Party Headquarters

by Georgi Tenev

  It would’ve been naïve and embarrassing to say it aloud, but I hadn’t forgotten my childish-youthful goals, I still remembered the paragliders, the taste of my dreams of being a parachutist, we wanted to be paratroopers, and those wings, crossed on Gagarin’s emblems and epaulettes.

  I remained proud. My contempt for the niggling dreams of my fellow soldiers was not a reason to claim, however, that dreams didn’t exist at all. The only thing was—I didn’t understand which ones, I failed to look into it. I didn’t ask anyone—like I said, I was pretty much silent. The rest of the time I spent working out and being the model soldier. You’ve never seen anything like it.

  Of course, swallowing back tears and clenching my teeth behind whitened lips, I had to fight for every ounce of muscle mass. For every fiber I wove into the elastic bands that rolled and unrolled my joints. Could I really have been so naïve? What thoughts worried me, how I clenched the bar between my fingers to bruising, doing pull-ups: fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, I didn’t stop until my tendons froze up, with a pain in my ribs and chest, until my elbows stretched out with a creak as if falling apart. But how else could I guarantee my upward path? How exemplary a Pioneer, Comsomol member, soldier, private, corporal and so on did I have to be, I asked myself, in order to finally become the Third Bulgarian Cosmonaut? I didn’t know the secret pathways to this starry career, but I could at least take care of the physical preparation on my own. Even there in the rack for beating carpets in the courtyard or on the bar made of welded pipes between the whitewashed curbstones on the base’s parade grounds—in my sleep, even, I voluntarily tormented my limbs and stomach muscles with new and heavier weights. The feeling is so strong—the physical sensation, that is—that I want to stop the moment, that moment, that hanging with strained arms. As if balancing on the blade of the body, turned into a drill, as I lower myself down over her belly. And not only to stop these movements with the egotistical goal of remaining within them infinitely, but also to succeed in stopping the very movement beyond them, toward infinity. And to stop the memories. This hasn’t happened to me with any other girl, only with her—she erases all memories in her wake and they cease to exist to a certain extent. And I cease to exist to a certain extent. That’s it, perhaps that’s why I want to stop that moment in time, to stop time itself.

  I was envious of the healthy, solid skeletons upon which the bodies of my fellow pawns in the army seemed to be built. Dressed so naturally in their skin, and the skin itself so naturally colored, impervious to the influences of the atmosphere. Their skin was somehow differently pigmented, since it didn’t get so bitterly and painfully ruined as mine did at the very first attempt to look the sun straight in the eye. So what cosmos for me in that case?, you may ask. Never mind that the government itself had already given up on its space program.

  Yes, you’re right. The thing is, however, that even after the army I continued—albeit in some kind of mourning—to search for the absolute. But why along such ridiculous paths? I don’t know, but I simply agreed and the two of us—the girl with the vodka—set off.

  >>>

  We set off through the apartment blocks. It’s close, she said, and went on talking. I was carrying the rather heavy bag with the tin can, bread, and beer. I was expecting it to break any minute, that’s why I was clutching it. So I would look even more ridiculous.

  For at least a short while I didn’t feel hungry. But I didn’t even ask myself that question—why am I so hungry all the time?! My only thoughts were: maybe I should take off, go home, open up the can. And eat it with toasted bread, drink the beer, and sit down with the chocolate as desert in front of the television, if there’s anything good on. But we passed by the bus stop, I kept walking with her. I would have to walk home, I didn’t know how far it was back downtown. Hopefully this party would be worth it—although I had my doubts.

  I’m talking about the time when 24-hour stores could be counted on one hand and nobody had even heard of a Chinese restaurant.

  I’m talking about the time when I was twenty.

  >>>

  It was a narrow living room in a panel-block apartment, an apartment block in the midst of all the other apartment blocks. There were two guys about my age sitting there. One of them was probably the friend she’d mentioned to me and the other guy was his friend. There were no girls there and—I would suspect—there had never been any. On the low press-board table stood an empty wine bottle and a half-full bottle of liquor, one of those completely undrinkable kinds. The new bottle didn’t seem to pique as much interest as my arrival, but even that lasted only briefly. At least they acted like they didn’t care and left the questions for later. They poured vodka into their glasses and left her standing. They didn’t ask her about me, she’d brought me here and that was that, without “why” or “how.” Maybe the only girl in the group enjoyed special privileges. Then the question logically arose: why was she the one sent to buy alcohol at 11 p.m.? The answer: so as not to risk being recognized at the store, the very same store where earlier they had stolen the wine and liquor. That explained the strange choice of drinks, since these dusty bottles were always on the very back shelf in the corner, where no one ever passes by, so it’s a cinch to hide them under your shirt.

  “Pour him a drink, why don’t you!” she shouted from time to time, pointing at me. “Don’t be a tight-ass, I bought the vodka. And I spit on him to boot, the poor guy.”

  It was the sad, gloomy, and impoverished time of the Transition, without electricity.

  It was a convenient time for the illusion that the Comsomol and all the memories that went along with it could be finished off once and for all. The past, which is eminently accusable, even though it can no longer repay you with anything.

  When you see a million and a half neatly tucked in a briefcase on the table, those illusions capsize like canoes and the truth gapes in front of you. For all your moral causes, for all your unfulfilled dreams you haven’t gotten a single penny. No matter how righteous your cause, that guy, K-shev, for example, still managed to collect the dividend, despite his wrongness, despite the brazenness of his crime. Somehow he cashed in your very self.

  >>>

  Running makes me all the more hostile—if that’s even possible. I know what’s going to happen after another kilometer if I don’t stop or slow down. It’s not necessary for me to do one or the other—my body is now moving on its own, the running is automatic, as mechanical as it is unpleasant, single-minded, surrendering to the pain that keeps growing in every muscle and especially the joints. And I myself have already noticed that I’m trying to do something that’s perhaps out of line, deceitful. To force a whole swath of my past through the fleshy filter that is the body. To burn it up as if in a stove, to cremate it by doing exercises to fill the emptiness inside me. I’ve done this before, I thought I’d given it up—but what do you know, when backed into a corner I run again toward it like the only escape route. Replacing the unfinished gestures of the past with active athletic movements—it’s absurd, boring, pitiful. And just look how many more runners there are here around me. The Germans, and particularly those from Hamburg, probably yearn for some impossible part of the gestures from the past. Or they just want to be healthy.

  >>>

  The time of the Transition, like I said. The attempts to replace the Comsomol with athletics had no way of achieving a total effect, despite superficial successes. The army also didn’t offer me anything more than a familiar backdrop. Distorted features of an image impressed upon me by youthful romanticism. Formerly handsome and monolithic, it would now look me in the eye polluted, with scratches on its very pupils. After being discharged I felt more confused about myself than ever.

  Later—I’m talking about the time when the Transition was over and nothing external could be altered—in yet another attempt to change my very self, I resorted to my usual method. When I decided to take up boxing, however, I had no idea that my nose would get broken so quickly. Knowing my own character, I
was afraid that after two or three workouts at the gym my self-confidence would skyrocket and I’d be unable to control myself, I’d bait somebody on the street and get my ass kicked. But let me reiterate that I’m talking about the time when violence had already taken on a new meaning. Just like the street itself, by the way. Collective spaces had shrunk, the street was the line of demarcation. And I always felt one category lighter than necessary, a slightly lower weight-class than everyone else. Who knows, maybe that was the reason I chose boxing—in the hopes that speed would compensate for mass. I also think that the incident from that night made a difference.

  But things turned out differently than I expected. My nose was broken not in the outside world, but in the gym, at the second practice session. It wasn’t even during sparring, they wouldn’t let me get anywhere near the ring yet. It’s a mistake to think that the padded helmet that protects your cheekbones and chin will also protect your nose if you yourself aren’t protecting it. They smacked me good and despite the fact that the gloves soften the blow to some extent, I felt such a strong and blunt pain that with no qualms whatsoever I immediately felt like bawling, which I did. With tears, but silently. My coach wasn’t moved, he just stuffed wads of cotton up my nose and said that that was the beginning.

  I decided, however, that it was the end and went into the locker room to gather up my stuff. Tears, like I said, have a strange, contradictory power.

  I didn’t become a real street boxer. Even after tireless exercises targeting specific aspects of my body and mind, a fair amount of my original inconsistency still existed. Passivity, mixed with surprising and unexpected outbursts of hidden rage. Presumably the Party, just like the Comsomol before it, had no use for such quickly detonating fireworks. Plodding mediocrity is preferred, since it is far more predictable and can be governed. This must’ve been the reason that the Comsomol spurned me, in a sense that it spurned all of us together, following the example of the Party itself—like a fossilized creature giving a final croak beneath its shell and going belly up. We had become too spontaneous, the freedom of our bodies turned order into chaos.

  >>>

  Everything happened very quickly, during that night, I mean. The guy, the tall one whose bulging Adam’s apple was somehow ugly and menacing—he cracked first, his gaze became hostile, dangerous, and I felt the threat. At such moments it’s as if I’m seized by a strange sense of weightlessness.

  She was sitting by me on the armrest of the battered sofa, holding onto my shoulder. She was touching me somehow ambiguously, but every time that guy, the tall one, tried to grab her around the waist, she would pull away, turning her back on him.

  “Hey, whore,” that’s all he said, but it sounded sufficiently frightening.

  “What are you playin’ at?” I saw the other guy snarl, emboldened. He was short and unpleasant in his track suit.

  I didn’t realize the three of them had known each other for such a short time. It only now became clear to me—this was some kind of random boozing or hoodlum hang-out, they’d gotten together, found each other that night. What had I gotten myself into? The question crossed my mind. I had to run, to get out of there. I got up abruptly—why? To run for the door? I don’t know, I stood up.

  “As for you, douchebag,” the tall one snarled and took a swing.

  I could’ve stepped back, for example, because the movement of his arm was drunken and unsteady and way too slow. I didn’t move, though, I didn’t step back; his fist just got heavier from the slow swing and managed to take aim, connecting with my cheekbone and partially with the nose.

  Good thing I didn’t yell—that somehow startled them, because I didn’t even raise a hand to my face, I just shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them and looked around again, I saw that they were staring at me rather strangely.

  “This is the force of nonresistance to force,” I thought to myself. “Like Mahatma Gandhi.”

  Okay, so I didn’t think it then, but now when I remember it, I think it.

  And then she started shouting, baring her teeth, her voice unexpectedly loud and sharp, husky from cigarettes:

  “You dirty bastards! I knew you’d do it! Who you think you are, huh, who?” She barely came up to the tall guy’s shoulder, and leaning forward like that she looked even smaller, but somehow, I’m certain, it didn’t matter to her anymore. “Do you think you’d found yourself some stupid bimbo? You know what my name is? Do you? Do you know what’s gonna happen now? Do you know who my father is?!”

  All of a sudden a passport appeared in her hand—from back in the day, those green passports with the black-and-white photo and the coat of arms, you know the ones—and she was waving it around. She even smacked him on the nose with it, whacked him in the face as if he were some little twerp. And he was ripped, like I said. At that moment, neither she alone nor the two of us together could’ve done anything to fight them off, we didn’t have a chance. But she slapped him across the face and laughed, kind of brattily, demonstratively, taking pleasure in humiliating him—that was what really did the trick, I figure. That’s what it seemed like to me at that moment, although I couldn’t really understand what was going on. Maybe I’d been KO’d.

  K-shev, as he is understood, is a construct, the product of some moment or other of need or threat. In fact, you could say that he’s even ready-made, since part of him has to be thought up, while the other part of him exists in any case: somewhere up there, somewhere invisible. Some K-shev or other was nevertheless real.

  And they were freaked out, they jumped when they heard his last name—without even looking at the name in the passport. And since they were drunk on top of everything, it scared the shit right out of them.

  >>>

  We ran between the apartment blocks, then across the bridge toward the train station. We were laughing, and she kept asking: “Did he hit you hard?”

  No, not really, I would answer, despite the fact that my teeth were numb. Such a night, of course, is unforgettable. I got home—without the bag of food, as it turned out—but with her instead. I wasn’t hungry anymore. We shut the doors and windows tight, turned out the lights, and the music, cranked up to ten, exploded in our heads.

  >>>

  I, of course, am deeply convinced that the world revolves around me—as its center or at least as the object of its dictatorship. The idea is grandiose and never gets tiresome. Until you finally decide to enter real life.

  Like a needle jabbed into your arm, reality stings you, hurting more than your skin and flesh. You realize that you’re nobody. The electricity’s gone out, the darkness is your sudden enemy—an ally and enemy simultaneously because it demands action—you have to protect yourself from the dark. Otherwise the world goes out, along with the artificial light from the power plant. The night once again disintegrates into atoms, changes from cultivated to wild, fitting itself afterward into its original black hues, its cat skin.

  Too bad if you find yourself lying on the carpet with your pants down when the lights come back on. With a sticky stain on your stomach—a pathetic wanker.

  Such nights, like the night after my escape with Hope from Hope, compensates for all my patheticness for months on end. In the morning, however, she left, which was to be expected. She didn’t like the decor. She liked me, as she said, more than she should have. So it wouldn’t be cool to steal my cash or some valuables from the closet. For that reason she decided upfront, like an honest dude, as she put it—to take off. What kind of dude are you, I asked her, which was also an excuse to touch the crotch of her jeans. I smiled, hoping she’d let me strip her again, even if it was only at the door, a goodbye quickie, standing there like that with my bare feet on the tile. But no.

  This girl hadn’t been that girl. In the morning I secretly snuck a peek—I’ll admit it—at her passport. Her name wasn’t K-sheva, of course, but then again I didn’t expect it to be. Her last name started with G.

  Yet I had somehow believed in the myth of the father. And that thought,
as it turns out, never left me. My obsession with predestination was obviously entering a new phase.

  >>>

  I don’t think I’m an exception. Everyone my age—how many times have they experienced humiliation, how many times have they come face-to-face with violence, so innocently hidden in the ridiculous outbursts of demonic childhood? The pockets shaken down in school, the stolen small change, the backpack scattered on the ground. The ball popped and skewered on the metal spikes of the fence. These dregs are washed away with time, especially when you pass through the key moment when you yourself can and indeed must—inevitably—commit violence.

  But I remember, I’ve etched it in my brain, I can’t shake it off, I can’t smile, I can’t get free of it. The cyclical motion in which you change from victim to perpetrator, those gears keep slipping for me. Time doesn’t turn its spokes. The circle of nature that torments or delights you, depending on your participation and role—it all seems senseless to me. Where is it leading, what’s its cause, its reason? What should I hope for, why should I pay a high price since I’ll fail to remember its value, I’ll forget it.