i. Stasis
The day before they left – left for the first time, that is – Crawford took him out to buy new clothes. /To freedom/, proposed Crawford. He said it without saying anything; just a little, in the slant of his back, a little in the set of his mouth and eyes, it was implied. Schuldig, appreciating the irony, was something near pleased with himself for having picked up on Crawford's sense of humour.
Schuldig stretches back, arms behind his head, and lets the daylight flutter in pale bursts through his eyelashes. His jumper rides up to expose a bare inch of vulnerable belly-flesh. His body lost track somewhere between Beijing and Khabarovsk and Karimskaya. Maybe that shithole in Africa, the one with the name he couldn't pronounce. Well, maybe, but that was another time altogether, he reminds himself. Now he's out of sync, awake in the pale-grey hour before dawn, tired all the time, blinking vacantly when he's spoken to and having to remember to speak. He has subliminated the rocking noise of the train; occasionally, he catches himself thinking in time with the rhythm, a soothing clockwork back and forth. He plays cards with Farfarello, and holds long philosophical arguments; sometimes in English, mostly in German.
Coca-cola tastes sweeter here than he remembers it. Vodka tastes of guns, and reminds him of Crawford. It makes his blood tingle and rise to fill the corners of his body. He's spread out, which is dangerous under the wrong circumstances – he knows that, of course he knows that – but it feels warm. Schuldig almost died of cold, twice, when he was fifteen years old and had a hollow in his chest and a vestigial tail at the base of his spine. He lilts his head back, hears himself laugh. Funny; it's funny the way they sit, the way they look at him like that.
Nagi is holding Schuldig's hair out of his face so he can be sick. The toilet is chemical; the door keeps banging open and shut with the rocking of the train. It's too much for him right now, the motion. He can't stand it, he squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself unconscious, just wants it all to stop.
'You're hopeless,' says Nagi. 'Really, Schuldig, you're hopeless.'
Infinity lacks perspective. Infinity is boring, and almost-infinity is this dead landscape with nothing to show between the foreground and the horizon.
We're still not there yet?
Schuldig, perhaps, is going a little stir-crazy. He lies awake all night with his head flopped off the seat so that the blood sloshes in his temples, he paces, he jumps erratically in and out of the heads of the other passengers. Presently, Crawford decides to fuck some sense into him.
Crawford: being with him, is nothing like messing about with Farfarello. Not like anyone else, really. He's going to have a finger bruise there, under his left collarbone, and probably one on his wrist too. For Schuldig, who never stops fiddling and pacing and poking – it's funny, but there's something he enjoys in being physically pinned down by someone stronger than him.
Sleek layers of fat over muscle over bone – he is physically more there than Schuldig, for all his preoccupation with the not-yet-happenings that pass before his eyes. His pale skin, darker at the face and neck and hands. His square-tipped fingers. He shouldn't be a soothsayer; Crawford; he should be a leader, somewhen where news was legends and blood was what you fed to gods. Schuldig arches up into him, pressing and pushing until spots of white light start to obscure his vision and he screws his eyes shut and gasps.
Schuldig's vest has ridden up at the back, all corrugated creases under his shoulder blades.
'You'll need some new clothes when we get there,' says Crawford. 'Moscow is cold.'
'Moscow is fucking unreal,' acquiesces Schuldig. 'Sure. Clothes.'
Siberia is where the cold makes your chest ache when you breathe, where vodka is to keep your blood from freezing and where the fluids in you will stiffen and become brittle like an old scab if you stop for too long.
Like a honeycomb. But for the warmth and wetness of his mouth, it would seem unlikely, the fact that there are flesh mechanisms working to preserve stasis under his skin. Gristle, capillaries, yellow fat. Sheathed tendons. He stretches his hands out in front of him, almost expecting to see daylight through them. He cracks his knuckles.
ii. Like With Wolves
In the foyer, waiting, he squirms his hips to redistribute the scrunched fabric of his vest under the waistband. New jeans, still shop-starched and leaving indigo shadows on his legs. They cup round the small of his back, skim his calf muscles unexpectedly and constantly, reminding him of the presence of his own body. Institutional wear, uniforms, borrowed garments and 'growing room'. Schuldig is used to having his clothes hang off him.
He sits between Crawford's legs and fiddles with the hem of the valance. When they're done here, they'll go somewhere else. Skip seasons, make it summer.
'Do I get to kill that blonde bitch?' says Schuldig.
'Which blonde bitch?' says Crawford.
'The hell do you mean, "which blonde bitch"?' He's angry, suddenly. 'The one working for Nabokov, the one in the grey suit. You know.'
'Ah. Her.'
'So, do I get to kill her?' repeats Schuldig. He pushes his head irritably at Crawford's thigh, for emphasis.
'You can if you want to,' grants Crawford.
Sociopathy, disassociation, self-interest. These qualities keep Schuldig from functioning in one sense, keep him from going insane in another. The wrong kind of insane, that is.
Schuldig moves precisely, back to back with Crawford. He doesn't need to see Crawford to follow his movements. He knows this back as intimately as a lover, as intricately as a killer – he goes with Crawford without ever touching clumsily. The scene seems oversaturated, he's focused so taut. Berserker's high is bleeding off into him, and the little bit of Crawford too, that thinks like Farfarello, close at his back. He narrows his eyes and shoots through the plasterboard wall, knocking down the armed man in the corridor before he can even get to the door.
She wasn't there at the scene, so he decides he wants to fuck her instead. It's almost insultingly easy. Her flat is nicer than he expected. Her breasts are small and her face is somewhat plain, but she makes some effort at least. He comes away with unbloodied hands; and then on the street corner it's the man himself, it's Crawford who knew to be there to shoot when she followed Schuldig holding her boyfriend's gun, thinking to empty his pockets, thinking to make a quick buck.
Next day in the hire car, Schuldig traces over the bruises on his chest and abdomen through a clean white cotton vest. He's obscurely pleased with himself. Like a dog, like with wolves. He's reaffirmed his status. The roads manifests ten metres before them in the fog, scrolling out like a video game.
Crawford: he's the only one who's allowed to kill Schuldig. This is a principle Schuldig respects even as he's unaware of it.