Page 164 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“All right, forget Jean-Claude for now. Listen Freddy, you’re my guy, and

together we can accomplish anything. Here’s how you break them up . . .”
“Your guy . . . accomplish anything . . . anything, your guy,” I said, thinking I
was talking to myself. But she heard me, and asked if I was OK.
“Me? Yeah? I mean . . . yeah. Always. I— Sorry, I interrupted you, didn’t I?
Go on.”
Aisha knew a man who gave “relationship-ruining head.” She suggested
getting together with this man and Tyche one evening, giving them both a lot of

wine and letting nature run its course. So we did that; I pretended to find it funny
when I discovered that this giver of relationship-ruining head was my flatmate
Pierre.

—

TYCHE ARRIVED with Chedorlaomer, and left with him too. Such a
companionable couple, enjoying each other and us, his energy so upbeat, she full
of quips and observations, both kept revealing their visionary natures, all these
hopes and plans, all a bit exhausting really. Meanwhile Pierre drank and drank
without getting drunk. He also made meaningful eyes at Aisha. I drank water the
whole night; gulped it actually, just trying to cool down. Avoiding inebriation
helped me think fast and not write that entire evening off—there on the kitchen

counter were the glasses Tyche and Chedorlaomer had drunk out of and then left
on the kitchen counter. I swiped them for the next stage of the project.
The results of the DNA test were disappointing. Bloodwise Tyche and Ched
were as unrelated as could be, so I’d have to make some effort . . . I looked the
results over carefully, consulted friends with some knowledge in the field, and
went to work falsifying particulars. The end result only had to look legitimate to

two dumbfounded laymen. I stress that this was not about Jean-Claude’s Tyche-
phobia, or about money, or even about proving to my mother that as a true
Barrandov I was equal to any task. I asked them to meet me in the bar at the
Glissando.
“What’s this about?” Chedorlaomer asked, and Tyche appeared to very
briefly meditate on the two envelopes on the counter before me before asking
what was in them.

—

MY MIND TICKED over as I stammered the words I’d prepared; some words about
never really knowing our fathers, how we only think we know them, how our