Yok (32 page)

“Vincent Hare?”

Vincent stood up.

“Please follow me.”

Vincent followed the fly into the large conference room, where they sat down at the end of a long table.

“Well, Vincent,” said the fly, leafing through his papers. “And how old are you?”

“Twenty-seven years, 3 days, 12 hours, and 40 minutes.”

The fly looked up from his notepad with surprise, but since Hare looked like this was a normal answer, he decided simply to continue.

“And you live in Yok?”

“In Mindie, at Calle de Serrano, 25.”

“You went to architecture school with Gavin Zebra?”

Zebra had started working at Bombardelli & Partners five years earlier, right after the College of Architecture.

“That was a few years ago. It was Gavin who suggested I should contact you. He said something about a job as an assistant project manager.”

Vincent was wearing a tight, bright red cashmere sweater with a pair of wide, white pants and loafers. He had also put on a pair of glasses, whose thick black frames were so conspicuous no one would believe there was window glass in them. Judging by his appearance he was already working at an advertising agency or an architect's office.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” asked the fly, who worked for Horse Svensson, one of Bombardelli's two partners.

All Vincent had prepared was to show up at the right time and the right place in good-looking clothes. The rest was improvisation.

But to move ahead in life, to even barely make his way, he had decided to break with Dingo and become a part of tax-paying society. He had to break free from his own life bubble. The only one he could think of to call was Gavin Zebra, and now here he was. It was easy to laugh and say to hell with this ridiculous role-playing and realize that a normal life was not for him. But he remembered the sharp smell of soap that still lingered a week after he had washed off the vomit from the Donation Date, and smiled again.

This was his first job interview, yet he thought he found the right tone. He was arrogant, but not toward the interviewer. He called attention to his deficiencies in order to brag about his strengths. After the interview on his way down in the elevator a tortoise was standing next to him, looking desperate.

“Did you apply for the job, too?” asked Vincent.

Diego Tortoise nodded.

“Me, too. Sorry about that. If I'd known you were going to apply, of course I wouldn't have come here and swiped it right in front of your nose.” Vincent laughed, the tortoise looked even more nervous, and Vincent got a bad conscience.

“We need a reward,” said the self-confident Vincent. “The first and last job interview in my life. This has to be celebrated.”

The tortoise, in a gray suit, with a serious expression and apparently no sense of humor, shook his head, but Vincent would not take no for an answer.

“We'll swing by Clerk's first,” he said. “We're in the neighborhood, aren't we?”

“But I don't think . . .”

The elevator doors opened, and Vincent had already run ahead.

T
hey sat at the bar at Clerk's, where many of the great contemporary thinkers and artists had, according to the newspapers, fallen asleep with their forehead on the wood. Diego Tortoise was surprised by how small the place was, in relation to how often he had read about it. Vincent Hare ordered two colorful pineapple drinks with festive umbrellas even though it was midafternoon, and while Tortoise pretended to sip the alcohol, Vincent told about various ways of lacing pineapple drinks. Tortoise expressed polite interest.

It was soon revealed that Tortoise, like Vincent, had grown up in Mindie. They had even gone to the same school, but because they were four years apart, their paths had never crossed. Besides, Tortoise had a feeling they would not have gotten along very well if they had met.

Vincent ordered another round of pineapple drinks. Tortoise took the opportunity to ask for a glass of water.

Diego Tortoise liked school; mathematics was easy for him and he loved history. Vincent drank and listened with half an ear. Then he pulled himself together, recalled his intentions, and told about his own time in school, which he imagined was the normal thing to do in a situation like this. He lied about athletic achievements and depicted himself as the epicenter of the school balls.

“Vodka with ice,” Vincent Hare ordered, without being concerned that Tortoise had barely touched the first round of pineapple drinks.

Continuing studies had not been a given, neither for Tortoise nor for Vincent. In their neighborhood, cubs seldom continued past high school; families in Yok didn't need more expenses. But Diego Tortoise's father had once dreamed of becoming a civil engineer, and encouraged his son to apply to Lanceheim Technical College. Vincent Hare admitted to Tortoise that he was no mathematician, and that he had flunked math in his final exams.

“Maybe I could have passed,” he said, “but it was so deadly boring.”

Tortoise did not know how to acknowledge such a statement.

“Gin and tonic,” Vincent ordered, waving one paw in the air. “And throw in a few olives! And leave the bottle here!”

“I wouldn't mind another glass of water,” said Tortoise.

“You don't like losing control, do you?” said Vincent.

“No,” answered Tortoise.

The answer seemed natural to him.

“But sometimes you have to,” said Vincent. “Try, and see what happens. Life can't be controlled.”

“Well,” Tortoise answered meditatively, “I don't know if I agree with that. You can probably control most things. I'm not a particularly reactive type.”

“Reactive?” Vincent laughed. “That's another way to put it. If you ask me, Diego, reactions are all we have. If we're not good at reacting, we're in bad shape.”

Vincent held up the bottle of gin. Tortoise did not understand what he meant.

“Think about it, Diego. You can't control reality . . . I mean, try to control what I'm saying?”

“No, of course I—”

“And at the same time you have to react to everything I spew out. You have to give me some answers. Handle it.”

“Yes, but I—”

“So whether you want to or not, it's all about reacting. And losing control, my friend, will be your training. 'Cause that's what life looks like, you know? Uncontrolled. Random. Idiotic.”

“Well,” said Diego, who did not want to contradict his newfound friend, but not agree with something he couldn't stand for either, “I guess I think that many things in life are logical and rational. Complicated, sure, but not incomprehensible, if you just accept the fundamental conditions.”

He spoke in a slow drawl that Vincent found very irritating.

“And perhaps that's even our cause, our mission here in life, to try to bring order to all that you're talking about,” Tortoise continued. “What's ‘idiotic,' as you say.”

Tortoise had been one of the best pupils in his class, and after his civil engineering degree he could pick and choose among job offers. Hare's architecture degree remained unfinished. Even if they were both at Bombardelli & Partners looking for work, they had applied for two different positions.

Tortoise applied for a position in the construction department, after having studied and been fascinated by durability theory in college.

“Good luck bringing order to existence, my friend, and if you succeed you have to call me. Now I want whiskey!” Vincent yelled to the bartender, but it was hard to hear what he was saying because he was slurring. “There's no more of this porridge left.”

Hare did not notice that Tortoise still had not had anything to drink besides water.

After the Afternoon Rain more customers appeared, and right before the Evening Weather the bar was full. Tortoise did not dare leave the thoroughly intoxicated hare alone. The stuffed animals at Clerk's studiously avoided watching as Vincent snorted and laughed and shouted and drank; he drank more than Tortoise thought it was possible to drink. When the money finally ran out, Tortoise helped Vincent home. Tortoise lived more or less around the corner from Vincent's red-dotted Calle de Serrano, on cement gray Calle de Padilla. Tortoise hailed a taxi, and when they arrived he helped Vincent up the stairs into his apartment building. The last half hour it had been impossible to make out what the intoxicated stuffed animal was saying, even though he talked constantly.

I
t was five weeks before Vincent Hare started at Bombardelli & Partners, and by then Diego Tortoise had already worked there a week. Within a few days, everyone had formed an impression of the loud hare. His desire to be liked stopped at nothing. Tortoise did not know whether this was deeply tragic or simply unpleasant.

Vincent's clothing, to start with. Colorful suits that appeared to be a few sizes too small, with handkerchiefs that seemed to gush forth from the breast pocket and were as gaudy as the suits (but in contrasting colors), along with pointed shoes with shoelaces the same color as the handkerchiefs. It reminded Tortoise of a clown running around the office.

Furthermore, Vincent's ingratiation knew no bounds. Every morning on his way from reception to his desk approximately in the middle of the office, he managed to drop more flattering comments than Tortoise would formulate in his entire professional career. The art form was perhaps impressive, but Tortoise leaned over his desk, blushing, to avoid showing how ill at ease he was. Hare himself seemed unaffected.

It was natural that the two sought each other out at first. They were newcomers who started at about the same time, and between them there was also that evening when Tortoise had dragged the dead-drunk hare home from Clerk's. They were opposites, so Tortoise found it more interesting to look for similarities. It turned out that they had both read Gillespie's
On Night in Tourquai
(which Tortoise appreciated while Vincent thought it shied away from the deeper problems), they agreed that the new Volga Mini was a step backward in terms of design, and they both liked pizza, which is why for the first few weeks they had lunch at Gino's, even though it was a bit of a walk.

Surrounded by the heavenly aromas from the open wood-fired oven and the comforting din in the popular restaurant, where a full-bodied red wine was served in carafes with the food whether you ordered it or not, Vincent went into great detail about the internal power structure at Bombardelli, as he perceived it after a few weeks.

“Bombardelli is not just king at the office,” Vincent announced as he rolled up a perfectly cut wedge of pizza and stuffed it into his mouth. “The rattlesnake is an autocrat. Dictator. He IS the office. I don't think you understand what that means, Diego. He decides everything. In detail. The pen you are using this afternoon . . . it's not by chance you are holding just that one. Everything is part of Bombardelli's plan.”

Tortoise did not drink alcohol with lunch, but Vincent tasted the red wine and it was to his liking, so he took another gulp before he continued.

“And the rattlesnake's partners, Daniela Fox and Horse Svensson,” Vincent informed him. “She's thirty-seven, he'll soon be eligible for retirement. This is the kind of thing you have to keep track of, Diego. There is no rule that says there can only be two partners, or that one partner has to retire before Bombardelli appoints a new one.”

Tortoise had ordered a Pizza Compastone with no olives but got olives anyway, and picking them out demanded his concentration. Stuffed animals came and went during lunch; at Gino's you sat at a long table, and the hare and tortoise already had new neighbors.

“Don't you understand?” asked Vincent, noticing the tortoise's lack of interest and feeling offended.

“Don't I understand what?”

“But . . . there is only one reason to start at Bombardelli & Partners: It's to become a partner yourself. Everything else is a failure. This is a competition, Diego. Between you and me. A race. We started the same time; let's see who becomes a partner first. May the best animal win!”

V
incent Hare was 27 years, 73 days, 4 hours, and about 30 minutes old and had worked at Bombardelli & Partners for five weeks when he met Maria Goat for the first time. It happened by chance, in the morning, by the coffee machine. He had already set his cup at the designated place in the machine, but took it out again and let her go ahead of him. She had on a red-speckled blouse he liked, and she looked at him with open curiosity. She had an attractive roundness, short legs, and her cream white wool smelled of roses. She pushed the button for “Choco-Tea” and he assumed she had made a mistake. So he said something to the effect that he had pushed the wrong button to start with, too. Thirty-five stuffed animals worked at the office; he had never seen her before and therefore assumed she was new. She answered that she had worked at Bombardelli & Partners for two years, and that she preferred Choco-Tea to the alternatives.

Maria Goat was one of the youngest architects at the firm, and was considered promising. She was not interested in philosophy and lived alone because she chose to. She had Choco-Tea several times a day, she liked Tortoise (whom she considered a model of reliability and solidity), and she had season tickets to the Concert House because she idolized Rachmolotov (whom Vincent had never understood). During the months that followed, she treated Vincent with the same sort of curious interest that was in her eyes the first time; as if he were an odd object, an anomaly at Bombardelli, and he could not decide if he was flattered or bored by her treatment. At some point every day, by the coffee machine, in the lunchroom or in the elevator, they nodded fleetingly at each other, and if they had time exchanged a few words about the particularly interesting and big projects that more or less the whole office was affected by and everyone had an opinion on.

During this time Vincent attempted to adapt to “reality.” He thought about the word in quotation marks, even though he tried to refrain, and let the days come and go as they would. After six months at Bombardelli he discovered by chance his gray notebook, long untouched in the drawer in his nightstand. He took the notebook out, and wrote: