Being Invisible by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online

named for some Caesar not the author of De Bello Gallico.
    His anticipation assured him that the waiter—whose own name seemed to be, remarkably, “Gonzo,” or such anyway he had scrawled in the space provided on the check for “Your Servitor”—would give him an argument, perhaps even a nasty one, if the subject of the missing salad were broached, and he was weighing his dislike for a quarrel, especially one that had the capability of tainting what had been, on balance, a pleasant experience, against his memory of Babe’s contempt for his habitual failure to claim justice from the petty tyrants of quotidian life.
    While he was so occupied Babe herself, accompanied by a short, thickset, very hairy man, entered the restaurant and in fact went to “their” old table. She took no notice of Wagner, and sat down with her back to him.
    The hirsuteness of her companion was only a matter of his head, Wagner could see now: the face, though pitted, was clean, but his wiry scalp began just above his shaggy eyebrows, then fell on both sides to conceal his ears under muffs of thick black wool. He looked in a triumphant mood, his dark eyes glittering all over Wagner’s estranged wife.
    If he reaches across and takes her hand, Wagner swore to himself, I’ll take this knife and go over there and stab him in the heart. But in the next instant the man enacted to the letter his part in the fantasy, yet Wagner could not begin to bring off his own. For one thing, the knife at his disposal was blunt as a tongue-depressor. For another, though he lived in a world in which some human beings casually killed others to gain possession of a piece of costume jewelry, he could not murder an unarmed man merely for ruining his life.
    Instead he left enough cash to pay the check plus tip, slipped back to the men’s room through the now crowded tables, and, in a toilet cubicle, became invisible.

3
    I NVISIBLY, WAGNER LEFT THE tiny men’s room, squeezing past a stocky man who had entered after him and who while standing at the lone urinal was airily whistling a tune without melody.
    Wagner almost found himself saying, “Excuse me.”
    Out in the dining room, he steered towards the table Babe shared with her ugly escort. To keep to the direct route was not easy: people kept coming and going in a space which, unless they saw someone else in the way, they assumed was theirs to occupy exclusively. Of course, if three or more persons were in a cluster, Wagner found he could push past them or even be involved in mild collisions with impunity; no one looked for a man who wasn’t there but rather blamed those at hand. Invisibility could be used to cause a lot of mischief, but at the moment he had a grimmer purpose.
    Who was this man Babe had got hold of? Or vice versa: the skunk was still clutching her hand.
    The answer came shortly, for just as Wagner reached their table, so did the waiter named Gonzo.
    “Hiya, Mr. Zirko,” the servitor crooned sycophantically.
    “Yeah, Tommy,” said Babe’s hairy escort. “Hop to it.”
    “Tommy,” who couldn’t even write his name legibly, scuttled obsequiously into the kitchen. Speaking of names, who would have one like “Zirko”?
    Wagner couldn’t bear to look too closely at Babe. Luckily the nearest table was still vacant, and he therefore had some choice of standing room.
    “This poor slob,” Zirko said to Babe, “loves me. And not just because of the tips. It’s because I give him distinction, make him feel important. That’s it. He won’t let anybody else come near!” He had a raspy voice that went with his pitted skin. He wore a dark suit, a gray shirt, and a black necktie. He was some kind of thug, for God’s sake. What could Babe be thinking of?
    Wagner tried to keep from looking at her. She had a new sideswept hairstyle that gave her a cheaper aura, but she was still a far cry from the kind of woman whom Zirko should frequent.
    “You’re not going to let me order a drink?” Wagner was