News about kentukis was the only other thing that interested Mister. Now, on the Umbertide news, a journalist was reporting in front of a state hospital: an elderly woman had had a heart attack and her owl kentuki had saved her life by calling an ambulance. In thanks, the woman had asked for a bank account number and had deposited ten thousand euros, but then the kentuki’s dweller had disappeared, and hadn’t been there for the woman’s second heart attack, which had carried her definitively to the other world. “Does the kentuki bear some responsibility?” the reporter asked the camera. “And if it does, what kind of legal action could be applied to these new, anonymous citizens?” A brief roundtable debate opened up in the studio, where one doctor who kept a kentuki in his office in Florence told of a different medical case, and another man who dwelled in a kentuki at the reception of a hotel in Mumbai put forth his own dilemmas.
In front of the TV, the mole was motionless. Luca finished his food, and when he passed the kentuki he gave it a soft and precise kick that was enough to knock it over and send it rolling toward the sofa. The boy kept going to his room. Enzo went over and set the mole back up on its base again. He stayed kneeling in front of it.
“What’s wrong, Mister?” They looked at each other. “Was it so terrible of me to give you my phone number and want you to call me? Forget about it, if it bothers you so much, you don’t have to call.”
The kentuki turned away. Enzo sighed and went to collect the dinner dishes.
The next day, his ex-wife came to see him. It wasn’t a visit he was expecting.
“I’ll let Luca know you’re here,” said Enzo in the doorway, without inviting her in.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“No, no. You and I have to talk, Enzo. I’ll say hi to Luca later.”
He let her in and poured coffee. While he was carrying the cups into the living room, he saw her moving around the house, looking at the floor and in the corners. Then she opened the curtains and peered out into the garden. Enzo imagined she was impressed by how healthy the greenhouse was, and he thought she would surely say something, but she came back without a word and sat down next to him. Her worry seemed genuine.
“Where’s the kentuki?” she finally asked.
“It’s usually around here,” said Enzo, kneeling down to look for Mister under the sofa.
They were sitting right on top of the kentuki’s hideout, and Enzo knew it. But he’d just realized that his ex had never seen the mole, and he wasn’t sure it was a good day to introduce them. He saw the kentuki motionless with its back to him, hiding behind one of the sofa legs. From where Enzo was looking, there was no way of knowing if it was awake, or if Mister could hear what was happening.
“He’s not here,” he said, sitting down again. “At this hour he’s usually watching over Luca’s nap.” He handed her a mug of coffee. “He adores Luca, follows him around, and it’s a relief to know there’s someone else nearby looking out for him. I never thanked you for him. In the end he’s a big help.”
Enzo forced himself to shut his mouth. Why did he keep doing this? Praising her even now, when he couldn’t even stand the sound of her horn honking at 7:40 in the morning when she came to pick up Luca for school.
“Enzo,” she said in a tone that confirmed the matter was serious. “I know what kind of relationship you have with the toy, Luca’s told me a bit about it.”
Toy was a strange word, and for a moment he didn’t register that they were still talking about the kentuki.
“I want you to turn it off.”
Did she mean disconnect it?
“I want you to get that thing away from my son.”
Enzo waited. He couldn’t refuse a request that he didn’t understand.
“I don’t know how to say this,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
She rested her elbows on her knees and put her hands over her eyes like a terrified little girl. Enzo waited a little longer, although he knew that if the kentuki moved under the sofa, she would probably hear its motor.
“They’re pedophiles,” she said at last. “They all are. It’s just come out. There are hundreds of cases, Enzo.”
She brought her hands down to nervously rub her knees. Seeing her there on his sofa again, it seemed to Enzo that his old drama queen had come back invigorated with new and unexpected tragedies.
“It’s a gadget, Giulia. How can it hurt the boy? You don’t even know him. We don’t know who it is.”
“And that’s the problem, Enzo.”
“We’ve lived together for three months. Three months.”
He realized how ridiculous this argument was, so he stopped talking.
“He could be filming Luca, he could have tried to get into contact with him, said things to him, shown him things, all while you’re wandering around distracted in the backyard.”
So she had seen the greenhouse and been hurt by how good it looked. Enzo tried to smile gently, just to discredit what he was hearing.
“I know Luca hates it, Enzo. He detests it. Maybe the poor boy doesn’t even feel like he can tell us what’s happening. Maybe he’s too ashamed, maybe it’s too horrible, maybe he can’t even understand what’s being done to him.”
How had he spent years living alongside a woman who could think such things? Enzo felt so repelled that he got up and took a few steps from her. She kept listing perversions, and later, after she’d said goodbye to Luca in the doorway, she was still coming up with more nightmare situations.
“I want you to turn it off,” she said again now, as a goodbye. “I don’t want that thing around my son anymore.”
When she finally left, Enzo stood behind the door until he heard the car start up and drive away. He’d open the windows and air out the house. That was what he needed, thought Enzo, a little air, and a beer.
Lima—Erfurt
SHE HAD GOTTEN the Erfurt emergency police number. If the German guy got violent with Eva, she now knew what to do. She still couldn’t give an exact address, she knew that, and if the people in Erfurt couldn’t understand her rudimentary English, she couldn’t do much good, either. Still, she felt more prepared for what might come. She kept her phone close at all times: if something happened, Emilia would immediately record a video of events in Erfurt. She wasn’t sure if a homemade video could be used to charge someone in Germany, but if Eva ever needed proof of some kind, Emilia would have it.
Even so, she acknowledged her limitations, and knew that soon enough she’d have to come up with more reliable measures. Klaus—that was the German man’s name—no longer tormented her. Her son had explained that the translator didn’t work on him because it focused only on the tone of the kentuki keeper’s voice. So it was easy to ignore Klaus when he was with Eva. When he wasn’t there, she took the opportunity to circulate diligently through the house, attentive to the things that were within her reach and the possibilities they offered. She followed Eva closely, eager for any new information, attentive to anything the girl might say or do that could give her a new clue for her plan.
“You’re restless, sweetie, what’s wrong?” Eva asked.
If Emilia purred, Eva would stop doing what she was doing and affectionately pinch the bunny’s belly. The fact that her keeper thought all she needed was a little love was a practical and stimulating reward.
Before sitting down at her computer, Emilia made herself some tea and turned up the heat in the apartment. The days were getting colder, and she knew that once she was sitting down and tuned into Erfurt, she wouldn’t find a moment to get up. She called her son after that day’s session.
“I want to send you a photo of Eva,” she told him. “She’s so pretty.”
Her son explained that you couldn’t take photos from the kentuki. He said it was a “privacy matter” and that everything was “encrypted.” Emilia thought maybe her son was jealous, and she caught herself smiling.
“No problem,” she said. “I’ll take pictures of the screen, and I’ll send you some
tomorrow.”
Her son was silent, maybe surprised by how quickly his mother had resolved this technological setback. And then, with the hesitant voice of a person making a confession, he told her about his own kentuki. Apparently, when he’d bought the connection card for Emilia, he’d also bought a kentuki for himself, although it wasn’t until he saw how pleased she was with hers that he had ventured to turn it on. Also, having his own connection helped him understand more clearly the questions and concerns she posed to him.
“But . . .” said Emilia, when what she really wanted to ask was how long, and whether his was in Erfurt, too, and if they were neighbors now, wouldn’t they get to see each other more often?
“Listen to this, Mom. You know what she did yesterday?”
For a second Emilia didn’t know who they were talking about. Once he’d started confessing, her son had seemed to lose his fear, and he began to talk nonstop about these past few weeks—a month almost, she calculated—blurting out everything he’d been hiding from her without an ounce of guilt. Emilia carried the phone into the dining room and sat down at the table, like she did when she organized the gas and water bills and needed room to spread out. Her son’s voice was telling her that his kentuki had sent him a chocolate ice cream cake for his birthday.
“You gave it your address?” Emilia asked in alarm.
How could so much happen behind her back? Deep down, Emilia was trying to do something with the anguish she felt had gotten stuck in her throat. What kind of mother was she, that it had never occurred to her to send her son a cake for his birthday? Had he thought about that question, too?
“No, no. I didn’t give her any address, Mom. The thing is that from the balcony of my apartment, she saw the Young Kee Restaurant right across the street, and she remembered she’d been there when she visited Hong Kong with her husband.”
From the balcony of her son’s apartment? This was a married woman? She made a great effort not to interrupt him.
“She’s old but very sharp.” Emilia swallowed. Old but sharp? And which one of those did her son not consider her—old or sharp? “So she figured out the address of my building and sent a chocolate ice cream cake to each of the apartments. There are two in front and two behind on each floor—that’s thirty-two cakes, Mom!”
Emilia thought that would cost a lot of money. And it took her even a second longer to realize her son had bought her the connection to a kentuki, and on the other hand, he’d bought a real kentuki for himself, like the one Eva had in Erfurt. Her son would rather be a keeper than a dweller? That is, he would rather have than be? And just what did that tell her about her own son? She didn’t want to learn anything uncomfortable, and even so, if people could be divided between kentuki keepers and dwellers, it disturbed her to be on the opposite side from her son.
“And you know what the funniest part is?”
“What’s the funniest part?” She took a deep breath.
“That this poor guy who had to deliver the cakes, who spent half the morning going up and down in the building, also had to deal with a lot of people who wouldn’t even accept them. He gave me two extras when he delivered mine.”
Emilia took a sip of tea, but it was still too hot.
“So you have three cakes.”
Fantastic, thought Emilia. And her son said:
“I’m sending you a photo.”
“A photo.” Did he mean of the cake or of the woman? Emilia heard a beep, looked at the phone, and opened the image. The woman was a large and robust brunette, standing in the door of a country house. She looked to be the same age as Emilia.
“She was a cook all her life,” said her son. “In the Serbo-Croatian war, too, she cooked for the Croatian fighters. I’m sending you another picture, look . . .”
Emilia heard another beep and decided not to open the new photo. Could she send him a gift now, almost a week late?
“It’s from the nineties in Ravno, she’s looking for antipersonnel mines with the soldiers. Isn’t she amazing? Did you see the army boots she’s wearing?
Since when did her son have such enthusiasm for working women? As if she, in all her life, had never cooked him anything. Or was it that the sacrifice was worthwhile only if you were sifting flour in the middle of a war and wearing a pair of men’s boots?
When they finally hung up, Emilia sat for a while staring down at the table. She thought about going to bed, but still felt too wide-awake. She called Gloria and told her about her son’s confession. Gloria had bought a kentuki for her grandson, and they liked to exchange anecdotes. Emilia and Gloria had seen each other at the pool that morning, along with Inés, but since Inés couldn’t stand to listen to them talk about kentukis anymore, they saved the subject for phone conversations and left the post-pool sessions for politics, children, and food. If something important happened with their kentukis, Emilia and Gloria said their goodbyes at the door to the club, making signals to each other that Inés couldn’t see, promising to call as soon as they were alone. It was fun to discuss their kentuki lives, and more than once they took the opportunity to also talk about Inés, whom they loved a lot, of course, but who lately they’d noticed could be quite conservative. In the end, as Gloria had said in her last call, either you get with the times or let life pass you by.
She’d told Gloria what had happened with the German man. About his nudity, the money he took from Eva’s purse, and how he’d chased her around the living room as if she were a chicken and then stuck her under the faucet. Gloria thought it was a miracle she’d survived—she had a neighbor who’d lost her owl kentuki by leaving it in the bathroom while she showered. She took overly hot showers, it had to be said; maybe the steam was dangerous for the models of animals that weren’t native to tropical zones.
“But this thing with your son, I still don’t understand—what is it that bothers you so much?” Gloria asked over the phone.
Emilia thought of the last photo the boy had sent, the woman’s war boots. She didn’t know what it was, exactly.
“Buy one for yourself,” said Gloria.
What would that solve? She wasn’t about to buy a kentuki. She wasn’t that kind of person, and plus, she didn’t have the money.
“They’re really expensive,” said Emilia.
“There are people who sell them used online. Half price. I’ll go with you to pick it up.”
“I don’t want someone else’s castoff. Plus, I’m not the kind of person who wants to be a keeper,” she said, thinking of the boots of the woman in her son’s kentuki. “I’m more like the people who dwell.”
She thought about their conversation all that day, and the next. On Thursday, before connecting to Erfurt, she looked through the classifieds for used kentukis. There weren’t many, but there were some. Most of them were advertised in the pet section, and from looking at so many animals, Emilia wondered if it might not be better to adopt a real dog or cat, though it was true that a kentuki wouldn’t get anything dirty or shed its fur, and she would never have to take it out for walks. After a big sigh, she closed the browser and opened the kentuki controller. Klaus was walking around the house again. Emilia sat up straighter in her chair and adjusted her glasses. She would focus on Erfurt and the girl, who wasn’t living her best life right now. She would worry about her own life and her son’s later; she had all the time in the world.
Antigua
IT WAS A REVOLUTION. The important things were explained to him nice and clear, and the rest he was figuring out as he went along. The boy with the ring had come up with his plan over a period of months, starting from the first time he saw a kentuki in a shop window. Marvin hadn’t been kidnapped, he’d been liberated.
He found this out the next day, after a night spent biting his nails in bed. When he finally got home from school, he ran to the study and turned on the tablet. He woke up the kentuki while he prayed a quiet Our Father, and then God, who in his wisdom was revealing just what was good and bad for Marvin, illuminated the screen. The
dance hall shone in every pixel, and every pixel was reflected in his eyes. His dragon was on a charger. He was alive! He needed to move a little, emerge from what appeared to be some kind of box, in order to get a little distance and figure out where he was. Against one of the dance hall’s walls, twelve wooden cubbyholes were lined up just beneath the mirror. Two of them were occupied: a mole in one and a panda in another, almost at the opposite end. The kentukis were waiting in place with their eyes closed. Did his dragon close its eyes when he wasn’t inside?
The boy with the ring saw him moving and came over to him. He was holding something that looked like squares of cardboard, and he knelt down in front of Marvin and showed him one. It was a sign about the size of a book. At the top it had the number 1. Below, in English, it said:
SEND AN E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS.
The boy turned the card over, and on the other side was an e-mail address. Marvin sat studying it, then realized the boy could lower the card at any moment, so he dropped the tablet and started searching like mad among his notebooks, looking for a pen. He wrote down the e-mail address, opened his account, typed Hello, and sent the message. When he had finished, he moved his kentuki a little backward. The boy lowered the card and raised another one. This one had the number 2. Evidently, everything was planned and prepared; maybe other kentukis in the hall had gone through the same process. The second card said:
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