The Grasshopper Read online

  “You surprise me, Pascal. I never though that you… that you are afraid of… that you can’t even admit to yourself what has happened to you.”

  “What has happened to me?”

  “Alright. How long have we been here in Magapolis?”

  “Well… I don’t know exactly. We’re not always here. We go away… and come back.”

  “But our base is here.”

  “That it is.”

  “Since when?”

  “What since when?”

  “Since when have our headquarters been in Megapolis? We used to go from city to city. We didn’t have a permanent base. Wasn’t it like that?”

  “Yes, it was. It’s almost a year, I think, since we settled down in this hotel. Why are you interrogating me like this, Svetlana? Tell me already, what is it that I cannot admit to myself? What has happened to me?”

  “You’re incredible, Pascal. It’s not that great a sin that you should hide it even from yourself. So say it, where do you go… you and Raul… or you take Jagdish and me too, as soon as we get back… I mean the very moment… you don’t even unpack… when we return to Megapolis from another city?”

  “Well… I’m not sure… that it’s the same instant…”

  “Where, Pascal?”

  “To see Seneca. Is that so strange?”

  “Strange? It’s not strange to me, Pascal. Tell me, why do we go to Seneca’s house? And not only on such occasions. Almost every second, third day.”

  “Well… because Seneca wants that. He doesn’t want to receive us officially on television or at the Mayor’s Office. He wants to keep his neutral status.”

  “OK. And he also wants to be informed, to be up-to-date…”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And you inform him. You, Raul, me…”

  “Not only that. He does a lot for us. He gives us wise advice, connects us with people…”

  “Alright, alright… I agree. Of course Seneca is exceptionally important to us. I told you myself that he brought us victory. But I’m interested in why we go to his house? Can’t he meet with us, can’t he come secretly, in a regular car, to the hotel garage?”

  “It’s more isolated there, and safer. Here, at the hotel, we can never know who is coming or going. Who is watching or listening.”

  “The coffee probably also isn’t as tasty.”

  “This is becoming ridiculous. What coffee…”

  “Well exactly. What coffee?! You’d rather have a cup of real green tea! Isn’t that right, Pascal?!” Svetlana’s eyes started to fill up with tears.

  Pascal was silent.

  “But you… You, the great Don Juan, don’t dare ask even for one cup, but keep ordering coffee, which Seneca’s butler bring you, you tell the mayor how you feel uncomfortable drinking alone, and that he should have something too. And when after your third coffee Seneca finally decides to have something to drink, he asks for green tea. And how does he ask for it, Pascal?”

  Svetlana’s tears started trickling unstoppably down her face and her shrieking voice trembled. Pascal stared at the floor and was silent.

  “And then he tells the butler ‘Please tell my wife to prepare some green tea for me.’ And then you stare, without breathing, as Mrs. Seneca, in one of her kimonos, brings a cup of green tea, humbly holding it with two hands. She approaches her husband, with her small steps, looking at the floor the entire time. She puts the tea in front of him and when she sees him bring it up to his lips, she glances at you for a moment. That moment, those glances of yours, I can’t stand them, Pascal. I would stand for all other women my entire life. As long as I was the first. But I don’t want to nor will I be second. Not even for you.”

  Svetlana then opened the door to the hotel room with one brisk move and ran out into the hallway. Pascal did not follow her. He did not see Svetlana running, slamming her body, bouncing off the walls of the hallway. But he heard the night’s silence shattered by her moans and piercing groans. The moans of a young soul, hurt for the very first time.

  Chapter 11

  That night Mr. Kaella could not sleep. He tried yet again to explain to himself how it was possible that this was how this ugly world was repaying him for everything that he had done for it.

  Having inherited his father’s company, Cosmic Energy Kaella, and having acquired companies for the exploitation and distribution of drinking water, as well as the companies for the production and distribution of food, he provided the great majority of the people on the planet with a decent life.

  Unemployment was minimal, the loans comfortable. The water distribution system was extensive and efficient. Food was expensive but readily available. And that was what was most important. Cosmic Energy made all this possible.

  In order for such a level of prosperity of the State to be sustainable, people had to fulfill only one condition: they had to spend. This is why at the beginning of his rule he ordered the President of the State to enter into the Constitution, into the first article, the following definition and obligation:

  “The social order of the State of Earth is Humane Capitalism. The fundamental value of Humane Capitalism is consumption, because one person’s spending provides work and income for another person. This is why consumption is the constitutional obligation of each and every citizen of the State of Earth.”

  It was not by chance that he called his social system Humane Capitalism. In the entire history of mankind only he had the right to do such a thing. Because he was the most humane ruler of all times, there was no doubt about it.

  “Who else provided his people with water, food, cooling, transportation, education, healthcare, jobs…” Mr. Kaella thought to himself. “Everything, absolutely everything that a civilized person needs. And without any discrimination, on any grounds. What else can you give a person? What? Thanks to Cosmic Energy and my family, there haven’t been any wars in a century.”

  “And what does this Pascal Alexander want? He wants freedom, the right to choose, he says. To buy what he wants or to not buy at all. To spend when he wants or not to spend at all. Is that it?” The fuming Mr. Kaella shook, alone in the enormous bed in the Presidential Suite, with his entire elderly body.

  “And what about those people… what about those companies whose products Mr. Aleksandar and his Non-Consumers don’t want to buy, whose services they don’t need? What will happen to those people and their families, Mr. Alexander?! I ask you this! How will they earn money and pay their bills for energy, water… What will they give their children to eat when their companies go bankrupt because of you? What?! You soulless selfish animal!”

  “I have to stop doing this,” Mr. Kaella said out loud. “My poor body can’t take it anymore.”

  For years he had tortured himself by trying to understand the villains. Good cannot understand evil. This was a simple fact that he must accept. But he can and must fight against evil. And he will fight. Starting tomorrow, until the final victory.

  Chapter 12

  Prince Kaella was obviously wiser than his father, at least on this night.

  “Events are taking their course,” he thought. “The right course. Capable and loyal people are in their positions, prepared to act.”

  Why should he trouble himself with that anymore? Especially now, when she was finally there, just a few floors beneath him. He could decide tonight, at any moment, to get out of bed and to knock on her door within a few minutes.

  Who knows, he might even do that. Because this desire, this passion… he has never felt… anything similar... so powerful. It was as though he had only now awaken from some monotony, from some mist, nothingness, senselessness… in which he had spent his entire life.

  Her body, her seething flesh… exactly in the right spots, exactly where it should… simply forces a man to lose his mind… to go mad!

  But no. Not only that. There are such female bodies on every step, alright not exactly like that, but similar. But there is no journalist, host, editor that looks like that, whi
le at the same time creating an evening news program with record-breaking ratings.

  How much good she actually did for his father, him, the Company and the State. She exposed irregularities that occurred in society, invited to the studio the persons responsible from all sectors of the Company and the Inspectorate and clearly, without any reluctance, before the millions-strong audience, demanded that they stop non-consumption and mercilessly punish the Non-Consumers.

  Those responsible would promise that before the cameras and soon after, in some cases already the following day, they would carry out arrests and raids of well-concealed, secret Non-Consumer outlets, full of goods from past seasons. Such successful actions by the Inspectorate were always immortalized by Babe’s camera crew. In the next show she aired with great pleasure the footage showing outlets ablaze and Non-Consumers with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, surrounded by shapely inspectors and their grayish uniforms, humbly entering Inspectorate vehicles, heads hung low.

  Prince was pleased with himself. He had decided that from now on he would always give in to his desires, urges and instincts. His rationality would never allow him to simply get up after one of Babe’s shows, to go to his study followed by his wife’s gaze, and to call the director of Capital City TV and announce his official visit to his media company, with the request that Miss Babe describe to him the entire process of creating her show In the Eye of the Storm.

  Had he not acted on the cries, the shrieks of his soul, had he not listened to the real him, he would have never learned… he would have never seen, felt how Babe looked at him, how her breath stopped from his nearness, how this fearless journalist become confused, only in his company…

  How she bowed her head and trembled.

  This is why he organized this interview in the submarine, far away from Capital City. Here, where he and Babe would be alone, where he could knock on her door…

  No, he would not disturb her tonight, his instinct clearly told him. He would not allow her to feel uncomfortable when she stepped out before him, half-asleep, in just a plain nightgown, without any makeup. Let her prepare for the interview in peace. Tomorrow she will look…

  He would make it another night without her, just one more night. Just one more. And after the interview, when they return to the hotel… then nothing would to stop him. Nothing!

  Chapter 13

  That night Pascal Alexander also did not sleep. After Svetlana left he stayed up for a long time looking down from his window into Consumer Square, where the occasional passerby scurried home, without paying attention to the magnificent fountain, the statues of Mr. Kaella’s grandfather and father, or the stage prepared for Pascal’s speech the following day.

  “The stage will be taken down in the morning,” Pascal thought. “I didn’t tell you that, Svetlana. Seneca will not arrest me tomorrow. He told me that I am a free citizen who has not committed any violation. I didn’t want you to worry, to suffer even more, Svetlana, because tomorrow I will go into the square. I will, Svetlana.”

  He finally forced himself to sit in the armchair, to take the tablet from the table, place it on his knees and start watching footage of his speeches. He wanted to distil from them what is best… no, not the best, but the parts, the words and ideas that people reacted to the most, with shouts. His thoughts that the people understood.

  He started every speech with the words:

  “Hello, free people!”

  He skipped the usual initial shouts and his waves and thanks.

  “We will win these presidential elections. For the first time since the founding of the Company, the State will have a president who will be the president of the free people, and not Kaella’s puppet.”

  There, that is where the people shouted out in approval. It was clear to them who governed them.

  “On the first day I will slate free elections for Parliament. And when we finally get representatives of free people in their offices, we will do away with the first article of the Constitution and all the others that limit our freedom.”

  Just a few voices could be heard. What do people know about Parliament? Most of them don’t even know what the Constitution is. He won’t mention that. He mustn’t confuse the people.

  “I will immediately carry out an investigation into how the companies for energy, water and food were acquired at the time by one single family. I promise you, here and now, that the Company, which this family is using to enslave us, will be again listed on the stock exchange and its shares will be handed out to all the citizens. Cosmic Energy is cosmic and it cannot be the property of one dynasty. We will all be owners.”

  Now there was a surge of shouts. This can be expanded, emphasized. Repeat several times that all the people will be owners.

  “When we resolve the issues of satisfying our basic needs for energy, water and food, we will go back to ourselves, nature, evolution – because all life, just like us, was created through evolution. And it represents nothing other than a struggle in the free market. We will inscribe democracy, free market and protection of competition in the first article of our new Constitution.”

  Nothing. Silence. It isn’t the people’s fault. Kaella writes the history textbooks, censures the Internet. How would people know what the world looked like a hundred years ago? He mustn’t confuse them with that. They will slowly, gradually learn this, over time.

  “How much of your monthly income goes towards energy, water and food? How much do you pay per month to his son Prince, for the loan for you overpriced apartment, your entire working life? Or rent? Why do we work, why do we live? In order to give Kaella everything that we earn? Is that why we live? Will our descendants also live only to fill the pockets of Kaella’s descendants? No! Its enough!”

  Catharsis. That’s the real deal. Telling people about their daily lives, about their bills, through which they overpay for basic living costs.

  “And what happens to the remainder of your monthly income? You are required to spend it on things that you don’t need. New clothes and shoes are mandatory every season. Every year a new dishwasher, a new car every two years. And if you don’t buy them the Inspectors take you to prison, take away your apartment, expel your children from school… We refuse!”

  The crowd roared “We refuse! We refuse! We refuse!”

  “We will spend as much as we want and when we want. We will purchase goods and services that we want. From companies that are capable of offering, through fair competition in a free market, a product that we need, one that we like, one that we want. At a price that we are prepared to pay for them, and not the one that Kaella sets.”

  Here the people were shouting more against Kaella’s name than… One should not complicate things with products and services.

  Pascal got up suddenly, stopped the recording, angrily threw the tablet on the armchair and frantically walked around the room. After a while, when his steps became slower and his hands dropped by his sides, he approached the window. Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead on the glass.

  Chapter 14

  Once again Prince Kaella’s instinct was not wrong. Babe actually was in a nightgown, carefully laying outfits for tomorrow on half of the double bed in room 314.

  She would wear the first outfit in the morning, when she meets Prince and Mr. Kaella for breakfast, in order to discuss the final details before the interview. For this occasion she chose a beige knee-length skirt and a white nontransparent broad blouse, which she would button up high.

  She will tickle him with her modesty. Let Prince only get a hint of things at breakfast, let him imagine, let his desire grow. Wearing that same outfit she would leave the hotel immediately after breakfast, while he watches. Let him think that she would appear before him like that for the show. And in the afternoon, when Prince raises his eyes as he enters the submarine’s salon, having let his old father enter first…

  Like two weeks ago when he was on an official visit to the television station. She didn’t realize immediately that h
e had come because of her. She knew of course that he had come because of her show. He had told the editor-in-chief so himself. But she didn’t know that he had come only because of her. Until the moment when everyone from the editorial board had left the studio and when she said, with her back turned to him:

  “And it is only then, Mr. Kaella, after a whole day of constant work, that I go into the studio, that the cameras and lights are turned on…” and showing the familiar set with a broad gesture of her hand, she turned towards him, looked at him and stopped.

  In Prince’s look she saw, like only a woman can see, that from that moment on he was only hers. She had always felt that she would achieve a lot in life, that she would go very far, but she had never considered such heights, the throne itself. Babe wasn’t at all interested what it would be like: official or unofficial, public or secret. She simply knew that from that moment on, she, Babe, was queen of the world. The Princess of the planet Earth.