The Escape: A Novel

by Adam Thirlwell

  —Yes, said Haffner, deciding that it would be best if he stopped the sentence there.

  —Uhhuh, uhhuh, said Niko.

  To this, Haffner maintained his politic silence.

  —You like potato chips? said Niko: trying to begin a conversation as they drove off.

  Niko, the athlete, was always snacking. He offered Haffner an angled tube.

  —No, said Haffner: feeling drunk, and sick.

  Their destination was a billiards and pool hall – on the opposite edge of the town to Benjamin’s utopian Chinese restaurant, in an industrial complex – on the second floor of what appeared to have been intended as an office block. On the ground floor were a hair-dresser supply shop – whose windows were hung with posters displaying the moustaches and side-partings of another era – and a shop selling carpet to the outfitters of mid-range business premises. Each window of the billiards hall was blacked out.

  Their contact was already there. To Haffner’s disturbed surprise, he discovered that he recognised this contact.

  —I’m sorry, he said to Niko. I don’t think I got his name.

  —Viko, said Niko, pointing to his misprinted double.

  —Ah yes, of course, said Haffner.

  And Haffner gazed over at his masseur.

  Haffner wondered if this would be awkward. All that was needed, he concluded, if the man could indeed do what he said he could do, was a brisk, businesslike demeanour.

  He looked around: at the wall lamps, visored by green eyeshades; at a bar of chocolate on a table, its foil wrapper partially unwrapped, exposing its ridged segments – like a terrapin, or grenade.

  He had hoped for something more; he had hoped for a man in a suit, with a briefcase and moustache. He had certainly hoped for a stranger. A powerful, authoritative stranger. If Haffner had ever had to imagine how this kind of business might be done, difficult as it may have been, he would have been able to be precise about the clothes. It most certainly would not have featured this man’s obvious pleasure in contemporary sportswear.

  As if, conceded Haffner, Haffner could talk: this man without a wardrobe.

  2

  Viko was a drifter; a man of travels. His career had taken him along the fabled European coasts: from Juan-les-Pins to San Remo, from Dubrovnik to Biarritz. His trade was that of the hotelier. Wherever he went, he found work in the spas of luxury retreats, the reception desks of grand hotels. In this trade, he had grown sleek. He had also become expert in the wiles of the world. Not for Viko, the moral life. He preferred corruption, blackmail: the free flow of information.

  He kept himself to himself, this was how Viko put it. It was not quite how his colleagues put it. They knew him as rather more sinister: a fixer; a man who was protected, and who could, in his turn, offer protection to others. His ethics were those of the favour. He dispensed largesse. In return, he received the loyalty of chambermaids, office assistants, waiters, car-wash attendants. Often no one knew where Viko was: his movements were uncertain. His apartment was always blandly comfortable: on the walls, posters of Renaissance gods, and cubist still lifes.

  Yes, out of his uniform – out of the shorts and cotton sports shirt, the tennis shoes – Viko was transformed. No longer the man who pampered the pampered rich. Now, he was in power.

  Viko walked up to Haffner and Niko, nodded, then walked past them to the bar. But the barman was not there. He was taking the garbage out. Viko waited. He turned from the bar and reapproached them.

  —How are you, my friend? said Viko to Niko. You are like Elton John, no?

  Viko was wearing a T-shirt which did not conceal the fact that his forearms and upper arms were plaited with muscle, like challah bread. He put imaginary binoculars to his face. He grinned, behind his binoculars, scanning the limited horizon.

  —In those glasses.

  Niko smiled. He looked at Haffner. Haffner smiled at Viko, nervously.

  The label of Viko’s shirt, which lolled over the collar, was still pierced by its plastic hammerhead tag.

  The billiards and pool hall in which they found themselves was reminiscent of an idealised gentlemen’s club, from the nineteenth-century colonies. It was a vision of the past, where the players – dressed in waistcoats and bow ties – were meant to tend, like waiters, to the table. Portraits of forgotten stars, like imaginary aristocrats, were hung beneath lamps which bequeathed luminous rectangles to the aristocrats’ foreheads, as if they were sweating. Each photograph was scribbled with an illegible imitation of a signature: as if the sign for a signature was its very illegibility.

  Niko said that he would just go into the bathroom. Viko said he would be with them in one minute. First he had this little matter – they understood? He gestured over to a table, where an argument was taking place. They understood. So Viko wandered back over to the tables and took up his position, a little way off, on a bar stool; while Haffner waited on a banquette for Niko to return.

  Haffner listened to the argument: like every argument, its intonations were universal.

  He did not know the precise details: he did not know that a man was telling his teenage son that he was not showing any respect to Viko.

  —When you were my age, he said. When you. When I was. There was a pause.

  —You’re me, right, said the man.

  On his bar stool, Viko lit a cigarette: aloof from the argument, in his ivory tower.

  He was forty-two, said the anonymous father, and he had never said fuck in front of his mother. Never. Look, he loved him more than his bird loved him. He respected him. And he didn’t need to go round saying things which weren’t respectful. If he didn’t show any respect.

  —Him, if he wants to, said the man, pointing at Viko, he can have anyone killed.

  And how was Haffner also to know, as he listened to this incomprehensible argument, that Niko was, at that moment, bending as if in solicitude over the tank of a toilet, inhaling a gram of cocaine which he had first neatly heaped in a thin straggling line? It wasn’t Haffner’s normal world. As he looked around, sipping the first of the vodkas which the barman brought him, he was simply trying to understand why there seemed to be such a lack of urgency; such a lack of businesslike flair. He wanted to be done with this. The urgent need to do what he had to do and secure this villa for Livia still possessed him, even in his drunken state. He wanted to be true to a domestic idyll. He wanted to be successful and in bed. But Haffner, in his finale, was fated so rarely to be in bed when he wanted, with whom he wanted.

  He felt for the phone, bulging in his tracksuit top.

  Niko propped himself on the patch of yellow foam under the ripped velour of the banquette, on which Haffner’s hand had been resting.

  —You want to play? said Niko. You like billiards? Why not? If we played a little game, for a bet?

  —Really? said Haffner.

  —Why not? said Niko. Why not?

  Haffner was drunk. And he was good at billiards. After all, he had been Joe Davis’s banker. Haffner, as the legend had often said, was a natural.

  3

  Along the walls of the billiards and snooker hall, a range of cues was propped – like an armoury. Haffner prised one out from its tight little omega, and rolled it on the empty and unlit surface of a dark unoccupied table. It drifted in an unprofessional curve. Haffner prised out another. The black butt of this cue was slightly sticky. He rolled this one also – noting its warp, its bias and slide.

  He walked back to his table; asked if Niko wanted to break. Niko rested his cue, upright, against the table.

  —You break, he said.

  Haffner settled over the table, fervently. He jabbed the white, but somehow swerved his arm so the tip of the cue slid and tapped the white on top, then bounced beside it on the thin green baize.

  —That’s not a good shot no, said Niko.

  —No, said Haffner.

  —Listen, said Niko. You must keep your arm straight – no, yes, out, yes, better. Now try.

  —But it’s your tur
n, said Haffner.

  —No no, said Niko. You go, you go.

  Haffner recovered his form with an in-off red. He played gracefully, impressively. He relaxed into his talent. Intently – doing this for Livia, thinking of Livia, the tenderness he felt for the rashes she had been prone to, her skin weeping like honeycomb – he did not look at Niko during a series of fourteen in-offs. And then he missed.

  —Come into my office, said Viko: he was standing beside their table, his arms wide, smiling.

  Neatly, he sat down on a bench.

  —So sorry, said Viko, nodding over in apology to the now becalmed and darkened table. A drink? he added.

  A deal among men: this, at least, was a world which Haffner could understand. On his bench, as in the most masculine of steak houses, Haffner leaned forward, in the way that he had always done: the clasp of his palms dropped against his lap.

  A genie, Niko returned with three bottles of beer – the flare of his nostrils, inside, was a glowing coral. He picked up his cue, scratched the turquoise block of chalk, with its shallow indentation, across its tip. He puffed the puff of chalk away. Then settled to his work.

  And Viko outlined the situation. Haffner wanted the villa. The Committee was proving difficult. Haffner was interested in speeding the process up. This, so far, was what Viko understood. Haffner praised his grasp of the situation. And Viko, continued Viko: he was known as a man of honour. He liked to help his friends. And Haffner was a friend?

  Haffner was a friend.

  He thought he was, said Viko. So. Viko had done his research; he had asked various questions: he had made Haffner’s situation known.

  This was very kind, said Haffner.

  4

  Niko had been playing a monotonous series of in-off reds. He lifted his head from the table. What, he asked, did Haffner want the upper limit to be? Haffner wondered if 100 would be appropriate. Niko played another long in-off red.

  And Viko therefore thought that, with the document he was now offering to Haffner, Haffner would find it ever so much easier to bring the matter to a close. He unfolded a square of paper from his pocket, and laid it in front of Haffner. Haffner tried to read it. As he expected, it was not in a language he knew.

  This was what? he queried. It was the necessary authentication from the authorities, said Viko. It was the proof that the family of his wife were the rightful owners of the property.

  —The deeds? asked Haffner.

  —Not quite, said Viko. But this was all he needed.

  Haffner had never imagined the world of corruption to work with such elegance, such dispatch. If only he had understood this sooner, in his career, he thought. He might have saved himself so many hours of work.

  From the bar, they could hear a miniature ice-hockey match, on a miniature television, being brought to its conclusion. Niko paused: he strained to watch.

  —You prefer which games? asked Niko, still straining.

  —The game of cricket, said Haffner.

  —Yes, the English game, said Niko, relaxing back into the real world.

  From his cueing position, Niko wondered if Haffner could explain the game of cricket. Haffner thought this was unlikely. But it was true: he liked the higher games. The higher English games. Like cricket, and croquet. The games with intricate rulebooks.

  —Or soccer, of course, said Haffner, in an effort to lower himself to the universal level, looking at his incomprehensible document with lavish pride.

  —This is my game, said Niko. The penalties! This I love. The lottery. The goalkeeper’s fear.

  But no, Haffner said, putting his folded document down beside his beer, careful to avoid the ornamental water features on the scratched and sticky shelf. Not at all. The goalkeeper was never afraid of the penalty, said Haffner. The goalkeeper was in love with the penalty.

  —You kill me, said Niko.

  Hear him out, said Haffner. Hear a man out. What the goalkeeper didn’t want was the difficult cross, the perfectly weighted through-ball. These were the tests of skill and psychology: the undramatic moments.

  —Possible, said Niko. Possible.

  The real dilemma for the goalkeeper, continued Haffner, was whether or not to leave his area. That was the moral crux of goal-keeping – to know when to curb one’s courage. But the penalty was pure theatre. The goalkeeper, finished Haffner, in a penalty, could never be defeated.

  —Interesting, said Niko, still watching the television. You like Barthez?

  —Barthez? said Haffner. A showman. Just a showman. Never rated him. Now Banks, however, now there was a goalkeeper.

  —Who? said Viko, bored.

  5

  With Niko’s next shot, the red ball quivered against the angled upper jaw of a centre pocket, and settled there, unpotted. The white dribbled towards it and, miraculously, stopped – on the lower jaw of the same centre pocket.

  —It’s amazing what can happen, said Niko, meditatively, on this twelve-by-six-foot table. Then he smiled at Haffner, as if for appreciation.

  There only remained, therefore, said Haffner, with decorum – trying to return the matter to his hoped-for conclusion – the matter of: and then he broke off, as he had always broken off before, when negotiating with clients. He understood?

  Viko understood: he had consulted with Niko, he said. They were friends. Haffner nodded. They wanted to do this as friends. Haffner nodded again. They would therefore only charge him for the merest expenses. With a small extra compensation. For a third time Haffner solemnly nodded his assent, with gravitas. With gravitas, Viko named his price.

  In this way these deals were done.

  Haffner, in conclusion, nodded his agreement. In response, Viko stood to offer Haffner the manly theatrics of a less reserved hug.

  Haffner looked at his phone, and considered calling Benji – to boast of his success.

  —You want another drink? said Niko. Sure you do!

  He decided that Benji could wait.

  —So, said Niko.

  They walked back to the bar, and sat down on the ripped banquette. There was also, he added, the question of his money too. Haffner looked at him, sad that matters should have turned so predictably filmic: with all the usual minor sins. He thought that had been taken care of, mentioned Haffner.

  —For the bet? said Niko.

  Had that been a real bet? asked Haffner. He had no idea that Niko had been serious.

  Niko looked at the old man in front of him, and placed a paternal hand on Haffner’s boyish shoulder. Could Niko talk about Haffner? Would he permit this? Haffner said he could. Sometimes, Niko worried, Haffner didn’t seem to take things seriously which he should have taken seriously. Like, he pointed out, how Haffner had behaved in the club the night before. Whereas Niko, now Niko took things seriously. But then, Niko had been in a war. In fact, Niko had fought in two wars. Against the Muslims. And let him maybe tell this story. Once, Niko was on the border, in the mountains. They were laying an ambush. It was very cold in the mountains. And Niko’s friend, he had been to America. In America, he had bought a special suit, with wiring inside. It was like an electric blanket? But there was no internal power supply to this suit. There was no battery. So they were at the front, in the mountains. And his friend did not bring so many of his clothes. Instead, he brought his suit, and also a car battery. So. They got to their position. He put his suit on, and then he wired it up to the battery.

  —And what happened? asked Haffner.

  He fell asleep, said Niko. It was freezing, all the enemy was there, close to them, and he fell asleep. He was snoring. And this, said Niko, was Haffner. The man asleep.

  —I fought in two wars, said Niko. And I fired shots in anger, I can tell you.

  6

  In the difficult silence which followed Niko’s portrait of Haffner, Viko proposed that they should go somewhere else to celebrate.

  There was a place near here, agreed Niko: with such girls! Then he paused. He began to smile. In his lightness of spirit, Haffner s
aid he would also, of course, pay for the drinks. First, however, Haffner downed a final vodka. He placed the glass back on the brittle bar towel. Then he drank another final vodka. His heart accelerated. And Haffner, searching for coins in his wallet, which emerged, scissored between two figures, leaned into the sense of flight – as into the exhilaration of a speeding curve.

  He knew what Niko meant. The problem had always been to distinguish whether one was wasting one’s life or truly living it. This was the conundrum inherited from Solomon, his father. But the anguish of Haffner’s life had therefore been in identifying which was which: the two so often hid within each other.

  Libertine man! This was all Haffner had ever wanted to be. Yet now, he was beginning to think, it had always been a mirage. Although it might have looked like waste – his life in the quiet suburbs – although it had so often seemed a waste to Haffner, in fact that life was everything. Renouncing a woman, after all, can be a form of heroism; this is famous. And winning her may be a form of discipline.

  The war was everywhere.

  And Haffner, thought Haffner, had finally proved equal to this war – as he contemplated his finale up here in the mountains, with Zinka in the foreground, Frau Tummel in the background, and Benjamin a shadow in the distance. This piece of paper in his pocket, thought Haffner, constituted an undeniable achievement. So Haffner rejected Niko’s accusation. Haffner was exultant!

  In recovering Livia’s villa, Haffner saw his reconciliation.

  A chorus of trumpeting putti, Viko and Niko and Haffner raised their ultimate vodkas, downed the glasses on the wet surface of the bar counter, then on they went, happy, to the next whisky bar.

  7

  Haffner had always liked the imaginary travel books: the voyages to the centre of the earth, the voyages under the sea. There were the Sciapods, one-footed, but whose one tremendous foot served as a sunshade in the desert; or the Cynocephali, with the heads of dogs and a language which resembled barking. His favourite, given to him by Livia as a Christmas present, was an illustrated edition of the adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac – the comical man with the grandiose nose, who imagined a trip to the moon. But all these mythical journeys could only lead their heroes home. And Haffner was moved to realise that this was also true of him – even now, when Livia was dead. The marriage was endless.