Rupert Thomson - The Insult

I leaned back in my chair. There was a long silence while Visser stirred his tea. The way he studied the spoon’s elliptical motion in the cup, it could have been revealing something of the utmost importance.

‘Let me get this quite clear,’ he said at last. ‘You think that I’m responsible for these various forms of vision which you claim to have?’

‘I do.’

‘You think that I’m controlling your vision? You think that I can switch it on or off at will?’

‘Precisely.’

‘And how am I able to achieve this?’

‘I told you on the phone. You’re using the titanium plate as some kind of substitute for the visual cortex. It’s able to interpret the information that’s being gathered by my eyes. You’ve even found a way of overriding it. You can feed signals into it from outside. It’s remarkable, really. Very impressive. I should be congratulating you, Doctor.’

But Visser didn’t beam with pride, as I’d expected him to. Instead, he let out a sigh. ‘You know what I’m going to say, Martin, don’t you?’

I swallowed nervously, looked down into my empty cup. The tea-leaves on the bottom said that I would shortly be receiving some bad news about a personal matter.

‘You leave me no choice,’ he said.

‘What about?’

‘Let me ask you something. Do you have any vision at the moment?’

‘Yes.’

‘What kind of vision is it?’

‘It’s night vision,’ I said. ‘You know that.’

‘All right. Suppose you describe something for me. Something in this room. Anything you like.’ His voice had lightened, as if we were playing a game.

‘What about you?’

‘Perfect.’

I sat back and looked at him. Where should I begin? Not the moustache. Too obvious.

‘Well, let’s see,’ I said. ‘There’s your shoes. They’ve got metal on them.’

‘You can hear that.’

‘Just testing.’ I smiled. ‘Testing your alertness. Your shoes are black —’

‘They’re not black.’

‘They’re such a dark brown, I thought they were black.’

‘What else?’

‘Your hair,’ I said. ‘It’s brown.’

‘You knew that already. I told you, in the clinic.’

‘All right.’ I stayed calm. ‘Your face, then. Let’s start with your moustache —’

‘I don’t have a moustache.’

I stared at Visser in disbelief. ‘But I’m looking right at it.’

‘You’re imagining it,’ he said. ‘The moustache is an illusion. It’s part of the imaginary picture you’ve built up.’

He was trying to undermine me, establish control. He had that smile on his face, not so much indulgent now as patronising. We were back to square one. Square minus one.

‘You must’ve shaved it off,’ I said.

‘Martin,’ he said, still smiling, ‘I’ve never had a moustache.’

‘You’re lying to me. Why are you lying to me?’

‘No, Martin. You’re the one who’s lying. To yourself.’

I stormed out of the café. I was so furious, I knocked a table over on my way to the door and I didn’t even stop to apologise.

Loots brought the car to the kerb as planned and I jumped in. He took the first corner fast, the steering-wheel spinning. I saw a woman leap backwards, her arms and legs outstretched, like a starfish, her mouth the same shape as Juliet’s. I thought of Visser stirring his tea. Stirring it so fucking carefully, it could have been nitroglycerine. You know what I’m going to say now, don’t you. I smashed my hand against the dashboard. Then I smashed it again.

Loots slowed down. ‘It didn’t go too well, I take it.’

I took off my dark glasses and rubbed my eyes with the hand that wasn’t hurting. No, it didn’t, I thought. It didn’t go too well.

Would it ever?

It was something Karin Salenko had said to me while she was standing at the apartment window in that glittery turquoise dress. Up there in the mountains, it’s like a different century. I asked Loots to look the village up for me. It wasn’t in the atlas, but he found it on a touring map of the north-east. The area used to be known for its hot springs, he said. His uncle had told him about it once. His uncle lived in a small town on the same latitude, some distance to the west.

‘Do you like your uncle?’ I asked him.

Loots looked at me oddly, his head seeming to rise into the air above his collar. ‘Yes, I like him.’

‘How long since you saw him? Two years? Three?’

‘About eighteen months.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time you saw him again? I mean, after all,’ and I paused heavily, significantly, ‘he isn’t getting any younger.’

Loots’ head was still suspended in the air — puzzled, curious, and slightly blank, like a balloon. He suspected me of something, but he didn’t know what it was. I was not unfamiliar with the look.

‘I was just thinking,’ I said. ‘We could get away for a few days.’

‘It’s a long drive.’

‘I know. But you could use a break. You look terrible.’

Loots laughed, but he knew I was right. Not long after he’d driven the getaway car for me, he’d punctured Juliet. He’d thrown a knife too close to her and it had grazed her rib-cage. She didn’t explode or burst. She just withered, aged — which, if anything, was worse. He mended her, using a bicycle-repair kit, and blew her up again, and she stayed blown up, but his confidence was damaged. He’d stopped throwing knives in the afternoons before he left for work. He’d started dreaming about The Great Miguel. I knew why, too. It was that gatekeeper’s ear. He’d read an article about it the next day in the paper. A small headline on page nine. MAN HAS EAR PINNED TO TREE. There was no comfort for Loots in the fact that he hadn’t been identified. He’d hit somebody with a knife for the first time, and it had shaken him.

‘So what’s in it for you?’ he said.

While he was visiting his uncle, I told him, I’d stay in the village, which was in a valley surrounded entirely by mountains. In the mountains, I said, people often had problems with their TVs. With reception …

Loots interrupted. ‘You’ll stop getting those programmes!’

I went to seize him by the shoulders, but in my enthusiasm I missed completely, embraced the air instead and overbalanced.

What was in it for me? What wasn’t in it for me? The signals that Visser was transmitting would lose their way. The further north I went, the weaker they’d become. Until they faded altogether. I’d regain my night vision by a process of elimination, as it were, and Visser would have no say in the matter. The mountains would defend me. In the mountains I’d be free.

‘It’ll be like old times,’ I said. ‘You know, when we were looking for The Invisible Man.’

There was no breaking and entering involved, I told him. No dangerous driving. In fact, for one of my ideas, it was astonishingly mild. Harmless, even. We could travel up and back together, in his car.

‘Just like old times,’ I said again.

We left at six in the morning, while it was still dark, but daylight came and, with it, nothingness. The hours passed slowly; I’d forgotten how dull it was, how utterly interminable.

I’d spoken to Karin Salenko the day before. I wanted to learn a little more about the village. But when she answered, I didn’t know how to begin. It was awkward, since our only common ground was Nina. I said the first thing that occurred to me: ‘I met your husband.’

‘Jan Salenko?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He was telling me about when you were eight, climbing into your father’s truck —’

‘He doesn’t forget a thing, does he.’

‘He said you were the most beautiful girl in the village.’