The Republic of Wine

the heels of these strange sensations, his arm was frozen numb by the icy coldness of her body, except for his hand, with which he attempted to touch her belly, the source of the sorry rumblings. She was wearing only pink pajamas and a pair of fuzzy bedroom slippers. As she shuffled along, the appearance was not so much of walking as of being carried along by a pair of mangy cats. The long history of men and women, he thought to himself, was actually very much like the history of class struggle: sometimes the men are victorious, sometimes the women, but in the end the victor is also the vanquished. His relationship with this lady trucker, his thoughts continued, was sometimes a game of cat and mouse, while at other times it was a case of two wolves, one with short forelegs, the other with short hind legs, working together. They made love, but they also fought like mortal enemies, the weights of tenderness and ferocity striking a perfect balance. His little thing must be frozen solid, he thought; he also imagined that she was frozen solid. Reaching up to touch one of her breasts, he discovered that something that had once been nice and springy had turned into something as cold and hard as the metal weight on a hand scale, like an unripe banana or an apple stored in an icebox.
    Cold?’ His question was patent nonsense, but he forged ahead: ‘Why not go to your place. I can carry out my investigation after the weather warms up.’
    Her teeth were chattering, but she said stiffly:
    ‘No!’
    'I'm concerned that the cold might be too much for you.’
    'I said no!'
    Holding the hand of his close comrade in arms, Mickey, the crack detective Hunter walked silently down Donkey Avenue on a cold, drizzly autumn night… These were the thoughts running through the head of the investigator, like lyrics flashing across the screen in a karaoke bar. He was mighty, Herculean; she was stubborn and intractable, but could be affectionate and passionate when she wanted to be. Donkey Avenue was virtually deserted. Potholes filled with water like frosted glass gave off a dull glimmer. Just how long he’d been in Liquorland he couldn’t say, but he’d spent all that time on the periphery of the city; the city itself was a mystery, one that finally beckoned to him on this late night. For the investigator, Donkey Avenue, with its long history, brought to mind the sacred conduit between the legs of the lady trucker. He quickly criticized himself for this objectionable association. He was like a pale adolescent suffering from compulsive behavior, incapable of restraining the shocking metaphor spinning in his head. Wonderful memories fluttered toward him. He was vaguely conscious of the likelihood that the lady trucker was destined to be his true lover, and that his body and hers were already linked by a heavy metal chain. He sensed that he had already foolishly developed feelings for her, which ran the gamut from hate to pity and to fear; this was love.
    There were few lights on the street, now that most of the shops were closed. But there were plenty of lights in the compounds behind the shops. Loud, dull noises emerged from one compound after another, and the investigator wondered what the people were doing there. The lady trucker supplied the answer:
    ‘They butcher the donkeys at night.’
    In what seemed like a split second, the roadway turned treacherous; the lady trucker slipped and fell hard on her backside. He fell alongside her when he tried to help her up. Together they broke the umbrella, snapped the ribs; she flung it into the ditch, as the drizzle turned into a hailstorm, the air around them suddenly cold and clammy. Chilled air bored through the spaces between his teeth. He pressed her to move on. Donkey Avenue, narrow and gloomy, had become a place of horror, a lair of criminal activity. Hand in hand with his lover, the investigator entered the tiger’s lair. He saw the words with extraordinary clarity. A herd of glossy donkeys came down the street toward them, blocking their way at the very moment they spied the large signboard - Yichi Tavern - beneath a red light.
    The donkeys were huddled closely together. A rough count revealed twenty-four or twenty-five of the animals, every one of them glossy black, down to the last hair. Drenched by the rain, their bodies glistened. Well fed, with handsome faces, they looked to be quite young. Either to combat the cold or because they detected something frightful in the air of