Anyway, Mnusken lazily said, this isn't the first time you've played such a trick on me. You've worked with me for 10 years, you've gotten to know everybody, you've been secretly selling paintings behind my back, I know, and at the same time, you've been exhibiting here. At that time, I will say to you, this, when people do this to me, whether it is Abipol, or someone else, in short, it is a matter of the door wind. No, no, you still don't get it. Right now, it's hard to eat this bowl of rice in France. But, Sputini emphasized, look at Bukele. In spite of all this he has done to you, he is still with you after all.

Bukele, Mnusken said, it's a different story. Bukele is a special case entirely. But you remember, Sputini insisted, he really lied to you. He asked you to take only 10 percent of each work, but Bukele put 90 percent in his pocket, and no one in the circle knew about it. And in the end, he is still with you, and you, you are still planning for him to go to Japan for the exhibition. Someone told me. I know, it's the same, I, everybody knows. Bukele, it's different, Mnusken repeated, that's it. I'd love to cut it off, really, but he's always here. Again, this makes no sense. I beg you, let's stop talking about that.

After saying goodbye to the endless arguments, they soon said nothing more, and Sputini was gone, still babbling and muttering with a hint of threat, Mnusken was tired and slumped in his armchair too lazy to move, and Hélène turned to look at Schovoz's work, and smiled at Mnusken from afar.

He gave her a cramped smile in return, and at the same time stood up and walked towards her: You heard it all, I guess you must understand.

You're going to make me think of me as hateful. No, no, Elena said. I hated that kind of environment, Mnusken explained, rubbing his cheeks, and that was the worst part of the job. I'd love to entrust someone to do that. I had an assistant named Delaai, and I told you about him, and he had begun to take care of those things in my place, but then he died, poor fellow. It's a pity, because he's very competent, this Delaai, he's really competent, enough to ease all kinds of conflicts.

Now, he rubbed his temples, and he looked tired, and you know, Elena said, I don't have anything to do at the moment, and I can help you if you want. Thank you very much, Mnusken smiled bitterly, but I really can't accept your kindness. It's a secret between us, and in my current situation, I can't even pay you. Has it come to this point? She said.

During this time, I had some trouble, and Mnusken admitted, I'll tell you.

He told everything. All. From the ground up. By the time he had finished talking about his setbacks, night had fallen.

Outside the street, high above the construction site, two yellow cranes blink and flash, the signal light on the tail of their crane arm is flickering, and at this time, a Paris-Singapore flight flies in the sky, and the signal light on the tip of its wings also blinks in the same rhythm: in this way, the heaven and the earth each greet each other with a synchronized wink, and show each other's existence.

Life at Bengatnell is just tiresome. His daily life is really boring. He really didn't have much to do other than stay in a hotel, call every other day, and visit whatever fell into his eyes. All this lacks motivation. Ever since he left Paris for the south-west, he had been passing the time in his white Fiat car, a simple sedan with no other features or frills, no fancy things in the windows and no bits and bits in the mirrors. He took the provincial highways in particular. One morning, it was Sunday, and he came to Biarritz.

Due to the high winds and rough seas, and because it was a cloudy Sunday, the residents of Biarritz went out to watch the waves. They lined up along the coast in several rows, and stood in columns on platforms, seawalls, balconies, high grounds, and other promenades facing the rough sea, watching the ocean perform its wrathful show. The scene is stunned and numbing, and one can watch it endlessly without feeling tired, without any reason to stop – fire can have the same effect on him, and sometimes rain can have the same effect, as can counting pedestrians passing in front of him from an open-air bar seat.

On Sunday, Bengtnell was in Biarritz, near the lighthouse, and saw a young man venture to the seashore to tease the waves, and at the very top of a rocky that stretched out, he bent his legs like a matador and twisted his waist, dodging the nervous splashes of the waves, not afraid of the danger of being doused in the soup. Moreover, he used the language of the matador to judge the strength of the churning waves, to greet (Oh Lai) the cheers of a theatrical performance, to let (come on, come on) a burst of exciting, rumbling waves (bull bull) roll in - all the encouragement, greetings, and quotes that people use against animals in the bullring. Then the waves went on a savage rampage, shattering to pieces, and when the demon of the water had fallen asleep and died at his feet, the young man stretched out his arms and raised his hands, as if to freeze time, and in the intervals signaled to it the action of bullfighting victory, which sometimes lasted a little longer, and the beast slain by the sword still stood, waiting for the breath of life to slowly slip away, and then fell to the ground suddenly, often turning sideways, and stretching his stiff hooves straight.

Bengtnell stayed in Biarritz for no more than two days, when the sea was once again stormy, and then he set off again for the interior. More restrictive than his previous trips, Bengatnell did not normally stay much in the big cities, and he tended to just cross or, whenever possible, bypass the ring road. He prefers to stop in the hamlet and sit in the coffee grocery store for a while, without talking to anyone.

He prefers to listen to the chatter of the locals there (four idle men comparing their weights and replacing them with the corresponding French department numbers). So the thinnest one was called Meuse, the one who was almost normal size was called Evelyn, the rather strong one almost approached the Balfort area, and the fattest one surpassed Valle de Oise), and looked at the sign on the window pane with adhesive tape (King of Vegetables Competition: 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., registration of the vegetables. 11:12:30 a.m., Jury Deliberations. 17 o'clock, award presentation and cocktail reception. Vegetables allowed: green onions, lettuce, cabbage, Milanese cabbage, cauliflower, red cabbage, tomatoes, melons, shoots, bell peppers, zucchini, red beets, carrots, celery, rutabata and brussels sprouts, turnips and turnips, red-skinned radish, potatoes, forage beets, forage carrots, corn, garlic, onions. All vegetable farmers are eligible to participate. Each participant can apply a maximum of nine vegetables. One sample of each vegetable. If possible, please present it along with the leaves, stems and roots. weight and appearance are judged at the same time), or check the weather forecast from the local newspaper (in the chaotic sky, there will be light rain and showers, and in the afternoon, sometimes accompanied by lightning and thunder).

Indeed, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and at the same time, Bengtnell had become less concerned about the quality of the hotels he visited. He spent the night in some inns that were much more modest than before, and he didn't seem to be very picky about it. In the first few days, he had unerring access to local and national daily newspapers, scanned the cultural and social news sections of the newspapers, and never read a single word about the theft of antiques.

When he felt he might get away with it, Bengatnell curtailed his consumption of newspapers and magazines, and ended up just scanting absent-mindedly for breakfast while eating it, ignoring the bits of butter and jam sticking to them, the dripping coffee spilling between the lines, and the orange juice strung in circles along the salmon-colored pages of the economic version.

One rainy evening, he drove down the road between Osh and Toulouse, and the night was getting early and early. Beyond the glass drawn by the rapidly swinging wipers, the headlights could only illuminate a stretch of the road in front of him: it was only at the last moment that he noticed a figure walking on the side of the road to his right, slightly below the road.

The figure was immersed in the rain and the night, like a sugar cube about to melt, and when it saw the car approaching, the figure neither raised its hand nor turned around, although the lights and the sound of the motor were drowned out by the storm. Bengatnell pulled over in a hurry, not out of kindness but out of reflex, or rather, a little tired of it. He turned on the right light of the car, let it blink and blink, and stopped the car a hundred meters ahead, waiting for the figure to come.

But the figure didn't quicken its pace, as if there was no causal relationship between itself and the Fiat's stop. When it came to the car, Bengatnell made out a vague discerning picture through the watery windowpanes, it was a young woman, as if it were, a girl, who opened the door and got into the car without saying a word, and they did not exchange a word of greeting that would normally be between a hitchhiker and a driver. She put her backpack in the back seat, sat down without saying a word, and carefully closed the door. She was drenched in such a wet body that in a few moments a thin layer of moisture was covering the entire windshield – Bengatnell was unpleasantly imagining what her seat would be like when she left. In addition, she wasn't just drenched, she looked dirty and insensitive. Are you going through Toulouse? Bengtnell asked her.

The young woman did not answer immediately, her face was not real in the gloom. Then, she spoke, her voice monotonous, as if she was reciting scriptures, a little mechanical, vaguely unsettling, she said that she was not going through Toulouse, but was going to Toulouse, she said that people were getting confused with prepositions more and more often, which was unfortunate, but it was also funny, and she said that nothing could confirm it, but it existed in a general movement of abusive language, In this regard, people have to rise up and rebel, she says that she is resisting strongly after all, and then, She leaned her wet hair against the pillow on the back of her seat and soon fell asleep.

She looks like a crazy madman.

Bengtnell was stunned and slightly annoyed for a few seconds before he landed firmly in first gear, as if he had been thinking for a moment before starting.

After driving five hundred meters, the girl began to snort softly, and a wave of anger welled up in his heart, so that he almost stopped the car and sent her into the wet darkness, but he resisted.

She slept peacefully now, her body softly held up by the harness, stretched out, revealing a serenity that might not be worthy of the gentleman he was determined to become. It was a sentiment that gave him glory, but it was especially something else that held him steady: especially her voice, which reminded him of someone. His mind was tormented by what he should do in this hostile environment, and he rarely had the opportunity to glance at her slantedly, all the more so that the woman was still facing the window with her face to the side, with only one back to him. But, all of a sudden, Bengtnell recognized her, and he realized her identity, which was definitely unreal, but it was. On the way to Toulouse, he trembled and walked on thin ice, and he held his breath, avoiding as much as possible any jolting, any shaking, for fear of waking her up. This journey lasted no more than an hour.

Arriving in Toulouse late at night, Bengtnell stopped in front of the train station and asked the girl to go down, he didn't turn on the roof lights, and when she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, he turned his face to the other side in a barely audible voice. Bengatnell didn't start immediately, but watched her head from the rearview mirror as she walked towards the station's restaurant without looking back. Because it was dark in the middle of the night, and since the girl, who seemed a little crazy to others, had not looked at him, one could not help but think that she did not recognize him, at least, that was the case.

Over the next few days, Bengatnell tirelessly continued his aimless journey. He was familiar with the melancholy of the highway, the sour awakening of the warm hotel bed before he slept, the dizziness of the countryside and the construction site, and the anguish of nowhere to find sympathy. It continued for almost two weeks, and two weeks later, in mid-September, Bengatnell finally realized that he had been targeted.

During these two weeks, Hélène continued to come to the gallery regularly. She came and went every two or three days, as in the hospital, never at a fixed time, but never more than an hour, and Mnusken received her politely but reservedly, as in the hospital, with an overly courteous and thoughtful attitude, a slightly reluctant smile, as if he were tending to a fragile relative.

The lengthy story he told her of his troubles lately did not bring them any closer to each other. She listened to him quietly, without any special reaction, for Mnusken's Arctic expedition did not arouse her amazement, and the frustrating consequences of the incident did not provoke her pity or ridicule. If she did not reiterate her offer to help Mnusken set up a gallery, then it seems that at least monetary reasons can be ruled out. Although their relationship did not develop very quickly, they would always find something to say, but occasionally they could not find a topic, so there was a period of silence. Maybe it's not too bad, because sometimes it's good, silence, with a precious gaze and a rare smile, silence can have a wonderful effect, a rare intensity, a subtle background, a sweet aftertaste, a clear decision.

But here, no: it's just a slimy, heavy, wooden silence, like a piece of clay stuck to the sole of a shoe.

After a while, no one can stand it. As for Elena, it wasn't long before she came less and less, and then, she barely came.

In this way, at first, Mnusken felt a great sigh of relief, of course, but of course, it quickly created a small void that he had not expected, and he was soon surprised to find that he was expecting her in his heart, and was unconsciously glancing down the street from time to time, and it was evident that she had never left her address, nor had she given her phone number, because the other idiot had asked her nothing. And now, it's a Monday morning, and it's not often the best of times: the business doesn't open, the sky is dark, the air is stuffy, the ground is dirty, and everything is so closed that it's as depressing as a Sunday when no one knows if there's anything to do. A few small sprigs, without passing the pedestrian crossing line, crossed the side street and reached the only discount store, Mnusken's sallow face was the same color as the crane on the opposite site and the neon sign of the supermarket. Sputini had come at an ill-timed time, and he appeared at about eleven o'clock to convey his opinion, and he disagreed with the percentages that had been proposed. He didn't have time to argue too much. Listen, Mnusken interrupted him, and now, I'll give you my opinion. You didn't try hard enough, and just like that, your work didn't grow. It's just a whisper between you and me, and what you're doing doesn't interest me much anymore, you see.

What does that mean? Spontini was uneasy.

That is precisely to say, you don't exist because you sell paintings in two art centers and three private galleries, Mnusken said.

To me, you are simply worthless. You just have to wait for foreign collectors, where people will be able to talk about their artistic careers. It's also saying, if you don't want to, go out through this door.

Sputini walked out of the gallery through the frame of the door, and almost bumped into a guy in his thirties, dressed in jeans and a jacket, who in our day and age did not look much like an artist, and certainly not like a collector, but could be said to be dressed as a young police officer, and coincidentally, the man who came happened to be a police officer: remember me, said Suphan, I am a judicial policeman. I'm here to tell you about the progress of the case.

Without going into all the technical details, according to Suphan, the current situation is roughly as follows. Good news, bad news, I prefer to talk about the bad news first, and through the observation of the electron microscope, the analysis of the antique theft case in the studio was fruitless. But, at the same time, there was good news, by chance, a frozen corpse was found, the body was not very well preserved, and in the pocket of the deceased, in the middle of a crumpled, stiff, solid mass of old facial tissues like a piece of dough or a soapy head that was about to run out, a note was found with a car license plate number on it. After verifying the license plate number, various pieces of evidence were put together, allowing one to speculate that the Fiat sedan was somehow related to the theft reported by Mnusken. Now, people are looking for the car. That's all we know.

Mnusken's face suddenly brightened. Towards evening, before closing the gallery doors, he received a visit from a young artist named Cordai. This Kordai submitted plans, sketches, models and cost sheets. Unfortunately, he lacked funds to achieve all of his goals. But it's good, Mnusken said, and it's really good, and it makes me love it so much. Well, let's hold an exhibition of it. Isn't it possible? Another asked. Why not, okay, Mnusken said, of course it does, of course it does. Also, if it succeeds, we'll do a second one. So, how about we sign the agreement now? Cordai couldn't help but wonder if people were wrong. No hurry, Mnusken said, no hurry. An agreement, that's not something you can sign like this, you can come and see me the day after tomorrow.

In 1995, the Schengen Agreement, which had already been signed, came into force, and it was well known that it provided for the complete and free movement of persons between the signatory European countries. At that time, the internal border checks will be abolished, and at the same time, the surveillance on the external common border will be further strengthened, so that the rich will be able to roam the homes of the rich more calmly, as comfortably as if they were in their own homes, stretching their arms wider, and at the same time closing the poor more tightly, and the poor will be further monitored, only more aware of their suffering.

Of course, customs agencies still exist, and that doesn't make them allow ordinary people to smuggle whatever they want, and smuggling is still subject to sanctions, but people can now come and go freely without having to wait at the border for an hour to have their passports checked. That's what Bengatnell is ready to encounter.

As he travels back and forth in the region, he no longer has any secrets in the lower left corner of the map of France, and knows all the museums, monuments, sights, and sightseeing places.

He had not left the top corner of the south-west for some time, and was never more than an hour's way from the border, as if he were a secret passenger on a not-so-sturdy steamer, always carefully hiding behind a snorkel, unwilling to go far from the lifeboat.

Now, however, Bengatnell doesn't need to spot the same motorcyclist in red clothes and red helmet more than three times in three days to decide whether to come out and get some air. For the first time, the man appeared in his rearview mirror from afar, on a winding provincial road in the mountains, flashing and disappearing at the bend in the corner, flashing and disappearing. On another occasion, at a toll booth on a highway, not far from two police motorcyclists dressed in black, who appeared to be the same person, leaning against his car and munching on a sandwich — the helmet did not appear to impede the back and forth movement of the gums. The third time, it appears that the car broke down and was parked on the side of a national highway in the rain, and the man leaned against an emergency phone booth: as he drove to his side, Bengatnell deliberately turned the right wheel of the car into a deep, wide puddle. He happily saw in his rearview mirror that the man was bouncing around in the muddy grass, and he was slightly disappointed that he didn't see the boy swing his fist outstretched.

Life at Bengatnell has seemed rather messy, silent and gloomy in recent weeks, like a cloud of chaos, but now, with the advent of the red motorcyclist, life is showing a little bit of energy. This appearance, and the uneasiness it caused, made him feel less invisible, and in doing so, diminished the echo of his every movement in the hotel room.

The only remaining connection between him and the world, his daily phone call to Paris, alleviated his loneliness, and it was through the phone that he foretold his decision to go to Spain. Besides, autumn has arrived anyway, he said, and the evening has become cooler. Quite simply, it's almost always raining. I'll feel better when I get there.

From where he is now, this Thursday morning in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, there are two routes to Spain. One can take National Highway 63, where the border line is made up of rows of arches and columns, marked with signs and symbols, all glued to them with hot glue, which have become old and yellow, peeling off the asphalt, the small windows are closed, because they are no longer in use, but the barricades are always standing, and the three officials, dressed in some unknown uniform, stand in the vicinity, with their backs to the traffic, doing nothing, as if to ask themselves what they are doing. You can also take National Highway 10: that's exactly what Bengatnell has chosen.

If you take National Highway 10, you have to cross the border at Behobi, which is materialized as a bridge across the Bidasoa River.

The huge truck was parked in front of the last Frenchman's house, a bank that had now become an unrecognizable and desolate shelter, with the curtain hanging crookedly. The sight of what remains of rusty glass, slightly obscured by piles of rubble and rubbish, is unpleasant, but one will not delay in cleaning it up: in view of the state of affairs at the border, the Madrid authorities have given assurances that measures will be taken by the local municipalities, and it seems that the solution of the problem is only a matter of a few days sooner or later. Mechanical buckets bite their brake handles, waiting to declare this place in ruins, and then people can sign a piece of paper and blow everything here to shreds.

Besides, the entire border area already looks like a large construction site...... Many of the houses with broken walls are already barren and ruined. When the new buildings were not yet fenced off, all sorts of black textiles and plastics hung down on the windows. It all smelled of sour rust, and the sky was filled with the smell of some kind of rust or dung, faintly visible through the black charcoal rain.

Some factories were in early decay, surrounded by piles of garbage and whitewashed slogans on desolate scaffolding. After crossing the bridge, I saw a car parked in a mess, and the drivers had run out to buy duty-free liquor and cigarettes. Then, as soon as they were back on the road, the road choked by the red light was spasmodically blocked, and they rushed forward like a man coughing.

Bengtnell was like everyone else, he stepped out of the car, pulled his coat by the collar high, covered his head, and ran to the low-cost stores in the rain. There was a shop selling small black rain hats, made of nylon cloth with a Scottish tweed lining, for only thirty-five francs, which was a real blessing: Bengatnell tried several in a row.

The head circumference of No. 58 was too narrow, and the No. 60 was too big, so he didn't try it, and without hesitation, he bought a No. 59 one, which should be the most suitable, but after he tried it on the courtesy mirror in the car, he found that even the hat didn't look too suitable, but it was too late, and he deserved to be unlucky, and Fiat crossed the border without any obstacles, after which Bengartnell felt a sudden brightening mood.

As soon as an object crosses a certain boundary, it is well known, the focus and focus of the gaze change, the density of the air changes, the smell and sound appear very different, and even the sun changes its appearance. Oxides gnawed at road signs like never before, and these signs alluded to an unfamiliar set of concepts for turning, slowing down, or a bump in the road, some of which baffled Bengatnell and made him feel like he was a different person, or rather, the same and the other, as if you had been changed for blood. And, as soon as he crossed the border, a breeze came in his face that he had never seen before in France.

After crossing the earlier border checkpoint, three kilometers were walked, and a new traffic jam was formed. A small truck painted with the words "police" blocked the road in the opposite direction, some men in black uniforms were clearing traffic, and farther away, every fifty meters, stood a man in camouflage uniform with an automatic gun on his chest, monitoring the embankment. Bengtnell was unaffected, but after another three kilometres, just as he was about to switch to a medium speed, a small navy blue 'Renault' covered by a small caravan truck. The truck did not turn, but began to drive side by side with him for a moment, and then, one of the windows rolled down, and an arm stretched out, wrapped in an arm, also flesh-colored, and a long hand was pale in color, and the fingers danced slowly from top to bottom, bouncing rhythmically in the air, and pointing softly but firmly to the side of the road while beating the beat. As a result, Bengtnell, who was trapped in the car, had to drive there calmly to park.

Bengatnell obediently succumbed to the civilized fishtail, turned on the rear headlights, reminded himself not to sweat, slowly stepped on the brakes, and then stopped motionlessly. As soon as the blue caravan overtook the Fiat sedan, it slowly stopped more than ten meters in front of it, and two men got out of the car. It was the Spanish customs officers, smiling, their beards clean-shaven, their hair still combed, their uniforms ironed straight, their lips fluttering to the melody of a song, and they all came to Bengartnell. One of them spoke fluent French and could barely hear it, while the other was silent.

Sir, we are mobile customs, the person who spoke said, small routine inspection, please show your driver's license and your personal documents, and please open the back box of the car.

Within a minute, the contents of the trunk in the back of the car were checked by the silent man, and it seemed that there were no interesting items: travel bags, a change of clothes, washing utensils.

The silent customs officer carefully closed the trunk of the car like a watchmaker, while the other man, holding Bengtnell's papers, tiptoed to the police truck, and three minutes later, he came out of the car, surely having made a phone call or checked his computer. No problem, sir, he said to him, "Please accept our sincere apologies and our heartfelt thanks for your cooperation, for your cooperation is not only a support to us, but also an absolute respect for each other on a fundamental moral basis, which is inseparable from the mission that we have so fortunate to have been entrusted to us, for which we can only give our lives absolutely, even unreservedly, even at the expense of everything in the family sphere (yes, And no matter how great the obstacles, and no matter how powerful and violent they may be in everyday life, they only stimulate and create a motivating motivator that motivates us to fight every day against this cancer that corrodes our order and principle, but it is also along with a thousand other things. Allow me to wish you, in the name of our people in general and in the name of our customs agencies in particular, a safe journey. Thank you, thank you, Bengatnell said blankly, but then, he reversed the car, stopped for a moment, and then set off again.

Now he is on the road again, indeed, autumn has come, even much earlier, because in the sky in front of him, a flock of storks flies along the axis of the national highway. These storks, they are migrating, the season is coming, they are making their annual trip south, a small non-stop flight from Potsdam, via the Strait of Gibraltar, to Nouakchott, often along the existing road. They will stop only once, most likely halfway, in the never-ending straight line that cuts through Algeciras and Malaga at once.

Beside the road stood a number of pillars, the tops of which were placed large nests, which had been set up by a wise governing body for passing storks. The birds will take a break there, have time to catch their breath and chirp among themselves, killing some local rats and grass snakes, and maybe a carrion of some animal, who knows – meanwhile, upstream, two Spanish customs officials sneering at each other. I think, man, that the one who spoke said to the one who was silent that we were patient enough. Both of them burst into laughter, and the breeze was cool.

Twenty minutes later, near noon, Bengartner entered a seaside city. He parked his Fiat in the underground parking lot of the city center, went to the London and England Lodges to ask for a room facing the bay, then left the hotel and wandered aimlessly for a while, strolling down the wide, bright streets of the city centre, where there were several luxury and not-so-luxury clothing stores.

He was quite Spanish and could try on a pair of pants in a store, but not enough to explain why he didn't want it anymore. Then we came to the Old Town, where the streets were filled with a dizzying variety of bars. Once in one of the houses, Bengatnell pointed to some braised or boiled or barbecued knick-knacks on the counter, ate them while standing, and then returned to the hotel along the promenade by the bay.

Two weeks later, the weather had become very cold and cold, very out of proportion to the season at the beginning of October. On the promenade, all pedestrians don sweatshirts and long coats, headscarves and scarves, and duck down hides the small carts that are being pushed fast. Bengatnell looked out of the window of his room at the London and England Hotel, where he was staying, and found a woman, with the sturdy physique of a sea lion, wearing a monolithic black bathing suit, into a sea of gray-green that was enough to make people shudder. Under a grey-brown mess of sky, she was definitely the only one in the beach, and all the pedestrians on the promenade stopped and watched. She went through the icy water, and the water began to sink to her ankles, her knees, the roots of her thighs, and then her waist, and then she drew a cross, and then she stretched her arms forward and jumped into the water, which Bengatnell envied her. What is she so strong as I am that she can do this? Maybe it's precisely because she can swim. And I won't. I can draw a cross, but swimming, I can't.