by Amos Talshir
Dr. Thomas thought about that boy who had given him a haircut and a shave, and the knife in his hand, so close at the time to his own throat. He thought about that computer game boy, who had handed him the pocket knife and urged him to treat his diabetic friend in the restroom. It was the same knife given to him by the National Dance Instructor who had shown up beside the woman giving birth. The dance instructor who had lured him at night to come to the aid of the naked girl, the one the boy had saved on the first night of the revolution. The same boy who had shown up in the VIP box and demanded a consult with the president. He now also remembered the theory the boy had presented to the president, raising his interest in the interaction between reality and the virtual world. Dr. Thomas focused, ignoring the cloud of bats landing around him as they nuzzled the fresh blood from the vibrant blades of grass. He made an effort to recall the thought that had gone through his mind quite a while ago, when he first met the boy. He believed it had been in the VIP box or in the restroom. He couldn’t remember exactly. In their conversation, the boy had expressed some abstract thoughts about the nature of existence while simultaneously being equipped with tools, a computer, speakers and his special pocketknife. The useful pocketknife appearing in the philosopher boy’s hands. This combination had intrigued him at the time, as well. He had no doubt that the knife had been produced this time, too, and impaled in the president’s throat. Who had wielded it? It hadn’t necessarily been the boy.
Dr. Thomas began to make his way toward his chair in the VIP box, where the president’s chair was now vacant. He had no doubt that the cabinet members were already squabbling over that chair. He continued to privately wonder who had slaughtered the president. The boy didn’t appear capable of such a deed. He could think, plan, but not execute. Another link was missing in this gang comprising the dance instructor, the naked girl and the thinking boy. And if the boy was indeed behind the murder, it did not make sense for him to be so careless. He could and should have assumed that the identification of the pocketknife would lead straight to him. Unless he wanted to be linked to the murder.
41.
Charlie was having a hard time keeping up with Simon. His son’s long legs had embarked on running steps that forced him to increase his speed. His breath was heavy. Charlie knew this heaviness had to do with the event that had taken place in the eleventh restroom stall in the second row. It wasn’t the act of murder or the blade of the pocketknife he had swiped across the man’s neck. He was stunned by the composure exhibited by Simon, his son, who had planned the maneuver and had also been capable of being present when it was executed in the restroom stall. He was shocked to witness Simon’s thoughts and tactics suddenly becoming a reality, realizing he had been swept up in his son’s convoluted thought patterns as if they were an imaginary children’s story or a trick played by a gang of youths against the forces of evil in a computer game. Suddenly, it was a brutal reality of which he was a part. Just two days ago, he had listened with a certain indifference, indulgently, to his son’s ideas about how the locals might harm the “traitor visitors” and the need to create a deterrence force. And suddenly, the knife had been slaughtering. A moment of nodding and listening to his son, which he thought should have discharged his overactive imagination, and then a puddle of red blood was covering the white tiles. He saw his son watching the president’s throat being slashed the way he had watched Charlie as he taught him to swim long distances. He expected to see signs of upheaval in him, perhaps even fear, but Simon watched the scene as if it had always been obvious that these were the sorts of things a father should do, and definitely a father like Charlie. A father who fixed boat engines by diving without oxygen tanks. A father who could do anything you could think of.
Charlie and Simon passed by the local runners, who cleared a path for them and were left behind, marveling at the exquisite speed in which the two completed round after round. Charlie could clearly feel that their action had served its purpose. The locals were not harassing them. Simon’s measured breathing dictated his breathing as well; the breeze swirling around Simon’s body sucked Charlie into the resulting air pocket. Another round and yet another and Charlie tried but was unable to reconstruct and imagine Simon’s babyish body curled in his special chair in the hospital.
“The locals got the message,” Simon said as he ran.
“Right,” Charlie replied. “They’re not going near us. How do they know to be scared of us?”
“Rumors, Dad, going through the grapevine. Now our problem is to find the bat burrow leading out from the stadium and get to the beach. From there, we’ll swim with Rose deep into the sea and board one of the free ships.”
“How will we get Veronica and the baby out?”
“I’ve already started to work on that, too. I’m training the bats at night when you two are asleep.”
“What are you doing?”
“I call the bats over to me at the same time and from the same place every night until lights-out. Every time, more bats join them. Two nights ago, more than twenty were already coming to me. They already know me, the bats, and they trust me. We could reach more and more bats that know us. We’ll get to thousands.”
Charlie didn’t notice any change in the rate of Simon’s breathing. His own breath had actually grown shorter, and his son’s statements were starting to affect him. Simon sounded strange to him. He slowed down the pace of his run and Simon moved ahead of him. Simon turned his head back and asked whether he was managing to follow the plan. Charlie quickly replied that he was, and that there was no problem, making an effort to catch up with Simon once more.
“How can the bats help Veronica and the baby?” Charlie asked.
“Every mammal can carry a burden that adds weight to its body. The body weight of an average bat is about two ounces. Veronica’s body weight, along with that of the heaviest baby she could give birth to, is about one hundred and thirty pounds. Divide that by two ounces, and you get one thousand and forty bats. Let’s make their job easy, and divide it by one ounce, and we’ll get a weight that can be carried by two thousand and eighty bats. That’s nothing, Dad; there are two hundred and forty thousand bats at our disposal at the stadium. I’ve been counting them for more than a year now. The bats will lift her and carry her along with the baby through their tunnel out to the sea and will track the route we swim from the air, until we get to the ship.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because I’ll train them.”
“And they’re capable of that?”
“Just like in a computer game,” Simon replied.
Simon cut their route short, heading for the exit to the restroom facilities. Charlie followed in his footsteps. The two of them tucked their heads under the taps in the sink, running water over their heads.
“We’ll escape when the baby gets stronger,” Simon said. “But we can’t waste any time. The situation here is going to get worse and worse, even if you want to believe otherwise.”
Charlie shook his head under the stream of water. He hoped freshening up would alleviate the heaviness that had taken hold of him since the murder. Maybe they had also jogged too many rounds and maybe he could no longer keep up with Simon’s pace, both in running and in thinking. He straightened and allowed the water to keep streaming from his head down the back of his neck and under his clothes, all over his body.
“You’re pissing your pants,” Simon said, looking at his father, who stood dripping water in the center of the restroom lounge.
The two of them burst out laughing and Simon walked over to his father and hugged him. Charlie allowed his head to drop onto Simon’s collarbone. People leaving the bathroom stalls sent glances of wary disdain in response to the close contact between the two wet men. They had already seen such things in the stadium’s restroom facilities. Simon and Charlie began to laugh once more.
“Dad, I’m glad you’re starting to calm down. I di
dn’t know you’d take what we did to him so hard.”
“I think I’m taking it hard because of you,” Charlie said.
“Dad, you’re taking it hard because you killed a man for the first time. I’ve killed a ton. In computer games,” Simon confessed.
“I killed lots of fish in the sea.” Charlie laughed wildly. “Pretty soon I really will piss my pants from laughing so hard!”
“You know, Dad, I also get that thing where I pee my pants a little from laughing too hard. That doesn’t happen to everyone, right, Dad?”
“When it comes to peeing your pants, you consider me to be an expert, huh?” Charlie laughed.
“When it comes to anything.”
“Not to computer games.”
“Dad, I know you don’t really believe what I told you. I really suggest you believe me. Like I believe in the third wish that will save Mom and Emily. I believe it because you believe it. It’s true that you didn’t believe me that they had taken over the stadium, and thought it was a terror attack. It’s true that you told me that you couldn’t believe that something like the Twin Towers being toppled on 9/11 could take place. I guess there are some things that are just hard to believe.”
“You believe in my third wish?”
“Sure, Dad. And do you believe in my bats?”
“Definitely,” Charlie said.
42.
Simon stood at the top of the stand as he did every evening, in the hours of grace in which darkness reigned under the roof despite the blinding illumination sweeping the pitch. This was where he trained his bats, thrilled at the significant progress in the training plan. Simon had discovered there were leaders within the colony, its heads, and that if he trained them, the rest of the bats would follow their moves in accordance with the signals he gave them.
Charlie watched Simon, surrounded by bats who hung from his shirt and the wild growth of hair on his head. Simon’s endless dedication to their training reminded his father of their days of long-distance swimming. Both of them cutting vigorously through the water as Charlie accompanied his son’s motions with a proud look from within the flurry of waves surrounding them. He would never forget the night when they reached the point they had marked out for themselves at the heart of the sea, and little Simon extended his arms toward the moon and quietly said, “Dad, swimming is like walking.” Charlie remembered marveling at the fact that Simon didn’t shout out his revelation but rather stated it quietly. The epiphany was a hushed one. That wondrous expression, stated the way it was by his son, brought him great joy; he realized his son was smart, and the more he delved into the statement and understood its meaning, the more he grasped how limited his own intelligence was. Swimming is like walking, which was obvious for a fish, could be possible for a person as well. Charlie had never considered himself to be weak or subordinate to others, but he knew how to spot people who were smarter than him and accepted it with resignation and peace. At some point, he knew enough to tell himself that he was only the son of a fisherman and had apparently learned all that he could learn from his father. Suddenly, his Simon was saying swimming is like walking. People walked like animals and swam like fish; Simon had understood it long ago, when he had just learned how to be a fish in the water. And if they could swim like fish, why couldn’t they fly like birds?
Was Simon really intending to use the bats to help him fly? Perhaps in this stadium, everything that had once seemed impossible could come true? Not only the bad surprises, not only what you already knew, what had already happened to others. If something you never believed could happen was actually happening, why shouldn’t the good stuff happen as well? Like me being able to fly, for example, Charlie thought.
In the meantime, Charlie had learned to live alongside the tens of thousands of locals, learning to avoid incidents, steer clear of violence, and making do with the little rectangles of food that continued to land in the center circle.
Charlie continued his determined march, veering away from confrontations with the groups of locals huddling on the turf and sending taunting looks in his direction, but not daring to attack. He had to listen to Simon; they had to escape, to change their future, which seemed permanently fixed to a stadium seat, until the day they would be attacked by the locals. That day was drawing near, despite the deterrence action initiated by Simon. The president’s murder had joined the mad events that had become a shock collar wrapped tight around the throats of all the stadium’s residents. All the hundred thousand fans could do was keep living and at best find themselves a woman from among the few who had attended the soccer game, which would always be at someone else’s expense. There would be no more women than there had always been.
Dr. Thomas touched Charlie’s shoulder as he stood in the shade of one of the lighting posts, watching the people dancing under Veronica’s guidance to the sound of their own singing.
“I want to ask a very great favor of you,” Dr. Thomas said, nearly whispering into Charlie’s ear.
Charlie spun around swiftly, ready to attack the local, but recognized the doctor, who raised his hands defensively. The two gazed at each other. Charlie knew this was the doctor who had treated Clebber. Simon had told him about him. It was very easy to recognize a man with a hump. He had also treated Rose, Charlie knew. This was the doctor who had been next to the murdered president when the latter had been gathered off the turf by the claw arm.
Dr. Thomas allowed his defensive arms to fall to the sides of his body once more when he realized that Charlie recognized him. He knew Charlie was the father of the boy with the pocketknife. The missing link in the president’s murder. He had tracked them, their long fitness runs. Their relationship with Veronica and Rose, everything they had and that he could only dream about.
Charlie realized the doctor was the one who had spread the rumor that they had been the ones who killed the president, thus contributing to deterring the locals from harming them. Exactly according to Simon’s plan. He intended to pretend he didn’t understand the language in which the doctor was speaking to him, although he had in fact had time to learn the locals’ language. Something in the doctor’s gaze turned from authoritative to beseeching. Almost begging. An older, lonely man at the stadium, with a hunchback.
“I want to learn from you,” the doctor said.
Charlie listened in silence.
“I’m curious to know how you did it.”
“Did what?”
“Everything,” the doctor said.
“I dove.”
“You dove?”
“I know how to stop breathing,” Charlie whispered. “When I dive, I stop breathing for a long time. I dive and fix an engine stalled underwater. I don’t breathe and then I manage to fix any engine. I’ve been practicing since I was a kid. I dive and remove the propeller cover, and usually it’s a fishing net that got tangled in the engine driveshaft. I manage to free the remainder of the nylon strands and, in a single breath, screw the propeller back in, and then I surface, and it feels really good to breathe again. But sometimes it isn’t a net that got tangled in the shaft. I come up for air and dive again and remove the drive chain, carefully, but quickly, so that the sprocket doesn’t come loose and sink into the sea, but also so my lungs don’t run out of air. I surface for air and dive down again and replace the sprocket with the one I always carry in my backpack. And if it’s not a sprocket, I dive a third time and probe the driveshaft with my fingers. I pass my fingers along it slowly in the water, trying to feel whether it’s wearing down and slipping. You have to touch the entire length of the shaft gently with your fingertips, probing its entire diameter. That’s the only way I can tell whether it’s damaged, like the touch of a blind man feeling the letters.”
“And if it’s not the shaft?” Dr. Thomas asked.
“I don’t dive more than three times. The brain gets fuzzy after three times.”
“You don’t breathe
?”
“I hold it in,” Charlie replied.
“And you don’t dive another time?” the doctor marveled.
“I hold myself back from diving a fourth time. Is that what you wanted to learn?”
“Along with a few other things,” the doctor said.
Dr. Thomas could think of some things he could learn from Charlie. Charlie had the lovely Veronica, who had chosen him as her partner out of the tens of thousands of men who would give anything for her. He had his son for company and as solace against the inescapable loneliness of the ongoing lockdown. And there was also Rose, who was grateful for everything they had done for her. Somehow, Charlie had a little family within the stadium. Others had no more than one friend to console them. At best, it was a fellow football fan who had come to the game with them. Charlie had that reserve that inspired so much envy in Dr. Thomas. He could never explain why he did not possess such reserve, despite his medical degree, despite his majestic—in his opinion—mane of hair and even his family lineage. People like Charlie had plenty of that particular reserve. He had noticed it immediately. Although he wasn’t particularly well educated and had no extraordinary accomplishments—certainly not of the kind that were apparent in others’ company. But women took notice of Charlie and were attracted to him, which never happened to Dr. Thomas.
Thomas had been tracking Charlie within the stadium for quite a while and was envious of him. In the past, he had blamed his hunchback. However, over time, he had learned that women could be attracted to a hunchbacked man just as they could be attracted to an uneducated one, or a short-statured one. He wanted with all his heart for women to be attracted to him but had not attained that goal—not in the streets of the city, not in the opulent salons where he spent time with his doctor friends. In the stadium, he had hoped to win a woman like Veronica, or young Rose, or any other woman. But there were very few women among the hundred thousand fans. However, this was merely an excuse, he knew. The bitter, familiar anger would clamber up into his mind every day during this long, exhausting lockdown. Outside, he would buy women with the generous sums he earned at his exclusive clinic by the square. As a government minister, he forced himself upon women, using his authority, but he had never met a woman who needed him, who would want him, who would think and feel that he was her entire world, who would love him.