by Daša Drndic
The rhinos are outside.
That’s good, says Printz. It’s good that the rhinos are outside.
Printz is at the zoo. He does not wish to visit his lair, near the zoo, where he spent several years, five. His burrow is now the past for him.
Printz says: Good morning, rhinos.
There are no visitors in the zoo because it is an early spring morning, it is not a weekend, it is not a holiday. Printz watches the rhinos from the ridge, the rhinos are calm.
There was a businessman who drilled nine holes in his own head. He did not manage to drill the tenth because he died. It is possible that the man did not intend to drill ten holes in his head, only nine. It is possible that the man knew why he was drilling holes in his head and how many holes he wished to drill. The gentleman must, undoubtedly, have planned the drilling in detail. There are no data about the dimensions of those holes. Were they trivial holes or serious ones. It is not known whether a hand drill or an electric one, say a Black & Decker, was used. There are reasons to doubt that a Black & Decker drill was used because drilling holes with a Black & Decker goes at lightning speed so that the act itself cannot offer any satisfaction. One could ask why the gentleman did not drill seven holes in his head, like the old Viennese man, but nine. Both seven and nine are significant numbers. In Russia, when people say “the ninth wave” they are thinking of something fateful. People say the “seventh heaven” as well, which is meant to be a place where everything is heavenly, life in general. By contrast with the seventh heaven there are the nine circles of hell. But one can also be “the ninth hole on a flute,” a hole that does not in fact exist, because flutes do not have nine holes. But on the other hand a person has nine holes, nine openings on his body, Claude de Saint-Martin sees in the number nine the destruction of the whole body and the singularity of the whole body. Nine, as the last in a series of numbers, indicates an end and a beginning, the end of a cycle, the completion of a journey, the tightening of a noose. There are other significant numbers as well, for instance three.
Printz makes his way down from the ridge and jumps into the arena with the rhinos.
He says: Here I am.
From close up the rhinos look far larger than from a distance. The rhinos look at Printz. Printz approaches the female and strokes her back.
Let’s go, he says. He turns to the male: Let’s go, he says.
Printz takes off his jacket, he is wearing a spring jacket, he takes off his white sweater, he takes off his shirt and undershirt, he is bare to the waist. He does not take off his trousers. He takes off his shoes, they are relatively new shoes, black, ordinary, without laces.
I threw out the Florsheim shoes. They’re no longer fashionable.
Printz takes off his socks. He’s barefoot. Printz does not look at all bad, indeed, for his age he looks attractive. Seen from a distance, he looks as though he has stepped out of an American advertisement for Marlboro. Printz has a fine torso.
My torso’s okay. Inside, my torso’s empty.
There was a woman who was troubled by her inner emptiness, so she spent five months filling her insides with various articles in order to feel full. That woman swallowed four soup spoons, three knives, nineteen small coins, twenty nails of various lengths and diameter, seven window latches, one metal cross, a hundred and one pins, a stone, three pieces of glass and two pearls from her rosary. The woman was Catholic and as she swallowed the objects, she said her rosary. When she ran out of objects or ideas, or perhaps she was simply sated, she started swallowing pearls from her rosary, which was like swallowing her own self. But when she had swallowed the first, then the second pearl, the rosary broke and the woman died.
Let’s go, shouts Printz to the rhinos, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as before an important race. Let’s go, shouts Printz, let’s go! Printz takes a running jump and, with great force, he crashes into the iron door at the end of the arena, frontally, with his forehead, as though he were a bull, as though the iron gate was a red rag, but it is not. Printz goes back to the starting point and again hurls himself at a run into the impenetrable metal wall. The rhinos stand and watch. There is no one around. Only the rhinos standing and watching.
It is a good thing that there is no one around. That there is no one there, to interfere, to get in the way. There was a famous case when a man was hanged as a punishment for cutting his throat and so brought back to life. Unintentionally, of course. The doctor told them: don’t hang him, his throat will open and he will breathe again and he will be alive, but executioners do not obey doctors — only the law. So they hanged the man. The wound on his neck immediately opened and he came back to life even though he was hanging in the air. But, the judges found a way. They tied up the hanged sinner’s throat under the wound and waited for him to expire. So, the man was after all not hanged, even though he was hanging in the air. There was an audience. The execution was a shoddy affair. The audience was disappointed.
Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Harder. Even harder. Harder and harder. Printz beats his head into the iron door, while the day is waking. Printz’s forehead is bloody and smashed, naturally.
A new attack. Printz’s frontal bone cracks like a watermelon. His forehead blooms like that magician’s trick when roses burst open. Redness gushes from Printz’s forehead, pours into his eyes. Flowing. Printz cannot see properly.
The rhinos watch. The rhinos do not stir. They stand and watch. Printz dances with his eyes closed, skips, takes a run and crashes with his head into the iron door.
Where are my eyelashes? Printz pants. Eyelashes collect blood to stop it going into one’s eyes. I was born with short eyelashes.
On the iron door there are stains of Printz’s blood. Printz’s lips are split. Printz licks his bloody split lips with his tongue
I’ll open the cage bars of my body, says Printz. He says that quietly and lies down on his side by the feet of the rhinos. There is no one around. Only the rhinos watch, they do not stir.
Can there be sorrow in rhinos’ eyes? I seem to see sorrow in the eyes of these rhinos, say Printz. I’ll close my eyes.
The rhinos lie down beside Printz. One on his left and the other on his right side. Printz lies curled up in the middle, protected.
I put on a good show, he says.
There is no one around. The rhinos do not understand what Printz is saying, they are rhinos after all.
I put on a good show, says Printz again. Death is superfluous. Death is entirely superfluous.
* UNRRA: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration