The Grasshopper Page 29

  “I was on my way home from basketball. I took a shortcut, a narrow alley between some warehouses and garages. And I heard the excited shouts of three boys…”

  “What were they doing?”

  “I recognized them, they were from my school. Two years younger than me…”

  “What were they doing?”

  “They were passing a cat between them, holding it by the tail and smashing it against the garage wall.”

  “You had the desire to join them?”

  “No. I had the desire to kill them.”

  “Alright, Mr. Grasshopper,” Dr. Palladino got up from the chair. “I will now retire and prepare for our last conversation. I will call you when I am ready. Goodbye.”

  Dr. Palladino reached the door and looked at the Grasshopper one more time.

  “Turn the people’s power back on,” he said and left the presidential office.

  Chapter 142

  “How you tricked me, Pascal. I’ll never forgive myself for trusting you,” said Manami, sitting in their room.

  “I tricked you, my love? What are you talking about?”

  “You promised that you would only touch me… not…”

  “Me? I did exactly what you said. I only touched you. And you, Manami, immediately jumped on me and started kissing me. It’s your own fault.”

  “I did, I admit it. But you knew that it would be like that. You’re the experienced one, not me. How could I know that I would lose it like that?”

  “My sweet darling. You lost it, did you?”

  “Yes, completely.”

  “And now you’d like to do it again, admit it.”

  “I would. I mean, I would never leave your bed. But perhaps I’m not interesting to you. My body might not be… You’re used to…”

  “Shut up! I really mean it! Once and for all! For me there is only your body. Only you, Manami.”

  “And you too would never leave my bed. Tell me that, please… Lie to me.”

  “Lie to you? Stop being silly! I would never leave, but not your bed or my bed. I will never leave our bed, my love. For days… weeks… our bed.”

  “Oh, that was so nice. The best! How you… I still don’t know what you did to me… I wasn’t at all aware how time passed… And that’s why I’m angry with you, Pascal! Two hours! And you knew that and you didn’t care about…”

  “Let’s go to my room. I can’t take it anymore,” Pascal took her by the hand.

  “We have to endure it, love, we have to. We cannot do that here anymore. The children could wake up, Julius could come in at any moment.”

  “Alright, Manami. I won’t caress you or kiss you… I won’t do anything anymore, if that’s how you are.”

  “Shut up… shut up, please. We cannot talk about it. We cannot think about it. It is as though nothing happened. That is how we have to behave.”

  “You shut up! Because, if I see that you are that excited again, I won’t ask you anything. I won’t listen to you at all, Manami. I will pick you up in my arms and carry you to my room.”

  “There! I knew it!” Manami shouted.

  “So know it! You should know!” Pascal shouted back at her.

  “When you see that I’m excited! Me! And you’re never excited? You are, of course you are, but not because of me! I’m not sexy enough to excite Mr. Alexander!”

  “Stop it!” Pascal shouted. “I’m not excited?! I’ve been burning with desire for your body! I’m mad about you, Manami! And I won’t take this any more! I keep quiet, I keep it in, I burn up, I suffer so as not to upset you! Not to pressure you! I only think about you! Well, I can’t do it anymore!” Pascal got up from the couch, violently pulled her by the hand and picked her up in his arms.

  “Tell me! Tell me, are you crazy about me?!” Manami was overjoyed.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything more. You’ll see for yourself,” he said while opening the door to his quarters.

  “Don’t, my love, please don’t! Really don’t! What if Peter comes in!”

  Hearing her words Pascal stopped.

  “Alright, Manami. But if you say once more time that I’m not excited…”

  “Well, I’m so afraid…”

  “What are you afraid of, my dearest darling? I don’t want you to be afraid of anything! Don’t you see that? Why don’t you understand how much I love you? How much I want you? Ever part of your body! Your beautiful breasts and your back… your arms and your shoulders … and your legs, refined, perfect. Your thighs, your hips… and your buttocks, my dearest buttocks. It is because of it that I can’t take it anymore. You haven’t let me get to know it at all, to love it, and caress it and kiss it. And your rose. My most beautiful rose, which opens its petals only to me, which loves only me, which is only mine. Only mine!!!”

  “I’m all only yours! Forever only yours!” Manami hollered, finally certain that Pascal wanted her.

  Pascal was holding her in his arms the entire time.

  “I don’t care about anything!” he shouted and opened the door.

  He ran into the room, placed her on the bed and lay down next to her. He raised her nightgown.

  “Pascal…” Manami whispered in heat. “Just this now, please. And quickly. Just to calm ourselves. Please, my love…”

  Pascal got up, locked the door to the living room, closed the door to the dormitory and said

  “I will make love with you until morning, my goddess. I’m no longer in a hurry anywhere. I will first kiss every inch of your body for hours. For hours, do you hear me?”

  “Pascal, don’t talk that way. You know I can’t resist you. My son could come in. Please, Pascal…”

  “He can’t come in. I’ve locked the door. And if he wakes up, you will come out from here and tell him that I have a high fever and that you put that meat for lunch, which you supposedly defrost every night, on my forehead to cool me down,” Pascal laughed.

  “What meat? What are you talking about… Ah! You’re so shameless!” Manami remembered her fictional alibi.

  “And if Julius comes, let him come. Let him find out. I want him to learn, as soon as possible. And what do I care what the world is like up there? Only we exist! Only the two of us, Manami!”

  Manami didn’t say anything anymore. Pascal took off his clothes and lay next to her. He slowly raised her nightgown and stroked her legs.

  “Now just that little problem, Manami,” he whispered in her ear.

  “What problem? I knew it, I knew that something wasn’t to your liking!”

  “Well… we were behind four doors, but I still had to cover your mouth with my hand.”

  “You’re so shameless!”

  “You’re really loud, Manami.”

  “Apologize! Immediately!”

  “I apologize,” Pascal smiled.

  “So what if I’m loud? It’s your own fault,” said Manami and started kissing him wildly.

  Chapter 143

  The following evening Seneca stayed the night in the shelter with his family for the second time. When he and Manami wished Pascal goodnight and retreated to their room, Pascal went to his door with a heavy step. He entered the corridor and started towards the bathroom. He stopped halfway.

  “You won’t make love to him, Manami. I know that. You promised me. You promised that you would tell him how much we are in love. And I believe you, Manami. Because I know that you love me as much as I love you. I only have to make it through this night. Eir is between you. You won’t take her anywhere…” Pascal turned on the light and went into the bathroom. He raised his head and looked at his eyes in the mirror. And they were wild. “What do I care that a child is between you! I don’t allow him to lay in your bed. Or kiss you goodnight! I won’t allow it!!! Not even on the cheek! I won’t allow him to touch you! To look at you! I won’t allow it! I won’t allow anything anymore!!!”

  Pascal burst into the living room and rushed toward their quarters. And then he stopped dead in his tracks. At that same moment Seneca cam
e out and quickly walked towards the entrance to the shelter. He didn’t even look at Pascal. He hurried out and slammed the door.

  Manami, with her back to Pascal, carefully closed her door. And then she turned around and ran into his arms.

  “I told him, Pascal!” she shouted. “I told him everything!” Her entire body was trembling.

  Pascal held her and didn’t say anything. He didn’t interrupt her.

  “When we went into the room,” Manami continued excitedly, “he told me to take Eir away. So I took her to the other room. So that we wouldn’t wake her if we argued.

  “When I came back he wasn’t in bed. He was still standing in the same place, next to the bed, looking at me. I stood near the open door and waited to hear what he was going to say. And he said ‘You probably aren’t in the mood for this. You satisfy your needs regularly with your Pascal.’

  “And I immediately, without thinking, instantly, Pascal, told him that it wasn’t a need, that it’s a great love, that we’re crazy in love and that we can’t live without each other. I was preparing to rush into your room and get you, but he was faster. He didn’t say a thing. He just turned around and left.”

  Chapter 144

  “It’s not only that I can’t survive without the children, Pascal. They need me, too. And I don’t mean only my physical presence,” said Manami, when they calmed down and sat down on their cover. “Not only to care for them, provide for them, look out for them: they need me spiritually too.

  “I give to them and I have to give to them until they grow up, something that Julius cannot provide. Something that he doesn’t have. I don’t know how to describe it. But I feel it. I know it. I’m certain of it. And it’s something that both of them need in order to develop their personalities.

  “Not only Eir. Peter needs this from me, too. He is like his father in appearance and in intelligence, the way that he thinks… And his character takes after Julius, mainly. I mean mainly in span, in quantity…

  “But I have a corner in Peter. And that corner is very important. You see yourself that he is actually a sincere and cheerful child.”

  “Yes, Manami. You’re right. I’m delighted when he is so joyful. And when I see how happy it makes you.”

  “That’s right. And that’s why Peter needs me. To defend and safeguard that joy, that merriness, as you put it, from the world.”

  “Don’t worry, darling. We won’t allow Julius to take away your children. He also isn’t that type of person, Manami. He wouldn’t take children away from their mother. The mayor is a good man.”

  “He puts family above all other things, Pascal. No… perhaps that isn’t the right word. Perhaps we aren’t more important than anything else. He has his… mission. The way that he sees it. And the family, the faithful wife and good, well-behaved children – he considers them a given. He never would have thought, never would have considered that it could be any differently. If it had crossed his mind… only once… only one fleeting thought… he would have never left me alone with you.”

  “And what now, Manami? Will we wait for his move or will we leave this place on our own?”

  “We won’t leave our shelter until we have to, Pascal. Here the four of us are together. I didn’t even think it through seriously until now. I kept postponing, waiting for it to happen. And now that it’s happened…” Manami suddenly raised her head from his shoulder. “Now I don’t even need to think, Pascal!” She said loudly. “Now I know! I probably knew the entire time, I’m sure I did…”

  “What, Manami? What did you know?”

  “But I didn’t want to admit it to myself, didn’t want to say it…”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Because I would have a guilty conscious and I wouldn’t be able to completely give in to my love. Yes, that’s it. I’m sure it is!”

  “What didn’t you admit to yourself? Well, tell me. Stop torturing me.”

  “Julius won’t throw us out of the shelter, Pascal.”

  “He won’t? Then what?” Pascal asked.

  “He’ll do something to himself.”

  Chapter 145

  “Thank you for turning on the energy and stopping the vaporizations,” Dr. Palladino said at the beginning of his last conversation with the Grasshopper.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You asked me at the beginning what I thought was the reason why you were talking to me. And I said because you were bored. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You responded that you were talking to me because you were bored, because you longed for a conversation with an intellectual and because you wanted to see what your psychological profile was like.”

  “Exactly.”

  “No. None of that is true.”

  “No?”

  “One serial killer that we were looking for wrote to the Inspectorate begging them to catch him, to stop him.”

  “And? Did you catch him?”

  “That same moment. Because he wrote that in an email from his workplace, from his office.”

  “So, Doctor, you didn’t get much glory in that case, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Dr. Palladino, you think that through our conversation I have actually been asking you to catch me and stop me?”

  “Yes, the entire time.”

  “Well, then catch me, please, Dr. Palladino. I’m waiting for you. You know where I am, at my workplace.”

  “It’s not funny. On that first day, when I heard your answer that you kill because you can, I wanted to leave this office.”

  “I remember.”

  “I told you that I was leaving because I believed that I couldn’t persuade you to stop killing. Do you remember what you told me then, Mr. Grasshopper?”

  “I remember.”

  “You claimed, correctly, that I cannot be completely certain of that.”

  “Yes. And I still think so.”

  “Now let me ask you, Mr. Grasshopper, can you be completely certain that Pascal Alexander’s Third Renaissance will not bring something that is presently unimaginable to us now? Something that might enable life to defeat the collective Thanatos?”

  “Of course I can’t be completely certain. A person cannot be absolutely certain of anything. But what does that change, Dr. Palladino?”

  “You told me that by leaving I would become your accomplice. And I stayed.”

  “I really don’t see any parallel. The fact that I’m not certain whether anything would develop from something that doesn’t exist at all, does not make me your accomplice.”

  “I agree. It doesn’t make you my accomplice. It makes me your accomplice. And this time I agree to it.”

  “I admit that I don’t understand you, Doctor.”

  “You understand, you understand. I agree to be your accomplice in your transformation from an absolute killer to a man who sent a warning to the world. A warning that people will never forget.”

  “A warning? You’ve come to the conclusion that I only warned mankind and that now I will stop this?”

  “Yes. And that is why I expect you to kill yourself.”

  “I will. In the end.”

  “No, not in the end… soon, as soon as possible. You didn’t only warn people, Mr. Grasshopper. You did much more than that. You saved them from certain death. You saved the world from an apocalypse. You prevented Erivan from taking over the command desk.”

  “Doctor, according to that logic Erivan can also be considered a contributor because he prevented the Kaellas from reaching this position. It’s just history repeating itself, Dr. Palladino. Everything remains the same. The typical struggle for domination between a few strongmen. Outmaneuvering, undermining, intrigues, assassinations… And the victims don’t care which one of them will kill them in the end. The victims are always only victims.”

  Chapter 146

  “What are you saying, Manami? You’re probably overreacting. You’re too excited now. Let’s talk about something
else, and we’ll come back to this later. When we calm down.”

  “Julius knows how much everyone respects him,” Manami continued, without listening to Pascal. “He knows that he is a great man. And that’s what’s most important to him. He is a proud man. And he thinks… he’s probably right, that he would lose that respect if people learned that his wife cheated on him. Not only cheated – but left him. He cannot allow that. He will not allow that! I’m sure he won’t!” Manami raised her voice.

  “Alright, my love, alright…” Pascal tried to calm her.

  “I don’t know how he’ll do it, Pascal, how he’ll disappear from this world, while being remembered as the great, undefeated, untainted Julius Seneca, the Mayor of Megapolis.”

  “He is great, Manami, and he will go down in history as such,” Pascal said.

  “Yes, yes he is… of course. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ridiculing his pride. I only understand it. Such people like Julius, such as my late father, the general, I understand them best. I grew up beside them, lived… my entire life. Julius is now thinking… but he is not thinking about us, Pascal. Nor is he thinking about the children, trust me. He has already accepted the fact that he is a cheated husband and now he is just looking for a solution how to come out of that without being humiliated. And Julius always finds a solution. Always. And the only solution that I see… It can be only his… or my… or our death.”

  “Manami, please don’t talk that way. It’s not the end of the world…”

  “But not murder… or suicide,” Manami wasn’t listening to him. “Some type of death, I don’t know… in a traffic accident… I’m talking nonsense! There’s a war out there! Countless opportunities for death. A death that conceals everything, erases everything… like nothing happened.”