Halgrim subtly shifted his weight to the other hip as gently as he could. The merest twitch from Binky beside him warned him to be cautious, and Halgrim redoubled his care as he tried for the most furtive of stretches.
Then Binky sneezed.
‘What was that?’ Yates’ head snapped up from his book and looked around. Chris didn’t flinch, but continued writing.
‘Just a rosella I think.’
‘Oh.’
Halgrim and Binky stood in painful solid stillness, hardly daring to breathe.
‘Do you fancy a coffee; stretch our legs?’
‘God yes,’ Chris fervently assented and slung the hardback notebook to one side, ‘we’ll check the shops for a cheeky toilet roll while we’re out too.’ Within moments, the two full sized humans had tied shoelaces, argued about keys and sunglasses, and closed the door behind them.
‘Ye GODS, BINKY!!’ Halgrim out-burst to the recalcitrant war bunny who was engaged in frantically scratching his nose with his ears fit to rub it off his face. Having satisfied his itch, he drooped his ears in shame. Halgrim began a series of stretches and contortions until it was unclear which was a hairy toe, a hairy tail or a hairy head. Binky winced at the fusillade of clicks emitting from the troll’s joints, and the grunts that issued wetly from his nostrils.
‘This is insufferable, Binky,’ Halgrim lamented. ‘They are here all the time! When are we supposed to stock check? Research? A book guardian cannot work like this when at any moment a human could catch him mid spine buffing!’
Binky forlornly scratched behind his ear. Often it is hard for a rabbit to convey real sensitivity of emotion in such a gesture, which is usually completed as an aggressive high-speed battering. However, to Binky as a war bunny and book guardian, such nuances of expression are entirely possible, and he kicked himself vigorously about the head in a distinctly melancholic fashion. He looked up with sad eyes at Halgrim and nodded.
‘And of course,’ continued the exasperated troll, ‘if they see us move, we lose our situation. I don’t fancy another posting at one of the public libraries with the DVDs and Catherine Cooksons. Not after that incident with the goose in the children’s area.’
Binky flinched at the memory and vehemently nodded. Halgrim ceased his pacing and slumped against The Decameron with his hairy toes spread out. His bottle of Aquae Vite knocked against the shelf with a clonking, sharp edged sound and he absent mindedly reached for it. Binky automatically batted his hand away. Halgrim sighed. He was looking thoughtful, which Binky knew must be handled with caution. ‘We need inspiration, Binky,’ he said, picking at a cover of Collected Kafta. ‘This isolation is going to last a while. We need some sort of plan.’ He heaved himself to upright and poked at Catch 22 behind him. Binky hopped off to another shelf to investigate Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and both book guardian and war bunny were absorbed in their perusal.
Then Binky twitched and pulled out a small volume from the twentieth century European section. Halgrim ran over and seized it, reading the cover aloud: ‘Camus, The Plague.’ He looked at Binky, and in jubilant enthusiasm, ruffled his war bunny’s ears, which he knew very well Binky hated.
‘By Loki, Binky, well done!’ Halgrim frothed. ‘This is bound to give us ideas! The similarities are uncanny. Surely this’ll give us some tangible suggestions about how to deal with this pandemic!’
Binky graciously nodded his head in acceptance of his unfailing genius, then fell to smoothing his ear fur after Halgrim’s inappropriate tousling. At that moment, they heard a key in the lock.
Book guardian and war bunny froze momentarily in horror. Then with the speed of exponential infection, Binky grabbed Camus’ classic in his teeth, headbutted Halgrim forward, and the two of them dove off the shelf, under the armchair, and into the book.
* * * * *
The dusty, hot streets of Oran wrapped around them like a dirty, wet towel. It was an ugly city, unaccountably with its back to the ocean, and not enough parks. They walked up to the large gates of the town and inspected the guards there, doing a good job of guarding. Binky looked back down to the harbour with its abandoned docks, empty cruise ships, deserted beaches and the stillness of economic passivity. He sighed. Not much inspiration here for finding some way of getting through isolation. It all seemed much the same. He looked up at Halgrim, who shrugged, and together they strolled the empty streets back to the central town piazza as the clocks chimed five.
And then the square was suddenly full of people.
‘What the Hel is going on, Binky!!’ Halgrim yelped as he tried to dodge first one person, then another, writhing to keep two metres distance while Binky clapped his ears around his nose and mouth until the hysterical Halgrim scraped away at the furred antennae, shrieking ‘don’t touch your face, don’t touch your face!’
Breathless with horror, book guardian and war bunny dashed into an empty side street. They frantically applied hand sanitiser and cringed to avoid touching anything. In disbelief, they watched crowds meet, shake hands, chatter, disperse and regroup, then head off into waiting bars.
‘Oh gods, Binky,’ Halgrim whispered, shaking his head so vigorously that the bobble of his red troll hat bounced off his nose, ‘bars are open? Restaurants are open!’ They sneaked out of the alley and dashed the long way around the square, peering into open doors. ‘Look how crowded together those tables are, Binky!’ Halgrim spluttered, ‘and there’s no sanitiser on the bar! No one has a mask! There are no markings on the floor to separate people!’ Suddenly he ducked violently, and from his crunched position, shrieked wildly, ‘Someone just sneezed!! And he didn’t even cover his face!!’
But Binky was looking away across the street. He yanked at Halgrim’s hairy arm with his rabbit paw, which happily disturbed the book troll from swallowing gulps of sanitizer and gestured fervently to a brightly lit building.
‘A CINEMA?!?!’ Halgrim seethed. ‘Well I think I see the problem here, Binky. They may have sealed off the city to stop plague from spreading, but they’re doing nothing to stop it inside! Are they trying to kill off the whole populace??’
Binky waved the copy of The Plague about and gestured to where was written ‘prophylactic measures had been taken,’ and sniggered. Halgrim clattered him about the ears. ‘A fine time for sordid jokes, Binky. Don’t these people have modelling? Tracing? Exponential curve graphs?!’
Both Halgrim and Binky were blustering thusly and reapplying sanitiser when a man pulled up in his car. He was a blandly good-looking chap, probably tall and dark haired with a serious face. Halgrim looked relieved.
‘Ah, you must be the doctor!’ he sighed in palpable relief. ‘We’re already low on sanitizer, do you have any?’
‘Dr Roux,’ said the man, affably, and reached his hand out to shake Halgrim’s, who cringed and stepped back and overcompensated with a regal bow. ‘Are you both new in town? Surprised you made it in.’
Binky set his rabbit face to neutral. He wasn’t bloody surprised.
‘Halgrim, book guardian,’ said Halgrim, rising from his L-shaped position. ‘May I present my war bunny, Binky. And as the doctor here, I’d really like to talk to you about the … er… prophylactic measures.’
Doctor Roux smiled. ‘I’m off to see my asthma patient just now. Hop in and we can talk on the way.’
Halgrim and Binky graciously accepted, and after a scuffle (‘not the front Binky, NOT THE FRONT!’) they were riding through town.
Dr Roux was a decent chap, although he actually spoke a lot more than he would have you believe. Halgrim wasn’t getting very far with his suggestions about social distancing in between the doctor talking softly about the tragic time of evening that brought people’s plight fully into focus, you know, where they could really feel lost. He was getting quite poetic in his descriptions of the sunset and the human soul and was still going when they arrived.
‘The hardest thing,’ he was still saying ‘is for the lovers, those who are separated because one or other of them does not live in Oran. Their love becomes less real, more abstract, and with telegrams, they can’t express the uniqueness of love. Everyone’s feelings have become the same here, there is no variation, and they belong to everyone.’ Here Halgrim tried to interject. Binky had long given up and was gazing out the window. He hadn’t seen so many people in weeks. ‘Take me,’ continued the doctor, ‘now I don’t tell people this, but my wife is away too, in a sanitorium in the mountains. I understand this separation, but I don’t talk about it.’
‘Yes,’ mused Halgrim, ‘I recall you were resoundingly silent on the matter.’
Binky nodded. He remembered far more gracious descriptions of the doctor’s mother, than his wife. Something to think about.
‘Never try to write to her, Doctor?’ enquired Halgrim, without much hope.
‘We’ve arrived,’ said the doctor, ‘let’s go in.’
The old asthma patient was sitting up in bed, emptying dried pasta shell by shell from a bag to a bowl. Binky was dubious about this frivolous use of a preciously scarce resource. The old man rubbed his hands in glee at their arrival, and giggled about dying rats and the shortage of soap. When the consultation was over, Roux took Halgrim and Binky up to the roof to admire the stars.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Halgrim, perplexed, ‘what was that all about? You didn’t prescribe anything, or give any medical advice. Is there nothing more to it?’
The doctor shrugged. ‘I think I come because at least he doesn’t have plague. And he never goes out, so he can’t get it. He’s like a sort of respite. And I help myself to a roll of his toilet paper every time I come. This balcony’s nice too, just look at those stars!’ Binky blinked in stunned silence while the doctor continued, ‘What do you say to us heading down to the harbour? We can strip off our clothes and swim in the sea, like none of this is even happening. Just for an evening.’
Halgrim was firm. ‘No, thank you.’
****
The next morning, Halgrim and Binky set out for a Spanish café on the docks. It was, unbelievably, still open. They cringed between the stainless-steel chairs and held their breaths as they squeezed past the marble bar. Finally, in perfect rigidity, they perched upright on stools, clutching their knees. Binky twitched his uncertainty about Halgrim’s suggestion to help the plague effort. He wasn’t convinced these people really knew what they were doing. He sighed a rabbit sigh. Then thought ‘sod it’ and ordered a gin and tonic. Because he had really missed bars.
Just as it arrived, both Halgrim and Binky were distracted by noisy shouts from outside. Two men were greeting each other in the typical French manner, and Halgrim and Binky, who had been in a permanent state of wince since arriving in Oran, experienced further internal contractions around the posterior. One of the men was tall and thin, bald but more shaved than from advanced age, and he carried a notebook in which he noted his many observations. The other was smaller, younger, with dark hair and a harassed narrowing to his eyes. He was smoking prolifically. They entered the bar.
Approaching the back corner where Halgrim and Binky were perched, they paused with uncertainty for a moment, then headed with renewed purpose for the troll and war bunny. The smaller man spoke first.
‘Halgrim and Binky?’
‘That’s us!’ Halgrim confirmed.
The man took a drag on his cigarette again with a frown and nodded. Binky, as a vigorously healthy war rabbit, knew that smoking was really bad for you and increased complications with the current contagion. His rabbit toes curled.
‘Rambaud,’ he introduced, removing his cigarette with one hand and extending the other, and raised his eyebrow when it was met with fastidious but low bows. He persevered. ‘And this is Tarot. Roux told us you’re joining our volunteer group. Help with the plague effort.’
‘Yes,’ Halgrim eagerly agreed, ‘and we think we have some really helpful insights. Have you heard of hazmat suits?’
‘Non,’ denied Rambaud.
‘Allow me to enlighten you, mon cher,’ Halgrim smiled.
*****
In a few days, Halgrim and Binky’s persuasion was taking effect. After being sent in a contingent to retrieve their first dead body, Halgrim had stepped back from the cadaver daintily before commencing an enormous melt down that had all other volunteers fleeing from his high pitched shrieks of ‘you want me to just pick up an infected corpse like this?! It’s no wonder you’re all DYING!!’ After introducing effective masks, gloves and coveralls, the volunteer groups noticed with encouragement that it had been three days now, and none of them had fallen ill. Binky nodded wryly at this epiphany.
Yet the plague marched on with its jerky stride, stamping on the populace of Oran. Halgrim knew it was time to discuss further methods with Dr Roux, and one evening, inevitably on the way to the asthma patient’s house, with Rambaud and Tarot in the back of the car, he broached the subject.
‘Sorry Rambaud; can you just give it a rest about your wife for a minute? This in fact, is exactly what I wanted to talk to Dr Roux about.’
He had their attention.
‘Now, we need to step up measures. Isolating patients with symptoms is not enough. We need to stop people mixing altogether. Bars and restaurants; they’ve all got to be closed. The bloody theatre! Close it. People from different households; they need to be kept separate. We shouldn’t even be in the same car together.’
‘But the lovers,’ interjected Rambaud, ‘how can they bear the pain of separation…’
Binky snorted a rabbit snort that cut Rambaud off in surprise.
‘I think,’ Halgrim ventured, ‘my faithful war rabbit is trying to convey that now is not the time for melancholic poetics about the blue hour of evening when a person is left staring into the despair of their soul and all that. If she doesn’t work, your bloody wife can just come here and stay in your household.’
Binky thumped his foot.
‘Yes,’ continued Halgrim, ‘and from now on, we all keep a metre and a half apart. No touching! And wash your bloody hands every twenty minutes. It’s just absurd the way things are going on!’
Binky nodded. Absurd. He fell to pondering this, and in the blue hour accidently slipped into his own moment of existential crisis. He made a mental note to talk to Halgrim about the concept later. But the mention of handwashing provoked a turn in the conversation to the increasing scarcity of items like soap, not to mention the lack of dried footstuffs, toilet paper and protective gloves. Rambaud warmly mentioned their friend Cottard, who would no doubt have reserves of these things stored up for sale on the black market. Tarot nodded and the three of them smiled indulgently. ‘Well,’ said Roux, ‘he’s certainly thriving in this crisis. There are those that can’t afford to buy rice as his marketing has driven up the cost, and they starve. But it’s good to see him so affable.’
‘I don’t know why you all can’t see it,’ Halgrim said as they arrived and got out the car, ‘Cottard’s a bastard.’
****
The plague skipped through the town, pirouetting merrily over houses as it gently leaned in to cough its phlegmy gifts over children and the elderly, the rich and the poor, single and lovers alike. It certainly seemed to be having a jolly time of it. Binky had been thinking, as he strolled through the now empty streets, an appropriate distance from Roux and Rambaud, about this Absurd. He carried a two-metre stick around the promenades of the town, whacking unwise lovers guilty of springing into each other’s arms, sternly poking people who jostled each other in shops, and resolvedly beating anyone carrying more than one pack of toilet paper. But it was absurd. How many people seemed to die, despite the efforts that were being made to flatten the curve. On a separate point, so was Petit’s spending twenty years re-writing the same first line of a novel. He wondered if this was a Metaphor. About the process of writing or something. He resolved to have this one out with Halgrim too.
Halgrim was a stage more fanatic in his vigilance. Several times, the gentle Tarot had been mid discussion with him about types of plagues being carried in the soul and it is all our duty to fight it, when he had to hold the troll back from chasing people into their very houses. Few have seen a tall bald man hold a whirling, furious troll in mid-air. Those who did resolved to stay in their houses from then on.
Then one evening, after Halgrim and Binky had spent the day tossing dead children into carts, in the blue hour of the day where it inevitablly all goes to shit, Binky had a funny turn. As the streetlights and sunset exchanged brightness, he found himself highlighted in a sulphur glow and had the terrible urge to swing madly round the lamppost. So he did. He swung crazily and unstoppably for a good five minutes, then relented to throw his rabbit ears back and laugh an hysterical, soundless laugh.
Halgrim slapped him about the face.
‘Pull yourself together, rabbit!’ Halgrim exclaimed.
Binky blinked, startled, and rubbed his furry cheek with his ears. He looked at Halgrim in dismay and apology. Halgrim gave his ears a rueful ruffle. This time, Binky did not object. He was feeling forlorn.
‘I know it’s a tough one, old rabbit,’ consoled Halgrim, ‘but you mustn’t give in, dear chap.’
Their walk took them round to the large church at the end of the road. It was stuffed with people. Halgrim set his jaw firmly and rolled up his sleeves. It was time for an Altercation. Binky sighed another rabbit sigh, and looked up; alert to the plague, slinking around the rooftop gargoyles and rubbing its back on the coloured windowpanes.
They went in.
‘It is God’s punishment!’ a small, red-faced man on a podium was shouting vehemently. ‘For you have not been righteous enough! God sends his message on the Angel of Death: you have not loved me enough, and so I wreak hell upon thee!’
Binky growled. Halgrim was reaching for his bottle of Acque Vite, for moments of strength, and perspicacity.
‘Now you may all step forward and sip from this shared cup, it is the blood of Christ and will protect you all -’
Halgrim had already lunged forward, stirring up the sediment of Berserker that settled below fathoms of peace-and-book loving blood, and dashed the infected goblet across the nave. Its journey towards its resting place against a pillar was followed by hundreds of pairs of horrified eyes. In the silence that followed the clang of metal against stone, hundreds of eyes travelled slowly back towards the alter where a positively smoking Halgrim was vigorously sanitising his hand.
‘OUT!!’ he roared, ‘OUT ALL OF YOU!!! Get to your homes AT ONCE!!!’
The congregation uncongregated swiftly. Binky turned to spit at the astounded Father Paindebete before following Halgrim out.
They sat by the river as evening darkened, sharing sips of the Aquae Vite. They were from the same bubble, so it didn’t matter. Binky twitched his nose interrogatively.
‘The whole Isaac and Abraham thing?’ Halgrim queried. Binky nodded. ‘No, old chap, I’m afraid I absolutely cannot shed any light on that. Kierkegaard was clearly a nutter.’ Binky looked shifty and glanced edgily at the nearest lamppost.
‘Now, now, Binky, calm down. It certainly meant something about the absurd. Religion being absurd or meaningless. Or that’s what faith is. A leap into the absurd. Something like that, if I recall.’
This satisfied the war rabbit somewhat. They sat in silence for a while, thinking. Binky twitched again.
‘Perhaps,’ Halgrim ventured, ‘Paindebete is the point. Saying it’s all from God, like the plague was part of A Plan. Certain things happened, or didn’t happen, in an irreligious populace that likes wine and poetry more than God –‘ Binky thought fondly of Omar Khayyam and felt soothed ‘- or Netflix and pizza, and so there’s an effect. He believes the plague is logical, so it will end logically.’
Binky thought, then revelation suddenly widened his rabbit eyes. He whipped his head to face Halgrim and twitched his nose.
‘That’s IT, Binky, you’re right!’ Halgrim clapped. ‘Plague is NOT logical – it doesn’t follow a pre-ordained design. One does not behave in a certain way and then it follows that other, unconnected things will happen. Life is not logical! Or fair! Life is…’ he seized Binky’s ears in excitement, ‘absurd!’
Binky looked somewhat deflated at this.
‘But Binky, don’t you see?’ Halgrim persisted as Binky tried to free his ears, ‘Because there is no meaning, we are free! We must do what we can against the plague because that is the only thing to do, not because of some Great Reason. In doing so, we REBEL against the great meaningless of life. Paindebete is absurd for trying to find meaning in randomness. We accept; embrace the meaninglessness of it all. And we defy it! By refusing to let that truth destroy us!’
Binky shrugged. He thought there was something in this, cold as it was. He didn’t believe in God. He didn’t believe in the Gods either; he’d met them; they were flesh and blood beings, and they sure as hell had no plan either. Loki helped mortals one moment, then destroyed them the next. He laughed a rabbit laugh, in the face of the truth of the Absurd.
Halgrim got up from the side of the river and stretched his troll legs. He pointed to the gutter, where the plague slithered and wriggled, in small rags and pieces.
‘Come on Binky. I think our measures are starting to have effect. Let’s go back and see how the books are getting on back home.’
****
Back in the apartment, Binky and Halgrim arrived to see Chris and Yates on a zoom party. They’d finished most of a bottle of wine and Chris was defiantly reaching for another. They were far too pissed to notice Halgrim and Binky, who got on with a merry spot of book dusting and cataloguing, then drank a bottle of mead themselves and played scrabble. Then they laughed over the lovesick; the madmen who tried to bury their sisters; other mad women who tried to sleep with their nephews and mad writers who tried to sleep with their friends after naked wrestling. And they thought, before slipping off into mead-dreams, that all their adventures had been a bit absurd, really.