The Insult

by Rupert Thomson

  I turned back to Nina. ‘Then what?’

  ‘We drove,’ she said.

  Through the city and out into the country. Women were sitting under umbrellas along the roadside, selling apples out of wooden boxes. The land was black and white, the sky a heavy, even grey. She saw three deer cross a rising, snow-covered field.

  They arrived at a small house on the edge of a village. It had mustard-yellow shutters and a dark, thatched roof. When they were standing inside, he held her gently by the shoulders and said something which she took to mean, Stay here. Then he drove away. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate. Through the kitchen window she watched two children skating on a pond. In the afternoon she went to bed and slept.

  That evening he returned. He cooked supper for her, then they spent the night together. In the morning he drove her back to the city. When he let her out of the car, he handed her an envelope. She didn’t open it until he’d gone. There was money inside, almost twice the amount she’d asked for. She bought a coat with it, and two pairs of woollen tights, and she still had enough to catch a train home.

  I watched her light a cigarette and sit back in her chair.

  At first I thought she might have made the whole thing up. But then it seemed so like her – drawing an amount of money on a stranger’s windscreen, drinking hot chocolate in a stranger’s house – that I decided it had to be true. I still wasn’t sure what it meant to her, though. Was she proud of her resourcefulness, her spontaneity, the fact that she could make her own luck? Or was it some kind of talisman in itself, proof that the world could treat her well?

  ‘So,’ she said eventually, tapping her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, ‘that’s the coldest I’ve ever been.’ She paused and looked round, then she said, ‘Though I have to admit, this comes pretty close.’

  Smiling, I asked our waitress for the bill.

  Afterwards Nina took me to a bar she knew. We both drank whisky, to warm up.

  ‘I hear you’re seeing someone,’ Gregory said.

  I looked across at him. ‘No smoke without a fire, Smoke.’

  Loots chuckled.

  We were in Leon’s, the three of us. It was early December, and the walls were covered with shiny paper decorations, red and green and gold, many of them already curling in the humid atmosphere. Bunches of balloons clustered in the top corners of the room. Above the counter, suspended from the ceiling, was a sign: SEASON’S GREETINGS TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS.

  ‘So it’s true,’ Gregory said.

  I nodded.

  ‘So who is she?’ He was like an old dog who was trying to gnaw on a bone, but couldn’t seem to get it into the right position between his paws.

  ‘Her name’s Nina.’

  ‘Because you know Inge liked you …’

  ‘What is it about you?’ Loots said. ‘What’s the secret?’

  ‘I’m a cripple,’ I said. ‘They feel sorry for me.’

  ‘They feel –’ Gregory almost choked. ‘Did you hear that, Loots? They feel sorry for him.’

  ‘I don’t feel sorry for him,’ Loots said, ‘do you?’

  ‘Well,’ Gregory said, sounding thoughtful, ‘it can’t be easy.’

  He missed the point completely. As usual.

  ‘She takes me to motels,’ I said. ‘We always go to motels. The Cherry, the Nero, the Astra – I know them all now. Or we sleep in other people’s houses, friends of hers.’

  ‘Where does she live?’ Loots asked.

  ‘That’s just it. I’ve no idea.’ I stirred some sugar into my coffee. ‘I think she likes being anonymous,’ I said. ‘This whole thing with me, it’s not because she’s sorry for me, but it is because I’m blind. Because I can’t see her. That’s what she likes – being invisible. It makes her feel less pressured. More free. It’s kind of a fantasy for her.’

  ‘Did I tell you about Anton?’ Loots said.

  ‘Anton?’ I shook my head.

  It was a week ago, Loots said. There had been a knock on the door of his apartment and when he opened it his old friend Anton was standing there. Anton was a clown. He belonged to a circus that toured the provinces, playing to small towns and villages. They talked about the old days for a while, but Anton became increasingly restless and distracted. In the end Loots had to ask him if there was something wrong.

  ‘This is going to sound strange.’ The clown coughed nervously into his fist. ‘It’s The Invisible Man. He’s disappeared.’

  Loots stared at his friend.

  ‘He just vanished,’ Anton said, ‘into thin air.’

  ‘The Invisible Man?’ Loots said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s disappeared?’

  ‘I told you it would sound strange,’ Anton said.

  He told Loots that The Invisible Man was the best act in the circus, the act people came to see. It always began in the same way. The Invisible Man walked into the ring and started telling a funny story. He looked funny, too: short, with bright-red hair and a scar on his chin. Soon everyone was laughing. They forgot he was supposed to be, you know, Invisible. Then, suddenly, halfway through the story, he vanished. Just by turning round.

  ‘It’s like he hasn’t got a back,’ Anton explained. ‘It’s like there’s only one side to him.’

  Without him, Anton continued, they would probably be ruined. They’d have to look for other work. And how could they do that? The circus was all they knew. The circus was their life. Anton’s voice was cracking and his eyes had filled with tears.

  ‘And you think he might be here,’ Loots said, ‘in the city?’

  Anton nodded. ‘Someone heard him talking about it. I’ve been sent up here, to find him.’

  He needed help, though – Loots’ help; there was nobody else he could ask.

  I sipped my coffee, imagining a clown in Loots’ apartment. His voice would probably be thin and quaint, like the high notes on a mouth organ. I saw tears dropping on to the toes of an enormous pair of shoes.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘you’re helping him?’

  ‘I’m trying to,’ Loots said.

  He’d tracked down a woman who used to work with The Invisible Man. Her name was Madame Fugazi. She lived in a basement somewhere in the 7th district. But she hadn’t seen The Invisible Man for fifteen years. ‘Yeah, it must’ve been fifteen years, at least,’ she told Loots. ‘He weren’t much good in them days.’ Madame Fugazi had dyed black hair that was flat at the back where she had slept on it. ‘He used to bow and wave his arms about and do all that stuff they do,’ she said, ‘and then he’d kind of spin round fast and he was supposed to be, you know, gone, and I’d have to yell out, “I can still see you.” He really hated it when I did that.’

  Loots asked her if she had any idea where he might be now.

  ‘I told you, love. It was fifteen years ago.’

  But as he turned to leave she spoke again: ‘You’d have found him easy in them days. He couldn’t have disappeared, even if he’d wanted to.’ She licked her finger and rubbed at a stain on her leopardskin print dress. ‘Now I’m not so sure. People say he got better at it.’

  ‘Three steak,’ Leon shouted from behind the counter.

  Loots stood up. ‘I’ll get it.’

  I waited until he was sitting down again. ‘One thing occurs to me.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Loots said.

  ‘Suppose he doesn’t want to be found?’

  ‘Well, maybe he doesn’t, but we don’t know that, do we?’ Loots poked at his pickled cabbage with a fork. ‘For all we know, he could be in some kind of trouble …’

  Gregory leaned back in his chair.

  ‘About this Nina,’ he said. ‘What do you mean, it’s a fantasy for her?’

  The Relax Motel, early December.

  One of Nina’s favourites, the Relax. It had a green neon sign with the name of the motel on it. The first two letters didn’t work: all you could see from the motorway was the word LAX flashing on and off. A few years back, in the forecourt, they had b
uilt a swimming-pool. On the black metal fence that surrounded it was a sign that said, GUESTS ONLY. The pool was empty. According to Nina it was always empty, even in the summer; she said the only time it had water in it was when it rained. The place was run by an old woman who had rheumatism. Some days she couldn’t use her hands at all. She couldn’t hold a pen. You had to write out your own bill.

  Our room had cheap wood-panelling and cone-shaped orange lampshades, and if you put a coin in the box on the wall, the whole bed started shaking. Nina was lying on her side, one hand under her head, the other in between her thighs. The knot on the blindfold had come loose; it had fallen from her eyes. The curtains drawn behind her. The lights in the room switched off. Like people in the suburbs.

  I heard a car pull up down below. A door opened, then another. Two voices arguing. Nina reached for a cigarette and lit it. It began to rain.

  I followed the faint light that filtered from the car-park into our room. I noticed how it chose parts of her body, made different arcs out of her shoulder, her hip, her calf, her heel. She looked as though she’d been drawn in mercury.

  ‘I miss you.’

  She turned to look at me. ‘What?’

  ‘When you’re not there. I miss you.’

  ‘You’re with me now,’ she said, ‘right next to me …’

  ‘Am I?’ I rolled on to my back. ‘Am I really?’

  ‘I told you before. That’s not what we’re about.’

  ‘What are we about? Tell me again.’

  ‘This,’ she said, and took my hand and brought it to her breast. I knew it so well already, that curve up to her nipple, and the nipple itself, no bigger than a medal, and pale, but not too pale, the skin there soft and glossy. I watched the side of my thumb as it moved in the gentle, semi-circular patterns I had learned from her.

  ‘I’ve been lying to you,’ I said.

  Her nipple stiffened as I spoke.

  ‘It’s not lying, exactly. It’s just something I haven’t told you.’ My thumb still moving.

  ‘I’m not blind.’ I paused, wanting to be clear. ‘Well, I am in the daytime, but not at night. At night I can see.’

  She sat up, backed away and leaned against the headboard, staring at me. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she said.

  ‘It’s true. The white stick, the dark glasses – I don’t really need them at night. I just carry them around in case I’m out late and it gets light.’.

  She laughed, but the laugh cut out suddenly, as if someone had turned the volume on her down to zero.

  ‘You’re the only person I’ve told,’ I said. ‘Since I left the clinic, I mean. You mustn’t tell anyone else either. Nobody knows –’

  ‘Stop it, Martin.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you believe me?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s just between the two of us,’ I said. ‘It’ll be like talking a language no one understands. It’ll be our secret –’

  Suddenly she was pushing both her hands along my thighs.

  I looked at her. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want you to fuck me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fuck me.’

  What I’d said, had it excited her? Had she understood me after all? I reached out for her. I kissed her neck, her chin. Her mouth. It took a long time because we’d already done it twice. There was a place she had to get to, though; she wouldn’t let me rest till she was there. It was cold in the room and yet the sweat was running down my face. My hand slid across her rib-cage like an ice-cube on a mirror. When we’d finished, the sheets were damp and there was someone banging on the wall. Nina just banged back.

  ‘Probably those people who were arguing,’ I said.

  ‘Pricks,’ she said.

  She walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the toilet flush. The bed softened suddenly, drew me deep into itself. I closed my eyes.

  Outside, the wind took a handful of rain and flung it against the window.

  Chapter 2

  Nina had told me she’d be at the Kosminsky by one, but I knew she wouldn’t turn up before two at the earliest. After she finished work she often had a drink with Candy, who was a dancer at the bar. At two-thirty she still hadn’t arrived. She hadn’t called either. I wondered if she’d got tired and gone straight home. I rang her house. Eight seconds of machine-gun fire, then a beep. She’d been getting some weird phone-calls recently, she’d told me. Men just breathing.

  I opened my window and looked out. It was zero degrees, the middle of December. Orange light was bouncing off the low cloud-cover; it hung over the grey buildings in an eerie, artificial dome. I watched the late-night traffic moving past the station, the whisper of car tyres in the slush. The people who sold cheap fur coats and sheepskin gloves had left a long time ago. The fast-food stand on the corner was still open, though: pizza, hot dogs, soft drinks, cigarettes. On an impulse I picked up the phone and asked Victor to call me a taxi. Then I put on a hat and coat and left the room.

  The car was outside when I reached the street.

  I got in. ‘The Elite. It’s a club.’

  The driver said he knew it.

  I sat hunched over in the back, chewing my bottom lip. It was strange she hadn’t called. Though I hadn’t seen her for almost a week, I’d spoken to her several times. I’d told her about Sprankel and the black paint, and she’d seemed intrigued. We’d arranged for her to come and see my room. She laughed when I said she’d better bring some matches or a torch.

  ‘So what’s happening at the Elite tonight?’

  The last time Victor called me a taxi, the driver didn’t open his mouth once. I’d been hoping for the same man.

  ‘My girlfriend works there,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My girlfriend. She works there.’

  The driver nodded. ‘I was up for a job there once. Didn’t get it, though.’

  My head ached. I wasn’t in the mood for this. If he said something else, I’d lodge a complaint. For talking? Sure. Why not?

  But he didn’t. Not for five minutes, anyway.

  Then he said, ‘There’s some nice girls working at that place. Real nice.’

  I leaned forwards. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Maximilian. People call me Millie.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Millie,’ I said, ‘but would you just shut the fuck up and drive?’

  Millie giggled. ‘Anything you say, chief.’

  I pressed the backs of my fingers against the cool pane of the window. Nina not showing, it seemed like part of the pattern. That night in the Relax Motel, when I was half-asleep, I’d had an idea. It was a missing persons poster. At the top it said, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Underneath there was a big blank space. In fact, most of the poster was blank. There was one line along the bottom: THE INVISIBLE MAN IS MISSING. WHEN HE’S NOT INVISIBLE, HE’S ONE METRE SIXTY-TWO WITH RED HAIR AND A SCAR ON HIS CHIN. I told Loots about it when I saw him next. He thought it was brilliant. He had some posters and leaflets printed, and we spent two nights distributing them in police-stations, at tram-stops, outside shops. Then someone from the radio had picked up on our campaign and broadcasted a series of appeals.

  But it hadn’t worked – or, rather, it had worked too well. It had created a kind of atmospheric disturbance. Hundreds of people had contacted the police, claiming to have ‘seen’ The Invisible Man. If a door slammed for no reason. If a picture changed its position on a wall. If leaves moved on a tree, but there wasn’t any wind. Even if things just somehow felt different, in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on. For instance: a couple in the western suburbs were convinced that The Invisible Man had gatecrashed one of their dinner parties – that was why the mood that night had been so awkward. And then there was the woman who insisted she’d been sleeping with The Invisible Man for the past four years. ‘It’s only weekends,’ she told a journalist. ‘Friday nights, I hear the key turn in the door. I don’t even have
to switch the light on. I know it’s him.’ There were hoaxes, too. One man rang the radio station, saying that he was The Invisible Man and that he was calling from a phone-box on the street outside. ‘Which phone-box?’ the DJ asked. The caller laughed. ‘Which one do you think? The empty one, of course.’ The unexplainable was out there, part of everybody’s lives. All they needed was a hook to hang it on.

  The taxi clattered over potholes. South central streets: a non-stop fun-fair ride. We were getting close now. Through the steamed-up window I saw a derelict factory, a junk yard, part of a canal.

  At last we pulled up outside the club. It didn’t look like much. A one-storey building, the word ELITE in pink neon script above the entrance. Nothing too surprising there.

  ‘Careful when you get out,’ Millie said. ‘The kerb’s a high one.’

  I thanked him, then opened the door. Maybe I’d been too hard on him before. I asked him if he could wait. He said he would.

  A helicopter chattered in the sky. As it faded, I heard bass and drums. My stick was in my hand now. Scanning the ground in front of me. Making sweeps. There were times when I used my stick like worry-beads: it was just something to do.

  ‘What’s up, pal?’

  That belligerence, that phoney cool. It snagged on something in me; I felt heat rise, collect in my titanium plate. They get to feel so fucking big, these bouncer types, just because they’re stuck outside some club in a tuxedo.

  ‘You deaf or something?’

  I showed him my white stick. ‘Not deaf, no. Guess again.’

  ‘You threatening me?’ The bouncer laughed. It was four high-pitched sounds. Like a hinge.

  ‘I’m not deaf and I’m not threatening you. All right?’

  ‘So let’s hear it.’

  ‘I’m looking for Nina. Nina Salenko. She was working here tonight.’

  ‘Ain’t here now.’

  ‘Do you know where she went?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Is Candy here?’

  ‘Now what would you be wanting Candy for? You got a sweet tooth or something?’ That laugh again. Bad joke, too.

  I could have broken his nose with my stick. I could have got Nina to get her friend Robert Kolan to kill him. I could have reported him to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons’ Association. But I didn’t do any of that.