I wanted to leave the two of them before Sanja scampered off again leaving me alone with Ela. I didn’t want to be standing there with her like two outsiders. I glanced at Sanja and it seemed she was looking right through us.
Then Jerman turned up. We’d been inseparable during our Drama days at uni. I congratulated him on his performance, but I felt strangely tense seeing him there, that headline OUR CHEMISTRY HAPPENED ON STAGE going round and round in my head.
“Let’s go and have a drink,” he said.
“You can see we’re drinking already,” I said.
“But there’s no beer here. I’m going to the bar for a beer.”
“He’s all over the place,” Ela laughed.
“As mad as a cabbage,” Sanja said.
I stood there as if in the midst of opposing forces.
“I’m going out for some fresh air,” I said.
“Are you not feeling well?” Sanja was startled.
“No, everything’s fine.”
I gave back her hat.
“You’re sure you’re OK?”
“It’s just a bit stuffy.”
Just air, an ordinary Zagreb night, the sound of cars from the main road, kids rushing to the tram stop because they’d overshot their curfews. I needed some unpretentious damp pavement and the couple who shared a hot dog at the fast food stall and were taking bites in turn.
I looked at all this like someone who was sheltering from the rain, standing close to the tram stop, by a shop window with a mass of trendy sneakers.
I kept walking on along the street, aimlessly, till I reached the main square. Then I felt lost, like someone who’d dropped out of their own story, so I started to head back down a different street, through Flower Square, and gradually I got myself together, as if I’d inhaled a dose of intimacy in those streets.
When I got back I finally took the infamous cocaine from my pocket.
“So that’s why you had to go out for some fresh air,” Sanja exclaimed.
I rounded up Charly and Silva. I also found Ela, who daintily declined, but came with us since Charly was there. Sanja took us backstage to a rehearsal room in the maze of corridors beneath the theater. After snorting a few lines we returned through the labyrinth like a squad ready for action and burst onto the small stage that had been made into an improvised disco. Some guy was already there, dancing—Markatović!
His tie flapped and he danced as if he was shaking off a dog that had bitten his leg. Silva and Sanja joined in with some sexy dance, Ela began to meditatively move her hips and neck, and Charly sort of hopped around mechanically and waved his arms in some arrhythmic techno style. I raised my arms like a footballer who’d just scored a goal and grinned at Markatović.
I screamed in his ear, “What happened with Dijana?”
“You won’t understand,” Markatović shrilled in a broken voice. “You just won’t understand.”
Afterward he told me in a voice dripping with sentimentality that he’d come because of Sanja and me. He was so glad we were happy.
The party was hotting up.
People were circulating through the foyer between the bar and the dance floor that had taken over the stage. Every hour or so we went down into the labyrinth of corridors, and the conversations became ever more candid and stupid.
Markatović explained to me that Sanja and I were a perfect couple. He spoke of her as a sophisticated lady, at whose side my life would never become languid, while claiming in a devastated voice that Dijana had become a domestic bore. What did he expect when she was freighted with twins, I tried telling him.
But he wouldn’t listen: he said she was becoming more and more like her mother, and that horrified him because he hadn’t imagined life would be like this, what with loans and all that shit, with Dolina and bad shares on his back, and a wife who reminded him of his mother-in-law. He added that after the birth she’d even stopped enjoying sex—they’d had to cut her down there and now it hurt. He told me all this although I hadn’t asked. But he confessed to me in a terribly trusting tone and with the face of a drowning man. Dijana had left, taken the twins with her, and written a fourteen-page farewell letter, but he hadn’t got round to reading it yet because he had come here because he knew I’d be here.
Next, Silva came up to me and whispered that the Chief hadn’t been enthusiastic about her taking on the Niko Brkić topic; he’d told her to stick to covering showbiz because that was what she did best. She leaned her head on my shoulder and worried sadly that everyone considered her empty-headed. I told her she wasn’t. I looked around to see if this was going to make Sanja jealous, but she was dancing with her back to me. Ela was pressing Charly against the wall, writhing sensually in front of him, and he seemed to be gradually giving in to the pressure.
Charly came up to me a bit later. “Where’d Silva get to?” “She left,” I said.
He stayed beside me, pensive and fumbling around on his mobile. Someone had put on a remixed domestic folk song; Charly made an expression of disgust. Markatović, on the other hand, raised his arms, dancing recklessly.
“What am I, what are you, oh liiife,” he bellowed.
“Your friend seems a little unhappy,” Charly remarked, as if he didn’t know Markatović’s name.
He wasn’t the only one, I thought. But we were careful not to admit it. That was one of the codes of Zagreb society. We were pretty disciplined about that. I guess we felt that distinguished us from the hoi polloi of the Balkans.
“What am I, what are you, oh liiife,” Markatović continued—it must have been cathartic. He grabbed a bottle of water from a table and started pouring it over his head. A circle of people formed around him. Sanja and Ela were there too, killing themselves with laughter. Markatović’s face beamed with happiness.
“A system meltdown,” I said to Charly with a grin.
“Is this a Croatian theater or are we in some bloody Serbian wedding?” Charly jeered.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They’re letting it all hang out.”
“I can’t stand it. You think this is all OK?”
“It’s all a laugh, one big laugh.”
“I don’t get you one fucking bit.”
Again that ontologically naive refrain blared: What am I, what are you, oh liiife. If it had been sung by Irish folk musicians Charly would relate to it more favorably.
“Translate the lyrics into English and then it won’t bother you so much,” I said.
“That’s just bullshit, and you know it.”
“You're maintaining discipline, at three in the morning?”
He was offended. That’s what we’re like in Croatia when the fun starts. We try to make sure things don’t get out of control. There’s always that danger here on the slippery edge of the Balkans. Here we always squabble about what we’re allowed to enjoy and what not. That was part of our culture. We had high standards in order to set ourselves apart from the primitives further south and east. We were small in number, those of us who held high standards, and were aware of our precarious position. Until we collapsed like Markatović.
Now I was angry too. Charly had dragged me into this shitty debate and, in a typical Central European way, I started to think instead of having fun. But the coke rocketed me to be brutally honest.
“You know what?” I began. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for ages that your standards are utterly destructive. And you’ve come here in such a shitty mood just because of Ela.”
“What the hell. What’s she got to do with it?”
“She’s hot on you, but you can’t. Your stupid fucking high standards are in the way because you’ve got your sights on Silva. You keep on trying to meet some artificial standard, you drive around in that fat Jaguar, you go on about locally-grown olive oil, but you don’t fool anyone. I’m smashed and I don’t care, but I’m telling you. Get rid of those fucking fictions. Bloody hell, I can see where you’re at. You don’t have a life. You’re always into imitations. You think pe
ople don’t see? Just let people dance, man, go over to Ela and pour water over your head. Otherwise your life will just be one big put-on.”
“It’s about time I put on something,” Doc said as he walked past us.
“Go ahead!” I called out after him. “People here are about to take to the barricades.”
“Don’t you think I can see where you’re at?” Charly retaliated. He’d consumed quite a bit of coke himself, and his eyes glared with self-assurance as he stared at me like in a preelection debate on TV. “You’d like to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You let it hang out at the paper as if you’re so cool, kind of, like you don’t push in anywhere. In fact, you’re not allowed to show ambition because it’d sorta look like you weren’t a punk. You’ve listened to too many smash-the-system songs and read too many books about underdogs. But now you’re packing shit. Your girlfriend’s made it big and now you have to do something too. Isn’t that right? So just be honest with yourself. You’ve been part of the system for ages. Otherwise your life, like you said, will just be one big put-on.”
Stop the war in the name of love
Stop the war in the name of God
Stop the war in the name of children
Stop the war in Croatia.
Let Croatia be one of Europe’s stars
Europe, you can stop the war.
That was the song that Doc had put on.
“He’s mad,” Charly said.
“What, you don’t like this either?”
“Are you cool?” Sanja asked.
“Cool and hot,” I said. “I’m happy because of you!”
I kissed her and grabbed her ass, but she moved away, saying, “Careful. There might still be photojournalists around.”
“So what? We’re a couple.”
“No, come on, it’d look nasty.”
“You know, I could perhaps get a regular column.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I just negotiated it today: The Red Bull Generation.”
“What’s that?”
“Life, fervor, taking things to the limits.”
“Fantastic, fantastic,” she said, kissing me before moving back to the dance floor.
Markatović was walking with difficulty. Suffering heavy casualties. Now he stood in front of me. “I love people, but not too much.”
I laughed.
“I’m going to the loo. Are you staying here?”
“Sure, I’m not going anywhere in a hurry.”
Then Jerman came shuffling along.
“Shall we go and have a drink?”
“Sure.”
We went through the lobby to the bar.
“Hey, y’know, what was in the paper, fucking hell. It doesn’t have the slightest bit to do with reality, y’know?”
“I know.”
“I just wanna say it so you know.”
“It’s not worth a mention. I get you.”
“OK, what are you having?” He ordered, and then introduced me to Ingo.
Ingo Grinschgl. The director. An East German and, worst of all, he looked like an East German. His pock-marked face and hippie hairstyle told us he wasn’t a Westerner who’d show us the meaning of trendy. A bearded German who learned from Jerman and Doc not to believe anyone in the Balkans.
He praised Sanja: “She hez a greyt fyutcha.” He was drunk but still a bit too serious, very polite and way outside the whole vibrant social scene. The language barrier hampered him. Besides, no one could stick to a single topic at this time of night. He looked like he was watching things flying past as I told him about my job.
“Here I am!” I called out to Markatović who was looking around where he’d left me. I said to Ingo, “Mai frend, lost in speis.”
“Wot you sey abaut ze ekonomik situeyshen hier?” asked Ingo.
“Oh, itts too difikult to ekspleyn.”
“What are you mumbling?” Markatović butted in.
“I’m speaking English and explaining the economic situation to this German.”
“It’s a disaster,” Markatović said. He made the most passionate of expressions and got very close to Ingo. “A DI-SASTER!”
Ingo nodded with sympathy. “Thet’s terribl.”
“Jermans. Deutsch, you undrstand? Deutsch peepl buy benk. My benk,” Markatović said, simplifying things somewhat. “And naw, dizasta! Nix benk! Kaine gelt! KA-TA-STRO-FA!”
“It was like this,” Doc began. “A girl came up to me. She was from one of those socially deprived areas, it doesn’t matter exactly where, but I wanna make the point that she was from one of those areas because this is a social story. And y’know, her dad was a civil servant there, so he arranged for her to be given a nice scholarship, although she wasn’t such a great student. Her dad pulled all the strings via the party to have her enrolled at uni, in Medicine, because in those areas, y’know, every woman who goes to the hairdresser’s dreams of her child becoming a doctor and treating her. Anyway, the girl had seen me in some commercial. I was at The Blitz and she came up to bum a cigarette. She had no idea I was an actor, she’d just seen me in a window ad, and really liked me. Anyway, Jeezus, we screwed all night long, fucking hell. And that was that. I mean, I didn’t promise her the moon, kinda that we’d I don’t know what, though she sure was cute. No gift of the gab but she had good tits and was a maniac, so saucy, giving back all she learned down there in the socially deprived area. And y’know what? She left in the morning, went straight to uni and I never saw her again. And no, I’m not finished.
“They had microscope practice up at the Medical School that morning. I heard all this from one of her girlfriends who’d been there that night at The Blitz. I ran into her just yesterday and she told me the story, though it all happened back in the autumn. So this friend of the country girl told me they’d had microscope practice and that everyone had a look at their own saliva under the microscope and everyone saw some kind of micro-organisms, only my girl saw something special. She called her friend over—the one who told me the story, and she looked and saw something pretty damn big. My girl called out: ‘Professor, professor, come and see this!’ The professor came over and looked and said, ‘Miss, those things in your saliva are nothing out of the ordinary, just spermatozoa.’ Talk about embarrassing!
“But what happened afterward was pretty fateful. Tragic. This is what her friend told me: she stopped going to uni and, of course, hit drugs straight away—heroin first thing, zoom—and when her folks found out they made her go home, back down south. That was the collapse of all the family’s expectations, the end of their hopes, and the beginning of a big family mess. Her old man went round the bend and killed his old woman, shot her, he probably wanted to kill the girl but hit his old woman, the cops aren’t really sure, but the main thing is that he’s now in custody, and the girl has run away and no one knows where she is. I feel a bit guilty about it. Sounds like a novel, dunnit? It could be a real hit—it’s got sex, blood, and it’s a social story too.”
“Doc, you’re repulsive,” Sanja gave him a look of disgust.
“I knew I’d end up being the culprit!”
We’d all gathered behind the bar. They’d turned the music off too. The best time for the worst stories.
Sanja continued. “I didn’t think sperm could survive.”
“It’s all bullshit, you just made it all up,” Markatović laughed at Doc raucously.
“He’s revolting,” I chipped in, glancing at Doc.
“Like bloody hell I made it up!” Doc snorted righteously.
“Who’d invent a story like that?”
“Coud you trensleyt it?” Ingo asked.
“Itts too difikult,” I said.
“It woz my luv stori. Veri difikult,” Doc added.
DAY FOUR
The phone rang and rang.
“Go and see what’s up,” Sanja whined, butting me with her elbow.
I opened my eyes. A glance at the clock: seven thirty in the morning. It was Milka, it cou
ldn’t have been anyone else.
“It’s nothing—it’ll stop,” I whispered.
And sure enough, it rang and rang a bit more and then stopped.
I sank back into sleep but the phone blared again. As chief of the family police, Milka obviously knew that you can soften up a prisoner with sleep deprivation.
“Unplug it, please,” Sanja pleaded, a collateral victim.
I had to get up to reach the phone and I was still smashed from the night before. I banged into the doorpost with a real kerthump and fell, knocking over the books and newspapers piled on the plastic box where I kept important documents.
“Jeezus,” she said, getting out of bed and crouching down next to me. “Are you OK?”
The phone and the whole world around me now rang even louder. Since Sanja had got up too and I was wussing out about Milka, I implored her, “Go and see who it is.”
Sanja tottered to the phone.
“Say I’m not here!” I yelled.
I collapsed back to bed. I just needed to gather strength and then I’d make a dent in the day. But Sanja yelled from the living room. “Toni, your editor wants you.”
Pero, at seven thirty?
“Come to the office immediately,” he commanded.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Cut the blathering and get a move on.”
“He’s not exactly in a good mood,” I told Sanja when I returned to the room, which reeked of alcohol.
“I dreamed I was examining a tortoise,” she said.
“What?”
“It kept pulling in its head, arms, and legs. What does that mean?”
“Tortoises don't have arms,” I stated mechanically.
“Yes they do!” she said.
I put some water for Nescafé in the microwave, and my head spun with drunken premonitions that made my hands shake. I figured that I’d had about one hour’s sleep.
Sanja called out from the bedroom. “Have a look if there’s anything in the papers about the premiere and give me a ring. I don’t mind if you wake me.”
Our Man in Iraq Page 11