The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl Read Free Book Online Page A

Just not Bill Haji’s.
    He uses duct tape to attach the finger to his left hand. The silver-coloured tape covers the joint, so it almost appears as though it’s a complete hand. He stands before the mirror admiring himself – hand dangling at his side, hand to his chin, arms crossed, thumb hooked in his trouser pocket. It’s a minor change, but it suits him. A new little finger. He almost feels normal, and can’t help but keep it on when he leaves.
    A couple is standing near the roundabout outside of Puerto. He drives them to a bike-rental shop in Via Panitta. He changes gears and drums the wheel rhythmically. Neither one of them says a word to him. Neither one of them stares at his hand. They just talk about, well, something or other. Then he drives to La Oliva: A man and his dog are heading to the veterinarian. The dog, an old sheepdog, sits stock-still gasping for breath. Erhard’s afraid the dog will sniff the finger, but it seems more interested in the hollow space under the hand brake, where there’s a balled-up napkin from lunch. The man tells him the animal’s going to be put to sleep. There’s nothing that can be done, he says repeatedly. One hour later he drives them home. The dog continues to gasp for breath, but the owner is happy. We made it, he whispers to the dog.

16
    Then comes the year’s first rainy day. Whenever it rains, he likes to be inside drinking Lumumbas. They don’t know jack about that down here, so if he’s at a hotel – he likes being at a calm, air-conditioned hotel with a bar, where the bartender stands quietly between fags – so if he’s at a hotel, he has to tell the bartender how to make a Lumumba. At the Hotel Phenix down on the beach in Corralejo, he once went behind the bar to show the new bartender how to heat up the cocoa with the same nozzle used to foam milk for a café au lait .
    He’s at home today, where he keeps cocoa powder, powdered milk, and cognac on the top shelf of his pantry. The rainy season usually comes in the spring, as far as he’s concerned, but there are many different opinions on the matter here. He whips up cream with a fork attached to the power drill. And then he sits, shirtless, in his chair under the tarpaulin, gazing up at the mountain. Into the rain.
    He put the finger in a glass of formaldehyde. The glass makes the finger appear elongated and thin. A pharaoh’s finger. A finger to make the heavens thunder. Up close, it’s just brown and twisted. The ring’s loose now; he can spin it, but it still won’t come off. It has begun to irritate him. If he can pull the ring off, the finger will seem more like his own. But he can’t let it dry out. Then it’ll break. Or fall apart. Like a crushed cinnamon stick.
    The drops fall so thickly it sounds as if the earth itself is grumbling. As long as it keeps raining, he can’t hear anything else. He thinks about the corrugated plastic sheet above the toilet and the kitchen, which makes everything sound much worse. For seventeen years he’s considered getting rid of it. It doesn’t match the house, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. But he doesn’t care about that, actually. It only irritates him when it bangs in the southerly wind and he lies in bed all morning cursing the wind or the roof or himself, because he didn’t replace that old plastic sheet years ago or, at the very least, lay some rocks on top of it so that it doesn’t bang as much. But when he’s outside sitting in front of his house and staring up at the mountain and the silver-coloured sky, he doesn’t think about anything.
    When someone says, Isn’t it lovely to live in a place where it never rains? , he says, Yes. But the truth is, those four or five rainy days a year are what he loves most. They break up the monotony of sunshine; they’re like instant holidays pouring from the heavens. The entire island comes to a standstill. Everyone looks up or runs around finding the things they’ve left lying in the driveway, in