It wasn’t really so long ago that people had spit on my family’s gate. Now they wanted to exchange money for what that name represented, perhaps offer the role of my father to an up-and-coming serious character actor looking to break into the major awards scene after portraying a series of multilayered, morally ambiguous white men in independent films.
Every day I continued to receive emails from Petr outlining the detailed schedule of tasks to complete before reaching my target. Filter testing, sensor cleaning, a more rigid exercise program to prepare me for possible emergency protocols, video chat events to satisfy the sense of ownership and pride of the taxpayers. I performed these tasks dutifully but without much excitement. All I could think about was the creature, its weight, its voice defying sound waves; or Lenka, Central’s inability to find her, the silence, my resentment building up against her despite my best efforts. The pursuit of Chopra seemed ill-timed, perhaps even no longer worth the time and currency in the face of terrestrial intelligent life. But Chopra was ahead nevertheless, visible and life-altering to Earthlings, while the creature had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and these mild headaches, the lingering proof of its presence, were beginning to feel self-inflicted. Both Lenka and the creature had abandoned me to my mission. My flesh attended to the menial tasks only with dry professionalism, while my mind wandered everywhere, anywhere, once manic and once passive, a buzzing fly making its way around a bedroom, torn between the freedom promised by sunlight seeping through a window and the endless buffet of crumbs scattered in dark corners.
Six days and eighteen hours after the creature’s disappearance, when I settled into my lounge chair to check email before sleeping off two hours of television interviews, I found an email forwarded by Petr from the ministry of interior. The attachment was a text file titled Lenka P. The text of the email:
A gift from Senator T?ma. State security agent has eyes on Lenka 4 u.
P.
I opened the document.
The subject was first spotted while leaving the city hall building in Plzeň. In comparison to provided photograph #3, contrasts are immediately striking—hair cut short and dyed blood-orange red, some weight loss noted around cheekbones. Subject walked with confidence and a cell phone held to her ear. Phone records show the particular phone call was to her mother. Other calls have been made to a female friend in Prague and a male acquaintance in Plzeň. The male acquaintance will be followed up on shortly for possible involvement. The subject drove to a Hodovna supermarket, where she purchased half a kilo of lean ham, Camembert, three whole wheat rolls, two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Bounty bar. It appears that the subject shops for only one meal at a time. The subject’s evening activities were limited to watching reruns of The Simpsons, consumption of purchased goods, and writing in a notebook the agent has not yet been able to access. It is of note that the subject consumed an entire bottle of red wine and smoked seven Marlboro menthol cigarettes before going to sleep. As the agent was asked for light detail, he abstained from observing the subject’s bedroom activities, and did not enter the apartment. A view through the window revealed a neatly arranged living room with little furniture, no pictures or wall art, no books, a television placed upon a cheap table. The leather couch seems to be the only substantial piece of furniture in the house, suggesting the subject is not considering a permanent stay. Surveillance will resume…
I closed the email. Male acquaintance. Possible involvement. Perhaps the surveillance was a terrible idea—the guilt was not worth the minimal relief it provided. But the guilt of spying on Lenka did not overpower the sudden thirst this report had created in me to know her every meal, every conversation, every sigh that could possibly be dedicated to me, perhaps a scent that reminded her we used to wake up to each other. Anything could be a clue to her return.
Thanks, I wrote to Petr, this means everything.
I rubbed my sore eyes and shut off the Lounge lights, a habit from home I could not shake, despite having limitless solar energy at my disposal. Somehow, not flicking a switch still seemed wasteful.
I made my way to the kitchen for a midnight snack, and recoiled at the sight.
The open refrigerator door was, along with the counters, covered in thin blotches of chocolate spread. A white lid floated across the room, cracked in two, and in front of me, suspended in midair, was the creature, two of its legs scratching along the inside of the Nutella jar. The creature blinked a few times, then extended the jar toward me.
“I am ashamed,” it said. “I seem to have acquired an inability to resist impulses when it comes to Earth’s hazelnut.”
With a trembling hand, I recovered the jar. “You’re back.”
“After our unpleasant confrontation, I needed to meditate and reconsider. You must understand that our encounter is not a simple matter for me.”
I approached the pantry and removed a package of tortillas. I spread the hazelnut miracle on the tortillas and rolled them up into anorexic burritos. The creature’s legs quivered as it watched me, possibly a sign of excitement.
“I’m happy you’re here,” I said.
“Before my departure, you asked about a name. My kind has no need for distinguishing marks, identities. We simply are. Would it help you to call me by a name, skinny human?”
“It would.”
“Call me by a smart human’s name. The name of a philosopher king, or a great mathematician.”
I revisited the catalog of great humans, the astonishing chronicle shining through the stained pages of history. There were so many—enough to convert anyone, briefly, to a perky optimist—but the correct one presented itself with absolution, as if the ghost of Adam’s first naming were speaking through me. Once upon a time, Adam pointed at what then was nothing, and he declared, Rabbit. And thus nothing became a rabbit.
“Hanu?,” I said.
And thus nothing became Hanu?.
“What has he done?” Hanu? asked.
I offered the burrito. With a grin, Hanu? accepted it between his teeth. He chewed with his lips and eyes closed, the bottom of his belly swinging from side to side as he emitted a low-pitched grumble resembling the sound of a large dog begging for treats. I was not sure why I had taken to calling him a he, as there was no sign of genitals.
“He constructed the astronomical clock in Prague. Orloj,” I said. “Later the city hired thugs to stick hot iron rods in his eyes, so that he would never build another. With blood dripping from his sockets, Hanu? reached inside the clock and interrupted its functions with a single flick of his hand. No one could fix the clock for the next hundred years.”
“He was an astronomer.”
“Yes. An explorer. Like yourself.”
“I will be called Hanu?.”
The creature settled on the floor, suddenly unaffected by zero gravity. He extended a leg toward me, his lips spread into a wide smile, regaining their previous bright red color. I touched the pointed tip of the leg, felt the hard sleek shell beneath the hairs. The tip was hot, like a freshly poured cup of tea. I made two more burritos.