The Grasshopper (38 page)

“Well, that’s not right!” Manami
shouted and got up from his lap. “That’s very inappropriate,
Pascal, taking advantage of my moment of happiness! I’m angry! I’m
very angry! You won’t get even two minutes any more! Remember what
I said!” Manami shouted.

Pascal got up and tried to hug her.
Manami moved away and held her hands on his chest.

“Don’t you dare touch me again,
Pascal!”

“My love, why are you angry? You
know that I’d never do anything you didn’t want me to.”

“You wouldn’t? And what were you
doing just now?”

“Only what you wanted.”

“Well I don’t want it! Not now! I
made it clear to you! When I am…”

“What you want so much, my darling!
You’re very excited!”

“I’m not excited!” Manami pushed
him away.

Pascal stepped forward, towards
her.

“Actually I am! I never expected to
be able to fool such an expert!”

“Don’t start with that again. I
told you…”

“I’m excited! I am! Very much so!
Unbearable!” Manami was jumping up and down and stomping her feet
on the floor.

“And what do you propose, ma’am?
What should we do?” Pascal smiled at her.

“That’s only temporary bodily
excitement,” she tried to calm herself. “It just happened… this
situation. You’re so cheeky!” she shouted suddenly. “You created
it! You planned everything! That’s why you started telling me how
much you love my children. So that I would relax, be happy and
carefree, and for you to jump me and take advantage of me! We’ll
that’s not going to happen, sir! I’ve seen right through you! Your
tactic has failed, sir!”

“I didn’t plan it, my love, I
didn’t. I just wanted to ask you, to beg you to have our baby. I
was afraid that you wouldn’t want to. And now I’m so
overjoyed!”

“I am too. But it doesn’t
help.”

“I love you too much, Manami, to
allow you to be so excited, and…”

“I am a woman of flesh and blood,
Pascal!”

“Yes, you are, my love. The most
beautiful, most wonderful woman. A real woman!”

“Don’t say such nice things,
Pascal. I can’t take this anymore.”

“I love you so much, Manami! So
much! I won’t do anything if you don’t want me to. So you tell me,
how do we get out of this situation. This has to end somehow. You
have to be calm and satisfied, my joy,” Pascal said seriously,
watching upon his beloved being struggling with herself.

“I don’t know,” Manami whispered in
heat.

“Well, think about it. Because the
excitement will not just go away. On the contrary, it will only
grow.”

“I know.”

“Here, I’m selflessly offering to
help you,” Pascal smiled.

“I don’t doubt that. I want it, I
want…” Manami paused for a moment, then continue. “Here, this is
what we’ll do. We’ll go to your room now. And we’ll lock the door.
There will be four doors between us and the children. They won’t
hear us.”

“They won’t hear me for sure, and
on the other hand, I never thought that you were that loud, Manami,
that you need four doors to stifle your…”

“How dare you?!” Manami
shouted.

“…
sighs,” Pascal
finished his sentence.

“You can’t talk to me like that,
Pascal! I won’t let you!”

“You’ll let me, you’ll let me. And
you want me to. I’m just trying to enhance your excitement, my
love.”

“There’s no need to try. It can’t
get any greater. I’m going mad, Pascal!”

“Well, alright… so we lock
ourselves behind four doors, and what then?”

“Don’t fantasize too much, Pascal!”
said Manami, going toward the door to Pascal’s quarters. “You won’t
get anything out of it! When I tell Julius how much I love you and
that I want a divorce, when I am free, that is when I will give
myself to you. And nothing before then! That’s how I was raised!
I’m the only daughter of an Inspectorate general, sir! A
long-standing head of the Inspectorate Academy! The only daughter
of the famous general…”

“I understand, selfish ma’am. Who
cares about me? But what will we do about you? We have to find a
solution,” Pascal approached her.

They stood in front of his closed
door.

“You will… We won’t even lie on any
bed. Don’t you dare think of pushing me on the bed… or anything
similar.”

“You mean - pick you up in my arms,
and gently place you on the bed?”

“Stop already! Don’t you say
another word!”

“Alright, I won’t. I’m silent. I’m
just looking at you. Do you see how I’m looking at you?”

“You’re impossible!
Impossible!”

“Alright. We won’t lay down. So
we’ll sit down. Probably on one of the chairs.”

“Don’t provoke me! We’ll
stand.”

“Stand?”

“Yes, stand! And you won’t hug me
or kiss me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course. The two of us
standing, without hugging, without kissing, and all that until we
drop out of exhaustion.”

“Well that does it! No one has ever
mocked me like that! I’m going to bed. Good night,
Pascal.”

“Good night, my love.”

Manami didn’t move. Pascal only
grinned and consumed her with his eyes.

“Good night, my love,” he repeated,
already laughing out loud.

“You’ll pay for this!” Manami
screamed.

“But not now?”

“Take me to your room
already!”

“I can’t, Manami, until you tell me
what we will do. Because if you don’t define that clearly, then I
will decide. And if I decide…”

“Shut up! I’m going to go insane!
Well, like this… and don’t interrupt me any more.”

“I won’t.”

“You will stand away from
me…”

“Away?”

“No, not away… you won’t hold me.
Just with your hand stretched out… and I will lean against the
wall… in that place… You understand?”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? With one
hand, stretched out, you’ll touch that place. Are we clear? Don’t
pretend…”

“It’s clear to me what you want,
but what’s not clear…”

“What?”

“Well… you can do that on your own.
What do you need me for?”

“On my own?! How dare you think of
me like that?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Pascal
laughed.

“But only that place. So only
outside, not inside… Clear?”

“Clear, clear. I didn’t
think…”

“You didn’t think?... Who am I
trusting? Who am I giving myself to? Manami, Manami, why are you
doing this?”

“You need it? A lot?”

“A lot!”

“And what will I do with my other
hand?”

“On the side, Pascal. I mean, at
your side.”

“And what will you do with your
hands?”

“Also at the side.”

“Also at my side?”

“No! My side! And stop torturing
me!”

“And the gold kimono? I mean, what
is our interpretation of this? Is it making love or… .”

“What kimono now?!”

“Alright, alright, no kimono… But
Manami…?

“What is it now? Take me
in!”

“Alright, immediately. Just one
more question.”

“What?”

“How long will this last? Because I
won’t be able to stay long in such a silly pose.”

“Just a fraction of a second. As
soon as you touch me…” said Manami, while opening the door
herself.

Chapter 139

“Mr. Grasshopper, can we go back to
Pascal Alexander? You said that he didn’t offer anything new, that
he only wanted to restore something that had existed previously?”
Dr. Palladino asked.

“Yes. He wanted to restore the
human community which would offer every person equal opportunities.
A society that in his opinion had the most correct value
system.”

“What values are those?”

“Freedom, human rights, democracy,
free entrepreneurship, progress, success, material prosperity…
work, efficiency… scientific development. He believed that such a
society is capable of once again finding itself and moving forward
after each development phase, after each cycle. In his opinion such
a society would represent an ecosystem, an incubator, which would
produce the Third Renaissance.”

“The Third Renaissance? I didn’t
know that there had been two,” Dr. Palladino was
surprised.

“Mr. Alexander claimed that there
were. He claimed that the first renaissance was created after the
Dark Ages in Tuscany, and that the second renaissance was after the
even darker first half of the twentieth century, in Northern
California.”

“In Northern
California?”

“Yes. He was delighted by the fact
that some young men created companies in their garages, which in
turn changed the world; that by teaching people to think
differently, one young man created a company that had the largest
market value in the world; that something created only using gray
cells and sand from the Californian coast, was more valuable than
even the largest energy company at the time.

“When the man died, his President
and First Lady said that he not only changed the world, but was one
of the rare persons who changed people’s views of the world. Mr.
Alexander was fascinated by the story of two young men who created
a machine for searching the Internet. He was excited by the fact
that it was possible to get uncensored search results.”

“Uncensored?”

“Yes. There is very little
information about all that. The Kaellas hid that part of history.
Because the Internet was free. The regimes couldn’t lie to people
for very long through controlled media. And not only that. There
was an Internet encyclopedia which people continuously created and
updated, in all languages. The story is that there was even a
social network with free communication. With communication that no
one controlled. The users on this network were mainly young people.
But they were from all across the planet.

“According to Mr. Alexander, a new
generation of youths was growing up throughout the world, under the
influence of the second renaissance. This was a generation that
didn’t hate and wasn’t evil. A generation with open hearts, Mr.
Alexander called them.

“But it wasn’t given an opportunity
to take the world in the direction that it wanted to. They were
remembered as the lost generation. What Mr. Alexander felt worst
about was Kaella’s bragging that the ultimate result of the False
Balance was the lost generation.”

“Why was that generation lost?” Dr.
Palladino asked.

“You didn’t watch Kaella’s
interview. Babe explained everything very nicely. These young
people lost their future.

“They had finished school, but they
couldn’t find jobs. They didn’t have any income, they didn’t get
married, have children or create families. In certain groups of
people their unemployment exceeded fifty percent even before the
over-indebted states collapsed.

“Their parents had taken away their
future, by providing leisurely and carefree lives for themselves
through decades of loans and by destroying the planet’s ecosystem.
And they extinguished their children’s second
renaissance.”

“And this Third Renaissance? What
will that be?”

“Mr. Alexander didn’t know that.
Nor did he claim that he knew. He believed that when he restored
democracy and free market, the Third Renaissance would come on its
own; that its time will come because that is the nature of
historical cycles. That this is what must come after the darkest of
all centuries. After Kaella’s century. That is why he believed that
the Third Renaissance would be the most magnificent. That it would
bring about something that we cannot even imagine
today.”

“Of course, you don’t agree with
that.”

“No.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“Dr. Palladino, you fail to find
arguments against my theses and you want Mr. Alexander and I to
cross swords in front of you. It seems that he is your last hope.
And the same goes for these people on Earth. Have you seen what
people do?”

“I have.”

“They pray to him, asking him to
return to Earth from heaven, and to save them. They are improvising
his temples. At the very end mankind is summoning a new messiah.
Like always when people realize that they are only victims and
nothing else. That’s when they turn to religion, to God. They swore
to him that they would not sin, that they would respect His
commandments. And during periods when they were powerful, when they
had the opportunity to kill their victims, then they did exactly
that – and in his name.”