The Grasshopper Read online

  “And you, Babe, have now shown how women and girls can tattoo stockings, instead of putting them on. Two entire legs, what a huge percentage of the skin’s surface! What profit there is to be made there!”

  Chapter 34

  The first time that mom tried to take Henry out of Liv’s hands was at the end of the season when they bought him. Liv was a bit over three years old at the time, so she didn’t remember that. When she grew up her parents told her how she cried, held Henry to her chest and hid beneath the dining room table.

  That was the first time her dad allowed her to keep anything from last season in the house and not hand it over to the Inspectorate to be destroyed. Her mom told her that because of Henry the house became a place of tension and fear of a sudden Inspectorate search. Because they would surely find him and arrest dad.

  A sigh of relief came when quite unexpectedly a law was passed according to which children could keep one favorite toy from any season, up to the age of five.

  That is why on her fifth birthday mom tried to take Henry from her hands for a second time. Liv didn’t remember that either. But her mom and dad later told her that she never cried as much as she did on her fifth birthday. And that is why dad, whose favorite girl was more important than anything, again allowed Henry to remain in the house.

  But Liv remembered very well when she herself, when she was in her sophomore year in high school, without holding back the tears, handed Henry to dad. She remembered how dad stood there completely still and was quiet. And mom told him:

  “Take it if Liv is giving it to you. You’re not going to sacrifice everything for it, are you? If they find it you’ll never have the opportunity to save other children’s Henrys. Liv is grown up. Take that penguin.”

  That was the only time that Liv saw her father cry. He said

  “I can’t. Henry is… the beginning. Henry helped me understand. I’ve come this far because of Henry.”

  Chapter 35

  “You see for yourself, Miss Babe, it will not be difficult for me to tell our dear viewers my memories, because for some time now… You know, when a man gets to my age and is preparing for the departure, then…”

  “Don’t talk like that, Mr. Kaella, please. We common people don’t want to even think about that. You are not at all aware how much the Consumers respect you, but also how much they love you, Mr. Kaella,” Babe was so moved and passed her index finger beneath her eye, alluding to a tear.

  “Yes, yes, I’m aware of that. And I am very happy… and grateful to the people,” Kaella looked at the camera. “If I didn’t love our people as much as they love me, everything that I have done and created in my life… would not have been possible.”

  “And you have done the most, created the most, Mr. Kaella.”

  “Behind everything stands the invincible, unbreakable, carved-in-stone, love for each and every person, every Consumer.”

  “You have done… not only done… but continue to… even now, at every moment you are doing… something that is the most grandiose, most magnificent in the history of the world, Mr. Kaella. You and your honorable ancestors… and of course, your son, Mr. Prince.”

  “Yes. Thank you for these words, Miss Babe. I wanted to say that in front of our audience, I would just like to repeat what I have already determined, in summarizing my life… what I have realized.”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Kaella.”

  “You see… I would like to mention my ancestors…”

  “Of course,” Babe encouraged Mr. Kaella.

  “My grandfather discovered cosmic energy at a time when fossil fuels were disappearing, during the period of bloody wars where people were destroying each others’ few alternative sources of energy. And he created a system of accumulating cosmic energy in space, delivering it through energy beams to cosmic power plants on Earth and transforming cosmic energy into electrical energy. And he offers this pure energy to all mankind, without any concern for the differences between them. And of course people accepted this. That is how our company, the Kaella Cosmic Energy Corporation, grew and developed. And my father continued down the same path, building a state. This process was not easy. At the time not all groups of people wanted to join the integrated human community. But gradually, weakened by previous wars, storms, droughts, floods, landslides, earthquakes, pandemics… without water, without food… without energy, these people toppled their dictators on their own, and joined. My father dedicated his life to creating the State of Earth… and that is why I am so moved, Miss Babe, because a beautiful intelligent young person such as yourself, is paying respect to my father, our family, our State, with her entire appearance, her entire being.”

  “Not only me, Mr. Kaella, not only me. Today I am just a representative of the Consumers. I symbolize the respect and love of all the people.”

  “Thank you... truly… thank you very much,” Mr. Kaella’s eyes were full of tears.

  “Excellent moment of sentimentality,” thought Babe and looked at the camera.

  “And now dear viewers, let us take a look at the messages from our dearest friends, the generous sponsors of the interview with the two greatest men of the present.”

  Chapter 36

  In the dense darkness Pascal sat on the bed and lowered his feet to the floor. “My telephone’s gone!” he thought as he searched his jacket pockets. “Of course it’s gone. Why am I surprised? Who in their right mind would leave their captive with a telephone? Something soft beneath my feet.” Pascal slid his shoes along the floor. “Carpet.. I’ll get up.” He rose suddenly, staggered and sat back down on the bed. “This drug of Raul’s is still… Slowly… It was too quickly…”

  He stood up slowly, managing to maintain his balance. He took a step. One step… another… He hit his knee on a hard object. It seemed to him that even that faint sound echoed through the complete silence. He stood there for a while, listening.

  “Did someone hear that? Again nothing, silence… No one heard me. Or they did but are not reacting.”

  He bent over to touch the object that he had hit. He passed the palms of his hand over the flat surface. He spread his hands as much as he could, but he still didn’t touch the edge. “It’s long. Like a low cupboard… a dresser. Let’s see how wide it is,” he moved his palms forward, leaning his knees on the object. He immediately touched the end. “A wall”, he passed his hands across the wall in front of him. “Wait, wait… bed, dresser, wall. I’ll go to the end of the dresser… there’ll probably be some door or window with the blinds drawn… something… a light switch. No, no… if this is… and it looks like a hotel room… the light is… the nightstand!”

  He stepped back, felt the bed under his knees and sat down on it again. He propped himself up with his hands and moved his body along the edge of the bed. With the outside of his thigh he felt a low hard object. “There it is!” he touched the object with his hands. “It must be a nightstand,” he thought excitedly. “And on it a lamp,” he concluded as he passed the palm of his hand over its entire surface. But he didn’t feel anything. “Then it’s a wall-mounted lamp. Above the nightstand.” Still sitting, he ran his fingers over the wall and found a switch. He pressed it. The room was lit up by a lamp on the wall, placed slightly above the switch.

  Pascal closed his eyes because even this weak light bothered him at first. Then slowly, squinting through his eyelashes, he looked around himself. He was in a typical bedroom. The bed was large, a double bed covered in an elegant silk dark-red cover with a black rose embroidered in the middle. There were two nightstands, on each side of the bed, and along the walls – two dressers made of the same dark wood. The bed practically took up the entire length of the room. Between the end of it and the opposite wall there was just enough room to open the door.

  “A door! And how about window?” Pascal wondered. It was only then that he noticed that the room didn’t have any windows. “What is this? Some luxurious solitary confinement cell?”

  He went to the door and put his ear a
gainst it. Complete silence again. He turned the doorknob and the door opened.

  Chapter 37

  Mr. Kaella’s aging prostate held up very well during the interview. But now, during the commercial break, he had to give in to it. Prince knew this very well and waved to the bodyguards to take his father to the toilet.

  When Mr. Kaella had left the submarine salon, Babe and Prince got up and approached each other.

  “Babe, I’m simply speechless. You take my breath away,” Prince openly showed his exhilaration.

  “Wow!” thought Babe, very pleased. “We’ve already lost the ‘Miss’. And with my knees clenched.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kaella,” she answered Prince. “I hope that it is now clear to you why I was in such a hurry today.”

  “Yes, yes… and forgive me for keeping you. Had I known…” Prince paused, listening to the cheerful, inspired voice in the first commercial.

  “Look, dear Consumers, where is it that your Miss Babe has a piercing?””

  Prince suddenly turned to the nearest monitor and watched in shock as the camera zoomed Babe’s eye, filmed just now, during the interview.

  “You were surely wondering, dear Consumers, during the interview with Mr. Kaella and his son Prince,” chirped the voice in the commercial, “where it is that Miss Babe attached the two chains with the little Earths. Take a good look…”

  Babe smiled when Prince’s focus jumped from the monitor to her eyes.

  “You see, dear Consumers, but don’t believe. Believe it, believe it… Miss Babe has a piercing in her whites of her eyes. Yes in her the whites of her eyes, her sclera! Let’s hear what Miss Babe has to say about this new fashion.”

  Prerecorded footage of Babe appeared on the monitor, as well as on television screens across the planet.

  “I was a bit afraid, dear Consumers, I have to admit it. But I have absolute trust in the achievements of our science and technology. And above all – I couldn’t resist this piercing. I simply couldn’t. Just as I am certain that all the girls watching this cannot resist either. But don’t worry, girls. You won’t have to wait for next season. Sclera piercings are coming to fashion accessory sector shops already…” here the background music went into crescendo, and then suddenly subsided. “The day after tomorrow!” Babe shouted in the commercial. “And that is why, girls, line up in front of your shop tomorrow evening.” Babe blew a kiss to the camera with her full lips and said “Love, Babe.”

  “It seemed to me… but I didn’t believe…” Prince stuttered after the commercial. “Are you at all aware of what you mean to this State? How much you mean to me, Babe…” he whispered hoarsely.

  “So, a new piercing means going to first-name basis”, thought Babe, shyly lowering her head. “The obstacles are falling faster than I expected.”

  “All the usual things” thundered the narrator’s threatening voice from the monitor during the regular narrative between commercials, while he reminded Consumers of what all they have to hand over to the Inspectorate by the end of the month. “So everything, all clothes and shoes, all fashion accessories, cosmetics, children’s toys, pots and pans, computers, telephones, tablets, television sets…”

  “Don’t Mr. Kaella, please. Don’t give me false hope,” Babe whispered to Prince in a sad voice.

  “False hope?! What false hope? You mean everything to me, Babe, everything…”

  Touched, Babe tried to hold back the tears and turned her right cheek towards him.

  “I need you, Babe…” Prince suddenly went silent, wanting to take advantage of this opportunity to have a good look at the discrete tattoo behind her ear.

  It seemed to him that it was just hieroglyphs, but carefully studying them one at a time he realized they were letters. “Just a little strange,” he thought. “Distorted, of different sizes, thickness… overlapping… but they are letters… There that’s an r, and that’s an h or perhaps an n, and the first one… it’s…”

  “Prince! You’ve tattooed my name!” he shouted.

  “Quiet, quiet…” Babe calmed him.

  “You’re driving me crazy…” he whispered feverishly.

  “Don’t be angry, Mr. Kaella, but I had to…” she looked at him humbly, her eyes begging for forgiveness.

  “Be angry? I’m crazy about you! Crazy!”

  “I had to show it somewhere. This deepest, most hidden intimate thing.”

  “Deepest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most hidden?”

  “Yes.”

  “Intimate thing?’

  “Yes.”

  “My name?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t go on without you, Babe. You have to be mine…”

  “If you truly think that, Mr. Kaella…”

  “’Mr. Kaella! Mr. Kaella!’ Is that your deepest intimate thing? Is that what you hid behind your ear?”

  “Prince…”

  “So,” thought Babe, “a tattoo behind the ear equals ‘Prince’ instead of ‘Mr. Kaella”. Well, we’ll see, Prince, what the following advertisement will bring. Just as soon as this guy finishes listing to the Consumers…” Babe looked at the monitor. And Prince continued excitedly:

  “Your intimacy… deepest… you say, Babe. And do you know what is my deepest intimate thing?”

  “I don’t, I don’t dare…”

  “Princess, my Princess! That’s what I’ll tattoo! Princess!”

  “I was wrong,” thought Babe, pressing her chest with her hand so that her heart would not burst. “A tattoo behind the ear equals ‘Prince’ instead of ‘Mr. Kaella’ plus ‘Princess’ instead of ‘Babe’.”

  Chapter 38

  Jagdish came up to Raul and Margot and asked:

  “Do you know what I don’t get, Raul?”

  “What?”

  “Where did this information about such a high percentage of votes suddenly come from? I mean, we did our studies, locally, in our cities, but…”

  “Jagdish, we couldn’t get the real picture based on that. We couldn’t even guess that so many people from consumer cities, from places we had never set foot in, with censured media, the Internet… that people there knew about us, about Pascal… Not only that they knew, but that they would vote for him. I find something else odd. That’s what the three of us mainly discussed yesterday. This informant of Seneca’s has been sending him the results of their polls every two, three week, since the beginning of the presidential campaign.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us earlier, Raul?”

  “We couldn’t. Seneca didn’t want anyone to know about this informant of his.”

  “I understand. And how did the percentages change? They increased in time, right?” Jagdish asked.

  “They didn’t. That’s what’s odd. The entire time they were around twenty seven, no more than thirty percent for Pascal.”

  “And for Xing?”

  “Close to forty.”

  “So how did it suddenly…?”

  “We don’t know. We can only assume that their pollsters this time falsely introduced themselves as being ours or neutral… I don’t know. So the people weren’t afraid to say that they would vote for Pascal. Kaella also received all those periodical results of the polls. And this is now a great shock to him, as it is to us. That is why we concluded, just as you did, that they would try to carry out an assassination.”

  “Raul… alright, we understand now. I mean, the situation changed so suddenly with this information about the certain victory in the elections… But, where does this trust of yours in Seneca come from? As Liam said, how do you know that he didn’t immediately hand him over to Kaella?” Margot asked.

  “He could have arrested us all and handed us over to Kaella whenever he wanted. At any moment, during all these months. And he didn’t do that. So, you tell me, Margot, what is the most important thing to Seneca?”

  “Megapolis,” Margot said.

  “Exactly, Megapolis. And had he arrested us, banished us, handed us over to
the villains… what would Megapolis have done to him? What would the students have done - all those educated people, experts, scientists, athletes, artists of all profiles, which Megapolis is full of. They would have despised him. Spat on him. He could rule by force, but Seneca is not like that. He loves Megapolis precisely because of those people. Because of the youths, because of the University. That’s all he boasts about. He hands out scholarship, rewards the best students, that’s why I… I mean… that’s why we trusted him… that’s why we trust him to keep Pascal safe.”

  “I understand, I agree,” said Margot, already much calmer.

  “People…” Raul said loudly, addressing the entire staff. “Calm down, think it over, talk among yourselves… You’ll see that I’m right. And that is only until the elections. We simply moved out of the way. And we got Pascal out of the way. We’re calmly waiting for Kaella’s move. And that’s when we’ll decide how to proceed.”

  “Raul’s right,” Margot supported him. “He and Pascal have done the right thing. We can be at ease. There, I’m already completely calm.”