The End of the World (5 page)

“But it makes no sense. It’s senseless – cruel and senseless.”

“You ask for reason from such people? I was Muslim – that was all that mattered. He saw my faith as skin deep. So he thought if he destroyed the skin he destroyed the faith. But as you can see…he was mistaken.”

She threw her head back with exaggerated pride, as people sometimes do when trying to convince themselves they’ve won, while knowing full well they lost.

“I can’t…I cannot believe someone could be so…I mean, how could they? How could that happen? Why didn’t someone stop him?”

“What, you don’t have television? All your Western advancements don’t include the television set? You see, you hear, you know. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“Yes, but…”

“What, you don’t like reality TV? Or it’s not reality until you find yourself sitting face to face with it at the breakfast table, is that it? Well, who can blame you really, sitting there in your comfortable home, looking at the terrible images and feeling so bad? It’s not your fault. You didn’t cause it, after all – who can blame you? Except me…looking at you – all of the power and asleep at the wheel. Do we intervene or don’t we? What will it cost us? Will we be re-elected if we act? It’s a human catastrophe. It’s abhorrent. We deplore it. We condemn it. We do nothing. Better to wait…wait until the killing is done. East Timor, Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan…so many conflicts, so many conflicting opinions, so much talk, and so much death. So they pick and choose their humanitarian gestures with the steely eye of a seasoned gambler. The scales of power are laden with guilt, cleansed by a moral cause, and replenished by a lucrative book deal upon retirement. And on it goes. But I am too tired for this. I’ve had enough.”

She stood up and looked around the room with cold detachment. “I will go to my room now,” she said, impassively.

“It’s…it’s a miracle you’re alive…to have gotten here…to be able to tell your story,” I said, part of me not wanting her to leave, secretly hoping she might feel inclined to go into more detail on her harrowing ordeal.

“Where? Here? It’s The End of the World – we all get here eventually.”

“Be as modest as you like, I think you’re…I’m in awe.”

“You’re in shock. You have no idea, do you? You are like a canvass half started – the rudiments are there but it will remain forever incomplete.”

She eyed me up and down for a while and then said something that even under these circumstances I still found the ability to be shocked by.

“And yet I find you unconventionally attractive,” she said, toying with one of her greasy tresses. “Perhaps you want to have sex with me?”

I was completely taken aback. “Oh, I-I…um…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I…I…”

“What? You don’t have the stomach for it?”

“No, no, I-I-I just…”

“Forget it. It wasn’t important. I don’t care for the sex anyway – just the connection, you understand.”

As she began to cross towards the door, I felt relieved but also acutely embarrassed at the same time. I mumbled a stuttering apology.

“I’m sorry, it’s not that I’m…or that you’re…I mean, you’re very…”

She stopped and turned back, wearing something that vaguely resembled a look of irony on her face.

“Little boy, when I was 6-years old I was raped by my uncle. When I was all grown up I was raped by seven drunken Serbs at gunpoint, then with a gunpoint, then later with an empty vodka bottle – so don’t try to spare my feelings…they’re long gone.”

She contorted her face into a kind of half-smile.

“Another time, perhaps?” she said, wearily.

Before she’d completely disappeared out of the door, I suddenly leapt from my chair and called out to her, realising something very important.

“Wait! You…I don’t even know your name.”

She looked back, dismissively. “Names? What good are names? We all have the same one eventually.”

“Yes, but…but even so.”

“Very well,” she shrugged, just before taking her leave. “If it makes such a difference to you. My name is Luka – I live on the second floor.”

Why did that ring a bell? Had I met her before? It seemed unlikely given the limited contact with the outside world my parents had permitted me. Nevertheless, it was all beginning to feel like a bad dream with no alarm clock to draw it to a halt. I considered going back to sleep and trying to wake up again, but the thought of that mattress quickly undermined what little motivation I had for the idea. I concluded that food depravation must surely be the root cause of my mental disorientation. I decided to raid the refrigerator.

CHAPTER FIVE

Hank

I
t was a very old, decrepit-looking refrigerator, which was not surprising considering the general dowdiness and lack of upkeep that Mrs. Anna seemed to have adopted as her signature style. It was also extraordinarily large, at least four times as big as the one my parents owned. Having a small refrigerator was never an issue for us, however, as my mother rarely cooked – which was a blessing, as her occasional attempts at Boeuf Bourguignon or Chicken Kiev usually ended up with billowing plumes of acrid smelling smoke filling the house, stinking it up for days afterwards. Most of the time she’d have food delivered, though would never answer the door herself as she considered all delivery men to be potential rapists. It was always left to me when the doorbell rang. “Valentine,” she’d cry out, “The PR’s here.”

This monster, however, was big enough to feed an army. It was cream-coloured and looked as though it had been manufactured sometime during the 1950s. It probably seemed quite futuristic at the time, with its long, tapered chrome handle that looked like something from the Jetson’s spaceship.

I’d decided to wait just a little longer in case Mrs. Anna, in spite of her stern insistence on punctuality, was simply running late. After a while, though, I determined that enough was enough, and if breakfast wasn’t going to be served to me, I’d serve breakfast to myself. After all, it’s the most important meal of the day. I grabbed hold of the huge chrome door handle and after some considerable effort managed to tug it open. I was immediately hit by a blinding flood of brilliant white light, so much so that I was forced to stagger back and shield my eyes. As I peered back at the refrigerator through my fingers, still squinting as my eyes tried to adjust to the brightness, I noticed the figure of a man stepping out from inside it. He was tall, stout, with an enormous pot belly, and wore a large Stetson hat on top of his large bulbous head. He seemed very happy to see me, his hand outstretched to shake mine, with a huge smile on his face that revealed two rows of dazzlingly bright teeth that were almost as blinding as the light behind him.

“Hi there! Raith’s the name – Hank Raith. Pleased to make your acquaintance, young man. And let me just say that you opened that door at the exact right time, ‘cause boy oh boy do I have an important message for you,” he announced, with a vigorous shake of my hand.

His affable enthusiasm aside, I felt decidedly off-put by the manner in which he’d come to light, as it were. Had he been hiding in there? And why in a refrigerator of all places?

“You…you do? I cagily replied.

“Do I ever,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders in a fatherly or perhaps brotherly-like way. “I know, I know – I know just what you’re thinkin’. What in the name of the Lord is goin’ on? What the heck is he doin’ in there? Right? Am I right? Tell me I’m right.”

“Well, yes, but–”

“I knew it. I knew I knew it. You’re confused, aren’t ya? Ya see, the thing is we’re all confused. Don’t always want to admit it, but it’s the truth just the same. It’s a confusin’ world and none of us quite know what to make of it. Am I right? Do ya see what I’m sayin’?”

“Um…yes, I think so, but–”

“We’re all lookin’ for somethin’. We don’t quite know what – but we’re lookin’ for it just the same. And we look and we look and we keep on lookin’, ‘til eventually we start to gettin’ disheartened ‘cause it just ain’t showin’ up. Am I right? Now if I’m not right you gotta step right up and tell me, but I’ve a feelin’ I am right. Are ya with me? Are we on the same page here, you and me?

“Well…yes, I suppose so.”

“And then one fine day – one glorious fine day – you do somethin’ as simple as openin’ up your refrigerator door and lo and behold! You find the very thing you’d been lookin’ for – right when you least expected. Now tell me – am I right or am I right?”

“Yes, quite possibly, but actually I was…well, I was simply looking for something to eat, that’s all.”

He suddenly became even more ebullient than before. “Food? You was lookin’ for food? In there? There ain’t no food here, boy. I gotta tell ya, if you came here lookin’ for food you came to the wrong place. There ain’t no food here and if you’re expectin’ some to come by here anytime soon then you’d do good to sit yourself down and make yourself mighty comfortable. Yes sir, indeed, mighty comfortable.”

“But it’s a refrigerator,” I said, bluntly.

“It’s a machine, is all. It ain’t gonna solve no problems – yours nor the world’s.”

“Perhaps not, but I really feel I should eat.”

“You don’t need no machine to eat, little buddy. You only need one thing to eat – and you know what that is, don’t ya?”

“Yes, food.”

“Money,” he replied, with a wink.

“Well, yes…money to buy food. But I’ve paid my room and board.”

“No, no, no, it’s not that simple.”

“It isn’t?”

“Not even close – not for a thinkin’ man. Not unless you wanna end up like some bum eatin’ outta garbage cans. No, you need money! It’s the only flavour I know that feeds the heart, mind and soul all at the same time.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but it’s actually my stomach that needs food more than anything else.”

“Of course it is – of course it does, but…”

Hank stopped and looked suspiciously around the room as if we might be being spied upon. “Okay, I’m gonna let you into a little secret here. Come here…come sit here – by me.”

He led me over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for me. As he did so I noticed the grotesquely ugly ring on the little finger of his left hand. It was made of yellow gold and was shaped in the form of a serpent that coiled around his finger, with a large red jewel placed in the center of the serpent’s hissing, outstretched mouth, the teeth of which held the stone in place. He leaned in closer and spoke in hushed tones.

“Now, I’m gonna let you in on a little insider information. Just ‘cause I like ya. Just between you and me though, okay? You gotta promise me, ya hear?”

“Yes, I…I hear.”

“Now then, there…well, there may have been a little food in that there refrigerator when I first come across it, but I ate it all up, see? I mean I had to. Now come on, if ya had a belly like mine…” He slapped his enormous belly as if it were a good friend. “You got no choice, right? Ha, ha! It’s a beast, my friend, a hungry beast. And I found it so I ate it. Finders keepers. It’s the law of the jungle. But…and this is important…”

He placed a finger to his lips in a cautionary manner and stared at me. I then realised a response of some type was expected, presumably of agreement.

“All right,” I whispered, conspiratorially.

“See, I think there could be some more food in there somewhere. Still speculation at this point, but I’m willing to put money on it.”

“Oh, that’s good – that’s very good. I’d…I would very much like some if you’re willing to share,” I said eagerly, my hunger pangs becoming ever sharper.

“I sure would, but here’s the catch…well, not a
catch
, as such, more of a…an issue at hand. The finding of it’s gonna take money and I am currently – due to circumstances beyond my control that I’m legally bound not to discuss on the advice of my lawyers – flat broke.”

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am. But all is not lost. How much money do you have?”

“Me? Not much, I’m afraid.”

“How much?”

“Well…next to nothing really. I need to find a job.”

“I’ll take it.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said, unsure if he’d fully understood the nature of my circumstances.