Chop Chop

by Simon Wroe

  “I don’t care,” said Ramilov, who had heard it too. “We’ll just bash through this, take the money and get the fuck out of here.”

  The afternoon passed at a clip. We felt the eyes on us and worked faster. I read somewhere that King Solomon died standing up, leaning on his cane, and his spirit slaves, thinking he was still watching them, carried on working for forty days until termites ate the cane and the body fell. It was evening when we carried the first dishes into the Mary Celeste dining room, mindful of those invisible eyes, pushing aside the half-drunk glasses of wine and champagne to make way for the groaning trays. As we made our way back to the kitchen I noticed Ramilov’s jaw was clenched. He looked more like a skull than ever.

  An hour or so passed. Another hour of low whimpers and dread, of angry thoughts. I kept thinking about the argument with my father. What had he meant by “Your mother knows what I mean”? Was that just his sly implication or something more substantial? It tore me up that she might think the same as him, whatever that was. But the most hurtful phrase was my own, which he could not deny. The wrong one died. It was true, after all. Sam was the better child. He would always be the greater force. Yet even by my own slight standards, I could have been a better son. A better brother. In those final hours with Sam, I could have been so much better. I waited and wallowed, until The Fat Man returned at last.

  “So far, so good,” he said. “Now the main event.”

  Once more he went to the parlor door and unlocked it.

  “Thought of a poem yet?” he asked, leveling his cold eyes at me. I shook my head. It was the only part of my body that still seemed to work. This time The Fat Man did not lift the thing inside the parlor, but dragged it out underneath a black silk sheet.

  “Still shy, are we?” he said as he pulled the covered object in front of us. “Still overwrought?”

  You could not see what was beneath, but steel glinted at the edges of the sheet. Another cage. A large one. I looked at Ramilov but he was very still and quiet, and suddenly small again. His fingers, bunched in on themselves, looked like white roses. Seeing him like this made me even more nervous.

  The Fat Man looked from Ramilov to me and back again. A flicker of amusement played about his greasy lips. This was his little test. We drew our breath, and he let the drape fall. We stared in horror at the large, intelligent eyes staring back at us. It stood on two legs, whimpering softly, its fingers worrying the bars of the cage. A fully grown ape, as scared as we were. Ramilov’s breathing was coming short and sharp next to me. I did not look at him.

  “A lot of people think only the Chinese eat monkey brains,” said The Fat Man. “Not true. The brain of an ape is greatly prized in many parts of the world. But few places do it properly. The brain is soft tissue. It degenerates very swiftly. It has to be eaten as fresh as possible. And there’s nothing fresher than living. . . .” Here The Fat Man paused and moved toward the counter. “Which makes your job very simple. One single chop, in fact. Just a centimeter off the top of the skull. With this—”

  From a drawer he produced a cleaver, glinting sharply.

  “There’s some handcuffs in the drawers,” he added. “I would advise you use them. Apes tend to struggle.”

  He turned to leave and looked back at us.

  “When the bell rings three times. That’s all you have to do.”

  As soon as he had left I turned to Ramilov.

  “Ramilov, if you think I’m going to do that . . .”

  I stopped.

  “It’s not going to happen,” he said very quietly.

  I needed further elaboration on this point. At this moment, five sinister figures were pulling the black sheets over their bowed heads, waiting for the bell to ring. I thought it prudent to start looking for another door out of there, a window if necessary. But all the light in the kitchen was artificial and the only other door led to the parlor of horrors, which was locked. We were deep behind enemy lines, and the only way out of The Fat Man’s dungeon was through the dining room. This was not a situation we could tiptoe out of. I was very anxious for our well-being. Also I was nervous for what Ramilov might do, as he was prone to rashness. But Ramilov did not move, nor did he speak again. I cannot tell you how long we stood like this, the ape caged and whimpering beside us, the cleaver on the counter in front of us. It could have been a moment or an hour. It was the purest example of kitchen time I have ever known.

  Then the bell rang three times.

  “Don’t worry, mate,” Ramilov said. “Whatever happens, I’m not going to let that fat fuck eat your brain.”

  I realized he was talking to the ape. Fine, why not? But I required assurances too. Pools of terror were collecting inside me. On some deep emotional level I had sprung a leak. What were we going to do? After a long and agonizing pause, the bell tolled again. Once, twice, three times. Rung out with full force. Again Ramilov did not move.

  There were footsteps in the corridor. Belly first, The Fat Man sailed in. Angry was not the word. Fuming, fulminating, effervescent, incandescent: these get a little closer to the utter fury of the man. His enormous bulk, moving at speed, was terrible to witness. You suddenly appreciated the strength it took to carry a body like that, and the sheer force implied by it. It was the force of every animal he had ever eaten, squeezed into one spirit.

  “Well, chefs?” he snarled. “What the fuck are you doing? Bring it in.”

  He was right up against Ramilov, glowering down at him.

  “No,” said Ramilov.

  “Do you want the money or not?” The Fat Man was bellowing, spraying food and spit.

  “Fuck the money,” said Ramilov.

  “What?” The Fat Man could not believe his ears.

  “It’s evil.”

  The Fat Man curled his lip. Ramilov’s empathy had tickled him.

  “You should see what I’ve got planned for next time,” he replied darkly.

  Suddenly I saw the months of ungodly dinners stretching into infinity, and I could not help but shudder. Where was the line? Morality struggled in the restaurant kitchen as it was—in The Fat Man’s kitchen it didn’t have a chance. If it were acceptable to kill an ape, what would be next? Where could you go after that? How many months before there was a human being in that cage? How long before we were taking cookery tips on the best way to cook a baby? For the first time I appreciated the weight these horrors must have put on Bob. Perhaps some, if not all, of his awfulness could be attributed to these godless dinners. But why had he agreed to them? Why had he not tried to escape? Why were we not pushing past The Fat Man and breaking for freedom right now? What hold did he have over us?

  “You’re not touching that creature.” Ramilov had his legs set wide apart.

  “What do you know about right and wrong?” The Fat Man sneered. “You think it’s better to slit a pig’s throat? You think you can smash a calf’s skull at three months but not a monkey’s?”

  Ramilov’s jaw was jutting fiercely. His eyes were like stones.

  “Apes are different,” he said through gritted teeth. “Apes are majestic.”

  “Ha!” The Fat Man cried. “Majestic! You chefs! You think you’re all judges of taste! What taste have you got? The restaurants you run are tacky, the clothes you wear are tacky. Your friends are tacky, your wives are tacky, your lives are tacky!”

  This was me, and my friends, The Fat Man was talking about. This was my profession he was insulting. The Fat Man was not interested in food—only in consuming, in mastery, in destruction. I felt sick. The pools of terror were fermenting in my gut. We had to get out of there.

  “That’s why you’ll always be slaves!” The Fat Man spat. “You deserve no better!”

  “Shut your mouth!” Ramilov barked back. The muscles in his neck were straining to attack.

  “Ramilov,” I said, tugging at his sleeve, “let’s go. Now.”

&nbs
p; “Yeah,” he said in agreement, though still looking as if he were about to bite off an ear or nose. “You’re right. Fuck this guy.”

  He pushed past The Fat Man with me following close behind. There are Saharan plains smaller than that kitchen was just then, whole continents one could cross quicker. The open door was in front of us, the room of hooded figures at the corridor’s end. If we ran now maybe they wouldn’t catch us, maybe we’d be out and in the street by the time they lifted the black silk from their eyes. If we just ran . . .

  We were passing the counter nearest the door, where the cleaver sat, when The Fat Man called out after Ramilov.

  “Why don’t you tell your little friend here why you left the place in Leeds?”

  Ramilov stopped. His face, half turning toward his accuser, had drained of all color.

  “The head chef’s daughter, wasn’t she?” The Fat Man asked with a leer.

  Ramilov turned fully. Much of the earlier forcefulness had left him; he appeared quite stunned.

  “How do you . . .” he began to ask.

  “Amazing what you can find when you know the right people,” said The Fat Man. His voice had lowered. He knew he had us hooked again. “We do live in an age of wonders. . . . How old was she anyway? Thirteen?”

  “That’s not true,” said Ramilov blankly.

  “That’s what I like about chefs,” replied The Fat Man. “You’re all so bent. Each in your own little way, you can’t keep your hands clean. Your friend Dave had his drug debts, that weirdo Bob had his home videos. No wonder that dog was always trying to escape. You’re all so proud . . . and stupid. You changed your last name—so what? How many Ramilovs do you think there are in the system? Bob kept those tapes just lying around in a locked drawer. You people make blackmail easy. You’re a gift. What you won’t do for money, you’ll do for fear of others finding out. . . .” His words were trickling softly, calmly. “Thirteen is a bad age, isn’t it? Lot of awkward questions.”

  Ramilov had lowered his head. His breathing was forced.

  “Tell me,” said The Fat Man, “did she still have dolls in her bedroom? Did you turn them to face the wall?”

  “She wasn’t . . .” Ramilov began. “I didn’t . . .”

  “Yes, I can see—a very difficult one to explain,” The Fat Man went on. “But all that can be forgotten. Just do as I say and carve that monkey up. Right fucking now. I might even still pay you.”

  Unsteadily, Ramilov took a step toward him. I could not tell whether he was about to yield or fight. My heart was doing laps. Was this the history of which Ramilov would not speak? I was terrified, above all, of discovering he was weak. I had no strong figures left. In that moment I hated The Fat Man more than I have ever hated anybody, for holding the past over us, for never letting us forget. People like The Fat Man and my father, forever contaminating our lives and poisoning our abilities, figures to fear, to dream of overthrowing. All the bitterness and rage I felt toward one flowed into the other, and I saw that as long as there were people like them in our lives we would never be free. There was the quaking ape in its cage, there the glinting cleaver, and here we were in the middle. “That’s not how it was.” Ramilov raised his head and looked The Fat Man in the eye once more.

  “Oh, I know what you must have told yourself,” The Fat Man said, grinning. “Everyone finds a way to make it right with themselves. When you steal something, when you kill someone, when you fuck a child . . .”

  Ramilov stared at him unsteadily. He was about to crack.

  “Don’t listen to him, Ramilov!” I cried.

  “Oh,” laughed The Fat Man, turning on me. “You think this is only about him? The money you give your dad, where do you think it goes?”

  What was he doing bringing my father into this? What business was it of his?

  “He has a gambling problem,” I said, uneasy with this new line of inquiry. “Come on, Ramilov, please . . .”

  “He did have,” The Fat Man grinned, “but I cured him. Turns out he’d rather keep his fingers than play the horses. That money goes to me, for debts unpaid.”

  This information pinned me to the spot. I was in no mood to discuss my father, with this man of all people, but I had to know what he owed, what it would take for him to be free. This man, this constant reminder of my brother and my relative shortcomings, this tyrant to me for so long, now tyrannized by another. I cannot tell you exactly what I was feeling at this moment. My emotions were all riled up.

  “How much does he owe?” I asked. No matter what my father said to me, we were still joined to each other. His debt was my debt. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Ramilov edging forward.

  “Enough that he’ll never pay it off,” The Fat Man replied. “I’m . . . flexible with the interest. Best thing you can do is get that monkey out of the cage and get to work. Take that money home. Be a good son, eh? Don’t disappoint your poor old dad. . . . What would that brother of yours have done?”

  In his most recent letter, Ramilov says he doesn’t remember much about what happened next. He suggests “A Muddle of Violences.” The long and the short of it is The Fat Man received a meat cleaver in his prodigious gut. The lower intestine. A ruptured kidney. Chop chop. Nothing fatal, though we did wonder at the time, as he lay there bleeding out across the floor, his mountainous flesh changing color before our eyes. Untold claret. Ramilov suggested that we turn him over to face the sky, according to the laws of the Kanun. Otherwise his soul would enter the earth and there’d be no end of trouble. Ramilov has no memory of saying this, but I do. I can see and hear every element of those last moments in The Fat Man’s house. I remember how we eventually rolled him, how I held his head to stop him from choking on his blood and felt the hair and fat and clammy skin of it, no different from a swine’s. The silence in that house was coming at us in waves, rushing forward and then retreating away. Voices were gathering in the corridor. Pussyclot was mentioned. Ramilov locked us in.

  “Call 999!” I hissed.

  “No police!” he cried. “We can’t get them involved!”

  “Are you crazy?” I shouted back. “He’ll die!”

  The Fat Man was trembling now, quite cold in my arms. His blood was everywhere, pooling around us both. It would not stop. I was eight years old again, watching helplessly as the life ran from my brother. Neither of us was strong enough to stem the flow. That awful silence returned, louder than ever. I racked my mind desperately for a way to stop it, to forget the blood, and suddenly the lines of a poem popped into my head, I don’t know why. Memory of some first aid would have been more useful but, like I said before, you can’t choose what you remember. I decided to give The Fat Man as much of the poem as I could recall.

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

  And Eternity in an hour.

  A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

  Puts all Heaven in a Rage.

  A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons

  Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.

  A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate

  Predicts the ruin of the State.

  I am not sure if The Fat Man appreciated my recital, as he never said anything one way or another on the subject. Of course, Ramilov does not remember this either. He was arguing furiously with the guests on the other side of the door. They had realized the injuries were serious and the initial threats had been replaced with something stranger: some of them seemed to be suggesting that we should let their host die. Let it happen, the voices whispered. Set us free. Ramilov was shouting back that we weren’t about to kill anyone, but when he turned away from the door and saw The Fat Man again, took in the state of him, he conceded that death was a distinct possibility. Reluctantly he made the call. The voices outside dissolved when he announced that the emergency servic
es were on their way. The whispering walls were silent.

  All Ramilov remembers for certain from this time is the ape, which he says did not take its eyes off The Fat Man until the paramedics had got him on the gurney and carted him away. He says he can’t prove this for sure, but he swears that the creature was smiling.

  —

  Ramilov adds that he has joined the library and there is space on the shelves for a book by Monocle about Bob and the restaurant inspector and Racist Dave and The Fat Man and everything that happened. He says there is quite a lot of space on the shelves. The book selection is piss-poor in prison.

  4. THE SELECTED WISDOMS OF RAMILOV

  Excerpt from Ramilov’s letters, no. 1: History is a graveyard of fallen idols. You’ll stub your toe on a headstone if you wander round it long enough.

  Soon after the stabbing I took my father home. The handcuffs, the holding cell, the questioning—these had all been distressing, if formative, experiences for me. Those detectives certainly know how to make a person feel lousy about themselves. My night behind bars had been a long and restless one, with only Ramilov’s occasional groans (of distress, I think) in the adjacent cell for company. Strange as it was, in that hard room I had even missed my father’s snores. The next morning, when I saw his sharp face in the reception of Kentish Town nick upon my release, all the rage of the previous afternoon was forgotten. For a second it occurred to me that he might have been arrested too—had he stolen someone else’s stolen fruit?—but no, he was here for me, he had come to take me home.

  “It should’ve been me in there—not you,” he told me somewhat ambiguously.

  But I would not let him confuse me now. The minute I saw his face I resolved to do as he had done for me, as he had been asking me to do for him these three long months: I would take him home. An act of mediation on my part. After that mess in The Fat Man’s house, good counterbalances were in order. My mother had not agreed to it, nor was she likely to, but I had seen enough of their fights to know there was no such thing as a clean break with them. Like two halves of an old book, one made no sense without the other. With a bit of tape, a little perseverance, they could be stuck back together. Those long years had worn them into each other. They shared familiarity, and that counts for more than you think. I believed they could work together again.