by Evald Flisar
Geder staggered to the chair, sank onto it and crumpled.
‘But … she told me yesterday.’
‘Never believe a gypsy.’ He leaned over Geder and hissed: ‘You took her from me! You dead slime! You worthless piece of shit!’
Geder gave a hoarse moan. Janek watched him for some time. Then he went to the door. From there, he looked at him once more. Then he left, closing the door behind him.
He sneaked a last look into the room through the window by the woodshed.
Geder was staring into space. He looked deadly tired. Then he got up and went through the side door. He returned with his boots, sat on the bed and began to put them on. This time, he put socks on first. His movements became an unusual ritual, at first slow and hesitant, but then increasingly certain. When he had his boots on, he bent over and picked up the pieces of glass and the remnants of the incubator that Janek’s kick had scattered round the room. He put them in a heap next to the bed. Then he went to the bookshelf and took all the books – there were about thirty of them – and threw them in a heap in the middle of the room. He took the clock off the wall and threw it on the heap, too. From beneath the bed he pulled a stack of old newspapers and added them. He collected everything in the room that could be moved, apart from the table and the bed, and put them on the heap. He picked up the knife and put it on the table. He went over to the mirror and looked at himself for a while. Then he took the mirror down and that also went on the heap. He pulled the cover off the bed and placed it over everything that he had heaped up. He went into the side room and came back with a whetstone for sharpening a scythe. He picked up the knife, sat on the bed and began to sharpen it. He raised the knife and looked at it from every angle. The setting sun shone on the blade through the window. Geder got off the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt and exposed his chest. He reached for the knife and with a hoarse cry plunged it into his heart. His body slumped forward.
The door opened and Janek, still wearing the chestnut leaf crown, rushed over to Geder and grabbed his shoulder. Geder fell back and collapsed onto the floor.
‘Geder!’ yelled Janek. He took hold of the knife and pulled it from Geder’s chest.
‘Geder!’ he yelled hoarsely once more as loud as he could, with a mixture of accusation, pleading, atonement and despair.
But Geder did not move.
Janek stared at the bloody knife in his hand.
The police came and with them the investigating judge, a middle-aged man with a moustache and a hat. Janek didn’t know what he would be asked and even less what he would answer. The judge did not look very sophisticated, but his first words showed that he was Janek’s equal.
‘What have we got here?’ he asked as he walked slowly around Geder’s body. ‘In the midst of a society based on Reason there is a dark stain of Unreason. A dark, cancerous growth that threatens metastasis. If we do not remain constantly on our guard, it will grow and suffocate us all. So what is our duty? That we excise every manifestation of Unreason as soon as it appears. That we cut out, break down or isolate every malignant metastasis, however small, as soon as we identify it. Am I wrong in seeing in you such a metastasis? I think not. If I must, as investigating judge, play the role of surgeon, I won’t resist. I am grateful for the duties laid upon me by my profession. If there are rats among us, then pest control is noble, even romantic work. Wouldn’t you agree?’
He went over to the body, removed the crown of chestnut leaves from its head, looked at it and turned to Janek. ‘I have the feeling that we’ll find your fingerprints on these leaves. Am I wrong?’
Janek pulled the crown from his hand, put it on his head, went to the door and shouted: ‘I hear the devil with trumpets! Out of the way! The army of gypsy demons is coming!’
From the door he marched to the body like a soldier. ‘One – two – one – two – no one knows – what’s happening here! Here comes – the black devil – who is feared – by all!’
He stopped, removed the chestnut leaf crown and raised it before him, as in prayer.
‘A chestnut leaf crown. Woven on the fifth day after the fall of the tree that required five hours sweat.’ He placed the crown on the floor in front of him. ‘In my pocket five toads of medium size. I’ll throw them over my head into the stream behind me.’
Five times he reached into his pocket and made as if he was throwing something over his head.
‘One, two, three, four, five!’ He turned and shouted: ‘Heeey! Melalo! All the toads in the stream! Two on the left, two on the right, one in the middle. Now the crown!’
He picked up the chestnut leaf crown and once more placed it on his head. ‘I’ll dance three devilish dances. Melalo! You are a worm with a hundred heads, I know you! If you’re a magpie, I know you! If you’re a bark beetle, I know you. I know you in all your hundred forms!’
He took two steps back and yelled so loud that all those present started.
‘Me-la-lo! Here I am, your son without reason. Play!’
Although they did not hear, all those present got the impression that the lively music of a hundred violins had started up somewhere. Janek whirled in a grotesque dance, flinging out his arms and legs, thrusting his head from side to side. Then it was as if the music stopped and Janek slumped to the floor, out of breath. He got up and yelled: ‘Again!’
The dance was repeated. Janek caught his breath for a while, then he shouted: ‘For the third time!’
The dance, almost the same as the first two times, was repeated. At the end Janek collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath.
The judge bent over and removed the crown from his head. ‘Five hours swinging an axe for some woven leaves. Why?’
‘That was the way the gypsies healed … lunatics,’ panted Janek in reply.
‘But why chop down a tree for some leaves that you could take from a branch?’
‘For the parts to work, the whole must die.’
‘And how does this chestnut leaf crown work?’ asked the judge.
‘It draws poison from the brain. It kills the worms that tunnel beneath the skull.’
‘Should I believe you?’
‘Put it on your head and you’ll see.’
The investigating judge took a step towards Geder’s body. ‘I wouldn’t like to end up like this gentleman here. The chestnut leaf crown evidently does more than draw poison from the brain. It can pierce your heart with a kitchen knife.’
He turned to Janek and shouted: ‘Can’t it?’
‘For so long you don’t use bad words,’ Janek began to recite in a slightly poetic rhythm ‘For so long you don’t see things as they are, but the colour they were painted in the past. But then you slip on these smooth colours of your supposed forebears, you fall and break off a flake of paint. Beneath is something different, something completely different. You’re disappointed at the false coloured beauty, at the stunning pastel shades, at the red sunset clouds. You are gripped by fury and peel off the paint, plane it off the trees, the sky, the woods, the faces – and finally into your hands flows the naked world, finally the naked world.’
The judge leaned towards him and in a neutral voice asked: ‘Why did you kill him?’
‘The moon shines, the hammer strikes, bum, bu-bum, bu-bum!’ replied Janek in a similar tone. ‘The grey cat goes into the birch wood. Bum, bu-bum, bu-bum!’
The priest, who the whole time had stayed discreetly in the background, now drew near. ‘Janek, tell him the truth. He did not come here to harm you, he’s just doing his job. Just as I must satisfy God, he must satisfy justice. God knows exactly what happened, you cannot fool him. You can fool us for a while, but what do you gain from that, except the feeling that you know how to lie convincingly?’
‘Father, you don’t speak in the name of God. You speak in the name of the Church.’
‘I don’t expect gratitude. What I gave, I gave freely, I don’t accuse you. But don’t forget you grew up in my house! You spent more time there
than with the gypsies. I bought you clothes. You read my books. I taught you. And never, absolutely never was there any pretence between us. But now,’ he suddenly raised his voice, ‘I no longer know you! You come here, abandoning your studies after two years, and what do you do? You take an axe and you chop down the sacred chestnut tree and set alight this God forsaken parish! Did you think that in that way you’d kill off the superstition? My dear boy, I’ve been trying for thirty years, not to kill, but to ease this blindness. But not only can I not ease it – it is increasing!’
He turned to the body. ‘And then Geder. He paid for your schooling, sent you money. Helped your mother, so she didn’t starve. The harder I try, the less I understand what could have taken you so far. You were healthy, clever, you had a future. You had opportunities that few of your race enjoy. And now this!’
‘And now this,’ repeated Janek.
‘I’m almost convinced a woman is to blame.’
‘A woman,’ the investigating judge continued. ‘A man’s life, whether old or young, all revolves around a woman, doesn’t it? In my case too; I’m no exception. The only difference is that I would not kill because of a woman. Well, to be precise, I should say that until now I have not killed. Who knows, perhaps I could. Perhaps I even might. We don’t know each other well enough to know what we’re capable of. We can only go on what we’ve already done. Then probably we can only be amazed that we have done something that we were convinced was not in our nature. Isn’t that right?’
‘The sun rises like a dark ball,’ Janek began to recite, ‘so you give wings to a stone and drive it across the sea to measure the reach of your hand. It sinks behind the nearby rocks – the further you throw it, the closer it falls. So you turn and run, you would like to return to the womb beside the long dirty river that is your life, to go like lightning along its paths, but only the light shines from the night and returns to the night, and you remain where you are. Like when you step in a puddle and the water ripples all around your foot, in other words nowhere. Is that life? Or is that just my life?’
‘When I was young, I also wrote poems,’ said the judge, after a short silence. ‘I think they were even better than yours, they rhymed. And they were more understandable. Simple, like me. Your letters are easier to understand than your poems.’
From his pocket he pulled a sheaf of letters, opened one and read: ‘“It’s my second year here and the whole time I’ve felt a longing to return home; but longing is not the right word, it’s more an urge – wild, bloody … ”’
Janek leapt up and tried to pull the letters from his hand.
‘Where did you get that?’
The judge moved the letter out of the way and warned Janek that there were two police officers outside the door.
‘Did she give you the letters? Traitor! I should have wrung her neck.’
‘Good job you didn’t, because then I’d be investigating two murders.’
‘You’re not investigating, you are representing the profession that I did not manage to join. You have already condemned me.’
‘Not I, my dear failed law student. But some determined prosecutor could cite words from this letter in court and add: As we can see, the accused recognised his own criminal instincts, which he fought against, but eventually succumbed to. Especially if we add the following words from the letters.’ He unfolded another one and read: “From the very beginning, something has been driving me back home. And although the ‘me’ from the past was tormenting me, it was becoming stronger, tying my hands, dragging me back, as if that ‘me’, wherever it was, had not settled all its scores.”’
He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket along with the others. ‘In short, you abandoned your studies and returned to this remote village to settle scores. Is that not so?’
‘That’s right,’ replied Janek tepidly. He appeared to be elsewhere, in another world.
‘Do you have the feeling that you are responsible for your actions? Or that you are not? Or that you are one thing and your actions something else? Many criminals have thought like that.’
‘Really?’ sneered Janek.
‘Some say they were merely following orders or instructions. Perhaps that’s how it is with you. Perhaps you hear voices, have visions that are outside your consciousness. Perhaps a secret voice is whispering to you: Stab, strangle, dispose of, take revenge. Is that possible?’
Janek remained silent.
‘I made some enquiries among your schoolmates and acquaintances. I never go into the field unprepared. And what did I find out? Some interesting facts. How you once slapped a professor. She asked you for a dance at a faculty party and you hit her. And then an incident in the theatre, where you went with some colleagues to see … wait a moment … Sophocles’ Oedipus. In the middle of the performance you began to shout as if you were being murdered. The performance had to be stopped and you were dragged to the police station, where you were beaten.’
‘I was not!’
‘No, you beat them. You snatched the truncheon from one of the officers and before the astonished eyes of the others, beat him unconscious. How did you feel after that incident? I’m interested. Were you relieved, did you feel proud of yourself, did you feel important? A feeling you had achieved something? Or did you feel regret? Perhaps horrified by your actions? Tell me. I’m interested.’
Janek said nothing.
‘I’d like to be your friend. I could simply stick handcuffs on you and have you taken off to jail: I’d be breaking no rules, it would be entirely lawful. Any other investigating judge would have done it long ago. I am different. A special case. I want to know. It’s not enough to know that a criminal offence occurred, I want to know the reasons. Perhaps I know them already. But I’d like to hear them from you.’
‘Na janav ko dad mro has!’
‘Sorry?’
‘Niko malen mange has! Miro gule daj merdijas! Pirani man pregelijas!’
‘I’m too old to start learning a new language,’ said the judge.
‘Demons, demons!’ screamed Janek. ‘Away!’
He crawled on all fours about the room, scratching at the wooden floor like a dog.
‘I want to get in! I need a den! Light, be extinguished!’
Janek lay on his back for some time, gasping as if short of breath. Then he put the chestnut leaf crown on his head and shouted: ‘Memory, you are a demon! I know you, your name is Poreskoro! You have four cat heads and four dog heads and your tail is a snake with a poisonous tooth. You are a hermaphrodite. You fertilise yourself.’
He raised his voice: ‘But I will kill you! I’ll extinguish you! I’ll spend the rest of my life in my den. I didn’t see you, golden toad, I’d like to see you, golden toad. I know what you are. You are a female organ! At night you hop around and have fun! You are a female organ that each night is transformed into an animal! I know you! IdidntseeyouIdliketoseeyou! Kill my memory! Don’t be afraid! Come! And kill my memory!’
‘Since you are unwilling to talk to me,’ said the judge after a long silence, ‘I am compelled to form my own opinion about you. Including how you see yourself. It seems to me that you see yourself as better and higher than others. Correct me if I’m wrong. Whenever you like, at any point, you can interrupt me and say: You are wrong. I’ll be glad of your corrections. It seems to me that you see society as a worthless mill that grinds down the individual into worthless dust. Isn’t that so? Please respond. Show me that I’m wrong. Show me that I am not dealing with a dangerous, solitary, conceited criminal, who has excluded himself from society. Excluded himself because it did not immediately give him what he demanded. For a feature of this criminal is he does not expect, he does not expend energy, but he demands. And when he does not get what he wants, he raises his sense of grievance into some kind of quasi-philosophy.’
The judge once more pulled some papers from his pocket and searched through them. ‘“All these young people studying alongside me and making plans for the future want to achie
ve one thing: success and a name for themselves. A name amongst the nameless mass. They don’t realise that in the depersonalised mass of the inferior there are no names, no individuality, no freedom.”’
The judge put the letters back in his pocket. ‘“Depersonalised mass of the inferior.” You have created a new concept, congratulations. The opposite of inferior is probably superior. The price for the superior being retaining his individuality must, it seems, be paid by others. Even with their life. Isn’t that so?’
Janek said nothing.
‘Believe it or not, your silence is eloquent.’
The priest once more drew near.
‘Geder had problems,’ he said. ‘His wife left him. They had no children. He blamed her, she blamed him. She left and he began to chase everything in a skirt. He made fun of God. Twice I found him drunk in church. Give me a child, give me a child! Then he began to breed frogs. I don’t know why frogs, exactly. At least this year he switched to chickens. Now … ’
Suddenly embarrassed, the priest withdrew once more to his corner.
The investigating judge made a note in a small notebook that he drew from his other pocket, then he put it back. He turned again to Janek.
‘With most murders, the killer and the victim know each other. Often, they are closely connected. Without any doubt, you were closely connected with Geder. Mutual creditors, mutual debtors. Mutual secrets, that you each carefully guarded. Every one of us is owed something and owes something to others, and sooner or later the creditor decides to collect his debt. And when that happens, it can all end very differently from how it was envisaged. Isn’t that so?’
‘Na janav ko dad mro has!’ replied Janek. ‘Niko malen mange has! Miro gule daj merdijas! Pirani man pregelijas!’