But I thought: It's clearly a matter of them knowing how to talk to me. And make me one of them.
How, Clearing the Ditch, I Fell in the Gorge
THE RARE SPECTACLED Bears sat upright and stared, seeing me ensconced in the Biergarten with a new partner. Gallen shone a rich wine-brown, her new neck pale and perhaps prickly in the sun bearing straight down on her. She sat outside the fringe of our Cinzano umbrella; she pushed herself back from our table - the better to view me at a distance, with awe.
'You mean, you've been thinking you'd do it all along?' she said. 'Then you tricked me into coming here with you.'
'No, not exactly,' I said. 'Not at all, really. I don't know when I really knew I was going to go through with it.'
'You mean, Graff,' she said, 'you're going to creep around in here all night? You're going to let them out? And it was you who told me it was a crazy idea! You said so, you did, Graff. You agreed he must have been crazy to even think of such a thing.'
'No, not exactly,' I said, with the frotting notebook rising up under my shirt and against my belly, like a gorged feast I couldn't possibly keep down. 'Not at all, really,' I said. 'I mean, yes, I think it's a crazy idea - I think he lost his sense over it, sure. But I mean, I think there's a proper way to go about it. And basically, I think, it's a sound enough idea.'
'Graff, you're crazy too,' she said.
'No, not exactly,' I insisted. 'Not at all, really. I just think there's a reasonable way to go about it. I think his error was to even imagine that he could get them all out. No, this is the point, you see: reasonable selection of animals, Gallen. Naturally, I agree, you'd have to be mad to let them all loose. That would be unmanageable, I agree.'
'Graff,' she said. 'Graff, you're even talking like him. You are, really. More and more, I've noticed. You sound just like he did.'
'Well, I haven't noticed any such thing,' I said. 'And so what if I do? I mean, he went too far - I'd be the first to admit. But there's a proper perspective to put this in, I think. What I mean, Gallen, is let's put it in a new light. It could be kind of fun, if it's done with some taste.'
'Oh, fun, yes,' said Gallen. 'Oh, with taste, sure. All these lovely animals out biting people and each other. That's fun, sure. And that really has taste, Graff, I have to admit.'
'Reasonable selection, Gallen,' I insisted; I wasn't going to let her bait me into a fight.
'Oh, you're out of your head, Graff,' she said. 'You must be.' And she stood up. 'I'm not staying in here for one minute more,' she said.
But I said, 'Oh, fine. Just where will you go?'
'Oh, Graff,' said Gallen. 'We're fighting already.' And she held her ears - remembering, no doubt, that I was the cause of them being so exposed. I went round the table and squatted down next to her; she crouched, sniffling in her hand.
'Gallen,' I said. 'Just think of it, please - just for a minute.'
'I wanted to go shopping with you, or something,' she said. 'I've never been.'
'Gallen,' I said. 'Just a few animals, really. Just a few of the gentle types. And just a little scare for old O. Schrutt.' But she shook her head.
'You're not even thinking of me,' she said. 'You just took me!' she whispered, fierce and dramatic. 'You have had me! I was just taken along,' she accused, with ridiculous flourishing of her pointed elbows.
'Oh, frot,' I said.
'You're crazy and mean,' she said.
'All right,' I said. 'Frot me, I am.' And then I whispered these fierce dramatics of my own: 'Siggy's dead, Gallen, and I never took him seriously - we never even got to talk about anything at all.' But that didn't sound like what I meant, really, so I said, 'I hardly got to know him. I mean, really, I didn't know him at all.' But that led to nothing logical either, so I said, 'It all started out very light and funny - just easy, going nowhere in particular. We were never very intimate, really - or serious. We'd only gotten started.' And I saw no conclusions leaping at me out of that, either. So I stopped.
'How could anyone take Siggy seriously?' she said.
'I liked him, you bitch,' I stopped. 'It was his idea and it's crazy, maybe. And, maybe, so am I.'
But she took my hand, then, and sneaked it under the soccer shirt to her hot, hard tummy; she sat back down in her chair, holding my hand to her. 'Oh no, you're not crazy, really,' she said. 'I don't think you are, Graff. I'm sorry. But I'm not a bitch, either, am I?'
'No,' I said. 'You're not. And I'm sorry.' She held my hand against her a long while, as if she were telling my fortune on her tummy.
Anything's possible.
'But what will we do afterwards?' she asked.
'I just want to get this over with,' I said.