Roadside Picnic

by Arkady

  How can I best deal with my picnics, he thought, slowly navigating the Peugeot along the brightly lit streets. What would be the most clever way to go about it? Using the principle of least action. Like in mechanics. What’s the damn point of my engineering degree if I can’t even figure out a cunning way to catch that legless bastard …

  He parked the car in front of Redrick Schuhart’s building and sat behind the wheel for a bit, thinking about how to conduct the conversation. He took out the spacell, climbed out of the car, and only then noticed that the building looked abandoned. Almost all the windows were dark, and there was no one in the park—even the lights there weren’t lit. That reminded him of what he was about to see, and he shuddered uncomfortably. It even crossed his mind that it might make sense to call Redrick up and ask him to meet in the car or in some quiet bar, but he chased the thought away. For a number of reasons. Besides, he told himself, let me not become like those pitiful scum who have fled this place like rats from a sinking ship.

  He entered the building and slowly walked up the long-unswept stairs. All around him was a vacant silence. Most of the doors on the landings were ajar or even open wide—the dark entryways beyond them gave off a stale odor of dampness and dust. He stopped in front of the door to Redrick’s apartment, smoothed down the hair behind his ears, sighed deeply, and rang the doorbell. For a while there was no sound behind the door, then the floorboards squeaked, the lock clicked, and the door softly opened. He never did hear footsteps.

  In the doorway stood the Monkey, Redrick Schuhart’s daughter. Bright light fell from the foyer into the dimly lit landing, and for a second Noonan only saw the girl’s dark silhouette and thought how much she had grown in the past few months. But then she stepped farther back into the apartment, and he saw her face. His mouth immediately became dry.

  “Hello, Maria,” he said, trying to speak as gently as possible. “How are you, Monkey?”

  She didn’t reply. She stayed quiet and silently backed up toward the door of the living room, glaring at him from beneath her brows. It looked like she didn’t recognize him. But then, to be honest, he didn’t recognize her either. The Zone, he thought. Shit.

  “Who’s there?” asked Guta, peering out of the kitchen. “My God, Dick! Where have you been hiding? You know, Redrick came back!”

  She hurried toward him, wiping her hands on a towel thrown over her shoulder—the same good-looking, strong, energetic woman, except she seemed more haggard somehow: her face had become drawn, and her eyes were … feverish, maybe?

  He kissed her cheek, handed her his raincoat and hat, and said, “I’ve heard, I’ve heard. Just couldn’t pick a time to drop by. Is he home?”

  “Yeah,” said Guta. “There’s someone over. He’ll probably leave soon, they’ve been in there awhile … Come in, Dick.”

  He took a few steps along the hallway and stopped in the living room doorway. The old man was sitting behind the table. Alone. Motionless and listing slightly to one side. The pink light from the lamp shade fell on the dark, wide face—as if carved from old wood—on the sunken lipless mouth, and on the fixed vacant eyes. And immediately Noonan sensed the smell. He knew that it was just a freak of the imagination, that the smell only lasted the first few days and then disappeared without a trace, but Richard Noonan could sense it as if with his memory—a damp, heavy smell of fresh earth.

  “Why don’t we go to the kitchen,” Guta said hastily. “I’m cooking dinner; we can talk at the same time.”

  “Of course,” Noonan said brightly. “Haven’t seen each other in ages! Do you still remember what I like to drink before dinner?”

  They went to the kitchen, Guta immediately opened the fridge, and Noonan sat down at the table and looked around. As usual, everything in here was tidy, everything sparkled, and there was steam rising from the pots. The stove was a new electric one, which meant there was money in the house. “Well, how is he?”

  “Same as always,” answered Guta. “He lost weight in jail, but he’s already gained it back.”

  “Redheaded?”

  “I’ll say!”

  “Mean?”

  “Of course! He’ll take that to the grave.”

  Guta put a Bloody Mary in front of him—a clear layer of Russian vodka seemed to be suspended above a layer of tomato juice.

  “Too much?” she asked.

  “Just the right amount.” Noonan gathered air into his lungs and, screwing up his eyes, poured the mixture into his mouth. He remembered that this was basically the first real drink he’d had today. “That’s much better,” he said. “Now life is good.”

  “Everything OK with you?” asked Guta. “Why haven’t you come by in so long?”

  “I’ve been damned busy,” said Noonan. “Every week I was planning to drop by or at least call, but first there was the trip to Rexopolis, then I had to deal with a scandal, then they told me ‘Redrick came back’—all right, I think, why get in the way … Anyway, Guta, I’ve been run off my feet. Sometimes I ask myself, Why the hell are we always in such a whirl? For the money? But why in the world do we need money, if all we ever do is keep working?”

  Guta clanged the pot lids, took a pack of cigarettes from the shelf, and sat across from Noonan. Her eyes were lowered. Noonan quickly snatched out a lighter and lit her cigarette, and for the second time in his life saw her hands shake—like that time when Redrick had just been convicted, and Noonan came by to bring her money: at first, she was completely destitute, and the assholes in the building refused to lend her a cent. Eventually, the money did appear and, in all likelihood, a considerable sum, and Noonan could guess where it was from, but he continued to drop by—bringing the Monkey toys and candy, spending whole evenings drinking coffee with Guta, helping her plan Redrick’s successful future life. Finally, getting his fill of her stories, he would go to the neighbors and try to somehow reason with them, explaining, cajoling, then finally losing his patience, threatening: “You know, Red will come back, he’ll break every bone in your body …” Nothing helped.

  “How’s your girlfriend?” asked Guta.

  “Who?”

  “You know, the one you brought that time … The blonde.”

  “You thought that was my girlfriend? That was my stenographer. She got married and quit.”

  “You should get married, Dick,” said Guta. “Want me to find you a wife?”

  Noonan almost replied, as usual, I’m waiting for the Monkey but stopped himself in time. It wouldn’t have sounded right. “I need a stenographer, not a wife,” he grumbled. “You should leave your redheaded devil and come work for me as a stenographer. I remember you were an excellent stenographer. Old Harris still remembers you.”

  “I’m sure he does,” she said. “I had a hell of a time fending him off.”

  “Is that how it was?” Noonan pretended to be surprised. “That Harris!”

  “My God!” said Guta. “He wouldn’t leave me alone! I was just afraid that Red would find out.”

  The Monkey silently appeared—she materialized in the doorway, looked at the pots, looked at Richard, then approached her mother and leaned against her, turning away her face.

  “Well, Monkey,” Richard Noonan said heartily. “Want a chocolate?”

  He dug into his vest pocket, took out a little chocolate car in a clear packet, and offered it to the girl. She didn’t move. Guta took the chocolate and put it on the table. Her lips suddenly turned white.

  “Yes, Guta,” Noonan said, still cheery, “I’m planning to move, you know. I’m sick of the hotel. First of all, it really is too far from the Institute—”

  “She almost doesn’t understand anything anymore,” said Guta softly, and he cut himself off, picked up a glass with both hands, and started pointlessly spinning it in his fingers. “I see that you don’t ask how we are,” she continued, “and you’re right not to. Except you’re an old friend, Dick, we have no secrets from you. Not that we could keep it a secret!”

  “Have you seen a do
ctor?” asked Noonan, without raising his eyes.

  “Yes. They can’t do a thing. And one of them said …”

  She fell silent. He was silent, too. There was nothing to say here, and he didn’t want to think about it, but he was unexpectedly struck by an awful thought: It’s an invasion. Not a picnic, not a plea for contact—an invasion. They can’t change us, but they infiltrate the bodies of our children and change them in their image. He shivered, but then he immediately remembered that he had already read something like that, some paperback with a bright glossy cover, and the memory made him feel better. People imagined all sorts of things. In reality, nothing was ever the way people imagined.

  “And one of them said she’s no longer human,” continued Guta.

  “Nonsense,” Noonan said hollowly. “You should see a real specialist. See James Catterfield. Want me to talk to him? I’ll arrange an appointment …”

  “You mean the Butcher?” She gave a nervous laugh. “Thanks, Dick, but it’s all right. He’s the one who said that. Must be fate.”

  When Noonan dared to look up again, the Monkey was already gone, and Guta was sitting motionless, her mouth half open and her eyes empty, the cigarette in her fingers growing a long crooked column of gray ash. He pushed his glass toward her and said, “Make me another, dear. And make one for yourself. And we’ll drink.”

  She flicked off the ashes, looked around for a place to throw out the butt, and threw it in the sink. “What’s it all for?” she asked. “That’s what I don’t understand! We aren’t the worst people in town …”

  Noonan thought that she was going to cry, but she didn’t—she opened the fridge, took out the vodka and the juice, and took a second glass off the shelf.

  “All the same, you shouldn’t despair,” said Noonan. “There’s nothing in the world that can’t be fixed. And believe me, Guta, I have connections. Everything I can do, I will …”

  Right now, he himself believed in what he was saying, and he was already going through names, clinics, and cities in his mind, and it even seemed to him that he had heard something somewhere about a case like this, and everything turned out OK, he just needed to figure out where it happened and who the doctor was. But then he remembered why he came here and remembered General Lemchen, and he recalled why he had befriended Guta, and he no longer wanted to think about anything at all—so he made himself comfortable, relaxed, and waited for his drink.

  At this point, he heard shuffling footsteps and tapping in the hall and the Vulture Burbridge’s repulsive—especially under the circumstances—nasal voice. “Hey, Red! Your old lady, I see, has a visitor—there’s his hat. If I were you, I wouldn’t let that slide.”

  And Redrick’s voice: “Take your prostheses, Vulture. And bite your tongue. Here’s the door, don’t forget to leave, it’s time for my supper.”

  And Burbridge: “Jesus, I can’t even make a joke!”

  And Redrick: “You and I are done joking. Period. Go on, go on, don’t hold things up!”

  The lock clicked open, and the voices became fainter—apparently, they had both gone out onto the landing. Burbridge said something in an undertone, and Redrick answered, “That’s it, that’s it, we’re done!” Then Burbridge grumbled something again, and Redrick replied in a harsh tone, “I said that’s it!” The door banged, he heard quick footsteps in the hallway, and Redrick Schuhart appeared in the kitchen doorway. Noonan rose to greet him, and they firmly shook hands.

  “I figured it must be you,” said Redrick, looking Noonan over with quick green eyes. “Ooh, you’ve gotten fat, fatso! Growing your ass in bars … Aha! I see you guys have been enjoying yourselves! Guta, old lady, make me one, too, I gotta catch up.”

  “We haven’t even started yet,” said Noonan. “We were just going to. As if we could hope to get ahead of you!”

  Redrick gave a sharp laugh and punched Noonan in the shoulder. “We’ll see who’s catching up and who’s getting ahead. Man, I’ve been dry for two years, in order to catch up I’d have to guzzle a vat … Let’s go, let’s go, why are we sitting in the kitchen! Guta, bring us supper.”

  He dived into the fridge and stood up again, holding two bottles in each hand, with various labels.

  “We’ll have a party!” he announced. “In honor of our best friend, Richard Noonan, who doesn’t abandon those in need! Though there’s nothing in it for him. Ah, Gutalin isn’t here, too bad.”

  “Give him a call,” suggested Noonan.

  Redrick shook his flaming red head. “They haven’t laid phone lines to where he is yet. All right, let’s go, let’s go …”

  He entered the living room first and banged the bottles down on the table.

  “We’re having a party, Dad!” he told the motionless old man. “This is Richard Noonan, our friend! Dick, this is my dad, Schuhart the elder.”

  Richard Noonan, having mentally gathered himself into an impenetrable lump, stretched his mouth to his ears, shook his hand in the air, and said to the corpse, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Schuhart! How are you? You know, Red, we’ve already met,” he told Schuhart the younger, who was digging through the bar. “We saw each other once, only in passing, however …”

  “Have a seat,” said Redrick, nodding at a chair across from the old man. “And if you talk to him, speak louder—he can’t hear a damn thing.” He put down the glasses, quickly opened the bottles, and told Noonan, “Go ahead and pour. Give Dad a little, just a nip.”

  Noonan poured in a leisurely fashion. The old man was sitting in the same position, staring at the wall. And he showed no reaction at all when Noonan pushed the glass toward him. Noonan had already adjusted to the new situation. This was a game, a terrible and pitiful game. The game was Redrick’s, and he was playing along, the same way that his whole life he had played along with the games of others—games that were terrible and pitiful and shameful and wild, and far more dangerous than this one. Redrick raised his glass and said, “Well, shall we begin?” and Noonan glanced at the old man in a completely natural manner, and Redrick impatiently clinked his glass against Noonan’s and said, “Let’s go, let’s go, don’t worry about him, he won’t let it get away,” so Noonan gave a completely natural nod, and they had a drink.

  Redrick grunted and, eyes shining, went on in that same excited, slightly artificial tone: “That’s it, man! No more jail for me. If you only knew, my friend, how good it is to be home! I’ve got money, I have my eye on a nice little cottage, with a garden, no worse than the Vulture’s. You know, I was planning to emigrate, I’d already decided that in jail. Why in the world am I staying in this lousy town? Let them all go to hell, I think. I get back—hello, they’ve banned emigration! What, did we all become contagious in the last two years?”

  He talked and talked while Noonan nodded, sipped his whiskey, interjected sympathetic curses and rhetorical questions, then started grilling him about the cottage—what is it like, how much does it cost—and he and Redrick argued. Noonan was proving that the cottage was expensive and inconveniently located, he took out his notebook and flipped through it, naming addresses of abandoned cottages that could be bought for a song, and the repairs wouldn’t cost much at all, especially if they applied to emigrate, got denied by the authorities, and demanded compensation.

  “I see you’ve even gotten into real estate,” said Redrick.

  “I do a little bit of everything,” answered Noonan and winked.

  “I know, I know, I’ve heard about your brothel business!”

  Noonan opened his eyes wide, put a finger to his lips, and nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Don’t worry, everybody knows about that,” said Redrick. “Money doesn’t stink. I’ve finally really understood that … But picking Hamfist to be your manager—I almost peed myself laughing when I heard! Setting a wolf to guard the sheep, you know … He’s a nut, I’ve known him since childhood!”

  Here the old man, moving slowly and woodenly, like a giant doll, lifted his hand from his knee and dropped it o
n the table by his glass with a wooden bang. The hand was dark, with a bluish tint, and the clenched fingers made it look like a chicken foot. Redrick fell silent and looked at him. Something trembled in his face, and Noonan was amazed to see the most genuine, the most sincere love and affection expressed on that savage freckled mug.

  “Drink up, Daddy, drink up,” said Redrick tenderly. “A little is all right, please have a bit … Don’t worry,” he told Noonan in an undertone, winking conspiratorially. “He’ll get to that glass, you can be sure of that.”

  Looking at him, Noonan remembered what had happened when Boyd’s lab assistants showed up here to pick up this corpse. There were two lab assistants, both strong young guys, athletes and all that, and there was a doctor from the city hospital, accompanied by two orderlies—coarse brawny men used to lugging stretchers and pacifying the violent. One of the lab assistants described how “that redhead,” who at first didn’t seem to understand what was going on, let them into the apartment and allowed them to examine his father—and they might have just taken him away like that, since it looked like Redrick had gotten the idea that Dad was being taken to the hospital for preventive measures. But when the knucklehead orderlies—who in the process of the preliminary negotiations had hung around the kitchen and gawked at Guta washing windows—were summoned, they carried the old man like a log: dragging him, dropping him on the floor. Redrick became enraged, at which point the knucklehead doctor stepped forward and volunteered a detailed explanation of what was going on. Redrick listened to him for a minute or two, then suddenly, without any warning at all, exploded like a hydrogen bomb. The lab assistant telling the story didn’t even remember how he ended up outside. The redheaded devil kicked all five of them down the stairs, not letting a single one of them leave unaided, on his own two legs. Every one of them, according to the lab assistant, flew out the front door as if shot from a cannon. Two of them stayed unconscious on the pavement, and Redrick chased the remaining three for four blocks down the street, after which he came back to the Institute’s corpse-mobile and broke all of its windows—the driver was no longer in the vehicle; he had fled in the other direction.