First Cycle - Spring

by Sarah Kassem

  “Does Catherine Zeta-Jones have a file?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t belong to us. I visit her just like that,” Cristobal said, grinning again a little moronically.

  “Why do I have a file?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still learning. Maybe I’ll find out in my management course next week.”

  They had now reached the end of Aquifolium Road. They’d passed Rocco’s Bar, but it was dark inside. Wednesday was a day of rest.

  “And now?” asked Viktor. Cristobal had been buzzing around and sniffing a few daisies that were along the way.

  “No idea. Show me Hedera Helix.”

  Viktor was overwhelmed. He had never been out and about so late by himself. On top of that, if he really thought about it, he had never been for a walk with anyone other than Marco. His mother thought nothing of walking, seeing it as a waste of time. If she had to do it, then she did so quickly and focused on her end point. To Helena, Hedera Helix consisted of the Customs Office, post office, department store where she bought her yarn and buttons, and her studio, which was the centre of her universe. Sometimes she went to the market, or rather ran across the market with Oded panting behind her, carrying the heavy bags. And rarely, if they had something to celebrate such as a large order or an article in the newspaper that mentioned the studio, she and the staff went to the Reconquista. But even that she didn’t really like and so more often organised for apple pie and coffee to be delivered to the studio. Rocco would then rush around grumpily and there was normally a dispute between the two as Helena faulted Rocco’s clothes. “Bring those pants to me, I’ll stitch up the hem” she’d pester, adding “And give me your shirt, I’ll put a new collar on it for you.”

  His father was very reluctant to walk and went everywhere by car, so the experience of being out at night with Cristobal was very new for Viktor. The two of them walked along Pacific Street, which ran at a right angle to Aquifolium Street, and reached a small lit space with two benches.

  “Over there’s the market,” said Viktor, pointing, “and if we go down there,” he pointed in the other direction, “then we come to Cherry Avenue, which then leads to the cemetery.”

  “Are there actually cherries?” Asked Cristobal.

  Viktor didn’t know, so they went to Cherry Avenue. Actually, Cherry Avenue was a long road that was lined on both sides with cherry trees, but, much to Cristobal’s disappointment, the trees had no cherries.

  At the end of Cherry Avenue, the cemetery lay quite dark and menacing, so they turned around and went back. They sat down on the bench in the illuminated space, Cristobal buzzed before the road sign under the street light and tried to read.

  “Place of Holoarktis” he cried profusely then fluttered back to Viktor and sat down on the bench. “I’ve recently learned the alphabet!”

  “I learned it in school,” Viktor said.

  “I know all the letters! Should I recite them to you? Acer Betula Capensis Didierea Eucalyptus Fagus ... I can even spell my name! Shall I show you?”

  Viktor nodded.

  “Capensis Rosa Ilex Salix Taxa Olea Betula Acer Lilia. Should I even spell your name?”

  Viktor nodded.

  “Verrucosa Ilex Kiwi Taxa Olea Rosa.”

  “You also have Olea and Rosa in your name?”

  “Yes!” Cristobal said jumping up and down.

  The small square was dark, only illuminated by the two lights. It was warm and Viktor was sweating in his heavy winter jacket.

  “Shall I tell you where I come from?” asked Cristobal.

  Viktor nodded.

  “I am from the League of Birds.”

  “Are all birds in the League of Birds?” asked Viktor.

  “Yes, but many leave the League and want to live alone, and then they starve and freeze to death. Every normal bird is in the league.”

  “Even ravens?”

  “Yes. Ravens are our paramedics.”

  “And parrots?”

  “Parrots are our teachers. It was a parrot that taught us the alphabet.”

  “Who else?”

  “Kingfishers are our kings. Owls are engineers. Sparrows are the infantry, the armoured infantry are finches. Pigeons are the sergeants...,” Cristobal continued.

  “And what are you?”

  “Hummingbirds are among the special forces. We’re the scouts.”

  “What do you do?”

  “The kings tell us what we should do. We have missions.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  “The first day I was born I spent with my mother. The second day I had to move, then I started school and got briefed. On the third day I learned the alphabet and reading. On the fourth day we studied athletic ability, because I have to fly and swim a lot. We all had our adaptability and observation skills monitored and then we were sorted into good and bad hummingbirds. I was a good hummingbird! Then there was the aptitude test and I passed it! Then we were taught to navigate and had to do a 40-km flight, then we had LRRS Part 1, and I had to see you, yesterday I had LRRS Part 2 and today we had camouflage and concealment tactics.”

  Viktor nodded, though he did not understand anything.

  “Tomorrow I have LRRS Parts 3 and 4.”

  “What is LRRS?”

  “Long Range Reconnaissance Scout.”

  “I have bio and sports in the morning,” Viktor said.

  “Where is your school?”

  “In D9, five stops on the bus.”

  “Do you take the bus?”

  “No, Oded takes me in the car.”

  “Is Oded your friend?”

  Viktor shook his head. “No, he works for my mother. He always goes shopping, repairs everything that makes the studio clean and makes coffee for the guests.”

  “And who was your best friend before I became your best friend?”

  “Gem, the son of a woman who works for my mother. He was my best friend. He’s already 10 and we go to the same school and play together.”

  “I’ve never had a best friend,” Cristobal said, lowering his head.

  “You’re always visiting famous people, like Maradona.”

  “Right,” announced Cristobal moving to Viktor’s shoulder. “Let’s go back,” he said. “I’m hungry, cold and tired and have to write a report about tonight at home.”

  “When will you be back?” Asked Viktor.

  “In a few days. Now I have to learn more for my exams, then I have to visit Nelson Mandela.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know. He’s on my schedule. I haven’t read his file yet.”

  Then Cristobal escorted Viktor home. When they were in his room, they said goodbye and Cristobal hugged Viktor.

  He fell into bed, exhausted from the exciting night, and fell asleep immediately.

  His mother was shocked the next morning when she saw him lying on the bed still dressed in his dusty street shoes and winter jacket, and she subjected him to a long monologue about how this would be the fourth time she had to change the sheets in one week.

  Filament

  “It’s awfully hot,” moaned Helena. “I’m going to close the window so we can put the air conditioner on.”

  “No, don’t!” Said Viktor. “The wind’s blowing into the car and it cools it down!”

  “Viktor, I’m closing the window,” repeated Helena while she pressed the button to turn the air conditioner on.

  “No! I want this open so I can look outside.”

  Helena turned to Viktor, fixing him with a menacing look. Quickly Viktor rolled up the window, clasped both hands in his lap and presented the image of perfect behaviour.

  It was an extremely warm afternoon. The streets shimmered in the sun and the trees remained motionless in perfect calm. Only the car seemed to generate any wind and Viktor found that fascinating. Nothing moved, not the wheat in the fields nor the trees, but still the car seemed somehow to generate a mighty wind that blew in through the window as Oded drove along the highway.

/>   As they approached D2, the fields began to give way to paved roads and the trees slowly transformed into houses and then high-rises. Oded headed for the parking garage of the shopping mall and drove alongside the ticket-machine. Viktor was allowed to open the window in order to lean out and push the button for a parking ticket. Helena needed lime green beads, lime green thread and a lime green top for a dress for the mayor’s wife, who wanted to wear it for the inauguration of a new garden centre. In the haberdashery department, Helena stood with a small basket in her hand in front of the shelves and inspected everything carefully, while Oded and Viktor stood next to her in a state of utter boredom. When shopping the rules stated any movement more than five metres away from Helena was strictly forbidden.

  The last time they’d all been at the mall and Helena had been in the sewing department, she’d allowed Viktor and Oded to go to the toy department. There Viktor had examined everything and had been especially fascinated by “The Constructor”, a toy that could turn into a robot, a car or a skyscraper. He hadn’t really had any idea how to form any of the above but Oded had sat with him on the floor between the shelves and showed him the secrets of the Constructor’s transformation process. Oded had been taken by a sudden need to go to the bathroom and so had told Viktor that he should wait by the toys for him, adding that he would be right back. Viktor had looked in the meantime at a magician’s set in which there was quite an assortment of items. There had even been a small hat, a moustache and a black cape, items that so roused excitement in Viktor that he forgot Oded’s instructions and instead rushed off to find his mother and tell her about the set. Unfortunately, when standing before the escalators and seeking the sewing department, Viktor had picked the wrong one and ended up in the men’s department, where a plethora of suits and sweaters and pants surrounded him. He ran through the whole floor, but couldn’t find the sewing department anywhere. Continuing on in his excitement he therefore took the escalator again and this time ended up in the electronics’ department.

  Finally panic began to take hold as he became aware that he had lost his way and furthermore than he had no idea where the sewing department was located in relation to the electronics’ department. He had been about to flee once more to the escalators when a noise had distracted him, a tune that he knew and that drew him off in search of its origin.

  Soon he came upon the source, a game console standing ready for customers to have a trial run. From the machine came the familiar theme tune from Indiana Jones and upon the screen stood the following, awfully tempting message: “Continue Game”, a message accompanied by the choices of an OK or Cancel button. Viktor looked around, took the joystick in his hand and pressed the green button. A small figure in brown clothes and a brown hat appeared, running through a pixelated landscape. Your job was to guide him through this world and therefore make him jump over stones, valleys and car wrecks, run through gorges and over skeletons. He could climb mountains where huge black spiders lurked and either jump over the spiders when they got too close, (never a good idea because no sooner had you escaped than the spider was back to bite you and take one of your lives), or run up to the spider, draw your whip and kill the beast, (the option Viktor preferred). At one point though, the spider having been killed in the above manner, more spiders had appeared and, though Viktor had managed it masterfully, he had then wanted to jump across a valley but didn’t give himself a good enough run up and jumped both too much in the air and not far enough in width, falling therefore into the valley. Viktor had briefly feared that he’d be dead and the game therefore over but, amazingly, he hadn’t died but instead fallen into a hole in the bottom of the valley and ended up in a cave full of gold coins and treasure chests and crowns and golden goblets, all of which were guarded by a horrid Minotaur. Viktor had stood with his heart pounding and pulse racing in front of the screen, wondering how he could get passed the fearsome Minotaur when, at the edge of his consciousness, a voice that boomed through the shop’s loud-speakers cut through the excitement to claim his attention.

  “A little boy is missing. 7 years old, small stature, dark hair, Name: Viktor Abies”. The voice stopped and, even more to Viktor’s astonishment, the shop was then filled with his mother’s voice, which boomed: “Viktor, find a cashier and tell her your name.”

  Viktor was startled, dropped the joystick and ran out into the aisle. When he was about to turn on the main concourse, he slipped. After all, running fast around a steep curve on a smooth polished floor was a complicated affair. His shoes squeaked on the linoleum, causing him to first stumble before losing his footing completely and landing in a shelf full of CD-ROMs. The long thin shelf swayed and then toppled over and hit another big shelf, this one full of external hard drives. Knocked by the force, a couple of the hard drives fell to the ground and shattered. A 20-pack CD-ROMs also fell, this one landing edge first on Viktor’s neck, causing him to also collapse and hit his head on the floor.

  He felt terribly dizzy and saw a few people suddenly looking anxiously down at him. He wanted to get up and run to the nearest checkout as his mother had commanded, but before he could even raise himself off the floor he was overcome once more by dizziness and promptly vomited all over himself. A man in a red vest wiped the vomit off him, picked him up and carried him off somewhere. Everything went black to Viktor and he leaned his head onto the man, took a deep breath, and found that the man smelt good. He knew the smell, in fact his father smelled similar, a smell Viktor believed was due to something called Odakoloin.

  When he opened his eyes again, a man was leaning over him and shining a flashlight into his eyes. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw his mother looking down with a worried expression on her face. Next to her stood a pale, anxious Oded. Viktor got a plaster on his neck and a bit of iodine on the laceration on his forehead. Helena got a bill for the two broken hard drives and the four other hard drives now deemed unsellable thanks to being coated in Viktor’s vomit. She passed the bill without comment to Oded who, looking rather upset, glanced at the sum before resignedly taking out his wallet and heading to the checkout.

  Helena’s only response was silence, an ice-cold silence that filled the car on the way home. In such conditions, Oded and Viktor got the message, adopting its warning to each and every other time they went to the mall, therefore making them ever well-behaved and motionless in the immediate vicinity of Helena at the shops. Resigning themselves to following her every step while looking at buttons and thread and needles and wool and patterns and darning thread and wadding and shoulder pads.

  When Helena was finished, she stowed the bags in the car and drove to the Customs Office. There Oded and Viktor stayed sat in the car while Helena went in to pick up a delivery. The hustle and bustle of Hedera Helix on a Saturday afternoon was a blur of cars, people, dust and noise. A hotdog vendor yelled “Hot Dogs!” A couple of cars honked a car in front whose driver hadn’t noticed the green light. A group of women walked past, looking as if they would quarrel before they smiled and laughed loudly. The heat was unbearable, with Viktor sitting in the back, sweating, the sun glaring its way into the car. The radio was on.

  Oded hummed and sang “cuz you gotta have faith faith faith, you gotta have faiiiith” and drummed on the steering wheel. A bead of sweat ran down his neck.

  “Hey Viktor,” he exclaimed after a while, “you see back there? There’s a slushy-seller”. He pointed his finger to the left.

  Viktor looked, saw nothing and asked, “What’s that?”

  “You don’t know slushy?” Asked Oded.

  Viktor thought, then shook his head.

  “What? You don’t know what a slushy is?” he exclaimed.

  Viktor shook his head again.

  “Ok.” Oded rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. “I’ll be right back. What’s your favourite colour?”

  Viktor thought. “Blue,” he said.

  “Stay here, and please don’t move from this spot, ok?” Oded turned to him
and looked at him pleadingly. Viktor nodded.

  Oded left and Viktor tried not to move. A minute later, he came back and had two big cups in his hands. In one cup was a thick red drink and in the other a thick blue one. He handed Viktor the blue one and took a long sip of his own red one.

  “That’s a slushy! Try it.”

  Viktor held the cup with both hands and condensation bubbled on the outside due to the coldness of the drink. He tried it cautiously. It was a sweet drink, like lemonade, but it was made almost all of tiny ice crystals that melted in your mouth. He held the clear plastic cup up to the sun and the liquid inside shone a bright, aqua blue.

  “That’s cool,” Viktor said, thrilled.

  “I told you! Slushies are the best, especially on such a warm day.” Oded held his cup to his head and rolled it along his forehead.

  Viktor did the same. The cold plastic was pleasant and he rubbed his face on it. He took another sip and then another longer one until the cup was half empty.

  Oded was chewing on his straw, humming and looking out the window. Viktor looked at the world through the blue liquid in the cup. Everything was heavily blurred and blue. He held it again up to his head and then down to his neck, where he almost spilled it before catching it just in time.

  Oded flipped the sun-visor down, looked in the mirror and laughed. Then he turned to Viktor and stuck his tongue out. His tongue was blood red. Viktor crawled forward to the passenger seat, flipped the sun-visor down and stuck his tongue out. It was glaring blue, just like his lips.

  When Helena came back she wasn’t expecting to find her son with an outstretched blue tongue, rolling his eyes back and forth, growling like a rabid monster and brandishing claw-like fingers. She looked at him disapprovingly, turned the same disapproving look on Oded, who bashfully grinned with red teeth, and said, “What crap have you been feeding him?” She didn’t wait for an answer however and instead instructed Oded to head inside where three boxes were waiting.

  The warehouses of the Customs Office were huge rooms full of boxes, containers, crates and bulkily packaged items. Viktor watched as Oded dragged the boxes out of the hall and stowed them in the trunk. Helena was talking to a man who held a clipboard in his hand and wrote something as they spoke. When Oded was finished, he stood next to Viktor’s open window, leaned against the car and lit a cigarette.