by Pavel Kostin
“Perfect. So much the better. It’s easier for me that way. I’d basically rather never see anyone… Don’t take that to heart, that doesn’t include friends. What’s the point of all of them? What’s the point of that noise? You’re the same you know, Max!”
“Yeah… But I don’t want it to be like that! I mean, I’m upset about that. I don’t want to be a loner! It just turned out that way.”
“Well, I want to be like this,” Mutt says, calmly and confidently. “I don’t need anyone. I’m OK. I’m on my own and that suits me fine. I don’t want to see passers-by, and I don’t see them. I don’t want to see them. And now they won’t see me. It should just be me, the world and art. And nothing else.”
I nod slowly. That’s Mutt. That’s what he’s like.
Later, as I leave, I turn round and take a long look at Mutt’s tower. The invisible tower. He’s painted it all. Only when you look hard can you see the fine contour of the line between reality and painting. Soft, altered colours. Now it’s completely disappeared. It no longer exists. All that’s left is a weak contour, the fine outline of a castle that’s disappeared into the sky. And somewhere in there, in the middle of it all, Mutt is painting his trees.
In an invisible tower.
In a city with no one in it.
Magic and Monkeys
“Explain. I’ll understand, I promise,” Gray says. I sigh heavily. How can I explain it? About the ozone and all the rest. This isn’t the sort of thing you can explain, you can’t just say it and have it all make sense. But I try. He’s pretty smart, this skinny little lad. Smarter than me. We’re sitting by the grey wall of a warehouse. Every now and again trucks drive up to the warehouse. The paint on the wall is dirty and peeling. A couple of tags, but nothing special.
“Basically, there’s this girl. Small. Red hair, green eyes. Normally she’s dressed weirdly.”
“Like Linda?”
“No, not like that. Not like young people’s stuff but… that’s not really the point.”
“OK. What is the point?” Gray watches me carefully. He really does want to understand.
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything that came before. But that’s not the point. That makes no difference. The point is that this girl… she… she tells me what I should do.”
“And you listen to her?”
“Yeah. I listen to her very carefully. She gave me the best advice I’ve ever heard. It really helped me.”
“Alright. But where’s the magic?”
“You see, she…”
I sigh deeply again and give in.
“OK, forget about it. You just can’t explain it.”
Gray laughs. He’s got this strange idea. He looks for magic everywhere. And doesn’t find it. He hasn’t found it yet. He really needs to know that magic exists. He’s been looking for it since he was a kid.
“So then it’s like…”
“Like what?”
“Like magic.”
“How?!”
“Because… that’s often how it manifests itself. You see it and realise precisely that that’s it, it’s right in front of you. And other people don’t see it. And it can be the most ordinary and everyday thing in the world, most often it is. Like… Like, I don’t know, an iron! Or a glass. And you look at it, and something happens to it so that you realise that this is it! You see?”
Gray nods sadly.
“Yeah. It’s hard to express in words. You need to see it. Or better, feel it. Seeing and feeling are very different things. Especially when it comes to magic.”
“Tell me about it.”
Gray holds up his hands.
“I can’t. You can’t just like that…”
We say nothing. Well, we’re not going to do it all in one go. With him I don’t feel like I’m in a queue.
It’s hard to explain, but right now, sitting on the dusty tarmac by this dirty wall feeling the warmth of the stone on my hands, I feel in harmony with the world. And with myself.
• • •
I’m parked at the edge of the bay. It’s hard to get here, you need to know how. I’m alone in my Torino. Sometimes couples come here to be alone. I’m on my own. It happens…
The surface of the water is rippled in the wind. If you look long enough, you forget that it’s water. It looks like the distant landscape of some bizarre planet. It’s very big, you’re just looking at it from far away. And there you are alone, and the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It makes your skin tingle.
I turn the handle back and forth. If the window’s closed, I want fresh air. If it’s open, the chilly evening gets in. It’s hard to find a balance. Like in everything. Maybe there’s no need to look for it? Open the window wide, and freeze, but breathe. Or put up with stuffiness in the warm.
I open the door and go out onto the shore. The wind blows from the bay. Waves and wind. I repeat it to myself. Waves and wind. These words seem to have some magic in them. In their very sound. Waves and wind. When you look out from the edge of the shore, you don’t see the earth around you. It feels like you’re on the very edge and there’s nothing else. In front of you all there is is water, water to the very edge. And the world, and the earth, and humanity, and even you yourself are just the bizarre explanations of unreal things. And all you see now is those waves and nothing else exists or ever existed.
Waves and wind.
• • •
Sometimes it seems to me that there is another world at the very top of the trees. I’m twenty five years old. I’m a grown man. But all the same, looking down from ten floors up at the crowns of the trees, at the highest branches, I can’t help but shudder. It’s like you could clamber in and nest there for years, to hell with what’s going on down on the ground.
That’s a symbol, of course. A metaphor.
Or I’m deceiving myself. I’m always getting very strange ideas. And every time I convince myself that it’s a metaphor. A symbol. Is Lady F a metaphor too? No… I believed her, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done.
“Max,” Gray calls over quietly. “You couldn’t just…?”
He points to a bucket of blue paint, then apologetically to the rope he’s holding in his hands. I nod, and take the bucket over to him.
It’s night outside. We’re working. Or rather, Gray’s working. A typical wall on a typical block of flats is currently being transformed into a work of art. Gray pours buckets of different coloured paints onto the wall. Then he paints cartoon clouds on top of this. It ends up looking like multicoloured rain is pouring from these clouds, covering the grey wall in bright colours. I reckon it looks a bit too childish, but it’s not for me to judge. I’m not an artist. Gray is an artist.
That’s probably why they take me with them so often. I’m useful and don’t have any ambitions of my own. I don’t butt in with any comments. But I keep the conversation going. Like right now me and Gray are talking about magic. We talk about it a lot.
“It’s not…” Gray says passionately, furiously even, “it’s not… I don’t know, how to say it exactly, it’s not make-believe, damn it. It’s not like the moral of some Christmas story when at the end the good doctor saves the starving children. And there it is – the real magic of Christmas. No! NO!”
He catches his breath, looking down carefully. It’s a long way down. He nods to himself. He talks with real emotion, as if he’s arguing with me. It’s obvious this isn’t the first time he’s made this argument to himself.
“So look. I’m just thinking how to put this… Or it’s like when a little puppy is ill and almost dies and some nice little girl picks it up off the street and takes it with her. Now look at this big metre-high Great Dane. Yes, it’s that very same puppy. Hooray. Kindness is the real magic, children. NO! I’m talking about real magic. No pretending. No guesswork
. About, you know, that sort of turning water into wine magic. Not like that, of course. The eternal life sort magic. No, I’m not making any damn allusions… Magic-wand magic. Like Harry bloody Potter. And it exists. Definitely. Definitely, I’m telling you.”
“Magic,” I repeat without expression.
“Yeah, of course without those schools for magic and all that crap. It just exists and that’s that. It doesn’t need all that stuff around it in order to exist. That’s not important. But I’d really like to see it. I need it, really need it, like needing a sip of water. That first sip that’s so tasty. And sometimes you get to taste it. But you never get to drink your full.”
“What do you want to see?”
“What...? What is not important. Even if the only existing manifestation of magic in the real world was manifested in some tiny… pebble that’s been lying under a layer of dust forever somewhere in a deep crater on the far side of the moon, that would be enough for me. Just to know about that little pebble. But I never get that. Sometimes I get to see the shadow of the pebble. Or the sound. And even that’s enough to make my heart stop.”
“Cool,” I say. “And what you’re doing now, that’s…”
Gray waves his hands despondently.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no! NO! This is not it. Not it… You’ll see. I’ll show you. Even if I only see it once. I really hope that I’ll see it even once. I really do.”
I subtly bend down behind him and pick up a tiny pebble from the roof. For no reason.
“Gray,” I call softly.
He turns round. I stretch out my hand and open my fist. The pebble is lying there in the palm of my hand. Gray’s eyes widen, he freezes, and I get frightened and wish I hadn’t made the joke. He might take offence. What was I thinking…? But then he smiles and starts to laugh and we both roar with laughter and it’s all OK.
The pebble flies into the night from the roof of the building.
• • •
Sometimes I want to be happy. Just like that, without any complications or hidden catches. Right here and now, once and for all. Don’t I deserve to be happy? What, am I a bad guy or something? Even if I am a bad guy all of a sudden. So what? I want to be happy. I’m no worse than anyone else, give me my happiness! I’m capable of wishing for it, I really need it, that must mean I can handle it. And if I can handle it then give it to me! Give me my happiness!
Another wave of desire comes over me, raging like a storm, filling my whole being. It packs every cell. And there’s no way you can shout it down. Or trick it, or persuade it or reject it. You need to be happy, and all you can do is run about doing something. Something good even, something useful, a lot of it. But I want happiness. And happiness isn’t a piece of cherry chocolate cake. You want happiness and you get cake. And tiredness.
“Lady F, you can make me happy, right?” I ask out loud.
“I don’t know,” she replies thoughtfully.
I open my eyes. She’s standing next to me. I’m at work, on my roof. A huge ship sails along the river. A foreign one.
“Thanks all the same, Lady F,” I say to her. “I think you get me…”
“Perhaps,” she agrees softly.
“Help me, Lady F,” I ask.
“I’m already helping, aren’t I..?”
“Yes, of course, sorry.”
She comes over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. Her hand is so light and soft, like the clouds on the horizon.
“Listen carefully,” she says, her eyes laughing. “It’s time to get down to business. It’s time to figure out what you and I are here for. And to remember a certain something. So I’m going to tell you this: don’t give in!”
I wait a bit.
“Is that all?” I ask.
“Is that not enough for you? Yes, that’s all.”
I nod seriously. Lady F leans down and puts something on the ledge.
“Well, so long. See you!”
“I really hope so,” I whisper after her.
I lean down and pick up the thing she left. It’s cardboard, about the size of a business card. In the middle there’s a plastic rectangle and a transparent plastic fragment in the shape of a lamp. Strange: the cardboard has ‘FridayZZ!’ written on it. Nothing makes sense.
I turn the card over in my hand and look at the river. A huge ship has stopped on the water.
• • •
“A lemming,” Gray says. “I’m a lemming. I don’t control it in any way. Just like a lemming. Something happens in his head, and he gets up, climbs out of his burrow and starts running. And jumps off a cliff. He doesn’t suffer from moral dilemmas. To be or not to be. He started running and jumped. Even if actually he is suffering from his own lemmingy torments, that’s not important. He’ll jump whatever. It’s not him who decides.
“So I’m just like a lemming,” Gray continues. “Something happens, something clicks, and I get up and start running. I wake up at night, I wander round, I paint. I don’t let it bother me. I mean, at first I was nervous, there’s a bit of risk, as you know. But then I realised that it isn’t up to me. I was still looking for some sort of explanation.
Trying to get a handle on it. You know like when people are hypnotised and they’re told to get an umbrella and open it. And the guy goes into the room and opens the umbrella and they ask him why and he starts saying like, ‘Well, I wanted to look at the umbrella, wanted to check it…’ I was like that guy at first, I was looking for some explanation. Then I came to terms with it. It’s inside me. I didn’t choose it. I just got the kick, got up and got going. That’s all.”
“That’s magic too,” I say.
“Noooo,” Gray shakes his head, looking worried. “Noooo. That’s not magic. I’m telling you, that’s all rubbish.”
“Why’s it rubbish?” I object shyly. “It is too. Control over another being without explicable reasons or logical foundation is the most real magic there is.”
“No, no way! It’s just an ordinary part of life! Do you know how many people there are like me? Hundreds! Thousands! It’s the most ordinary thing in the world. Take any person and look at what they do without any logical reason. Just randomly. Look at yourself. That’s all it is. It’s not magic. Magic is when….when you’re painting, painting and then, boom, suddenly, you’re on a different side of the street, on a different roof. And there are seven floors below you. And you didn’t come down from that other building. You sort of flew over somehow. And didn’t notice how.”
“And has that ever happened to you?”
“Well. Almost.”
The roller goes back and forth, bathing the wall in colour. Night. Roofs. Flashes of memories.
• • •
Me and Viktor are going along the long wall by the railway depot. The wall is covered in paint. Graffiti overlaps graffiti, tag jostles against tag. They haven’t painted over the wall for about thirty years and it’s covered in graffiti. Several layers deep. Some of these designs must have appeared here thirty years ago. Whoever drew them is over fifty now. It’s strange to think about it. Street art is for young people. Youth culture. Or does age not matter…?
Viktor is trying to take photos of the graffiti. Not an easy task. How do you set up the composition of a shot, when you don’t know where one design ends and another begins? Viktor is cursing, but it’s clear that he likes this challenge.
It was me who advised him to photograph street art. Viktor waves the camera, trying to take a spontaneous shot. Looking without thinking. It’s called ‘lomography’ and it’s his latest passion. Most of the photos are, if I’m honest, completely useless. Fuzzy splodges of indeterminate content. But some are pretty good. There’s something there. Maybe it’s the same with street art.
“What are you doing on Friday?” Viktor asks.
“Working.”
“At night?”
“Uh huh… By the way. Have you heard of a place called FridayZZ?”
“I don’t get you.” Viktor freezes.
Then he shakes his head, fixes the camera on his shoulder and bends double, trying to photograph the graffiti from below.
“Maybe it’s some kind of business. Or a shop. Or a warehouse. Or something like that, I don’t know.”
“It used to be a sort of café. But now, if I’m not mistaken, it’s closed.”
“And where was it?”
“I don’t remember… Somewhere over on Eastern… Would need to look it up. Anyway, where’s this coming from? Forget about it. Listen, Max, do you think you could put your hood up and stand over there by the wall… Aha. And now look to the side. Like that, good… Put your hands in your pockets.”
Viktor waves the camera from side to side, trying to catch a “random” shot.
“You’re merging into the wall…” he frowns, “you’re all black and you’re sort of blending in with the design, I’m losing the contours…”
I’m merging into the painting. A dark figure on the background of a wall covered in graffiti, a part of the hidden world of the city.
• • •
I often drive alone through the outskirts of town. And through the town too. I’ve got a few favourite places. In the industrial area, by the railway station, on the ring road, by the bay. I don’t need anything from them. And they don’t need anything from me. I get some crisps, some coke, some ice cream and head over.
I don’t know why but the outline of the empty hangars, the general quietness and emptiness of these places inspires a sweet excitement in me. A strange inexplicable nostalgia for a forgotten and uncertain past. Maybe not even for my past. For lost memories.
I don’t do anything in particular there. I don’t take pictures, I don’t look for people, I don’t read poetry. I just drive there, turn off the Torino and tuck into an ice cream. Silence. There’s no one around, an evening in the city. The distant sounds of the city in the evening. And gradually the sweet sorrow of loneliness in the city creeps in to my heart. A fine, pure, distant sound. It’s hard for me to define what instrument it’s like. Somewhere between a flute and a violin. It’s only one note, but it’s so pure and clear that it’s like a gentle ray of light in the distance. A ray of bright pink light, the colour of the sky at the start of a sunset.