The Hermit Read Free Page B

wouldn’t believe belonged to a Mercedes. He presses the horn until the two dogs on the other car hop sluggishly down like junkies and slink off a few metres into the darkness.
    He hurries to the Montero by the glow of his high beams. As fast as he can. It has been several months, maybe years, since he last ran. Although it’s only a few metres, it feels like forever. As if the dogs have already seen him and are moving towards the vehicle again. As if his legs are unreliable and can’t carry him all the way there and back again in a single evening. He doesn’t get as close to the car as he wishes but leans across the overturned Montero to reach for the ring. A mere half-metre away.
    He’s splayed out just opposite what remains of Bill Haji’s head and face, gazing through a red-blue clot at open but extinguished eyes.
    Find the boy .
    The sentence emerges so loud and clear through the noise of the fireworks that, for a moment, Erhard thinks it’s coming from the radio that’s still playing. Or maybe one of the dogs, as far as he fucking knows, is suddenly talking. He stares into Bill Haji’s eyes and it’s almost as if the voice is coming from them, from the dark circles slowly glossing over in death. He’s heard the voice before. It’s a voice he recognizes. Maybe it’s Bill Haji’s. Maybe it’s just something he said out loud, for God knows what reason. He can’t even remember what he said, only that the words were pleading.
    Then he sees the finger again and hoists himself forward. The undercarriage is still warm. Not hot, but warm like a rock. The fireworks die out, the final salute blasting above the coast, a green network that sprays silver. Silence follows. Not quite silence. The engine groans. And the dogs’ plaintive yips have become a supersonic whine, which must be the sound they make right before they turn vicious. Something rustles just below the car. Erhard crawls forward on his belly, stretches his arm, and clutches the finger. It’s cold. Bristly. And incredible.
    Nine + one, he thinks.

7
    Erhard runs back to his car and hurls himself into the front seat, then slams the door. Since he discovered the overturned car, he’s felt perfectly sober, almost hung-over, and now his drunkenness returns with a snap. Not only the dizzying sensation, but also a bizarre elation, a joy.
    It’s as if his eyes, body, and mind are doing short-circuited mathematics. With his own nine fingers and Bill Haji’s one that makes ten fingers. It stirs a pleasure all the way down in his belly, hell, down in his cock – as if having a new finger in his possession has strengthened his libido. He knows that it’s wrong, knows he’s imaging it, but even though it’s not his finger, the sum total of fingers makes him whole in a way he’s not felt in a long time. In the same way that losing his finger eighteen years before represented a repulsion, a conscious subtraction, this finger returns his balance to him.
    He tosses his socks and plops in bed with a buzzing head. The generator has run dry, because he forgot to turn it off when he left. Tomorrow, tomorrow he’ll have a look at it. Although the night is quiet, when the wind shifts direction it sounds like dogs snarling.
    If they eat him there will be nothing to bury. If there’s nothing to bury, he’s not dead. Bill Haji’s sister is one hard woman who looks like a man. She’ll have to say her goodbyes to an empty coffin.
    The finger on a hand, Bill Haji’s hand, which once hailed Erhard on the high street. His boyfriend was sick. Bill Haji caressed him all the way to the hospital. What Erhard recalls most of all was the scent of watermelon and the stack of 500-euro notes Bill Haji wanted to pay with. To make change, Erhard had to run inside a kiosk. The finger. Bill Haji’s hand. Bill Haji’s sideburns. The most Irish thing about the man.
    He fumbles in the dark of his bedroom to find the telephone. There’s been an accident. Hurry , he says. It’s like