, that he learned what had happened. Their mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was dead six months later. She’d been out of the country and was buried in the city in which she’d died, Kristin said, according to her own wishes. She didn’t want to be buried in the family plot. She didn’t want to go home. Kristin had been with her during her final days, and she’d made sure that she’d been buried. “Did she say anything about us?” Thomas asked following a pause, in which Jenny scratched at a mosquito bite while humming and rocking in her chair and swinging her legs back and forth. But Kristin had just shaken her head. “No. She had so much pain that she couldn’t really talk. She was taking a lot of medicine, which caused her to sleep a lot. But I’m certain that she thought about each of you.” Thomas knew this was a lie. Something Kristin only said to make them happy. How would a lie make him happy? That same day, toward evening, Kristin had pulled him aside and given him a small photograph of their mother: She’s sitting in a garden with him on her lap. Jenny’s looking out from the baby carriage beside them. Their mother smiles to the camera. A teapot and some cups are resting on a table. Behind them is a tree with a thick, enormous crown. Their mother’s one bare arm holds Thomas, the other rests on the back of the bench behind his head. She looks calm and laid back, almost tranquil. Her eyes are hidden behind large sunglasses. It was the same photograph he picked up from the floor in their father’s apartment, when Jenny got her toaster. Thomas opens his eyes. Now he thinks about the money. The microwave in the basement. Christ. He gets to his feet. Patricia stands in the doorway: “Where did you go? Aren’t you coming in? You can’t leave me alone in there, it’s not exactly fun.” He mumbles an apology and follows her inside. She holds the door for him. The first thing he sees is Maloney shooting craps with Fatso at a table to the right of the bar.

After three glasses of cognac and one beer, Thomas wants to turn to Frank and say: You need to tell me about the job that put Jacques away . But Frank beats him to it. He bares his rotting, blackened teeth in a smile, waves Thomas closer, pulls him down beside him on the bench under the window, and pushes yet another glass of cognac across to him. He says, “I thought of something. . have you and Jenny been out to Jacques’s apartment recently?”

Thomas stiffens. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you must’ve inherited some things, right? Maybe you went out there to look at the furniture and all that. Or didn’t you?”

“No. We’ve inherited nothing. We’ve disclaimed everything, inheritance and debts.”

“Huh. Jacques had debts? I didn’t know that.”

“Why are you asking?”

Frank raises his glass and sips, then leans back. He fishes a cigarette out of a shiny case. “Just curious, my friend. And because I forgot a bag of mine last time I was there. But it’s just some dry cleaning, nothing terribly important. I seem to recall Jenny saying the two of you’d been out there, so I wanted to ask.”

Thomas stares at him. He doesn’t know what to say. His tongue is bloated and dry, pressed to the floor of his mouth. It doesn’t want to budge. Frank lights the cigarette and sucks on it, running his hand through his hair; smoke climbs upward and dissipates into faint spirals under the lamp. He smiles. “How are you doing otherwise? Jenny says you own a business?”

Jenny apparently says whatever she wants to whomever she wants. Thomas takes a slug of the amber-yellow cognac, which burns wonderfully in his throat. His tongue wants to move now.

“Yes, thank you. It’s going well.”

At that moment the two men turn toward the sound of a boisterous whooping, Maloney stomping on the floor, apparently having won a round.

“That’s my partner,” Thomas says.

“It’s good to have a partner,” Frank nods. “Your father was a great partner. He had class . You know what I mean? You could trust that guy. Now all I’ve got is Fatso, but that’s okay too.”

He straightens up and drops his hands to his thighs. The veins coil like fat worms under his skin. “Did you know this place was named after Fatso’s sister? She lives out in the country now, with some guy I think. You remember her from our street?” He runs his tongue around in his mouth, making smacking sounds, then rests his hands on the table. “She was a fine-looking woman. You remember Rose?”

Thomas nods.

“She was one pretty gal.” Frank scrapes his cigarette through the ashtray and leans back again. “So you haven’t found my bag?”

“No. We haven’t. Sorry.”

Frank stares at him. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah.”

Though his mouth smiles, Frank’s eyes are hard and direct. “Then we’ll just have to hope it turns up someplace else.”

“Yeah.” Thomas empties his glass. Frank turns toward the back of the bar, and zones out. There’s a minute of silence. The sun blazes through the orange curtains. Fatso shakes the dice cup and the dice clatter onto the table. Luc says something to Alice, which causes her to hop from the barstool to illustrate something with her body. Standing on her tiptoes raising her hands toward the ceiling. They laugh. Thomas senses the pulse in one of his feet and wants to leave, but when Frank begins to rise, Thomas remains seated after all. He takes a deep breath. When he begins speaking, his voice sounds like a loud whisper. “Why was Jacques nailed? What kind of job was it? Was he doing it on his own or were you all involved? And what about him, over there?” He nods in Luc’s direction.

Slowly Frank rotates his head. For one moment they look at each other, intensely. Frank’s eyes gleam almost yellow. But a film of gray has dimmed the color in them. “The Kid?” he says.

“Yeah.”

Again Frank’s lips move into a dead smile. “The Kid was very close to Jacques.”

Then all at once Frank’s arms are around Thomas’s neck. His armpits give off a hint of deodorant and dunghill. He squeezes Thomas, practically shaking him, upbeat but a little too tight. “Go fill your glass. There’s more where that comes from.” And with that Frank is quickly on his feet and slipping behind a curtain near the bathrooms. Fatso looks up from the dice cup and watches him go. Glances quickly and piercingly at Thomas. The Kid’s pouring red wine for Alice and Ernesto. Patricia’s in the far corner with Jenny, Kristin, and Helena. Kristin tosses her head back in laughter; Patricia has apparently said something funny. There’s a tap on the window behind him, and when he snaps his head around, he stares right into the eyes of one of the twins. For a few seconds she locks eyes with him, solemn. Then her face dissolves into a smile, the light filling her eyes.