The Beggar and the Hare Page 3

With this background it was very hard for Yegor Kugar to turn a blind eye to Vatanescu and Balthazar’s barbecue feast. A beggar must not look better off than the people he is begging from; a beggar must not eat fillet steak flambéed in brandy. A fat beggar was an absurdity. Bad for business. But an even worse mistake was to oversleep in the morning.

  Yegor thought that his men sprawled in their caravans or outside in the caravan park looked like pigs on some decadent farm. He said he knew that Vatanescu was behind it all; he sensed the aura of a rebel, had been able to detect such auras back when he was in the security police, possessed one himself. It usually took a man to problems, riches or a zinc coffin.

  Yegor Kugar emptied the embers of the barbecue over Vatanescu. Yegor Kugar locked the doors of the caravans. Yegor Kugar said there would now be a week without pay and a twenty-four-hour workday. Go away and shake off those calories, and don’t come back until you look like what you are, not like homeowners in some plush suburb!

  Chapter Three

  In which we learn how Vatanescu burns his bridges and meets his soul-mate

  Yegor outsourced the most unpleasant tasks to the Svetogorsk Speedfreaks. The Speedfreaks cut off the electricity to the beggars’ encampment at 7pm and made sure there was no surplus food or pleasure in the caravans. The lights came back on at five. When this was combined with a darkness that fell ever earlier, an increasing amount of rain, a strong wind that brought an icy chill, and the reluctance of people to part with their small change, Vatanescu sank into dejection. The passers-by snarled, spat – even the woman who distributed the religious newspaper hurried rudely past on her way to holy-roller meetings held in old cinemas.

  The streets are amazingly clean.

  Am I the only rubbish?

  Balthazar consoled him, telling him that his anger would eventually subside, but Vatanescu saw no further than the following day, and not even that far. He had the same symptoms of burnout that afflicted the givers of alms. People wanted to get back to their communally heated homes by the quickest possible combination of bus, train and walking, and they did not feel obliged to help a person who was capable of working.

  Inevitably the day came when the Organisation gave the order that there must be more results. There were to be discussions about layoffs, because International Crime was a supranational company listed on the stock exchange, just like Nokia or Gazprom. Moreover, the Organisation’s advertising and marketing department noted that the public image of begging had taken a battering. The police were tackling the beggars ever more snappishly, and public opinion was hardening by the day. The mayor wanted the ragged riff-raff off his streets.

  The Organisation’s head office demanded increased productivity. They must all increase their output by thirty per cent, and at the same time the least productive ones would be fired. Those who had arrived last would be the first to go. The row of beggars listened to Yegor’s speech, Vatanescu slightly apart from the others on the steps of his caravan. His nose was running; perhaps it was fever, maybe hypothermia was setting in.

  Yegor Kugar.

  To you a quiet stretch of water is a place where you can duck the head of your fellow man and drown him.

  And inevitably the day also came when the camp was filled with the flashing blue lights of police cars, and after them the flashing red lights of bulldozers. The police gave the residents five minutes to gather their belongings and then return to the land of their fathers. The women and children would be guaranteed a place in the warmth of a shelter for the night, and would be taken there locked up in a Black Maria.

  As usual, the adult male simply had to manage. The adult male only has what he takes, and he invariably takes it from others. This produces accusations, demands for compensation and world wars. Because adult males are the cause of everything, they are sent off to the worst places, to hunt, to fight wars, to build playhouses for children, to take part in the Finlandia Ski Marathon – though they’d willingly rush to put on skis themselves. The adult male is useful as long as he is strong. As long as the adult male is able to defend and protect his family, he has a purpose as a threat to those outside his intimate circle. This show of strength produces all the good things and bad things in the economy, rock music or even the arms trade, for example. Sad is the lot of the wretched man who cannot seize what comes his way, the lot of the man who is unable to fight for his place in the sun, who does not master the language, the tricks of the gambler or the comedy that softens the fall. A man does not arouse pity as a child does, or desire as a woman does: his fundamental role, and the meaning of his whole existence, is to produce economic added value.

  I am no use to anyone.

  No one is any use to me.

  I am not needed.

  I need football boots.

  The bulldozers bulldozed and bashed and lifted the debris into a skip. As Vatanescu stood with Balthazar and the other beggars in a nearby pedestrian underpass, the old man took his hand and pressed it as a father would press the hand of his son, transferring all his strength from himself to his successor. A firm pressure, cold, wrinkled palms. Balthazar said he had seen in the stars, or rather knew from experience, that no good ever comes of a grilled steak. Right at that moment, for the first time on his journey, Vatanescu began to feel something: first fear, then uncertainty, and then a sense of being mightily pissed off. Vatanescu jabbed his fist into the wall of the underpass – he who had never hit anyone. He pumped himself into the state that made possible the events that followed.

  When the figure of Yegor Kugar appeared in the entrance to the underpass, Vatanescu knew that he for his part was not going to retreat. The bulldozers were leaving; now he must be as strong as they were, he must bulldoze his way forward, even though he had no idea where it might take him. Their homes were destroyed, their source of income removed, and what did Yegor Kugar do? He asked the brothers Vatanescu and Balthazar if now they understood the general situation.

  The general situation?

  Here everything is a matter of individuality.

  Individuals. Private property. An independent professional’s right to a pair of football boots.

  ‘Have you got it through your thick skulls, or do I really have to explain to you why negotiated layoffs are necessary?’

  For the first time, Vatanescu stared Yegor Kugar in the eye.

  Pig.

  Yegor heard the whisper. After a moment of silence, the kind of silence during which a man like Yegor Kugar decided if he was going to rearrange one’s features with his fist there and then or if he had better resort to the socially more acceptable art of verbal humiliation, he said quite calmly that Vatanescu was dismissed from his duties. Vatanescu’s eyes narrowed. Yegor Kugar relates:

  ‘I sent him on his way. Fired him for breach of trust. Deleted him from my email address book. One man whom begging doesn’t need. This is not a benevolent fund; it’s subject to the same laws of supply and demand as any other business. I sold these guys, I invested in them, so they had to bring me some returns. Vatanescu was a liability right from the start. I forbade him to work in any of the areas controlled by our Organisation – any country, city, village with more than seven thousand inhabitants or a floorball club anywhere in Europe. Because I’m a good man I gave him an early retirement plan, a pension package and protection from dismissal. I gave him twenty euros.’

  A twenty-euro note in his hand. Nearby, a camp that had been wrecked. No way of making a living. Now there were no more alternatives, and Vatanescu let his body do what it wanted to do. He crumpled the money in his fist, took a step back and lashed out with his arms at Yegor Kugar. From somewhere he had found the strength he ought not to have had. He added a headbutt that made Yegor lose his balance and fall to the pavement.

  Balthazar sat on top of Yegor. Then, one by one, all the other beggars did the same.

  Vatanescu snatched the wad of banknotes from Yegor’s hand and ran as he had never run before.

  One day something happened to Vatanesc
u’s home village. It was demolished. Farewell to the mill and the centuries-old stables with their stone foundations. The site was levelled and fenced off, and a mobile phone factory built on it. Vatanescu had once applied to work there, but a monkey would have had more luck in getting a job than Vatanescu, for at least a monkey has job options in zoos and on cartoons. Only the cottage belonging to Komar Tudos had survived. It survived as it had done throughout all the upheavals in Europe since the days of Byzantium. Perhaps so that later it would be discovered by some opinionated documentary filmmaker from the North who would obtain a grant and prizes for Komar Tudos on the strength of his story. Or perhaps because the world changed, but Komar Tudos never did. Each morning Komar stepped into his back yard, spat once to the left and three times to the right, greeted all the ghostly beings that whirled around him and visited his outside toilet. The cart track that passed in front of the Tudos cottage had been traversed by Nazi armies, Communist armies and Coca-Cola trucks, and was now about to be surfaced with asphalt.

  Komar smiled. Or was it the semi-paralysis of his face that twisted the old man’s expression?

  Vatanescu had a wad of criminal cash, four hundred and eighty euros. When one started with nothing, five hundred was almost the stuff of legends, and it would at least enable him to buy the football boots. First thing in the morning, as soon as the sports shops with their vast windows opened their doors, Vatanescu would go inside and choose the boots that were worn by the best and most expensive players of the day. And what remained would form the basis of something greater.

  Without a purpose, what I’ve done is merely the insane action of a man who has been driven to the brink.

  Just as everything that people do often is.

  Give it a purpose.

  Give it a meaning.

  Vatanescu’s joy in the money disappeared when he realised that what he had done might equally have been the most stupid act of rage in the world of bipeds, something for which he would have to pay interest at far above the market rate. When the word got around, when mobile phones connected Finland to Vatanescu’s home village in Romania, information about the solo beggar would reach Yegor’s henchmen.

  Vatanescu sat down on a park bench between the large white building of Finlandia Hall and the inlet that comes in from the sea. On the other side of the bay a goods train rumbled. He tried to curl up in his own armpit, tried to forget the cold. In spite of the adrenaline and the cold, his constant tiredness got the upper hand. But we shall not let Vatanescu fall asleep.

  The bushes rustled.

  Something moved.

  Vatanescu wondered if there were snakes in this land.

  Then from the south he began to hear a babbling that grew into a unique and universal shouting. The shouting approached at a running pace; a group of young men threw stones and brandished sticks. Vatanescu was surprised that Yegor had managed to send a gang of assailants made up of local residents after him so quickly.

  Don’t kneecap me.

  Don’t torture me. Don’t kill me.

  The youngsters ran past Vatanescu towards a bush.

  As the crime squad combed the bushes for something, a creature hobbled out from between their legs. Vatanescu caught it in his hands and hid it in his jacket.

  Whatever you are, you are smaller than that group of human animals.

  The youngsters’ heads popped up from the bushes. They noticed Vatanescu and asked if he had seen a nasty rodent. A pest that was a menace to the city, gnawing the roots of the apple trees on housing estates and rushing about in the traffic causing unnecessary insurance claims. The youngsters were paid five euros per rabbit; the city’s zoo bought the long-eared creatures to feed to the tigers.

  Vatanescu felt the small creature’s heart beating against his, and nodded.

  I saw it. It went that way. Towards the railway station.

  If you’re quick you’ll be able to catch it.

  Go on, hurry up, or it will get away.

  When the lynch mob had disappeared from view, Vatanescu looked at the rabbit that was furtively flattening its ears in the shelter of his jacket. The poor thing’s gaze was weary, and it begged for mercy.

  Don’t be afraid of me, I’m Vatanescu.

  Like you.

  Tiger food.

  Vatanescu washed the undernourished creature in seawater and noticed there was a splinter in its paw. When he pulled the splinter out the rabbit gave a piteous squeal and the wound began to bleed more profusely. In Vatanescu’s family there were fortune-tellers and soothsayers, but he himself had as scientific a view of the world as a man who was self-educated could have. Yet, precisely for that reason, this rabbit that had sprung out from nowhere in front of him seemed too powerful an omen to be the result of mere chance.

  I must save you. Then I will save myself, too.

  I have no one here. I have no one in the world but my son Miklos. We are going to help each other, we are going to manage. Let’s start with you.

  With the rabbit in his pocket, Vatanescu set off for the city’s main thoroughfare. A red cross on the street signs guided him to the nearest emergency clinic.

  The name above the hospital entrance was that of Miklos’s mother, Vatanescu’s ex-wife.

  Chapter Four

  In which Vatanescu meets Hertta the philanthropist, Keijo the verger, Usko Rautee and Ming, and in which he becomes an international investor

  The sliding doors of Maria Hospital’s first-aid clinic opened at regular intervals. At the reception desk sat Hertta Mäntylä, a woman of strong personality praised for her skill in showing sympathy, someone who was able to give silent support to others in sorrow, pain and uncertainty, without being alarmed or frightened by the situation. During the night she had admitted Valdemar Kiminkinen, born 05.06.64, who had struck his head on the pavement as a result of drunkenness. It was also possible that Kiminkinen had been involved in a dispute with his partner, but the partner’s name escaped him for the moment. What he did remember was a race that had been run at Turku athletics stadium in the 1960s, and a life that had gone wrong. Kiminkinen was not bitter, but he kept saying that he wanted to start from the beginning again.

  Hertta helped Kiminkinen to lie down and advised him to stop drinking. She even whispered in his ear that love would be the best remedy. But the possibility of that was vanishingly small.

  Ticket Number 106 belonged to Liisi Tunder, born 12.12.20, Sagittarius, an old lady who had preserved her beauty in age. Currently she sat on the other side of the glass partition of Hertta’s reception desk, but her mind travelled the roads of her childhood in a hired car driven by her chauffeur Alzheimer. Mrs Tunder had been found almost naked in the street, wearing surgical stockings and holding a coffeepot. She was asking passers-by if the air raid was over, and why she could not find her best friend, Ulrika. Mrs Tunder was accompanied by a man of the same age, anxious and perplexed – her husband. Hertta had booked a room for him at a nearby hotel. A needle was inserted into Mrs Tunder’s birdlike arm, she fell asleep and Hertta thought how many people there were in the world who needed to be limitlessly stroked.

  The next customer approached the reception desk without a ticket, blood streaming from his nose. Flägä. Unable to remember his date of birth. Did remember taking Temgesic tablets and also injecting some as yet unnamed liquid narcotic. Had a strong sense of split personality and wanted to escape from the world of Lord of the Weasels, wanted out of Manacles of the Sixth Neuron. As Flägä could not be hugged, he was tied down with hand restraints, something that had had to be done the previous week, and would be done again and again, until he attained prison, death or Salvation.

  Oh the dear children, oh the life and the longing, oh the bullied ones, Hertta thought. Oh the lack of love, the cold atmosphere at the breakfast table, the lonely journeys to school, a world where only chemistry helps, not money or a neighbour. Oh your need to forget things that will probably never happen to you. Oh why don’t you leave chemistry for school lessons, why don�
��t you quit cutting classes and get your qualifications for working life?

  Vatanescu was sitting some ten yards from Hertta. He kept the rabbit hidden inside his jacket, not daring to look at anyone but the pigtailed little girl who smiled opposite him with life and joy in her maybe six-year-old eyes. The sticking plaster on her arm said that she had had a blood sample taken, and the heroic deed had been rewarded with an ice cream on a stick. Her tiny teeth nibbled at the chocolate and her tongue licked the vanilla that appeared underneath.

  The rabbit tried to abandon the sleeve for freedom, but Vatanescu stopped it. The rabbit tried to leave by way of his collar, but Vatanescu put his hand in the way. The little girl spotted the rabbit and continued to lick her ice cream. Children are less surprised by unusual things than they are by ordinary, conventional ones.

  The girl’s mother wondered who her daughter was making faces and smiling at – was it that foreign tramp who smelled of sewers? The rabbit retreated back into the sleeve. Vatanescu looked away, and as they continued to play their game the queue numbers changed; there were still twenty to go until it was Vatanescu’s turn. The girl fell asleep in her mother’s arms. Vatanescu felt tired as he looked at the weary, flu-ridden people, the stooping and the stooped. Behind the Venetian blinds one could hear the city waking up to the morning; the streetlights were going out. In their place the sun tried to break through the veil of cloud, and Vatanescu sank into slumber.

  He woke up when the little girl tapped his knee with her finger. She was pointing to the number on the board and the number on Vatanescu’s ticket.

  The dictatorship under which he had grown as a child had given Vatanescu a knowledge of languages. At school in 1984, before the Los Angeles Olympics, he had distributed official brochures sponsored by a soft-drinks company, for Romania was the only country in the socialist bloc apart from China that took part in those Games. The heroes of Vatanescu’s childhood were athletes with names like Nadia, Ilie and Cojocaru. He read the brochures in their original language, deciphering them syllable by syllable until he began to understand what he was reading.