Only one of the two cafés was open. I realized as I went in that calling it a café was a bit generous. Sitting around one of the two tables, smoking and drinking Turkish coffee and talking loudly, were three Gypsy men. All wore striped polyester suits. Their three felt hats were lined up on the table. They ignored me. The woman in charge didn’t speak English either, and I ordered a vinjak. I lit a cigarette. The Gypsies were talking loudly and clapping their hands as though there was no one else in the whole world, and in their world there probably wasn’t. One of them looked different from the other two, darker or perhaps more Arabic. Suddenly, all three of them sipped from their coffees at the same moment, and I took advantage of the silence to ask them if they spoke English. The three of them, waving their hands excitedly, said they didn’t and told me not to bother them, and so, I don’t know why, I said bueno, gracias, and one of them, the more Arabic-looking one, looked up, and I knew straight away that he’d understood. Do you speak Spanish? I asked. Yep, that I do, kid, he shouted in an Andalusian accent. From Seville? I asked. No way, he said, laughing, not from anywhere. But yeah, I spent some time in a village very close to Seville. He spoke a heavy, lethargic Spanish, as though he was dragging the syllables behind him. He asked me if I was from Spain and I said no, from Guatemala. From Guatemala, he repeated with surprise, and then he told his friends and the three of them laughed for a while. And what’s a kid from Guatemala doing around here? On holiday, I said. I drank the vinjak down in one gulp and ordered another. And do you live in Belgrade? No, no. In Čukarička Padina. It’s a little way away, in the country, he said, standing up and taking one of my cigarettes without asking and without saying thank you, even though they had a few packs of their own on the table. As though all cigarettes were communal property. He stood there. They call me Bebo, he said, holding out his hand. He had a big scar on his bald head. Can I buy you a drink, Bebo? I asked, and he shouted something to the woman, who immediately brought a glass and filled it with a thick, cold vodka. Looking up at him, I told Bebo I was there in Gardoš to try to find a bit of Gypsy music. My two friends are trumpeters, he said, gesturing at them with his glass of vodka. He said something to them in Romany and then, a bit suspiciously, asked me why there, why Gardoš. I weighed my words carefully, or maybe I didn’t. I’m looking for a Gypsy pianist, I said. Petar from Sremčica sent me, I said. His two friends understood me or at least understood the name Petar and the word Sremčica and started shouting and gesticulating with annoyance. Bebo seemed to be calming them down. He asked me how I knew Petar from Sremčica, but I didn’t have time to reply. His two friends were standing now, holding their black instrument cases, which I instinctively imagined to be covered with pictures of naked Thai women on the inside. I stood up too. Please, I said, and I don’t know how, but I managed to hear the sound of myself saying it, a pathetic, foreign sound, like when you hear a recording of your own voice. He downed his vodka and started talking with them in Romany. Got any money? he asked, and I said yes, of course, however much it takes, and then I regretted saying that. All right, he said, they’re going over there, but they say you definitely won’t be allowed in. It’s only for Gypsies. I wanted to ask where they were going. I kept my mouth shut. How much money you got? I handed him a five-thousand-dinar bill. More, for my friends, he said plaintively, and I handed him another five thousand. They shared the money between them. I’m not going, he said. My friends will take you, so follow them, but they insist you won’t be allowed in, all right? Bebo shouted something to the woman and she rushed out and poured a little more of the cold vodka into his glass. There was a silence that was too long. Bebo, have you ever heard of a Gypsy suddenly doing a pirouette? A what? What does it mean when a Gypsy suddenly does a pirouette? I said. Bebo shook his head. A pirouette? I don’t know, kid. There are some Manouche Gypsies, in France, who never stop doing pirouettes. They jump forward and backward and all around, like little frogs or something. I don’t know why they do it. He asked his friends and they said something to him, laughing. They say that if a Gypsy does a pirouette, it means that Gypsy’s crazy. And Bebo laughed hard. His friends walked out. I’d like to go with you, he said, but I got a warm woman waiting for me. Yekka buliasa nashti beshes pe done grastende, we say in Romany. It means that you can’t sit on two horses with one backside.
They walked eight or ten paces in front of me, quickly and without so much as looking to check whether I was following them. I was nervous, and a few times I thought about stopping or running away or finding a taxi to take me back to the safety of the apartment. We passed the Gardoš tower. Then we passed a little park and I thought I saw a white horse tied to the trunk of a tree, bending its head to graze. Impossible, I thought, Bebo’s last words still echoing in my head. But the white shape in the night was still there. At some point, it started to snow. It seemed we left Gardoš and then it seemed we left Zemun and then, somehow, it seemed we left Belgrade. But I could still make out the putrid smell of the Danube or the Sava, whichever it was, and so I was able to orient myself, and for a few blocks we didn’t see a single person. No one. We walked into a dark alley and, of course, they soon stopped. I reached them. One of them asked me for a cigarette by tapping his fingers to his lips. As he lit it, the other felt my jacket and said something in Serbian or maybe in Romany. Then they kept walking and, who knows why, I followed four paces behind them, as if I were being dragged along by some strange tide. I also lit a cigarette, trembling a little. I blew out a mouthful of cold smoke. Sometimes, I suppose, hope is stronger than fear.
We arrived at a huge rusty door in what felt like an industrial district. There was no light. There was no sign. There wasn’t a soul on the street. There was no sound. No music, no voices, nothing. The snow kept falling. One of them banged hard on the door and shouted something incomprehensible at me, and I thought again about making a run for it. They both laughed. Suddenly, I heard the door creaking. A huge mustachioed man dressed in black appeared through the opening and greeted the two Gypsies, kissing them on the cheeks. He stood looking at me. The two Gypsies started explaining why I was there and he shook his head, as though disappointed, while making a clicking sound with his tongue that in every language in the world means no. One of the Gypsies said something to me, something that probably meant: see, we told you. And the guy in black let them past. Dinars, I said, taking out some bills, probably too many bills, and the guy snatched them from me irritably. Then he shouted something, spat a gob of phlegm at the ground (although it was dark, so I couldn’t be sure), and shut the door with a single shove.
I was alone, lost in the middle of who knows where, and almost out of money. It was still snowing. I clenched my jaw to keep from shivering, and maybe to keep from crying. I folded my arms. I lit a cigarette and tried to imagine what was on the other side of the door. I couldn’t imagine anything. I told myself it was probably an abandoned warehouse or a textile factory or just a big rusty door for screwing money out of stupid, credulous tourists. I shut my eyes and, just for a moment, from far off, I thought I heard music. But no. Nothing. Just my imagination.
Twenty or thirty minutes later, the door opened again. The guy in black put his head out and shouted something at me and then went quiet, apparently waiting for a reply. What d’you want? I said in Spanish, raising my gloved hands toward the sky. I thought of giving him my money. I thought of running into the building. He shouted at me again, still furious, still waiting for a reply. I don’t know from where, and I don’t know why, but Stravinsky and San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge came into my mind and so, without even thinking it through, I said to the guy I phuv kheldias. His face softened. He didn’t smile, but nearly. Earthquake, I whispered to him in Spanish, my favorite postcard. I phuv kheldias, he said, as though helping me to pronounce it correctly. I said it again, offering him a cigarette. He took the whole pack, and still kind of annoyed, said I phuv kheldias, I phuv kheldias, like that, twice, as though it was some secret key. Then he moved to one side and, with a g
enerous sweep of his hand, invited me in.
It was darker inside than out. I shook the snow off myself. Nervously, I started to walk forward. I looked back, asking him for help or reassurance or something, and the guy in black, with another movement of his hand, indicated that I should just keep going forward. And so I kept walking, slowly, terrified, feeling as if I were in a film, but I wasn’t sure what kind. A romance film, I thought. A thriller, I thought. I could feel the unfathomable emptiness around me, the total absence of everything. The only sound was the metal sheeting of the roof as it crashed against the rafters. Suddenly, the darkness deepened and my steps became shorter, clumsier, and more hesitant. I put my arms out, expecting to find at any moment a wall, a door handle, a person, something, anything I could touch. I sighed and thought I heard the echo of my own sigh. Then I thought I heard the scuttling of a rat. Then I thought I heard a shout. Then I thought I heard a bit of music hidden in some distant hissing. But no. I wanted to talk, to say something, in order to feel part of the world again, but in that situation words didn’t belong to me anymore. I had gone beyond language. Beyond any rational concept. Beyond myself. Beyond any understanding of what was happening. Beyond any god or doctrine or gospel or borderline between one thing and another. Just beyond.
My hands quickly came up against something. I banged hard with my fist, almost desperately, and a heavy door opened right in front of me, a door I hadn’t even suspected was there. And before I knew it, I was inside and the door had shut behind me. I didn’t have time to decide anything. When it’s important, when it really matters, you never have time to decide anything.
I stayed still, trying to figure out where I was, what I’d gotten myself into. But there was too much smoke, and a faintly orange light like the dawn. It was a large, hot room. There were Gypsies standing, others leaning against walls or sitting on plastic or leather chairs. They were drinking. They were smoking. They were talking loudly. The ceiling was very low and the few yellowish lightbulbs were strung up like little hanged men, bouncing gently from the commotion or perhaps just out of habit. Everything had a sepia glow to it, but a weathered, opaque sort of sepia. In the main room were some steps going up and a number of passageways with small doors that people went in and out of as though it were part of some dubious game. Some Gypsies shouted something to me. I smiled at them and started to walk aimlessly through the smoky yellowish light. I realized (or I realize now) that the whole scene was shaded with a sort of forbidden tinge, a secretive tinge, the tinge of a speakeasy in 1930s Harlem. There was smoke everywhere, as though flooding over us, as though drowning us, as though everything were made of smoke, begun in smoke.
Sitting in a corner, an old man wearing rags and with an elfin face was holding his drink. He beckoned for me to come over. I hesitated, and the old man summoned me again. I walked slowly toward him. His teeth were black. He asked me something in Romany. Music, I said to him. He frowned. Music, music. The old man started to laugh. He shouted something. I felt watched by everyone else, and I don’t know why, but until then I hadn’t realized that there were only Gypsy men around me, not a single woman. The old man handed me his glass and, with another gesture of his hands, told me to drink. It tasted of brandy. I gave him the glass back and he continued talking to me as though I understood him. I shrugged. He clapped a few times and at that moment, from way off somewhere, from a different room, the sound of a piano started up. I stood there quietly. Was it a piano? It was definitely a piano. I excused myself with a weak smile.
I walked slowly through the room and then down one of the passages until I got to a half-closed door. I could still hear the muted sound of the piano. I opened the door and, dimly, like in a faded dream or in a faded dream sequence from an old film, I saw a woman putting on her makeup or brushing her hair in the mirror. She turned toward the door and stuck her tongue out at me, and I felt a primal sort of fear and slammed the door and walked back a few paces and nearly fell over. At the end of the passage, a man with gray hair shouted something at me. He looked angry. I ignored him. Without thinking about it, I tried to open another door, but it was locked. The gray-haired man carried on insulting me. I managed to open a smaller door. It was a lightless room, or rather one with only the frail glow of a solar eclipse. It smelt of hashish, of gangrene, of wet laundry. Sitting on a stool, a plump red-haired girl with her freckled breasts out was putting her stockings back on. She smiled, gestured for me to come in, her mouth open, with the look of a slippery rattlesnake, and it dawned on me that I was in a brothel. Was I in a brothel?
I went back into the main room. The old man was still there. He gave me his glass again and I drank all the brandy while he and the others made fun of me. I didn’t mind much. I could still hear the piano. I was feeling a bit dizzy. I tried to ask him where the music was coming from, but he just smiled his rotten smile and clapped a few times. Piano, I shouted. Where’s the piano? Upstairs? I pointed, and he, his hand festooned with gold rings and chains, signaled to me that I should go ahead, go on up.
The stairs were steep. I started to climb up, but as I did so the sound of the piano appeared to be descending the stairs. Like a cat going down eighty-eight steps. Like it was looking for me. I reached a mezzanine or a landing with a number of closed doors. The ceiling was even lower here and the walls were painted burgundy and there was a single yellow lightbulb hanging in the middle, swinging. I crouched down. I felt hypnotized. Comatose, even. Straddling some nonexistent and probably dangerous border. But the piano was still playing. Yes, there it was, the tinkling of the piano. Close by. I could hear its tune, but I couldn’t find it. An invisible tune, I thought. An ethereal tune, I thought. It had to be Milan.
I opened one of the doors. Sitting on the edge of a rickety old bed was a very pale girl with lank black hair and big blue eyes. She seemed to be fifteen or sixteen from where I stood, but she could have been older. She had the look of someone who had just been crying. She was wearing a long turquoise skirt and a very light sleeveless white blouse. She was barefoot. Her skin shone, maybe with sweat, although I doubt it. On her wrists and ankles she wore thin chains made of fake gold coins. She looked at me sternly, almost sadly, and I don’t know why, but I stood still, holding the door handle. Suddenly, and in silence, she got up and walked slowly toward me. She put her cold hand on mine and both our hands closed the door together and then the sound of the piano faded a little. She was taller than I’d thought. I felt her face close to my face and I inhaled her breath, which smelled like rain, or perhaps it smelled like mandarins, and in her eyes I saw all the sensuality of a Gypsy woman. I heard the piano again and started to smile out of sheer nervousness. She placed her hands on my chest and pushed me into the wall. She pressed herself against me. Now her fingers were gently caressing my cheeks, my neck, my stomach; they were finding their way into my pockets and rummaging until they reached my money, maybe the last of it. I felt dizzy, feverish, and sometimes what reigns is confusion, and sometimes confusion holds the reins. She perched her little Gypsy feet on top of mine. I felt the warmth of her crotch on mine. I shut my eyes hard and put my hands on the ceiling to hold myself steady, to hold it all steady, and I listened to the muffled piano and felt how the girl’s damp hands slid down my neck and my torso, and at that moment I thought about the Gypsies’ third talent, which is a secret, and I thought about pirouettes, about all those pirouettes, and I thought that the lines of my life had been drawn to diverge at that moment, right there, at that very point, at that very second, in front of that turquoise, spectral Gypsy, and suddenly, through the cloud of smoke, I thought I saw Milan’s father’s face, which at the same time was my own father’s face, calling me in Romany or maybe in Hebrew and holding out one of his hands so that I’d take it and he could help me. The fingers of the young girl inserted themselves expertly into my pants. I opened my eyes. With my hands still on the ceiling, I put my mouth to her marzipan cheek. I wanted to tell her something, anything. But suddenly she was on her knees. She whipped
my pants down almost violently, sank all the warmth of her face into me, and looked up at me beseechingly with her big sky blue eyes. The piano, I whispered in a Spanish that sounded too lascivious, trembling and smiling euphorically while feeling judged by such blue eyes, and then I thought I heard, far off, as though subliminally, as though tangled up, as though it came from inside me, as though threaded through the rest of that music and all the music of the universe, one of the syncopated melodies of Melodious Thunk. Impossible to know which one. Better that way.
The Polish Boxer Page 14