Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi [best life changing books TXT] 📗

brushed, tapped, then flicked the mongoose’s back. Papier-mâché and synthetic fibres, united so tenuously that one touch damaged them. Hence the cages. Ha! I only had a moment to take that in before I heard Xavier’s voice in the crowd behind me, but looking back I feel like that was the moment I broke faith with Árpád, with all the Árpáds who lived and died alongside the Montagues. When I looked at a not particularly well-made figurine and mistook it for Árpád and Chela. There’s just no excuse for it.

I moved in Xavier’s direction, listening to what he was telling the stallholders. He was clearing the premises, directing everybody in the carriage out onto the platform, answering questions and complaints alike with: “Sorry … I’m so sorry about this … We need everybody off the train … yes, maintenance team, too … Sorry …”

He told the stallholders Ms. Kapoor had asked him to assure them they’d get all their items back in good condition. She’d purchase any damaged items. Yes, any. She guaranteed it.

I found Xavier at the heart of the milling crowd and seized his hand.

“Awww, three cheers for the non-honeymoon honeymooners,” roared Dean from the scrying crystal stall.

The crowd obliged. Hurrah for love! And then the two of us (“Quick,” Xavier mumbled, “Quick, quick, quick—”) helped Paz relocate her water wheel to the stabling yard platform. At every stage she explained that really she was helping out, taking the wheel with her. There was no way our Ms. Kapoor could afford it.

Paz the Golden was the last stallholder to disembark. She waved at us with both hands, and I saw that the palm of her right hand, the one that had held the emeralds, was now She-Hulk green. She said something I didn’t catch, and couldn’t stay for, as Xavier had slammed the train door and was running ahead of me through the dormitory car, shouting that Yuri was here. Árpád and Chela had caught him and brought him to us.

By the time we reached the sauna car, Xavier was repeating himself on loop: Yuri’s here, Árpád and Chela caught him … and I was trying to ask: “Has Ava … Can Ava …?” but it was as if this news had broken both our vocabularies.

The third steam cubicle was occupied; we both saw that quite distinctly as we passed it. One after the other, we said, “Ava?”

She sighed but made no other reply, just let us go by without a word.

19.

I’d love to be able to describe Yuri for you, but I really never found out much. I never even heard his speaking voice clearly. Having compared notes with Xavier, this is what we’ve got for you. Height: Around five eleven. Hair: brown. Physique: the melted oblong of an out-of-shape wrestler. And there we hit the limit of our recollection. This was partly down to a toned-down version of the same processing problem I’d had with him before, when he’d come onboard in pajamas. But there’s also the fact that this time he was wearing a full-face diving mask. Every facial feature was pressed down under clear plastic and tempered glass, so that whole area looked like a template more than anything else. I should at least be able to describe his eyes, since I looked into them for quite a while. It was a highly enjoyable stare. Nuanced as fuck. Like the very best of arthouse cinema. However. What colour are Yuri’s eyes? Not a clue.

We had our stare, and then I asked him if he had any questions for me.

“None whatsoever,” he said. “You?”

I did. I looked around at Xavier, Laura, and Allegra, and I asked Yuri if he was going to kill us. This seemed to shock him. “What?” he said. “You’ve changed, Otto. You didn’t used to overdramatise situations this way.”

Was my question really that startling? The four of us were sitting with our backs to the train wall, our legs bound at the ankles, and our arms tied at the wrists. That was Yuri’s doing. Laura had a black eye, and Allegra’s nose was bloodied. Also Yuri’s doing.

Silly us for getting all worked up about these things. Yuri explained that he actually liked us. Some more than others, but he was about to put all four of us in danger anyway.

“Exciting times for this pair of nineteen eighties babies … oh hurray, hurray for your generation,” he said, kicking Xavier, then me, then Xavier, then me. “Rationing intimacy like it’s wartime butter. Tolay was single, you were single, you fancied each other, shared interests, Honza needed a lot of help believing in himself, you needed a lot of help believing in yourself—”

(Kick, kick)

“You two could have built Honza and Tolay up, you could’ve really had something beautiful with them, spread the nurture around a bit—”

(Kick, kick.)

“But noooooooo, you still felt like you could do better, didn’t you, Otto and Xavier?”

(Kick, kick, plus a nimble zigzag between our legs as we rolled around, trying to trip him up.)

“And have you? Have you done better? With each other?”

(Kick. Seeing that Yuri had completely succumbed to his own mask-muffled diatribe and really wasn’t going to give it a rest with the kicking, the fight went out of me. I had another go at fainting.)

“Does this meet your high standards?”

(Kick, kick. I still hadn’t managed to faint. So I very clearly remember Xavier shouting that he was going to tell on Yuri to Do Yeon-ssi.*)

Hang on.

I should go back a bit, to when Xavier and I ran into the carriage near the front of the train. The one Ava shared with Allegra and Laura.

Slowing it down for you, my observations in order: Allegra and Laura had been drinking tea at the kitchen table; they stood up when we came in. Pages from our collective file on Přemysl Stojaspal littered the tabletop, along with a number of highlighter pens. This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen on Xavier’s watch, and I said as much.