Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“I got a strange letter in the mail today,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no sender, and the letter has only five words.”

Thomas’s heart pounds, and he slumps onto the coffee table. “What does it say?”

“It says: ‘Say hello to your brother.’”

“ Say hello to your brother ?” he whispers. “Nothing else? Is it handwritten?”

“No. It looks like a print-out or a copy. According to the postal stamp it was sent from somewhere here in the city. Isn’t that odd?”

Thomas says nothing.

“Are you there, Thomas?”

“Maybe it’s from Frank and those guys.”

“Frank?” snorts Jenny. “Why would he send a letter like this? To me ? He can just write directly to you, if he wants anything from you. And why would he? What does this mean? Say hello to your brother . It doesn’t make any sense. Does it? Well anyway, I’ll give it to Maloney tomorrow, so you can see it.”

A pause. Their breaths on each end of the telephone.

“How’s it going otherwise?” Thomas asks in a small voice.

“Great! Did I tell you that we’re moving in together? We’ve toured a row house in the district behind the cemetery. There’s even a backyard. With an old pear tree.”

“Congratulations.” Thomas swallows.

“How are you two doing? Is Patricia feeling better?”

“Yes.”

“It’s so awful, Thomas. I can’t even imagine it. Tell her I said hello. We could all go out some night, if she wants. Tell her. We could go to Luciano’s.”

Jenny’s voice is light and mild; she says goodbye and prepares to hang up. “See you on Tuesday,” she says, no trace of instability of any kind, and he hears someone snap on the television in the background, must be Maloney. Thomas is rigid with fear. He sags on the coffee table, unable to move. It’s clear to him that the break-in, the rape, and now the letter to Jenny are somehow connected. It’s got something to do with the money, with him . Someone’s warning him. Him, Thomas, and no one else. Someone knows I’ve got the money. He listens to his own rapid intake of breath pumping like a little locomotive run amok, barreling down the tracks without a conductor. Will they ambush him, kill him? And who the hell is it? Once again he recalls Frank jabbering about his dry cleaning, which he claimed he’d left at his father’s apartment. As if he’d ever dry-cleaned anything in his life, the way he dresses: wrinkled shirts, faded jackets. There’s still a lot of money left in the microwave. He has to get rid of it. But no. It won’t make any difference. Feeling completely powerless, he gets to his feet, stumbles into the bedroom, and throws himself on the bed. It smells nasty and stuffy. He tosses and turns. But they can easily bust the lock . He gets up and latches the security chain on the door. He nearly trips over the cat on his way back to bed — it’s lying across the doorway in the darkness — and it hisses loudly when he whacks it with his foot.

Back in bed and now it’s pouring outside, rain lashing against the window panes. He can’t stay still, everything’s spinning in circles. Thunder rumbles, a lightning bolt flashes and lights up the room, and soon a powerful boom jerks him upright in bed, startled. He sneaks around the apartment, turning on lights, smoking, drinking whiskey, listening to the rain, keeping an eye on the door, staring out the windows, trying to watch TV, then back out to check on the door again. And gradually the stormy weather passes, following another short, powerful burst, and then the night falls silent. Close to 3:00 A.M. he finally falls into a light and dreamless sleep, which lasts until quarter past 6:00. He thinks something wakes him. A noise. He lies completely still in bed, listening. But there’s nothing. Unease fills him. He practically leaps out of bed and, once again, walks around the apartment, but there’s no one. He takes a shower, paranoid that someone will force his way in, like in a film, a shower curtain smeared red with blood, a singing, unsuspecting person enjoying a shower, and then: dead and maimed. He listens carefully, shuts off the water, listens again, turns on the water, hurries to rinse shampoo from his hair, stands silently on the tiled floor, cautiously opens the door. Walks into the living room, the kitchen. But it’s only him and the cat. Outside the sky is gray. The rooftops are dark after the night’s rain.

At 7:00 A.M. Patricia pushes her key in the lock. The chain’s still attached. She eyes him through the slit in the door.

“Thomas? Let me in.”

She stands in the doorway. Her hair is pinned up, and beneath her thin blouse her breasts are hefty, enormous. He feels an urge to embrace her, to hold her close to him, to whisper in her hair. But then he sees the tightness in her face, the rejecting, irritated eyes.

“Why did you have the chain on?”

“Why are you here so early? Can’t you show a little consideration?”

“I want to do something before I go to work.” She gestures with her arm. “What’s that thing on the door?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This thing. You can’t see it from there.”

He walks out onto the landing. She pushes the door halfway in. There’s a mark carved into the wood right above the knob. The exact same one that’s on the countertop at the store. The currency symbol. Four lines radiating from a circle. Blood rushes to his head, makes him dizzy.

“What is it?” Patricia asks.

“No clue,” he says.

She enters the apartment. He stares at the symbol. His pulse thumps in his ears. It happened last night. Someone was here last night. Or this morning. Maybe whoever did it’s on the floor above right now. Thomas darts upstairs. There’s no one. Nor is anyone one flight below. He hurries back, closes the door, and methodically locks it. Stands listening. Not a sound. He heads to the kitchen, to Patricia. “I can’t have that cat anymore, it’s driving me crazy,” he says breathlessly.

She scoops up the animal and caresses it. Speaks to it in a low voice, lovingly. “Little kitty. Didn’t you eat your food?” And to Thomas: “I can’t take it to Tina and Jules’s. It’s too much.”

“Too much! It’s goddamn too much for me , all this. Then you’ll have to move to a hotel or home to your mother.”

“My mother’s in a nursing home four hundred miles away, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I’m kicking it out! I’ll dump it on the street if you don’t take it with you. I mean it, Patricia.”

She steadies her gaze on him. “You’ve become such an unlikeable person, Thomas.” Then she puts the cat back on the floor and begins removing pots from the cabinet. She turns on the radio and blasts the volume. He puts on his shoes and leaves. He stops to scowl at the symbol carved into the dark wood. Someone has been here, someone stood right here and scratched into his door, while he was on the other side, so close. His fingertips tingle and prickle. He stumbles down the stairs. Sobs uncontrollably for a moment, filled with grief, anger, confusion. And then this powerful fear above all else. He’s afraid of what’s coming for him. He’s certain now: Someone’s trailing him closely. The gutter is rimmed with rainwater; it’s a little cooler than in previous days, but the humidity’s still extremely high. Feverishly he paws around in his pockets. His cigarette pack is empty. He buys a croissant, but doesn’t eat much of it. There are few people on the street this morning, and it’s quiet and gray. Only a little past 7:30. He can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching him. But all he hears are his own steps. Unlike on the street, the train teems with people. He squeezes into the hot, swarming mass formed by the cluster of bodies, and he imagines someone stabbing him with a knife as he stands here. It would be so easy, so soundless; the perpetrator could hop off at the next station unnoticed, and disappear. He can easily imagine the young man with the stubbled face doing it, the way he leans against Thomas with all his weight each time the train rounds a curve. Or the older man over there, with his pigtail and buggy eyes, who every now and then glances at Thomas. It could be a woman, could be the girl dressed all in black with the baseball cap. He’s practically waiting to be assassinated. His saliva has apparently dried up; he swallows and swallows, but it doesn’t help. Four stations before his actual stop he squeezes onto the platform, right before the door closes. He dashes up the stairwell. Almost in surprise, he realizes that no one’s following him. He trots the rest of the way and locks himself in the store. He tries to do his usual morning routines, his hands trembling. He sits down in the office, it’s a quarter past 8:00. At last Maloney arrives, and drops the letter on the desk. It’s a printout. Say hello to your brother . Even the text on the envelope is printed. It’s an average, cheap envelope, standard size. Copy paper. Thomas holds the letter up to the light. Just as his sister had said, it was sent from here in the city, from the central post office. “Can’t you take it to the police? Talk with that guy, what was his name again? The one who came here when we had the break-in? What if this has something to do with that? You never know.”