“Misunderstanding? No, I don’t believe it is. You are a fraud. My brother of my wife has made inquiries into your circulation and it appears that you do not sell as widely as you say. You are lying to people in Europe and making promises. My brother was going to report you. And now I will do the same.”
Nik stabs the button again and pulls the receiver out of my hand.
“Hello. Yes. This is Nikolas Jarolmek. Can I help you with something?”
Saul looks at me quizzically, nodding his head at Nik, fishing lazily about in the debris on my desk. He has had his hair cut very short, almost shaved to the skull.
Suddenly Nik is shouting, a clatter of a language I do not understand. Cursing, sweating, chopping the air with his small stubby hands. He spits insults into the phone, parries Klemke’s threats with raging animosities, hangs up with a bang.
“You stupid fucking arsehole!”
He turns on me, shouting, his arms spread like push-ups on the desk.
“What were you doing keeping that fucker on the phone? You could get me in jail. You stupid fucking… cunt!”
Cunt sounds like a word he has just learned in the playground.
“What, for fuck’s sake? What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“What were you…you stupid. Fucking hell, I should pay my dog to sit there. My fucking dog would do a better job than you.”
I am too ashamed to look at Saul.
“Nik, I’m sorry, but-”
“Sorry? Oh, well then, that’s all right…”
“No, sorry, but-”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry.”
“Look!”
This from Saul. He is on his feet. He’s going to say something. Oh, Jesus.
“He’s not saying he’s sorry. If you’d just listen, he’s not saying he’s sorry. It’s not his fault if some wanker in Warsaw catches on to what you’re up to and starts giving him an earful! Why don’t you calm down, for Christ’s sake?”
“Who the fuck are you?” says Nik. He really likes this guy.
“I’m a friend of Alec’s. Take it easy.”
“And he can’t take care of himself? You can’t take care of yourself now, Alec, eh?”
“Of course he can take care of himself…”
“Nik, I can take care of myself. Saul, it’s all right. We’ll go and get a coffee. I’ll just get out of here for a while.”
“For more than a while,” says Nik. “Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you. You come back tomorrow. This is enough for one day.”
“Jesus, what a cunt.”
Now Saul is someone who really knows the time and place for effective use of the word cunt. I feel like asking him to say it again.
“I can’t believe you work for that guy.”
We are standing on either side of a table football game in a cafe on Edgware Road. I take a worn white ball from the trough below my waist and feed it through the hole onto the table. Saul traps the ball with the still black feet of his plastic man before gunning it down the table into my goal.
“The object of the game is to stop that kind of thing from happening.”
“It’s my goalkeeper.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He has personal problems.”
Saul gives a wheezy laugh, lifts his cigarette from a Coca-Cola ashtray, and takes a drag.
“What language was it that Nik was speaking?”
“Czech. Slovak. One of the two.”
“Play, play.”
The ball thunders and slaps on the rocking table.
“Better than Nintendo, eh?”
“Yes, Grandpa,” says Saul, scoring.
“Shit.”
He slides another red counter along the abacus. Five-nil.
“Don’t be afraid to compete, Alec. Carpe diem.”
I attempt a deft sideways shunt of the ball in midfield, but it skewers away at an angle. Coming back down the table, Saul saying, “Now that is skill,” it rolls loose in front of my center half. I grip the clammy handle with rigid fingers and whip it so that the neat row of figures rotates in a propeller blur. Saul’s hand flies to the right and his goalkeeper saves the incoming ball.
“That’s illegal,” he says. The shorter haircut suits him.
“I’m competing.”
“Oh, right.”
Six-nil.
“How did that happen?”
“Because you’re very bad at this game. Listen, I’m sorry if I interfered back there…”
“No.”
“What?”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I mean it. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“I probably shouldn’t have stuck my foot in.”
“No, you probably shouldn’t have stuck your foot in. But that’s how you are. I’d rather you spoke your mind and stood up for your friends than bit your tongue for the sake of decorum. I understand. You don’t have to explain. I don’t care about the job, so it’s okay.”
“Okay.”
We tuck the subject away like a letter.
“So what are you doing up here?”
“I just thought I’d come up and see you. I’ve been busy with work, haven’t seen you for a week or so. You free tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“We can go back to mine and eat.”
“Good.”
Saul is the only person in whom I have considered confiding, but now that we are face-to-face it does not seem necessary to tell him about SIS. My reluctance has nothing to do with official secrecy: if I asked him to, Saul would keep his mouth shut for thirty years. Trust is not an element in the decision.
There has always been something quietly competitive about our friendship-a rivalry of intellects, a need to kiss the prettier girl. Adolescent stuff. Nowadays, with school just a vague memory, this competitiveness manifests in an unspoken system of checks and balances on each other’s lives: who earns more money, who drives the faster car, who has laid the more promising path into the future. This rivalry, which is never articulated but constantly acknowledged by both of us, is what prevents me from talking to Saul about what is now the most important and significant aspect of my life. I cannot confide in him when the indignity of rejection by SIS is still possible. It is, perversely, more important to me to save face with him than to seek his advice and guidance.
I take out the last ball.
We eat stir-fry chicken side by side off a low table in the larger of the two sitting rooms in Saul’s flat, hunched forward on the sofa, sweating under the chili.
