RICE WASHING
All clean rice requires some violence.
You can’t see the filth, the starch, the sogginess, but it’s definitely in there. It’s nice to use a metallic bowl. That way you can hear the grains score a thousand tiny percussions against the black, enameled steel. It’s the water that helps you see the whole point of it all. Without the water, you’d think everything was fine. Keep running your fingertips through it, as though it were someone’s hair. Put some violence into it, if you want to make sure you clean all of it. Throw the rice from one side of the bowl to the other. Just when it thinks you’ve drained it off, plunge it into water again. Don’t even give it time to breathe.
Serious rice washing takes time, and effort, and a lot of belief. Your hand should hurt by the end. There should always be some pain involved, otherwise you’re not doing it right. You should think about something serious, something worthwhile, when you do it, too. I think about history—about everything that has happened up to now, about all the people who have gone before me, to bring me to this moment. Switch the radio off. Don’t look at your phone. Everybody should think of something serious when they wash rice.
When the water’s clear, that’s when the beauty begins. It’s the moment I always wait for. When I see those grains standing clear in the water, running between my enlarged fingers, I realise I’ve done enough. It’s like I’m there in the water, too, a grain of rice amongst ten thousand, existing in perfect transparency. I lose myself in the moment.
The cook is always a kind of anti-climax—just heat, and closure, and muffled, thumping noise. And the eating, as we all know, is only enjoyable because of all the things we had to do. All the energy we had to put into the rice to make it what it is: white, fluffy, pure.
INSPECTOR COLUMBO’S WIFE
Inspector Columbo never had a wife. She never existed. He didn’t even date when he was in the Academy. What started out as a ruse, a feint, grew, like a gradually exercised muscle, until she was present in every investigation, hovering behind each question, somehow implicit in each remark. It made him feel stronger, powerfully ordinary, impressively normal. He used the lie so often he started to believe it himself; when he got home he called out her name, asked for his dinner, started relating the details of the day’s case. As though his existence wasn’t already strange enough: a police detective in Los Angeles, waging a class war against the rich. Only to her could he confess the joy he felt, putting the wealthy behind bars. As time went on, however, he sometimes wondered if he had made the right choice. Late in his life, he thought of divorcing her, but by then it was too late. He had gotten used to the little things: the tuna sandwiches she made for him, the fridge notes she left for him, the tiny flask of coffee she always prepared and placed by the front door before she went to bed.
DRIVING TEST
They have all made a secret pact that if the father fails the driving test a fifth time, they will do something really really bad to him.
Only Stewart isn’t told, but he suspects.
In a way, it is the culmination of a series of concerns: the sloppiness, the tardiness, the unfamiliarity with technology, the indifference towards most forms of popular culture, overall the eccentric mistrust of an amazing time to be alive.
Of the three children, only the smallest—Joy—seems unsure about the pact. All she knows is the big figure who tucks her into bed and brings her sweets from work. Her siblings mock her for this. She loves them, loves her father, doesn’t know who to believe. She hugs everyone to defer having to make a decision.
Four times was enough. Whether he was truly to blame or not was irrelevant. The gradual sense is of a swollen stream dammed to breaking point, of a balloon about to burst, of a plastic bag finally stretched to its very limits.
The first time was clumsiness—why did he roll onto the railtrack as he waited?! The second time anxiety—should he have dared a turn on the red, risking all on such an open transgression? The third time malevolence: Stewart had felt the man’s sneer sit like a cat on his shoulder all through the drive. The final time, simple impatience: no desire to wait for the car to pass by in its own lane, his own senseless, urgent need to arrive at a completely fictitious destination.
The day before the test, Stewart watches his family even more closely than usual. The brothers are practicing shots on tin cans with their air rifles in the back garden. He observes his sons from the bedroom window, startled at their malevolence towards him, their channeled, focused hatred, so soon after his recovery.
Joy is in her bedroom, playing with her dolls. He comes into her room briefly, kisses her little head, sits Barbie next to Cindy, hugs her with eyes closed as he leaves. If he flees, she is the only one he will miss.
In the kitchen, he confronts Martha with his thoughts. She is clearly wrong-footed, startled at the discovery, surprised by his perception. It disturbs him to watch her think up something on the spot. She pleads with him, he throws up a smokescreen, she tells him he’s ill, feigns concern for his well-being. Stewart’s world grows darker with each hour.
“Mr Madsen, is everything okay?”
The examiner looks at his candidate with concern – the tear-filled eyes, the slight tremble of the left hand as it holds a wallet, the face so obviously in need of sleep—and then behind him, at a small family standing on the doorstep of the house, waiting to wave him off.
“Mr Madsen?”
The man next to him nods after a moment, and points ahead, as if to say, “let’s go”. The sky is dark and overcast.
