by Jeremy Tiang
We stopped at Lillehammer. The conductor passed through, like an angry ghost, roughly shaking awake passengers whose tickets only brought them this far. The lights came on, very dimly, so they had to grope for their luggage as the remaining sleepers stirred and murmured. On the platform, two or three bleak individuals took final drags on their cigarettes before letting them drop, and stumbled on board. I wondered how deranged your life would need to become before you found yourself waiting for a train at three in the morning.
The train started moving again, very gently, gliding at first and then picking up speed. It was not a new train; the upholstery, like so much of Norway, appeared to have been preserved intact from the late eighties. Unlike our sleek MRT, busily covering short distances with the screech of metal wheels, Norwegian Rail was stolid and dignified, pistons churning, wheels turning steadily and cleanly along fixed tracks.
I readjusted my inflatable pillow and wondered if sleep would take me. Looking across at my companion, I could see from the reflected gleam of her open eyes that she too was wide awake. Out of impulse I whispered, “You should come home.”
“Turn myself in, you mean?”
“I’m flying back in three days’ time. Why don’t you come back with me? We can make up a story for your school, I’ll say you were sick, too sick to get in touch with them, and I had to take you to hospital. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“You want to lie for me?”
“You can’t keep running forever. What are you going to do? You don’t have any money.”
“You sound like my mum.”
“At least call your mum, so she knows you’re alive. You don’t have to tell her where you are. Do you promise to call her?”
“All right.”
“Why won’t you come with me?”
“And do what? Go look at fjords, and then head back to Singapore like a good girl? Tell my students I was sick, check their holiday homework, and then stand behind them at assembly making sure they don’t talk or fidget during the principal’s speech? I can’t, it’s like being buried alive.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re just being spoilt. No one likes their job; why do you have to be so special? You think anyone really enjoys what they do all day? Just try to do your best; if you don’t think about it, then time will pass very quickly.”
“I don’t need you to be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m just trying to help you. You say you feel trapped, but where do you want to be? Life isn’t so bad, after all you have a good salary and Singapore is so easy to live in, low taxes and low crime and nice food. Isn’t that enough? Where else do you want to be?”
“Anywhere. Anywhere except where I am.”
We were in the far north now, dark and cold for half the year. I was prepared for the roads, which would be treacherous, with spiked shoes and a foldable walking cane. I didn’t know what she would do when we got to Trondheim. She seemed so utterly unprepared for anything. Even her clothes didn’t look warm enough. I hoped she would be able to steal the blanket from the train and use that until she managed to get hold of a waterproof jacket.
I’m not usually the sort of person who talks to strangers on the train. I’ve seen people who do it, just sit next to people and ask them where they’re going, leading into hour-long conversations. I don’t do it, and I had no idea what to say next. Nothing seemed suitable. I shut my eyes and tried to rest. It was almost four in the morning, and we only had three hours before reaching our destination. I didn’t think I would feel human the next day if I didn’t sleep at least a little bit. I had planned a full day of sightseeing—the cathedral in Trondheim is the largest medieval building in Scandinavia—and I wasn’t sure if I would be up to it.
I had almost drifted off when I heard her voice, low and clear. At first I thought I was dreaming it. She was telling a story, maybe to herself, maybe to me. I listened with my eyes shut. She wouldn’t be able to see my face in this light anyway.
“I met him in Hamelin, in the town square. I was only supposed to be there for half a day. There isn’t very much to see there, pretty houses and a million tourist trap things about the ratcatcher. But it happened that day—”
“The ratcatcher?”
“You know the story? The pied piper of Hamelin.”
“Of course. He got rid of all their rats, but they didn’t give him the money they’d promised him. So he came back.”
“And took away their children.”
“Serves them right. They should have paid him.”
“So, that day there was a parade in the town, a pageant telling the story, and I stayed to see it. I don’t normally like fairy tales, but the costumes were so pretty. Little children dressed as rats, and other children being stolen, then the ratcatcher himself, tall and blond, all dressed in strange clothes. I started watching and couldn’t stop. I followed them, and by the time it had finished I’d missed my train.”
“Was there another one?”
“Not until the next day. And the hotels were all full because of the parade. I hadn’t realised, so many tourists come especially to see it. I walked around for a while wondering what to do next, it was too cold to sleep outdoors, and then I met him in the town square. The ratcatcher. Without the costume he was just an ordinary man, a bit thin, but I didn’t know anyone else so I went to talk to him. I told him I enjoyed his performance. He’s not really an actor, he just does this, normally he works in the town hall. He had small grey eyes, like a rat’s. When I told him I had nowhere to stay, he told me I could come home with him.”
She was very soft now, barely audible. “It wasn’t even that I found him attractive, but somehow I followed him. When he touched me I didn’t ask him to stop, it’s been so long since someone touched me. It got dark very early and we stayed in bed for hours. We didn’t use anything. I think I might be pregnant.”
The train was completely silent now, moving deeper into nothing, into the dark, no sounds at all except the wisps of her voice.
“When I saw him the next day he was older than I thought, the start of a pot belly, his hair falling out. Blond hair thins so fast. He bought me some food and put me on the train. I didn’t care where I went. I asked him to buy me a ticket for any city, any city far away from Hamelin. He stood on the platform for a while, with his hands in his pockets, but then he became impatient when the train didn’t leave, he just waved and walked away. It’s too early to use a pregnancy test, so I’m just waiting. I can’t stay still while I wait.”
She seemed to expect me to say something, but I had nothing, no words would come into my head.
“I would do it again,” she went on softly, almost in my ear. “Even if I had a second chance. I wanted to hurt myself, but instead I made myself feel alive. I can’t go back now.”
She spoke a little more, about how there’s always a price to be paid, and if you try to escape it will be gouged out of you somehow. I stayed still, hoping she would think I was asleep. After a while, I did drift off, though it was an uneven sleep. I thought I heard her weeping during the night, but it may have been some other sound.
When I woke up, the conductor was shaking me and she was gone. We were in Trondheim, a watery sun coming in and lighting her empty seat, abandoned blanket and a few of her long hairs. She had taken some kroner from my jacket; I had expected her to, and had left the money in an open pocket as you would put out food for a stray kitten.
The rest of my holiday was uneventful. I took pictures for my Facebook page, and then came back to work. From time to time I wonder what happened to her, and if she ever made it back. Whenever I’m in my younger cousins’ house, I flip through their school magazines, wondering if I’ll see her face. So many different English departments. Once, I don’t know why, I hacked into the MOE server to see if I could locate her, but this proved impossible because I had forgotten to ask for her name.
Tick
BY T
HE THIRD day he has pulled a few dozen ticks off the dog. This place must be infested, says his wife, and he nods, unsure whether she means their cabin or the entire natural world. There are ticks in the city, of course, but nowhere near this many. It makes him wonder how many dark, crawling creatures might lurk on the forest floor.
His initial idea was total isolation, but the cabin costs nine hundred a week plus tax. The only way to make that work was for both of them to come, and sublet the apartment. His wife was surprisingly upbeat about this, considering she’d have to commute ninety minutes in each direction. You owe me one, she said as they packed. I’ll enjoy the leverage.
She leaves virtually at dawn to get into town for the early-morning class, but still manages to leave him a grudging paper-bag lunch (Just like Yaddo, he tells himself). He can see vast dappled trees and hear the breeze swirling their tops, and faces his word processor with fresh hope. Hard to believe six weeks in such surroundings will not produce a masterpiece.
He has been telling people about this for months: the students, his colleagues, the newsstand guy. Partly to make sure he actually goes through with it, but mostly out of an excitement that even he can see borders on the childish. Everyone responded positively, many wishing they could do the same themselves. So many unwritten novels—how many shelves would they take up? Bad enough the published ones. He feels his own irrelevance each time he steps into Barnes & Noble.
There is no Wi-Fi in the cabin, and his cell phone is locked in an office drawer back in the city. How edgy to be so completely cut off. He asks his wife not to tell him if anything happens in the outside world, not even nuclear war, or if Harper Lee writes a third book. Harper who? replies his wife, so deadpan he almost believes her.
Even without the Internet, there are multiple ways of squandering the day. He invents a game of throwing crumpled paper into a bucket, with an elaborate scoring system for how close to the rim he gets. It will look good when his wife gets home and sees the trash can full of wadded-up paper.
Hours go by as he watches trees from the porch, telling himself he is emptying his mind of the city. Mid-afternoon masturbation leaves him in need of a nap. He rearranges the tins of food they brought from the city in order of expiry date, then plays with the dog and removes ticks from its skin—a particularly good activity for wasting time as new ones appear every hour. The dog is a shih-tzu, fourteen years old and cranky with age. One of its eyes is misted over from cataracts, and beneath its stringy grey coat the skin is flaking off with infection.
His wife has never gotten into his writing. When they were first dating, he would read her fragments of one short story or another, but stopped when he realised her interest was little more than polite. She likes fitness magazines, and sometimes self-help books. What he does all day holds little mystery for her—she views writing a novel as akin to knitting a pullover; go at it stitch after stitch, keeping count, and eventually you end up with something like the picture on the pattern.
He gets used to the low-level hum of anxiety that runs under every minute of not-writing. Not enough to force him back to his desk, just a thrum of worry that says: you will fail at this too. The tone was set from the first day, on which he squeezed out a single paragraph. His average output has been between half a page and nothing at all. After five days, he pastes everything into a single document and calculates that each word cost him a dollar fifty in rent and food—an investment he is unlikely to recoup, given his desultory publishing history. This is not a viable business model.
Day six is a Monday, which they have designated their together day—his wife is a yoga instructor and weekends are her busiest time. With some misgivings, he closes his laptop and they go for a hike. He could claim to be on a streak, and she would understand—but what if he did, and the day drifted away from him anyway? His wife declares she wants to go as far as the first creek on the map. They walk slowly so the dog can keep up, but still he finds himself huffing before they are halfway there. Only a week away from the gym and already his body is thickening. He resolves to start doing push-ups.
Back at the cabin, they bathe the dog in the sink. It hates this ritual, and whines as she lathers it all over with hypoallergenic shampoo. Running her fingers through its damped-down fur, she exclaims again and again as she finds yet more ticks, small black ovals with wiry legs. She passes them to him to flush away, still wriggling. Some of them are engorged with blood, the size of his little fingernail, so distended their black skin looks grey. Be careful not to pop those, says his wife. They’re full of eggs.
By the time they’re finished and the dog is dry, he reckons they must have pulled off more than a hundred ticks. The thought revolts him. He frets about being bitten himself, but his wife says not to be ridiculous, ticks don’t bite people. Isn’t that how you get Lyme disease? he counters. That’s deer ticks, she says, with an air of finality. He is unconvinced, but without access to Wikipedia it is impossible to refute her.
That night they make love for the first time since coming to the woods. He feels unequal to the effort, as if his daytime ennui has followed him to bed, and in the end it is a listless, perfunctory affair. His wife does not seem to mind, and absently strokes the hair on his chest as if it were a pet, before drifting into sleep.
The next day she disappears into the city again, and he puts on a load of laundry at the highest temperature setting—their sheets, the dog’s blanket, the many fur-coated towels that are the inevitable aftermath of bathing an animal. The cabin does not have a dryer, and he has to hang them all on the long clothes-line slung between two trees, careful not to let anything touch the ground in case it picks up unwanted life.
He has promised himself to make a new start—even here, away from the city, the power of routine is not to be underestimated. To protect his writing from contamination, he has not brought a single book with him. Now, he is filled with an urge to see words on a page—any words, other than his own. He finds himself rooting in his wife’s bag for one of the paperbacks she reads at night, crouched in the bathroom so as not to tempt him. He finds a gaudy volume by someone called Timothy Ferriss, who promises to help him escape the workplace grind. He reads greedily, standing up, careful not to disturb the bookmark.
It is three before he makes it to his desk. At college, he had an elaborate ritual of writing everything in fountain pen on legal pads, and then again on a typewriter, before finally moving on to the word processor. Now, he bangs directly into his laptop, involuntarily clicking word-count every few minutes. Unhealthy, he knows, but he is desperate to see the number tick upward in tiny increments. Keep putting pennies in the piggy bank, he hears his mother say, and sooner or later you’ll have a million dollars.
Once, he had an agent who phoned him impatiently, wanting to know how much he’d written, when she could expect new pages. A couple of unsold novels later, each dragged from his brain with torture implements, he no longer has an agent. It’s a relief just writing for myself, when I feel inspired, he tells his friends. If only I weren’t so busy…
The dog yips to be taken outside. He opens the door for it, watching as it waddles to the nearest tree and releases a jet of urine. He is tempted to leave it out on the porch, but there may be coyotes, and deep down he knows this is not an animal that would survive long in the wild.
Back inside, he gives the dog a thorough pat-down for unwelcome passengers. Unlike fleas, ticks are unable to leap. All they can do is cling to stalks of grass until a passing mammal brushes against them. He grudgingly respects them for thriving despite their haphazard mode of existence. It is a long process: brushing through the fluffy, soft coat, looking for flecks of black against pink skin, concentrating on favourite hiding spots such as the base of the tail, the webbing between its toes. The dog tolerates this at first, glad of any attention, and then begins to whine.
That night he dreams that the forest is a carpet of ticks, black and brown specks, indistinguishable from grains of soil until they stir. Waking, he can still
feel their tiny legs against his skin. He brushes his hands over his body; there is an ant on one ankle, nothing more. Somewhere else in the room, the dog thumps vigorously against the floor, probably trying to scratch some hard-to-reach place behind its ear.
The next morning, he says to his wife, Is it possible that by only killing the ones dumb enough to get caught, we’re inadvertently breeding a super-intelligent race of master-ticks? She grunts in response, not really listening, trying to get her left foot a little further behind her ear. She always claims that yoga grants serenity, but mostly it gives her a pained, red face.
When she has gone, he decides the only way to crack the ice is to sit at the table and not leave until he has typed an acceptable number of words. He brews a pot of the kind of coffee that punches holes in his stomach and then, not even getting dressed, sits at the table in boxer shorts, building up a good rhythm on the keyboard, just a man and his words. He feels a tickle on his leg and glances down, expecting a bug or bead of sweat. It is a tick, red-brown and feisty, halfway up his calf. He stifles a scream, then wonders why he bothered, there is no one for miles around. He crunches it with a fingernail. There is no blood when it pops, which at least means it hasn’t fed on him.
It was probably confused by your leg hair, says his wife reasonably, when he tells her at dinner that night. I keep telling you not to worry, their jaws aren’t strong enough to break human skin. He can think of several retorts to this, but decides to keep the peace, focussing instead on the meal in front of him: brown lentils and eggplant parmigiana. There is a small health-food café attached to his wife’s yoga studio, and she has charmed the owner into revealing most of his recipes.
A day or two after that, he is startled by visitors. Intruders, he thinks at first, before recalling the woods are public land. They seem harmless enough, a man about his age in full beard and flannel shirt, and a girl of maybe nine. They are hiking through the woods, their tent half a mile away—would he mind if they sat a few minutes to catch their breath?