The Insult

by Rupert Thomson

  Our luck held. We found ourselves passing a series of doors, and on the wall beside each one there was a plaque with a doctor’s name on it. Loots read them out to me. Metz … Czarnowksi … Feleus …

  ‘… Visser!’ he exclaimed.

  The door wasn’t locked. When we were both inside the office, he switched his torch on and began the search. There were no files lying around, he said. No X-rays either. The room was neat and orderly, with every surface cleared of paperwork. He checked the drawers of Visser’s desk, but all they contained was stationery, a few memoranda, some business correspondence. The only place left was the filing cabinet, which was locked. I took this to be a good sign.

  ‘We’re going to have to force it,’ I said.

  I handed Loots the screwdriver I’d brought with me and watched him work it between the drawer’s edge and the framework of the cabinet itself. The lock snapped open. The drawer slid forwards on its rails.

  I paced the room impatiently as he searched the contents of the cabinet. ‘Have you found it?’ I asked him, every fifteen seconds. I couldn’t help it. So much depended on it.

  At last Loots sat back on his heels and sighed. ‘It’s not here.’

  ‘It must be.’

  ‘They’re not files,’ he said. ‘They’re articles. Some of them Visser wrote himself, but most of them are by other people. There aren’t any files in here at all.’

  I thought we should go through the desk again.

  ‘There aren’t any files in the desk either,’ Loots said. ‘I’ve already looked.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got a safe …’

  Loots stood up. ‘There’s no safe.’

  ‘We’ll have to look somewhere else then.’ I went to the door and peered out. The corridor had a familiar shine to it, a mocking emptiness, like a mirror with nobody looking into it.

  ‘It’s almost six,’ Loots said. ‘It’ll be light in an hour.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  A sizzle of white and this time pictures followed it. I saw rows and rows of beds, with wounded men in them. Men with their heads wrapped in bandages, men with limbs missing. They could have been refugees from my dreams. Through the hospital window pillars of black smoke were visible. Grass lay flat as a helicopter came down. A man in a uniform was searching the hospital. There were stretchers everywhere. One had a girl on it. Her face floated beneath his distracted gaze for a moment, her dark hair pushed back from her forehead, her skin pale, drained of blood, her eyelids closed.

  ‘Nina?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Nina? Is that you?’

  Loots seized me by the arm. ‘Quiet, Martin.’

  ‘I thought I saw Nina.’

  ‘She’s not here.’ Loots was shaking me. ‘There’s nobody here.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ I muttered. ‘It’s just a film.’

  But the girl on the stretcher had looked so like her.

  We were half-walking, half-running now. Loots was afraid that someone might have heard me shouting. Fighter planes swooped through the smoke. Their guns sounded like people typing. Somehow Loots found his way back to the same room. We climbed through the open window, dropped to the ground below. He took my hand. ‘There’s only lawn in front of us. Just run.’

  I ran. But it was difficult. Shells were landing all around me. Flashes of white light and then fans opening in the air, fans made out of earth. I wanted to throw myself down on the grass. I might get killed otherwise. But Loots still had me by the hand and he wouldn’t let go.

  Once, he stopped and stood there, panting. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ I said.

  How could I? The hospital had just been hit. A fireball engulfed it, orange edged in black. A cauliflower of flame.

  We ran on, plunging through some bushes. At last we reached the wall. Loots gave me a leg-up, as before. I waited for him on the other side, but he didn’t appear.

  ‘Loots?’ I whispered.

  There was no reply. Only a startled, anguished cry and then Loots came scrambling over the wall. He rushed me across the road. It took him three attempts to open the car door. I heard another cry.

  ‘What is that?’ I said.

  But Loots wouldn’t speak. He didn’t say a word until we’d driven fast for several minutes. ‘I dropped my keys,’ he said. ‘It happened when I was helping you over the wall. I looked around a bit. Found them. The next thing I knew, there was a man …’

  The man asked him what he was doing. He must have been the nightwatchman or the gatekeeper. He was standing up against a tree. Loots quickly drew one of his knives and told him not to move. He thought he’d pin the man to the tree by the arm of his coat. Slow him down. Discourage him from taking any further action.

  ‘Good thinking, Loots,’ I said.

  ‘He moved,’ Loots said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He moved. Only a fraction, but it was enough.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have done that,’ I said. ‘He shouldn’t have moved.’

  ‘I know. I feel strange about it, though. It’s against the principles of knife-throwing. Knife-throwing,’ and Loots paused, ‘the whole point is, you’re supposed to miss.’

  I turned and looked at him. There were helicopters flying through the place where Loots should have been.

  ‘Where did you get him, Loots?’

  ‘I wish he hadn’t moved. It would’ve been all right if he hadn’t moved.’

  ‘Where did you get him?’

  ‘In the ear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I pinned his right ear to the tree. Didn’t you hear him yell?’ Loots began to laugh. High, thin spirals of laughter. Then he stopped.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ I thought for a moment. ‘How come you had your knives on you?’

  ‘I always carry them. For luck.’ Loots laughed again. Only once this time. Bitterly.

  ‘Can they be traced to you?’ I asked him.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘What about the man? Did he see you? Clearly, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I settled back in my seat. ‘I’m sorry about all this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, too. We didn’t even get your file.’

  I was staring at a battlefield – shelled farm buildings, burned-out army vehicles. Smoke rose from a blackened tree-trunk into the thin grey air. One soldier was helping another across the devastated landscape. They both looked close to collapse. The words THE END appeared.

  I couldn’t believe that was the end. I just couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t there have been an exchange of weary smiles between the two soldiers? Or a symbolic close-up of a green shoot in the mud?

  What about the future?

  What about hope?

  ‘Ah, Martin,’ Visser said. ‘Still getting cable?’

  I smiled, then sat down. A waitress appeared at my elbow. I ordered tea, with lemon.

  To arrange the meeting had taken some courage on my part. In the time that had elapsed since our last encounter – more than two months – Visser had assumed a different persona (rather as I was supposed to have done). He’d become more unpredictable, more threatening. More veiled, too. I no longer had the slightest idea what it was that he intended. In our conversation on the phone I’d offered to meet him, but only under certain conditions. It had to take place after dark. He was to come alone. And the venue should be a neutral one. To all of this he agreed. I’d chosen the café with great care. It was located in the old quarter of the city, the 7th district, which was famous for its maze of narrow, winding streets and its clandestine squares. And I had Loots standing by, with his car. As soon as I stepped out of the café, he would draw up alongside me, I’d jump in, slam the door, and we’d be gone. Visser would be left on the pavement, too stunned even to have noted down the number-plate. It had been like planning a bank robbery; in fact, I’d been inspired by a film I’d watched at the weekend.

  When I saw Visser, over by the window, I had the feeling tha
t he was going to come clean at last. I’d been doing some thinking about it. Yes, he could feed anything he liked into my brain. But what good was it if he couldn’t monitor the process? He needed my co-operation in order to continue the experiment, so it was time for him to sit down at the negotiating table. I could read imminent capitulation in his face as I walked towards him. That was the reason why I could smile at his little joke. Obviously, there had to be some play-acting first. A bit of light-hearted banter, repartee. He had to ease himself into a position where he could admit that I’d got the better of him.

  ‘Cable?’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m getting cable. I’m getting channels most people have never even heard of.’

  I sipped my tea. Visser was looking well. He’d trimmed his moustache (though it still looked as dictatorial as ever) and he was slightly tanned. He must have been away – some kind of conference or symposium, no doubt.

  ‘It’s a nice café.’ He smiled and, turning in his chair, looked round. He seemed to be taking it all in: the marble tables, the waiters in their starched white aprons, the wall-lamps with their red shades. ‘You know, I used to come here when I was a student,’ he said. ‘That was years ago, of course. I used to think I was really living it up.’ He smiled again, this time at the folly of youth.

  Living it up? That was an unusual phrase for him to use. Almost slangy. He was probably just trying to create the right mood. Relaxed, informal.

  ‘It’s my first time,’ I said, and I, too, looked round. ‘But it is nice, yes.’ My eyes found their way back to him. ‘How have you been, Doctor?’

  ‘Very well.’ He paused. ‘You know, we had a break-in over the weekend.’

  ‘At the clinic?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing was taken, though. It’s a bit of a mystery, actually.’

  ‘So all your secrets are still safe?’ I said.

  He laughed heartily – rather too heartily, I thought.

  We both reached for our cups of tea and drank.

  ‘So tell me, Martin,’ he said, ‘why is it that we have to be so furtive? Why the cloak-and-dagger atmosphere?’

  ‘I’m giving you another chance,’ I said. ‘In fact, it’s your last chance. I’d like you to tell me the truth.’

  ‘The truth,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ I leaned back, crossed my legs. ‘I’m not going to kick up a fuss about the fact that you’re experimenting on me. I mean, you saved my life and I’m grateful for that. It’s just that I don’t want to be alone any more. Alone in what I know. I need you to admit that you know, too. That you’ve known all along. Right from the beginning.’

  ‘Known what, Martin?’

  ‘Known that I can see.’ It occurred to me suddenly that if it was a state secret we were discussing, then he might not want anyone to overhear. And there was a man behaving suspiciously behind him. The man was pretending to be an intellectual. He had all the props: a left-wing newspaper, round glasses with wire frames, cigarette ash on his lapels. But the glasses didn’t sit quite right on him. And he kept glancing at me sideways, past the edge of the page. I leaned forwards. ‘Nurse Janssen knew,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘That’s why she took off all her clothes. You know, too. You wouldn’t have been following me otherwise. You wouldn’t have turned up at the hotel.’

  Visser didn’t say anything, so I went on.

  ‘First you gave me nocturnal vision, a kind of night-camera effect. I expect you called it something fancy, didn’t you? Noctovision or something. Not much sense of colour, though, was there? Everything at the end of the spectrum looked black, for instance. White showed as pale-green. Yellow was slightly darker. Hard to tell the difference between a lime and a lemon. Could make gin-and-tonics difficult.’ I gave him a wry smile. ‘Then you began to feed the colour in. Just magical. But you know, it happened so gradually, I never even noticed. I just kind of took it for granted. And now, of course, I’m getting TV. And, I have to say, apart from the odd film, the occasional game show, I think I prefer the old night vision. Actually, I was thinking of asking you to reinstate it.’

  I looked down at my hands for a moment. ‘About the pornography,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s a bit much. I mean, twice a week, fine. But not every night. Take Sunday, for instance. Sunday! I got nine hours of it. Nine hours of people taking their clothes off every time a door closes. Nine hours of women going, Oh God, that’s so great, and men with that stupid look on their faces going, Yes, Yes, Yes. Incidentally, why do the men always look much more stupid than the women? Or is it me? Anyway. All night there were people fucking in my head. And then, just to round it off nicely, that home movie someone kindly sent in with the two thalidomide sisters and the Alsatian. I mean, Visser. What’s going on? You think you’re doing me some kind of favour? Favours like that I can do without. So, please. Let’s have the old night vision back. In fact, that’s really why I’m here. I want to come to some arrangement with you. I’m willing to co-operate.’

  I leaned back in my chair. There was a long silence while Visser stirred his tea. The way he studied the spoon’s elliptical motion in the cup, it could have been revealing something of the utmost importance.

  ‘Let me get this quite clear,’ he said at last. ‘You think that I’m responsible for these various forms of vision which you claim to have?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You think that I’m controlling your vision? You think that I can switch it on or off at will?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And how am I able to achieve this?’

  ‘I told you on the phone. You’re using the titanium plate as some kind of substitute for the visual cortex. It’s able to interpret the information that’s being gathered by my eyes. You’ve even found a way of overriding it. You can feed signals into it from outside. It’s remarkable, really. Very impressive. I should be congratulating you, Doctor.’

  But Visser didn’t beam with pride, as I’d expected him to. Instead, he let out a sigh. ‘You know what I’m going to say, Martin, don’t you?’

  I swallowed nervously, looked down into my empty cup. The tea-leaves on the bottom said that I would shortly be receiving some bad news about a personal matter.

  ‘You leave me no choice,’ he said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Let me ask you something. Do you have any vision at the moment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What kind of vision is it?’

  ‘It’s night vision,’ I said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘All right. Suppose you describe something for me. Something in this room. Anything you like.’ His voice had lightened, as if we were playing a game.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  I sat back and looked at him. Where should I begin? Not the moustache. Too obvious.

  ‘Well, let’s see,’ I said. ‘There’s your shoes. They’ve got metal on them.’

  ‘You can hear that.’

  ‘Just testing.’ I smiled. ‘Testing your alertness. Your shoes are black –’

  ‘They’re not black.’

  ‘They’re such a dark brown, I thought they were black.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Your hair,’ I said. ‘It’s brown.’

  ‘You knew that already. I told you, in the clinic.’

  ‘All right.’ I stayed calm. ‘Your face, then. Let’s start with your moustache –’

  ‘I don’t have a moustache.’

  I stared at Visser in disbelief. ‘But I’m looking right at it.’

  ‘You’re imagining it,’ he said. ‘The moustache is an illusion. It’s part of the imaginary picture you’ve built up.’

  He was trying to undermine me, establish control. He had that smile on his face, not so much indulgent now as patronising. We were back to square one. Square minus one.

  ‘You must’ve shaved it off,’ I said.

  ‘Martin,’ he said, still smiling, ‘I’ve never had a moustache.’

  ‘You’re lying to me. Why are you lying to me?’
/>
  ‘No, Martin. You’re the one who’s lying. To yourself.’

  I stormed out of the café. I was so furious, I knocked a table over on my way to the door and I didn’t even stop to apologise.

  Loots brought the car to the kerb as planned and I jumped in. He took the first corner fast, the steering-wheel spinning. I saw a woman leap backwards, her arms and legs outstretched, like a starfish, her mouth the same shape as Juliet’s. I thought of Visser stirring his tea. Stirring it so fucking carefully, it could have been nitroglycerine. You know what I’m going to say now, don’t you. I smashed my hand against the dashboard. Then I smashed it again.

  Loots slowed down. ‘It didn’t go too well, I take it.’

  I took off my dark glasses and rubbed my eyes with the hand that wasn’t hurting. No, it didn’t, I thought. It didn’t go too well.

  Would it ever?

  It was something Karin Salenko had said to me while she was standing at the apartment window in that glittery turquoise dress. Up there in the mountains, it’s like a different century. I asked Loots to look the village up for me. It wasn’t in the atlas, but he found it on a touring map of the north-east. The area used to be known for its hot springs, he said. His uncle had told him about it once. His uncle lived in a small town on the same latitude, some distance to the west.

  ‘Do you like your uncle?’ I asked him.

  Loots looked at me oddly, his head seeming to rise into the air above his collar. ‘Yes, I like him.’

  ‘How long since you saw him? Two years? Three?’

  ‘About eighteen months.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you saw him again? I mean, after all,’ and I paused heavily, significantly, ‘he isn’t getting any younger.’

  Loots’ head was still suspended in the air – puzzled, curious, and slightly blank, like a balloon. He suspected me of something, but he didn’t know what it was. I was not unfamiliar with the look.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ I said. ‘We could get away for a few days.’

  ‘It’s a long drive.’

  ‘I know. But you could use a break. You look terrible.’

  Loots laughed, but he knew I was right. Not long after he’d driven the getaway car for me, he’d punctured Juliet. He’d thrown a knife too close to her and it had grazed her rib-cage. She didn’t explode or burst. She just withered, aged – which, if anything, was worse. He mended her, using a bicycle-repair kit, and blew her up again, and she stayed blown up, but his confidence was damaged. He’d stopped throwing knives in the afternoons before he left for work. He’d started dreaming about The Great Miguel. I knew why, too. It was that gatekeeper’s ear. He’d read an article about it the next day in the paper. A small headline on page nine. MAN HAS EAR PINNED TO TREE. There was no comfort for Loots in the fact that he hadn’t been identified. He’d hit somebody with a knife for the first time, and it had shaken him.