Jean-Marc Agrati
TRANS. BY Edward Gauvin
The Filter
The husband wasn’t a fan of the gluey rain. It swallowed colors.
The wife was watching a documentary. She got fed up, turned off the tablet.
“Can’t we go any faster?”
“We’re in eco mode.”
The husband liked it when the rain rinsed and the wind combed. Gray mud would blossom in the fields. The gutters swallow the ashes and green reappears.
“Speed up.”
They’d made a promise, though: eco mode only. All year long, except in case of emergency, or if they were running late.
But exhaustion is a kind of emergency. It was a Saturday, they were coming home from shopping, the lines had taken forever. The kiddo was protesting in the backseat. The husband upped the limit by five miles an hour.
The wife swiveled her seat. “You doing OK, sweetie?”
The kiddo, trapped in back, gave his PlexiGuard a rageful shove.
“He’s too hot.”
The husband’s comments on the matter exasperated the wife. A baby has a thousand reasons for crying.
“He’s had enough of this!” she exploded. “Haven’t we all. . .”
But leaned over anyway.
“Sweetie pie. . . Are you too hot?”
The kiddo writhed, stiffening all his limbs at once. The wife lifted the PlexiGuard. They put up with the alarm. She took off his beanie cap and replaced the PlexiGuard. Gobs of crud darkened the sky. All the cars slowed.
A beeping. The dash indicated a malfunction in the backseat mask. The wife leaned over the kiddo again.
“Ah jeez.”
The husband swiveled his seat. The kiddo was staring cross-eyed at the blinking orange light on his mask.
“It’s just the filter.”
“You sure? He’s not breathing in crap?”
“No. We’ll change it back at home.”
The husband waggled a finger toward the kiddo’s neck, menacing him with a coochie coo. The kiddo let out a preemptive laugh.
“We have spare filters?”
“Back home.”
“We should always be carrying some in the car.”
“Too late now.”
“Oh, screw you.”
The husband wasn’t a fan of beating yourself up over every little thing. From now on, he’d see to it the car was stocked with spare filters. Baby steps. You improved your life a little bit at a time.
The cars were piling up.
“Mask check.”
“. . . Shit.”
The husband didn’t think there was any point in getting all worked up. Why bash your brains out against something you couldn’t change? You just drove yourself crazy, lost all perspective. The car joined the line. The nav system put the wait time at seventeen minutes. The wife let out a cry.
“It’s Saturday!”
“So?”
“We’ll miss snack time with Noah!”
“No, we won’t! We’ll just be late.” The husband had learned not to sigh audibly.
“We’re already late.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, surreptitiously.
“I’ll cancel.”
The wife had her cell phone out, but she wasn’t dialing. Then, all of sudden: “I’ll switch the filters.”
“What?”
“It’s the same filter.”
“Sure, but—”
“I’ll swap his out for mine.”
“What’s the point?”
This time, the husband didn’t bother hiding his sigh. When the wife got an idea in her head, there was no talking her out of it. She’d already taken her mask off, setting off yet another alarm.
He decided to help her. He took off the kiddo’s mask—alarm number three—and they went ahead with the swap. The husband kept an eye on the clock. The swap took over a minute. Once the masks were back on, a fourth alarm went off.
The wife looked relieved.
“I feel better this way.”
She texted an apology to Noah’s mommy. In the end, the wait was twenty-two minutes.
* * *
The officer waved them over. The window slid down. The car popped its trunk, glovebox, seat and door compartments. Drones entered the cabin. They skimmed over the groceries and checked under the seats. The husband unfolded their jackets to ease the scanning of pockets. With three passengers and all those bags, their carbon footprint met the standard.
“You’ve set off quite a few alarms.”
“A clogged filter.”
The officer consulted his tablet. “Looks like your child’s filter is the one that’s clogged.”
“We swapped it out for my wife’s.”
“That’s against protocol. This space is unauthorized.”
The husband weighed his every word carefully. “Oh! Well, officer. . . we swapped the filters so we could be sure our kiddo wasn’t breathing in any crud.”
Number One: be cooperative. Number Two: be clear. Above all, keep it light. They were entitled to expect the officer to, Number Three, exercise good judgment.
The officer had stepped away to listen to his earpiece. The wife drummed her fingers on the elbow rest. The husband placed a hand on her arm. Could you pour patience from one arm to another?
The officer returned. “You don’t have any spare filters.”
“Not in the car.”
“In that case, I’ll have to write you up.”
“Oh.”
The husband reckoned that they were being let off easy. They’d avoid complications from time spent without a mask. But the wife’s jaw tightened. The husband felt bad for her. She had an exposed root in one molar. She was always wearing down the dentin, night and day.
The officer had punched in the ticket. Now he leaned over, his helmet inside the cabin. He was staring at the wife. The husband found his behavior inappropriate. What was he waiting for? A thank you? The wife’s gaze had not for a moment strayed from a point straight ahead, a thousand endless yards down the road.
The officer held out the tablet, the husband signed. His cell phone buzzed; the payment had gone through. The squad cars packed up their spike strips and cones. The husband was about to start the car. It was the wife who put a finger on it.
“Officer? What about our copy of the ticket?”
The officer turned around. “You’ll get it Monday.”
“We need a copy! So we can show it in case there’s another checkpoint.”
The husband kicked himself. He should’ve thought of that. Such complications were common. The officer came back to the car. His mask was not opaque. His irritation was visible.
“I’d advise you to change those filters. There’s a mall three minutes away. There won’t be another checkpointbetween here and there.”
The wife lost her temper. “Why don’t we just do our grocery shopping there all over again, while we’re at it? We’re missing our child’s snack time! We’ve got frozen food thawing in the trunk!”
The officer lost his temper. “Would you like me to report the fact that you removed your masks in an unauthorized space?”
No one wanted that. Insurance would pounce on that.
“Of course not, Officer, but—”
“Didn’t think so. Move along.”
The husband bit the bullet. All transactions have a stated goal and an ulterior one. They couldn’t dodge the fine, but at least they wouldn’t get dinged on the premium. In back the kiddo shouted, “Let’s go!”
They laughed, all three of them. First sentences are magical. Subject-verb, no mistakes. A limpid commentary on all action. The husband hoped the atmosphere would warm up.
“Halftime’s over!”
She wasn’t in the mood yet. “That cop was an asshole.”
“He’s got a tough job.”
The husband wasn’t a fan of people criticizing the police.
“He could’ve not written us up.”
“Sure. . . but he could’ve really stuck it to us, too.”
The wife eyed the fine. “Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah, it’s not cheap.”
So much for putting anything aside this month. The insurance companies and the government had launched a campaign against lung infections. This Saturday was soon becoming a shit sandwich. The husband suggested, “Shall we take our chances and head home?”
The wife appreciated that he raised the possibility. “No.”
“Why not?”
“We’ll run into another checkpoint.”
“Oh, come on. . .”
“He’s a Leaguer.”
“How can you tell?”
“Oh, I can smell ‘em a mile away.”
The husband wasn’t a fan of the League. A hodgepodge of anthem, hatred, religious fervor. . . Power, conspiracy, people all over. . . Did anyone really need all that?
“He looked at me.”
“And?”
“I’m sure he checked my shadow profile.”
The husband was no fan of his wife’s paranoia either. Everyone had a shadow profile. Big data corps mined and maintained. The branchings of your activity left an outline. Could it be otherwise? His wife was always overthinking things.
“They don’t have access to that kind of data.”
“You can be so naïve!” She took out the food pouches. “Pear-apple or straw-apple?”
She worked in the greenhouses. She was above suspicion, but in the greenhouses you naturally ran into back-to-earthers, degrowthers, one-track minds where an -ology became an -ism. The step from just knowing someone to getting harassed for it was a short one. . .
The kiddo sucked on his straw-apple in silence.
At the mall, the parking lot took over. As a family with a young child, they were entitled to a special spot. They entered the airlock; the ventilated gantry brushed them down. Inside the shopping area, they took off their masks. The kiddo was tired, crying.
The husband suggested, “You take him on the merry-go-round, and I’ll get the filters?”
“No. We stick together.”
The husband didn’t think that was a good idea, but he wasn’t about to make a Saturday like this worse by arguing. At the merry-go-round, the kiddo picked the army copter. The wife scowled, the husband shrugged.
“It’s just a ride!”
The husband put the kiddo in the copter. It came around with an ambulance, a fire truck, a combine harvester, and a weird Donald Duck cart. People around them stared. Many were in bad shape, filthy. They were taking advantage of the air quality.
They’d said just one ride, but it set the kiddo off. He had not imagined he’d be cut off so abruptly. The wife and the husband had the unpleasant impression of being center stage. They picked up the child and suffered people’s looks.
They couldn’t find their model number in the air purifier store. They waited at the help desk. As luck would have it, the line was only three deep. A chocolate-coated cookie calmed the kiddo.
“We’re out.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Mimo line has been discontinued, so we’ve stopped stocking filters for them.”
The wife pulled out her tablet. “But it says right here you have them!”
“Online, ma’am . . . not in stores. You can order them for delivery.”
“We need them now!”
There was nothing the supervisor could do. Except tell them about a new product, the Visage, packed with all the latest auto-proximity protocols and networking features,lighter and more see-thru. You could see the corners of people’s mouths now; when it came to paraverbal communication, the corners of the mouth were essential. It came with a three-year warranty, and the manufacturer had signed a pact against programmed obsolescence.
“A Mimo won’t last you much longer, take it from me.”
The husband and the wife hadn’t planned for such an expense. It infringed mightily on next month’s budget. Was their overdraft going to cut it? They had to run some numbers. The supervisor waited, embarrassed. Behind them, people were getting fidgety.
* * *
They left with three brand-new Visage masks and a package of free filters. They sat on a bench by the airlock to unbox the masks. Once again, they were the star attraction. The husband didn’t understand it. No merry-go-round here. . . . But it weighed on them, being watched. Surprise, disapproval, curiosity, despair, mockery. A spectrum of attitudes: feigned, forced, natural. What were they after, anyway? When he stared back, they looked away. It was his wife’s turn to lay a hand on his arm.
“Don’t look at them.”
They put the masks on and got up. The husband followed the wife’s lead. Focal point, vanishing point, a firm step. The mob thinned to let them through. Hisses and mutters trailed in their wake.
“Don’t look back.”
The husband was fuming. The larval, throbbing mass left him nothing to hit back at. He felt filthy, in need of a shower.
“See?”
At last he understood. The wife had told him about this time and again. But what was he to make of it? There was such a thing as evil, banal . . . Suspicion, bad-mouthing, spying, snitching . . . it all depended on how much and how sensitive you were to it.
“Should I toss the boxes? There’s a recycling bin over there.”
“No, keep them for the warranty.”
The wife was a veteran, he thought as he got in the car. But now, after today, so was he. “You go through that every day?”
“A few times a week.”
The husband felt horrible. All this time, he’d only half-believed it. She must’ve felt so lonely. He put the kiddo in the backseat. The car started up. Right away, it requested a charge.
“Shit. . . Couldn’t it have told us sooner?”
The car began heading for the charging platform. Almost six on a Saturday, the estimated wait including charging time came out to an hour and a half. The wife lost it.
“Oh my God!”
“How about we charge it up halfway?”
He asked the car to run the numbers. Thirty-five minutes. A shit sandwich, thought the husband, can take a while to force down.
“I’ll look for another charging station.”
The car calculated an alternate route: longer, but it avoided business districts and bottlenecks. The station was in the middle of nowhere. In theory, it didn’t look so bad.
The child had fallen asleep in back. The husband gazed at him. A sleeping child recharged your own personal battery. The car was taking them the long way round. Might as well enjoy the ride.
* * *
The militiaman didn’t even look up. Cap pulled over his eyes, he waved them through. The barrier lifted. It was a swanky neighborhood. Big designer houses: sanitized, original, unique. Yards the size of parks. They made out maskless people in the lighted living rooms. The husband felt a prick of jealousy.
“Get a load of these fancy shacks”
Neither his job nor the wife’s would allow them to live like this someday. No guard at the exit. Then. . . fields, a buffer zone. Machines at work.
Farther down the road, normal neighborhoods dotted with wind turbines. Condos, duplexes, a few apartment towers. Then vacant lots and low-rises. Landfills, roadside stalls, junkmen. Women cooking up fritters and kabobs. And then fields once more.
The wife pointed at the first group of trailers. “Right over there.”
But the husband couldn’t see them being left in peace to charge up in a trailer park. The police had deserted the premises, the mafias owned the militias. Coming as they were from a position of weakness, they could get robbed blind.
“Look, there’s another one not too far away. The car knows the way.”
Children were running around maskless, in rags. Day was waning. Lone machines again, more wind turbines.
The charging station at last! Grass poked up through the cracked asphalt. At first, the husband and the wife did not want to believe it.
“It’s decommissioned!”
The plugs had no juice.
“But it’s in the system!”
The husband could’ve kicked himself. The territory changed too swiftly. No map could keep up.
“Let’s go back to the trailers.”
But the car would not accept that destination. A mile, sure, but no more. The wife slammed the windshield.
“How could we have been so stupid?”
“It’s my fault. I didn’t want to stop at the trailers.”
“I didn’t want to wait at the mall!”
The wife had made the first bad call; he’d made the second. But to him, the second bad call was always worse than the first.
“Anyone we can reach out to?”
The mental math didn’t take long. The only person they knew around here was Noah’s mom. Who said they didn’t really live that close, plus she had dinner on the stove and was expecting company any minute, if they could figure something else out . . .
“Insurance?”
They described the situation and sent in their position. A robot processed their request. The estimated wait time was four hours and thirty minutes. Saturday, end-of-day, traffic: it was the best you could hope for. It would count as a nighttime service call, and they would be charged accordingly.
It was hideously expensive. The wife hung up.
“Someone’ll drive by! We’ll just ask them for some juice.”
The husband made a face. He doubted it. It looked more like a service road, made to access machines and wind turbines, not the kind people drove on a Saturday night. He checked the weather.
“At worst, we’ll get some solar tomorrow morning.”
Clear skies from sunrise on. Twenty minutes and the car would have enough charge to take them back home.
The husband and the wife laughed.
“Well, whaddaya know!”
“‘Another Saturday night’. . .”
“An oldie! You trying to get me in a parked car?”
“Honey, you always think everyone’s out to get you.”
They were determined to keep their spirits up. It was happy hour, wasn’t it? The husband pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of a brown paper bag.
“You betcha!”
The husband didn’t usually partake of entry-level whiskeys. The wife didn’t drink much, but she liked Jack Daniel’s. He made an exception to his rule.
“Might as well eat outside.”
A cement table and benches awaited them. They unwrapped their cube of bread, some cheeses, opened a can of sardines. The kiddo chose from among the week’s pouches. They had a wine jet, but no glasses. Drinking proved amusing.
Weeds burst through the blacktop. The husband peed on them. The sky had sucked up all the humidity, a few stars could be seen. The machines, too, awaited tomorrow’s light. A giant wind turbine stirred the air.
The wife made a bed of jackets for the child. She rocked him, and he fell asleep. She joined the husband outside again with the bottle of whisky. They listened to music.
Then they waited in the car with a TV show for sleep to come.
* * *
The emergency locks woke the wife. What had set them off? The husband struggled to open his eyes. Headlights trained right at them completed the rude awakening.
“Start the car!”
He tried, but the car was not responding. The doors were jammed, their phones had no signal.
“We’ve been hacked!”
Trucks were pulling up, people getting out. Lots of them. They all wore knit hats, gloves, opaque masks. They surrounded the car. They pounded on it, shook it, hit it, chanting: “Shame! Shame!”
The back window shattered. Fuel was leaking. The din drowned out the screams of wife and child.
A man in a toga showed up. He raised his arms. Silence fell. Behind him, some men were carrying banners, others torches. The only sound came from the baby. The wife pressed him close, smothering him.
And the husband thought: maybe, just maybe . . . There’s always a stated goal and an ulterior one. He had to give it a shot. He smashed through the window with his head, his fist, his shoulder. And screamed, “At least take the child! Leave him by the side of the road!”
He was trembling with rage. Had his tone caught them off-guard? Or this last-ditch bit of mental math? Everywhere, whispers, barely audible but agitated, wound through the gathering. Doubt was creeping in, the clamor proved it. The husband and the wife spied shrugs, sighs, shuffling feet, clenched fists . . . heads were bowed, the leader listened. And raised his arms once more.
The husband realized they were screwed. There was nothing ulterior about the ritual. They all felt the rapture of flame.
Jean-Marc Agrati worked as an aeronautical engineer and a math teacher before devoting himself entirely to writing in the early 2000s. A prodigious outpouring of over a hundred stories, mostly very short, has followed, making him a fixture of the French small press scene. A fondness for fantastical and surreal conceits has led him to juggle with genres. “Le filtre à air” was first published in 2019, in the bilingual speculative fiction revue Angle Mort.
Edward Gauvin (PhD, USC) has received residencies and fellowships from the NEA, PEN America, the Fulbright program, Ledig House, the Lannan Foundation, the Banff Centre, and the French and Belgian governments. The translator of over 80 short stories and 350 graphic novels, he has spoken on translation, French literature, and comics at universities and festivals, and will be returning to teach at the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference this summer. Find him at edward-gauvin.squarespace.com.