Page 89 of Shadow Ticket
“Thank heaven,” Pip gazing aloft, “out of our jurisdiction at last.”
“Knowing that idiot F., now he’ll send us to Brazil in pursuit.”
“I suppose I shall need a new turnout, one of those elaborate hats, at least…”
31
Beneath an archway with a neon sign,Átfogó Alkatrészek,visible for miles as an electric blue nimbus above the treetops, Hicks, Slide, and Zdenek come rolling into a parts depot deep in the Transylvanian forest, around which in recent years has gathered a collection of roadside taverns, overnight flophouses, fuel stations, eateries, repair shops plus an inventory including local workarounds of every part of every model and make of bike on every road, priced attractively, asking for as little paperwork as possible and sometimes none, coffee always just brewed, pill-vending machines from which various miracles of modern German chemistry drop twinkling, a laundry, radio sets that folks come in from the evening countryside to listen to, a terrace to go out and get romantic on, sometimes even when the weather isn’t exactly right, indoor palm trees, a small dance orchestra who come around on weekends, easy credit, a bar where riders can drop off mail or pick it up from an array of carpentered pigeonholes, bartenders with pockets full of folded messages, gal-mechanic cuties in Paris-original crêpe de chine boiler suits strolling around, as if looking for something to do. A Transylvanian oasis, glowing like a holiday tree ornament, among wind-driven waves of forest. According to those who’ve never visited here and can somehow not find out how to, all a mirage resulting from route-side folklore and hopeful yarn-spinning.
Well so this is it, it now occurs to Hicks, actual Transylvania, the vampire motherland itself, not in movie black-and-white but autumn colors andcountryside aromas, forests filled with shadow, early previews of the winter ahead. It rains and blows, and wolves come out and address the night, chamois pose up on ridgelines, farmers’ daughters who have let go of much of the cheerfulness of months earlier settle in again to ride out this particular pivot into darkness, as mountainsides in the distance go whitening each day, throwing strange, almost theatrical back and fill lighting to alter faces grown familiar over the summer.
Stretches there’s little choice but to drive through, hairpin turns frequented by vengeful spirits, passages cursed by some local shaman, marsh life you wouldn’t want swarming around you after dark, “And the bats of course,” adds the golem, who for some reason is informed on the topic, “bats lurching all over the scenery, some carnivorous, not the shy twilit blurs we’re used to, no—these can come any time of day at all…”
“Wait, now you’re talking about—vampires?”
“Unavoidably. Common as beetles out here, but these days, to be honest, they’re mostly for distraction, allowing other forces to pursue deeper schemes…If they were ever known to breathe, we would call it conspiracy, but these are the Unbreathing, who go about their business in a silence not even broken by pulsebeats.”
To cover the supernatural angle, Slide has brought along a little 35 mm Leica, but for all his cranking, aiming, and snapping, each time the photos are developed, once again it’s the same sorrowful story told so often out here, one blank frame after another, a vampire’s allergy to silver, an ambivalence as to light itself…
What seems to’ve begun happening out here on the route with some regularity is that impulses disallowed in normal society are surfacing unexpectedly and being acted upon. Some more benevolent than others, spontaneous pig rescue, for example.
Unaccustomed bustle one day in the repair shop, where the ill-tempered Sándor Zsupka, across whose path few who have ever ventured care to do so again, currently on the run from a number of felony charges, including actual bodily harm, is putting together a pig-customized helmet and goggles combination revealing along with his criminal activities a gift for millinery.
“This is your…”
“Spirit guide, and even a spirit guide can do with some extra windproofing now and then. Further questions?”
“Never seen a pig quite like this…”
She’s a Mangalica, a popular breed in Hungary at the moment, curly-coated as a sheep, black upper half, blonde lower. And that face! One of the more lovable pig faces, surrounded by ringlets and curls. Squeezita Thickly should only look half this adorable.
No more than idly cruising the countryside, Sándor happened to get off on one of those fateful back roads, and there in a steep farmyard were a family and their livestock, a cute meet, you’d say, though not half as cute as the pig herself. “Oh and this is Erzsébet, we’re eating her for Christmas.”
Hell they are. Sándor and some barroom accomplices perform a snatch-and-grab in the middle of the night, the pig pretending to be asleep, as she is picked up, installed in the sidecar of Sándor’s rig, and spirited away, just like that. Next thing anybody knows she’s riding in the sidecar, done up in helmet and goggles, beaming, posing like a princess in a limousine. Anybody feels like commenting, they don’t.
—
Hicks wandering the compoundone day hears a piano in the distance, recognizes the tune as “Star of the County Down,” a longtime favorite of Irish drinkers he’s known. He follows the thread of melody to a temporary dance pavilion and finds seated at the instrument, a tear track not entirely free of mascara slowly making its way down one cheek, who but Pips Quarrender, singing, in better tune than the piano, all but subvocally, “As it fell out upon one day…” Till now he thought he had the details of silent approach down pretty well, but not with Old Pips here.
“Gordon Bennett, you again.”
“Nice tune there, Pip.”
“Dives and Lazarus. Old story from the Gospel of Luke, rich bloke throwing a party, down-and-out leper starving outside on the pavement, technically it’s a Christmas carol, though uncomfortable for the average churchgoer given its rather keen element of class hostility, not always first choice when the youngsters go round caroling…”
“Congregational Methodist, myself,” as it dawns on Hicks, breaking like the day, that Pip must once have been an actual English kid who celebrated Christmas with her family, and probably sang this once or twice when she was coming up.
Reminding him it does happen in fact to be almost Christmas season. Snuck up on him as usual.
Busy now with her compact mirror, “Shall I hide this eyebrow, do you think? Or this one?” More though far from final touches. “Right. Wicked enough for the Ku’damm.”
—
Taking a shortcutthrough a parts department swarming with clerks and customers, Hicks notices a young woman in road gear, unlikely to be who he thinks it is, illuminated beneath a rainswept skylight.
“Pretty gummed up, float needle is nearly shot, you might want to just replace the whole unit, Guzzi will be switching to Dellorto Rex for this new model year but we still have some Amals in stock so we could give you a discount on a replacement…”
A gust of rain and shaken-off tree debris goes racketing across the roof.
