Tender is the Flesh(42)

“But nothing. I’ll bring you the urn when I want to and you’ll have the farewell service when it’s good for me. Is that clear?”

“Look, I understand that you’re having a hard time, but you could talk to me in another to—”

He hangs up.





14




It’s late when he gets home and he’s tired. Jasmine is asleep. He knows because he’s been monitoring her all day on his phone.

He doesn’t open the door to her room.

Instead, he goes to the kitchen and gets a bottle of whisky. He lies down in the hammock and takes a swig. There are no stars in the sky. The night is pitch black. He doesn’t see any fireflies either. It’s as if the whole world has been turned off and gone silent.

He wakes with the sun, its light hitting him in the face. Off to the side, he sees the empty bottle lying on the ground. It’s only when he moves and the hammock swings a little that he understands where he is.

He stumbles out of the hammock and sits down in the grass, the morning sun on his body. His head throbs between his hands. He lies on his back and looks up at the sky. It’s an incandescent blue. There are no clouds and he feels that if he stretches out his arms, he’ll be able to touch the blue, it seems so close.

His dream is still with him, he remembers it perfectly, but he doesn’t want to think, only to lose himself in the radiant blue.

Then he lowers his arms, closes his eyes and lets the images and feelings of the dream project in his mind like a movie.

He’s in the aviary. It’s before the Transition, he knows because nothing has been broken yet. He’s standing on the hanging bridge but there’s no glass above to protect him. He looks up at the roof and sees the image of the man flying in the stained glass. The man looks at him and he lowers his eyes, not because he’s surprised that the image is alive, but because he hears the deafening sound of millions of wings flapping. Only there are no birds. The aviary is empty. He looks at the man again, at Icarus, who’s no longer in the stained glass. Icarus has fallen, he thinks, he’s come crashing down, but he’s flown. Then he looks around, and in the air on both sides of the bridge, he sees hummingbirds, ravens, robins, goldfinches, eagles, blackbirds, nightingales, bats. There are also butterflies. But they’re all static. It’s as though they were vitrified, like Urlet’s words. As though they were inside a block of transparent amber. He feels the air becoming lighter, but the birds don’t move. They all watch him, their wings open. The birds are very close, but he sees them in the distance, occupying all the space, all the air he breathes. He goes up to a hummingbird and touches it. The bird falls to the floor and shatters as though it were made of crystal. He goes up to a butterfly, its wings a light, almost phosphorescent blue. The wings tremble, vibrate, but the butterfly is still. He picks it up with both his hands, takes great care not to cause it harm. The butterfly turns to dust. He goes up to a nightingale, is about to touch it, but doesn’t, his finger hovering right next to the bird because he thinks it’s just beautiful and doesn’t want to destroy it. The nightingale moves, flaps its wings a little and opens its beak. It doesn’t sing, but lets out a cry. Its cries become piercing and desperate. They’re full of hatred. He takes off, runs, flees. He leaves the aviary and finds the zoo in darkness. But he can make out the shapes of men. He realizes that the men are him, repeated infinitely. All of them have their mouths open and are naked. Though he knows they’re saying something, the silence is complete. He goes up to one of the men and shakes him. He needs the man to speak, to move. The man—himself—walks so slowly it’s exasperating. As he does, he goes about killing the rest of them. He doesn’t hit them with a club, or strangle them, or stab them. The only thing he does is speak to them, and one by one, each man—himself—falls to the ground. Then one man—himself—comes over and hugs him. This man hugs him so tightly that he can’t breathe and he struggles until he breaks free. But the man—himself—tries again, and comes over to say something into his ear. He runs away because he doesn’t want to die. While he’s running, he feels the stone in his chest roll around and it strikes his heart. The zoo becomes a forest. Hanging from the trees are eyes, hands, human ears and babies. He climbs one of the trees to get a baby, but when he reaches it and has it in his arms, the baby disappears. He climbs another tree and that baby turns into black smoke. He climbs another tree and the ears stick to his body. When he tries to pick them off, as though they were leeches, they rip up his skin. When he reaches the baby, he sees it’s covered in human ears and is no longer breathing. Then he roars, howls, croaks, bellows, barks, meows, crows, whinnies, brays, caws, moos, cries.

When he opens his eyes, all he sees is the dazzling blue. It’s then that he really does scream.





15




He needs to get going. But first he brings Jasmine food and water. As soon as he opens the door, she gives him a big hug. It’s been a while since he left her alone for so many hours. He gives her a quick kiss, sits her down on the mattresses carefully and locks the door.

Today he has to go the Valka Laboratory. But before he starts the car, he dials Krieg’s number.

“Hi, Marcos. Mari told me. I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to go to the laboratory. I can tell them you’ll stop by at a later date.”