A Taste for Rabbit Read online

  Now, it seems, I am about to be involved with rabbits in a very different way.

  He reached into his pocket and found the piece of paper on which he had written. “I walk among the dappled trees / The morning sun, the … something … breeze.” He would save it exactly as it was, a memento of a time of innocence, a time when the world was an orderly and predictable place, before he had been told that rabbits could talk.

  * * *

  Isaac came to the door with a lantern in one paw and his cane in the other. “Come in.” Gerard followed him inside, and the heavy wooden door closed solidly behind him. Isaac locked it. “Follow me.”

  Gerard had made a trial run to Isaac’s mansion during the day, to be sure he could find it in the dark, and to get a sense of how the fox lived. He’d glimpsed the home of the Managing Director only from a distance. Now he saw the mansion was enormous; a long path led to the front door; no other homes existed nearby. The house was situated on a hill overlooking the town and Wildwood Forest; the view was spectacular but Gerard noticed no chairs or tables outside, and the shutters were closed, even on this beautiful spring afternoon. No flowers bloomed; no trees blossomed, no grass — just gravel, neatly raked and edged with scalloped metal of no recognizable color. Two young foxes in uniform looked at him with calculated indifference as he stood at the foot of the path.

  There was no sign of them when he approached the mansion that night.

  Isaac and Gerard walked down a wide hallway, dimly lit and lined on both sides with large mirrors in elaborate frames that reflected their images to infinity. Their footsteps and Isaac’s cane made a sharp tattoo on the dark wood floor. Isaac opened another door and Gerard saw a library; a fire crackled in the hearth, which was at least four times his height and framed in marble; books lined the walls from the floor to the very high ceiling on three sides of the room. There were no windows.

  “Sit.”

  Two chairs had been placed in front of the fire, one large and comfortable looking, the other smaller and made of wood. Isaac took the larger chair, leaned his cane against the arm, and put the lantern on a large table at his side. He rested his left leg on an ottoman that was perfectly positioned in front of him. Gerard settled uncomfortably in the wooden chair, noticing that it was also just a bit lower than the other, like a seat for a child. A tired technique, Gerard thought, but a familiar one. Many a scene designer had manipulated scale on the stage for dramatic effect.

  I am not that easily intimidated.

  “Let’s dispense with the preliminaries,” Isaac said abruptly. “As I told you yesterday, I received a message from a rabbit requesting a meeting with me. It was sent from the warren inside the abandoned fortress to the south.”

  “A message?” Gerard said. “Now you’re saying they can write as well as speak? How can that be? They don’t have the brainpower. They’re prey!”

  “By which you mean they are not self-aware,” Isaac said mildly. “I believed that once myself. Nevertheless.”

  “How do you know this was not some kind of trick? Why would a rabbit want to meet with a fox? Can you prove the message was actually from a … rabbit?” He had to control himself to keep from laughing, the idea was so ludicrous.

  “Because I met the rabbit who wrote it.”

  Gerard leaned back in the chair. “I don’t believe it.”

  Isaac stopped. “I will, for the moment, ignore the implication that I am lying,” he said coldly. “We need to get this over with. Please try not to interrupt me.”

  “May I ask a question?”

  “Never mind your questions,” Isaac said. “They are not important.”

  “If I am to work for you,” Gerard began, “I need to know …”

  “Never mind that.”

  Gerard sighed. “Can you get to the point, then? I’d like to get home before daylight.”

  Isaac ignored him. “The rabbit’s name was Dan.”

  “It had a name?”

  “Yes, it had a name. Dan came to see me very late one night disguised as a fox — very effectively too, I might add. Completely fooled the guards, who thought he was one of my constituents.”

  “Couldn’t you smell rabbit?”

  “That was the odd thing. It looked like a fox but smelled like a skunk. It apologized for the odor and said something about a surprise attack in the dark. The scent was nearly overpowering — you can imagine. I was ready to turn it away.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “My first impression was that this was a fox who had had an unfortunate confrontation. He was rather tall and thin and wore a hooded cape and dark boots. He carried a traditional lantern and spoke in a high-pitched, nasal voice. I saw in the light that his nostrils were stuffed with cotton, probably — I realized later — so that my predator scent wouldn’t overpower him. His speech was accented to my ear because — I’m guessing on this — they speak a dialect of our language. Southern, I’d say.”

  “You opened the door to a stranger in the middle of the night?” Gerard said, doubt in his voice. “A stranger who had just had a run-in with some skunks?”

  “Yes. He said he had some important business to discuss with me, a proposition that would make me wealthy beyond imagining. Naturally, in spite of the horrific odor, I was curious.”

  “Naturally.”

  Isaac had invited the fox inside and had lit a fire. “He sat there, right where you are sitting now,” Isaac said, gesturing.

  Gerard tried to imagine the scene, but he couldn’t get his mind around it. A rabbit disguised as a fox.

  “At what point did … Dan … reveal his true identity?”

  “He sat for a while without saying anything. I tried to breathe through my mouth. Then he said I would have to promise to sit in my chair without moving while he explained. He handed me a small parcel, heavily wrapped in several layers of mouse skin and bound with cord. ‘Take this someplace private,’ he said, ‘and open it. Then we can talk.’ I did. When I came back into the room, the rabbit was smiling — and so was I.”

  “What was in the parcel?” Gerard asked.

  “Wait here,” Isaac said. He walked out of the room and left Gerard in front of the fire.

  Gerard got up from the chair and began to pace, admiring the fox’s professional sense of timing. The story was bizarre. Gerard had always been able to spot a liar — being one himself — but he could see no sign in Isaac that the fox was inventing this tale. It was just weird enough to be true.

  He walked around and looked more closely at the books, perfectly and elegantly bound. But there was something wrong — what was it? Ah! The books had been painted on the wall with extraordinary skill, complete with shadows, the occasional worn or tattered spine; here and there, a book rested at an angle, supporting a tilting row of other titles. “Remarkable,” he murmured, distracted for the moment. He looked closer and noticed a very thin vertical line crossing two shelves, and a minute brass hinge — no, two. A safe, perhaps? He turned quickly at the sound of Isaac’s approach.

  Isaac balanced a tray with glasses and a bottle on one paw, his cane in the other.

  “Let me,” Gerard said, surprised by the hospitable gesture, but Isaac’s expression on hearing his offer silenced him. Gerard watched, unmoving, as the fox put the tray down, shoved the lantern out of the way, sat heavily in his chair, placed his cane alongside, raised his leg to the ottoman, and reached for a glass. “Here,” Isaac said. “You’re going to need this.”

  Gerard returned to his seat and took the glass. “I was admiring your library,” he said. “Excellent work.”

  Isaac looked at him sharply. “It impresses the nearsighted.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Where was I?”

  “The heavily wrapped package.”

  “I’ll get to that.” Isaac poured the wine. “I promised the rabbit I would not move from my chair no matter what he said or did. Then he slowly slipped the hood from his head and I saw in the light that he was wearing a fox mas
k over his face. At the same time I saw the ears — they were rabbit ears! — and then he removed the mask. It was a rabbit, a rather odd-looking one, with a large, circular bald spot at the back of its head and long fur growing down the side of its face. Most unattractive. It wiped its face with its mittened paws and breathed deeply through its mouth. I had the feeling it was trying not to show panic.”

  “So he doused himself with skunk to prevent you and your guards from devouring him on the spot? What did you do? What were you thinking?” Gerard gulped the wine in his glass and held it out for a refill.

  Isaac obliged, then leaned forward. “You’re the only one who knows about this,” he said. “Remember you swore an oath of secrecy.”

  “I remember,” Gerard said. “Who would believe it anyway?”

  For a moment he saw the arrogant veneer vanish. “I couldn’t think of anything,” Isaac said. “My mind had stopped functioning. I think at some point I actually pinched myself to see if I might be dreaming.” Isaac’s eyes were wide with recalled astonishment, and his voice, which had been cold and impersonal, became warm with amazement.

  “Well,” Gerard said. “What did … Dan … want? And what does all this have to do with me?”

  Isaac leaned back in his chair, his guard back up, the coldness returned to his voice. “I’ll tell you. As you may know, there is a rabbit colony within the walls of the old fortress on the far side of Wildwood.”

  Gerard started to speak, but Isaac held up a paw.

  “Wait,” he said. “You’ll get your answers. Yes,” he went on, “there’s an administration, a government, a city. That crumbling fortress wall is now reinforced and guarded. They are thinking of setting up a military structure for defense. According to Dan, the new government, of which he claims to be the Leader, plans to eliminate dissent, spy on the rabbit population, and dismantle the minority press. By sowing distrust and suspicion in the community, he hopes to provide enough distraction so that no one will notice that he and his cohorts are enriching themselves by executing the plan I am about to reveal to you. In short,” he said with a touch of admiration in his voice, “the rabbits are civilized.

  “A fluke,” Isaac continued, responding to Gerard’s disbelieving expression. “It’s the only way to explain it. One rabbit is born and is aware. This rabbit naturally mates with another like itself; they produce sentient offspring. The older species dies out — having been killed for food, probably by us, as a matter of fact — and those remaining are the new kind, of which Dan is obviously one. He, in turn, is assisted by a rabbit called Wally.” Isaac finished his wine and poured another glass. “They actually seem to be quite intelligent! When I asked Dan how he knew he could communicate with a fox, he said he’d found it hard to believe that rabbits could be the only sentient beings in the universe. He took a chance. Quite a courageous act, when you think about it.”

  Gerard nodded. “Yes. But I’m guessing he figured the outcome — whatever that might be — would be worth the risk.”

  Isaac looked at Gerard appraisingly. “Right. As you will now discover. Some time ago, these sentient rabbits found the fortress and decided to create a community behind its walls. The remote location and the difficulty of breaking through its barriers have made it … inconvenient, to say the least.”

  Gerard lit a cigarette. All right, he thought. I’m beginning to believe it. “Are you going to tell me what was in the package?”

  “Yes, eventually. You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that it’s been years since we’ve had a supply of edible rabbits.”

  “As a matter of fact, I was thinking about it just recently. But of course we’ve never needed rabbit — food has always been so plentiful. Most of the younger population have grown up without ever having tasted it.”

  “Exactly.” Isaac put his glass down and lifted himself out of the chair. He reached for his cane and limped over to the fireplace, staring into the fire. “All that is about to change,” he said. “Dan offered to provide me with a limited number of healthy, well-fed rabbits for food on a regular basis. Alive or recently killed, as I wish. In turn he wants gold, lots of it, to trade for weapons. He mentioned a flourishing black market in some new and better technologies that will eventually make bows and arrows obsolete.”

  “And what will they do with those weapons?”

  “They will use them to defend the compound from other predators, he says, and perhaps from any rabbit insurgents who may decide to question the status quo. In the meantime,” Isaac said, turning to Gerard with a brief smile, “I will have rabbits.”

  Gerard stood up. “But you can’t use a sentient creature for food! It’s disgusting. And it’s against the law.”

  “Do you think I give a damn about the law? What kind of idiot are you! Rabbit is rabbit. Whether it talks or reads or thinks or sings is completely irrelevant!” Isaac snarled, pounding the floor with his cane at each word. “What matters to me is that I can have a constant supply of excellent rabbit — which has not been available for years! — and that I will be the sole supplier. The wealthy elite of Foxboro will pay generously for the privilege of tasting rabbit again. In exchange, I gave Dan my word that I would pay in gold and promised we would not attack the fortress under any circumstances, no matter how tempting the opportunities might be.” He paused. “The foolish rabbit believed me.”

  Gerard decided to try another tack. “But they could use these new weapons against foxes, couldn’t they? And weasels?” he said, as an afterthought.

  Isaac turned to him. “Damn it!” he shouted furiously. He lifted his cane and banged it against the table, which wobbled and tilted over with a crash, spilling the wine. “If they break their part of the bargain and try to use these weapons against us, I will organize the entire fox population for miles around, and the wolves, and the coyotes, and any other predators we can find, and we will scale the fortress wall and destroy them, fancy technology or not! They know we can do it — I said as much to this Dan creature — and I made it very clear!”

  “Why not scale it now?”

  Isaac threw him a look of utter contempt. “You are a fool. Why go to the trouble when I can have the food delivered to my doorstep? Besides, do you think I’m stupid enough to share this windfall with a bunch of ignorant wolves and coyotes? When I have the chance to become wealthy beyond imagining?”

  “All right, all right,” Gerard said. “Calm down.”

  Isaac lifted his glass to his mouth and tilted it back to finish the contents. “This arrangement,” he continued more quietly, “would have to be a secret, obviously. No one must know that we have an agreement with the rabbit administration, or that the rabbits even have an administration.” Isaac stood up and walked over to Gerard. He looked him in the eye. “If you tell anyone, or reveal the nature of this conversation in any way, I will find out and I will have you killed, and I will kill whoever you confide in. Not to put too fine a point on it.” He turned away again. “I will not be stopped.”

  “Yes. I know your reputation. What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to facilitate the exchange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to meet Dan or Wally or whoever is going to handle this, pick up the rabbits — recently killed, I think, would be easier, don’t you? — and bring them to me or to a place or authority I will designate. A while ago I sent some trusted foxes to handle this for me.”

  “What happened?”

  Isaac turned to Gerard suddenly. “They were killed, quite brutally, all but one, who returned, mortally wounded, and judging by the story he told, obviously maddened by the experience.”

  “What story?”

  “Never mind,” Isaac said. “This is dangerous work. I need someone who is smarter than they were.”

  Gerard thought about it. “Who killed the other three? Surely not the rabbits!”

  “Not the rabbits. Others, perhaps — if you believe the mad creature’s story about rebels — and I don’t. The details aren
’t important,” he said abruptly. “This is not exactly the straightforward business arrangement you are used to. But I’m sure you can handle it.”

  “Why choose me?”

  “I’ve been observing you — and your career — for quite some time. You’re smarter than most of your kind and you know how to disguise your true motives. You look out for your own interests — qualities of character that make you perfect for this assignment.”

  “I’m flattered,” Gerard said, although he found himself somewhat disconcerted at this blunt evaluation. “But I think I’ll decline your offer. There are other ways to make a living.”

  “Declining is not an option,” Isaac said, and Gerard, seeing the fox’s expression, realized with a sinking feeling that he had no choice. “Besides, I will pay you well enough so that you never have to work again. You can spend the rest of your life drinking tea and writing poetry, since that seems to be what pleases you.”

  Gerard looked up. How did he know about the poetry?

  “As I said, I’ve been observing you for quite a while,” Isaac said with a grim smile. “You will also deliver the gold payment to Dan and Wally,” he went on. “You need to do this without being noticed or detained by anyone. I will pay you ten percent of the income I receive from selling the rabbits here.”

  “Twenty,” said Gerard, his mind numb. “And I want a percentage of what you pay the rabbits. I don’t want to wait until you sell anything. Pay me up front.”

  Isaac looked at him with disgust mixed with grudging respect. “You drive a hard bargain. All right. And if you prove yourself up to this, I’ll throw in one rabbit from each exchange. At the prices I plan to charge, that’s quite a decent offer. Rabbits have been as rare as mouse feathers. They will make us both rich.”

  “No need,” Gerard said. “I prefer cash.”