"Forty thousand years. More or less."
"Oh, okay. I'll bake a cake." Sue-Jane shifted then, and Karel felt something — her knee or hand — brush his thigh. He looked at her and noticed, for the first time, the light dusting of fuzz that ringed her face. Leaning in, he lowered his voice to what he thought was an appropriately solemn tone. "So, if your entire life is just suffering, what's the point?"
"You do your best while you're here. You make your life worth living."
Karel felt it again, something warm against his leg. This time it stayed there. "By doing what? Like being good to others?"
"That's the idea."
"And what about yourself?"
Sue-Jane moved away. Whatever had been touching Karel was gone. She gestured at his plate with her fork. "Try the dhal, Karel. It's delicious."
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, Sue-Jane said nothing to Karel, just nodded and was gone out the door, not even waiting to walk together out to the parking lot. Karel drove home through the city and out to the suburbs, pulled into the trailer park, and locked up the Neon with a robotic chirp. He stood for a moment in the dusk on the steps of Wayne's trailer, looking out over the glow of the city, all those homes producing all that light.
Inside, Karel heated up some dried pasta and store-bought sauce and ate with his computer on his lap, checking his email, erasing messages, writing to no one, scouring the Internet for bonobos, for porn, for whatever.
While he was online, a message appeared from his mother. This chilled Karel, the thought of them both in cyberspace at the same time — as if she might be spying on him, somehow.
Hi.
Still no word from you. Are things okay? Please, Karel, remember that you can come home any time. You did nothing wrong. But your dad and I both really think that taking these people to court might give this whole ordeal some closure. Anyway, think about it, and write or call if you can.
Love, Mom.
Karel trashed the message.
Well after Karel had gone to bed, Wayne came home and hovered over the couch, the smell of beer wafting from him and slowly filling the trailer.
"Hey, Kare," he said, prodding his cousin with his sneaker. "I got a date."
Karel rolled over and looked up at him. "Want me to sleep on the roof?"
"Not now, fucknut. Next week. You'd like her, she volunteers and recycles and whatnot."
"Cool. Can I come too?"
Wayne hiccupped, swayed, and hiccupped again. He pulled the curtains apart, collapsed on his waterbed with his shoes on. Within seconds he was snoring.
TO BEGIN KAREL'S fourth week as the Pet Therapy aide, he got in early, at about twenty to nine. Sue-Jane hadn't shown up yet, so Karel opened up a tin of food for Judith, pulled the cover off the parrot cage, fed the fish, checked on George and Martha, the gerbils, to make sure they hadn't eaten each other overnight, and let the dogs out for a pee. Then he made his way into the back room.
Ewing sat there, fingers laced through the bars of his cage. Karel crouched down and unlatched the door and Ewing came plodding past Karel and down the hallway, out to the playroom. Karel closed the cage and followed him.
Ewing perched on a stool by the window, presiding over the room like a judge. Karel squatted beside him and chanced putting a hand on the bonobo's back. Through the hair, thin and wispy, he could feel the tautness of muscle and, beneath that, the knobby cord of a spine. Ewing reached back, took Karel's hand in his, and held it up in front of his face as if he were trying to decide whether to eat it or read Karel his fortune.
Before he could do either the door opened and Sue-Jane entered the playroom. Ewing sprung off his stool and hopped about jabbering while she hung her coat.
Karel stood. "Hi," he said, waving.
Without looking at Karel, Sue-Jane swept Ewing up into her arms. "How's my baby?" she sang out, rubbing noses.
Soon after, the kids started filing in — the new ones tentative, the returnees going around and greeting the animals like divas at a cocktail party — and Karel took Ewing by the hand and moved outside. A crowd of young patients followed.
At five o'clock the nurses arrived and the kids dispersed, waving goodbye. Karel headed out back to lock the animals up for the night. When he returned to the playroom, Sue-Jane was gone. As he was turning off the lights, there was a knock on the door.
In the hallway stood a bald man in brown coveralls, holding a clipboard. Beside him was a dolly carrying a large wooden crate.
"Pet Therapy?" he asked, looking at his clipboard. A nametag embroidered on his pocket read Angelo and, underneath that, Tropicarium Exotic Pets. "We've got your delivery here."
"I'm sorry?"
"Are you…" Angelo's eyes narrowed. "Sujata?"
"Sue-Jane?"
"Maybe."
Angelo turned the clipboard around and showed Karel a name written at the top of a very official-looking form: Sujata Jain.
"Sujata Jain," said Karel. "Sue Jain."
"That's you?"
"No, no — but I'll sign. What have you got for us?"
Angelo looked at Karel sideways, grinned, then wheeled the dolly into the playroom. "You want to give me a hand here?"
Karel did his best to hold the crate steady as Angelo lowered the dolly. Together they slid it slowly onto the floor, Angelo coaxing, "Easy, easy." The thing must have weighed half a ton.
With the crate resting squarely on the floor Angelo produced a box cutter from his pocket, slashed at the bindings holding it closed, and pulled the walls down on all sides.
A few feet away, glinting in the fluorescent lights of the playroom, sat an oversized terrarium. And inside the terrarium, thick as a curb, wrapped and stacked upon itself, was a snake. Karel crouched down and stared into the two black, glistening eyes; his own reflection shimmered on the glass, a vague spectre of a face hovering around the snake's flat, angular head.
"Jesus — why didn't you say something?"
"Wouldn't have been a surprise then, would it?"
"What is that, a boa constrictor?"
"That, Sue Jain, is a reticulated python. Her name is Sally."
"Sally."
"She's twelve feet long, but she's young and might grow another six feet if you're lucky. But lately she's been refusing food. I think it's almost three months now that she hasn't eaten a thing. Maybe down here she'll get her appetite back."
"Well, let's hope." Karel couldn't take his eyes off the snake: it just sat there, a lethal coil of spangled, scaly muscle. "Angelo, that thing can't stay. This is a children's hospital."
"Relax, Sue. You keep her locked up and she'll be fine. Besides, kids love snakes."
"I'm sure there's been some sort of mistake?"
"Hey — I'm just the delivery guy. You got problems, talk to my boss." Angelo handed over a card. Karel crumpled it in his fist, still staring into the terrarium. He felt that if he were to slit the snake open the skin would peel back and reveal foam stuffing or a giant Slinky — never bones, never muscle, certainly nothing organic or alive.
Angelo passed along a booklet of care instructions, displayed how to open and close the lid, and offered additional advice that Karel didn't really hear. He plugged the terrarium into the wall and flicked on a heat lamp, lighting Sally up like a stove element. After checking that the lid was fastened tightly, Angelo headed out. Karel lingered in the room for a moment before shutting the lights off and locking up. The musty, burnt-cheese smell of animals filled the car as he made his way home to Wayne's trailer.
WAYNE WAS ON the phone. By the hushed tone of his voice, the unintelligible cooing, he was obviously talking to his new girlfriend. Karel tossed his keys on the kitchen table, poured himself a glass of juice, and sat down beside Wayne on the couch.
Wayne hung up and stood, fastening his belt. "Up to anything Wednesday, Kare?"