Dogs and Others

by Biljana Jovanović

  Instead, however, of these artless daydreams of mine, and what were ultimately my burning desires, it was all even more horrible: Danilo walked into my room and began to shout: ‘You whore! You’re just a whore who wants to climb into the sack with somebody all you want to do is fuck you’re a whore just like Marina! Here’s one goddam whore right here…’ He took off his trousers and underwear and dropped them onto the floor and then burst out sobbing like a child. Danilo, the child of Marina. I tried to get stern, the way that all people are stern in this world towards rotten hysterical children, although in that moment my only sincere wish was to hug him and to cry, just like he wanted too. I shouted, nonetheless, hysterically: ‘Get lost, you loser, get lost, get lost when I say so, you animal!’ And Danilo, through his inconsolable and unstoppable wailing, a stream of tears, like an abused child: ‘And Marina…Marina’s just like you…You snatched everybody away from me; you two get under everyone’s skin, and you drove Milena away, and everybody else, everybody…’

  XXVII

  Šopika and A. Caršov (The Friday Circle)

  A wacked-out meeting; I made it there thanks to Little River Čeda, who for days and days after Jaglika’s transition, probably to – the heavenly kingdom, continued to hang around our house. Good heavens, the kinds of people he knows! These guys, none of whom I have slept with, since they are an unattractive lot, right down the line, used to get together on Fridays. Typically, people would go to the apartment of one of them, who lived with his tomcat, and that would be the only living company he had in the course of the week (from Friday to Friday). There was no coffee, alcohol, hash, food, or anything else of that sort – just their discussions about the essence of life and God’s participation in it. More precisely, the degree to which God was involved in it. But also about the parapsychological revolution, the principle of irrationality – which has to be established, rationally, on the back of several other propositions, and then everything would be mimeographed and passed around amongst ourselves, or to people outside the Circle only if they had three people to vouch for them. Everything had to stay horribly secret. Sometimes the more serious reports had to be skipped on account of sleepiness, general sleepiness, and the lack of ideas that arose from that. One guy, whose name I have forgotten, but who, I remember because he never took the hat off his head, it looked similar to a baseball cap, but without the brim in the front, and who always took off his shoes immediately upon arrival, wearing trousers and a jacket but barefoot; he always said the same thing (this was already the third Friday of this): ‘Šopika (Schopenhauer) was as you know a pure genius, and Šopika as you know fucked Marx up, too, but so that we can see what kind of action we should take, whatever it might be, as you know I’m for doing it immediately, so how about everybody raises their hands, who’s for it immediately, with no delay, and who’s for later, so that it’s all on the table, as you know I told you about that letter that I received from a certain Caršov from London, we have to check out whether he might be able to serve our cause even though as you will see he’s a traditionalist; it all revolves around Christ, but here you go, I told you I was going to duplicate the letter for all members of our circle, and we should read it through, so that we can clarify right away whether to include Caršov in the movement or not, and so we know, on this question, who’s for it immediately, with no postponement, they should raise their hands and then, whoever isn’t for it, whoever’s for finding out, later.’ At that point the guy distributed the letter to everyone. The letters on it were barely legible; he told me to forget that I was a woman and to stop tarting myself up, and that was making things harder, and he told me how I should know that in the movement no one had a sex, the revolution with its starting point as the principle of irrationality must have only comrades in its ranks, emancipated from their sexuality, and if anything along those lines should occur, it has to be checked out, investigated, to see whether it occurred on a human basis, friend-to-friend, and he kept on and added that if that conception of the world was not to my liking, then I could leave at once. One of the members had gone on his own into the adjoining room – to the place where the cat was; he was rocking back and forth on a chair and hummed: ‘My mare Suziiii, Suzi myyyy mare’ in long, drawn-out words.

  The guy with the cap was the boss of everything, because when he ordered the dude on the chairs to stop singing and immerse himself in the material, the guy quit instantly. And this is how the letter looked: it was written on pieces of paper pulled out of a Bible, in Cyrillic:

  ‘Dear Friend!

  I am sending you herewith the final chapters of the Gospel of Luke. This is the second part, and we hope that you received the first part. If you didn’t get it, we ask that you write to the following address:

  Andrei Cartov (Caršov) B.C.M.

  Box 4930

  London W.C. IV (6 xx)

  England’

  ‘The Gospel of Luke is named after its author. Luke was a doctor and his report on Christ’s life and his spiritual service is a lesson in sensitivity and practical applicability. He surveys for us Christ’s love and care for people with broken hearts, for those who are ill and those who are grieving. Here, also, we have a description of Jesus Christ’s trial and His crucifixion, and His ultimate resurrection from the dead and his appearances to the people who loved him.’ This was written in Caršov’s own hand; to it were appended several small sheets of paper photocopied from the Bible, with a few errors, which weren’t all that major: the following chapters from Luke were there, from twelve to twenty-four, plus a small section from the start of the Gospel of John, Chapter One, but only these verses: fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three. Between chapters twelve and fourteen, in a small blank space on the printed page, Caršov wrote the following: ‘Luke wants you and me, as the readers, to experience Jesus in a vital, personal way, because Jesus’ love is revealed to us so clearly through his life and death. I implore God to give you spiritual understanding while you read, and to help you, dear friend, make the personal decision to invite the living Jesus Christ to be your saviour.’

  At the end, after the fifty-third verse of John: ‘And they were in the church constantly, praising and thanking God. Amen.’ And to this whole packet of twenty-plus pages, Caršov had also added this: ‘If all we do is agree, intellectually, with his teachings, then we will not grasp at all the purpose of his death. He requires of us that we make the decision to submit our lives to his authority. I would be overjoyed to hear back from you regarding your decision in this matter. Or perhaps you have some friend there who might partake in it with you. God has blessed you as you’ve been considering these things. I invite you to tune in to our radio show, which would bring you comfort.

  Your devoted,

  A. Cartov.’

  That guy who’d been singing the song about his mare, Suzi, said he found all this to be boring and old hat and that the guy in Britain was a whinger, and anyway he didn’t see any connection between the letter and the pages torn out of the Bible, which we all have, and our cause. The main guy, the chap with the hat, rebuked him, saying he hadn’t grasped any of it, and that the whole trick, the whole deal, was concealed at the beginning, in those three x’s, in the address, and that everything was just symbolic. Then he said: ‘Raise your hands if you’re for doing this right away, without delay, having Caršov join us, those who aren’t for that, who are for it later, for Caršov being added in later, so we know.’

  XXVIII

  I only went to the Friday circle one more time; I had the firm intention of joining it like A. Caršov, without any skills of my own, but they threw me out for being unsuitable for membership, as they did to Čeda Little River, with the explanation that our moral qualities were atrophied and that the organization, that is, the movement, or rather, the future cosmic revolution, could not rely on us, not even at the outset.

  Since Danilo had been walking around the house like a ghost for days and days on end (there’s no way to count, to measure, time, that time), Kovač
advised me by telephone to bring him, for him to go, to that place on Palmotićeva.

  On the third floor, there is a nurse he’d fallen in love with; on the second floor, two of them; he says that he dreams of Dr Kovač. But on this subject, Kovač says: ‘You know, Lidia, it’s unclear what’s nightmarish here: sleep, Danilo himself, Danilo’s vision of me, or all of it together.’ At that moment the phone rang in his room and Dr Kovač changed his stripes like a chameleon: he was conversing with the director and was fascinatingly condescending, just as he was fascinatingly amusing, that is to say, flirtatious, when he conversed with the nurses in the ward. Damn it, bombs are the most effective when they begin to drop, when they’re whistling along, and that guy in the cap is right, it should happen immediately, without hesitation, who’s for it, raise your hands!

  A Thursday, July, the first Thursday, a visit to Palmotićeva Street: I brought Danilo clean laundry, apples, and cigarettes. Danilo inquired about Milena, and then about Milena again and Marina. ‘How are you … I mean, you?’

  ‘I’m fine, Danilo.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re fine?’

  ‘Yes, Danilo, for crying out loud.’

  ‘And how is my family?’

  ‘What in the world do you mean by that, Danilo?’

  “Well, my…Mum. Did Mum write, how is her health? You know, I worry about that, Lidia.’

  ‘Listen, Danilo. Enough with the screwing around.’

  ‘Why are you angry now, Lidia?’

  ‘Mira sends her regards.’

  ‘Does that mean that I don’t need to be worried about Marina’s health?’

  ‘That’s enough, Danilo, for God’s sake. You know, I don’t have to come here…’

  ‘Wait, Lidia –’ (Danilo grabbed me by the hand, brought his face close to mine, I could smell the odour from his mouth, Marina’s odour [the two of them, I mean, their mouths, always had the same smell], clasped my fingers and mumbled:) ‘Wait, but Milena why didn’t Milena get in touch…and Milena what have you done to her what did you say to her what did you tell her Lida?’

  ‘She, she called yesterday, and she told me to say hello to you …’

  ‘Are you certain that she asked you to say hello and what else did she say?’

  ‘She’s going to come see you and she sends you a big hello.’

  ‘Are you sure, Lidia?!’

  ‘I’m sure, Danilo.’

  On the second Tuesday in July, Dr Kovač was on call. I went into his office on the third floor. Dr Kovač said: ‘Danilo is almost well, completely well; just a bit longer and we’re going to release him. He’s sleeping and eating well, and he isn’t fighting with the other members of the group. Plus, he isn’t refusing to cooperate, as he did earlier.’ Then he mumbled something about how Danilo’s depression was minor and how this wasn’t ‘all that awful’. ‘Come back,’ he said, ‘next Thursday. I’m going out of town starting on Monday, but my colleague is standing in for me and you know him.’

  The therapy sessions that Dr Kovač mentioned went like this – Danilo had talked to me about them earlier, and I also attended one myself: Dr X says: ‘This is group therapy. The order of the day here is democracy and self-management. The point isn’t just that everyone can speak up, but rather that everyone has to. Come on now, let’s see who’s going to be first.’ Then one of the bleached-blonde nurses stands up (only nurses and sales clerks in the Centroprom grocery stores go blonde by using Oksižen, that is, pure hydrogen. En masse: in one spot there’ll always be a dozen white-haired women with black eyebrows) and repeats the question. Then Psychiatrist X stands up and repeats the question, and for example one of these three persons named X says, for instance: ‘So, Danilo, how were your dreams last night?’ Danilo said of Dr X that he was as stupid as an asshole from the inside.

  On the third Thursday in July, Kovač was again the attending physician: he said that he’d be releasing Danilo in a couple of days, and that Danilo was doing fairly well.

  Two days later, I came back yet again; I found Danilo in the so-called activity room: ‘Lidia, where are you always going off to?’

  ‘Danilo, what can I bring you tomorrow?’

  ‘Listen, Lidia, I’m forever dreaming that I’m crying.’

  ‘And what of it, Danilo? Other people have dreams, too.’

  ‘But I feel sick afterwards, Lidia.’

  ‘Other people also feel sick, Danilo. Don’t make such a huge drama out of everything.’

  ‘How beautiful you are, Lida, like Marina and like Mira!’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You’re always faking, and there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re pretending.’

  Danilo takes my cigarette, and asks: ‘Give me one smoke.’ With his eyes gaping, he puffs on my cigarette.

  ‘I can’t, Lidia, I can’t stand it any longer. I dream constantly that I’m dying and I’m constantly crying, Lidia, and I dream that I’m crying. And see this guy here?’ (He points at a dark-skinned boy.) ‘He never quits yelling at me and shoving me as I walk down the hall. I can’t do this …’

  I looked at his sweaty, pale face; I thought, my God, he looks so much like Marina, even then (now, as I was talking), when a droplet (a little bubble) of spit had become stuck on the middle part of his lower lip, and as he spoke the little bubble moved just a touch, as if it were a bit of paper. I asked him: ‘Danilo, do you want a little juice, no, don’t hold the straw like that, here you go … oh God, you’re so clumsy, now you’ve got it all over yourself,’ staring at Marina’s saliva droplet-bubble, on account of which I felt like I could slap both of them into the middle of next week.

  XXIX

  A FINGER IN THE EYE

  They called at ten in the morning from Palmotićeva; no one had witnessed anything, no one knew anything, Danilo had been dead the whole blessed night. The bathtub was full of blood – when the tall blonde nurse arrived, the one who sits in the registration office, on the left side when you go into the clinic – he’d cut the veins on one arm only, his left, and the door to the bathroom was jammed shut with nothing but a thin wooden chair from the dining room. Danilo had gone into the bathroom and sliced open his veins, put the rickety chair in place, sat down on the tub, and waited; seriously, he waited, earnestly, for someone to show up and stop his bleeding. The doctor on duty was asleep; the night-nurses were crocheting. When I got there, Danilo was already in some other unit, where they were cutting him up for various and sundry fucked-up reasons; the tall blonde nurse led me upstairs, opened the door to the bathroom, pointed out the blood to me and said: ‘I need to get this wrapped up, on account of my other patients.’ They didn’t ask me any questions and I never saw Danilo again; three of them alternated babbling to me about the regulations; the director was on vacation, as was Kovač. The tall blonde nurse stated: ‘I’m sure you can see.’ Another nurse said, blinking her early-morning make-up-coated vulgar little eyes: ‘We don’t keep people tied up here …’ And the doctor, fresh from sleep and in good humour, I mean, why should a corpse spoil his day, he said, picking up a little cup of coffee from the desk (it was the director’s office): ‘You know, there wasn’t anything here that was …’ But he never finished, that part about how he was sorry and what not – I broke his glasses, with my fists, and then I hurled myself at the tall blonde nurse, who was holding the papers in her hands, and I succeeded in tearing out a little of her hair, and I landed a few slaps on her, but that’s all, nothing more – may Jaglika’s God, Danilo, and Jaglika herself forgive me. I was rash; the three of them got their shit together at the last minute: they held onto my arms with full doctor-nurse strength; the doctor talked some bullshit about hysteria, the tall blonde nurse said through clenched teeth ‘She’s so crazy,’ the other nurse left to get a needleful of something, and when she returned with the beneficent injection for me, I was already on the way out, down in the lobby the blonde nurse had received a big wad of spit right in the middle of her face, so that she was blind for a moment, and the doctor’d received a
kick between his legs, not particularly forceful, yet effective.

  If I’d only had a bomb. I know where I would have placed it, with no malice in my heart, as though I were carrying out a holy obligation, calmly; what I mean is, cold-bloodedly. And if I had a second bomb, and another beyond that … I wouldn’t be at a loss, in any sense of the word. I’d know where to put them all, there’s no pathos at play here, and it’s also not futile (I have no way of obtaining bombs), or another squall of pointless anger – nothing of the sort, here under the watchful eye of Jaglika’s God, or anyway with his blessing. As for bombs, I could get them from Italy via Marina and the Red Brigade, no joke, and first I’d wrap the fuse around Marina’s head with the blessing of Jaglika’s God. Marina had kicked off this whole show.