The Hermit

by Thomas Rydahl

  As Erhard expected, the rustle is gone. Palabras is breathing calmly. All he needed was another piece of music. He makes a few mistakes that give the composition a little life. Erhard sees the girl peering in cautiously, she’s dressed now, once again the space alien, sealed off, on guard. It occurs to Erhard that there’s a new sound in the house. For so many years the house staff, the Maasai girls, and the Greek gardener have only heard the same music repeated on an endless loop. Like a lion circulating in its cage, Emanuel has returned to it in order to arouse himself using all that remained of what had once been a full-fledged fantasy. But with a new sound the house breathes easier. And Emanuel, though he’s still too fat and too unhealthy, no longer wheezes. Time for Erhard to leave.

  He pours himself another Ximénez without asking for permission, then walks through the house without saying goodbye. That’s their custom. Emanuel sits at the piano, and Erhard drains a glass in front of the mansion before tossing it into the small pond.

  ‌

  29

  9.30 p.m. He’s about to head home. He parks on High Street and begins tabulating his accounts. He’s made so many small fares that it takes time to calculate. In a little while he’ll go down the street to Cannes, a small sandwich shop. It’s not a place he frequents often, but they serve some really terrific and greasy burgers that they squeeze into a wrap.

  – Hermit, Isabel says. She’s working the late shift at dispatch. The telephone girls never use that name. He didn’t even know they were aware of it.

  He presses the button. – 4823.

  – Hotel Phenix. A fare to the airport.

  – The 10.15 Berlin flight?

  Silence. – How should I know? All they said was that they needed to get to the airport.

  – I’m wrapping up for the day. Can you call someone else?

  – They requested you.

  – Miguel from the Phenix?

  – No, it was a woman. She asked for you. Should I send someone else?

  – 4823 confirms.

  He lays his paperwork on the backseat and snaps on his indicator light. The fare sounds harmless, but all the same he feels a little uneasy. He wonders if the band he watched recently, or its Arabic lead singer, has plotted revenge.

  He drives up to the hotel and toots his horn once. Normally that’s not necessary, but if there’s a new desk clerk and a guest needs to reach the Berlin flight at quarter past ten, then they have to get going. He waits for three minutes, then cuts the engine and enters the hotel. He doesn’t see anyone in the lobby, either on the sofas or at the front desk. He dings the bell, and Miguel emerges from the office.

  – Good evening, Señor Jørgensen. Miguel glances around. – How can I assist you?

  – Good evening, Miguel. Someone called for me. A woman. One of your colleagues? Someone at the bar maybe?

  – I’m the one who orders the taxis.

  – But… could a guest have called?

  – It’s possible, Señor Jørgensen.

  – I’m supposed to take someone to the airport.

  Miguel checks his watch. – The 10.15 Berlin flight?

  – That would be my guess.

  – No one has checked out yet. But she can still make it. There’s an Englishwoman on the fourth floor. Perhaps she called you. He glances at the key cubbies. – She’s not in her room.

  – I’ll wait in the car, Miguel. Just send her out.

  He returns to his car and climbs in. If she doesn’t come out in a few minutes, she’ll miss her flight. Maybe she doesn’t need to catch a plane. Maybe she’s going to pick someone up. Or maybe she’s going to work.

  Suddenly there’s a loud squealing on the street, and he raises his arms to protect himself. Then he realizes it’s just a big pick-up truck with loud music zooming past, three guys in the truck bed.

  He glances in the rearview mirror, and stiffens when he sees Alina.

  She’s in the backseat. Smiling her irritating smile.

  – I don’t have time for you now. I’ve got a customer on the way.

  – I’m your customer, Fourfingers.

  – Get the hell out of my car. He feels his left hand buzzing, as if he can crush her by smashing the mirror.

  She laughs. – No way, I need to get to the airport.

  – I refuse to drive you. Get out of my car.

  – Why? You need money like everyone else.

  – I don’t drive criminals.

  She laughs again. – Since when?

  – I don’t need your money.

  – Just drive, she says. She has this strange ability to manipulate people so that it’s easier to do what she says than resist.

  He spins around. She’s wearing a salmon-coloured suit with a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses resting on top of her head. It’s tacky, and yet it makes her look better than she normally does. – What do you want? There are no more flights today.

  – I need a ride to the Palace, you know.

  – Isn’t that tomorrow?

  Laughs again. Apparently it’s all very amusing to her. She’s plastered. That must be why. She looks plastered anyway. – I guess I’m supposed to sleep there tonight.

  – Then why the hell did you call me? There are thirty other cabbies you could’ve requested. Or the police. They could’ve picked you up.

  But he knows, even as he’s talking, that she called him to gloat. To show him that she’s doing exactly what she wants to do. No one tells her what to do.

  – Because you remind me of my father, she says. – Old, angry, funny.

  – The poor man. His daughter’s a whore.

  – He doesn’t give a shit. He’s a fucking asshole.

  – No parent is like that. Doesn’t give a shit, I mean.

  Again she laughs.

  He begins to drive. He might as well get it over with.

  – That’s how you do it, Fourfingers.

  Mindlessly he drives along Avenida and out towards Las Dunas, while she prattles on about Madrid, shopping, and a friend with forty pairs of shoes. He has to remember to shift gears, and fumbles with the air conditioner to get more cool air in the car.

  – I want you to know, she says when they’ve reached Route 101, that I considered it. I really did. You made me think about it. You know how you weigh things in your head? Should I take the money or should I do what old Fourfingers says? I spoke with Tia, and she was super excited for me to come to Madrid, and so…

  – Stop. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know why you’re doing it. You are… you are so unbelievably selfish that it doesn’t…

  – Selfish? No I’m not, goddamn you. I’ve… You have no idea how much shit I’ve been through. I’m not selfish or bad or…

  Now it’s Erhard’s turn to laugh. – You’re just stupid. You’re so incredibly stupid that I fear for the future. Because of people like you, I fear for the future.

  They fall silent.

  – You’re so goddamned holier-than-thou, Alina says. – I’m telling you that I considered it. But I can’t afford to say no. I can’t.

  – Shut your mouth.

  – I didn’t kill that boy. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  – But thanks to you and your Madrid trip, the police will never find out what happened.

  – So what? Why the hell is that my problem? Why is it yours for that matter?

  – Because it’s a crime. The worst kind. Someone killed a little boy. And it wasn’t the parents.

  – Not all parents are equally good, you know.

  – You don’t starve a child to death and abandon it in a cardboard box. No parent would do that.

  – Parents do whatever they feel like doing.

  – When you have a child you’ll be ashamed of yourself…

  – What the fuck do you know? Besides, I’m never having children. Understand? Never.

  – For your kids’ sake, I hope you don’t.

  He’s driving so fast now, over 90 mph, that the car begins to vibrate. He wants to
get this over with, he wants her out of the car as quickly as possible. The sun has set, and the landscape on the car’s right side is black, the sky above greenish-purple.

  He glances at her in the rearview as she peers into her small compact mirror, adjusting her lipstick. It’s almost as if she has a date with the entire police station. He imagines her in court. The salmon-coloured suit perfectly underscores the story of the lapsed Catholic. She’ll twirl her hair in her finger and apologize. At most she’ll get a few months in prison. The officers will flock to her cramped cell and serve her food, and in the evenings they’ll fight to sneak a peek into her cell while she crawls underneath the blanket. The worst part is that she’s a good choice for the role. She doesn’t appear to be hooked on heroin like many of the other girls; she’s more mature, and she looks like a mother – her cheeks, her suit, her hair, all of it. She’s a good liar too. If she sheds a tear at the preliminary hearing, no journalist will question her. In any case, not unless the real mother or father shows up and gets involved.

  She notices him looking at her. She smiles. He turns away.

  – The little shit. He probably deserved it.

  It takes a moment before he realizes what she’d said. What she means. They’re just words. But words can be more malicious than actions. More premeditated, more manipulative, more stripped of humanity. He knows she’s watching him in the rearview mirror. To see how angry he’ll get. To test whether or not she can get him worked up, as if he were the regional president or any of the horny old men she grabs by the balls and cock-slaps to show who’s boss.

  It does something to him. In that moment he understands what he must do. How he can jam a wrench in the machinery and make the police work overtime. She’s already in his car. No one knows that she’s with him. It’s getting dark, and soon all the light will be gone.

  – Where the hell are you going? she says when he turns right at the roundabout.

  ‌

  30

  She resists. She shouts and screams. As soon as he parks the car, she leaps out and begins to run away, but the darkness is too much for her, and she stands frozen long enough that he’s able to come around and grab her.

  She’s strong, clawing at him and punching the air and cursing. But it’s nothing to him now. He’s made his decision. He shoves her across the garden towards the shed.

  – No, no, no, she shrieks, when he pushes her into the shed and slams the door. He’s sweating from exertion. Gasping for breath, he retreats a step from the door, afraid he’ll get so worked up that he’ll enter the cage and pound her senseless. It would be easier for him to beat her when it’s dark rather than in daylight when he can see her. It’s as though he’s captured a she-devil and can put an end to all the world’s evil. But then he smells her perfume and hears her whimper like the girl she is, and he knows that the darkness, the night sounds, and the uncertainty will break her by morning. He considers telling her that he’ll let her out tomorrow afternoon, but it’s too early. He can’t be friendly yet.

  She cries and curses him. It’s a strange mix.

  When he goes inside his house, he almost can’t hear her. The generator and the wind – which has picked up – drown out her voice. He hopes she won’t begin messing with the generator, which is also out in the shed; she can easily destroy it or turn it off, either in anger or to irritate him. Tonight, she’s probably scared and confused. She’ll simmer down soon. If he’s lucky, she’ll fall asleep. But early tomorrow morning, when a little light begins to filter through the chinks in the shed, maybe she’ll discover the generator and start hacking at it or rip the cables out.

  He pours himself a full glass of cognac, then drains it without pleasure or even taste. He doesn’t switch on the light, just ambles around the house, unable to get any peace so long as Alina’s voice is a perfectly pitched C behind the continual soughing of the wind and her hammering. He even walks to the window and gazes at the shed, purple in the moonlight. There’s no movement there, of course, or any sign that a person is inside. Only the sound, like a dog clawing and whining. He tugs off his trousers and shirt and turns on Radio Mucha and night jazz. The John Coltrane Quartet.

  Finally, after fifteen or twenty minutes she falls silent. He exits through the kitchen door, walks onto the terrace, and listens through the wind. Laurel’s munching on a pair of underwear that have fallen from the clothesline. Erhard rubs him behind the ear, patting his coarse pelt. He’s not sure he’s made the right decision. In fact he’s sure he made the wrong decision. But at least he’s done something.

  She starts early the next morning. Shouting one moment, crying the next. Judging by the light, the sun has just risen. He hears Laurel walking around outside. The wind has settled a bit. She’s managed to shut off the generator – and he hears her just as clearly as if she were seated on his lap. If Erhard had neighbours who lived nearby, who jogged in the hills or visited him to borrow a cup of sugar, he would have a hard time explaining the noise. Clearly someone in need. A frustrated and scared person. A wounded animal. Whimpering and screaming and pounding on the door.

  He gets up and walks out. Stands beside the shed.

  – Hello, she says. – Hello, Taxi-man?

  – I’m not letting you out, no matter how much racket you make.

  – Let me out, you psychopath, you fucking psychopath, you motherfucking shit, you… Hello? Are you there?

  – Not until the hearing is over, he says.

  That makes her cry again. She tries to hide it, but there’s something about the sound a woman makes when she cries. You can always tell, even at a distance.

  – I’m OK now, she says. – I’ll calm down. C’mon, please let me out. We can talk it over. Erhard almost reaches for the lock, but he checks himself. She has foul mood-swings. He must remember to remind himself of that.

  – I’ll make some breakfast for you. Be quiet and I’ll bring you something, he says through the door. He makes it sound as though he’ll serve a small tray with fresh melon and tomatoes, cold cuts, bacon, and an omelette. But the truth is, he doesn’t really have anything. He rarely eats breakfast and so he stands staring for some time at his cupboards and fridge. He grabs some peaches, olives, and relatively fresh bread. Plus a glass of water.

  – Get away from the door, he says, before opening the padlock. He holds out the food, so she doesn’t shove the door against his head. He peers inside. She’s seated on the ground in the back of the shed, tiredly watching him. Her clothes are wrinkled and filthy, and her arms are browned with dust and dirt, as if she’s tried to dig her way through the floor.

  He sets the tray down at her feet.

  She looks at it disinterestedly. – My smokes, she says. They’re in my purse in the car.

  He closes the door, locks it, and walks to his car. Pushed underneath the passenger seat is her small purse, which jingles when he pulls it out. There’s not much inside. A wallet, a key ring with four keys and a plastic dollar sign, a mobile, and a pack of fags – a brand he doesn’t recognize. There’s also an entire bag of the coloured marshmallows that she was eating the last time he saw her. He tastes one, but it’s too synthetic and sweet for his liking, and he spits it out. He tries the lighter, which catches with a long, eager flame. Why should he be nice to her? He thinks of her almost as a guest on whom he’d like to make a good impression. One cigarette probably isn’t too much. Perhaps it’ll make everything easier. He lays the purse and her other things inside the shed.

  – You promise not to try anything? he says, when he lights a fag for her, and she sucks on it greedily. People and their cigarettes.

  – I can report you to the police. You know that, right?

  He hadn’t thought of that. Not yet. This idea had come to him so swiftly that he hadn’t really thought it through. But she’s right. If he lets her go in the afternoon, there’s no reason for her not to go directly to police headquarters and report him. The only thing he has hindered today is the court hearing, which in all likelih
ood will only be delayed while they search for the girl. He needs to find out what the police are doing before he lets her go. But she can’t sit inside that shed. If she keeps turning off the generator it’ll be hard on him, and he can’t just hide her like Bill Haji’s finger.

  He locks the door, and she begins to curse him again. He’s got to go to work, in any case, for a few hours. Before he leaves, he shoves her mobile in his pocket and rifles through her wallet. It’s stuffed with business cards – probably from all the men she services – and two 50-euro notes. There are also a few photographs, the kind you take in a photo booth. She was probably ten years younger when the photos were taken, but it’s Alina all right. Alina and another girl that resembles Alina, the same slightly puffy face, just prettier. They’re both wearing black jackets, white shirts, and some kind of bow in their hair. A school uniform, the fashionable kind. And they each have pigtails. Two sisters, the elder sister strong and serious-looking, the younger sister curious-seeming and more naive – her appearance so thoroughly maintained, so puritanical, so held in check by reprimands and maybe religion that it’s easy to be confused by the trembling gaze of her defiance, the near hatred, that burns through, especially in one of the images: Alina leaning towards the camera as if to stop the photographer, while her sister, seated on her lap, laughs without laughing, turning her head away from the camera. Of course she was someone else before she became a whore. She was a broken soul long before she took the job that destroyed her body. No one becomes a whore by her own free will. No one. The prostitutes who say otherwise, who say they like it, they are the most hardboiled of all.