The Grasshopper (24 page)

“Did you find your wallet, buster?!
That’s what I’m asking you! Tell me that!” his wife interrupted
him.

With a short and lightning-fast
blow of the fist Lolo hit his wife in the chin, turned around and
ran down the street.

“Damn, now that’s a direct punch!”
shouted Bruce, while Lolo’s wife was going down next to him. Bruce
knelt next to her and started counting: “One… two…” But it didn’t
seem that the missus would be getting up and continuing the fight.
“Ten!” shouted Bruce, and got up – glowing. “Classic
knockout!”

“That’s the beauty of boxing,
Bruce,” thought Lolo while running down the street. “You count to
ten and you know exactly whether it was a knockout or not. And not
like this: you persistently count the months, years, decades… and
it still isn’t clear to you that you were knocked out long
ago.”

“How could they disappear so
quickly?” Lolo was taken aback when he reached the Legends café,
which the Company sector for catering opened at the sport center
nearby, following a written request by the former
boxers.

“People! People! They saved my
life!” Lolo shouted while bursting into Legends. “And they
disappeared! They disappeared!”

“Who did, Lolo?”

“How did they save your
life?”

“What are you saying, Lolo?” his
friends jumped to their feet.

“Oscar, can I stay with you? For a
few days, until I find a place?” Lolo asked.

That is how the legend of the Saint
and his Dog was born, in the namesake café.

Chapter 87

“Sir,” said Manami, sitting after
dinner next to Peter at the dining table and holding Eir in her
lap.

“Your forehead is high…” Pascal
tried to rationalize her beauty, while sitting across from them. To
fit it into certain standards, molds. “…oval. You have strong
cheekbones. And then it gets narrower towards your cute
chin.”

“We have to discuss how we will
function in the shelter. You will put your clothes in the machine.
I will turn it on and wash them,” Manami continued.

“Your nose is flat and small. Your
upper lip is fuller. Its upper edge dips down in the middle. And
your lower lip is smaller. And thinner. Actually, your lips are the
shape of a small heart. Which I want to kiss so much. Do you know
that, love? Do you know that, darling?”

“I’ll dry it and iron it,” Manami
explained.

“Your eyes are unusually large… for
such… dark and slanted eyes. I like it when you let your hair down.
I also like it when you wear it up… but more like this…”

“Sir! You are not listening to me
at all!” Manami was cross.

“I’m listening, ma’am, I’m
listening,” Pascal answered

“Well then, will you take your
laundry to the machine?”

“I won’t,” Pascal answered
calmly.

“You always speak quietly, Manami.
And when you raise your voice, you also raise your
eyebrows.”

“What do you mean ‘you won’t’?”
Manami was surprised.

“And your eyebrows are not as round
as your forehead… They somehow look sharper. And now… now that I’ve
explained it all to you so nicely, explain to me, my love, why do I
find your face to be the most beautiful of all? Why do I love you
so much? Why is it that because of you I’ve become the world’s
greatest coward?”

“Sir…” said Manami, noticing how
Pascal was looking at her.

“I just won’t. I’ll take care of my
own laundry,” Pascal finally answered.

“Nonsense!” suddenly shouted Peter,
who was silent until then. “A man washing his own laundry?! I’ve
never heard of that! My father would never wash his own
laundry!”

“You’re right, Manami. You didn’t
decide that I would be a coward. I decided. It’s not your fault,
you’re not responsible for being, for existing” thought Pascal, and
then twitched and said

“Peter, your father is a different
story.”

“What do you mean ‘different’? You
are the president of Earth, Mr. Alexander! How can you wash your
own laundry?”

“Peter, we’re in…” Manami tried to
explain to her son. “In an unusual situation. Mr. Alexander might
be embarrassed. Perhaps dad would be… Do you
understand?”

“Dad? What does he care who washes
his clothes? He just wants everything to be clean and
ironed.”

“Sir,” Manami was getting
uncomfortable, “I rather not discuss this topic any further. You
will do as I said. This is the end of this discussion,” Manami
concluded with a firm voice.

“Alright, ma’am. As you wish,”
Pascal agreed.

Chapter 88

“Peter looks a lot like the Mayor,”
said Pascal.

“That’s what everyone tells me!”
shouted Peter proudly.

“Your hair is a bit darker,” Pascal
smiled. “And your face is narrower… and your chin is smaller, like
your mother’s.”

“They tell me that I’m exactly like
my dad! Eyes, and eyebrows… and everything!” ten-year-old Peter was
relentless.

“Yes you are… exactly like your
dad,” Pascal laughed.

“Both in appearance and in
character,” Manami smiled, brushing the hair from her son’s
forehead.

Peter pulled his head back. “Don’t,
mom!” he said.

He parted his hair on the right,
just like his father. But he grew it longer. So that it fell over
his forehead, all the way to the left eyebrow. That was the
hairstyle that boys at school wore.

“And Eir…” Pascal said, while
gazing at the two-year-old girl, who was playing with a doll on the
table, while sitting in her mother’s lap. “Eir is just like her
mother.”

“That’s normal. She’s a girl,” said
Peter. “Elevator! Dad!” he shouted, hearing the elevator doors
open. He jumped out of the chair and ran to the shelter
door.

Seneca appeared a few moments
later. He silently nodded to Manami and Pascal, who had gotten up
to greet him. He stroked his son head

“Peter, take your sister and go to
your quarters. Play with her. I have to talk to mom and Mr.
Alexander.”

“Alright, dad. Come, Eir,” said
Peter, lifting his sister from their mother’s lap.

“What’s happened, Julius?” Manami
asked frightened, when Peter and Eir had left, looking at her
husband’s tense face.

“Erivan has killed more than three
hundred people. The heads of the Company, Inspectorate… the heads
of Kaella’s state.”

“Awful!” Manami cried out. “Did he
also…”

“Yes, Manami. Both of
them.”

Manami screamed. Seneca hugged her
and held her to his chest. Pascal turned around and went to his
room.

Chapter 89

“Alexander,” Seneca knocked on
Pascal’s door.

After a few moments Pascal entered
the living room.

“Yes, Mr. Mayor?”

“Please sit with my wife,” said
Seneca. “The children are asleep and I have to go… so that she’s
not alone.”

Pascal locked the door to the
shelter and sat on the couch, next to Manami. She was sitting with
her hands in her lap, shoulders slumped and head hung low. She was
crying. Pascal wrestled with himself not to hug her. He finally
wiped a tear with one finger.

“Who are the Levis? The mayor of
Capital City?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. Our best friends,” Manami
answered. “He was like an older brother to Julius. He was the one
who recommended Julius, who wasn’t even thirty at the time, to
Prince Kaella for the mayor of Megapolis. And Sophia… what a woman.
What a lady… Noah is upstairs… with Julius, in his
office.”

“Noah?” Pascal asked.

“Their only son. They wanted him to
study here, in Megapolis."

“A student?”

“No. He’s with the Inspectorate
now. He already holds a high rank. An extraordinary young man… What
is he feeling now? He doesn’t have anyone anymore… Julius won’t let
him leave his side… so that Noah doesn’t do anything to himself. So
that he doesn’t go to Capital City… Awful… only now do I understand
what you must have felt when we told you… when I told you about
your friends. Only now…” Manami looked at Pascal. “You know what,
sir?” she raised her voice. “I will tell my husband that it isn’t
enough that he has switched off all the media and communication in
the shelter. When he brings such news, we can’t do anything to
change that… I cannot pretend in front of the children… when this…
hurts so much… I will tell my husband not to tell us anything
anymore. And I forbid you to ask him anything. Not in front of
me.”

“I will not ask the mayor anything,
ma’am. Nothing at all,” Pascal said.

“You have to know what is going on.
So that you are prepared when the moment comes for you to take the
presidential office.”

“Presidential office? Ma’am, you
don’t still believe in that?”

“Of course I believe. That’s the
only thing…” Manami paused. “Sir…”

“Yes?”

“May I…? Just for a bit… a few
moments… rest my head on your shoulder?”

Chapter 90

For hours the Grasshopper did not
answer Erivan’s persistent calls. In the meantime he had moved the
four bodies to the amphitheatre and cleaned up the operations room.
He finally called Erivan.

“Grasshopper! You’re alive!” Erivan
shouted. “I’ve been beside myself since you crashed like that. And
the connection died.”

“Forgive me, Mr. President,” said
the Grasshopper, with a stronger voice. “It wasn’t intentional. I
passed out.”

“I know, I know. Are you alright
now? I mean, you can’t be alright. But are you better? Or will you
pass out again?”

“I won’t anymore. At least I think
I won’t. The wound hurts and I have a slight fever. But nothing
much. I’ll take an antibiotic, rest for a few days and I’ll be as
good as new.”

“Alright, alright. You rest as much
as you need. This first phase of the war is working for me. Do you
know how interesting it is to look at maps with the generals. Then
we discuss which city to attack. It was awesome! And Consumers need
to perish some more. So that they get fired up even more. You just
recover calmly. No hurry. But pick up the line as soon as I call
you.”

“Of course I will, Mr.
President.”

“Alright, go lie down now… wait,
stop,” it dawned on Erivan. “You didn’t tell me what happened over
there. Why did your men attack you? And how did you kill the
Command crew so quickly?”

“Simply, Mr. President, I sent them
all to the amphitheatre…”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the largest space here. It’s
used for meetings, lectures…”

“Alright, and?”

“And their chiefs stayed with me in
this operations room, supposedly for me to explain to them the new
method of operation.”

“And?”

“My men killed the two of them
immediately. And I switched off the oxygen to those in the
amphitheatre.”

“Bravo! It’s like watching myself!
Why did your men attack you? What was it, they didn’t have the
stomach for it?”

“No, no. I told them back on the
ship that we would kill everyone here. That’s why I brought the
five most brutal men. But… that’s what surprised me so much. When
these five couldn’t take it…”

“What?”

“In the end I told them how it was.
What your orders were…”

“And they refused?! My orders?!
It’s good that you killed them!”

“I killed three in the hallway, and
then, wounded as I was, I burst into this operations room, and two
of them were on my tail. And I protected the command desk with my
body and shot…”

“That’s good, that’s good!” Erivan
shouted. “My generals are at the door. I can hear them already. I
have to go, Grasshopper.”

Chapter 91

Pascal chose a place at the table
for himself. The place from where his view of Manami in the kitchen
was least obstructed by the counter.

“That’s very interesting, ma’am,”
he said, while Manami was preparing lunch. “The fact that you wear
a kimono.”

“That is my family’s tradition,
sir. I observe it with great pleasure,” said Manami, turning
towards Pascal. “And this isn’t a kimono,” she smiled. “It is
obvious that you are not knowledgeable about this type of
clothing.”

“It isn’t?” Pascal was
surprised.

“This is a yukata. It is thinner
than a kimono. It was originally made of cotton soaked in indigo.
Today they are colorful, like this one.”

“Yours isn’t exactly colorful.
Neither are the other ones I’ve seen, which aren’t
blue.”

“It isn’t? Well it isn’t exactly
youthfully colorful, with flowers, etc. But you see that it has
geometric patterns on it.”