by Daša Drndic
Printz senses an explosion in the making in his head. He hears it approaching, hears it ticking like a primed bomb, but a small one. This time it will be a quiet crack, not dangerous, Printz knows. He always knows. That is why he is calm.
In the middle of the renovated room lies Rikard, in the shape of a carpet, flat and downtrodden. It is a shabby, thin carpet but still, it is Rikard Dvorsky. Over the carpet tread people from Rikard’s past, unknown people walk up and down, they do not speak, they just tread, the carpet-Rikard is relaxed, you can see — he feels nothing. Rikard’s eyes are open because he is watching the procession from his past. There is no Ernestina. All at once Rikard begins to grow: from a two-dimensional carpet he is transformed into a three-dimensional carpet that rises like dough. Rikard grows to five centimeters thick, then suddenly stops growing, just stops. Like a lift that shudders to a halt. Rikard is now a fairly thick carpet of lively colors. It could be a Tabriz, definitely not a Bokhara, because they are red and Rikard is bluish. He is bluish all over. And soft. It is a pleasure to walk on him. It hurts, whispers Rikard. It is unclear whether Rikard is weeping or just moaning. Seen from above, one cannot see whether Rikard is weeping, for even if he was, his tears would have nowhere to flow. Only possibly back into the woollen material with a lot of knots. It is an expensive carpet.
Beside the window of Rikard’s emptied bedroom is the pink armchair. Through the window the street can be seen. Light comes through the window. Rikard can now sit for hours in the pink armchair, watching life go by.
I’ll write to Maristella, tonight, he says. Maybe she will help. No one hears because there is no one there. Printz is in the kitchen drinking milk. Standing up.
There are days when Pupi changes into a fly. That happens when someone makes him angry. Then he buzzes, buzzes, all around, mainly high up, near the ceiling. When he gets tired, he knocks into the wall and that is how he calms down. Now he is very upset (or angry), so the Pupi-fly bangs his head against the wall several times. Flies have small heads so that banging against a wall is invisible to humans. So no one knows anything about it. Only Pupi knows but he keeps that secret to himself. When it happens, Pupi shakes his head as though he cannot see properly, as though he wants to sharpen the image, but he just says my vision is blurry.
Sometimes Pupi dreams that he is walking along broad avenues along which human heads roll, human heads with faces he knows. Then Pupi plays football with those human heads, kicks them, but sometimes he bowls with them. Pupi loves bowling. The heads fall apart, their teeth fall out and they get bloody.
Pupi also often goes to war. That gives him inner satisfaction, that going off to battle sometimes across soft borders, sometimes impenetrable ones. Pupi no longer knows whether he is going to help the people from Vukovar or the ones from Sarajevo, he does not know. But in this war he becomes a hero and is proud of himself. He saves people, takes them out of their hiding places, bandages their wounds, tells the children stories. Sometimes he sees fields of unscythed wheat, sometimes streets flooded with plastic bags in which frozen feces are thawing, human. He listens to people saying This is a terrible war, it is a small war and it will soon be over so Pupi is calm, he knows that he will survive. But still, in this war there are dead people, too many dead people. In this war there is an invalid whom Pupi regularly visits. He is a special invalid, Pupi thinks. One of his legs is missing, he has only a stump that keeps bleeding, that will not heal and that is why the stump is wrapped in bandages. That invalid often hops along after Pupi, in fact he accompanies him. Sometimes, the invalid smiles at Pupi and then Pupi is pleased. It suggests that the end is near, Pupi believes, when the invalid smiles at me. Sometimes, the invalid suddenly starts to lose weight, melts, disappears. He becomes a skeleton. As he disappears, he looks more and more like Pupi and in the end he becomes him, Pupi. His head turns into a skull that grimaces. That frightens Pupi, it frightens him a lot and then the picture shatters. All that remains are clouds of blue steam.
No way, as long as Ernestina is ill, says Rikard Dvorsky. He says it sternly but quietly, Rikard Dvorsky is good at that.
Printz pays for a two-day tourist trip to Budapest and sets off, with no suitcase. On Margitsziget island, on the east side, by the ruins of a Dominican convent, he waits for seven hours, until it gets dark, he pees three times, kills mosquitoes and wanders up and down. For four hours the rain pours in torrents, it makes transparent curtains that fall from the sky like a wet spider’s web through which the greenery of Margitsziget is broken up. I’d like to go into that greenery, says Printz, I’d like to go in to get lost, that green is like the green used by the painter Safet Zec. His contact does not come. In the hotel a small man in black patent winklepickers is waiting for him.
The small man says: It’s pouring and Budapest is deep green.
Printz asks: Are you a poet?
The secret agent smiles mysteriously, so it seems to Printz.
Your contact is dead. Your contact has been murdered or he may have committed suicide. That is what the small man in the brown leather jacket says.
What do I do now? asks Printz.
Nothing. You won’t do anything. You won’t cross over. You’ll go back. That’s that. There’s a war on. We’re being attacked and we’re defending ourselves. People are dying, there are ruins. That is what the man from the neighboring country says. Then he leaves.
Printz’s head is swimming. Printz’s head is full of small corpses floating, small pink corpses, children. Over them, like open umbrellas float lovely young women, very white. Also dead, completely dead. Oh, you won’t be able to protect them, you won’t be able to protect your little pink children, no, shouts Printz. The world is full of twins who carry in their insides the embryos of their brothers and sisters, rotten, black and brown. Petrified. Printz shouts, his eye sockets are drumming, but no one hears that because Printz is shouting inwardly and from the outside he is just looking at the hotel porter. The small man from the next-door country, the country in which he, Printz, was born, is no longer there. In his place there is a hole in the air.
Printz asks the porter, the hotel porter, in a blue and gold uniform, he asks him: Where is the grave of Ignác Semmelweis? Printz wants to go to the grave of Ignác Semmelweis immediately, that is why he asks the porter where is the grave of Ignác Semmelweis?, that is why. The porter is polite, porters do not ask many questions, it is generally the guests who ask, porters reply. This blue and yellow porter is not remotely interested in why someone would want to visit the grave of Ignác Semmelweis, that is quite clear to Printz. It is also clear that porters are not obliged to know anything about Ignác Semmelweis, even if they are Hungarian porters, Budapest porters. What do porters need Ignác Semmelweis for, what?
Take a taxi, says the porter. The cemetery is called Kerepesi.
Printz wants to see the monument to Ignác Semmelweis, because with the departure of the small secret agent from the next-door country, Printz is abruptly overwhelmed by sadness for Ignác Semmelweis. He suddenly feels terribly sad. Oh, what dreadful injustice was done to Ignác Semmelweis, dreadful. Printz is not sure whether what is growing in him is sadness or perhaps disquiet, he is not sure. When one goes on a trip to Budapest as a tourist, it is logical to visit Kerepesi cemetery, is it not? Many well known people lie in Kerepesi cemetery. Besides, when he goes on tourist excursions Printz wants to see as much as possible because you never know whether there will be another tourist trip, specifically a tourist trip. You never know. Particularly not now, when his connection has failed, when the man who was to take him across is dead, killed, has committed suicide. Who knows.
If Ignác Semmelweis had not been born, perhaps neither would he, Printz, have been born. Perhaps Ernestina would have died of sepsis because her baby might have been delivered by a doctor, or even a student, who had just dissected a corpse and had not washed his hands. Oh, there is something wrong with Printz’s
head. In his head time melts, loses its outlines, disperses into blots. That happens to Printz, yes, so he does not know which century he is in, or where he is.
Get a grip, Pupi. Ignác Semmelweis died in 1865.
There is no Ignác Semmelweis at the Kerepesi cemetery. There is just a monument, and beneath it — nothing. The monument to Ignác Semmelweis slants toward the ground like an ornament, a large ornament of yellowed stone, with soft clumps of moss, because Ignác Semmelweis died long ago, and the Kerepesi cemetery is damp, that is why there is moss. Ignác Semmelweis was burned and poured into an urn, and the urn is kept in a glass case in the Medical History Museum, but Printz does not want to go to the Medical History Museum in Budapest, he wants to go to Kerepesi cemetery.
Plot 34/2, says the official at the information office. Yes, Kerepesi cemetery has an information office because a lot of tourists visit Budapest, tourists like going to cemeteries, so the cemeteries make sure the tourists do not roam pointlessly around the cemetery. Printz concludes that it is after all stupid to go to foreign cemeteries, generally there is no close relative or friend in foreign cemeteries. What do tourists need that for? What does he need that for? He would be better off eating cakes. Oh, yes, cakes in Budapest! As soon as he has visited Ignác, he will go for some cakes, for sure.
Hold on, Pupi, think for a minute. It’s getting dark, the cemetery gate is closing.
From plot 34/2 Printz is observed by two lions’ heads. And he, Printz, observes them.
They are fine stone lions, strong lions, benign. Ignác Semmelweis died on August 13, 1865 in Vienna, that is what it says on the monument and in fact he died in the National Institute for the Mentally Ill in Döbling, aged forty-seven, he was a doctor and — mad, they said. Mad? Vienna would not have him. Vienna told him, Go away, go back where you came from, go back to your Budapest. Ignác Semmelweis goes back to his Budapest and in his Budapest he helps women give birth, they do not die of pyemia but stay alive, they do not die of puerperal fever like all those women giving birth in Vienna, because Ignác Semmelweis washes his hands in chlorinated water and in Budapest it is no longer permitted to dissect bodies and then attend births with unwashed hands. Why the sick Ignác Semmelweis returns to Vienna, or rather to Döbling, is not known, perhaps he is taken by force to that National Institute for the Mentally Ill. Is there no hospital for the mind in Budapest at that time? I cannot go back to the country where I was born, the people in whose country I stayed to live are killing people in the country where I was born, my connection is no more, I am not a doctor and the times are different, completely different. If Ernestina had given birth in Vienna at the time when they drove Doctor Ignác Semmelweis out of Vienna, she would have died of sepsis, she could most certainly have died and I would have been born blue and dead.
You were born blue, Pupi.
I wasn’t.
Look at the different ways his name is spelled, the name Semmelweis: it is written Ignaz Philipp and Ignác Fülöp. While the surname Semmelweis is not touched. Was he a Jew? Maybe he was a Jew.
Don’t talk rubbish, Pupi. Keep walking.
Printz walks on and breathes deeply. It is an extensive cemetery, Kerepesi cemetery, there is lots of greenery. Printz stops at plot 28, because it is near plot 34/2 where the monument to Ignác Semmelweis is. On plot 28 there is an enormous statue, completely white, stone-white, frightening.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse, all four of them in stone, petrified, says Printz, looking.
In plot 28, under the white horsemen of the apocalypse, lies József Attila. Printz does not know whether to be glad that he has met another acquaintance or sorrowful because of the destiny of the young poet, son of a washerwoman and secret member of the secret Communist Party. József Attila was an impoverished child, an impoverished student, an impoverished poet, terribly impoverished. Had he lived in his day, Printz would have helped him, for certain. He would have brought him food, offered him his bed. From his seventh year, József Attila did all kinds of jobs, that was when his father left, abandoning him and his mother, then József Attila was moved from one family to another, and none of them was kind to him, and while he was still small, only nine, he tried to kill himself. Then his mother died although he, József Attila, was still not quite grown, he was only fourteen, in fact he was small and unprotected, his mother, the washerwoman, died, exhausted, worn out, full of wrinkles and done in, and József Attila was left alone. He spent some twenty years figuring out how to kill himself and in the end, of course, he killed himself. This time successfully, forever, but Printz did not know how. He would have to research it. As soon as he gets home, Printz will try to discover how József Attila killed himself: Atilla, a brilliant student, József Attila, a poet whose poems no one read at the time. Later, much later, some people decided to remember József Attila and make him famous, only that was no use to him because he had been dead for a long time already, as indeed had Ignác Semmelweis. Ignác Semmelweis is often mentioned today as well, people write novels and plays about him. Unhappy men, unlucky, both of them. Printz bends down toward the gravestone and reads: József Attila, 1905–1937.
Printz stops at plot 26 and, look, he’s smiling! On plot 26 stands the enormous statue of a man in a long white shirt, open. The shirt looks as though it is made of flour, soft. The shirt flutters although everything on Kerepesi cemetery is still. Even the birds.
There don’t seem to be any birds.
Yes, there do not seem to be any birds, where are the birds?
The statue is gazing at the sky. Who is it?
Oh, Emil Gerbeaud! says Printz. Printz runs his hand over the lower part of the statue because it is tall, twice as tall as Printz, perhaps three times, and that cheerful statue is so white, so clean, one really could say it is a cheerful statue, yes, then, waving to Mr. Gerbeaud, he sets off toward the exit with a brisk step, which is unusual for Printz in recent times, any kind of physical speed.
Vörösmarty téri — Gerbeaud, says Printz to the taxi driver, who says ooh la la! as though he is from Paris.
Dobos torte? No. All credit to Mr. József Dobos, the owner of a delicatessen and cake shop, successful writer of some fifteen cookbooks in German. Kugler torte with walnuts, filled with thick chocolate cream and scattered with little chocolate flakes. No, as early as 1870, Mr. Kugler opened a shop in the heart of old Budapest and exclaimed these are mignons, ladies and gentlemen, try my mignons. When Gerbeaud bought Kugler’s shop there was a real craze for sweet things in Budapest. Budapest licked its fingers. Mignons? It could not be said that Printz adored mignons, if he ever had to choose, then no, the mignons fail. Sacher? Franz Sacher, former kitchen dogsbody and dishwasher at Count Metternich’s, who thanks to the head chef’s day off had the opportunity to prepare a feast for his boss and guests and to create a culinary hit. But that had happened in Vienna, long ago, in Vienna today the former kitchen boy has rich and famous descendants, owners of the famous Hotel Sacher, immediately behind the building of the Opera at 4 Philharmonikerstrasse, where that Jewish tart Charlotte Rampling known as Lucia takes part in sadomasochistic sessions with the night porter Dirk Bogarde, the former SS member Max. Sacher torte, yes, Printz adores Sacher torte, especially with local apricot jam that merges miraculously with the thick chocolate covering. With which one drinks cold milk, a liter, two. No, that is Vienna, and Printz is in Budapest. Sacher torte, no.
Kossuth’s little horns of whipped egg-white with ground walnuts? That is Lajos Kossuth, the fighter for national independence, persecuted and imprisoned. Why did he get little horns and not some thick cake soaked in rum, filled with chopped candied fruit, covered in cream, why not something like that? He got little meringues, light as foam, cheerful, mischievous little white half-moons. Printz does not eat those little frothy creations, ever.
Garibaldi cake? Garibaldi, the national fighter who dreamed of a un
ited Italy. In history there are quite a few national fighters and uniters. People dream stupidities. There were Hungarians in Garibaldi’s army, only it is not known whether they had the same dream as Garibaldi. Maybe they did not care, there are also those who do not dream about unification but about love. They are more sexual types, less warlike. Oh, it is a long time since Printz has been with a woman, he will have to do something about it, he will have to. Small animals were abandoning him, he was thinking about cakes, that was a good sign. In Hungary today people eat Garibaldi squares in memory and honor of the Hungarian soldiers who were killed. That must be why. Garibaldi squares are tasty. Covered in jam and sprinkled with almonds and walnuts, covered with egg-white beaten with sugar then baked. Printz does not like baked egg-white, that is why he will not eat Garibaldi squares in Budapest, no. Beaten and baked egg-white gives cakes a flutteriness, a deceptive lightness which does not appeal to Printz. Printz likes rich cakes, moist, he does not like hiccuping while he is eating cakes. Printz normally eats quickly and now he is thirsty.
Esterházy torte? Baked apples à la Josephine?
The patisserie is elegant. Oh, that Gerbeaud, what a gourmet! No one knows why he left his native Switzerland, but he did, people leave their home countries, it happens all the time. There are people who never leave the country in which they were born, they refuse to. They think it is not okay, it’s like leaving your mother. Printz does not agree with that way of thinking. Printz thinks that you must leave your mother, especially if your mother is called Ernestina. When he left Switzerland, Gerbeaud invented a magical sweet, filled with cognac, with a firm dark red morello cherry floating in it, drunk with pleasure. That was how Gerbeaud compensated for the loss of his homeland and his mother. And the loss of his large Swiss chocolate factory. Sweets compensate for various losses, that is a well known fact. After Germany, France and England, Gerbeaud settled in Hungary and in Budapest created his Gerbeaud torte. As yet another compensation. That compensation brought him fame. And fortune. Perhaps Printz would be able to invent something, something by way of compensation. Printz would like to succeed in something. He had thought of going to his homeland, to his fatherland and his motherland to help save the wounded, Printz liked helping. He had wanted to go to where he was born, but it turned out badly. That contact should not have died just then, he could have died later, once he had got him, Printz, across. Now that had failed. But Ernestina refused to die.