Tomas (9 page)

The scientist is happy to help Tereza because as well as being a scientist, he's also a man, and as we've seen, Tereza has a certain influence over men. The operation of the scientist's ‘box' requires only a brief explanation. Tereza carries it away, along with various electrodes, cables and plug-in things.

She stands before Hank with the ‘box'.

‘This is a “box”,' Tereza announces.

Hank's rapture is now stronger than a hurricane. He looks at the ‘box' with wonder, like a child lost in a forest who stumbles upon a house made of chocolate with a Cola pond.

‘And this is how it works,' Tereza continues. ‘As you can see, there are three screens. The first is red: when illuminated, it shows the word “lie”. The middle is orange; it displays “cliché”. Finally, green. If this flashes you'll see the word “truth”.'

Cables, colours, screens, machines, Hank thinks. A jungle of suggestive possibilities.

‘I'm attaching an electrode to your head,' continues Tereza. ‘This monitors your brain and classifies your answers lie, cliché or true. For a lie, the “box” lowers you six inches. For a cliché, three inches. For the truth, nothing. The “box” sends a signal to the hoist here and it makes the adjustments.'

Tereza takes a cable attached to the side of the ‘box' and plugs it into a socket in the motorised builder's hoist.

‘At every lie or cliché, a klaxon sounds,' Tereza adds.

‘A game?' Hank asks, a note of caution creeping into his voice.

‘Yes, a game,' Tereza replies. ‘But not for two players. I've invited some of your friends – or should I say family? – to join us.'

Tereza presses the ‘open' button on the control operating the roller shutter that separates the studio from the garage.

There's a thunderous roar like a sudden surge of water,
then a cacophony of oinking, snorting and squealing as a dozen famished would-be aviators stampede into the studio. Their snouts swivel like homing torpedoes to the smell they detect emanating from Hank's genitals.

Hank screams the scream of a man falling from a mountain face to certain death. Spittle flecks his mouth. His chest palpitates out of control. He writhes like a lunatic in a straitjacket, which is now what he is.

‘For the love of God, Tereza!' he shrieks. And Shit TV's audience spikes to a new high.

Birds and a body
…

The invisible voice can't understand all this fuss about death. This may be because he was never alive. But this, he feels, is beside the point. After Tomas is shot, the doctor checks his pulse. If it's obvious to everyone that he's dead, the invisible voice thinks, why bother?

The buzzard and the vulture flap over to the corpse to perform their grisly duties. The bobbing of their necks disguises their surreptitious sniffs at the cadaver. The initial verdict isn't good. Tomas had been scrupulous in his preparations. Dying clean may have eased Tomas's passage but it does nothing for the appetite of his undertakers. They like their flesh ripe. They'll have to wait.

The firing squad shuffles out of the courtyard, duty discharged. After all the preparation, conscience searching and drama of the moment, that's it. One shot in the morning air and then off to lunch and polishing their boots.

Judge Reynard thanks the squad, fixing each with a stare, and then, head down, departs the set of Shit TV's latest show.

The crowd outside greets the hearse bearing Tomas's corpse with wolf whistles and shouts. They bang angrily on its side shouting insults. Again, the invisible voice is surprised. What do the crowd hope to achieve by this behaviour? For Tomas to hear them and feel contrite? It seems to the invisible voice that the crowd wishes to break open the hearse and desecrate the corpse. Why is it that vengeful crowds in history behave in this way? After someone has died, is it necessary to kill them again?

The buzzard and the vulture pull the zip tight on Tomas's bodybag. The sun is full in the sky, the heat shimmering off the ground. The windows of the hearse are shut against would-be avengers and even in the early-twenty-first century the corpse of an executed criminal isn't provided with air conditioning. All in all, these are perfect conditions for meat to tenderise.

The hearse arrives at the mortuary and the birds trolley the corpse to a room of rest enthusiastically.

The invisible voice notes that no arrangements have been made for the corpse's interment. Judge Reynard, an impeccable overseer of every detail, seems to have neglected this one. Given that the point of funerals is to comfort the living rather than remember the dead, why should Tomas get one? Funerals only happen when people are sad.

All this is good news for the undertakers. They close the door with a satisfying click. This induces an uncontrollable bout of neck bobbing. They clash beaks and
heads in their excitement, but they're oblivious to the pain. In a frenzy, they begin a kind of dance, flapping their scrawny wings and jumping up and down on the spot. Tomas, the provider of lethal morality lessons, is laid out in a room of peace, excoriated by two out-of-control carrion eaters.

The vulture eventually calms down and pulls a bundle wrapped in cloth from underneath the trolley. His wings sag under its weight and the buzzard flaps over to help. They lay the bundle down on the table and pull the cord which binds it. The cloth unravels and the buzzard's eyes bulge at the array of saws, knives, hatchets and other jagged-edged things. This is a surgeon's kit from a bygone age. But the buzzard and vulture don't have a medical use in mind.

A fight ensues, as it always does with these birds, over a particularly vicious-looking saw. It resembles a permanently smiling shark and probably has its bite as well. After a scuffle, a compromise is reached. The vulture has the saw, the buzzard a machete which would make a Gurkha proud.

The invisible voice watches these proceedings with rising alarm. Of all his observations today, the one that is causing him the greatest concern is that Tomas isn't dead. But he soon will be.

Drowned in a Russian soup
…

We dream in life. Well, why can't we dream in death?

In his death dream, Tomas is walking along a seaside promenade on a fine summer's day when a black limousine
screams to a halt next to him on the curb. Four burly Russians get out. They are bald, unshaven, with hands like joints of ham. They wear sunglasses and shout loud Russian words to frighten Tomas and encourage each other. He is dragged into the back of the limousine, which makes a screeching U-turn and barrels out of the city.

Eventually they stop in a wooded area some distance behind the city. Tomas is roughly manhandled out of the car. Before him is a large pit, about a mile in diameter and fifty feet deep, which has been dug in a forest clearing. Tomas is thrown into the pit, tethered to a post on its outer rim like an animal.

From his captive position, Tomas sees an enormous metal rod in the middle of the pit. It rises about a hundred feet into the air. Welded on to its surface is a series of bulky hoops from which massive chains run off into the pit. Looking up from his post, Tomas also sees a large concrete structure, which he guesses to be some sort of power station.

Dozens of figures and objects now emerge from the forest and the pit becomes a beehive of activity. This is directed, it seems, by a fat earmuff-wearing Russian with what looks like a detachable stomach, who is standing on the pit's far side. It is Boss Olgarv.

Tomas watches as the figures and objects, all of which appear to be the fat Russian's possessions, are attached to the chains. The larger objects include a seaside villa, a helicopter, a jet and a yacht. Smaller objects fixed to the ends of the chains include a bottle of champagne, a sachet of cocaine, a plasma TV, a jacuzzi and a cigar humidor.

Tomas then sees various figures herded into the pit. A blonde trolleying her breasts in front of her, presumably the fat Russian's wife, is attached to a chain. Next to her are tethered half a dozen prostitutes. Beside them is a football team, alongside them some hitmen. Tomas guesses these unfortunates to be the fat Russian's human possessions.

A whistle sounds, there's a humming noise and the ground begins to vibrate. The power station has been activated and energy is surging through a subterranean cable connected to the metal rod.

Slowly, with a groan, it begins to rotate. The massive metal chains holding the people and objects become taut. At first, nothing happens. But as the power surges, the villa, jet and yacht begin to inch along the ground, dragged by the metal chains.

The humans begin a slow walk but the pace soon quickens to a jog as the power is increased and the rod rotates at a faster speed. Within minutes only the football players, who are fit, keep pace with the rotating chains. Eventually even their stamina fails and all the humans and objects are flying around the whirling rod with an incredible velocity.

The fat Russian gives a signal and the power is set to maximum. Tomas covers his ears. The humming is now a single screeching high-pitched note. It's no longer possible to discern champagne bottle, helicopter, prostitute, wife or yacht. It's all just a whirling blur.

Tomas looks down at his feet and notices a yellow liquid collecting in the pit. Within minutes it's up to his waist. For reasons he can't understand, the swirling rod is turning the fat Russian's possessions into a yellow soup. But his incomprehension doesn't matter, because very soon he'll be drowned.

The soup rises to his neck, then his mouth. Tomas shuts it against the liquid and tilts his head back, raising his mouth and nose to give himself precious extra breathing time. He uncovers his ears to free his hands in his struggle against the soup. Instantly his eardrums perforate. Blood trickles down his face and splashes red in the yellow liquid. The rod is now spinning at a speed beyond sound. Tomas screams, feeling his head about to explode. And just as the soup reaches his nose, a cold shock hits his face.

Hank 1: Torture, truffles and truth
…

If only it were possible to scream your way out of trouble. Despite a bellicose performance, Hank remains suspended naked in a harness, four feet up in the air.

Tereza has calculated, with the help of the pig farmer, that the maximum jump of a ravenous truffle-mad pig is three feet. Just twelve inches separate Hank from an irreversible sex change followed by an excruciating death.

Although Tereza is the architect of Hank's predicament she remains courteous and reminds him of the rules.

‘Just remember,' she says. ‘It's six inches for a lie, three for a cliché and nothing for the truth. There are six questions in all.'

This information, although edifying for Hank, is of no interest to the demented pigs, who continue their leaps
unaffected by considerations of truth, cliché or lie. They slather and snarl and attempt to frustrate each other's jumps with nasty bites and butts.

A third party witnessing this scene – the invisible voice? – might speculate whether Hank wants to be put out of his misery. But no death wish can be considered let alone granted, because Tereza hasn't yet had her game.

‘The first question is why did you become a banker?'

Hank catches his breath. ‘Money,' he gasps. ‘It's an obsession. We see magazine covers – CEOs and billionaires – and we want to be like them. To be a banker. It's about status and wealth. There's no thought beyond that.'

The green light displays. A good start.

‘And why do you want money?' Tereza asks.

‘For security for me and my family. Money gives you freedom and …'

The klaxon gives a resounding blast and jolts Hank down nine inches. The lie and cliché screens flash red and orange. The pigs sense that their truffle is at last on the move and redouble their efforts. Tereza stands by impassively.

Hank gives an insane shriek. Just three inches to go. ‘OK!' he screams. ‘There's no fucking plan, no big idea. It's just about money. We're crazed by it. Our bonuses at Christmas. We just want it – holidays, second homes, first-class flights, stuff. To show off. To have. It's that simple. No charities. No higher calling driving us on. Just stuffing our mouths.'

Hank controls his breathing. He's close to hyperventilating.