Free The Beggar and the Hare by Tuomas Kyrö

fingertips. In a dictionary he would have been found under the entry for ‘pariah’. He seized his beard and used scissors to cut it all back to a half-inch in length, letting the tangled hairs float down into the washbasin. Then he squeezed some shaving foam onto the palm of his hand and spread it on his cheeks, his jaw and upper lip. He shaved his chin with rasping strokes. As the stubble disappeared, a new man emerged. Next Vatanescu cut his hair, and little by little his ears, his forehead and the nape of his neck were exposed.
    Outward appearance sorted.
    Is my outward life also going to be sorted?
    He rinsed his face and armpits with water, dampened the hand towels and rubbed himself down all over. A brownish liquid flowed from the towels into the drain. Vatanescu cut his fingernails and four hairs that were growing on his earlobe. He looked at himself.
    Who are you?
    Vatanescu looked at himself from the side.
    Who are you?
    Vatanescu leaned very close to the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, red, black and yellow, as though they were being tested in some medical experiment.
    Where am I going?
    What can a person freely decide for himself?
    Vatanescu removed the white shirt from its hanger.
    The last time I wore a suit was at my wedding. Or was it at Miklos’s christening?
    He buttoned the shirt, got his legs into the trousers. There weren’t enough holes in the belt, so he pierced some more with the scissors.
    I’m not a pariah any more. What am I?
    Vatanescu pulled on the suit jacket and sat on the lavatory in order to tie the shoelaces. The bathroom mirror showed him the familiar eyes and a very, very faint smile. A big step forward from the deadly fear he had felt the day before, and after his flight from the police that morning. He took a deep breath and opened the door of the toilet, then made his way upstairs to the restaurant.
    The shoes tapped on the wooden stairs in a dignified way. It was a sound quite different from the flopping of his old slip-on trainers, which had said, I’m going where I’m good enough to go. The new shoes said that this man knew where he was going and was travelling business class.
     
    When he arrived at the doorway of the restaurant, Vatanescu saw a sight that filled him with horror. Ling Irmeli was talking to two policemen. They were holding a photograph of Vatanescu. Once again he took flight – though this time it was his mind that fled, forhe remained standing where he was. There were two possibilities. He could go back to the toilet and lock himself in. That would mean arrest. Or he could do what he always had to do. Run away.
    Do you remember who looked at you in the mirror just now?
    A new man, a different man, everyman.
    I’m not the man who was washing dishes in the restaurant kitchen a moment ago.
    Vatanescu looked at his reflection in the tall window.
    I’m not a pariah. I don’t hug the wall. I walk straight.
    I’m not the person they are looking for.
    They aren’t looking for me.
    And so Vatanescu, running a risk of one hundred per cent with a self-confidence of seventy, strode calmly behind Ling Irmeli and crossed the restaurant to the kitchen, right in front of the policemen’s faces.
    Ming greeted him in the kitchen doorway with a train timetable in his hand. He had seen the policemen arrive and had told his daughter to distract them for a while. Vatanescu needed only to climb out of the window onto the bin for old newspapers and from there head out through the courtyard. Once he was in the street it was only a few hundred yards to the railway station.
    Without further thought, Vatanescu jumped out of the window. It was only when he had already broken into a run that he remembered the rabbit.
    Ming whistled from the window.
    Vatanescu caught the rabbit like a ball.
    Hey ho, let’s go.

Chapter Five
    In which Vatanescu gravitates to first class, smokes a joint and finds a Volvo.
    V atanescu sat down on the only vacant seat in the carriage and kept his gaze