The Knife Sharpener (29)

29.

Electric pulses still twitched his hands. Helmut resisted the urge to shake it out. He sat near Nichola in the café. She was holding the knife and a plastic mug. The motoboys had given them weak black tea. Retreated to their quiet little groups. Bohner was drinking from a steaming soup bowl, cross legged on a pillowed milk crate. Helmut would have preferred burnt 7/11 coffee. A cigarette. A stimulant. His face itched through unshaved whiskers. Poor Messer at home without her food.

            Chance had dismissed them. Promised to talk in the morning about what to do next. Yes, they had to get the knife back to Rudiger. Best though to sleep on it. Nothing to be done now. Wait. Do it right. Turned back to his monitors. His motoboys. Didn’t watch them leave through the fridge door. Helmut breathing from his stomach.

Nichola fidgeted. ‘Why wouldn’t he just use it now?’ she asked. ‘He’s got you. The knife. He can have his changes – new world if he wants.’

Helmut may not have recognized the significance of the knife. Call it rust. A world he had forcefully forgotten in the pattern of his current life. He did recognize Chance – Chauncy, though. As soon as he walked into the broken fridge. Felt the stale air. His past had come back then. He couldn’t take his eyes from it.

‘He doesn’t know how,’ said Helmut.

‘Seemed pretty confident to me.’

‘Don’t trust him.’

‘Why? He was friends with dad. He wants to help find him,’ said Nichola. ‘Chance could’ve just taken the knife from us. Kept it to himself.’

‘He still has it.’

‘No. I do.’

‘We can’t get out of here.’

She looked around at the motoboys lounging in the café. The shapes of them guarding the door outside. Nodded a little. Helmut sipped at his tea. Found it warming. Stilling.

‘Why shouldn’t we trust him, then?’

‘He was Chauncey in the Wastes.’

‘That’s how he knew who – what you were?’

‘Probably. I was different back then, too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘More hair. Different name.’

‘Helmut Iser isn’t your name?’

‘It is.’

‘Not back then?’

‘No.’

‘What was it?’

Helmut shifted in his seat. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘It’s not around anymore.’

‘Wish I could change my name. Otwey is heavy around here. Rudiger even more.’

‘Lucky, you’re Nichola,’ said Helmut.

They sat in the murmur of the motoboys. A wind jackal called further north. A motor droned past on Smith St. A muted light on the move. Helmut sipped on his tea. Glad he had eaten at The Chaddy.

‘You know, I knew there was something about you,’ said Nichola. ‘A reason you were there at the Church.’

‘Holdingstock –’

‘Sure, she sent you. But, did you need to go?’

‘Needed the job,’ said Helmut.

‘Uh huh. Don’t we all,’ said Nichola.

‘You work?’

‘Student. Studied art. Bit of history. Little philosophy. Used to, anyway. Before the knife. Worked in places like this café, otherwise. Dad wanted me to study political science for a while. I didn’t care for it.’

‘Hospitality,’ said Helmut.

‘Yep. Mind numbing, servile shit. But it paid. Kinda get the motoboys, in a way. Wish we – waiters, had our own little armed cohort. Make things interesting.’

‘Yes.’

Nichola continued to roll the knife around in her hands. ‘So, you were a Carer – you didn’t even suspect that this knife was important? Like, in that way.’

‘Important, yes. Worked - Cared. Powerful. No.’

She held it up to the light. It looked plain. Old. Dark grey.

‘I left that me to back then,’ said Helmut, looking at the knife.

‘Why?’ asked Nichola.

‘Too many emotions. Too much for triviality,’ said Helmut. ‘Caring is material. Helping implements reach their potential. A rational, workmanlike job. I thought.’

Nichola was quiet. Helmut had spoken. His voice wanted to whisper after a few words.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

He kept his memories to himself. Eyes narrowed a little. Pulled at his shirt absently. Kept an eye on the knife. Bloody orange cream. Nichola sat in the absence of an answer.

‘Why shouldn’t we trust, Chance?’

‘He’s a liar,’ said Helmut.

‘About what?’

‘Most things. The Wastes. Carers.’ He pulled his Samsung flip phone from his pocket.

Nichola raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ll text Geoff.’

‘Who – that’s right. I remember. The private chef?’

‘Yes.’ He wrote, Are you around? Need to talk. Sent it off. Put the phone away.

‘Okay,’ said Nichola.

‘He cooks for Ministry,’ said Helmut. ‘Sometimes at New Parliament.’

‘Could he get us in? Know someone?’

‘Maybe.’

‘We would need to get out of here first.’

‘We will tell Chaunc - Chance, about Geoff,’ said Helmut

‘You don’t trust him.’

‘No. But he wants Rudiger, as well.’

‘Better to work together?’

‘For now.’

Nichola paused. ‘He said my dad tracked Carers, as well. Is that true?’

Helmut blew on his tea. The café felt small. The Melbourne roads. His van. The chefs and their knives. The open spaces. He wasn’t a still man. Helmut belonged out there. He worked. So did Rudiger.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Nichola sought her tea. The knife tight in her grip.

‘We met once,’ said Helmut.

‘You – you got away?’

A sip. A static drenched howl outside. ‘Mostly,’ he said.

Nichola stood up. Looked around. Made to move off to the bathroom at the rear of the café. Near the stairs. Back to Helmut.

‘Why are you helping me? If you know who I am – who my dad is?’ she asked. ‘I know you, like, had to, at first. And you were right. They are after us both. Better together. Keep an eye out kind of thing. But, now? Surely, a man like you – with your ability to change his own history, always be moving … you don’t need to keep with me. This knife any longer?’

Helmut saw Rudiger’s bearded smiling face for the first time in years. Adrift in his thoughts. Teeth bloodied. Eyes wild around the thick edge of his cricket bat. Speech perched on his lips. ‘The order of things, my man, it don’t have room for you and your ilk. I’ve thought it through.’ The cheekbones identical to his daughters. The surprisingly small, tidy face.

Shoved it away. Into reality. To Nichola.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘In this together, for now.’

They were still coming for them. He needed more time.

Outside, an enormous wind started to wail and crackle.

Bohner stood from his milk crate. ‘Fuckin hell,’ he said. ‘Get Chance!’ Two of the motoboys took off to the basement.

The wind droned. Flexed. Disappeared into distortion buzzing through loose wires. Screamed again. High pitched. Dive bombed low. Wavered. Echoed. Nearly unplugged. Banged around. Clanked and jarred. As if filling an empty carpeted bar. The sound droned on.

A broken electronic, pitch shifted cackle sounded through a broken amplifier answered.

            ‘Wind jackals!’

            Outside, a dark shape trailing sparks, running like twisted snares, shrieking an endless reverbed bend, pounded into one of the guards outside.