Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“I’m as naked as a jellyfish,” he mumbles, once he’s finally caught up to her and they’re riding across the bridge. “I’m a mollusk. It’s disgusting.” “What?” Patricia barks angrily. The sharp wind soughs around them. “Nothing,” Thomas roars. I want to cry, he thinks. I want to sink down in a well of tears, until the well is dry. I am an idiot. I am beautiful. I am nothing. If I aim high enough, I can do anything. I am as empty as a meaningless, automatic sobbing fit.

At home the cat is infuriatingly needy, rubbing nonstop against Patricia’s legs. She snaps on the TV and throws herself onto the sofa. He makes sandwiches; she eats hers then slams the empty plate down unnecessarily hard on the glass table. He cleans up. She stands abruptly, goes into the bedroom, and changes her clothes. Then she leaves. When he hears the front door open, he rushes down the hallway, the dishrag in his hand. He catches a glimpse of her silvery shoes and the back of her coat as she disappears on the landing below. He calls after her, “Where are you going? Why are you leaving again? Say something, Patricia!” But she doesn’t respond. He falls into the armchair. He can’t breathe. He calls her, but she doesn’t answer. Then Maloney calls and tells him that the police didn’t find a single trace of DNA in the store. Nothing except a whole lot of hair (which they quickly dismissed), and of course Thomas’s, Maloney’s, Annie’s, and Peter’s fingerprints. They could tell that someone had sifted through the stacks of paper on the floor, but the perpetrator had worn medical booties or plastic bags on their feet. Thomas goes to the kitchen. Maloney’s voice is so familiar that he’s almost thankful. He grabs a beer from the fridge. He looks out the window. The city’s sea of light radiates in the blue violet evening. “There’s nothing left for them to do. There’s no trace. The neighbors didn’t hear a thing. The windows must have been smashed when everyone was asleep. Why the fuck wasn’t anyone awake? There’s always some idiot awake.” Maloney continues, “Well, at least we can size up the damage and order new windowpanes. I’ve called the insurance company. And the glazier. He’s coming tomorrow. Fuck,” he says, “it was probably just some fucking kids with nothing better to do than smash other people’s property.”

“You think kids use gloves and wrap their feet in plastic bags when they’re seized with a sudden urge to demolish a store?”

“I don’t know jack shit about that,” Maloney mumbles tiredly. “Shut up and go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

On the way back to the living room, as he swills a beer, the phone rings again. It’s Jenny. Thomas regrets answering it. She talks non-stop about the coming weekend. What if she can’t handle being up at Kristin and Helena’s so long; what if there’s not enough food — if they’ve become vegans ; what if she has an allergic reaction to sleeping in the barn.

“Then just move your mattress inside the house,” Thomas says.

“My mattress? How can I sleep on a mattress? With my back ? I bet they have mice, too.”

“Come on, they have cats.”

“Maybe they’re dead. We haven’t been out there for years.”

Thomas sighs. “Surely they’ve got new cats, Jenny.”

“And what should I bring them as a hostess gift? Should they each get something, or how does that work?”

Jenny talks and talks, heated, hysterical; she chirrups until, at last, she’s calm. She exhales, satisfied, and says good night in a voice practically oozing honey.

Thomas calls Patricia again, but this time it goes directly to voicemail. He sits at the computer and searches for generic currency sign . Sure enough, what he finds resembles a sun with four rays. “Popularly called a symbol for money,” it reads. “The designator generic means, in this case, that it doesn’t relate to a specific currency, but rather to money as a phenomenon.” For Christ’s sake. Despairingly, he stumbles into his cluttered bedroom and curls up under the sheets. A pronounced stench following the day’s heat hangs in the air. But he can’t bring himself to open the window. One of the blinds dangles crookedly. The cat claws at the door. But he doesn’t get up to let it in. In the distance, a church bell tolls 11:00 P.M. He tries to think about Patricia, but doesn’t have the energy, he can’t deal with it. He dozes off thinking about the vandalized store. He thinks about the symbol carved into the countertop. It’s obviously the money they want. His father’s money. But who? He imagines a bunch of thugs, hired by Frank and Fatso. But could those two old fools really organize such a thing? He doubts it. He hasn’t quite understood it until now, in all its horror, as if he’d hoped it was something else, something that didn’t have anything to do with him at all. And maybe it is just a coincidence. Maybe there’s no connection at all. But he’s almost free of the money now. If the sale proceeds as planned. He wants to figure out how it’s all connected, but he’s too exhausted. His right leg twitches once, then he’s asleep.

The next morning the heat’s intense again. Thomas can’t even eat a piece of toast. Patricia. The symbol, the plastic bags on the perpetrators’ feet. He shakes his head. He leans across the kitchen table, opens the window, and lights a cigarette. He calls Patricia, and she answers.

“Where are you?” he asks breathlessly.

“None of your business, really,” she says. She sniffles a bit. Is she drunk? There’s no background noise. He can’t tell where she is.

“Are you okay?”

“Did you just plan on leaving the cat the entire weekend?” she asks, scornfully distant. “You probably did.” Her sniff ling is gone. She’s cold and lucid.

“It’s only a couple of days,” he says. “I’ll make sure there’s enough food. Patricia, tell me where you are.”

“It’ll be lonely.”

“It’s a cat. We can’t take it with us, it’ll just run away.”

“I’m not sure I’m coming.”

“I’ll wait for you at the car rental agency at 4:00,” he says. “Please come? Darling. I’m so sorry. Truly. What can I do to make things right again?” She doesn’t respond. “Say something, Patricia.”

“Kiss my ass.”

Then she hangs up. He holds the telephone to his ear. The cat stares at him. He wants to lash out at it. But he strokes the bridge of its nose instead. It purrs so hard it trembles. He sits down at the table and glares at the wall. He rises, empties the litter box — which stinks horribly of piss — and dumps in fresh kitty litter. There’s discomfort in his legs, and it approaches his stomach. His skin crawls, his guts churn, the back of his head aches dully. He gazes out the window as he calls Maloney. A few streets away, a recently renovated copper roof shines and gleams in the sunlight. Close to the window, a bird flies past.

“What are we going to do?”

“Call Peter and Annie. They might as well stay home today.”

“How are we going to get it cleaned up? Where do we begin?”

“Just get your ass down here.” Maloney sounds a bit more upbeat than he did the evening before. Thomas opens two cans of cat food and pours water in the creature’s bowl. He calls Annie first, then Peter. They’re taciturn and nervous, and he can’t decide whether they’re happy to have an extra day off or not. He shoves some clothes in a duffel bag. Then he finds a shirt in Patricia’s drawer, two pairs of panties, a blue dress, tights. He searches for her toothbrush, but it’s not there. She must have taken it with her. She must have taken it with her . He holds his breath and catches sight of his own face in the mirror above the sink. A pale and rigid mask. He tosses two army-green sleeping bags into a black sack and also takes the trash when he goes downstairs, dumping it into the container before heading toward the station. The heat’s always more intense than he imagines it’ll be. He can’t help but glance around for Patricia. But she must have already left for work. Or is she skipping? Maybe she’s even left town? Maybe she’s really left him. His pants stick to his balls. In the train he sits across from a girl with coarse hair the color of curry. She’s covered with tiny freckles and has a butterfly tattooed on her ankle. When she turns one arm so that it rests on her thigh with her palm facing upward, he sees there’s also a tattoo on the inside of her forearm. The devil likes to play , it reads. The girl dozes with a fixed smile on her lips; she’s got a slight overbite, and Thomas can’t take his eyes off her. She seems transparent, as if she were made of glass. One could lift her up and throw her against the doors of the train, and she would splinter into a thousand pieces. Like a casket made of glass, he thinks, like in Snow White . She opens her eyes and stares at him. A drowsy, sea-green look. Then her head glides back against the wall, her eyes sailing away. Thomas feels a column of anxiety rising in him. What if Patricia moved out. What if she’s already moved out. What if she’s found someone else.